I like this idea. Maybe you could use the Damp Rock, Heat Rock, Icy Rock or Smooth Rock for the evolutions...

Well, it'd be nice to have them have some effect on the game, I suppose.

We could always have a new "eevee"-like rock-guy who evolves by trade when holding one of those rocks (water/rock, fire/rock, ice/rock
, and psychic/rock)... but I don't see them corresponding to seasons...

i'm sorry, but i just really don't think catching/evolving pokemon should have anything to do with seasons. i mean, imagine, it's winter, ur on break, but it's too cold to go outside, so you play pokemon. you want to get a certain pokemon, but you have to wait until next fall for your chance. for me at least, i would lose interest if i had to wait that long. maybe if the in-game environment changed with the seasons (i.e., during winter you get hail, spring rain dance, summer.... uh, sunny day etc.) then that'd be a good use for seasons. but i just disagree with the evolving.
i do like the idea of the damp/heat rock evos, but unfortunately we'd have to be looking at trade evos or hold evos if you ask me. plus, those would probably go best with some sort of castform-like family, due to the weather effects.
hmmm, for a new idea on how to evolve pokemon.... how about a pokemon that evolves by achieving max points in cool/beauty/tough etc., but instead like burmy/wormadam; that way, you get a slightly different look or moveset for each one. or we could do.... hmmm, i'll think of something later....

There's no reason why all parts of the game have to be the same season.

That said, YES I DO think it can be difficult to catch an [x] during the winter time, and if it only exists in that area that's winter at the moment then you need to trade for it or breed it. It's POKEMON.

okay, but my point is, you won't be able to catch all the pokemon until at least a year after you get it. and not everyone is able to find someone to trade with. plus, i'm sure some families (of pokemon) would be exclusive to a certain season, making it impossible to breed for. y r u so stuck on this!?!?!? and the point of the seasons is to have something to coordinate with the real world; if it's fall in america, it's also fall in japan, as long as you go by the calendar (which this function would) even if you don't experience all of the effects of it. and btw, i do understand that it's POKMON, but we're discussing possiblilites ofr a new game; you have to take some of the above into account.

Some pokemon are available only by events. Some are available only by beating another game. Some pokemon are available only by breeding a pokemon gotten by beating another game. Some pokemon can only be gotten by trading with another game. Actually LOTS of pokemon can only be gotten by trading. So you really can't use this as an argument against pokemon that can be gotten by trading AND in-game under certain conditions.

So I see no problem with seasonal pokemon. They probably shouldn't be the best pokemon EVER, but I could see a "seasonal" Ice pokemon like Magmar, that is w/ a pre-evolution and a post-evolution (perhaps using an ice-stone?).

As for families breeding only during a certain season - NO. Clearly that would be one of those "functional changes" that hurt the game.
However, I could definately see a new pokemon who can only breed during certain seasons. Perhaps Heatran can only breed if it is holding the [new item here] and only during the summer. I wouldn't be offended or hurt by this at all.


As for season-schedule, I honestly don't see anything wrong with a long island whose top is experiencing winter while it's bottom experiences summer.

Furthermore, maybe the plot could involve team weather messing with the weather, and thus while they're messing with the weather you an catch winter pokemon in a certain area until you beat them, at which point the weather goes back to normal.

There are a DOZEN ways to get around season-exclusive pokemon being rare, but at the end of the day the fact that for 8 months of the year "Winter-Magmar Variant" is rare, and less rare during the last 4 months, is a BONUS to the game, not a drawback. How many people have collected dozens of different pokemon by breeding Spiritomb and offering them over the GTS? The only difference between "Winter Magmar variant" during the summer and a pokemon not on your game is that YOU HAVE A CHANCE of getting him on your game in a few months, while you never have a chance of getting it if it's exclusive to the other game. Unless, of course, you buy both games. Like I do. And you probably do. But that just makes it better, not worse. Because we'd have something to do during the winter. And it's not like friday events where we can forget or not be available Fridays - it' for 4 months or so!

I really like where this idea is going.
A region that has different seasons everywhere would still give people who speed-run a chance to catch all different types,
and it would give completion-maniacs more to do.
And as for the team, maybe they take over/invent some new device,
and after you beat them the Prof will have learned how to use it so you can ask him to change the seasons whenever you want.

Waiting for real-time seasons is completely unrealistic, and imo a bad idea.
Sure, most hardcore fans play these games for a couple years, and this would give more incentive to pick the game back up,
but 3/6/9 months is WAY too long to wait for your dream Pokemon.
Maybe, if it were to stick to a schedule, make it monthly (or bi-weekly),
but still keep the different season in different areas.

Along the lines of evolution, it'd be great if they introduced Pokemon who only evolve during one season.
Like, a new Jynx evolution during Winter? Or a new Electric-type who evolves during thunderstorms in the Spring?
Maybe some Ghost- or Grass-type that only evolves in Autumn (the season of things dying).
Oooooh, what about a Grass-type that evolves differently in Spring or Autumn? It would stay pure Grass in Spring, but gain a Ghost-typing in Autumn?

The problem with season-evolutions of old pokemon is that they really shgould have occured, story-wise, in older pokemon games. Are we REALLY to assume that no one in their generation 1 game met the criteria for eevee to evolve into Umbreon? Of course not!

As much as I think the idea of incense is stupid, it did give an in-game explanation why Munchlax wasn't in Generation 2.

Season-evolutions, on the whole, seem annoying. Less annoying, maybe, if you do them on 1-2 new pokemon for each season.

That said, I think natural seasons are the way to go. Being able to flip a switch and turn area X into winter to catch "winter magmar" is a horrible idea because it is SO EASY.

At the end of the day, I'd like to think of season-pokemon as a new level of rarity - they're surely not as rare as event-only pokemon; they're probably along the lines of Spiritomb. Now I was lucky and somebody gaved me a Spiritomb early on, and have bred it to give to others on multiple occasions. I still haven't gotten the level 20 one of Platinum. If you search the GTS, spiritomb is fairly rare, but not SUPER rare, and if you search the forums you'll find someone to breed it for you.


If we assume the games are released in early spring, then the seasons in the game will be spring (top), perpetual summer (center), and fall (bottom). If we assume 1 season-exclusive per season, 2 on the top and 2 on the bottom, then only 1 seasonal guy will be able when the game is released. At this point, then, Nintendo should wifi-release 1 of the 4 season guys, then like winner's path, continue releasing the other 3 via event, ending w/ the season guy you could have gotten when it first came out but is no longer available.

If you treat these guys as events who you can catch later in the year, rather than normal pokemon, I think they look a lot more favorable.

That said, I do not like the idea of area-seasonal-exclusive-guys evolving or having pre-evolutions because suddenly your pokedex is missing not 4, but as much as 12 seasonal-exclusive pokemon. However, I'd be okay with 4 non-evoling season-exclusive guys who, in their area on the season, are relatively easy to catch. Meanwhile we can have seasonal guys who are able to catch elsewhere who are harder to find in caves/etc, but who come out in seasons. We can have seasonal guys who are hard to find in perpetual summer in the center of the land-mass, but easy to find in the summer of the top of the land-mass.

And let's not forget the migrating birds - I'd love to see some migrating bird pokemon, especially if their level gets bigger during hte course of hte year.

OK, that reconciles everything for me.
As long as it's still possible to find the stuff at any given time, I'm in agreement with you.

However, I still don't think seasons should last as long as they do in the real world, simply because there's only so much you can do in these damn games.
Animal Crossing, it's understandable. The whole point of that game is waiting around.
The Pokemon franchise? It's very much like every other fast-paced Nintendo game.
"You do this and you do it now" mentality...which I like. =)


You just blew my mind.

No, I want to make it clear: There should be 4 guys, 2 per region, that can only be gotten during a season in that region. These guys will be about as rare as Spiritomb for ~ 8 months out the year, then maybe super-common for all I care.
MAYBE they can have 1 off-season (IE winter/summer, if you buy it int the spring) in-game trade, unnamed, per game. MAYBE. But I don't like that idea.

The idea is to have some hard to find guys. Now, all in all, Spiritomb is a relatively good pokemon. It's hard to find, but not blocked or limited from any formats (that I'm aware of) because of it's hard-to-find status.

Aside from the 4 relatively common-in-season season exclusives, there will be other pokemon who are hard to find normally, but come out in seasons. Winub, for example, might be found in the ice cave in the southern region, rarely, but during winter we'd see it in grass areas in the south relatively commonly [Replacing the spring/summer/fall pokemon in that grass]. And, of course, there can be new ice, fire, water, and plant pokemon (and others) for each season as well, but these would be available year-round on at least one game. (For example, game A might have Jinx year round in the caves, while game B might only have it during the winter out in the open. This is not technically a season-exclusive, as you can get it elsewhere).

Okay, so here are some sketches for "seasonal" pokemon:
Winter-exclusive, northern region: Ice/Fire "Yeti" Pokemon.
Spring-exclusive, Southern region: Plant/Water "Weeping Willow" pokemon
Summer-exclusive, northern region: Fire/Bug "Fire Ant" pokemon.
Fall-exclusive, southern region: Plant/Psychic "Color Change Leaf" pokemon.

That said, I'd also like an ice-version of Magmar/Electabuzz, which would be a winter pokemon, a fur tree plant pokemon, and other stuff. I think it should be hard to find Ursaring during the winter outside of caves, too.

labrith went through a lot of things that I would agree with.

Namely, like Animal Crossing, it should be based on the real seasons and in real time. This would lead to quite a variety in pokemon between the seasons. Unlike the day/night friendship thing, the simple idea that this region is in a higher/lower latitude as the others could easily be the reasoning why some pokemon haven't evolved until now. Just like in all the games that didn't have a clock (ie FR/LG), you couldn't evolve the time based evolutions.

I don't think there should be any old pokemon that evolve during summer. Although, I'm sure there will be, but I just wouldn't like it from a canon standpoint. As for the rarity and hard to get pokemon, since when has that ever been an issue. Spiritomb is a fine example.. you literally cannot get that pokemon without someone else's help. It is literally unavailable to the single player. Whats the big deal?

I love the idea of the story about one of the "teams" is messing with the weather. This could be a great way to introduce the weather mechanic in the game before it gets turned to "normal" and goes along with real-time and place. I think that it would be cool that if during the story that every day the season is different in the land. Face it, there is always going to be a way to manipulate the clock/date.. so I don't see why this is getting you too bent out of shape.

Not only that, but there are so many pokemon right now, that they really need to do something about mixing them up and finding unique ways to get most of them in the game. I'm sorry, I would much rather deal with seasons than deal with the random and completely nonsensial "swarms" that just so happen to happen after I've seen X # of pokemon. Swarming based on the seasons just makes more sense.

The problems that come from it, are obviously the artwork. Each route would have to have all different artwork for all 4 seasons to reflect the changes. But make no mistake about it.. the season-type pokemon will be coming eventually. Maybe not in Gen V, but somewhere down the road.

Remember, they can always introduce new hold items to "explain" old pokemon evolving (IE, to have Jinx evolve into Winx, you need her to hold the "Ice Crown" during the winter time and level up). I can't say I'd be too happy with this unless the hold items do something else, and only evolve pokemon who need it (or side-evolve, like Scyther to Scizor).

As for the artwork - I'm not too worried about this. They've for PLENTY of game-space, especially if they do away with things like the underground (to be replaced with a system of diglett-cave-like caves where you can dig), and the weird platinum wifi junk that no one uses. Now, of course, I do worry about it if they ALSO up the box count (which I want) and do other stuff, but I'm also factoring in more storage space as technology progresses.

At the end of the day they just need to do a basic "below seasons" area, then do modification artwork for rain/fog (spring?), snow (winter), sun (summer), and changed leaf color (fall). Most of these don't do anything to the ground itself (save snow), and it shouldn't be more difficult than the flooded lake.

That said, I am very hesitant about season-evolution. I'd much prefer season-exclusive pokemon which can be bred and traded off-season.

As for the area-specific evolutions... I'm oddly okay with Eevee doing this. The Mount Cournet evolutions... not so much, for obvious reasons. It's easy to put a "leaf evolution stone" in a given area, it's much harder to say "oh, Magnemite ALSO evolves in this seperate place that's completely unlike the place where it previously evolved."

I'd sort of also like them to do multiple ways of evolving a pokemon to it's evolved form. For example, I could see an eevee evolving into a flareon on "fire island" near a fire-rock w/o a fire stone. (Leaf Stone working to evolve him, OR becoming a reanimatable fossil, would not be a bad idea either...). I'm a firrm believer that Slowpoke and "Freshwater Shelder" should evolve/combine after a double-battle, and that Magnemite should only evolve in an accelerator where you place 3 seperate ones that are fused (explained in a "disappearence of the bees" way).

Given this multiple-ways of evolving stuff, I'd be perfectly happy if [insert ice pokemon here] evolves at an earlier level during the winter.

I'd also be a fan of pokemon having increased chances of learning moves during the summer/seasons. For example, I propose that if an opponent uses a move your pokemon can learn in the future, and your pokemon survives, your pokemon should have a 5-10% chance of learning that move. For fire moves, maybe this would increase x2 during the summer, ice moves x 2 during the wiinter, etc. This could be especially useful with pokemon who evolve only after leanring a specific move (as if breeding didn't accomplish this too).
__________________

On a completely unreleated topic, and ON TOPIC, I'd sort of like a pokemon that evolves differently if traded from a foreign game. For example, maybe the "Weedle" variant can have two different final forms (yeah, it's been done), where you can only get form 2 by evolving one you've traded from a foreign game. Arguably the moveset and stats could be comprable, but this would encourage trading over the GTS. However, I DO NOT think they should make a totally different evolution for each version of the game (if your guy's french, you'd get someone different than if it's itallian), BUT I wouldn't be adverse to game-origin-exclusive-moves that could be passed down as egg-moves. But probably only for one 3-stage evolution pokemon. And each of the moves should be "average" - IE, 70-90 power, same type, different 2ndary effects.

So, let the "moves from different game-versions" pokemon be a psuedo-legendary Fire/bug. The ultimate moves would be as follows:
Japan: Fire-Web - Lays down a stealth-rocks-like trap 5pp
USA: Fire Bite - 65 damage, 10% chance of causing poison, 10% of causing burn, 10% chance of flinch
EU various games/languages: Fire-Swipe - "Fire" slash variant.
Each of these would probably be a TM as well, or at least tutorable by someone on fire-island/equivalent.

Furthermore, if we wanted to do a "game-exclusive evolution", perhaps this would be the way to do it. Perhaps instead of being a psuedo-legendary, we have 1 pokemon that can learn any of 3 different moves depending on it's country of origin, at, say, level 30. For simplicity's sake, let's use a fighting guy:
Pokemon X learns, at level 30:
Thunderpunch if it is japanese
Firepunch if it is English
Icepunch if it is an EU game.
When it levels up knowing such a move, it tries to evolve into a fighting/X type pokemon, where X is the move. If it has 2 or more of the punch moves, it tries to evolve into thunder first, then fire, then ice. (Yes, it should come with everstone in the wild...).

Of course there should be a tutor who will teach it each of the 3 moves on all versions of the game (say if it's at max happiness), and the moves are egg-moves so it can learn them that way, BUT the point is this - if you GTS a japanese one, despite the fact that wild versions on your US game learn fire punch at level 30, this one would learn thunderpunch at level 30. It's child, assuming it knows Thunderpunch and is male, would come out at level 1 knowing Thunderpunch. It will learn fire punch at level 30, too.

Yeah, I'm not down with the foreign language trade evolutions. That would restrict players from completing the pokedex unless they have access to wifi. That kind of goes against Nintendo's philosophy. If you notice, almost all the even pokemon are released in local areas.. not demanding the ability for wifi.. something that could be too complicated for a child to set up.

The pokewalker route you unlock via foreign language trade and/or the pokewalker routes you get from wifi would count as evidence to the contrary.

That said, if you read my final proposal, you'll see that what made the guy evolve was, say, one version of the punches. Each of which was tutorable, egg movable, etc. - but which move you learned at level 30 was determined by your game of origin.

If I had to DL a guy from Japan to have him evolve, it'd suck. But if I could make him evolve on my game and he just evolved EASIER if he's from japan, this seems PERFECTLY consistent with Pokemon's philosophy.

So, what are your feelings on the Icepunch/firepunch/thunderpunch guy I proposed? What punch he'd learn naturally would be determined by his game of origin. However, you could tutor (TM?), or breed him for different punches.

I'm kinda indifferent to the move-learning thing based on country. It is kinda off topic in a way, at least for this thread. That said, I've never been a fan of the evolve by learning a move. They already screwed it up with Lickytung.. the more they do it, the greater chance they have. Although, move-based evolution is a lot more liked that location based evolution.

Course, neither of which are.. as the topic describes.. "New Ways to evolve"

The "different moves per game-country-origin" thing was introduced as a way to have "country-of-origin" evolutions that could be gotten on any game w/o trading.

As for messing it up... if they already messsed it up with lickitung, there's nowhere it can go but up.

On a side-note, you really do need to have a broader view of what counts as "on topic". Yes, all the game mechanics are connected. But, as in the case of country-of-origin moves THAT CAUSE A POKEMON TO EVOLVE DIFFERENTLY BASED ON IT'S COUNTRY OF ORIGIN, it's enough on topic to discuss. I didn't say "wouldn't it be nice if we had country of origin moves", I said all that AND "that caused a pokemon to evolve differently based on the country of origin!".

Ok, so first I say that I don't like the foreign trade evolutions, finding them for obvious reasons, not plausable because it forces Wifi access to be able to catch pokemon (and btw, the pokewalker routes that open up by foreign trade.. the pokemon on there are not exclusive to that generation, so it is not the only way you can catch them).

Then, you mention.. or imply really, that you'll still be able to evolve the pokemon locally by teaching it egg moves, or find some way to teach it a move through a move tutor. I then explain, that evolutions based purely on what move it learns, that it didn't previously learn (in previous gen) is off topic, because basically.. it is not a new WAY to evolve pokemon. Which it isn't. It has been done before.

Now, you come back and say that it will only work on foreign pokemon. Again, a no go for me IMO. Keeping it based on a foreign origin IS on topic, but that is not why I said that your idea was off topic.

So are you sticking with it only being allowed on foreign pokemon, or are you still implying that you can teach a local pokemon these same moves to make it evolve? You can't have it both ways. Either your forced to find a foreign pokemon via wifi, or you are able to still make a local pokemon evolve via the move tutor?

puck269, listen - there has never been a pokemon that evolves differently based on whether it knows 1 move or another. That said, I see no reason to feed your "on topic" trolling anymore. It's my thread, it's my idea, it incorperates a new concept you apparently don't understand (game-origin-based-movesets) and a means of evolution you don't like (evolving when knowing a move) to produce a unique pokemon evolution group. You don't like it, I get it. But you're wasting all our time by insisting it's "off topic" - which is hypocritcal, as whether or not something is ontopic is itself off topic.

while i agree that you were on topic (though for the record, evolving via moves has been done ) it's not your thread, as you created the thread to share ideas with others. only the mods can decide what does and does not belong here. and btw, now you're being hypocritical.
to get back on subject, personally i don't like the foreign trade evos. maybe a slighlty different form, like burmy/wormadam, but while those have different moves as well, i wouldn't do that. maybe just like a ribbon or some extra little detail in the sprite as a reward. evolving differently via moves could be interesting, but the moves would have to be drastically different, and yet along the same lines (like the element punches) to make them worth anything. i liked the berry idea you listed on the first or second page, though not evolving/learning moves differently based on them.

I agree with rex09, but that's all I'm going to say on that...

...I digress. Maybe there could be a pokemon (like ) whose evolved form's type and moves are based on the weather at the time. For example, if it evolves on a route where it rains, it evolves into a Water-type and is able to learn some Water-type moves.

isn't that kinda how burmy evolves, only based on terrain instead of weather (asking for clarification). that could be perfect for a castform evo itself. though, it would be evos, instead of just one evo. so, rain=water, sun shining=fire, hail=ice, sandstorm=rock/ground...am i missing any?? i would say either for the pokemon this concerns, either have the first form be a normal and add these on as secondary types, or have it change to these types. agree?? disagree??

Sandstorm would be Rock, I think. No Ground added (please. I really don't want another one).
Fog=Ghost? Flying?
No, probably Flying, as he has more to do with the actual elements.

What if there was a Poke who evolved based on diet.
Like, if you feed them a certain amount, they'd evolve into a gluttonous Poke;
but if you feed them less than that certain amount, they'd evolve into a lean Poke?
I would say this could fit with or , but I really want a new line.

K, First I'll touch on the "trolling" since well.. I wasn't.. simply trying to keep the discussion on topic and not run off into tangents that are covered by other, very similar threads on the boards. It wasn't originally even said maliciously, or from a superior stance, which you seemed to take it as. With that, I'm done talking about it.

As for move-based evolutions.. Aipom, lickitung, Piloswine (which is even closer to your idea), Yanma, and Tangela.. they all evolved by learning a specific move in Gen IV.

I'm a little more receptive to the alternate version evolution idea like Wormadam; however, I'm still not a fan and I'm not sure that is exactly what you were envisioning.



I like the idea, in fact I was in the middle of a similar discussion over on the "New evolutions for old pokemon" thread. There we talked about things such as making him castform hold a "weather stone" to evolve while being subjected to weather conditions. If weather plays a large factor into the game with seasons and everything, it is certainly plausable that we'll see weather-based evolutions to sit next to the seasonal ones. The only problem is to evolve old pokemon by weather there'd have to be some kind of hold item to allow it, since most weather has had at least one persistant area in one of the games.

As for the diet evos.. that could be a tough one to pull off on some older pokemon, but it could be done on some of the new ones. I kinda like the idea of evolving using exercise.. or having a pokemon outside of it's pokeball walking around.. or competing in the new pokeatholon. My guess is that Nintendo would push more toward the exercise portion, instead of concentrating on "diet". They didn't expand on the old diet evos (Milotic).. so I have a hard time thinking that they are going to push that path and expand it. If they do, I think it'll be tied more toward how well they do in poke-contests and what ribbons they have from competing than I think it being based on how much food they eat or don't eat.

hmm, not a big fan of the weather stone idea... maybe we could just stick to the weather conditions.. and besides, there have been older pokemon that got new evos based on previously exiting conditions (i'm talking about a lot of the recent ones that got move level-ups; some of them must have had those before).
the diet evo would seem like a scam to get more people to exercise (like the pokewalker; btw, i'm actually all for this, but let's face it: it was supposed to trick younger kids into the exercise; this would be more of an influence kinda dealie). i think the only reason milotic was such a failure was the fact that almost nobody had it due to the lack of feebas. but i think making it compete in the pokeathelon equivalent would be a good sub for this.