Featured MOTM - QnA with Kecleon

This month, @Kecleon joins me for a special QnA session. Sorry it took so long to post up, December has been uncommonly busy for my work sadly.

Anywho, the green text is Kecleon's replies, the regular color is me. Oh and if you guys have questions you would like for me to ask the future members of the month let me know either in the comments here for via PM! I would love some new ideas.

Enjoy!
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So first things first, what was your first Pokémon game? Do you have any fond memories from those early days?

Well, the answer to that tracks back to the day I found an old Game Boy my half-brother owned in a toy box back when I was around five or six years old. After finding it, my dad went on eBay and purchased a huge pile of games, with 90% of them being Pokémon games.

All at once, I remember us getting Pokémon Red, Blue, Yellow, Gold and Silver, as well as the TCG and Pinball spinoff games. As eBay purchases tend to be, there were files already there for all except the Gen II games, and both me and my brother tended to just goof around with those, while we absolutely hovered over Pinball, and my brother grew fond of the TCG game. It was very nice, though the fact that the battery was completely dry on Silver meant that while my brother shoved forward in Gold, I ended up playing the opening hours time and again, which for my small child brain was perfectly fine. I can attribute my entire love for Pokémon to that Game Boy I found, and helped me grow into obsessed Pokémon fan I am today.

Oh wow, what a lucky start. Got to try out so many of them at once too that is pretty cool. What would you say was your favorite Pokémon back then? (since Kecleon wasnt around yet)

Hm, tough. I know my brother grew attached to Totodile almost immediately when he played Gold, and it's remained his favorite all these years, but I'm not sure I had a clear set favorite before Kecleon came along in the next generation.

I may go ahead and say the Mareep line was the one I was most attached to as a kid, as I remember always going out of my way to catch one since I liked how the funny sheep go zap. I still have a fondness for Ampharos nowadays.

A very cute choice, always been fond of the odd sheep to dragon-like monster line as well. Moving onto gen 3 since its both our favorites I am quite sure. Did you have a favorite location in the game?

Hm, I feel I'm pretty split between two areas. I spent almost too much time in Lilycove City strictly for the Pokémon Contests, since Lilycove was the only place you could attend Contests in Emerald. I just remember spending hours mixing Pokéblocks to raise my Pokémon's stats, and I am pretty sure I got won the Master Rank for every single category, even if I didn't understand that much about combination moves. (I have a slight addiction to the side content in Pokémon games.)

My second choice would probably be a surprise, the Abandoned Ship in the waters between Dewford and Slateport. See, as you probably know, I first saw this odd ship in the middle of nowhere while sailing with Mr. Briney while heading to Slateport, and it always mystified me what this place was. It turns out, this place is a crawling dungeon filled with Pokémon and Trainers, as well as tons of goodies hidden around, and it was just so interesting. It was almost like a negative version of the S.S. Anne, which was cool. Also, in ORAS, they added Spiritomb and gave it one of the coolest reveals one could give a random event Pokémon. And I dig that.

Honorable mention goes to Route 120, since that is the place I first encountered my favorite Pokémon, and the really tall grass gimmick is pretty unique.

Oh man that feeling when you see that Abandoned ship the first time. Such a good tease. Great choices for sure. How about your favorite secret base spot in Hoenn?

I'm not sure I used the Secret Spot function too much, at least until Platinum in the Underground. (Best side content in the Sinnoh games, fight me.) I think there was a hole near the beach on Route 118, and that's where I had it, but it truly has been so long that I can't remember.

Hah fair enough. Moving on from the games a bit, what brought you to LV?

Actually, I was invited. I was just goofing around in DeviantArt for a long time, since it was simply a side venture I was investing in during my time on FanFiction.Net, when Achromatic contacted me and asked if I wanted to join, which I did. I was around for a month, then I left for a few years, I came back when the website I'm currently a staff member for was in a crisis to request the forum type LV ran, left for about another year, and here I am back and better than ever. So, yeah, wild experiences between me and LV.

Oh man for sure, well glad to have you back in force now, your posts have been a fun read and I personally really enjoy your fusion RP that I am in. Speaking of, were you inspired by anything in particular for the story of that RP?

I mentioned this in the OP for the sign-up thread for the RP, but I was actually inspired by a different author on FanFiction with their story called Genetics. Basically, they came up with this whole general idea of Team Rocket splicing the DNA of various Pokémon with each other, and I think of myself as carrying on the torch of that idea by adapting it into the RP you see today. Heck, if you read through the original story, which I linked in the same post, then you'll eventually find a beta version of Auron, as that story was also a SYOC, or Submit Your Own Character, story, and that
was my own submission years ago. Honestly, if you dig my RP as it is, then the original story is just as good.

(Fun fact, but that wasn't the only SYOC story of theirs that I submitted to. I also created a character for that other story that went practically unused for many years since they ended up leaving FF suddenly, until I retooled him and placed him in Jupjami's Fairytale RP, as the mysterious Masquerain swordsman Lance.)

So last question: If you could add anything into the Pokémon games, what would it be? What if you could take something away?

If I was to add something to Pokémon, aside from National Dex and all that nonsense most people want, I think I would want to bring back an enhanced version of the Pokéathlon, or something mechanically similar.

See, the Pokéathlon was, and still is, my favorite side content of any Pokémon game ever, even beyond things like Contests or Pokéstar Studios. A bunch of fun skill-based mini-games that is infinitely customizable and repayable due to how each individual Pokémon has their own statistics within. Honestly, I have put more time in the Pokéathlon than the entirety of the main campaign for my copy of HeartGold, and it's still a joy to go back to all these years later. Something like this would be incredible to have in these new games. It'd basically be like Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, but with many more characters to choose from, and so much achievements to obtain.

Something to remove? Call me crazy, but do we really need a starting rival at the beginning of the game? Like, this has been a tradition since Blue, but they have obviously been getting a lot weaker in terms of impact, particularly in the later games. (I feel nothing for the random group of "rivals" from Kalos.) When you present a rival, you should present a goal which I want to surpass, like with N or with Gladion. Even Marnie was better than Hop, though Bede felt like a huge misstep.

Just let me have my Pokémon adventure without immediately forcing me to battle my childhood friend right off the bat. Save it for later if possible. Is that too much to ask?

That is actually a good point about the rival.
I agree that they can have a more natural evolution of character without being an immediate rival. I would honestly like to have a rival for side content as well, I want a fab contest diva to get be to doing side content more.

This has been super informative, thanks a million!
No problem! Happy to be of service!