Today during a Pokemon presentation at E3, Game Freak talked about why they introduced a new monster type for the first time in 14 years — the fairy type. It was a move that retconned the type of already existing Pokemon, like the ones pictured above. What gives? Turns out, there’s a reason they did it.
You can blame the dragon type: while dragons are uber cool, Game Freak considered them a tad overpowered.
“As of right now, the dragon type is at an advantage,” Game Freak explained. “But nobody wants us to weaken the dragon type, of course. So we decided to come up with something that could really go up against the dragon type….we’re hoping that by introducing it, we’re going to restore balance, make it a more balanced game.”
Previously, dragon-type only had dragon and ice moves as weaknesses. You’ll be able to use fairy-type Pokemon in the upcoming Pokemon X & Y.
Comments
24 responses to “Why Game Freak Introduced The Fairy Type In Pokemon”
So will Dwayne Johnson be a Pokemon now or what?
Rock-Fairy type.
Has it been 14 years already since dark type and metal type? Damn I feel so old
Holy hell that only just clicked. I remember getting Gold version for Christmas in 2000…. Jesus I feel old.
Woooooooooooow. Thanks for pointing that out to all of us old farts, jerk :'(
Yeah well I got red and blue and even yellow in the 90’s. Still got them too!
Now who’s old LOL!
Still me also, lol. I also got Yellow as a Christmas present back then.
Have they actually played B/W or B/W2??? i mean sure they created it, but have they acttually played it?
Dragon takes a beating from almost EVERY other type, level 65 haxxorus (sp?) gets 1 shoted by a level 55 weedle… (exaduration obviously, i cant remember the pokenmon, but it was a nothing special bug type)
sure the initial dragon types were OP, but in the last 2 games they have been nerfed into the ground, just about every type while not super effective seems to deal too much damage to them.
Have you seen Hydregion, it’s an absolute powerhouse of a Pokemon…
If you consider that Dragon types actually resist all elements in the basic trinity (Water, Fire, Grass), and some others, and only have two actual weaknesses, I’d say this is much needed. You pretty much had to field an Ice attack on your team or struggle against opposing Dragon type. Dragon attacks are also resisted by none bar Steels. It’s just really safe to field Dragons.
Then again, I can’t see Fairy type heavily affecting the popularity of Dragon Pokemon – fact that remains is the most common Dragon Pokemon usually have a secondary typing that is also weak to Ice (Ground/Flying), so Ice attacks will always be popular. Unless Fairy types are also resistant to Dragon attacks.
You are kidding right? Sure haxorus has very low defence, but he has insane speed and attack.
Play haxorus, use outrage, kill multiple pokemon without getting hit.
Also the dragon type is only weak against dragon and ice, so if you didn’t have an ice pokemon or a faster dragon, then you had no super effective moves. The only way to balance that was to make pokemon like haxorus that have low defence.
This is a good change, it allows you to have a team without an ice type.
Hide it with all the BS reasons they want, truth remains that they made the type specifically because of Sylveon.
Seriously? They would have designed and formulated the Fairy type way before Sylveon was ever even conceived.
So I guess Gardevoir will be dropping the grass type?
Did Gardevoir ever have a grass typing?
Well, apparently not.
Gardevoir was always a pure psychic type.
Well, that would make more sense.
I will make an all fairy team just because.
I am not a big fan of making multiple super-effectives for certain types. I mean, Dragon is weak against Dragon and Ice types. That is a lot of abilities just there. Now to add Fairy, they will get steam rolled. Dragons could be underpowered now.
This is unfair! Dragon Types losing to a lowly Fairy? Tinkerbell killing a Dragon? What a SHAME!
Honestly didn’t think this was necessary for the reasons given. Granted I havent played any Gen V games but most, if not all of the gen 1-4 dragon pokemon are dual type, with all of them being either flying or ground as a secondary (ouside of the legendary dragons). This meant Ice didn’t just kill these pokemon, but destroyed them completely.
In my opinion the only reason the dragon pokemon are generally so strong is due to the pokemon themselves on average having the highest average stats of all types, and usually a wide range of moves they can learn giving them a lot of versatility.
On the other hand, I’ve also never found a great majority of dragon moves to have a lot of appeal to me, they either are too weak, or so strong they have major drawbacks like all moves, there are few that fall in the middle for me.
On a side note, they have a problem with dragon, but not steel, 3 weaknesses, 1 immnunity and 11 resistances?
“most, if not all of the gen 1-4 dragon pokemon are dual type, with all of them being either flying or ground as a secondary (ouside of the legendary dragons). This meant Ice didn’t just kill these pokemon, but destroyed them completely.”
Sounds like a symptom to a problem not the solution to it.
The Issue with Ice-type pokemon is that in the current meta, they are weak to the most commonly used pokemon types (i.e Steel, Fighting). Ice types generally have poor stats or limited move-pools that many meta-players use Ice type moves on other ‘meta-worthy’ pokemon in order to make an all-rounder team.
The large drawback with Steel-types is that even though they have high defense and resistances, they are generally slower and steel-type moves are not very effective against many types of pokemon.