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New Moves: A sign of development or a sign of desperation

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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?
 
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matt0044

Well-Known Member
Don't we have something like this in the Anime Spoilers thread?

As for your question, I'd say it was the writers trying to get through BW quick.
 

fitzy909

Just another guy
they just wanted to get through bw quicker, but personally i prefer to see pokemon work on their moves a it more. it shows they are growing.
 

An00bis

Wicked Witch
I guess people complained about how Training/Battle heavy Sinnoh was and they decided to take it a step backwards.

Before then with a handful of exceptions Pokemon learned attacks spontaneously. The opposite seemed to be true in Sinnoh.
 

fitzy909

Just another guy
I guess people complained about how Training/Battle heavy Sinnoh was and they decided to take it a step backwards.

Before then with a handful of exceptions Pokemon learned attacks spontaneously. The opposite seemed to be true in Sinnoh.

i think they took more than one step back. i want the best of both. sometimes some training, but never too sort of spontaneous.
 

randomspot555

Well-Known Member
I think it gives some suspense from the viewers' standpoint. If we knew Aerial Ace was going to be used, it'd be a shock to Ash's opponent but not us.

That said, I liked the rule that "revealed moves" had in Sinnoh that generally, Pokemon would know moves they didn't know before either belonged to supporting cast (IE not ash's friends), or came from Pokemon Ash had in training or at Oak's. Now that we're seeing Pokemon that are in the trio's ownership learning it, it kind of has lost that appeal.

But overall, it doesn't bother me too much.
 

Luthor

Well-Known Member
At times I think they don't introduce enough moves for certain pokemon to show it's growth well enough. Snivy is a prime example of this.
 

LizardonX

Banned
Ash in DP had a different personality altogether. To our current Ash, training just seems like a boring chore instead of a necessity.
 

Lorde

Let's go to the beach, each.
It's fine when there's on-screen training involved, but it's totally cheap when a Pokemon conveniently learns a new move all of a sudden just so it can win a battle. It's just pure deus ex machina that's on par with evolving during a battle imo, and I wish the writers would try to show more training so that this would stop happening so often.
 

KibaLG8

Well-Known Member since the DP Series.
It's fine when there's on-screen training involved, but it's totally cheap when a Pokemon conveniently learns a new move all of a sudden just so it can win a battle. It's just pure deus ex machina that's on par with evolving during a battle imo, and I wish the writers would try to show more training so that this would stop happening so often.

What about Leavanny's case, who didn't have any on-screen training when it learned X-Scissor but still lost to Stephan's Sawk?
 

The Great Butler

Hush, keep it down
It's perfectly fine to me to not know if something's coming, at least to a degree. Sinnoh had some ridiculously painfully predictable battles because of everything being shown in advance - for example, Infernape's Blaze being the key to Ash beating Paul, and Heracross using Sleep Talk against Darkrai.
 
I don't consider Krookodile using Aerial Ace a DEM. A DEM is basically a win pulled out of nothing. Ash clearly mentioned he taught Krookodile Aerial Ace to beat Sawk because Stephan spams Sawk in every battle. We do these sot of things in competitive battles everyday. If I have to face a player in a forum tournament and I know one of his most used Pokemon, I'll adjust my move slot a bit to give him a surprise (some people may also yell Counter Teaming). What the heck is so DEM about it. It was for the first time Ash had actually done something intelligent in BW. I don't see what the heck is the problem with it.
 

matt0044

Well-Known Member
I don't consider Krookodile using Aerial Ace a DEM. A DEM is basically a win pulled out of nothing. Ash clearly mentioned he taught Krookodile Aerial Ace to beat Sawk because Stephan spams Sawk in every battle. We do these sot of things in competitive battles everyday. If I have to face a player in a forum tournament and I know one of his most used Pokemon, I'll adjust my move slot a bit to give him a surprise (some people may also yell Counter Teaming). What the heck is so DEM about it. It was for the first time Ash had actually done something intelligent in BW. I don't see what the heck is the problem with it.

I think it's not that it's an DXM. There is the issue that we could've seen training or interaction with Krookidile, Leavanny or even Palpitoad rather than them being shafted because the cutesy Pokemon must amuse the kids with their antics. Heck, what about Unfezant?
 
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