When Pokemon Red and Blue first came to my country I remember playing them with my friends from school. Very few of us had internet and none of us knew how to use it. Furthermore, our Pokemon were not at level 100 (at first), we didn’t know every single attack that existed and in fact, we didn’t know every Pokemon that existed although they were only 151. Those days the Pokemon Battles were extremely different. I couldn’t guess which Pokemon my enemy would use and what attacks it would have. The only thing I knew is that he was going to use his Starter Pokemon (and later on he would use Mewtwo). I have heard a lot of people nowadays saying that they prefer those types of battles and I am not blaming them. Every battle was something new and exciting. You didn’t know what your enemy was preparing for you. A friend of mine destroyed all of us when he first placed Counter on Mewtwo, because he would deflect our Hyper Beams! I became very powerful when I first placed Blizzard on Blastoise because this way I could defeat both Charizard and Venusaur. We had a lot of fun those days due to the fact that every day we would discover something new.
Some years passed and we now had Pokemon Gold and Silver as well as Internet. Things changed a little because now if we got stuck somewhere we would check the internet and if we wanted to create a powerful Pokemon we would take the advise of a guide. The battles though were still quite unpredictable because all these guides were at their first levels (and/or some of us didn’t know where to search).
With the arrival of Ruby and Sapphire and the Advance generation, the internet became full of guides, Pokemon of the Week columns and things like that, that were puting every Pokemon in a Tier. When I saw that, I first thought: “Ok, that’s good because now people will not use Uber Pokemon against the others”. This thought was right, but people continued using some specific Pokemon that are well known today as the Over Used Pokemon. Things got even worse when I realized that not only the Pokemon were more or less the same, but the movesets were also very predictable.
Today we have Diamond and Pearl and things are even worse. You are good if you remember the “counters” and the “anti-counters” and not if you use the POkemon you like with moves that will surprise your enemy. When I first joined this site I remember Eraleas saying to me that he doesn’t care about all these, but he cares about Pokemon he likes; and in fact he really knew how to use them. I totally agree with him. That’s what the trainer is all about. You need skill and courage to differ from the others…
You may wonder what’s the point of this article. Well, this year I want to start a series of articles about the surprise factor in the Pokemon Games. I believe that we can defeat our opponents using smart and unpredictable Pokemon as well as movesets. I plan to post a “Surprise Pokemon of the Week” every so often with the help of Ninjomewtwo and your ideas. So, first of all I want to hear your opinion about this. Leave your comments here, as well as in the thread that I will create on the Forum. I will be very happy to see a lot of people caring about this project, because we may change the way we play Pokemon…