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How have Mega Evolutions and Primal Evolutions Changed Pokemon?


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How has Pokemon Metagame and Gameplay as a whole changed due to Mega Evolutions?

What are some possibilities for the future?

Permanent Megas?

Permanent Primals?

Will there a new type of evolution in the future allowing Non fully evolved pokemon to Mega evolve?

Those are some starters.

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Mega Pokemon have had an aggressive impact on the meta.

Average speed tiers have gone up, a notable example is M-Manectric with its Mega 135 speed (part of the reason behind the conception of OU- No Mega)

A pool of Wall breakers have emerged, such as M-Heracross and M-Gallade.

As for the future, I expect to see new Mega Pokemon (that are fully-evolved), but the concept of Primal Pokemon will likely be unique to ORAS.

The only non fully-evolved Pokemon I somewhat expect to see is Pikachu.

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Well, to me, mega-evolution (and its cousin primal reversion) brought both good and bad things to the franchise and the meta. Since I'm no meta expert or good competitive player to begin with, I won't be talking about the meta much, only gonna say that I do think megas over-centralize team-building: you're better off with a mega than without a mega, and so unless you're playing a tier that doesn't allow megas, you always have more reasons to use one than not to use one. I don't have more thoughts on them in that regard.

To the franchise as a whole tho, I think megas have both good and bad consequences for the house (Nintento-GF) and the fans. First off, they offer a new window of potential, as they bring the possibility to open up evolutionary families that were "closed" or "complete" by having 3 stages, to a whole new level that includes a final, 4th temporary form that is stronger than any of the previous 3. I kinda like this because it pushes the boundary of "pokemon can evolve up to 2 times", that we all have learned over time, far and beyond expectations and allows for flows of creativity that wouldn't have been possible not even for the wildest fakemon creators (arguably, I've seen guys who have come up with pretty awesome fake stuff). Since it is temporary, it makes sense that these 4 stage evos don't stray too much of the original pokemon, and only add a few characteristics that can be considered as improvements of the original (I'll get to that in the blink of a sableye. Get it? cause it has no sableyelids? ...).

The other side of this coin however, is that mega-evolutions have the ironic consequence of being able to lock evolutionary lines as easily as they can open up others. Take standalones like Absol, Sableye and Mawile, for example. They have megas, cool, but that implies they won't evolve further naturally. You'll never see an evo (or prevo) to absol, sableye or mawile, they'll never turn into evolutionary "families" in the sense they've been locked by their own megas. Sometimes this is good when a design can hardly be expanded more upon in order to create an actual evolution (to me, this would be Absol's case), so you give it a mega, that only adds extra details or slightly different shapes, and you have something completely different except it is not, and you also made an evo to a mon that no one believed could ever evolve, everybody wins. Other times, it might be seen as "bad" or wasting potential, like in the cases of Sableye and Mawile, mons with a very low BST and that have a whole world of possibilities and creativity inside them: Sableye can still be made bigger, more menacing, more evil, more awesome, and Mawile can be made bigger, and have more jaws. Now their megas exist, this world of possibilities is water under the bridge, is mere "what if", a "fakemon matter". Sableye is locked into two possible looks: he's either a tiny purple man with blue jewel eyes, or a tiny purple man with red jewel eyes and a giant rupee shield. Mawile however takes a different approach, and in all honestly, it's mega form could easily have been made into an actual, legit evolution, allowing it not only to have greater stats than 480, but also been less broken without being actually any less powerful. By taking the clever approach of adding more jaw-horns and a red body-color, mega-mawile kinda borrows a bit of that world of possibilities that it itself locks by the mere fact of existing.

My wishes for this specific point is that GF took the time to consider if mega or regular evo is more worth it before starting the "mega-boom" period. Take Marowak, Lanturn and Dunsparce, for example; mega or evo? is not just about jumping straight into the mega-wagon and go "megas for everybody!", but it isn't about being anti-mega either. Take your time, analyse the mon's design, capabilities, what can it do? what can it not do? what does it need? 100 extra points? a secondary type? a new ability? more moves? can its design be explored further, or can it only be added tiny details to? I think that before trans-generational evolutions competely disappear to megas, it should be necessary to consider what benefits the mon more, and act accordingly. The franchise should be smart enough to keep both.

Leaving that point, a thing I thank mega evolutions for is bringing more love and usage to mons that everybody forgot about, or loved but is a love that hurts, because they sucked in game or competitively. Again, let's pick the 3 previous examples for this: Absol is the mon everybody loves, but is too fragile and slow to be any good in common play. Mawile is very interesting graphically, but competitively it is weak to too many things for its low BST and stats, and isn't really worth much to play with, there were better steel types. Sableye has always had a niche as a prankster annoyer, but its fragility made it fear priority and strong attackers that can't be burned or affected by its prankster antics. Mega evolution changed that. It opened a new niche for these pokemon. Mega absol is fast and offensive and can't be burned, mega mawile is TOO good with 105 attack plus huge power and its new steel/fairy type, and mega sableye is a wall that can't be burned, taunted or poisoned (even though it has low HP to withstand hits). Overall, it can be said mega evolution brought improvement to all these mons, and many others: who ever used beedrill? who loves pidgeot but the regular sucks? glalie? loppuny? audino? they all get more usage now (on average), thanks to being given megas, specially those that sucked even after being the result of 2 successive evolution processes, like beedrill or pidgeot.

However, this also brings a "bad side of the coin" like the previous point did: bad adiministration of mega-evolutions. Giving something that is already powerful or has a rather exploitable niche just more raw power and a better ability to appeal to fans or just to generate hype. Even more. Giving something TWO megas instead of one, just to appeal to fans more. Sometimes you don't need to give more love to something fans already love. Give it the right amount of love you give the rest pokemon, but don't make it better for the sake of even. An example: metagross is a pseudo, that means it is strong. But the nerfing of steel types that are now neutral to dark and ghot, strong weaknesses on fire and ground that only grow greater every new gen with the addition of stronger STAB EQ and Fire blast users.... regular Metagross has reasons to get a mega. It might be too good, just like mega-mawile, but is fair, the guy needed it. Okay. Now take a look at garchomp. Its nerfing was the apparition of fairy types, and the lack of perpetual sandstorm via sandstream users. But here's the thing: Garchomp is good. Too good. Even with changes to its environment, it still manages to be OU, and other things can deal with fairies, and it doesn't need sandstorm all the time. Garchomp is still good. Now why do you give it a mega, if not to appeal to fans? there's no other reason. Even more, as it is slower than the regular, and is limited to a single ability, mega garchomp has a smaller niche than regular garchomp, ironically enough. That's a mega that was uncalled for, in my opinion. Then you have mewtwo, who being one of the strongest legendaries gets not one but two (both strong as fucking hell) and to top it off, charizard is indirectly "touched by angel wings" by also being given two megas instead of one, unlike the rest of mundane starters, because everyone knows that charizard is much more of a fan favorite than other starters, it "clearly" deserves 2 boosts. Welp, no. Blaziken and Blastoise are as much fan favorites depending on who you ask, and yet they manage well with 1 mega. If anything, you know what deserves 2 megas? Meganium. Don't even get me started in mega rayquay quay that can hold items, and primal groudon that can negate its main weakness completely...

To sum up my thoughts, I think megas should be for everyone, as long as is given the mon gathers the right requirements of not being insanely powerful already and needing a boost that is better suministrated with a mega than with a regular evo. Lots of mons enter that category: Cloyster, Flygon, Weavile, all starters (that greninja tho), rattata tropes, pidgey tropes, water type fillers, liepard, etc. etc.

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Leaving that point, a thing I thank mega evolutions for is bringing more love and usage to mons that everybody forgot about, or loved but is a love that hurts, because they sucked in game or competitively. Again, let's pick the 3 previous examples for this: Absol is the mon everybody loves, but is too fragile and slow to be any good in common play. Mawile is very interesting graphically, but competitively it is weak to too many things for its low BST and stats, and isn't really worth much to play with, there were better steel types. Sableye has always had a niche as a prankster annoyer, but its fragility made it fear priority and strong attackers that can't be burned or affected by its prankster antics. Mega evolution changed that. It opened a new niche for these pokemon. Mega absol is fast and offensive and can't be burned, mega mawile is TOO good with 105 attack plus huge power and its new steel/fairy type, and mega sableye is a wall that can't be burned, taunted or poisoned (even though it has low HP to withstand hits). Overall, it can be said mega evolution brought improvement to all these mons, and many others: who ever used beedrill? who loves pidgeot but the regular sucks? glalie? loppuny? audino? they all get more usage now (on average), thanks to being given megas, specially those that sucked even after being the result of 2 successive evolution processes, like beedrill or pidgeot.

This^^ is one of the reasons I think mega-evolution brought a great change to the game. In time with megas and BST changes to Pokemon that GF has been pulling out more and more now, so many Pokemon will continue to become much more viable outside of pure gimmick sets.

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I don't think pokemon will mega evolve if they aren't fully evolved. It is meant to be the hidden extra potential of pokemon. If they still have the potential to evolve I don't think it makes sense to give them a mega. If mega pikachu exists I'm going to be very upset!

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Well I'd say for the worse, the worst would be gen 1 battle mechanics LOL

What, Psychic being only weak to a type that has no good moves and wrecking everything in-game? The Toxic/Leech Seed combo? The Mew Glitch? Pfft.

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I didn't really start getting into competative pokemon until the close of XY, so keep that in mind as you read my opinion.

I personally feel that mega evolution was a nice addition that was used to breathe a bit of new life into the franchise and make some of the cool mons that just we just plain bad before into solid pokemon. I remember that the first video I watched that got me interesting in pokemon again after stopping after HGSS was shofu's compilation of all the mega evolutions in XY. They were new, they were interesting, they were grand and expanding on all sorts of pokemon which otherwise looked like dead ends. Charizard was really cool pre-XY, but with half his health being lost just by coming on rocks and his stats we're enough to justify using him until his megas came along. I personally believe he should have gotten just one mega, but oh well. The fans must be served, I guess. (On a side note, I think since Zard's dual megas came about due to being a fan favorite, I'd like to point out the possibility of dual megas for Flygon due to the unanimous popularity. I suspect we'll have Dragon/Bug as well as a Dragon/Ground, but I digress.) Still, megas were a nice way to improve a lot of pokemon. Do I believe that we should have simply gotten megas for some of them? You bet. But why would they incorporate mega evolution for pokemon like Charizard and Blastoise and then add unique evolutions for pokemon like Mawile when they were already implementing a system to further evolution through megas? It seems like the logical step is to just reuse the mega idea for Mawile and the like to save a bit of work.

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For ONLY A SELECT FEW, it has made them so much better. I'd look you in the eye and call you a damn liar if you said you were totally gonna use Pinsir, or Mawile, or Kangaskhan (unless you play NU) in the metagame, for serious. Megas have made garbage Pokemon way better, and really good Pokemon generally astronomically fan-serviced.

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While I think mega evolution is a cool concept overall, I really will never like the fact that it restricts some pokemon's further evolution. It was already mentioned above but I'll just second that I really hate the fact that my favorite pokemon Absol will never go further than being a mega. Its mega is nothing to be laughed at, but it will never be as good as many others whose potential has reached beyond 3 stages of evolution even..

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there isnt much i can add to the mega evolution that hasnt already been said

i like it and i dont want pikachu to get one

however id like to see some more primal evolution's in pokemon that have changed from how they were in the past

like gastrodon

It apparently had a huge shell for protection in ancient times. It lives in shallow tidal pools.

after seeing its pokedex entey ive wanted to see how a primal evolution would look for it if it was reverted back to its ancient form

Edited by dragoniteborntacoz
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For ONLY A SELECT FEW, it has made them so much better. I'd look you in the eye and call you a damn liar if you said you were totally gonna use Pinsir, or Mawile, or Kangaskhan (unless you play NU) in the metagame, for serious. Megas have made garbage Pokemon way better, and really good Pokemon generally astronomically fan-serviced.

I really would ask the ones that have gone against me.

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This has kinda been said above, but one aspect about the games that I really like gets pushed under the rug due to mega evolutions, cross generation evolutions. One of the (only) things I liked about Gen 4 was the way they made my old favorites relevant again through a direct evolution. While I can see that Mega Evolution has its perks, there's nothing wrong with cross generation evolutions, and I hope they make a return at some point.

And yes, I know Sylveon happened, but it was the only one in Gen 6 (and there were none in 5)

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This has kinda been said above, but one aspect about the games that I really like gets pushed under the rug due to mega evolutions, cross generation evolutions. One of the (only) things I liked about Gen 4 was the way they made my old favorites relevant again through a direct evolution. While I can see that Mega Evolution has its perks, there's nothing wrong with cross generation evolutions, and I hope they make a return at some point.

This so much. I'd take evolutions over Mega's anyday.

I like the fact that Megas can make some pokémons more useful, but you know, there's always the bad part. For example, if you see an opponent with a Pidgeot or an Beedril in OU, the only reason for that is because they're carrying a Mega of said pokémons. Predictable.

Megas have their perks, but I would have preferred direct evolutions anyday~

I also think that we're going to a direction where every single fully evolved pokémon might have a Mega in the future. and pikachu cuz anime

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Frankly, I just like how most of them look. I never get tired of Mega evolving my Absol while playing "One Winged Angel" during a gym battle or Mega evolving my Swampert and saying "Now I'm a jerk and everybody loves me!"

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  • Mega evolutions have obviously allowed Pokemon such as Pinsir, Glalie, Camerupt, Banette, Charizard Lopunny, and Audino to break tier thresholds and find more reliable use in more Pokemon.
  • Mega evolutions are a love letter to the fans of certain Pokemon such as Tyranitar, Garchomp, Lucario, Blaziken, and half the starters at this point in time.
  • Megas are a polarizing aspect of the meta-game, redrawing lines and forcing players to adapt to gameplay
  • Megas are by nature a focal point of any team, due to taking up one slot
  • Primal evolutions are pushing the threshold of absolute power and Mega Rayquaza is absolutely ridiculous.

I guess long story short, I wasn't exactly thrilled about Mega Evolution and I do find it to be a pretty major change with a very large margin of influence on the gameplay - but as a Pokemon fan, I can definitely see the positives. It's just a new chapter of Pokemon.

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I find its concept fun. Whether competitively or not, I just enjoy it tbh. Reaching that new power level just feels fun. Even if some pokemon wont be able to evolve, im adaptable, so this change doesnt bug me at all. I enjoy the game for what it is, and all the new things it brings in.

So personally, Megas were great.

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