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

[Bunny Tracks]

I love Gen 5. It's got great music, a good story (for a Pokemon game), nice graphics, and gave us N, and his terrifying room, and probably most of my favorite Pokemon.

Let's just be honest here. Every Pokemon game is kinda mid, especially when compared to other games. That doesn't mean they're bad, or shouldn't be better, but let's face it. Pokemon is Pokemon. It's always just been what it is, has never had to be anything else, and has only gone on for so long because no other game has managed to successfully fully replicate the feeling of it while also improving on it.

At least Gen 5 tried to change that by actually attempting a soft-reboot, and giving us a better story while also confronting the actual criticisms the prior games got. Sure, it didn't fully succeed on the that, but it's miles better than any of the other games on that front, especially the newer ones.

Tl;dr: Fuck you, I love the crazy vegan, his music, and the giant, psychotic three-headed dragon his dad has.

 

[Squawking Macaw]

He can talk to Pokemon. He can ask them if they want to be his pets like we do animals IRL.

He notices that his Pokemon don't want to leave him, it's why he starts doubting if he's right.

why many Gen 5 Pokemon have been getting touch-ups over the past few generations

Unova mons only started getting touch-ups in gen 8. Before that, gen 5 was one of the most neglected, all it had to its name was Mega Audino.

My fundamental issue with N is that he's a case of the franchises mechanics strangely working against what they're trying to do with him.

Yes, I agreed with this point. GF can only go so far with N and Team Plasma because at the end of the day this is a Pokemon game and they have to abide by the game's premise and mechanics. They do try to explain N's viewpoint, he uses Pokemon because otherwise he has no authority to tell other trainers to release theirs.

The legendary dragons don't answer to Team Plasma, they answer to N, and he fully believes what he's saying, even if his belief is challenged. My issue with them is that Black is obviously canon over White, Zekrom's ideals suit N more than Reshiram's truth.

About the castle being built by Pokemon, yeah I noticed that same line on Bulbapedia after @The Ultimate Ramotith pointed it out. And the AI thing, I can't say I'm a fan of it, but you still raised some interesting points.

Out of all mainline Pokemon games, I still think gen 5 tells the best story, even if it's flawed and doesn't go as far as it could've. If you want a better story in a Pokemon game, you'll have to play Mystery Dungeon.

 

[Computer God Autism]

You said yourself the story wasn't very good. It was 'Good for pokemon' which means it was bad.

I said I like it, but I don't think it's a masterpiece or good enough to compete with proper RPGs. That's also okay; no one plays Pokemon for the story. Pokemon writing isn't good, but for the first four gens it also wasn't bad. Gen 4 pushed the envelope slightly by adding discernable character traits to more characters than your rival, but otherwise all of them exist to just service the gameplay along, and the writing did a good job at that. Gen 5 tried something different and I don't think the results were bad, even if they weren't as amazing as people retroactively make them out to be.

That's why people still talk about BW; it was the only real attempt Gamefreak has made at creating an actual narrative. You can rightly argue Gamefreak should have hired some professional writers and come up with something even better, but the fundamental goal of writing a story is to make something compelling, which they objectively succeeded at given people are still litigating what nuance exists in its story fifteen years later. If you want an example of people giving a Pokemon game a participation trophy for bad writing, look at S/M where there is no real plot and the entirety of the narrative hinges on your investment in Lillie's family drama.

 

[Catgirl Tyranid]

If you want an example of people giving a Pokemon game a participation trophy for bad writing, look at S/M where there is no real plot and the entirety of the narrative hinges on your investment in Lillie's family drama.

As a member of the farms, you should know that drama makes the best story. (I never made it past the tutorial in Sun and Moon...)

 

[Computer God Autism]

As a member of the farms, you should know that drama makes the best story. (I never made it past the tutorial in Sun and Moon...)

I'm now envisioning an alternative S/M story where Lusamine is an alcoholic xannie addict, Gladion is a gothic wizard and Lillie wears Nebby as a necklace while going on a lovequest for a girlfriend-free player character.

 

[X-avier cuck]

He notices that his Pokemon don't want to leave him, it's why he starts doubting if he's right.
View attachment 7712804


Unova mons only started getting touch-ups in gen 8. Before that, gen 5 was one of the most neglected, all it had to its name was Mega Audino.


Yes, I agreed with this point. GF can only go so far with N and Team Plasma because at the end of the day this is a Pokemon game and they have to abide by the game's premise and mechanics. They do try to explain N's viewpoint, he uses Pokemon because otherwise he has no authority to tell other trainers to release theirs.

The legendary dragons don't answer to Team Plasma, they answer to N, and he fully believes what he's saying, even if his belief is challenged. My issue with them is that Black is obviously canon over White, Zekrom's ideals suit N more than Reshiram's truth.

About the castle being built by Pokemon, yeah I noticed that same line on Bulbapedia after @The Ultimate Ramotith pointed it out. And the AI thing, I can't say I'm a fan of it, but you still raised some interesting points.

Out of all mainline Pokemon games, I still think gen 5 tells the best story, even if it's flawed and doesn't go as far as it could've. If you want a better story in a Pokemon game, you'll have to play Mystery Dungeon.

Tbf, we got a lot of generation 5 love with generation 8, and that has increased quite a lot to the point that most of the megas from Za are coming from generation 5.

I see this as a case of TPC trying to " Luigify" them so they can be distinctive from the generation one monsters that they were based on.

I also get that N is fundamentally autistic, but it's just so weird to have him yell and scream at the player for how they allegedly treat Pokemon when he is technically doing something far worse.

It takes me back to the English dub of the first Pokemon movie where they had that anti-fighting message.

N's Pokemon are essentially getting crap beat out of them for what basically amounts to nothing but a rebuttal that he is giving himself.

The thing about the dragons is that they are fighting on the behalf of team plasma as a whole because that's N ultimately represents which as somebody pointed out earlier makes this a fundamentally black and white story.

Whenever I see zoomers who grew up with this generation talk about it online they kind of painted as this morally complex or even grey story when the actual game itself goes out of its way to pet you on the head and tell you that everything you do is a-okay, and TP are a bunch of lying scumbags that effectively just end up being team rocket with extra bells and whistles.

The whole theme of generation 5 is that two sides can put their differences aside, and come together and make something whole.

That's a message represented by the third legendary, the fact that Unova is based off of the United States, and some random NPCs in both the first games and sequels talk about it.
The problem with all of that is that the other side is a domestic terrorist group that wants to basically take over the world using a one of two powerful dragons that could (according to both of their lores ) destroy the entire world.


I think it definitely tries to go for a sprawling Epic, but I feel like the 3D games and a combination of nostalgia have caused people to kind of inflate so then qualities about BW.

 

[Kofi Drinka]

said I like it, but I don't think it's a masterpiece or good enough to compete with proper RPGs

So it's not good enough by the standards of the genre.

That's also okay; no one plays Pokemon for the story.

Then the story shouldn't be getting in the way of the gameplay

Pokemon writing isn't good, but for the first four gens it also wasn't bad. Gen 4 pushed the envelope slightly by adding discernable character traits to more characters than your rival

So it's not good. Gen 3 has plenty of developed characters other than your rival. Gen 2 has Jasmine go out to help a Pokemon and give you a mini dungeon. B/W does the same thing but the dungeon sucks because it's a sewer level with a high encounter rate.

I think Unova is liked by Americans because it's based on their home. I feel the same with Gallar. It doesn't make it a good game and the story is bad and shouldn't be made excuses for. "Is Pokemon battling bad?" has no mystery or depth. The answer will be no. No, you aren't a bad person for playing a children's game.

 

[Catgirl Tyranid]

So it's not good enough by the standards of the genre.

Pokemon is its own self contained genre, not a typical RPG. Nothing scratches the monster collecting / battling simulator itch quite like it and those that attempt are often deeply flawed (I'm thinking of Digimon World 2).

Then the story shouldn't be getting in the way of the gameplay

I never felt like the Black & White story got in the way of the gameplay. It seemed like the right amount of narrative for a Pokemon game even if the narrative could have been better.

So it's not good. Gen 3 ha

We get it, you like Gen 3. We like it too. That doesn't mean Gen V doesn't have its own merits. You're being needlessly autistic antagonistic about this.

I like Black and White (and the sequels, I need to replay both), I consider them good Pokemon games. I like RSE, I consider them good Pokemon games. These are not mutually exclusive opinions.

 

[HodgePodgeRogerDodger]

I like Emerald the best, but Gen 2’s story is the best. Team Rocket’s whole plan is “Call the boss back so he can tell us what to do.” I like Lance being a detective.

I like the story being minimal. Gen V is a lot of lipstick on a pig, the core of it are destroyed because it wants to be every other JRPG with some gay story. Very rarely was control taken from you in 1-4, Gen V does it like every fucking new city and gym. Every previous Generation kept it pretty minimal and you knew at most villains mean control is taken away before you beat the shit out of them. Gen V constantly takes control away.

Seriously I was being purposefully inflammatory with calling people Jeets, but this feels like I am arguing with Fallout 3 Jeets.

 

[X-avier cuck]

I will add that BW2 mended ALOT of things I had with the OG BW.

It was cool that GF gave them the GSC treatment, and having a lot of older Mons, enchanted team building.
TP was more interesting with them being split.
PWT was and still is one of the GOAT post-game things.


ALSO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwhnt4ytE3k

 

[Kofi Drinka]

Pokemon is its own self contained genre, not a typical RPG. Nothing scratches the monster collecting / battling simulator itch quite like it and those that attempt are often deeply flawed (I'm thinking of Digimon World 2).

You picked Digimon world 2 knowing it's a bad game that can't be defended. And it's not on the same system or comparable to Pokemon in any way. Maybe Mysterious dungeon but they're pretty bad dungeon crawlers too.

Black/white is on a system with Dragon quest, Final fantasy, Chronic Trigger, SMT (Is that not the same itch?), Megaman RPGs, Digimon World Dusk/Dawn and Etrian Odyssey. If we add the GBA slot we get even more RPGs and monster catching games like Medabots, Robopon, Monster rancher and quality SNES JRPG ports or originals like Golden Sun.

Pokemon shouldn't be made excuses for because it has nostalgia behind it. If it has a bad story and it intrudes on the good aspects of the game then the story should have been cut down. When I buy a game I compare it to other games in the genre and how much they're charging. Pokemon, SMT Strange Journey and Digimon World Dusk/Dawn are close enough to compare and story wise Pokemon is miles behind Digimon and can't hold a candle to SMT. So why should it get away with it? Because it's Pokemon? No. That's how we end up with N64 trees on the Switch.

 

[HodgePodgeRogerDodger]

This is what Gen V defenders sound like.

 

[Dysnomia]

Hoenn did a better job of showing you enough new with the old. Kalos just felt like they half assed and rehashed shit. Bouffalant and the shitty British designed shit.

Sure Bouffalant looks like Tauros' fly cousin with a fro, but did you not expect a region based on the US to not have a buffalo pokemon?

Speaking of Tauros, I had some issue telling the Paldean versions apart at first. I went and caught another water one because I thought he was the regular variety.

 

[HodgePodgeRogerDodger]

Sure Bouffalant looks like Tauros' fly cousin with a fro, but did you not expect a region based on the US to not have a buffalo pokemon?

Speaking of Tauros, I had some issue telling the Paldean versions apart at first. I went and caught another water one because I thought he was the regular variety.

I expect a Buffalo to look like a Buffalo. A Buffalo is not a cow with an Afro, I get the pun, but it’s lazy.

Also, it’s based on New York City. No one wants anything based on NYC. I’d take a game based on the Great Lakes region (Dunes, a Centralia fire ghost town, Urban decay of Cleveland, Swamps, and forests) over Jew York. Anywhere else in the US would have been cool. New York isn’t even cool to visit, it’s a shit hole.

 

[Catgirl Tyranid]

You picked Digimon world 2 knowing it's a bad game that can't be defended.

I picked Digimon World 2 because I played it to completion recently (It does suck, even at 5X speed) and it was the first that came to mind.

 

[Retarded Weeb]

Even though N mentions not liking that Pokemon get hurt in battles a few times, the main thrust of his rants are about the idea that humans are using Pokemon to their own ends because they can't truly understand them (unlike N who can talk to Pokemon) as well as not liking the idea that humans think they can understand Pokemon (like the professors researching them and making the Pokedex to catalog them). You can whine that it's hypocritical for N to ask some Pokemon to fight on his behalf for a bit until he lets them go back to nature, but that's kind of stupid. The fact that N can straight up talk to Pokemon and ask how they feel will always give him a moral advantage in this argument from an in-universe perspective, which is why he slowly changes his mind because he talks to the player's Pokemon to find out how they feel about things.

And in total, you're all being dumb focusing so much on the argument about Pokemon battles being wrong or not. That's not what Black/White is even about. The whole story is about how diversity (in the general sense, not in the "more niggers" sense) and trying to understand the viewpoints of others is a good thing. It isn't remotely subtle about it, they hammer it in multiple times. There's constant talk about expanding your understanding of the world and the people in it, Bianca's whole thing is that her father needs to learn to think about how she feels, Cheren's whole thing is that he never thought deeply about why he wants to be a trainer and talking with others like Alder causes him to have a deeper understanding of what he wants.

Team Plasma aren't cartoon villains to try and make their anti-Pokemon battling message look bad, they're cartoon villains because they supposed to depict political extremism. This is clearly shown by that one gag line of one of grunts straight up saying "We will not accept other people's opinions!" You're not supposed to think that people need to learn to put their differences aside to work with Team Plasma, you're supposed to think Team Plasma are evil because they would never do anything like that. N believes the things he does because he's been inoculated in propaganda and only allowed to interact with people and Pokemon that would support his viewpoint his whole life. Team Plasma are political nutjobs who spout extremist rhetoric, accuse anyone who doesn't immediately agree with them of being evil, justify their own actions are being necessary to fight an evil society, and many members are not true believers but just thugs looking for a way to commit violence under a veil of moral justification that they'll be protected for. Their leader is a narcissistic psychopath who's knowingly using these extremist political tactics as a way to cynically amass power and put himself as the effective head of government.

That's what the story is about. Going "Uhh, why didn't the game go into Team Plasma's points about Pokemom battling and whether it's wrong? They're just strawmen!" is missing the point. Team Plasma are bad faith actors and brainwashed cultists, and the point is get you to recognize that and be more mindful of not becoming that yourself.

 

[30+GameOvers]

This is what Gen V defenders sound like.

*Gen 5 haters

 

[Garbage of Cesspool]

Amusing happening from the TCG gacha game. A new Johto-focused set just launched, but the immersive (some of the highest rarity pulls in the entire game) artworks had a bit of a problem....

(Archive)

Traced-over fanart. TCPI put out a statement claiming they'd provided their artist with "incorrect materials as official documents" and actually pulled the artwork before the set had even launched.

Spoiler: Full Statement

(Archive)

I can't tell if they figured this out themselves or if people making a ruckus after the art had been datamined a couple days before release made them take action, but for now there are... placeholders.

Spoiler: Lol. Lmao even.

 

[Computer God Autism]

Then the story shouldn't be getting in the way of the gameplay

If you genuinely believe the BW story impedes the gameplay you probably don't have the attention span to actually judge what makes a good story.

 

[Squawking Macaw]

Traced-over fanart. TCPI put out a statement claiming they'd provided their artist with "incorrect materials as official documents" and actually pulled the artwork before the set had even launched.

Does TPC just have a fanart folder lying around? How does something like this even happen in the first place?

It's kinda like that time when Sumo Digital accidentally used fanart in Sonic & Sega All Stars Racing and they had to patch it out.