When most people think “Pokémon villain” they think of Team Rocket, as Team Rocket served as the antagonists for the first two generations of Pokémon, and continue to serve as antagonists in the Pokémon anime. However, for Pokémon fans who primarily enjoy the Pokémon video games, Team Rocket haven’t held the villainous spotlight since Heart Gold and Soul Silver.
Team Flare, the newest ensemble of Pokémon bad guys, while interesting in concept, were pretty uninteresting overall. A team lead by a brilliant and fashionable scientist driven mad by his desire to turn the world into a beautiful place should have been threatening, but due to the abysmally low difficulty level of Pokémon X and Y, and the spotty characterization of Lysandre and his goons had a distinct lack of flare. These issues, coupled with the fact doomsday lasers aren’t all that scary when manned by a bunch of dorks in goofy red suits, make
Team Flare rank pretty low on the scale of Pokémon baddies.
This issue was also present in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. While I was a huge fan of the aesthetic re-designs of Team Aqua and Team Magma, they ultimately only received a bit more characterization than their pixelated counterparts on the Game Boy Advance.
Thankfully, our drought of fearsome foes in the Pokémon universe seems to be over, with the unveiling of Team Skull, in Pokémon Sun and Moon.
Team Skull are just the gang of criminals that Alola needed, with visual similarities to eastern European thugs and Japanese street gangs, Team Skull’s aesthetic is much more grounded in reality, making them more intimidating than the technologically advanced pirates and mad scientists we battled in the past few Pokémon games.
Team Skull also has the advantage of being in a full 3D game. Sun and Moon’s graphical stylings, which are on par with games like Pokémon XD, give the artists at Game Freak many more opportunities to characterize the gang. Even in the small amount of footage we have, we can see how Guzma, the team leader, is both physically intimidating the way he stares down the muscular Kukui, and also confident in the way he squats and nonchalantly motions his Ariados to attack in battle. We can also see how expressive the team skull grunts are, they way they talk with their hands and strike a pose before battling.
It remains to be seen if Team Skull, and Pokémon Sun and Moon in general will offer up any sort of challenging gameplay, but based on the unique and charming characters and Pokémon we have seen so far, in the words of Guy Fieri “We’re riding this bus to flavortown!”
I rather they just be pissed off thugs and sociopaths
We should bring back evil teams with plans that under close scientific scrutiny, completely fall apart. Makes their doing a bit more ridiculous and funny.
That is fantastic.
Groudon had more power to raise see levels by melting the polar ice caps.
LOL
Well, judging by the fact water type moves seem to be basically generated out of thin air, I’m not sure how much this actually applies to the pokémon universe… Could be just condensating the water vapour in the air, but to get enough to pull off a basic water move you’d probably need to seeve through impossibly many litres of surrounding air from miles around…
Thank you for knowing how Pokemon works.
Yeah
And Squirtle can puke crazy amounts of water from seemingly nowhere.
http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/pokemon/images/a/a0/May_Squirtle_Water_Gun.png
Pokemon can generate the elements they control, just run with it.
Blastoise doesn’t have to drink a whole lake to use Hydro Cannon
There’s even a comic! Not mine, but from Happypants3’s deviantart.
These are well made
I found two more (refresh), one of them features PJN.
Crack theory: Since Minior resembles a star bit/luma, and Turtonator is reminiscent of Bowser, there’s going to be Amiibo compatibility where tapping a character will make you face that character in a battle, meaning there’s a Pokemon for every Amiibo
That’s not a completely bad theory but honestly I think main Pokemon games should stay away from Amiibos, it just doesn’t fit
Oi the drought continues
I hope they give us the next reveal next week or the reveal date for more info
Never happening
Guys, I got a weird problem. Now I normally frequently visit Pokebeach for TCG news, but today when I went on, its stated that mt IP Address was banned? Wait, how?!?! All I did was read news like every other site. Serebii didn’t do it, neither did Pokejungle. Mind someone telling me what happened?
And for the record, I oddly can’t access the site nor the forums 🙁 This is concerning me so if someone can shed light on it, that’d be great.
Obviously we can’t give you details on why you’ve been banned, but I’d recommend messaging WPM on Twitter!
Team Plasma was the only good criminal team. Rocket was okay but they’re surrounded by a nostalgia veil that everyone keeps around them for some reason.
I thought Cyrus was pretty interesting too, what with the Nihilism.
I don’t really think its nostalgia unless you’re a genwunner, sometimes people that like them, like them because they are their favourite in general
I really do hope that Team Skull are just delinquents.
“…intimidating the way he stares down the muscular Kukui,” Was ‘muscular’ necessary? xD
i was just thinking the same thing xD
Obvious answer: YES
:/ first article I’m not really much of a fan of but I suppose its just the posters opinion of the teams. But tbh I’m kinda done with teams that want to basically take over the world, I just want team skull to be just a bunch of common thugs and such, not really doing anything for some higher ideal or purpose that they want to achieve but more because they can basically.
So here’s my theory
Guzma wants to disrupt the Island challenges because he himself either failed or was denied a spotlight so he formed Team Skull to take revenge, starting out small by sending grunts to pull petty thefts and stunts but slowly building up overtaking areas and quarantining the walled off city and I think I figured it out, either this is a raid or not he planned to hold the city hostage and find somebody who knows the solar and lunar deities which if under his control can really do some damage
Kukui is extremely shrimpy…plus I don’t think it’s a good idea to jump to conclusions because that only leads to disappointment. Just my two cents
The same thing happened before XY everyone was hyped for Flare and now they don’t like flare. I mean I like flare but I’m just saying your right we cant really say much about them yet as we haven’t played the games.
I would say that all we should do right now is exercise cautious optimism and hope that they have an interesting story.
yep
He’s is shrimpy. I could just eat him up.
He’s a lil clauncher
It would’ve been better if you said “Shrimp is my favorite food ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)”
So I decided to once again binge on eShop
If you had to choose
Donkey Kong 64, Pokemon Blue Rescue, of Loz Oot what would you pick
Id recommend Pokemon Blue rescue or OoT, I recently bought DK64 on my wii u and its a little hard to play and control (both camera and characters), kinda like the poor version of BK and BT.
Have you played these games before or first time? because if its the first time OoT for sure
I have played them thousands of times
OOT, Blue Rescue, DK64… in that order. Assuming you haven’t played any. If you have, then just strike it off.
OoT
Blue Rescue Team definitely
It would be interesting if Team Skull is just trying to mess with the trials and they wind up having to help with whatever big bad thing happens with the legendaries. You’d still have to fight them a bunch while moving through the islands, and you’d have have to have a final confrontation with Guzma just cuz, but they all wind up being part of the solution to a more natural disaster, like the legendaries themselves being the problem. I dunno, just a thought.
Additional thought: one legend shows up and threatens the region/world with eternal night/day. Team Skull is equally concerned, but they try to fix things their own way to become the Saviors of Alola and get the recognition, leading to finding the other legendary and having to stop Guzma from doing something that could only make the situation worse. Maybe?
love the eternal night day thing
So. I finished Earthen’s Fakemon (refresh)
Oh I love it! Way better than mine! Good job!!
I wouldn’t say that yours was really good too 🙂
Earthen gave me this long description tho, so it was easier to imagine it.
Sorry. Forgot punctuation. It sound very negative if you don’t refresh lol
Heh, nice epic typo!
Reminds me of an article I once saw in Pokemon Go reddit…
https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemongo/comments/4tubbk/i_dont_like_all_the_random_stories_but_this/
All the dogs died
The typo was “die” -> “due” 🙂
So no dogs died. They all got adopted due to Pokemon Go.
I know. I saw that lol
Randomly I doodled some SU in the office… http://sta.sh/01jk0hx2hwwu
Connie looks good. Is Steven wearing a watch?
Thanks!
As for Steven’s “watch”, It was meant to be the center of his shield, but now that you mentioned it, it looks like he’s a super spy and there’s a laser shield coming out of his watch. 🙂
Ooohh Its awesome! I love the style!
Btw. I hope you saw my edit to the reply below. That was a really bad typo (^-^;)
Hmmmmm I really hate to say it but this just isn’t what I’m looking for…
To be brutally honest it looks like a Ghost hunter or a zombie barbarian
Maybe during my lunch break I’ll borrow a sketch pad and try my own hand
Yeah. I’m not very good at drawing Humans/Humanoids. Though, I’d like to see what you’re imagining.
I’m trying to design a Superhero Pokemon
In the form of a Metalic Humanoid
(This constitutes a face palm Man of Steel… I can’t believe i didn’t realize that earlier)
The fun part is learns so many moves
Bullet Punch
Psychic
Agility
Fly (via HM)
Superpower
Flamethrower/Thunderbolt/Ice Beam
And a brand new move Optic Blast which can be either Fire/Electric/or Ice
Any specifics? I’d be willing to give it a shot. I used to draw fakemon on dA under the name Snappy-K
Just draw a typical superhero but with Pokemon like features
But one key point it’s made of metal
Well you need a little more to go on when you create fakemon usually. Is it a cyborg superhero, is it like Colossus from X-Men who can turn into a Steel-type form when using a specific move? There are many ways to go about it.
Sun and Moon gives me 00s Japan feelings with the Yankee esque team etc.. i really dig it and think this is gonna be such a great game
Guzma ?
I would love the plot to be Ecologism vs Contamination, pollution, construction, global warming, etc.
When I saw the last footage video about bringing Pyukumukus back to the water I thought that nature preservation could play a role in this new gen.
Today I just realized something from trying it (I had nothing to lose from losing my friends list/safari in Y). When you put your X/Y in another game, it says friends are updated and so does the safari. Well, when the cart gets back to your original 3DS, not only do the friends get updated back to the old ones, the friend safari still remembers if you unlocked the third Pokemon and hidden ability!
I just got HA Paras on the first try, then HA Heracross on the second… 🙂
Is this if you switch 3ds?
Yes. I played the Y on another 3DS first, then went back to the original ones with the old friends list.
Note that the portraits of the people will disppear, but as long as you see their third Pokemon you will still be able to get the HA.
i think it is a little bit early to say that team skull would give us what we hope for, like team flare, some liked the unique style they had and there dramatic story, but we have no clue what the story will be with team skull, all we know is there fashion is pretty punk/gangster looking, the grunts buy their own clothes, guzma has some beef with kukui, Plumeria cares for the grunts and makes sure they don’t mess up. that is about all we know. so im still abit salty until we know the full story of how it will end up in sun and moon. but they do look great!! by the way, was “muscular” really necessary to say on this topic? xD
I hope only way to stop team Skull is to have intercourse with Guzma and there’s a 3D cutscene for it.
By intercourse, you mean hot coffee?
Yeah, lets go with that please
Think about the children….. all those innocent children 🙁
I dont understand the shipping at all 😛 but I’m glad people are already shipping characters, it means that this game already has care from fans and thats just great. 🙂
Hey guys! This may be important! More leaks!
http://boards.4chan.org/vp/thread/28001767/i-dont-need-to-explain-myself-you-wont-believe-me
Looks believable to a point
If he left out Alolan Megas he might’ve gotten away with it
So until the first I deem it fake for the time being
Y… Do I love this?
Mega Giglith, the Pikipek evo, and the trial captains, thats what I love…
Tho Psychic/Normal Komala? Better be physical
I hate some Youtubers now, they have fallen into the ‘Pokemon Go Clickbait trap’ once you enter, you never leave. Like the video’s title will be OMG RARE POKEMON AND EASY LEVEL UP TRICK and the thumbnail has a Dragonite in it. Then the video is 15 minutes long and 12 of those minutes are just the dude driving around in his car…
Or 10 POKEMON GO TRICKS YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT and they’re super obvious… /:(
Number 1: DID YOU KNOW THAT YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR CHARACTER LOOK! JUST GO INTO THE SETTINGS AND CLI- Nevermind, I’m done
just look at this video for example” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsRDa84I8Wk
at least he has a good attitude, Id rather watch 100 of this guys clickbait videos than 1 minute of a veriliswolf video, clickbait or otherwise just because his attitude is so toxic. Come for the clickbait but stay for the energy of this guy.
Plus this guys kinda adorable not gunna lie.
I actually watched the whole video, not gonna lie. AliA is a bad example but Verlis is just TM:06
Hi people, Paul and Collin.
Yahya’s the name and I’ve been a casual poster here for a while so I guess it’s time for formal introductions.
As for the subject at hand, looking back at Team Flare we can all agree that they had so much potential in the context of that somewhat mature story that was squandered with the characterizations and the lackluster appeal to Lysandre’s supporting cast. Even when you think of how red can be a daunting color with guys like the Imperial Guards in Star Wars, the end result in X/Y was frustrating because it didn’t even leave us with a similar iconic impact.
If there’s one thing that is crucial to the villains discussion that people seem to ignore then it would be the region’s Champion. Ever since Lance’s involvement against Team Rocket in Gold & Silver and eventually Cynthia against Cyrus and Steven with Aqua and Magma in Hoenn, we’ve had this ideological and sometimes personal bond that I hope we revisit in Alola with whatever new concept they have for the Champion. That “fellow rejects” line could indicate that we’re into something personal with the professor and Guzma which I presume will be expanded on with the story.
That’s why Diantha was more disappointing for me in X/Y than Team Flare from a story and character development perspective.
Keep up the good job people.
Well, this is a formal welcome 🙂
And this is my formal greeting
*Cocks a double barrel shotgun*
diantha’s ideology made her by far my favorite champion. she pitied lysandre, and saw his view of beauty as sad and pathetic. she tells him so straight to his face in the lumiose café, and explains to him that true beauty isn’t what something looks like, but how that beauty touches the hearts of people is what matters most. unfortunately, we didn’t see any more of diantha until the champion battle. however, I feel a 3rd game could have remedied this, as was the case with steven, who we only saw a couple of times to give us items before his assistance against team magma in the mossdeep space center in emerald. ifi recall, Cynthia was very similar, only seeing her to get items before platinum, and in platinum she helped us in the distortion world.
Can someone give me an example of a Pokemon that has a type and then loses it when it evolves? (If that exists)
Swablu-Altaria
Eh. Normal type isn’t what I’m looking for
Gloom-Bellossom?
Ah. Good. Thanks 🙂
Azuril, Swablu and Fletchling
All lost their typing upon evolution
Coincidentally they are all Normal Types
This is a extremely rare case
Yeah. Ok. I’l take that into consideration
Is this because Of the 4chan post?
No. But now that you mention it, sorta?
Drillzit?
bellosom, Kirlia -> Gallade, nincada, onix, pupitar, scyther, skorupi, skrelp and surskit all lose a type to be replaced by another and none of these are normal type
Well those are secondary types
Those are pretty much fair game
green never said primary or secondary though that I saw, I was just answering the question
Just following procedures
… what procedures?
Thee procedures
Little to no Pokemon ever lose their primary typing except those three above, but everyone knows (or should know) that Secondary typing is changeable but not erratically
ok yeah but I left all the normal types out because he said he wasn’t talking about normal types or didn’t count them, also there are 4, you forgot Eevee.
Doughnut come for me.
???
Onix to Steelix it loses the rock type 🙂