This week's Pokemon Sunday has revealed a new legendary Pokemon for Pokemon Black/White. It's Bikutini! Or at least, that's one interpretation of the Hirigana. Some other sites are calling it "Victini", so be ready to use either spelling in your Pokemon-related Google searches.
Another interpretation of that Hirigana is "bikini". Don't look that word up on Google. Don't! I found out the hard way that bikini does not land you much in the way of Pokemon. Instead, you get pictures of women with boobs, which is not good. This is actually the second time that Nintendo has caused me to look up sexy ladies on the internet while I was innocently researching videogame information. The lead character in the Trace Memory series is named Ashley Robbins, which is also the name of a popular porn lady. That's something I did not know, but Nintendo forced me to look. It's not fair!
OK, sorry for the tangent, lets get back to Bikutini. He's apparently #000 on the new Pokedex, and you can only acquire him by downloading a "Liberty Ticket". The "Liberty Ticket" will be distributed by Nintendo in Japan between September 18th and October 18th. Time sensitive Pokemon distribution! Intense!
That's not all. We've also got some details on how Pokemon 3-on-3 battles work. Sure, these details happen to be in Japanese, but there is video to go a long with it after the jump.
So what do you think of all this? Does Bikutini look too much like Pikachu? Do most Pokemon look too much like Pikachu? Seeing as Bikutini is #000 on the new Pokedex, which places it right next to the game's starters, do you think there's a chance that Bikutini will evolve like the starters do? Are 3-on-3 battles overkill? What will NintendoFanGirl have to say about all this?!?!
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3 on 3 battles... Im not much of a fan of 2 on 2 battles to begin with, but they are a welcome change. If anything, 3 on 3 will bring the franchise closer to traditional RPGs were there's usually a party of 3 or 4 against a bunch of enemies.
I came across gamesradar's list of the most overused Pokémon designs the other day, and was surprised when they didn't have a "mousey little Pikachu thing" category. Adding about five new big-eared rodents per generation is a Pokémon staple! Well, with this and that little grey thing, that's two down. I wonder what the others will be like.
Also, I'm not a big fan of double battles as I feel they take too long. Triple's certainly don't look to alleviate this. It works in Final Fantasy because your attacks are mostly quick: I think that Pokémon really needs to speed up its battle system to feel fresh again (so it doesn't go attack - watch animation - watch monster flash - watch HP slowly go down - watch stats go down if applicable - next turn) and by viewing these videos, they haven't convinced me anything has changed. Come on Game Freak, less like a Slowpoke, more like an Arcanine!!!
If pokemon a proper rpg it would gain my super interest again, for now I will observe and occasionally play. (I mean proper rpg in the sense of character creation and dialogue.)
I for one don't like tiny cute Legendary Pokémon. Legendaries should be huge creatures that fill your soul with terror or something. The kind of beastie that would rip your face clean off. Not a little bunny thing.
I agree that battles need to be sped up. I have had battle animations turned off for years because they are intolerable. Especially when people use tactics to stall battles for toxic or something.
Crobat used confuse Ray
*confuse Ray animation*
*confused animation*
Empoleon is confused
*confused animation*
empoleon used hail
*hail*
it began to hail
crobat is hit by the hail
*hail animation*
*crobat flashes*
*crobat loses 2 hp*
empoleon is hit by the hail
*hail animation*
*empoleon flashes*
*empoleon loses 2 hp*
Bikutini should evolve into MissingNo.
MissingNo. will always be a real Pokemon in my heart. I don't think Bikutini will evolve as there would be missing entries in the Pokedex in front of it.
@Leon Field I'm right there with ya. When I heard Black and White were going to be on the DS instead of the 3DS, the first Pokemon games where the new generation didn't debut on new hardware, I held out hope that it would mean we would get some real changes to the formula now that they couldn't just rely on the better technology. Unfortunately so far that doesn't appear to be the case. As someone neck deep in SoulSilver right now I have no problem passing on this generation and future games until they do something new. And for the record 3v3 battles seem even more gimmicky for than 2v2. Will they be a fun thing to fool around with, sure. The big new feature the prerelease hype is based around to sell the games, no.
@NoMore: I thought the same thing when I first read it was no.000. Hopefully, not in the national dex though, that's reserved for himself/herself/guy with many sky attacks
It's strange that this thing would be a legendary. It looks like a generic early-game rodent pokemon. Stranger still is its pokedex number which I would think precludes it from evolving, meaning it's not likely to become anything cooler. Hopefully it will have alternate forms or something. As a regular pokemon, it's cute if a bit generic but as a legendary, it's just weaksauce.
Also, I agree with previous comments about speeding up the battles. If nothing else, I hope they speed up the HP draining animations. When you're battling at level 100, those animations really slow the game down.
Turning off the animations speeds up the battles dramatically. Every EV-trainer should know that. Common knowledge.
I'm so motherfucking hyped for this game I might shit a lung and have a heart attack at the same time goddamn. I'm buying it in Japanese even though I only know 5 words of the language (all of them numbers).
3v3 battles seem like they could be cool, but that's about the only thing half decent about this new geenration so far, imo. That legendary looks horrid, btw.
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Contest:
11:00 AM on 07.25.2010
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To answer your questions:
Cool, no, yes, no, yes, and absolutely no idea.
Respectively.
Also, I'm not a big fan of double battles as I feel they take too long. Triple's certainly don't look to alleviate this. It works in Final Fantasy because your attacks are mostly quick: I think that Pokémon really needs to speed up its battle system to feel fresh again (so it doesn't go attack - watch animation - watch monster flash - watch HP slowly go down - watch stats go down if applicable - next turn) and by viewing these videos, they haven't convinced me anything has changed. Come on Game Freak, less like a Slowpoke, more like an Arcanine!!!
Which isn't such a bad thing.
Crobat used confuse Ray
*confuse Ray animation*
*confused animation*
Empoleon is confused
*confused animation*
empoleon used hail
*hail*
it began to hail
crobat is hit by the hail
*hail animation*
*crobat flashes*
*crobat loses 2 hp*
empoleon is hit by the hail
*hail animation*
*empoleon flashes*
*empoleon loses 2 hp*
MissingNo. will always be a real Pokemon in my heart. I don't think Bikutini will evolve as there would be missing entries in the Pokedex in front of it.
It's high time you chose an avatar. You've been lurking around with that default on for far too long!
Seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail? Tiny, cute things can be horrifying, bloodthirsty reapers of men's lives.
Then again, it's not like DS owners have had a shortage of Pokemon titles in the last 5-6 years.
I'm so motherfucking hyped for this game I might shit a lung and have a heart attack at the same time goddamn. I'm buying it in Japanese even though I only know 5 words of the language (all of them numbers).