Pokémon (Not-So) Griefing Thread - Scarlet and Violet Released with 10 Million Copies in First 3 Days in Buggy States

[Wingnut]

Hau and Hop are, in many ways, the same character. Whatever character arc Hop has gets overshadowed by him being a clone of Hau.

They are to an extent, even using a lot of the same animations.

Hau just felt like a rival for the sake of the Pokemon formula, he has no use within the story other than being present, and nothing he does within it is something that makes him stand out. Gladion makes a much better rival in USUM, and could've been similar to Silver as an antagonistic rival. Hau was redundant because Lillie and Gladion fill both the roles he is meant to play. Lillie is the handhold tutorial character, Gladion functions as your battle rival, anti-hero, and occasional mini-boss, and they both also have major roles within the games main story arc.

Hop starts as an insecure new trainer terribly afraid of living in the shadow of his brother, the champion who's regarded as the best trainer in the entire region and possibly the world, as well as constantly being defeated by the player further crushing his spirit. He ends by overcoming his insecurities and becoming a true contender for champion, and even surpassing his brother in strength by capturing one of the legendaries and using it in battle. Which was also a cool change instead of the other legendary just not existing or disappearing after the climax.

None of this is to say SwSh had great storytelling, but Hop was way more of a character than Hau was.

View attachment 2231394
Not to mention how Team Yell is just a lame rehash of Team Skull, and Chairman Rose had the same “twist” as Lusamine.

Team Yell is both stupid and unnecessary. Lusamine's twist surprised me less than Rose's, maybe that is due to USUM cutscenes constantly giving her sinister angles and weird facial expressions, whilst Rose is never really hinted to be evil until the climax happens.

 

[Syikeblade]

They are to an extent, even using a lot of the same animations.

Hau just felt like a rival for the sake of the Pokemon formula, he has no use within the story other than being present, and nothing he does within it is something that makes him stand out. Gladion makes a much better rival in USUM, and could've been similar to Silver as an antagonistic rival. Hau was redundant because Lillie and Gladion fill both the roles he is meant to play. Lillie is the handhold tutorial character, Gladion functions as your battle rival, anti-hero, and occasional mini-boss, and they both also have major roles within the games main story arc.

Hop starts as an insecure new trainer terribly afraid of living in the shadow of his brother, the champion who's regarded as the best trainer in the entire region and possibly the world, as well as constantly being defeated by the player further crushing his spirit. He ends by overcoming his insecurities and becoming a true contender for champion, and even surpassing his brother in strength by capturing one of the legendaries and using it in battle. Which was also a cool change instead of the other legendary just not existing or disappearing after the climax.

None of this is to say SwSh had great storytelling, but Hop was way more of a character than Hau was.


Team Yell is both stupid and unnecessary. Lusamine's twist surprised me less than Rose's, maybe that is due to USUM cutscenes constantly giving her sinister angles and weird facial expressions, whilst Rose is never really hinted to be evil until the climax happens.

I totally forgot team yell exists

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

but I will say I liked the twist of the professor being the Champion.

I would have...in an Elite Four that wasn't just established.

It came across as Kukui just jerking himself off to push to establish the first Elite 4 and Championship...and just name himself Champion. It doesn't help that his team is god damn lame.

Not to mention how Team Yell is just a lame rehash of Team Skull

At least Team Yell feels correct to the setting (Soccer Holligans) as opposed to Team Skull who are just Hawaiian Wiggers.

Hop and Hau are both sort of lame as fuck though. SW/SH Edgiboi was cooler though and him getting bullied into being a Gym Leader after getting DQ'd was pretty fun.

 

[Bunny Tracks]

See, Hau is actually one of the things in SM that I actually really liked. Yeah, he's another friendly rival, but he at least feels genuine like the ones in Gen V did, and not incredibly forced, and tacked on like the ones in Gen 4, and especially Gen 6.

Yeah, he's useless in regards to the plot, but then again, most rivals in Pokemon games are, and at least Hau has a bit of personality to him, and actually does get more serious as the game progresses. He's still easy as shit, but at least he does get more and more upset that he keeps losing.

It actually kinda bothers me that Hop is such an obvious copy of Hau, and yet they managed to make him have even less personality, and turn him into basically another version of Barry.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

especially Gen 6.

Man, The Gen 6 Rivals were a crime. You have this whole group that starts out..and none of them becomes a proper rival.

It was really the only thing I hated* about Gen 6.

*Outside of the gripe I have with Mega Evolution Requiring a Held item

 

[Antarctic Hellbeast]

Still feel they haven't went past Garry or the GEN 2 rival in terms of a decent rival.

May/Brendan were the first imo that were there for the sake of it and were too nice to be a true rival.

Barry seems like the proto-hau but actually at least tried really hard to be a proper rival and relevant character in the plot and can be re-battled every now and again at the Survival area on weekends. No idea why you can't rematch against future Generation's rival characters as far as I know.

Dawn/Lucas just kind've exists and really could have been either replaced entirely by Barry, or just cut from the game since they hardly feature in the plot at all compared to May/Brendan or any other Actual rivals.

 

[Disc]

The one thing I like the most about hop is that he has the single best-designed battle in the entire series... namely, the very first battle of the game.

Seriously, that battle alone, very organically, teaches you about level ups, type effectiveness, and a lot of other things. And unlike so many other games that give the illusion of a fair fight while actually dicking you over, Hop's first battle instead makes it seem like you're at a disadvantage, when it actually sets you up for a satisfying victory.

 

[Rotollo 2]

The one thing I like the most about hop is that he has the single best-designed battle in the entire series... namely, the very first battle of the game.

Seriously, that battle alone, very organically, teaches you about level ups, type effectiveness, and a lot of other things. And unlike so many other games that give the illusion of a fair fight while actually dicking you over, Hop's first battle instead makes it seem like you're at a disadvantage, when it actually sets you up for a satisfying victory.

Yeah it's a good trick but the fact that hop still tells you "Man you sure know your type advantages" every battle after that is just unnecessary. Hop repeats shit so often the guy feels like a broken record, I swear he goes through his whole depression arc 3 times in the game.

Lusamine's twist surprised me less than Rose's, maybe that is due to USUM cutscenes constantly giving her sinister angles and weird facial expressions, whilst Rose is never really hinted to be evil until the climax happens.

Rose's design just screamed twist bad guy since the first time I saw him, that plus considering Macros Cosmos just immediately followed the aether foundation it made the twist feel like a certainty to me.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Still feel they haven't went past Garry or the GEN 2 rival in terms of a decent rival.

May/Brendan were the first imo that were there for the sake of it and were too nice to be a true rival.

Barry seems like the proto-hau but actually at least tried really hard to be a proper rival and relevant character in the plot and can be re-battled every now and again at the Survival area on weekends. No idea why you can't rematch against future Generation's rival characters as far as I know.

Dawn/Lucas just kind've exists and really could have been either replaced entirely by Barry, or just cut from the game since they hardly feature in the plot at all compared to May/Brendan or any other Actual rivals.

See this is why the "dunking" on SW/SH annoys me.

Almost Every issue that gets brought up shows up in the series almost constantly. "Oh Hop isn't a great rival"...Okay Rivals really haven't been great Since Gen 3. Gary beating you to the championship was a cool twist, and then they didn't want to repeat it with Silver so he shows up right before you arrive to fight the Elite Four. After that they just show up on victory road, in the very Least Hau showed up at the final tournament.

 

[Antarctic Hellbeast]

See this is why the "dunking" on SW/SH annoys me.

Almost Every issue that gets brought up shows up in the series almost constantly. "Oh Hop isn't a great rival"...Okay Rivals really haven't been great Since Gen 3. Gary beating you to the championship was a cool twist, and then they didn't want to repeat it with Silver so he shows up right before you arrive to fight the Elite Four. After that they just show up on victory road, in the very Least Hau showed up at the final tournament.

no one is dunking on SW/SH here and I did not even mention the GEN VIII games in my post.
However as annoying as the extremely vocal redditor fanbase can be for most video games. When they spam that shit all over youtube until they find a new topic of the day to whinge and moan about.

To be fair, Pokémon was never truly about being a magnum opus of story writing anyway.
Was always supposed to be about playing a self insert generic template character and an interesting world to explore with a badass creature to go fight other creatures with and the world gives the sufficient context to not be completely random, so you can suspend your belief and just enjoy it for what it is:

A less complicated JRPG without autistic names like "rakujaka" for every other move that don't mean anything in English (Blame the localization team.) and a straightforward enough, common sense way to get the things that you want to use in game. Items or Pokémon. That a lot of that Genre is extremely autistic about except for the few runaway hits like Pokémon and most that actually made it to the west.

They don't even hide it when they do use tropes like Dragon knights, but with Pokémon like Charizard and Salamence and their trainers like in the elite four with Lance and how they portray them in their multimedia.

 

[Ido]

I despise Hau and Hop, they're both inescapable.

I was thinking about the corner GF backed themselves into recently as far as pikachu clones and the generic first route dog/cat/bird pokemon. Other than looks, there just isn't any substance, but they keep churning more out trying to catch people's attention. They spent so much time on the first gen that everyone knows and loves them.

(Edit, Sorry, accidentally posted before I was ready) but there's nothing to attach yourself to anymore. You can't even have YOUR pokemon interact with the environment to surf, cut trees down, whatever. You have the ride pokemon, a bike, and a blockage you can only pass by going forward and progressing through the game. They really needed to work on interacting more with pokemon, had they done that earlier maybe they wouldn't have had keep making more. I keep thinking pokemon ranger and using that formula- use water pokemon to put out forest fire to move forward kind of stuff. I also wish they would've actually had pokemon in the overworld doing what their dex entries say they do. Maybe things would be a bit more diversified, like "we already had pikachu run through mouse holes in a power plant to press a button to open a gate so maybe let's not do another electric rodent?" I know its a pipe dream, but i can dream about a pokemon game where your kid rival/annoying sidekick just gets taken away in game by drifloon and you have the option to save him (and choose not to) all I want.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

no one is dunking on SW/SH here and I did not even mention the GEN VIII games in my post.

That wasn't specifically at you, but you can't deny that Gen 8 is being held to some sort of really strange standard that the other generations aren't. Sorry if I made it seem that was a direct shot towards you.

 

[Massively Strong Greed]

The one thing I like the most about hop is that he has the single best-designed battle in the entire series... namely, the very first battle of the game.
Seriously, that battle alone, very organically, teaches you about level ups, type effectiveness, and a lot of other things. And unlike so many other games that give the illusion of a fair fight while actually dicking you over, Hop's first battle instead makes it seem like you're at a disadvantage, when it actually sets you up for a satisfying victory.

The very last Hop battle is surprisingly difficult, at least in Shield. I thought I was destroying him until he suddenly sent out fucking Zacian as his last resort.

I despise Hau and Hop, they're both inescapable.

I was thinking about the corner GF backed themselves into recently as far as pikachu clones and the generic first route dog/cat/bird pokemon. Other than looks, there just isn't any substance, but they keep churning more out trying to catch people's attention. They spent so much time on the first gen that everyone knows and loves them.

(Edit, Sorry, accidentally posted before I was ready) but there's nothing to attach yourself to anymore. You can't even have YOUR pokemon interact with the environment to surf, cut trees down, whatever. You have the ride pokemon, a bike, and a blockage you can only pass by going forward and progressing through the game. They really needed to work on interacting more with pokemon, had they done that earlier maybe they wouldn't have had keep making more. I keep thinking pokemon ranger and using that formula- use water pokemon to put out forest fire to move forward kind of stuff. I also wish they would've actually had pokemon in the overworld doing what their dex entries say they do. Maybe things would be a bit more diversified, like "we already had pikachu run through mouse holes in a power plant to press a button to open a gate so maybe let's not do another electric rodent?" I know its a pipe dream, but i can dream about a pokemon game where your kid rival/annoying sidekick just gets taken away in game by drifloon and you have the option to save him (and choose not to) all I want.

I’m so fucking sick of the Pikachu clones. Dedenne in particular is one of my least favorite Pokémon, it just looks like a fusion of Raichu and Marill. Then there’s Togedemaru, the canon version of Sonichu.

 

[Rotollo 2]

Then there’s Togedemaru, the canon version of Sonichu.

Does that make Morpeko shadow the hedgehog?

 

[SnowBall]

I despise Hau and Hop, they're both inescapable.

I was thinking about the corner GF backed themselves into recently as far as pikachu clones and the generic first route dog/cat/bird pokemon. Other than looks, there just isn't any substance, but they keep churning more out trying to catch people's attention. They spent so much time on the first gen that everyone knows and loves them.

(Edit, Sorry, accidentally posted before I was ready) but there's nothing to attach yourself to anymore. You can't even have YOUR pokemon interact with the environment to surf, cut trees down, whatever. You have the ride pokemon, a bike, and a blockage you can only pass by going forward and progressing through the game. They really needed to work on interacting more with pokemon, had they done that earlier maybe they wouldn't have had keep making more. I keep thinking pokemon ranger and using that formula- use water pokemon to put out forest fire to move forward kind of stuff. I also wish they would've actually had pokemon in the overworld doing what their dex entries say they do. Maybe things would be a bit more diversified, like "we already had pikachu run through mouse holes in a power plant to press a button to open a gate so maybe let's not do another electric rodent?" I know its a pipe dream, but i can dream about a pokemon game where your kid rival/annoying sidekick just gets taken away in game by drifloon and you have the option to save him (and choose not to) all I want.

I don’t want HMs back or any equivalent of them, they’re horrible and I don’t care if it makes the world immersive. Pokemon camp and Aime/Refresh make me feel far more attached to my Pokemon than shoving an hm slave in my party to solve kindergarten difficulty puzzles. Even if your Pokemon can use an hm move without needing a move slot you still have to put Pokemon in your party that can use them.

It would be nice to see more immersion and interaction with the environment but don’t make it boring or tedious for the sake of immersion.

 

[Nauseated Courgi]

I’m so fucking sick of the Pikachu clones. Dedenne in particular is one of my least favorite Pokémon, it just looks like a fusion of Raichu and Marill. Then there’s Togedemaru, the canon version of Sonichu.

I have no problem with them, personally. It's like the mushroom pokemon every odd numbered generation, its per tradition, but my major gripe with them is the trend of having every one past gen 2 be an eletric type with no evolution.

That cuts out so much potential with them especially since the Azurill line is still the best pika-clone ever made.

 

[Massively Strong Greed]

I have no problem with them, personally. It's like the mushroom pokemon every odd numbered generation, its per tradition, but my major gripe with them is the trend of having every one past gen 2 be an eletric type with no evolution.

That cuts out so much potential with them especially since the Azurill line is still the best pika-clone ever made.

That’s my main issue, most of them are utterly useless in battle. Also, Emolga is another really lazy design, it’s basically just a palette swapped Pachirisu that can glide.

 

[SnowBall]

That’s my main issue, most of them are utterly useless in battle. Also, Emolga is another really lazy design, it’s basically just a palette swapped Pachirisu that can glide.

They could at least give them better stats if they refuse to give them an evolution.

 

[Massively Strong Greed]

For the record, I don’t consider Marill a Pikachu clone, its design is distinct enough to be its own thing. It also helps that Azumarill is actually useful.

 

[Antarctic Hellbeast]

Pachirisu was an alright pikachu clone. though it was basically squirrel pikachu.