PokeMaster366
Well-Known Member
Back in the days of Hoenn and Sinnoh, new moves seldom showed up out of nowhere. Occasionaly, they would be worked on during contest, and sometimes, these new moves would even have full episodes dedicated to their mastery. Skip ahead a few years to Unova, however, and you notice that there have been much fewer episodes that show the Pokemon dedicating any actual effort to learning new moves. It's one thing if new moves introduced mid-battle are either powered-up versions of old moves (Ember -> Flamethrower) or are thrown in to fill in open slots, but nowadays, there's not as much build-up or reasoning to their introduction. Dwebble's Rock Slide in the first Don Tournament, Leavanny's X-Scissor and Krookodile's Aerial Ace during the battle with Kenyan in the league, and Pignite's Brick Break in the battle with Cameron in the Top 8 are the cop-out moves that stand out the most to me at the moment, but there are other moves that were introduced out of the blue with no explanation such as Palpitoad's Sludge Wave (even though that move was awesome).
I'm not going to harp too much on the new moves learned by Pokemon thanks to evolution (even though there are only a few of them), but even those new moves have either felt like a step backwards (Boldore learning Rock Blast in place of Stone Edge), or an unimpressive quarter-step forward (Unfezant learning Aerial Ace).
So, what's your take on all of this? Do you think the show is doing a passable job with the new moves being learned during Unova, or do you think they're just an unofficial admission by the writers that they don't know what they're doing in that department?
I'm not going to harp too much on the new moves learned by Pokemon thanks to evolution (even though there are only a few of them), but even those new moves have either felt like a step backwards (Boldore learning Rock Blast in place of Stone Edge), or an unimpressive quarter-step forward (Unfezant learning Aerial Ace).
So, what's your take on all of this? Do you think the show is doing a passable job with the new moves being learned during Unova, or do you think they're just an unofficial admission by the writers that they don't know what they're doing in that department?
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