Thread: Was HGSS All About the Evolutions?

Seriously guys, after around half a year of "waitin' time" after the actual games' release for this new arc to come out, and it featuring the return of the now-classic protagonists and landmarks of Johto, there was, for lack of better term, a lot of hype for a manga series more or less "superseded" by the obvious resident overrated kiddie show. The fact that a Gold in new garb was facing fucking Arceus with the whole Sird plotpoint not yet uncovered and that Lance was shown to have gone missing early on added to the "suspense" (the Giovanni event in the games also being a huge factor).

Yet, so far, the most they've accomplished is a lot of party changes in the forms of evolution spamming like crazy. We've had people go missing a lot of times before, and whenever that was the case, the battle that led up to such happenings were always shown later (Red vs. Bruno and co., for example), but all we have is... Lance showing up in the last chapter with ragged clothes saying he got "jumped." Instead, all we've gotten is (again) two of Silver's Pokemon evolving at the same time (seriously, it's gotta be some kind of a tradition now, and it got old around the time Ruby showed up V_v), Gold not just training to achieve, but actually triggering an evolution on a whim, and so far for the rest of the party we've seen nothing that improved or changed much save for Silver getting a loan on Rhyperior after... well, you guessed it, evolving it. No new moves, but rather a crazy spammage of old and powerful moves that should kind of be saved for later (give me one time Saur or Charizard spammed their "ultimate" moves after mastering them unless it was for important occurrences, and you win 20 bucks), plot points like the plates being revealed way too early on, waaay OOC moments, and art regression to top it off. Hell, we've no neat in-game references like before (the whole Radio Tower fiasco could've definitely qualified if they're up to no good like before), either. Nada.

Hell, this's pretty definitely the last arc of this generation, and the only "cameos" we've seen are useless old faces like the Johto GLs and the E4 members that amount to even less than they did in GSC (not that that arc wasn't good), or even the Hoenn ones, no older protagonists (or the recent ones), no nothing, and we're closing in on the final chapter already. What've we accomplished? How double evolutions purposely triggered by the guy flat-out giving you the item is somehow AWW-RIGHTTT?

Fuck that.

So... yeah, fanservice central, much? I grew to have smaller expectations for the series thanks to the failures of the post-FRLG arcs (*points to Mr. Crescentmidget*), and even the two before them being relatively sub-par compared to their predecessors, but this is just waaay pushing my buttons, and this's nearly the level of the retarded show, Inuyashit, GT, and Digimon Frontier - onwards (the stuff before that was terrible, but at least it didn't make me fork my eyes out as badly) that we're talking about. None of the arcs, whether separately or as a whole, were the shit as far as their appeal solely as parts of a manga series and not a Pokemon comic, but ever since about 1999, when I'd grown tired of the dull bullshit the show "offered," I've kind of looked to Special for a "relief" as far as adaptations of the superior games go, but this damn detour just screams little more than "MASSIVE ANNOYANCE."

Where's the Kusaka before 2005 gone to? All that potential and hype, and we get this bullshit.

Hey, Digimon Frontier was awesome.

Although this plot seems to be going nowhere. So little time to do it in and WHAT THE HELL pulled out of every corner. It feels like the Golden Boys of Pokemon Special.

Tamers > Adventure >> "ZERO TU LOLOL" >>>> Frontier >/=/< Savers > "CROSS WARS PUZZLEZ LMAO". That's a given (for most non-"the furst wunz alwayz the bestist taimaz an shit can suk dik" people), but it's up to your own individual tastes to decide, I suppose (honest to god, though, the "no-one but the goggle brat and wooooolf do anything" formula had never been absolute that badly).

Still ain't making this miserable embarrassment of an arc any better, though.

Originally Posted by Iron Mask Marauder

It feels like the Golden Boys of Pokemon Special.

D:<

What's that supposed to mean?

Nevertheless, I haven't been reading this arc much but it seems...Quite boring honestly. It doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

Where are the gym leaders? The Kanto gang? The character development? The Johto gang is too good for this sort of treatment.

While I'll die screaming in my sleep tonight for "defending" this arc, we've seen (too much of) the Johto leaders, but considering GSC showed them all (no pun intended), we really could've at least used something like them all gathering in the Fighting dojo to kick ass like before, or something.

I've no opinion on Golden Boys when I've not read one page of it, sadly.

But yes, the Kanto Dex holders (especially Red, Yellow, and Green) we need to see. Don't care for the Hoenn ones, and we've seen TOO MUCH of Platinum already.

The HG/SS arc as a whole felt like one huge disappointment, mostly due to fact it feels very rushed compared to the other arcs. Everyone and their grandmother is evolving Pokemon (though to be fair some were off screen), characters are shoved out doing very little of anything, the story feels rushed and flawed overall etc.

If the Manga arc was made with more time on hand some bugs might be ironed out and it would be an improvement.

Kusaka most likely did not plan on writing a HGSS adaptation, for the simple reason that he didn't think Gold and Silver would be remade. In late 2006, he wrote on the Netkun blog that he'd like to see the games re-released for the Wii's Virtual Console. My guess is that if the games had merely been ported, Gold, Silver and Crys would have been the only old characters to be carried over to the Platinum saga, which would have revolved around Arceus and the Hall of Origin. This theory is supported by the fact that the Emerald saga ended with Crys wondering about the name Archie had uttered - "Gala" - in reference to Team Galactic and Sird.

I would not be surprised to still see Sird in the Platinum saga, only without any of the older characters around. Kusaka went a little too far with the HGSS Executives if they are merely supposed to play second fiddle to Sird, so I can't see that happening even though it should. The truth is that if Kusaka didn't like the idea of having Neo Team Rocket be on the lookout for Giovanni in the GSC saga, then he shouldn't have borrowed that aspect of the games' plot this time around, either. Combining the tired Rocket plot with the Sinjoh Ruins event reeks of lack of creativity. If it weren't for the remakes, I assume that we'd have a very similar plot only with Team Galactic and Sird, which wouldn't be much better.

Is anyone tired by the almost exclusive focus on the villainous teams? Wouldn't it make more sense to see Arceus' reaction to Cyrus' attempt to overwrite the universe with his own creation? I would think that it would be slightly more interesting to explore what would motivate Arceus to create another Dragon trio (a question left completely open by the games) than to have it carry out the will of the Executives, essentially retreading the Diamond and Pearl plot. What about the connection between Arceus and the Unown that is established in the games? The Ruins of Alph may have been revisited, but it all happened too fast with none of the characters stopping to think what made Arceus go there of all places. On top of that, where are Lugia and Ho-Oh? They were blatantly misrepresented in the GSC chapter due to being controlled by the Mask of Ice, so why not use the opportunity to introduce them properly? You know that something is wrong when the Kimono Girls merely show up to fuel Aipom's evolution, when in the games they are the key to summoning the birds and are implied to be linked to the Sinjoh Ruins.

The enemy legendary Pokémon in Special have always been secondary to human antagonists. What more can be done with this plot formula? At the least with the games this hasn't been the case since the beginning.

If Kusaka had waited for almost another year to release the Emerald arc then there wouldn't be rushed. It does take some time to come up with ideas. I can understand waiting for three or evn four months to come up with an idea, but waiting another years seems to be too much time to come up with an arc. It seems that they were just waiting until the release of Platinum to release Volume 29. If he did this there will at least be on volume 40 by now, which I suspect would be close to the end of the Platinum arc. Personally I think he should have continue the Platinum arc instead of putting it aside and worked on a small portion of HGSS arc until they got deep into the Platinum arc's plot. Also I don't really trust bulbapedia on being the last chapter of the arc, but it could be the last chapter in the magazine version, which means there is still time for the other Pokedex Holders to show up. After all it is a wikipedia based site. They still have time to improve before the volumes are released and if they here a lot of critcism from the fans about the chapters might do it.

They could still have some Pokedex Holder appear in the Platinum arc if not all of them. I disagree that if Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver would have not be released that only the Johto Pokedex Holder would show up because there were some Kanto references in Platinum as the Articuno, Moltress, and Zapdos appears in that game. Also I not even sure that there will be a time where all of the Pokedex Holders to meet together since there is no theory to base that on unless they are murdered, die from a illness or old age.

In my opinion I think that the creation Archer and Ariana as new characters was unnecessary. I think that they should have used Keane and Charmaine as the anagonists since they are based on the the Rocket Executives. If if they are not associated with Giovanni they still could have been the anatognist of the arc because it was never made clear that they redeemed themselves. They could have used Archer and Ariana and as their code name or there birth names and hire the Proton and Pretel to aid them in their sinister plan.

I am still waiting for them to incoperate the Pikachu Colored Pichu and the Spiky Ear Pichu into the story or maybe one of the Pokedex Holders already have caught them. If so they do need to provide some sort of flashback on how the Spiky Eared Pichu was found in Ilex forest shrine the possible connect between it and the Pikachu Colored Pichu and mention how she time travel and where she originally came from. If course it would be a flashback in a flashback or it could be explain after the flashback is over.

Well, to be fair, though, Kusaka did kind of insinuate he was saving something for the GSC remake arc should those games come out by excluding the 2nd Gen legendaries entirely from the FRLG arc, even though they were all catchable in the first remakes (though that could simply be coincidental or an oversight). Plus, he noted that he always felt it sucked that you couldn't play the Johto region on the DS (RSE/FRLG can still be played up to the DS Lite), and looked forward to HGSS in those coverflap comments and everything.

And yeah, no Ho-Oh and Lugia does suck bad. The Kimono girls just got a stupid cameo like the rest to make an unfunny reference to Gold's minor perversion, mostly. Bleh.

@ Mika: The 29th volume was definitely postponed for the release of Platinum. Hell, the author's comment even mentions that game, lol. The fact that it took, like, a year for it to come out adds more meat to this notion.

I'm telling you, HGSS was probably created in mind as a a hand-waved side-story(noticed how nerfed everyone is, even Arceus!!) and that's why Evolutions were used as a gimmick. It's like HGSS's implied message is "A little while after the Team Galactic fiasco in Sinnoh, another story took place. This is the never-before seen adventures of Gold and co.! Watch their Pokemon evolve!!"

It's like the advertisement I saw at this VHS stand in a mall selling Chinese subbed Dragon Ball GT some time in the 90's saying "Before foes Raditz and Vegeta landed on Earth, Goku went on a secret adventure with his sister(??) and Bulma's brother(???)!! This is Dragon Ball GT!!!"

Lmao, even fansubs and fanslations done by English-speaking people are pretty god-awful for that series (not that most others aren't), so that's not much of a surprise when something as simple as YGO gets seriously fucked by those HK mongers who talk (and translate!) like monkeys on LSD. :D

But yeah, that aside, considering the effort that GF put into HGSS to make it more than just a remake, Special's HGSS was just god-awful, and no Tankobon release can fix that Lucifer's trash of an arc.

Originally Posted by Somari

D:<

What's that supposed to mean?

Potential but horribly rushed (Golden Boys was stopped in the middle of a story arc with no real conclusion).

HGSS is not all about the evolutions of everyone's Pokemon; it's also about Silver's issues with his family.

...or it will be, in November. Possibly.



And sorry, but I disagree on integrating that Pichu into the manga, Mika. Unless it happens to be Gold's Pichu for some odd reason, or another baby Pichu by Pika and Chuchu that we are yet to meet. But not a random disconnected Pichu.

And Ariana is evidently there because she's obviously Silver's mom.



On the legendaries, I do want Ho-oh and Lugia reappearing *loves them*

On Sird and Team Galactic, it might get solved in the very mysterious Platinum arc somehow. We can only wait and see, hoping they write Platinum to merge with the end of HGSS or vice versa. Personally, I still hold on to the idea that Sird is Jupiter.

Originally Posted by Kayi Rowling

Personally, I still hold on to the idea that Sird is Jupiter.

I have to admit that I like that theory, but was Sird ever that BUFF? Special Jupiter is like, all muscle.