Pokemon Contests

Pokémon Contests have been around just as long as battles and perhaps even more so, attesting to their overall favor throughout most modern and ancient societies to a point. Pokémon Contests usually involve Pokémon competing against one another in an elevated pageant of sorts that is used to determine the overall performance of a Pokémon based not on their capacity to battle but their ability to use their appearances and natural powers to wow the audience and create a stunning show unlike any other. The fact that these features go beyond what a normal trainer could hope to work with makes the idea of a Pokémon Contest a little less than appealing for most forms of media, but for those that are willing to see and work with the process, Pokémon Contests are a great way for people to prove their mettle and show the entire world just how skilled of a performer they and their Pokémon can really be outside of battle.


ORIGINS

Pokémon Contests have actually been around much longer than professional combat; in truth, the origins of the Pokémon Contest come from many different parts of the world where Pokémon were actually just showed off as a way for people to sell the animals they raised for a living at a high price, thus allowing them to sustain the raising of future generations and leading to a fairly prosperous lifestyle. However, this act was eventually taken beyond these simple measures in France with the rise of King Louis XIV in France. The man was always known as one that preferred the luxuries of the rich over anything the poor could ever hope to grant; Pokémon Contests became a favorite pastime of his, as his subjects were effectively forced to show the king the performances that their livestock could do outside of daily functions. While the ones that the king disliked were thrown out without pay, if the show was good enough, Lois would handsomely pay the owner for the ownership rights of the animals. Even then, though, most of the subjects were later killed and used for food; only the best ever managed to find their way under the protection of the king in his royal palace at Versailles.

After King Louis XIV, the first true Pokémon Contests were used in parts of England and the rest of Europe as a form of entertainment of sorts that went perfectly well with traveling theatres and similar shows, even going so far as to find a niche within the opera house. The first modern contests were not held, however, until the late 18th century in China and Japan; while the former country saw it merely as a form of entertainment, the Japanese culture took a hold of the idea and decided to use the contest as an actual form of power, namely that people with a lot of talented Pokémon on their side would be paid more for their act and even given specialty seats amongst the upper class for their performances. The Japanese version of this contest became the dominant form by the end of the 19th century and is today a staple among most ethnic groups even though some rules do vary depending upon the local culture.


CONTEST ATTRIBUTES

In a Pokémon Contest, a Pokémon is observed in regards to its overall attributes and capacity to use moves that are fixed amongst five main categories of style, each one important enough to take consideration of when competing in a contest. Each Pokémon has five different contest attributes that serve as the deciding factors for how appealing a trainer's Pokémon may be to the audience; not coincidentally, there are also five different styles of contest, hence the reason for having these five attributes in the first place. These attributes are Clever, Cool, Tough, Cute, and Beauty. Together, these attributes define the appearance of the competing Pokémon and in turn help to give Pokémon coordinators (those that spend their lives training for contests and not battles) a good start in a contest and hopefully the attention of the crowd early-on before the tone shifts to acts more centered around the performance of a species. These attributes are usually completely arbitrary at first and are not defined within most species, but the use of certain items made from berries can help facilitate the growth of these attributes. In the Hoenn region, Pokéblocks are the preferred method as they are very small and thus easy to transport across the vast deserts and mountainous terrain that dots the region. In the Sinnoh region, on the other hand, the item of choice is the Poffin, a pastry made from ground berries and cake batter that is much more bulky to carry around but is also easier to make into a valuable food and thus a better food choice for those that are able to stay within close proximity of a Poffin house. Regardless, these items will raise the contest attributes of a given creature depending upon their flavor likes and dislikes (which depends on their Nature) and how well the item has been cooked and formed. The influences that these blocks/pastries have are stated as such in regards to flavor: Spicy= Cool; Bitter = Clever; Dry = Beauty; Sour = Tough; and Sweet = Cute. Although a single Pokémon can essentially eat Poffins or Pokéblocks for a great deal of time, eventually they will reach a point where the effects of these items are no longer present due to either building up an immunity to them or reaching a maximum value in a particular contest attribute; at this point, the Pokémon in question can no longer increase said contest attributes. The fact this process shuts down all sense of visual improvement means that coordinators are likely to spend a great deal of time making the best Pokéblocks and Poffins they can make in order to give them a fighting chance of increasing a Pokémon’s attributes to the highest points possible before they completely build up an immunity to them.


RULES AND REGULATIONS FOR CONTESTS

HOENN REGION

In the Hoenn region contests, the performance is split into two main parts. During the first part, coordinators show their Pokémon to the audience, who then determine how strongly they think a Pokémon matches the aspect of the contest; as such, a Pokémon with a high Beauty attributes will earn much more praise from the audience than others as long as the contest is a Beauty Contest. If a Pokémon in a contest has an extremely high visual appeal in the proper category, they will even be allowed to perform a special demonstration of their attribute to its fullest extent, earning substantially more appeal points than its competition as a result. After these preliminary stats are observed and taken, the main part of the contest begins: the Talent Round. During the Talent Round, Pokémon have a limit of five turns to use their moves in battle to create dazzling affects that can influence effectively every single other Pokémon and person in the contest. Unlike in battle, moves used here have their own special effects that are completely independent upon how much damage they can do in battle; in turn, the functions that these moves can be rather unique and come in a variety of different forms. While many moves merely gain the user some performance 'hearts' that are used to determine the overall score of a performer at the end of the contest, other moves actually cause others to lose hearts and can prevent them from doing much of anything at all in some case. In addition, some moves may serve to change the order of appearance in ensuing rounds or even condition a Pokémon to earn more hearts than normal for the use of future moves. Aside from the effects, though, the use of certain moves in a contest can actually help to increase the chances of winning by affecting the performance and capacity of a judge to be unbiased. When a move is used that corresponds with the main attribute of a given contest, coordinators will earn an extra star for their performance on every one of the five rounds; moreover, if a Pokémon manages to excite the crowd to the point where they are standing out of their seats (so to speak), it will earn a massive amount of hearts that can easily put it over the top in any contest, in turn widening the appeal difference between the recipient and the other contestants. In the case where a Pokémon is capable of Mega Evolving and is holding its associated Mega Stone, it will transform into its Mega form for the rest of the contest at this point, earning even more hearts in the process. In addition, Pokémon can earn extra hearts by using moves in certain combinations, such as Rest followed by Snore or Sleep Talk, which creates a powerful combo bonus that can severely increase the performance rating for a Pokémon in a given round. This tends to work both ways, however, as a Pokémon can only get the maximum performance if they use different moves every turn, as using a move more than once in a row will cause coordinators to lose hearts for the unexciting repeat of a move. At the end of this round, the points garnered from the audience's and judge's appeals are put together and the Pokémon with the highest score is declared the winner. Afterwards, a coordinator will receive a ribbon declaring their victory and will be allowed to move up in rank after the performance. There are four levels of difficulty that are used as a global display of skill across coordinators: the Normal, Super, Hyper and Master ranks. Coordinators that are willing to put everything on the line shouldn't have too much trouble making use of contests in the Hoenn Region, as they are amongst the easiest to work with and do not require much more than a lot of practice during the secondary appeals round and a bit of grooming for the primary judging.


SINNOH REGION

While the Sinnoh version of the basic Pokémon Contest is very much like that practiced in the Hoenn region, there are some very important differences that should be taken into account. For one thing, the Sinnoh region uses the term "Pokémon Super Contest" to describe these competitions as they actually include a separate part of that is not found in traditional Hoenn contests. During the first round of appeals, the audience judges the Pokémon of a coordinator based on how strong the attributes they possess match up with the contest type; unlike the Hoenn contests, however, this part of the judging also is determined by how the Pokémon looks in a costume, as every coordinator must dress up their Pokémon based on a given theme that is kept from the performers until this portion of the contest. This creates a significant difference in regards to appeals, as both the appearance of a Pokémon and the overall manner in which its outfit matches the given theme determine together what the overall score for the appeals will be. The second part of the contest is not present within the Hoenn region: the Dance Appeal. During this performance of the contest, each Pokémon present in the contests gets to be the leader of a small dance number that the user gets to create. After it is initially made, the opposing Pokémon must mimic the movements of the creator; the better they can match their opponent's movements, the better their overall appeal. The fact that this trait allows all Pokémon participating to have a go at it means that there is more than a chance of trying to mess up the competition be making up a very difficult dance number for them to follow, thought this opportunity will generally mean less and less as the difficulty of a contest increases. Lastly, the final part of the contest is the performance appeal, which follows the same general outline as that seen in the Hoenn region. The only main difference here is that there are three different judges in Sinnoh contests as opposed to the one used in Hoenn contests. This adds bit of excitement to the final appeals portion, as coordinators that manage to appeal to a judge that only one or no others appeal to are likely to receive bonus hearts for their solitary performance; the change might not mean much at first, but combined with the chances of earning a big appeal bonus for exciting the crowd to the point of chaos, it is a bonus that can more than stack up and prove to be beneficial in the long run. Once all three portions of the contest are complete, the scores are combined together and used to determine the overall winner.


UNOVA REGION

While the Unova region does not have a true contest amongst its ranks, it does have something slightly similar but otherwise completely different: the Pokémon Musical. This contest substitute consists of two different parts, both of which are featured somewhat in the Sinnoh region contests. During the first round of appeals, a Pokémon must dress up and match the corresponding theme of the musical contest; unlike the Sinnoh region contests, though, the actual attributes of a Pokémon are unimportant, as the system that this contest runs on is not determined by appearance at all but the ingenuity and grace of each competitor. After this part of the contest is over the second part comes along, which is effectively an expanded version of the brief dance portion held in the Sinnoh contests. While still dressed up from the first round, Pokémon in the second round move to the beat of a given musical choice and are allowed to use their items to woo the crowd and garner its attention. Competition in this part can be extremely fierce in the right cases, and while each Pokémon participating will eventually get the chance at a solo act, the performance of a Pokémon here is completely dependent upon their skill and the decisive selection of clothing picked by a coordinator to compliment the theme of the song. After this part, the judges present will give out their opinions of the entire performance and then finally decide who performed the best overall during the physical and dance appeals.


JOHTO REGION

As with the Unova region's Pokémon Musical, there are no real contests in the Johto region but it is nonetheless home to something that reflects the concept to some degree, namely the Pokéathlon. As with contests, the actual combat abilities of a Pokémon are not important here; what is important is the physical attributes and overall flexibility a Pokémon has when faced with daunting challenges. Here, Pokémon can be entered to try a variety of different tests and activities that are designed to measure the overall Speed, Jumping ability, Skill, Power and Stamina of a Pokémon amongst games as common as capture the flag and snowball fights, though some such as the Circle Push (removing the opposition from point-producing spotlights) and Disc Catch (effectively skeet-shooting without a firearm) might be a bit more complicated than most trainers may be used to. These stats are different from contest attributes in that they are dependent upon the Nature and physical attributes of a species of Pokémon in question; while some things can be done to increase the overall performance of a Pokémon, such as feeding it Aprijuice (which is made from crushed Apricorns), these stats can vary from day to day and effectively serve as a permanent feature for every member of a species. If a trainer manages to win a set of certain challenges, they are rewarded with valuable Athlete Points that can be used within the Pokéathlon Dome to purchase rare items such as evolutionary stones as well as data cards that can effectively tell a trainer how they are performing in regards to a wide variety of features such as the total number of Pokéathlon victories one has gained or even the number of jumps or dashes made by a Pokémon during an event. Overall, the Pokéathlon might not have much to offer coordinators, but for those willing to try it out, the various challenges and skill sets needed to conquer it can be more than worth it in the end, especially if one prefers to just have a bit of fun here and there without worrying about losing money in a battle. It is lastly noted that trainers entering this competition have the unique chance to make their names known by beating the scores originally set for the Pokéathlon, each of which were taken from Magnus, the original owner and creator of the Pokéathlon Dome who sits in on every contest and enjoys watching others compete to show just how skilled they can be outside of a direct confrontation or battle; whether or not anyone will be able to easily ascend this ladder, however, is up to the competitors.

Professor Wormwood