Shroomish · Ruby & Sapphire (RS) #69

3 comments

1. 

   Squirchampion

   (1 month ago)

   This continues and is intended to conclude a sert of comments inspired by some other comments on ASC Mega Gengar ex #284. (Here’s looking at you, Charmaster!)

   EX Ruby & Sapphire continues something the e-Card started and most of ADV/PCG continues; for most evolution lines, the same artist will do artwork for each stage of evolution. Not all evolution lines are completed, but the general idea is, if you like an artist, and you like an evolution line, you can complete a set of that evolution line by that artist. Yuka Morii never did a Camerupt to go with her Numel (EX Dragon 70), but that set does have a Numel and Camerupt set by Naoyo Kimura which you might consider ‘canonical’, with the extra Numel as ‘bonuses’. (As a bonus for the English TCG, the artist lines sometimes even hint at the origins of the cards – that is, which cards came from the set’s complementary half-deck, which are from entirely different promos or packaged product awkwardly mixed into a set, and which actually came from the ‘corresponding’ set.)

   EX RS mostly plays this straight, and the starters provide very good examples. All three lines have a set with Sugimori artwork, and are also complemented by complete sets of Treecko, Grovyle, and Sceptile by Midori Harada; Mudkip, Marshtomp, and Swampert by Mitsuhiro Arita; and Torchic, Combusken, and Blaziken by Kouki Saitou.

   The trickiest it gets for the set is how might it handle the split Wurmple evolution line? Wurmple, Silcoon, and Beautifly are illustrated by Hajime Kusajima, and then Cascoon and Dustox by Midori Harada. But shouldn’t there be a Wurmple by Midori Harada? And there is in fact a Wurmple by Midori Harada – it’s in EX Dragon. Very conspicuously, it doesn’t have anything to evolve into in that set, so it feels like the Wurmple which EX RS’s Cascoon/Dustox evolved from is “revealed” two sets later. It’s a different execution, but it’s reminiscent of things like the Butterfree that Base Set Caterpie/Metapod will evolve into being “revealed” in Jungle. Naoyo Kimura’s Poochyena ‘taking until’ EX Deoxys to evolve into a Mightyena by the same artist is probably more analogous.

   There are some cases where RS complicates it. RS Shroomish is by Atsuko Nishida, but RS Breloom is by Ken Sugimori. Their counterparts arrive in EX Sandstorm – SS Shroomish is by Ken Sugimori, and SS Breloom is by Atsuko Nishida. That is, SS Shroomish evolves into RS Breloom, and this RS Shroomish evolves into SS Breloom. (Are you having fun yet?)

   By the way, SS Shroomish and SS Breloom are among a decent number of Gen 3 cards that came out in the US before they were released in Japan. Little observations like this will add up to anyone who takes time to look through the era’s evolution lines and tries to complete sets by artists. If you do it from the Japanese side of things, a number of cards end up feeling ‘very weird’ and shoved in – as random promos, awkwardly thrown into their TMvTA set – even though they felt natural in their US assemblage. From the US side of things, there are hints of at least one (or two!) scrapped sets scattered across the sets we did get anyways, and things reach a very awkward and confusing conclusion with EX Power Keepers, the set with 100 things ‘wrong’ with it but for which we’ll probably never get any answers.

   ..well, we’ve gotten some. There’s a no doubt interesting story here, involving the fallout from any or all of the WOTC v PUSA lawsuit, the ‘failure’ of the e-Reader, and even the fate of the Crosstrainer and Jamboree sets. It’s really not surprising that sometime after a comment on SS Marill, which suggested it and several other cards, including Steven’s Advice, were probably a card designed by PUSA, ex-WOTC staff did end up making comments to the effect that it was based on a card they’d originally designed for Jamboree; https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Bill%27s_Advice_(Jamboree)

   Actually, I didn’t know about that until checking just now. There are a number of cards I’ve long had suspicions of which I’d now feel a lot more confident saying ‘very obviously’ originated from Jamboree, because there are ‘mistranslations’ across early Gen 3 cards which I’ve always been bothered by, but don’t quite make sense because the chronology didn’t quite work. Something about this now all makes sense. Just off the top of my head, I would be willing to bet good money that Lanette’s Net Search (the JP text isn’t right, which makes sense if it originated as an EN card), SS Marill, and SS Dunsparce all originated from WOTC cards. It’s been 20 years, there’d be negative incentive to keep a paper trail, and people would struggle to remember – in fact, it was disappointing to realize POP Staff didn’t recognize ‘their own doing’ when they weren’t able to cleanly articulate the problem with the text when trying to explain why SS Dunsparce couldn’t be considered equivalent to CES Dunsparce.

   Another interesting thing that ‘disruptions’ do is hint at video game considerations. For example, sticking with Shroomish and Breloom, while the gen 3 TCG has complete sets for them by Atsuko Nishida, Ken Sugimori, and Mitsuhiro Arita, there’s something ‘off’ with the EX Deoxys set;
   https://pkmncards.com/?s=pokemon%3Ashroomish%2Cbreloom+series%3Aex&sort=illus&ord=auto&display=images

   Hajime Kusajima a familiar name for the era so their work on Breloom is unsurprising, but Kanako Eo on Shroomish is something else. Unsurprising to go back and see a comment to the effect that it’s possible that Kanako Eo, a GameFreak staff member at the time, might’ve actually been Shroomish’s designer. That would certainly make sense, and help to explain the guest spot that ‘bumped’ a Kusajima Shroomish from ever being released.

   ~

   I know exactly what point I’m trying to prove, you know, but I’m not terribly sure how to articulate it. I wonder if I can just pick on Kyle Sucevich for a moment, since he’s a player who ended up being hired to work for TPCI. I never ingratiated myself among this community, but Kyle is one of those people I was loosely aware of and don’t necessarily have any negative opinion on as such, but I really doubt Kyle is able to comment anything like this on cards like this – and he was even around when the CES Dunsparce thing came about, and he commented on it on social media at some point. But similar to POP staff’s lack of recognition of a problem they themselves had created, he didn’t pick up on it either. He even seems aware and cognizant of the TCG’s translation history problem and does seem to understand it as a bug and not a ‘feature’ (or even ‘preferred’, as many people seem to think of it as) but he didn’t recognize the CES Dunsparce thing. So if we can use Kyle as an example of a player who was so keen on the cards it ended up as a point of employment for him – doesn’t that sound like the sort of person I’d love to have a chat with? Unfortunately, I was really underwhelmed. So I can pretty comfortably say that no, actually, I am still more ‘connected’ to these cards than even a player like that. (Really, honestly, no malice towards Kyle. He’s fine, he just works as a good example here.)

   As far as collectors, I mean. I will again here contend I am more connected to these cards than most collectors, who are mostly interested in population counts, condition, and whether a card is holofoil or not. I mean, maybe they want to buy MA Bulbasaur because it’s a nice, clean Bulbasaur card and everyone loves starters, but if you love the starters just save yourself the money and replay FRLG on an emulator or something. Actually, since I’m a Nintendo shareholder, I should ask you to please buy FRLG for the Nintendo Switch 2? Thank you very much. But you don’t need the card. It’s a nice, clean card, but it’s a card from a scrapped set that works as evidence of the e-Reader’s “failure” being engineered and is actually a great example of why the ‘Ken Sugimori stock art’ approach was actually really great and was only ever “my lobster is too buttery” griping because my goodness do I miss Ken Sugimori stock art now that they’ve stopped using it. Whoever I end up selling that and all these other cards to…I am not going to have a conversation like that with them about that or any other card. But yes, thank you, I will accept $17 USD for a common card …or whatever it ends up being.

   Now you might ask, why don’t I just keep RS Shroomish, if I have such an attachment to it, since it won’t sell for much anyways? But all these cards are ‘connected’ with each other. Not as master sets, since I never completed any master sets anyways, but as little triptychs either within or across sets. They’re all telling a story, executing the card game’s design philosophy, revealing something about the franchise’s development history, or sometimes even hinting at backroom corporate intrigues resulting in contract termination and cancelled sets. I can’t sell RS Shroomish unless I also sell SS Breloom, the same way I can’t sell UF Steelix ex unless I also sell UF Onix. And so on. Imagine owning a set of books where Volume 2 sells for a million dollars, but Volume 1 and 3 only sell for 10 dollars each. It doesn’t matter a thing. When you have determined it is time to sell Volume 2 to collect your million dollars, you’re not going to see much reason to hold onto Volume 1 or 3, and will probably want to part with them as a set anyways.

   Anyways, I really should cut myself off here. Not only have I probably already met and spoken with anyone who I might have interesting conversations with on any of this, it turns into a bad habit. Maybe one day, in some 1-in-a-billion chance, I might meet an old Creatures staff member and end up having a conversation about some of this stuff. I’d get to tell them how cool I think all this stuff they put together was. Wouldn’t that be something? Well, it’s incredibly unlikely to occur, and even if it did, I wouldn’t have to still own the cards to have that conversation.

   There’s something elegiac in all this. What a random choice to leave these parting comments on SS Shroomish. At the same time, what better way to prove the point? Yes, even this Shroomish is interesting to me. These cards were honestly just so neat, and I wish more people ever understood it the same way.

   Take care – I wish most of you the best, really!

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   • 

     CharmasterSquirchampion

     (1 month ago)

     Huh, it’s interesting to imagine that the English Lanette’s Net Search, Steven’s Advice (Pre-Power Keepers errata) and Dunsparce may have actually been the correct versions all along! I say this as someone who’s played a lot of games with Steven’s Advice… and with cards Wizards of the Coast translated. The idea of THEM making cards and POKÉMON CARD LABS copying those cards and mistranslating them would be ironic!

     You should keep posting insights like these. Even if we won’t always have something similarly interesting to say in reply, it’ll at least deepen our appreciation for the cards. Personally, even though I mostly post competitive history comments, my enjoyment of Pokémon cards is multi-faceted… I enjoy playing with them, I enjoy their artists, I enjoy their holofoil effects, I enjoy the personal memories I connect to many cards in my collection, and the memories that other people share about certain cards, and yes, I enjoy learning about the subtle design decisions that go into those cards and about funny connections between the TCG and video games (Like how Intimidate appeared as an attack on Giovanni’s Nidoking years before Abilities were introduced in the video games) and that sort of thing.

     Reply
     • 

       SquirchampionCharmaster

       (1 month ago)

       I don’t know if you should necessarily interpret them as ‘correct’. Most of the cards I noticed as having something off about them don’t affect gameplay, and so can and have gone unnoticed. The most consequential one I’ve noticed so far would be Sandstorm Marill. In a hypothetical scenario, Marill was designed by WOTC and might’ve been done so during a time when Basic Pokémon with free retreat wasn’t particularly notable. However, by e-Card, free retreat by default was already a ‘luxury’ only evolved Pokemon had access to, not even Baby Pokemon got to keep their free retreat for e-Card.

       So even in that era Marill would be exceptional, but with not a single Basic Pokemon in the entire Gen 3 TCG having a retreat cost of 0, it seems safe to say Marill is in effect a clear violation of – here again, it’s whatever you want to call it; whether it was an algorithm, a game philosophy, card design rules, etc. – there weren’t supposed to be any Basic Pokemon with a retreat cost of 0 for an era.

       I noticed a handful of cards like this which I would say isn’t a suggestion the problem is limited, but I was working in isolation and with only so much experience in competitive play. A lack of competitive play experience is the hindrance people think it is. I always seemed to have more of an intuition for why certain rulings went the way they did because by ignoring WOTC/PUSA I got to understand the underlying mechanics and principles of the game in a way almost everyone else seemed to have a reductionist “oh, these rulings don’t make sense” comprehension. Having said that, I have no intuition for the ‘meta’ for lack of experience, so there are little things here and there that might make a huge impact, but I would scroll past when looking for hints of something amiss.

       Some of these will turn out to be ambiguous. Look at PK Sharpedo. Its attack Energy costs are ‘wrong’ for a Dark-type Pokemon for the Generation 3 block. However, it’s an edge case, because the card was released in Japan after Gen 4 had already begun. It’s plausible that PCL decided the accommodations they made for Dark-type attack costs didn’t need to be maintained for a card being released after a Basic Dark Energy card had come out. I would still bet PK Sharpedo is a “WOTC/PUSA card” because it seems like the exact sort of thing they wouldn’t notice and there’s 100 other things other ‘wrong’ with PK, and you can anticipate any number of ways by which PCL would just shrug and focus on bigger issues with other cards PUSA submitted for review and approval. But I would not give them any sort of credit along the lines of “PUSA knew a Basic Dark Energy was coming out soon anyways so designed around it”, because even for PK I think the suspected cards should be considered as cards designed by WOTC and ‘carried forward’ by PUSA staff (some of whom were ex-WOTC, which if we didn’t know for a fact would be in part betrayed by consistent translation errors carried across from e-Card into ADV, and even into ‘modernity’).

       Of course, you might need to adjust your thinking a bit. “How would WOTC design a card for Sharpedo? It’s a Gen 3 Pokemon, and they lost the license during Gen 2.” Your thinking would need to adjust to something along the lines of “well, what if this wasn’t even a Sharpedo in the first place”? It’s convenient that most of the cards that stick out – SS Marill, SS Dunsparce – are Pokemon that existed during Gen 2, but if you accept as a prior – which I believe you should – that Jamboree Bill’s Advice was quickly tweaked into HL Steven’s Advice, you see how easy it is to adapt cards as needed. Remember, the split between WOTC and NOA was not an amenable one and was partially litigated in court, so there’d be a sort of “yeah you can use those cards, but change it a bit so it’s not so obvious…” because imagine trying to explain these things in front of a judge, when there are lifelong Pokemon fans who never picked up on this stuff.

       In other words, PK Sharpedo could’ve originally been a Houndoom, or an Umbreon, or maybe even a Murkrow. Sure, the attack names rule out Murkrow, but then again – why does PK Absol ex have an attack called ‘Psychic Pulse’? You can suspect a decent amount of leeway in how a card might’ve been ‘massaged’ through this proces. So PK Sharpedo could’ve originally been any Pokemon with a jaw. Granbull? Raticate? Who knows.

       Once you look at things this way, it will get pretty confusing – PK Snorunt doesn’t even try to hide the fact it’s a tortured retread of HL Trapinch – I mean, come on. Why does an Ice type have a Rock-themed attack? It’s as if that “X is the same as Y” guy designed a card. But you might protest that HL Trapinch came out well after WOTC lost the license, so wouldn’t that card prove WOTC wasn’t involved? No, it suggests a more complicated story – the pedigree and provenance is not going to be the same across the board. I think this made those few people I did encourage to start to look into this understand it as “oh, then this is all hypotheticals with nothing materially supporting any of it”. This is not a damning flaw for any individual, since people often struggle with multifactorial/multi-casual things. (To again refute a suggestion by parttimetcgcollector, this is just not the makings for a Youtube video. It’s hardly even the content for a blog. People prefer confident statements even if they’re wrong, to ambiguous statements even if more than enough due consideration and receipts are provided.)

       But to return to the original point – for any gen 3 card that you might determine was indeed designed by WOTC/PUSA, should you refer to it as the ‘correct version’? It’d certainly be the original, but it would also almost certainly be a card designed for a different block, by people who didn’t have access to the block’s “style guide”, and clearly were never able to intuit what that style guide might even look like or what should be considered. This is partially principle/semantics, but it’s also, you know, don’t go making an argument that actually the original Steven’s Advice was the ‘correct version all along’ and players should switch back to that one, because you create an inconsistency. Not only would it be impossible to identify all the cards originally designed by WOTC/PUSA, it’ll also be impossible to find someone who’d do it for you. (I deleted all my unpublished notes a while ago because the sunk cost thing kept me coming back and spending too much time on it, which is happening again here and now.)

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