>>44881421Going through the SWSH cycle, I realize that the vast majority of Pokemon players no longer hold the wonder and love for the franchise that they used to when they were younger. Game Freak gave us a test: Could we make do with less? Can we appreciate these games for what they are and not what we want them to be? Can we go outside our preconceptions and make do with a limited selection of Pokemon, and hopefully experience more positive memories with them? People just want to use their favorites and ignore everything else. I loved how SWSH went out of their way to have Pokemon that were largely ignored by the community, especially Pokemon that were only used once or twice before this in the dex, and most of them got significant boosts in their movepool. For instance, look at the Seedot family. Not too many people like Seedot. Seedot and Nuzleaf were infamous for having pretty mediocre movepools with nichey and often useless moves, especially in Gen 3 where they came from. Even in USUM, Seedot's movepool was: Bide, Harden, Growth, Nature Power, Synthesis, Sunny Day, and Explosion. That's it. The only moves that dealt damage were Bide, Nature Power, and Explosion (which knocked it out). Nuzleaf had for the longest time mediocre Normal-type moves like Pound, Fake Out, and Razor Wind; on top of Feint Attack and Extrasensory at a very high level. Shiftry couldn't learn Extrasensory without getting Nuzleaf up to that level. It was a pain in the ass to use Nuzleaf up until ORAS, where Nuzleaf finally had Leaf Blade, and it learned moves at extremely low levels (with Extrasensory being at Level 36). Shiftry had some decent treatment in Gen IV with it getting Nasty Plot, Razor Leaf, and Leaf Storm. But the other two were largely ignored for a long time, with Seedot getting the brunt of it all. With SWSH, Seedot finally got a good level-up movepool with Tackle, Astonish, Absorb, Rollout, Mega Drain, Payback, and Sucker Punch, on top of everything else it had.
