>>20830962Japs call them secret agents, which is cool.
The reason they exist is to create obstacles, reward progress, and create a bond with your pokemon partner outside of battle. That's why people who want to replace them with items like surfboards are stupid--in addition to the fact that there's not list of items that can replicate HM moves that isn't fucking dumb.
The clear solution is to make it so that a pokemon can use an HM move in the field without knowing it, if it's compatible and you own the HM and you have the respective badge. That way it doesn't interfere with your movepool and you don't need to drag around a shitmon.
I honestly don't mind because I like the idea of bringing along a guy on my team with a role other than battle that has pickup and is a qt, from a story perspective, however autistic that sounds.
