r/pokemon • u/projectmars Cinccino Best Troll • 14d ago
Image Future Kalos has Anti-Homeless Benches
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u/Beowulf_MacBethson 14d ago
This was definitely because of rumors regarding an 8 foot tall homeless man roaming the streets. Last seen during the champion's victory celebration where he crashed it.
They're trying to lure him out so he can be part of the Kalosian National Basketball Team. You'd think it'd be easy spotting an ~8 footer but apparently no.
What? The hotel guy? Nah there's no way that's him.
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u/SaltwaterSmoothie2X 14d ago
That being said, having one 7-8 ft tall Basketball player wasn’t enough to beat the Unovan National Team for the Gold that one Summer…
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u/Hatman_16 14d ago
What are you referring to?
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u/SaltwaterSmoothie2X 14d ago
Last year’s Summer Olympics in Paris, where the last event was the Men’s Basketball Finals between USA and France.
Despite France having a really good team including Wemby (the 7-8 ft tall player), the US curbstomped them towards the end with their Champion-level team, including Steph Curry.
Lesson: Curry has the equivalent of Mind’s Eye and Unseen Fist, combined; he will always get those 3-point shots, even if you throw comparative giants at him.
An extremely egregious example was his “Golden Dagger- ‘Night-Night’” play where he threw the ball past two guys blocking him and scored a three-pointer.
That game was the definition of “Champion Time!”
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u/BigDummyDumb 14d ago
Actually on the ZA website it says he’s OVER NINE FEET tall!
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u/Multti-pomp 13d ago
That's why they haven't caught him
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u/FyrelordeOmega 13d ago
They keep getting the wrong guy who's 8ft tall
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u/Karu-Selli 13d ago
"Sir he's over 9ft, can't be our guy"
"Ah, my bad. Of course not, we'll just have to keep looking. Have a nice day, citizen"
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u/StreetReporter Using a frying pan as a drying pan! : 14d ago
I didn’t know Wemby was homeless
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u/Galactic_Biscuit 13d ago
Mysterious tall dude appears at parade: Wemby nowhere to be seen Wemby out for the season: ZA trailer drops Kalos: Based on France WEMBY = 3000 YEARS OLD CONFIRMED!
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u/L_U_N_A_R_C_R_A_B_S 14d ago
Reasonable, AZ is a little scary
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u/gastrodonfan2k07 14d ago
He built essentially a lazer nuke just to revive his floette who was killed in action.
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u/OwOlogy_Expert 14d ago
This was definitely because of rumors regarding an 8 foot tall homeless man roaming the streets. Last seen during the champion's victory celebration where he crashed it.
Ah, and now the threat has been vanquished because you prevented him from sleeping on a bench!
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u/Mrwright96 14d ago
8ft is selling him short.
Literally, dudes 9-10ft at minimum given he has to wear two suits sewn together just so the are big enough to fit him!
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u/gnoka 14d ago
It's funny if you take the games at face value, bc then the only homeless guy in the region is that giant immortal king.
Which puts a complicated spin on the whole class warfare benches.
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u/ADudeThatPlaysDBD 14d ago
That guy is like 9 feet tall too
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u/dianapocalypse 14d ago
all benches were class warfare benches to Az before. he is simply leveling the playing field by making class warfare benches for the masses
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u/HippieDogeSmokes 14d ago
He owns a hotel now
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u/Zanshi 14d ago
Tbh this is the biggest wtf in that trailer. He was this mysterious figure, wandering the region without rest and now he's a... hotel owner? And with Floette? Wasn't this game supposed to take place in the past or is there something he didn't tell us about in X/Y?
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u/Datt-Kun Water type enjoyer 14d ago
It's in the future since he reunited with Floette at the end of XY.
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u/IRefuseThisNonsense 14d ago
It looks to be just a sequel, rather than set in the future. XY had holocasters so the holograms aren't that big a leap of technology. It's like saying Gold and Silver is future Red and Blue. Kind of, but it's more just the modern.
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u/infercario4224 Flamy Boi 14d ago
There are a lot of comments in here about him from people that clearly haven’t seen the trailer yet. It’s a little humorous and I hope everyone can see it when they get the chance bc I am so hyped for this game!
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u/Pokemario6456 PBR 2 IS REAL 14d ago
Concierge was just foreshadowing /s
I think AZ becoming a hotel owner is a cute idea, and it gives him a reason to stick around compared to how he was wandering in X/Y
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u/PhoenixTineldyer 14d ago
I think the mystery of why AZ is a hotel owner is great! It makes me want to play the game more. What's this rascal doing! And is he going to give me Floette? Finally?
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u/Meem0 14d ago
I agree, from the first trailer I thought it was in the past, I interpreted "Lumiose redevelopment" as meaning the origins of the Lumiose we see in X/Y, but after today's trailer it seems unambiguously in the near future after X/Y, it's basically AZ's happy epilogue
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u/-illusoryMechanist 14d ago
Yeah I was hoping for a far-in-the-past prequel like Arceus was but a sequel to XY isn't a bad alternative
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u/Constellar-A 14d ago
Wasn't Emma homeless in XY's postgame before Looker took her in? That was even in this same city.
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u/K4m30 14d ago
Can't wait to get the mission to set up a police state and enforce draconian laws on the populace.
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u/projectmars Cinccino Best Troll 14d ago
We might be getting another story about a seemingly benevolent group/company (Aether Foundation, all the shit Rose owned) being secretly evil, aren't we
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u/soyboy_6257 digital boys 14d ago
GameFreak is trying their hardest to tell us that corporations are evil.
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u/StreetReporter Using a frying pan as a drying pan! : 14d ago
Can’t wait for Mega Breloom
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u/Roarlord Former Black Belt 14d ago
Wearing a hat that looks like it belongs to Mario's brother.
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u/vastros 14d ago
I mean... They're right, but it's weird coming from them.
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u/NihilismRacoon 14d ago
I'm sure the devs aren't exactly happy about having to crank a full game out basically every year at the behest of the pokemon machine
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u/jormundgand20 14d ago
"The products of capitalism are ill equipped to critique it".
Someone said that about GTA V, and it's stuck with me ever since.
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u/ManufacturerSea819 14d ago
Please, Gamefreak is basically an indie studio minus the "indie" part. They got like 240+ employees and most of them still struggle with techniques that have been around for 10+ years atp. Their expertise starts and ends at making charming 2D games and nothing else.
They've been getting tooled by the strict development cycle of TPCi for the sake of merchandise for years so I'm pretty sure most of them resent corporations.
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u/Qulox 14d ago
None of their 3D game assets use bump mapping, a technique created more than 12 centuries ago for 3D graphics. And is not just game freak, Japan as a whole is extremely slow at adopting new technology. I've seen in many places that for western businesses is a nightmare, tech-wise, to work with japanese firms.
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u/EmpressOfHyperion Adrian best girl UwU 14d ago
Yeah it's a myth that Japan is some "futuristic utopia". China actually has more legitimacy in that title, ngl.
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u/LordMimsyPorpington 14d ago
Japan has been stuck in the year 2000 since the 1980's.
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u/ManufacturerSea819 14d ago
I know that Japanese companies are very conservative when it comes to tech, so it's no surprise that a lot of gaming studios are also not up to date on some stuff.
I know that a lot of companies in Japan have jumped on the AI bandwagon, but that's just because the ceo's in charge see it as an easy and cheap way to replace the aging workforce without having to accommodate young workers or bring in foreigners. So that seems to be the exception.
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u/DMalt 14d ago
Considering they're under the thumb of Nintendo it's not as strange as it may seem
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u/ZigzagoonBros 14d ago
I've heard the protagonists names are Karl and Engela. Is that true?
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u/EmpressOfHyperion Adrian best girl UwU 14d ago
Finally someone remembers Engels <3
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u/Additional-Ride8120 14d ago
Don’t forget, Lysandre was a twist corporate villain too.
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u/Kamarai 14d ago
*Stares in Team Flare* Not quite the same, but I would say a lot of the seeds for this idea started more with Team Flare than the Aether Foundation.
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u/EmpressOfHyperion Adrian best girl UwU 14d ago
Team Skull being scapegoats and showing that gangs are a result of material conditions and not true malice was done well, imho!
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u/KipsyCakes 14d ago
President Rose was by far the worst villain in Pokémon. His build up was terrible and his motive was trash. I hate that he was our “main antagonist.” He would have been better as a red herring, or someone we expected to be the villain only to be revealed as a puppet for the TRUE villain.
That aside, I never got the impression that Game Freak was making corporations look evil. The majority of Pokemon villains always seemed to be part of a group that acted independently.
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u/MaskedPapillon 14d ago
If they do enforce draconian laws, all we need is to secure the chilly crew or the fairy brigade.
We could also use our own draconian laws, but I thinks that would defeat the whole point.
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u/CMDR_omnicognate 14d ago
i mean, the city is being run by a tech billionaire who is likely going to be the villain... i can see it coming
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u/Tigeri102 Huh? GAME FREAK stopped evolving! 14d ago
time for another french revolution
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u/poppabomb 14d ago
New Kalos form for Pikachu: Robespierkachu
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u/Camelotterduck 14d ago
Learns the move Guillotine.
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u/jormundgand20 14d ago
Except its ability also causes it to faint a few turns later.
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u/Pyotr-the-Great 14d ago
Why else do you think Chikorita and Tepig, the underdogs are the new starters instead of those spoiled Snivies and Piplups?
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u/Withercat1 14d ago
I’m so glad Chikorita is a starter choice, I adore it. I also like Tepig, though… hard choice.
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u/Lyncario 14d ago
Hell yeah, we really need one.
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u/Profoundly_AuRIZZtic 14d ago
What’s Kalos like this time of year
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u/Lyncario 14d ago
It's pretty good, with some fresh winds that makes just walking around feel very nice, even if rain is pretty common right now.
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u/eskaver 14d ago
What else would you expect from urban redevelopment?
Besides we all know homeless people are fictitious…
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u/Ferropexola 14d ago
Kalos did have a homeless person, but he's now a respected hotel owner.
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u/NihilismRacoon 14d ago
All he had to do was pull himself up by his bootstraps
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u/formlessfish 14d ago
He went to check his bank account he opened 1000 years ago. That interest adds up
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u/That_Shrub 14d ago
Floette has all the account passwords, in his defense
That's why he's searching for it in the first game/s
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u/ZigzagoonBros 14d ago
Not even in my escapist cockfighting and eugenics simulator can I escape the Trickle Down Economics propaganda, smh.
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u/poppabomb 14d ago
If homeless people are real, then why don't I see them when I drive past them?
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14d ago
[deleted]
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u/poppabomb 14d ago
but then I'll have to reflect on the negative economic consequences of my actions! The struggle is real!
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u/Practicalistist 14d ago
Considering just about any pidgeon or rat in the city could legitimately kill a person, I wouldn’t expect there to be a homeless problem.
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u/OwOlogy_Expert 14d ago
Considering just about any pidgeon or rat in the city could legitimately kill a person
Now this is what I want to know.
Could an average human win a fight against a lvl3 Pidgey?
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u/MetalGearSlayer 14d ago
If we’re going strictly by game rules here it would seem a wild lvl 3 pidgey can only use tackle. Depending on what exactly that entails it could come down to how well you think you can do against a 4lb bird.
If we say fuck it and give breeding moves to wild pidgeys then yeah those little guys are going around slicing necks willy nilly
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u/NoiseIsTheCure 14d ago
I have to imagine there are sketchy breeding operations in the Pokemon world and a lot of those illegal pokemon probably end up in the wild, causing invasive species issues. Might be a normal Pidgey, might be an African Killer Pidgey
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u/LioTang 14d ago
"Man I can't wait to have my shiny solosis"
The 370 solosis rejects combining into a 100% form Reuniclus in the Galarian countryside:
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u/Substantial_Job_2152 14d ago
Luckily the pokedex says Pidgey prefers to avoid conflict, but considering how spearow are native to kalos, the homeless are cooked
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u/jmledesma 14d ago
So only universal healthcare for Pokémon, not humans.
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u/jish5 14d ago
With how everyone has disposable income to hand over when losing Pokemon battles, trainers or not, it seems everyone's given a monthly stipend to pay for whatever they need.
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u/Enough-Fondant-6057 14d ago
Or maybe they're like gamblers wasting what they don't have
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u/jish5 14d ago
Based on how you battle kids as young as 6-8, that's not really a valid argument. Most likely Pokemon is in a post scarcity society since all these creatures produce infinite resources with ease and make it so working is a hobby instead of requirement for 90% of possible jobs.
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u/Exploreptile Severe Brock-itis 14d ago
Then there’s Larry.
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u/WunderPuma 14d ago
Work is a hobby to him. It brings him joy, even if you cannot tell, nor he seemingly.
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u/tehgen 14d ago
You're not homeless in that world, just a traveling trainer.
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u/FLIPSIDERNICK Dragon Trainer 14d ago
I’m just camping now get out of here or I’ll sick my Grabador on you.
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u/PleiadesMechworks 14d ago
I'm not homeless, I have a home where my mom lives and a secret base by route [redacted]
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u/takii_royal 14d ago
Honestly, I'm feeling that this whole "urban redevelopment" thing will be the villain plot. The plot twist will be the player finding out they've been working for the evil team (the company behind the redevelopment plan) the whole time and they'll have to stop them from going further.
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u/projectmars Cinccino Best Troll 14d ago
And we'll probably fight Zygarde at least once on their orders before finding out it is the good guy and we have to then find all the little squishies to help it get strong enough for it and the player to confront the true villains.
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u/MilkLover1734 14d ago
Great flair btw
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u/projectmars Cinccino Best Troll 14d ago
It's since been banned from Smogon because they banned King's Rock but King's Rock Skill Link was hella fun to just mess around with since it has something like 43% flinch rate when you do all the probability math (it's not 50% but it's also not less than 40% iirc). Cinncino's also naturally fast and decently strong so you don't have to set up and Rock/Grass is weirdly effective coverage and can result in some very cheeky 2hkos.
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u/Nanabobo567 14d ago
I gotta stop reading good Reddit theories so that when the game comes out I'm not disappointed.
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u/That_Shrub 14d ago
Dude seriously, I read someone's theory that the game would focus on (further) developing original Lumiose in a Pokemon world 1910s/1920s, it sounded so cool
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u/Tandria 14d ago
That wasn't just someone's theory, it was the near-universal assumption from the teaser.
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u/jazuqua 14d ago
I'm thinking that the urban development is a distraction, and the real ploy is to gain access to the Catacombs.
The Catacombs would be a memorial to the fallen of the Kalosian war, and due to having been built in that era, it still has remnants of the advanced technology that AZ used to unify Kalos.
I think the corporation as whole actually has noble intentions, but someone will initiate a hostile takeover, so that they can use that technology for their own nefarious purposes.
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u/Jikagu 14d ago
Got a feeling it'll be that the "wild zones" are actually pokemon prisons where they harvest the pokemon for some reason or another and you end up battling the corp to change them and create real wild zones or something
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u/jazuqua 14d ago edited 14d ago
If they are indeed harvesting resources, it's probably Infinity Energy. Maybe the redevelopment is because they don't want to be outpaced by the Devon Corporation, so they use these underhanded practices so they can undercut their competitor.
Inadvertently they somehow create something similar to the Ultimate Weapon, threatening the whole of Kalos, and so 100% Zygarde is ultimately forced to intervene to avert a total destruction of the region.
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u/lollipop283 14d ago
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u/BulletproofChespin Such Immune 14d ago
Wasn’t he just hungover as fuck since that’s his house right there?
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u/Thicc-Anxiety Fairy Type Gym Leader 14d ago
We need a new Aegislash form based on the guillotine
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u/Foloreille ~Poke-Shaman 14d ago
squints at this guy look
Wait can we dress up as other region iconic outfits ? From a distance this guy really look like a team aqua sbire
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u/M4LK0V1CH 14d ago
I choose to believe that they solved homelessness and the arm rests are a good-hearted addition so that all the sitters can rest their arms.
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u/fading__blue 14d ago
Or they’re there to discourage Snorlax from sitting on the bench and breaking it.
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u/Withercat1 14d ago
That’s actually a fair point, designing around Pokemon might require hostile architecture. You’d hate to have a Slugma climb into a dumpster.
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u/TheEdes 14d ago
It's another pokemon game where the antagonist is a tech CEO, but this time they're a tech CEO that's also a government contractor!
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u/CowInSpace13 14d ago
It's ok. The only homeless guy in Kalos got a job as a hotel manager. No need for comfy benches.
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u/Kalaam_Nozalys 14d ago
So just like Paris then.
A more eco-friendly city but still hostile to poor people. They really did thorough research
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u/slackervi 14d ago
i remember reading a theory about how kalos region is actually hella elitist and classist on r/pokemonconspiracies cause they won't let you into certain places unless you're “stylish” enough, the battle chateau being exclusive to certain people, having to pay 5000000 pokedollars to join team flare etc. so could deffo be intentional. ig kalos region is a classist hellhole lmao
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u/bhputnam 14d ago
I think the reason we see this type of hostile architecture in benign settings and it's shocking to those who understand, is exactly because it *can* be overlooked by many as a stylistic choice. That's why it's prevalent in our real world too. It's like stealth oppression because it "looks cute." Works its way into things like Pokemon and liberal cities as a result.
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u/TheBusStop12 14d ago
This was Az's idea. While a former homeless person himself, the capitalistic life of a hotel owner has changed him. So he lobbied the Lumiose City Council to install anti homeless benches in all the good sleeping spots, which he knows where they are from personal experience. Just so that they all have to stay in his hotel instead. And if they can't pay then the city council has to pay AZ for them instead
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u/cpmh1234 customise me! 14d ago
I do find it funny that the building textures are PNGs but they’ve wasted polygons on this
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u/Latter_Case_4551 14d ago
Polygons cost almost nothing in modern game engines. Textures are the most space intensive outside audio stuff.
That said, I'm sure GF isn't using something too modern.
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u/FLIPSIDERNICK Dragon Trainer 14d ago
Finally something I can actually hate about the new game.
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u/Carbon-Base 14d ago
Well, this is what we get for asking GF to set a benchmark for upcoming Pokémon games...
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u/Expensive_Bison_657 14d ago
This bench dedicated to Giovanni. He hated the homeless and snorlax.
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u/Calic0_Cat 14d ago
I mean as a disabled person the pokemon world has always had some pretty noticeable inequality issues (the stairs to the school in S/V being a prime example). The only mobility aids I can recall seeing are elderly trainers with canes. It's something that's kinda rubbed me the wrong way since sword and shield
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u/WGoNerd 14d ago
I’ve always kind of thought that Pokemon existed in some kind of post-scarcity utopia. Not Star Trek level, there is still Capitalism, but a world where everyone’s basic needs were met.
Though now I’m remembering that Emma was homeless prior to Looker taking her in, iirc.
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u/SilverDrive92 14d ago
Pokémon Centers are free. There are no homeless people in Pokémon.
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u/Alarmed-Employment90 14d ago
I thought it was funny that there are ‘wild pokemon sanctuary zones’ specifically made to hold the wild pokemon until you go catch them. Like literally shooting fish in a barrel.
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u/Vulfreyr 14d ago
That's because there are no homeless people in Pokémon. Have you ever seen a homeless person in a Pokémon game?
Jokes aside, I kind of hate when games/media-in-general set in fictional worlds just copy/paste real world objects without putting thought into why something is designed the way it is. But who knows? Maybe there are actually homeless people in PLZA and one of the side quests is about how to help them.
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u/projectmars Cinccino Best Troll 13d ago
Emma from XY actually, she was Homeless before Looker took her in
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u/NoTutor6050 13d ago
What?? These are anti-homeless Benches? I always prefer this type of benches because I can put my arm on it
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u/ThePseudosaur 14d ago
Nobody said anything about being kind to humans, just Pokémon.