What would a Pokemon game be without a few version differences here or there. There has to be something exciting that makes you pick one and your best friend pick another. Here's what we've come up with.
Pokemon[]
Pokemon are the most integral part of any Pokemon game. They are the protagonists and the antagonists of Itemfinder and are just a little bit different than what you've come to know and love. Pokemon still learn attacks, have abilities, and can evolve sometimes, but we think there's a better way.
Since your mind isn't limited by zeroes and ones, we think your Pokemon shouldn't be either, so we've done away with every limit we could think of. Your Pokemon isn't stuck with just four moves, your Pokemon isn't stuck with one personality trait, and your Pokemon isn't stuck with a single Ability that it has to deal with for its whole life. The list goes on, but we can explain everything in detail as we get to know each other better.
So hold on to your hats, and, Spoinks, hang on to your pearls, while we delve into the wonderful world of Pokemon!
Types[]
One of the most prominant features every Pokemon has is a somewhat unique typing. Nintendo has done a great job so far with creating imaginative types along with the standard ones, but it's hard to define our world with only 19 little numbers. Hold on a second now, 19 types? You might find yourself with the newest Pokemon game for the Nintendo 3DS and you can only find 18 different types. Our 19th type comes from a bit of a novel idea in our Pokemon franchise: Pokemon Colosseum and Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness, two games for the Nintendo Gamecube which contained a type only found within those games.
Some of you may remember playing an old Pokemon Blue Version and catching the elusive glitch, Missingno. with its very own types. Bird-type is an honorable mention, but unfortunately, Nintendo didn't think it was a very good idea, so we can let them set the rules on that one.
Another great example of a mysterious type comes from a time in the past, when nobody knew just what happened when a Pokemon used Curse. ???-type is something that nobody really understood, and was there to confuse player and character alike. We think that getting rid of it was a great way to solve the little glitches the technology had with Pokemon that changed types. We also think that getting rid of the cumbersome technology which has prevented us from so much is a great way to bring it back.
Now, we don't know about you, but when we include ???, we count up 20 types now. A little bit of explaining helped you count to 19 when we mentioned it, but now we mention 20 just to confuse you, the reader, the player. However, don't be afraid, because we understand. We know that the world can't be described in 19 types, or even 20 types, and, so far, we are trying to describe it with 28 different types. That's right, we added even more types, and it still might not be enough.
Attacks[]
For anybody that has ever played an RPG, they know that every universe has people that try to do bad things. For these people, of Pokemon, we say "have an attack" and give it to them. We wanted to do it right, and you should, too.
Attacks don't have to be limited any more. Your Pokemon can learn attacks to its heart's content, because Pokemon are living things, and living things adapt and grow.
Nintendo had a great idea when they began experimenting in Generation VI with how types should work. Flying Press was a breakthrough in the science of Pokemon, giving an attack more than one type. We have incorporated multiple types into many of the common moves that Pokemon learn.
One of the more important things about moves is learning them. When a Pokemon learns a move, not only does it need to be capable of performing the move, it needs some knowledge of what it should do and what should end up happening. This means that learning a move should be more of a mental challenge than a physical one. We decided that a Pokemon should still be able to learn moves biologically like Nintendo has done for so many years, and we think that a Pokemon should be able to learn how to perform moves through teachers as well. Technical Machines are just fine if your Pokemon has one at its disposal, but technology in the Pokemon world wasn't always so advanced.
The last thing that we changed about attacks was something that might not be so obvious. In the real world, everything isn't always fair: challenges aren't always 1-on-1 or 2-on-2, and they aren't always going to be face to face. The important thing about role-playing is breaking the boundaries, so many enemies, and hopefully you, too, won't just stand around while it's your turn to attack. Pokemon will move sideways, forwards, backwards, and even up or down. We've given each attack a brand new set of stats to fit our new style of battle while making sure they still do what Nintendo planned.
Stats[]
Probably the most defining base of any character is his or her stats. The nice thing about Pathfinder is that it has the same number of basic stats as Pokemon. However, they don't exactly match up well. We've taken the stats from the handheld Pokemon games and written formulae for each one, telling us what goes where and keeping the hard math down to a minimum to let you enjoy playing rather than working.
The other important thing about stats is found in just about everything else we've told you: don't limit yourself! Each Pokemon doesn't have to be an exact replica of the rest of its species. The only reason we made these formulas was to keep everything fun and challenging, even though some Pokemon evolve more times than others, or not at all.
Evolution[]
One of the features of Pokemon that separates them from other brands is the idea that Pokemon evolve. Once they reach a certain level, BOOM, they change shape, size, color, or maybe even type. This allows each Pokemon to be even more unique than the rest.
Taking away these restrictions, we decided that a Pokemon shouldn't evolve just because of some number in our list of zeroes and ones, it should be out of growth. Not just any kind of growth, but character development. It's not up to us, but your Pokemon Master will decide what your Pokemon needs to do in order to be ready to evolve.
It might be a lot to handle, but we have some ideas for you, and we think there is an experience requirement, too, that each Pokemon should probably have, so we have some basics to help you along.
Level[]
Leveling up is not a new idea, but it is a useful one. Leveling up has always been used in Pokemon to determine things like learning moves, evolving, and even some stats. All these are still included, but we think that 100 levels is a lot of math, and it's just too much effort to waste while you could be journeying instead. Pathfinder has set up a system where 20 levels is a basic maximum, and we trust that they know what they're doing.
Of course your Pokemon Master might want to keep going after everybody reaches level 20, but nobody knows what would happen. These pages allow Pokemon to learn attacks, improve stats, and evolve up to level 20, so any PM that wants to keep going will have lots of work to do. Lucky for us, you can't glitch your way past level 20. ...maybe...
Abilities[]
Abilities are basic traits that every Pokemon of one species shares. The strange thing is that they've always been restricted to one racial trait in each game so far. We know that limits aren't something we like, so each Pokemon can have all of their abilities, and the hidden ones aren't so hard to get anymore.
Now that our world is more accessible to Pokemon, and yours might not have Pokeballs either, we think that there are some more abilities that Pokemon should have. Pathfinder has been a great resource for us in finding new abilities to give to Pokemon and we added some of them as Abilites.
Since we combined the Abilites from Pokemon into the same category as multiple things from Pathfinder, we decided to call the whole group "Racial Abilities" since every Pokemon of the same species will have the same ones. That is, of course, if your Pokemon Master thinks that's OK.