Shadow Pokemon?

[FloofyPanthar]

Just curious, how many people use the Shadow Pokemon feature in Essentials? I haven't heard of many fangames with Shadow Pokemon in them and I'm interested in hearing everyone's opinion on them. I haven't used Shadow Pokemon and am wondering if it is something I should put in.

 

[TechSkylander1518]

I've pretty much never seen them used, and while I could see them being used as a way to increase difficulty in a game (maybe even make it a special challenge mode, like how some games include Nuzlocke mode), I honestly can't see them becoming very popular. Unless it's the only way to obtain a Pokemon, or if there's something special about catching it as a Shadow (like being shiny) people probably aren't going to be interested in catching Shadow Pokemon. Why go through the trouble of purifying a Pokemon when you could just catch it in the wild? Shadow Pokemon aren't very interesting, either, since they don't look any different (save for Lugia), and any interesting moves are lost when they're purified.

That said, I do think that you could use the code for Shadow Pokemon in some interesting ways. The purification process could just be the hard mode of raising your Pokemon's friendship, and capturing another trainer's Pokemon has all sorts of possible applications. What if you caught an ancient Pokemon from the spirit of a long-dead trainer? What if you caught Genesect from Team Plasma just as they turned it on you? What if you could catch a gym leader's Pokemon and use it like you could in the TCG? (I mean, you'd need an explanation to why you could have it, but)

And the idea of Shadow Pokemon could also be applied in a more fun way if you took an approach like Uranium's to Nuclear forms. Nuclear Pokemon still get healed to not be feral, but they retain their alternate appearance and their nuclear moves.

 

[Jewelwriter]

Funny enough I got a concept of how Shadow Pokemon could have evolved in a game I'm making. And if anything it is probably good that I haven't mainlined the Elemental + and - type system in my game or I can see this mechanic being a pain up Arceus' behind to work with. [If you care to know how I run it in my game let me know and I can PM you about it.]

 

[DerxwnaKapsyla]

I had a mind of my own to make a Gale of Darkness sequel many years ago. I still do and I still have all my very rudimentary documentation for it, but this was when I had no real idea how to make games, so it fell to the wayside. I always felt the Colosseum continuity needed a third game to round off the saga, and there was a perfect hook for it at the end of Gale of Darkness; Eldes and Greevil were arrested, but Ardos escaped and planned to revive Cipher one more time. This completely leaves it open for Ardos to restructure Cipher and terrorize Orre once more. However, it's kinda hard to follow up on making an ultra Shadow Pokemon like Lugia, both in and out of universe. The only next logical steps of threat progression are multiple Shadow Legendaries like Lugia, and/or Shadow Arceus as the game's ultimate Shadow Pokemon.

I had quite a few ideas in mind for places in this game, as well as what would be done where, but it was never enough to fully make it. I had always wanted to go back to it one day, but it feels extremely difficult without making it feel awkward.

 

[Jewelwriter]

I had a mind of my own to make a Gale of Darkness sequel many years ago. I still do and I still have all my very rudimentary documentation for it, but this was when I had no real idea how to make games, so it fell to the wayside. I always felt the Colosseum continuity needed a third game to round off the saga, and there was a perfect hook for it at the end of Gale of Darkness; Eldes and Greevil were arrested, but Ardos escaped and planned to revive Cipher one more time. This completely leaves it open for Ardos to restructure Cipher and terrorize Orre once more. However, it's kinda hard to follow up on making an ultra Shadow Pokemon like Lugia, both in and out of the universe. The only next logical steps of threat progression are multiple Shadow Legendaries like Lugia, and/or Shadow Arceus as the game's ultimate Shadow Pokemon.

I had quite a few ideas in mind for places in this game, as well as what would be done where, but it was never enough to fully make it. I had always wanted to go back to it one day, but it feels extremely difficult without making it feel awkward.

(Excuse my correction system.)

That's a sweet idea. Ardos is the most likely soul that could trigger a Shadow Pokemon mishap. Fudge, I made my entire story of my game around such an idea.

 

[Jewelwriter]

If this counts as double posting then sorry.

Just wanting to be sure this idea isn't forgotten as I do have a recent announcement but you'll have to see my project to get a hint of what it is.

 

[RileyXY1]

Pokemon Rejuvenation uses Shadow Pokemon and overall it handled them properly.

 

[Dabadee]

The plot of the second region in Zeta/Omicron revolves around shadow pokemon. They can be "purified" too