My thoughts on Mega Evolution

Hey guys. I recently bought a 2DS and Alpha Sapphire. I've been out of the Pokemon loop since B2/W2, I bought that game but only ever got 1 badge. ORAS is my first experience with Mega Evolution and I was pretty excited about it because all I knew was it was a temporary evolution, akin to Digimon, and there were some serious positive stat changes.

I've had the chance to play with Mega Evolution thanks to ORAS now and I gotta say, as far as single-player campaign Pokemon goes, Mega Evolution is complete bogus... To my surprise, Mega Evolution was not a turn within itself. That negated any and all strategic thought and planning that it could possibly have. And with that I began to ask myself, why would I not mega evolve? I have the option. Why would I give up 100 free stat points, with no down fall whatsoever? That gave me a real bitter taste in my mouth. In games, it's nice to have to plan when to do something. Even in Pokemon, you're given a set of four moves to choose from to fight a target. And no, you can't infinitely spam Psychic or Earthquake or Hydro Pump. You have to choose when to use what, while thinking about your end game. But, choosing not to mega evolve effectively hinders you. And choosing to mega evolve makes everything so easy, to the point where planning is no longer needed. Chances are one shot of a STAB attack will do the trick, no questions asked. Even more so if you pay attention to your own Pokemon's nature, and strong stat points.

So... what's the point? I guess it's to look cool. I'll admit, the animations in ORAS are top notch. And it gives the GF artists something to work towards, and us fanboys (and girls) to gawk over. Personally, I would really like to have seen mega evolution be introduced in such a way that every single Pokemon (note: not just the most senior in the evolution line) has a mega evolution form. That way, in battle, mega evolution would act in a similar fashion to weather effects: every Pokemon on each side mega evolves in one turn. That forces the thought: Should I trigger this? Do I want to fight the opposing Pokemon in its mega evolved form just so I can fight with my own? Right now mega evolution is super gimmicky and I wish it hadn't been introduced.

What do you guys think?

I believe one reason that would contribute into them introducing this form of feature is so they could let off their Pokémon ideas (that resemble too closely to already-existing Pokémon) and have them implemented into games. Of course, this might be more about them, as developers, than us fans, but I still believe it might have helped into their finial decision of creating this system.

Do I mind mega-evolution, however? Not precisely. One, good thing that comes off of this is, there are many Pokémon out there who don't seem to have much of a huge fan-base--Camerupt and Sharpedo, for example, which did gain mega-forms in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire--and giving them something unique helps raise their awareness, and convince players to utilize them more and whatnot.

This also affects younger audience, I feel, mainly in terms of design. As a kid, I would usually find myself siding with Pokémon that look strongest and toughest, and I believe same could be applied to many other children out there. In a way, the more popular a Pokémon tends to be, the better it is for them, as it lends hand on opening a few doors.

Never played with one, so I can be very precise about my opinion.

I agree with almost everything you said. As far as I've seen, there is no real reason not to mega evolve, and the fact that only 5% of the Pokémon have a Mega means that every player will be forced to remove one of his 6 favorite Pokémon from his team to choose one who has a Mega Evolution.

But, I'm also not a fan of the competitive scenario in Pokémon. The reason is a little one-sided, as I've not really got into it to analyse its factors: Everybody has the same teams, the same 'strategies' and most Pokémon are knocked-out in 1 attack due to prediction and super effective damage. If I'm wrong about this, please do correct me.

To summarise: yes, I'd rather have 721 Mega forms than just 30~50.