Lord_Brand

I can't be certain, but looking at what other titles were released during each generation, I might be able to offer a theory. Gen III introduced the first remakes with FRLG in 2004, followed by Emerald in 2004/2005. Gen IV followed DP with Platinum in 2008/2009, then the long-awaited HGSS in 2009/2010. Gen V in contrast was rather sparse, with only B2W2 in 2012. The anticipated RS remakes wouldn't hit until 2014, after which the series went a whole year without any new mainline releases, which hadn't happened since 2002. And of course that's all without taking into account the release window for the dozens of spinoff games Evidently, a lot of it comes down to development and release schedules. There's also the fact that, for X and Y, they had to spend extra time developing the 3D models and animations.

Really? Let's see... I: Red and Green/Blue (1996/1998) II: Gold and Silver (1999/2000) III: Ruby and Sapphire (2002/2003) IV: Diamond and Pearl (2006/2007) V: Black and White (2010/2011) VI: X and Y (2013) VII: Sun and Moon (2016) VIII: Sword and Shield (2019) IX: Scarlet and Violet (2022) Huh. 2-4 years. Hmm...so Gen X should hit in 2026 at the latest? For some reason, some Generations feel like they took forever to get here. The waits between III, IV, and V were the longest, at 4 years, while the shortest (for overseas) were between Gens I-II and V-VI at a mere 2 years.

Gen IX came a lot sooner than I expected.

Looks like the new region's based on Spain, judging by the names. I wonder what the legendary mascots will be like? A pair of bulls? A bull and some other animal? A detail my bro observed is that the version names have particular textures, a gemstone pattern for Scarlet and a spacy or glittery texture for Violet. Scarlet's font is more stylized, almost Arabic, while Violet is more straight-lined, almost sci-fi looking. I'm expecting a regional variant of Tauros. Maybe an evolution named Taurojo?

A lot of the series staples, with some examples: Fighter - Barst, Boyd, Vaike Mercenary - Ogma, Raven, Gerik Myrmidon - Navarre, Guy, Lon'qu Knight - Draug, Gatrie, Kellam Thief - Julian, Sothe, Gaius Mage - Linde, Mae, Tine, Lilina

This would actually work better for non-Lord characters, as there are many recurring classes and archetypes in the series that would be prime for the BJr. treatment.

I'd argue the Cat Suit Mii Brawler would count as Brawl/Nature, but I see your point. Air/Tech sounds perfect for Poltergust Luigi. I could see that being one possible use for Arenas. Reset Bomb Forest being pro-Nature + anti-Tech makes a lot of sense. Viridi herself could appear as a Nature/Magic Fighter with a built-in anti-Tech ability, like drawing a card every time you defeat a Tech Fighter or Assist. One of the exciting things about a Smash TCG is that you can include way more Fighters than a console Smash game, due to there being far fewer knobs to tweak. Want Arle Nadja to get a Fighter card? Shantae? Crash Bandicoot? Tifa Lockhart? Lara Croft? As long as you can get the rights, you can have a card whipped up in a day. You don't have to worry about animations, hitboxes, or frame data, you just need some pretty art to put on the cards as well as proper balancing of their statistics and abilities. Although, if there were to be a virtual version, you could have animated art a la Capcom's TEPPEN. That said, a lot of major characters would probably be Fighters by default, while common NPCs and mooks make up the majority of Assists. For example, Goombario could be a Fighter while your basic Goomba would be an Assist. Toad could go either way, but a Toad Fighter would have more distinction, like Captain Toad versus, say, a Toad Soldier Assist. There's a lot of potential for expansions, too. Think of, say, a Street Fighter expansion that adds Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Guile, M. Bison, Akuma, and other series icons alongside their iconic moves, or a Mega Man expansion that adds not only Mega Man but also Roll, Proto Man, Bass, and many Robot Masters to the game. If you can get multiple companies on board, you could have holiday-themed expansions like Halloween and Christmas. Ooh, I got a fun card design! Bowser, Master of Minions Brawl/Fire As long as Bowser, Master of Minions is your lead Fighter, you may include Assists of any attribute in your deck. Bowser, Master of Minions can be used to summon Assists of any attribute. This Bowser card plays into Bowser's dynamic as the boss of many baddies. He's essentially an "All-attribute" or "rainbow" Fighter for players who want to play lots of different Assists, including the diverse array of minions he commands. Note that just because you get to play Assists of any attribute in his deck doesn't mean you can play Moves of any Attribute, even if you have an Assist of that attribute on the field; this Bowser's "rainbow" ability extends only to Assists. Truth be told, I'm starting to reconsider Assists being used to play Moves or other cards since they're essentially supposed to represent AI-controlled allies versus Fighters who represent playable characters. I'm also rethinking Items all being effectively Neutral-attribute; if a particularly good Item can be played with any attribute, then every deck will run that Item if possible. You can still have a lot of items with the Neutral Attribute to keep with the spirit of anyone being able to use them, but particularly strong Items should probably have an Attribute restriction to balance them. I'm cooking up some keywords and other mechanics, many of which are inspired by those from other TCGs, as well as refining the gameplay rules further: Absorb: This move will negate certain kinds of moves and heal the user. Aerial: This has an advantage against moves without aerial or anti-air. Anti-Air: This has an advantage against moves with aerial. Burn: A fighter or assist that gets burned takes additional damage. Combo: This move can be played immediately after another move with combo. Counter: This move will negate an attack without long range and deal damage to the user. Dampen: Reduces a move or ability's damage by a certain amount. Dodge: The fighter avoids all damage from an incoming attack. Flinch: If a fighter or assist flinches while using a move or ability, that move or ability is negated. Freeze: The fighter or assist can't use moves or abilities until its controller's next refresh step. Launch: If this move hits a fighter or assist in critical status, they will knocked out at the end of the turn. Lethal: If this move hits a fighter or assist in critical status, they will be knocked out instantly. Lifesteal: The move will heal the user. Long Range: The move is a projectile attack. Priority: This move negates moves without priority. Push: Negates a move without long range. Recovery: The user recovers from being launched and will not be knocked out. Reflect: This move will redirect an attack with long range back to the user. Stun: The fighter or assist can't use moves or abilities until end of turn. Super Armor: This Fighter/Assist can't be flinched. Much like other TCGs where different resources matter, the different Attributes need to have some distinct gameplay roles figured out. Though my current plan is to lump ice in with Water and light and dark in with Magic, I am tempted to make those separate Attributes, hence I have them listed in italics. Neutral - A little of everything, but less effective than other Attributes. Brawl - Good at combos. Weapon - Good at using items, especially Equipment. Often has long range and/or priority. Fire - Good at racking up damage over time with burn effects or hitting multiple targets with explosions, but poor at defense. Good at trumping Nature, could have a rivalry with Ice. Ice - Good at freezing fighters and assists. Can be good at defense. Lightning - Good at flinching and stunning Fighters and Assists. Might be able to make use of counters as a resource representing electric charge. Water - Can dampen opponents, making their attacks weaker. Could use water as a resource in the form of counters or discard. Air - Focuses a lot on aerial and anti-air attacks, as well as pushing. Magic - Versatile, but often requires additional resources such as discarding or spending MP counters. Nature - Good at summoning assists, especially of its own Attribute. Tech - Good at using items and summoning assists. Psychic - Good at drawing extra cards. Dark - Good at lifesteal and using double-edged tactics. Light - Good at healing and protection. I'm thinking of adding Smash, Special, and Throw as move subtypes. There's potential for other subtypes as well.

Cinnabar as the starting locale? Interesting idea! And yeah, that'd be a clever way to have the player technically working for Team Rocket without knowing it. I like the idea of the mansion belonging to Giovanni's grandfather, though being the ancestral home of Blaine would work too. And are you suggesting Blaine would be one of your rivals? Thing is, he'd probably be close to the same age as Fuji, so he might be a bit old for that. But he and Juno could appear as colleagues to Fuji. I still like the idea of a young Samuel Oak being your rival as a call forward to his future grandson. Although, what if Samuel's own gramps is the Professor who gives you your starter? That way there's still a Professor Oak. I get images of Cinnabar being effectively the Great Plateau of the game, a smaller restricted area where you learn the basics before being let loose into the greater game overworld. I imagine Pallet Town - or the land that becomes said town - would be the first point of contact with mainland Kanto. Viridian City could be the base of operations for Rocket Industries, while Saffron of course is where Silph Co. is setting up their main venue. The other major cities - Pewter, Cerulean, Vermilion, Celadon, and Fuschia - are battlegrounds of sorts between the two corporate giants.

More Trainer battles, perhaps? Gyms could be a lot more interesting with 3D interaction as a component. Each one could test a "Trainer skill", such as climbing, swimming, or acrobatics. Or emphasize cooperation between Trainer and Pokemon, like riding a water type through a course. Basically like a dog agility show but with Pokemon.

Grandparents could work. The Yakuza in Japan have their hands in a lot of businesses, so it'd make sense if Team Rocket's predecessor was involved with funding and running Rocket Industries from the shadows. They could also be involved with Fuji and Blaine's research project on Cinnabar. Ooh, here's an idea - maybe Legends: Mew chronicles the birth of Mewtwo!? Like, your protagonist helps Fuji and Blaine find Mew or at least a sample of its DNA, leading to the creation of Mewtwo, which you battle as the endgame boss of the main storyline. Upon being defeated, Mewtwo flies away to parts unknown. At some point, Rocket Industries' ties to Team X (X being a placeholder, here) is exposed, forcing the company to close and leading to its remaining faculty joining up with Team X to form Team Rocket. I mean, yeah, I can see the merit of the explanation that Rocket Industries simply became Team Rocket after their public fall from grace, but having them start out as two separate entities is interesting. They can still do wide-open areas even with an urban backdrop. Heck, your classic sandbox takes place in large, sprawling cities - just look at Spider-Man and Grand Theft Auto. And really, Mew is the perfect followup to Arceus. Until Arceus came along, Mew was presumed the progenitor of all Pokemon due to having the DNA of every single species in its body (which logically would include Arceus). You know how there are stories featuring urban legends like Sasquatch and the Chupacabra? Maybe it could be a bit like that, where the legend in question - Mew - is reported but never confirmed? Attempts to photograph it fail because of a shield it produces that distorts photos (a little callback to Pokemon Snap, there). Not to mention, the more developed setting itself would provide a nice contrast with that of Hisui. Not to mention there's Johto to serve as a second region. Though maybe the game could be set in a sort of "combined" region of Kanto and Johto? Although, Johto could also make for some good DLC material.

Been playing Mario Party Superstars with my mother and brother lately. Making me real nostalgic for the N64 games. It's nice having a video game our mother can play with us, as she doesn't play a lot of video games.

I see. Don't have much to say on that. I agree. I think so. I fact, I think our conversation is what sparked the idea. Maybe there is a villain Team and they have relations with Rocket Industries? Ooh, how about this: The female leader of the Team is secretly the wife of Rocket Industries' CEO (or said wife is secretly the leader of the Team), and their son is named Giovanni. How's that for some tasty foreshadowing? Mount Silver sounds like a good focal point. That's where the heroes of Gen I and II have their fated battle. Hmm...that gives me more ideas. Maybe we see the parents of both Red and Ethan (Gold)? There could also be a Kris lookalike.

The current version of the rules do allow for multiple Fighters per deck, it's just that they all have to fit within the attributes of the "lead" fighter. For those familiar with Magic: The Gathering, it's similar to Commander's "color identity" rule. Series-based synergy does sound cool, but part of the appeal of Smash is the ability to mash up elements of Series A and Series B, so I'd put greater emphasis on mechanical synergy. That said, I do picture there being themed precon decks of cards primarily pulling from specific series, like a Mario-centric Power Up deck or a Zelda-centric Equipment deck, so it's perfectly possible to have something like a Kirby deck themed around Food-based items or a Pikachu deck full of Pokemon Assists that play into Pikachu's lightning-centric strategy. Furthermore, I would intend for there to be variants of Fighters with different Attributes, like a Sunshine Mario who's Water (and maybe Tech) rather than Brawl/Fire.

Thanks! Oh? Want to share some?

They mention its ability to travel across time in several of its Pokedex entries and in HGSS there's an actual event where Celebi brings the player back in time to defeat Giovanni. Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time and Darkness features a shiny Celebi as a supporting protagonist whose time travel powers play a crucial role in the plot. Not to mention its species is the Time Travel Pokemon. :P Celebi's Bulbapedia page can fill you in on all its time travel shenanigans.

Celebi: Am I a joke to you? To be fair, we didn't know that detail when PLA was first revealed. For all we knew, the protagonists were the ancestors of Dawn and Lucas rather than Dawn and Lucas themselves. Future Legends titles could go the ancestor route instead.

Not exactly. The Ruby Spears cartoon wasn't an anime per se, though it did have moments. The pitch for the cartoon was much more spot-on. There was also a Mega Man OVA, which not only looked dead-on accurate to the games' art style but also sported animation quality comparable to a Western cartoon (then again, a lot of Western cartoons were outsourced to Asian animation studios to begin with...). That said, I am baffled that of the Mega Man series, only Battle Network and Star Force ever got full-fledged anime adaptations. The closest Classic and X came were OVAs while Legends and Zero missed the ship completely.

Nope. Closest you get to anything remotely resembling an animated series is the Day of Sigma OVA originally included with Maverick Hunter X (and later included on both parts of the Legacy Collection), followed by one episode of the Mega Man Ruby Spears cartoon ("Mega X"), the animated intro to X3, and finally the animated cutscenes of X4. The potential's always been there, they just haven't grasped it for some reason.

I was thinking more along the lines of "rush > breath > grapple", where the titans either rush their opponent (staying low so as to avoid breath attacks), fire breath weapons from their mouths (like Flamethrower from Charizard or Hyper Beam from Dragonite), or grapple rushing opponents. When drawing, rushing opponents knock into each other, breath users cause a blast between them, and grapplers wrestle each other to a standstill. As a cute touch, the city in which the battle takes place could be props, suggesting that the "titans" are in fact normal-sized and performing for a film shoot. That would have worked pretty well on the Wii U! An asymmetric minigame is also rather novel, given that all Stadium minigames thus far have had all players on equal footing. Again, Pokemon Party needs to become a thing.

This is a little tie-in idea I've had for a while: a Super Smash Bros. TCG. Objective: Score a certain number of victory points first by knocking out your opponents' Fighters and Assists. Build a deck of 60 or more cards with a lead Fighter as the face of your deck. Attack with Moves to rack up damage and score knock outs. Power up your Fighters with Items. Summon Assists to support your Fighter or to help them attack. Play Arenas to alter the flow of battle with benefits, hazards, and restrictions. Events last for a specific number of turns. Challenge mighty Bosses. The Smash Bros. TCG is designed to be fast-paced, much like the console game it's based on. The expected game length is 5-10 minutes. Your main deck can include up to 4 copies of a given card. Attributes - Attributes appear as colored symbols on cards. Their primary function is to determine which cards can be played using which Fighters. Fighters Abilities Moves Items Assists Keywords Supplements Turn Order Trying to figure out details like starting hand sizes and the ideal victory point target total.

I'd love to see a Mega Man X anime. The MMX series already pushed heavily in a shonen direction, so all the anime has to do is adjust the story's content to fill a few seasons' worth of episodes. My remake series might be able to help with that of course, as I expand the plot of each game to cover three Acts (along with bonus missions that allow us to play from other characters' perspectives and DLC ministories). I also add lots of new characters and flesh out the existing ones, perfect for filling out an animated series. So, I guess I'm saying I'd love to see my remake series get an animated adaptation. Assuming I can ever get the darn thing made.

It would probably be a good idea if the game had players create their team before entering the online waiting room. And once they're in the waiting room, they can't change their team unless they back out before a match is chosen. Thanks! Yeah, regional variants would generally be included in minigames that feature the originals. Maybe Vulpix and the Alolan variant could join Eevee in Eager Eevee? ALong with Fennekin, Zorua, Nickit (ooh, that'd be a good one!) Clever! I've got another: Titanic Tussle, where giant kaiju-like Pokemon battle each other using a rock-paper-scissors style dynamic with a twist: you have to input all three moves in a sequence, which your Pokemon will then perform (like "rock-scissors-paper" or "scissors-rock-paper"). Each winning move deals damage to opponents with losing moves (and each of the three moves deals a different amount!). Each draw results in half damage being dealt to all involved parties. The last titan standing wins! I'm thinking of something involving Ghost-types, but I'm not sure whether you'd be playing Pokemon trying to avoid the ghosts or playing the ghosts themselves trying to scare other Pokemon. Given how Mario Party-feeling these minigames are, they need to just make Pokemon Party a thing already.

I know that Nintendo had 49% of the stock and sold it off to Microsoft after the Stamper Brothers sold their 51% (a pity Nintendo didn't buy it themselves). And once Microsoft had Rare, they promptly squandered it and were right arses to work for, leading to many of the staff quitting (including Chris Seavor). I'm not actually that broken up about Dinosaur Planet. I like Starfox Adventures and I'm happy to have Krystal as part of the Star Fox series. Better that than waiting 20 years for Microsoft to make a sequel to Dinosaur Planet. Better that than Krystal belonging to Microsoft. Anyway, we're getting off topic. I'm with lenticular on this one. Let Gen 9 release when it's good and ready.

Too bad about Rare though, eh?

Oh, that is just scummy. My hatred for Bethesda just shot way up. Not that I was a particularly avid fan of their games to begin with, but crap like this does nothing to encourage me to support their business. Which makes it all too appropriate that they ended up part of Microsoft, I suppose. Anyway, apologies for my misunderstanding. BDSP getting a lower score, I can understand. Really a pity, Gen IV was one of my favorites...despite the fact I stopped playing the series myself after Gen III. My bro still plays though, and I've kept up with the games, even spent time designing Pokemon of my own. I just haven't found the time to sit down and play through the dang things. Is it weird to be technically a fan of a game series you haven't played in 18 years?