"this is actually a creative choice by the RBY team, referencing the fact that if you leave a child out in the snow and ice it will die" made me almost snort root beer up my nose
There was a post on r/stunfisk recently about "what pokemon would be craziest to backport to an earlier generation" and it turns out that Regice in Gen 1 is one of the best answers.
As a Dewgong enthusiast, seeing Dewgong excel quite well in RBY UU and proceeding to just get told "no" after gen 1, while sad foe me, is also hilarious at the same time.
As an aside, the reason Haze is an Ice move is because of Dragon Quest! In DQ3, the final boss has an attack later called Disruptive Wave, which is described as chilling air, and resets all stat changes.
@@tatherva7387 By definition, mist can be made up of ice crystals as well as water vapor. Also, while Haze is "Black Mist", Mist is "White Mist", so the moves are kind of counterparts to each other.
@@Leet-iz2fz I guess I could see that. The technical definition seems like a stretch but the explanation of the Japanese names makes sense with the White Mist and Black Mist thing so I get that part. Reading it again I think they just meant that the move Mist is ice, not some deep galaxy brain introspection on the nature of water in its various states of matter like I originally read it lol
Gen 9 did buff ice types a lot with how snow works and with a lot of good ice types but its really telling how the biggest gen 9 buff for ice types is allowing ice types to transform into not ice types... ice types into tera-water or fairy or steel means they get to be a type that doesnt suck defensively while also keeping their ice type stab and gaining a new stab
Something someone I knew noticed about Snow early on in gen 9 was that Snow buffs ice types, and it’s a step up from hail teams, but it doesn’t buff mono ice. Particularly the best snow setting move was given to slowking of all mons and the only snow warning mon we got was snowbama which is uhhhh ouch. I don’t know how much this changes things but I thought it was pretty notable
@@SomeAsian mostly due to aurora veil from a-ninetails in combination with bax. If snow had worked like prior gens instead of giving a defense boost, bax still would have gone to ubers for sure, but may have taken longer to do so. Obviously, with the new snow defensive buff and Aurora veil, bax was genuinely unbreakable on the physical side.
@@SomeAsian Yep, Baxcalibur got scale shot which has amazing chemistry with the loaded dice item (since baxcalibur also has icicle spear, it has 2 quazi-skill-shot mulit-attacks that play into its stab) that, combined with the re-introduction of alolan ninetails with snow warning and arguably the move with the most busted effect ever, aurora veil, coming back, baxcalibur with scale shot now has what can usually be a 250% defense and 200% sp. def. pokemon with already okay bulk, which means the defense drop of scale drop barely matters, and its just a stab dragon 4-5 hit move that also raises speed on a pseudo-legendary So, yeah, ubers
@@mainzer45In addition to that, Baxcalibur also, for some Arceus-forsaken reason, got *Scale Shot* from DLC1...when Loaded Dice was already one of its best items and when it could easily forego Leftovers despite Gen 09 being hazards hell due to Ice Body + Snow's defense buff (+ Slowking & Glowking's free pivoting via Chilly Reception). DLC1 really was just a perfect (hail)storm of various factors for it since it was already bordering on Ubers even beforehand.
Huge agree. I wouldn't have held it against them at all if they had just used text and pngs for those jokes, and they often do anyway, but the little changes in facial expression and stuff like that adds so much and helps give these videos a unique feel
Jumping back and forth through your videos by literally just a year and seeing you pre-and-post-yassification is so jarring like i keep swinging between "yes sir you're absolutely correct" and "YES QUEEN YOU'RE SO RIGHT!"
Something that wasn't mentioned in the video is that in Generation 1, outside of Multiplayer, Haze also resets your Pokemon's Badge Boosts. How this works is during Single Player, when you beat Brock, Surge, Koga, and Blaine, their badges will give you a 12.5% boost to Attack, Defense, Speed, and Special respectively. However, the only time this is ever really applicable is if Agatha's Golbat ever uses the move.
I did legitimately use Venonat in a challenge run. Unbound Insane, Monobug LC. Venonat was the only thing that got Skill Swap in time for Gym 3 to get Aerilate off of Mega Pinsir.
@@DoctorSpacebar I fell in love with Venonat after using him in a LC Draft League He did a lot for my team for a pokemon worth so little points, being second in usefulness to my Bulk Up Crabrawler
Speaking of Articuno having a limited movepool, I found out recently that when you catch it in RBY, it exclusively has Peck and Ice Beam. It learns Blizzard the next level, then Agility and Mist. All of the birbs have the same really fucking tiny level up movepool, it’s hilarious.
Gamefreak: *Shows off Avalugg* This is a bulky, slow as fuck Ice type! The fandom: Gamefreak, this is the 7th time you've brought a shitty Ice type to class
Kind of a random observation, but I can’t express how much I love it when you alter the expressions of the pokemon sprites based on how well they’re doing in combat (like how they look sad/frustrated when they’re doing badly). It’s so charming and maintains their cartoony vibe. It also reminds me of how units in modern Fire Emblem games do the same, even if it’s probably a coincidence haha
I know this isn't the first time you've brought it up, but... I thought I was insane for 23 years. I never could find any footage of... the foot. I remember a Jynx using Mega Kick against me once (I think it was because of Metronome or something), and, yeah, that animation kinda threw me for a loop. Like... did I just IMAGINE Jynx breaking out a completely unknown, and never seen again, foot animation, or was someone at Gamefreak really THAT deranged to have programmed it? So, you talking about... THAT, unlocked a core memory for me. I couldn't even remember what it looked like until you showed it.
5:15 gen 7 was the start of the Ice type getting better, as they started making hail more like sand, including making Slush rush essentially, swift swim in hail. Auroua veil and also giving many ice types stat buffs and increasing the availability of snow warning
I also gotta point that Hail was actually dominant in DPP UU and resulted in Abomasnow and Froslass getting banned (and is still decently viable with Snover)
They also started making busted ice types Like chien pao is weavile from almost any ability but with higher stats, bax has not only a ridiculous attack but an enormous dragon stab and every boosting move it could wish for, mecha santa has the best stab combo to ever exist thanks to freeze dry and was the fastest pokemon in the tier when it was free And last gen they just gave busted moves to already good pokemon, regular kyurem always had some insane stats but with freeze dry to break waters and dd and icicle spear to finally make use of its high attack it managed to get graduated from ou and weavile did just get a 120 bp ice stab
Notably, despite the Ice type being a glass cannon type, Ice types tend to trend towards slow and bulky for some reason, and that's deeply strange to me.
@@slimestudios9748 I didn't say it made total sense, I just explained the reasoning. I think it's stupid Ice types are mostly mighty glaciers or walls when they're built to be glass canons.
The fact that some types are designed to be offensive threats (rock/ice are particularly outrageous in this case) while having a good bit of slow, bulky members in their rank is really silly. I get that buffing the offense of ice types would be bad for the overall balance. Please though, boost their defensive side then. Make it neutral or even resistant to fire (ice is just cold water after all), resist water and bug (if that’s even relevant for the latter lmao), just please, do something about that. I would also like it if Fairies were weaker defensively and if Steel were weaker offensively, but that’s just me. Some types really aren’t properly balanced and it’s sad. Ice deserves so much better than just 5 turns of +50% defence.
My least favorite fact about the ice type to illustrate how dirty they have been done by game freak. Ice is clearly designed as a glass cannon type, with a preference for special attackers. We did not get a single ice type with over 100 in both special attack and speed until gen 9 with iron bundle (excluding type changing mon like arceus and greninja of course) Ice on the type chart wants to be a glass cannon, but they keep giving it slow bulky pokémon that can’t use that bulk because ice is such a bad defensive typing.
It is also worth mentioning that aside from Jynx, all Ice types were gutted by the Special split in gen 2. Especially Dewgong, whose offensive presence became very pathetic. And I also wish Articuno got 125 Satk like Zapdos/Moltres (he'd still have the highest sdef).
Can't believe you didn't talk about jynx ruling 1997 Nintendo cup, a format with 30% freeze on blizzard and legal evasion moves, in a bring 6 pick 3 format, with its fast sleep and blizzards potentially koing 2 pokemon. Lapras is right behind it in viability as the 2nd best mon in the tier, as jynxs best answer and a blizzard enjoyer, and if you run rest double team you can do that to a friend who has never played pokemon before but thought they could just make a bet with you about beating you on pokemon and have a chance to win because har har rng format Get outbrained Johnny
04:45 Somehow learning this about the Ice type (and the Fairy type) feels like the wildest thing in this video even after just being reminded what absolute trash Gen 03 Hail was. Things like this make me still surprised the Snow buff _finally_ exists. (Hilariously, the tidbit about Gen 03 Hail just led me to confirm for myself that in addition to that, Weather Ball was also *exclusive* Castform in that gen. Gods, Game Freak, why are you like this?)
i mean, the weather ball thing ain't that weird, considering it blatantly just exists so that castform can use its type-changing gimmick offensively. it's kinda like asking why judgement, techno blast, and multi-attack are exclusive to their respective pokemon, 'cept weather ball is a lot less tricky to give to other pokemon thanks to relying on a general mechanic instead of one that's fully pokemon-specific hell, funnily enough, terrain pulse has actually become a _reverse_ weather ball, owing to the fact that no pokemon learned it naturally prior to the smoliv line introduced in the same generation that move tutors stopped offering it. which is ... genuinely a whole lot more "gamefreak why" than the weather ball thing, considering the line's whole interaction with terrain is a. learning grassy terrain and b. arborliva getting the ability to set grassy terrain when hit, so terrain pulse basically just exists as 100 power stab move that you have to do a varying degree of set up to utilize ... on a pokemon that gets energy ball, petal dance, leaf storm, and, hell, if you're wanting a set up-reliant move in particular, the ol' classic of solar beam and, uh, petal blizzard and solar blade. for those who want to take full advantage of arborliva's very nice 69 base attack
@@hi-i-am-atan Yeah, Terrain Pulse is definitely the far more "What? Why?!" move for the reasons you say. My lament about Gen 03 Weather Ball was more about its exclusivity making Gen 03 Hail even worse than already was acknowledged to be in this video, which is saying something. That and lamenting it being stuck on Castform as insult to injury, a mon unfortunately so crappy even in its own gimmick that said gimmick doesn't even work with one entire weather, Sand,...which also ended up being the most dominant weather in the entire gen. (Unsurprising given it was the only weather with a weather-setting ability given to a non-legendary mon. All hail Gen 03 Tyranitar but, you know, with sand.) Additionally, as weird as Terrain Pulse is, Arboliva is at least still a weirdly decent and good mon even after Rillaboom's return and can make good use of it. Castform couldn't even be decent in its debut generation and has only gotten far worse with all of the power creep
@@MusicoftheDamned alas, poor castform. i have to wonder if being introduced a single generation later could've given it a better fate, considering the only reason i can imagine for its perfectly balanced stats is so that it could pretend to leverage base weather ball, stuck as it was being a physical move due to gen 3's mechanics no, i'm not even gonna pretend to imagine rock weather ball entering the devs' minds once while designing castform, since, y'know it's just kinda unfortunate. thing's clearly meant to be an adaptable special attacker with some real solid elemental coverage, and ... yeah, that's what it is. that's what it is, except its stat spread is yes and it does not remotely have the bst to do anything with that. it's one of the pokemon that would benefit the most from gamefreak finally allowing themselves to do full base stat reworks, because that's the singular thing holding its concept back
It’s really cool that at least 1 of the 4 final boss types actually managed to live up to its own hype in competitive play. Fighting, ghost, and dragon just don’t have enough going on to be considered final bosses, even in casual play. For a lot of single-Pokémon runs, Lorelei is actually the most difficult member of the Elite 4 to beat, which is impressive given that Lance spams hyper beam and Agatha runs any single mon through like 5-15 chances to get haxxed to death.
i find it annoying how they always just make ice types defensive like they just do it to the point that they probably don't get how terrible being a defensive ice type is but also I'm glad gen 9 actually did something for the ice type no more hail but snow boosts your... defense (I think?) which makes ice types who are offensive but kinda struggle surviving a hit do more stuff.
Snow boosts defense, yeah. And still works with Aurora Veil. Granted this has opened up a different problem of Pokemon being hideously overpowered with Alolatales' support. (See Baxcalibur which literally becomes unstoppable thanks to snow/veil's buffs and also getting a damaging speed increasing move while also _being immune to burn._ Silly nonsense.)
They do the same thing with rock types despite them being in a similar situation of being more of a glass cannon type, Made even worse by all the bulky ground/rock which have TWO 4x weaknesses to 2 common types and as a cherry on Most rock types have sturdy which will only help getting off one move before your defensively focused mon get out sped and dies next turn.
@@DMSwordsmaster i played around with an alolatales/bax/chien-pao core for a bit in VGC, it was fun. Bax is a menace if it gets a SD off. Not busted like it is in singles though
Once I read that Ice was, in principle, a counter - version of Dragon type (instead of having 4 resistances and only being super efective to his own type, it was weak to 4 types and resisted only itself). Thing is that currently that doesn't hold up too much since Fairy exist as a better version of it 😅😅😅 Besides, realistically Ice should resist a lot more of types but oh well. At least we got snow
Jynx's unique traits and typing are why it remains my fav Gen 1 mon. It's seemingly so one note, yet has so many traits that come together to form a glass cannon with utility. I like playing around it's threat values to get an upper hand in games. You were right on conservative play with her, it can reap so many rewards. I personally run Sub on mine to catch the threat of a sleep move leading to a switch. Truly the most fun Psychic mon and Ice mon by far!
11:32 I love how afraid Jynx looks of Hitmomchan here. Hitmonchan's all like "Yeah, you see this, you clowns? This is what happens when you take 22 of my Ice Punches. And you best believe there's a whole 2 more where that came from!" And Jynx is just playing along 'cause she doesn't wanna hurt his feelings.
One interesting thing about ice types in generation 8 is that hail teams were actually viable due to the existence of A-Ninetales and Slush Rush Arctozolt. It also had the first pure-ice type ubers in galarian darmanitan (and technically Kyurem-black which was buffed to uber level in that generation)
I need you to understand that, on top of the 6:57 bit being delivered absolutely perfectly, the Super Mario Sunshine death SFX is absolutely sending me. Beautiful comedy, great stuff as always :)
Ironically Gen 9's Ice glowup is partly due to a non-Ice type. Slowking got a new signature move called Chilly Reception where it tells such a bad joke that it starts snowing before Slowking switches out. Having a slow switch on a Pokemon with Regenerator is incredible by itself, but bringing in Snow makes Baxcalibur a monster and buffs anything running Blizzard on top of taking away any opposing weather.
Shellder/Cloyster were my favorites growing up because I loved how unique them gaining the Ice type later on felt. Also Shellder is an adorable little guy
Mamoswine did a lot in Gen 4 OU, but time wore it down. Platinum made a lot of threats a lot stronger and made a hard counter to it strong and HGSS added to that, and a lot of the things it was good against got banned. It's OU by technicality now, sure, but unlike Electivire (which was OU by technicality back in fucking DP and everyone knew it) it actually had the history to justify that position.
It's interesting to note how the issue of Ice types, the most offensive type in the game, almost exclusively getting defensive pokemon only started in gen 2, once the special split happened. You'd think Ice types would've ended up on the offensive end of the split that psychics ended up on, due to their similarities, but instead it ended up on the same end as Blissy and Tauros, defensively. It's a strange decision to make, especially after doubling its resistances and giving it not just a weakness, but a weakness with priority that hit its lower defense. One has to wonder just how different our perception of ice types would be if even just those original five Ice types were made offensive, and all the same others stayed the same. What would happen to Dewgong? Would it no longer be the scientifically proven most forgotten of the Original 151, despite having an even more similar same to a real animal then fuckin *Seel?*
Plague von Karma has a great video about that, if you haven't seen it already. It's called "Why was Snorlax buffed in gen 2?" or something like that, if you want to find it easily
I've been expecting this episode for months! I've been researching RBY's game design as its completely different to the other Pokemon games. I have some notes, but keep in mind that "Battlemagic trio" refers to fire, ice and electric as while being special types, they are also common in most RPGs. -It seems that RBY treats Ice as a variant of Water as the only non-water ice types are Articuno to keep with its bird/battlemagic trio theme and Jynx, who gets the psychic type to help buff it against the other ones of the punching trio (Electabuzz and Magmar) Another variant type is the rock type as a variant of ground bar the fossils. -Vaporeon seems to have been designed to complete the battlemagic trio, but lost its ice type to make it the defensive one in the trio. -Ice is the only one of the battlemagic trio that does not have a 40 base power move. It is an exclusively high-power type.
I really miss the old Fighting game garbage videos and would love to maybe see an updated version of that format. I would also love to see a video on the Street Fighter Alphas 2 and 3. They have some really cool mechanics like custom combos, different isms as well as a huge roster for the time. Love the videos please keep them up ❤❤❤❤
I do wanna revisit that style soon, I've been meaning to do it for a while but haven't had anything click, I will get to it though, just not sure how or what game
Honestly same. It was actually the video on... Either Melee Kirby or Melee Ness that got me into this channel in the first place. I've stuck around because you still make great stuff and you're just really funny, but it's still a little bit sad that the series that got me into this channel is just kind of dead.
@@BigYellowSillyI feel like Alpha 3 R Mika would be a great pick for fighting game garbage. She is considered one of (if not) the worst characters in the game with a lot of issues holding her back but despite this due to having access to things like V ism she is able to do major damage and elaviate some of her weaknesses. You could also make a lot of comparisons between Alpha 3 and sf5 due to her being significantly better (I haven’t played much sf5 so I am not too familiar with her in that game though)
"Ice-types really shine when they get to leverage their STAB with one of the best offensive types in the game! We should make some fast sweepers who aren't too concerned with their defenses!" "uhhh..." •Here's Piloswine! A slow, tanky Ice-type! •Here's Walrein! A slow, tanky Ice-type! •Eevee now evolves into Glaceon, an Ice-type who's slow... but tanky! •Here's Beartic! It hits hard... but it's slow, so we made it tanky! •Here's Aval-- _why_
@@BigYellowSilly Ok now that I've actually watched the whole vid, the edits, humor, and as always the information and everything else in this video were fantastic. You always make the comfiest videos and I could watch them for like 8 entire hours and never get tired of it.
It's worth noting that Ice was almost certainly a late addition to the game along with Rock, breaking off from Water type. So it kinda makes sense it feels a little unfinished and always has
"almost"? Do you have a source? Because it's hard to believe when one of the legendaries is ice, as well as an elite four member, and the first gym is rock
@@JagGentlemann They split off from Water and Ground respectively - Articuno would have originally been Water/Flying, and Brock would have been a Ground type leader (Giovanni was originally Flying or possibly even Bird, we have an early version of his team in the leak and even in the final his badge is a feather). The biggest smoking gun is the internal order of types used for determining physical or special - Ice and Rock are right at the end, just above Bug, Ghost, and Dragon, which definitely make sense as last-minute additions (Bug largely because most of the Pokemon that have it also have a second type - the exceptions are the Caterpie line, which are the last Bug types in the internal order and probably made after the type being created, and Pinsir, which you can easily imagine being Fighting type originally). More circumstantially, there was a clear trend towards fire/electric/[water/ice] trios in development that was obscured by both the Water and Ice split and the fact that a couple of the third members got cut. Only Articuno/Zapdos/Moltres and Flareon/Jolteon/Vaporeon survived completely unscathed, and to a lesser extent Electabuzz/Magmar/Jynx - there was a cut yeti Pokemon that had a stronger connection to Electabuzz and Magmar. In addition to that, Goldeen, Ponyta, and Kotora from the leak (Electric type based on its reappearance in the more-complete Gold beta leak) are all next to each other in the internal order, as are Vulpix, Pikachu, and a cut two-stage line of sumo wrestling frogs (almost definitely Water type). Personally, my guess is the split happened largely because of Articuno - it just felt weird for this obviously ice-themed bird to resist fire, and there were probably already moves like Blizzard and Mist using the Water type that were easy to switch over.
I don't see much appreciation for this, but the editing in your videos is always great! This one in particular was a highlight, I laughed out loud at both Tentacruel kidnapping Dewgong and Dewgong messing Lapras up (with Headbutt). Keep up the great work!
Your obscure love for gen1 competetive got me into gen9 pokemon laddering and i love it. I cant express how much fun i had through that domino effect. Many thanks my Yellow Inspiration
Fun fact, it's really hard to teach Vaporeon both Mist and Haze in gen 1. It only wants to learn one move per level, and it learns both at the same time. The only way to learn both without trading to gen 2 is to leave Vaporeon in the daycare and level it up to that level there
One thing to note about Ice is that ice has some super janky OP things about it 1. Blizzard resist without a Thunderbolt weakness (only matters for jynx sadly) 2. immunity to freezehax (extremely important in cart not nearly as much in non-cart) 3. Blizzard STAB is actually good This makes ice a better type than water but since so many ice types are part water it doesn't matter much. also jynx with counter suffers from exactly 1 weird issue, Jynx is too bulky to actually consitently OHKO tauros after a body slam :( it's actually a good option IMO because the 4th moveslot is kinda a meme on jynx so might as well randomly have a good tauros matchup
I LOVE your RBY analysis vids, I love your dry delivery and I love how you bring your knowledge of other generations as well, it shows your love of pokemon. I just finally found out why you just magnetized me to your whole channel, you are Macaulay Culkin of pokemon.
Something I thought would be interesting to mention is that Vaporeon does learn both Haze and Mist via level up in Gen 1, but in Yellow version it learns them at the same level, and in Gen 1 Pokémon can only learn one move per level up, so the only way to actually get Mist is via the Day Care.
It's so cool that every type has had at least one generation where they were good or at least decent, even the most historically underwhelming types. Ice has Gen 1 & 9, Normal has Gen 1 & 2, Poison has Gen 8 and maybe 7, Rock has Gen 3, Bug has
Big Yellow RBY videos are a Spooktober tradition to me for some reason. I think because I watched that Banned Strats video in between trick-or-treaters. Now we get some spooky icy chills on Friday the 13th!
Thanks for listing the music you used in the description of the video. That timpani was jammin' during Cloyster's segment and I was nicely surprised after checking the description. Video is fire as always, love the RBY content
I like the Ice types, they're pretty cool :) Also, I seriously love the sprite edits. They are just such cool little additions to the personality of the mons.
Ice-types are in a really weird spot design wise. It's like they really want Ice to be good, but they're absolutely petrified of making any alterations to the type chart. So then you get dumb stuff like Galarian Darmanitan's Gorilla Tactics, Chien-Pao's Sword of Ruin, Iron Bundle's blazing fast speed and perfect coverage with Freeze-Dry + Hydro Pump, Alolan Ninetales's Aurora Veil under snow, and Baxcalibur abusing snow like no other. Just a bunch of really one-dimensional Pokemon, they're not really fixing the type as much as making stupid shit
I think ice moves like anyone else were to use its okay. but if its an ice pokemon use it well... weavile would be decent but besides that. even the good ones are usually frail except for the ice turtle which is a big wall and pretty decent if u know what your doing. but u can make it work depending on how much effort u make lol
And whenever they try to introduce something for ice that isn't "brain dead offense spam" it's most of the time absolutely awful. Like defensive ice types. Yeah, a defense with exactly one resist and more weaknesses than any defensive pokemon wants period. So they try to introduce weird overpowered stuff for ice to do like snow/veil and pretty much all it does is make those offensive powerhouses utterly busted. See Baxcalibur. Just. For God's sake, make it resist water or rock or something. Give it some defensive utility. Why does water resist ice but ice doesn't resist water? Why does rock, which ice generally slices through, do super effective damage to ice?
@@DMSwordsmasterIndeed. I still don't understand why Ice is weak to Rock or Fighting. You could take away one of those and give Ice the still missing Ghost resistance that Steel lost in Gen 06 due to Aegislash's sins. Those two "small" changes alone would make Ice like 300% better defensively than it is now.
@@ladyriethegoldendelmo5441 MD meta is a whole different ballpark to pokemon meta tbh. Mostly because a Pokemon's initial stats rarely actually matter so pretty much anything can be forced into a mold it has the moves for. Hariyama that uses Focus Blast? Go for it fam.
I'm glad to hear you say at the beginning what I've always thought has been the main issue with the ice type being undesirable. It isn't that it isn't an interesting and reasonable idea. It's that it's just too practical to slap ice type attacks on other things to circumvent the entire design of the ice type. People would like the ice type way more if you couldn't just teach Ice Beam to pretty much everything.
I don't give a singular heck about competitive pokemon and probably never will, but there's something about your videos that's incredibly compelling and I really dig your enthusiasm and vibes so I kinda watched all of them. it's good stuff.