Re: Help me with a little Manamon 2 Fun
Oh, oops, I might be misremembering Aura Master. I knew it was a magic move. But yeah, Psychedelic Spell isn't great on it. I think it gets Earthquake at like level 53 or something silly.
Yeah. The fact that I beat the game with shit like Myaneko and Viralite should tell you that it's possible to play offline and do damn near anything. Pokémon does this too. If you're careful enough, you can beat the game with damn near anything. But pokemon thrives because it has a great online meta, which has gotten progressively more complex with every generation. But the reason I've harped on as I have is because I was part of pokemon's second-generation meta, was very active in it, and manamon simply doesn't even come close. I'll give you an example of the sort of team that was prevalent in the GSC metagame, just so you can see the diversity, the strategies and the sorts of win conditions possible.
Cloyster with Miracle Berry: Spikes, Surf, Ice Beam, Explosion
Misdreavus with Paralysis Cure Berry: Mean Look, Perish Song, Protect, Pain Split
Snorlax with Leftovers: Curse, Body Slam, Rest, Earthquake
Skarmory with Scope Lens: Drill Peck, Hidden Power Ground, Whirlwind, Rest
Blissey with Leftovers: Heal Bell, Thunder Wave, Soft-Boiled, Ice Beam
Raikou with Leftovers: Thunderbolt, Hidden Power Ice, Rest, Sleep Talk
Now, some explanations:
Spikes are permanent, unless removed by Rapid Spin (see below). Spikes do chip damage every time a pokemon enters the field, as long as that pokemon is not a flying type.
Explosion sacrifices the pokemon who uses it, but it has an incredible base 200 power; it's a normal move, so it fails on ghosts.
Surf and Ice Beam are just 95-power special-type STAB.
Cloyster has very, very high physical defense, average speed and special attack, bad HP and awful special defense. It's a water-ice type.
Mean Look stops a pokemon from getting away.
Perish Song will make both pokemon faint in three turns unless they switch.
Protect makes you invulnerable for one turn, but gets less likely to work every time you use it in succession.
Pain Split takes your opponent's HP, your HP, adde them together, splits the number in half and divides it equally (so it's a great way to steal a bunch of HP if you're weak and your foe is nearly at full HP).
Misdreavus's attacking stats aren't great, but its speed is decent. It's also a pure ghost type. The move Rapid Spin, which is fairly rare in itself in GSC, is a normal move, so Misdreavus can be used as a "spinblocker". Switch it in when you see your opponent's probable spinner; Rapid Spin comes out, Misdreavus takes no damage, your spikes stay put.
Curse lowers speed by a stage, raises attack and defense by a stage each.
Body Slam is an 85-power physical normal move with a 30% chance to cause paralysis, which in pokemon also means that the paralyzed mon's speed is cut to 1/4 of normal; they almost always go last in a turn.
Rest restores full HP, whereafter the pokemon spends two full turns asleep, then wakes up on turn 3 and can attack.
Earthquake is a 100-power physical ground move.
Snorlax has a ton of HP, great attack and special defense, average or slightly low physical defense, and absolutely awful speed. Curselax FTW! It's a pure normal type, by the way.
Drill Peck is an 80-power physical flying move.
Whirlwind goes last on a turn, but forces your opponent to switch out to another random member of their team (yes, this will proc spikes damage).
Hidden Power is a move based on individual values (don't ask, it's complicated). Essentially for the Skarmory in my example, this will be a 70-power ground move.
Skarmory has average attack and speed, decent HP, and great defense. Its special defense is only average. It's a steel-flying type.
Heal Bell removes all status effects (poison, sleep, paralysis) from your entire team, including the user.
Soft-Boiled heals half the user's HP.
Thunder Wave induces paralysis and is 100% accurate; it doesn't work on ground types.
Ice Beam I've already discussed.
Blissey has ungodly HP and great special defense, making it the premier special wall in GSC. Its speed and special attack are decent, but nothing amazing. Its attack and defense are awful though.
Thunderbolt is a 95-power electric move.
Hidden Power Grass is a 70-power special-type grass move.
Sleep Talk only works while you're asleep, but it lets you use one of your other moves at random, including Rest if you happen to have it.
Raikou is one of the pseudolegendaries in this game, having a base stat total of 600. It was not banned in GSC play because, while it's good, it's not broken as are things like Mewtwo or Ho-Oh and Lugia, all of whom have base stat totals around the 670 range.
Scope Lens raises critical hit chance.
Miracle Berry will heal any major status condition, but is then used up. Paralysis-cure berry does the same, but obviously only for paralysis.
Leftovers heal 1/16 of your max HP every round.
So let's break this down:
Cloyster's first mission objective is to set spikes. If it dies, that sucks. If not, punch holes in things with Surf and Ice Beam, or if you want to sneak in a surprise, blow up and probably take something down with you.
Misdreavus is a spin-blocker who can heal itself with Pain Split if it's creative. Mean Look, Perish Song and Protect work as advertised. You switch Misdreavus away on the turn Perish Song is going to kill it, and the other pokemon is still trapped by Mean Look that turn, so it's a sneaky way to get kills.
Snorlax's Body Slam and Earthquake are good weapons to do decent damage to many things, and if its checks are neutralized, it means to use two or three curses late game and just sweep. Rest keeps it healthy; a Snorlax with a few curses under its belt is very, very tough to take down.
Skarmory doesn't hit especially hard, but it's immune to ground, resists a lot of stuff, and only has two weaknesses (fire and electric). It handles both of these with hidden power ground. Whirlwind lets Skarmory force switches, which racks up more spikes damage. Rest keeps it healthy.
Blissey slows things down with Thunder Wave, and might fire off the occasional Ice Beam, which is super-effective against the ground types it can't paralyze. While it's physically very frail, its enormous HP does help it out somewhat. Soft-Boiled lets it try and stay healthy, and Heal Bell can remove the status effects on your whole team (it won't cause a fainted pokemon to revive though, so don't worry, it's not that broken). Skarmory, Blissey and Snorlax, in some combination, were very common elements on a lot of stall teams because they cover each other very well.
Raikou is only weak to ground, and it has good stats across the board. Thunderbolt plus its hidden power move let it hit super-effectively against a lot of types, and Rest+Sleep Talk is bitchy to get rid of. This guy often softens up your opponent's team earlier in the match, or works as another late win-con if whatever's left just can't take it down in two hits.
Now, this isn't a perfect team - I could pick all sorts of holes in it - but I created it in about eight minutes. And this is the second generation of pokemon, remember. Can manamon even come close to this, with its current mechanics? My answer is hail no.
My further conclusion here is that Aaron is perfectly capable of making a playable game where whatever trash moves you may or may not be stuck with are probably sufficient for getting through the game itself. This is both a testament to the game's designed difficulty, and to the fact that even the in-game AI is ridiculous and has access to sub-par movesets. What Aaron has absolutely no idea how to do, though, is to make a game that does it right, -PLUS make a working online meta. That's where he falls down hard, and that's where someone like me, who legitimately has the experience, would be able to help him. You would not be sacrificing game depth or balance for metagame improvement, trust me on this.
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