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The secret of the starters and Rockruff?

Zeb

Zeb

what is your spaghetti policy here?
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So back when Rockruff leaked in Corocoro, it was reported that the three starters (Rowlet, Litten and Popplio) and Rockruff all share hide a secret.

Most assumed that the secret was that they could use the special move mechanic, however the move mechanic is now known to be Z-Moves AND is confirmed to be usable on every Pokemon. So obviously that isn't specific to those four.

So this begs the question. What is the secret that the four share are hiding? :cautious:

edit: Corrected the wording
 
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Wasn't there a rumor stating Rockruff evolution changes depending on which starter you pick?

I'd kinda like that.
 
The rumor I believe says that
Rockruff's evolution has four island-dependent forms, and each fully evolved starter has two time-dependent forms.

I trust it since the same alleged leaker mentioned Alola-exclusive forms for old Pokemon as early as a month ago. Also:

The fact that confidential concept art for the fully evolved starters was leaked 6 months in advance would normally be a huge screw-up, but it may have been intentional if the real surprise is the alternate forms.
 
Silktree said:
The rumor I believe says that
Rockruff's evolution has four island-dependent forms, and each fully evolved starter has two time-dependent forms.

I trust it since the same alleged leaker mentioned Alola-exclusive forms for old Pokemon as early as a month ago. Also:

The fact that confidential concept art for the fully evolved starters was leaked 6 months in advance would normally be a huge screw-up, but it may have been intentional if the real surprise is the alternate forms.
Click to expand...
If all of this is true, then Litten may have another chance!
 
FedoraWearingMarowak said:
I'm that one person who likes the big Bara Tony Tiger design. Sure, it's not what I was expecting, but I really like big muscular sweethearts. (Which is why I like Emboar)
Click to expand...

Tiger Mask Litten has a decent-sized following on this site (I am actually somewhat surprised by how many people don't seem to hate it), but I don't really know about the reactions to it elsewhere. Anyway, while I am about 70% convinced by the leak about the Starters having time-based alternative evolutions... I don't know, to me, it feels a bit strange to say that those are the "secret" that they share with Rockruff, because according to the leak, the Starters and Rockruff don't even use the same evolution method, nor is the Starters' method particularly new. They're just day/night evolutions, while Rockruff is like a more refined take on Burmy/Wormadam.
 
I agree with the general theory being discussed so far in this thread, and I think (a la Silktree's post) it's likely.

The word "secret" doesn't necessarily mean "new mechanic", so time/location-dependent evolutions are still very much a possibility.

That being said, I think there's at least one more layer of secrecy surrounding these four. Because a "secret" surrounding the three starters, being that they have alternate final evolutions, is unprecedented. So it's worthy of being dubbed a "secret." But once you include Rockruff in this "secret" (essentially Alola's Poochyena by design), there's got to be some level of inter-dependency through lore. And I think Rockruff's Rock-typing might be a clue.

tl;dr, I would be surprised if the "secret" involved anything other than alternate formes, to be honest.
 
Actually my wording is off from Serebii's.

Edit @ 04:04: CoroCoro hints that Rowlet, Litten, Popplio and Iwanko all hide a secret
Click to expand...

He didn't say they share a secret, just that they are all hiding a secret. So that's my bad for putting share in there and I'll correct it.

Also thanks for using spoiler tags for potential leak stuff :D
 
I'm personally one that's hoping that the alternate time based evolutions for the starters and location based evolutions for Rockruff are the secret. It's a really interesting concept and it allows for more variety for picking and using all of them. And I don't like the concept evo versions.
 
Ohhh, okay, well that changes the game a bit.

In that case, hmm. They all hide a secret, and the secret is possibly that they all have branch evolutions. I guess the secret is that they are the *only* Alolan Pokémon with branch evolutions? I guess that shouldn't be surprising, since branch evolution has been out of the picture for a long time now. I imagine that there could still be some kind of lore to it, though, especially since Rockruff is somewhat associated with nighttime.
 
Man, if the starters get branched evos, I assume Entermaid is Popplio's day evolution while Robingroot and Panthster are Rowlet and Litten's night evolutions. If the alternate evos are as cool as the revealed ones, I'll have a really hard time choosing between them. I just hope they don't go the scary clown route for Popplio's alternate evo, that'd be too cliche :/
 
I could defs see the theories posted here being the hidden secret~ Especially for the starters, it actually makes a lot of sense that they would choose now to give different evolutions based on time~ I mean this is SUN and MOON~ I couldn't think of a better time to implement something like this.
 
bugmaniac20 said:
Man, if the starters get branched evos, I assume Entermaid is Popplio's day evolution while Robingroot and Panthster are Rowlet and Litten's night evolutions. If the alternate evos are as cool as the revealed ones, I'll have a really hard time choosing between them. I just hope they don't go the scary clown route for Popplio's alternate evo, that'd be too cliche :/
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A clown is exactly what I want, not necessarily a scary one but that would be hilarious. Make it like Killer Klowns from Outer Space. That might end up being more hated than Wrestlecat but I wouldn't care. :D
 
Johtohfiller said:
A clown is exactly what I want, not necessarily a scary one but that would be hilarious. Make it like Killer Klowns from Outer Space. That might end up being more hated than Wrestlecat but I wouldn't care. :D
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My problem is that it's too obvious. The evolutions we're getting are far from what we'd consider obvious. Their designs make perfect sense when you look at them, but they're still not what we expected. I'm pretty glad about that, really.
 
So far, the regional starters of brand new games that are coming out/came out didn't give their respective starters a new form/mega/variant or whatever. However, since things are changing I think Sun and Moon starters would have something.
 
Spoilers for the leaks
the leaks say something about the starters and rockruff having a secret (Coro Coro said that not the leak) the leak says the starters might have a second evolution based on time of day but takes up the same pokedex slot like meowstic so what if the secret is rockruff has an evolution based on werewolf of he evolves at night and a regular dog evolution in the day and the starters are the same)
 
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