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

[What the shit]

I’m curious if Gamefreak will now go through this route of Pokémon games in the future, and what sort of improvements, features, and the like will be added.

 

[Nauseated Courgi]

I’m curious if Gamefreak will now go through this route of Pokémon games in the future, and what sort of improvements, features, and the like will be added.

Only time will tell.

 

[Dammit Mandrake!]

Only time will tell.

And if history is any indication...

 

[Toxinophile]

You can't act like how a pokemon is presented in other media won't affect how it's received in game. Most people will come to play pokemon because they saw some somewhere and want to use them. Therefore, the personalities starters are presented with in other media have a huge effect on their reception in the games. You can't talk about them in a bubble.

Yes I can because the games themselves are meant to be a separate primary source of Pokemon media and are reviewed as such. The audience knows the staunch difference between the Pokemon you see on the anime and the Pokemon you capture in the games. The average player can and should be able to make their starter's distinct from the anime. If what you're saying about the anime is true, then the starters in the game are worse off for having an indisputable singular personality directly tied to the anime, instead of objective creative freedom given to you by the game.

Firstly, I challenge your premise. Pokemon are literally all shapes and sizes, from sentient blobs to humanoid, and starters have never been a grand indicator of the variety or monstrous possibilities you proclaim they are.

I never said that. You are putting words into my mouth. You have already interpreted my own argument down to two sentences, yet neither me or you mention that the starters are meant to represent the region as a whole. Your false counterargument and examples does not work here when its counters a strawman that never existed.

Secondly, I challenge your premise that pokemon with less defined personalities will make for better starters. I distinctly remember gravitating to some starters specifically because of clear-cut personality - hell, there were whole memes about Smugleaf Snivy's personality, and I personally gravitated to it for that. These characteristics don't make them blank slates, but depending on the person, they can be the seed from which ideas grow about their nuances of their personality, or the personality they're embedded with might be naturally attractive regardless.

Snivy's "Smugleaf personality" may be a creative extrapolation of a single teaser image back from the 4chan image boards, but that type of anthropomorphism is nowhere within the games themselves, you've proved my point. The less distinct the personality a starter pokemon has, the more freedom of creative expression there is within.

(On a related note, I find your drawn line of Gen 6 very dodgy, and not acknowledging the careers and personality expressed in at least Empoleon, Infernape, Blaziken and all the Gen 5 starters.

Because none of these examples have nearly as much anthropomorphic traits as the Pokemon starters from the 3DS era and beyond. The gen IV and V starters references ancient history and mythology, not a career, or a human profession. Blaziken's hakama-like leg feathers isn't nearly as egregious as Delphox's wizard wand, Primarina's jewelry, or Rillaboom's drumkit. Blaziken's fighter-based personally is hardly conspicuous when every single Pokemon battles in the games.

Putting aside that your final word in the first one talks about which Pokemon are most beloved, yet you never explain how you determined that...

My previous sentence was persuasive hyperbole but I've made clear within said statement that, as you've eloquently put it:

1. Pokemon are generally monsters first and foremost, and the starters should emphasize that.
2. Starters should thus not have clear basis in human jobs by default, and should instead emphasize the beastly traits to be more flexible in personality, allowing the player to anthropomorphize them freely.

I'd say that's a clear method for determining which of the 24 starter Pokemon lines is the most beloved, more or less.

Trying to argue that one set is "objectively" better designed is stupid, and you should know better. You have a standard by which you're measuring, but it's a completely arbitrary one that isn't really based in anything other than your perception of what kids will respond to best - which you haven't evidenced.

I cannot make this any more clearer, the objectively better Starters are the ones less anthropomorphic, and therefore more easily creatively malleable by the player. That standard of measurement seems universally fair IMHO.

As for the rest of the paragraph, that is my point you dumb of fuck. You are trying to apply an objective veneer to an incredibly subjective topic, one that is heavily influenced by dozens of factors external to the character design itself. Which is why, to me, the standards you are measuring don't stand up to scrutiny. You're applying them after the fact, trying to apply a simple yardstick to an inherently subjective and infinitely corrupted topic.

My point is not that these starters are as good as the classics. My point is that trying to act like there's some single objective measure of what makes a good starter is ridiculous, and this is where the shaky parts of your argument come from.

There are only EIGHT trios of starter evolution lines to sort out dude, It ain't as impossible as you make it out to be. The less athro, the better. Simple as.

 

[Kuchipatchi]

I've logged 13 hours in the game so far and here's my review.

The thing that's good right off the bat is the play style and how it deviates from the normal game formula, really refreshing for once! I like going about, finding Pokémon and catching/battling them to add to the Dex. With the Pokédex, it's not just "catch this Pokémon and that's it", you get other tasks to do too (though it's just padding, I get that and some have too many extra tasks. It's only worth 100% a page if you want to shiny hunt).
Speaking of shiny hunting, I think it's a clever idea to have the (minor spoiler) free shiny Ponyta task that lets you find a shiny so you know what to look out for. I know the sound from a YT video but some people may not have watched videos beforehand.

I'm not sure if it's just me or the game but I think that the attacks (dealt and taken) are more powerful. I can square up against a Pokémon of similar level and take tremendous damage from a move but on the flip side, I can knock out a wild Pokémon in one move.

Sw/Sh had the bad habit of blacking out the screen to prevent animating certain things in cutscenes and is still prevelant here along with a similar way of animating characters like it's a 90s sprite-based JRPG. Don't get me started when a character gasps and has that goofy look on their face, I laughed when that first happened and not cos it was a comedic scene.

And to cap it off with a nitpick, I was going through the lake in Obsidian Fields, I see an Alpha Qwilfish and I thought that I should get it. I encountered it and it was level 71! My highest level Pokémon was my Typhlosion at 36. Nonetheless, I hurried away as fast as I could. ._.
And choosing when to evolve your Pokémon is a serious time saver. I don't want to evolve my adorable Mon!

PS: How do I battle the Pokémon that run away on turn 1? I can't battle Starlies because they keep buggering off!

Edit: Forgot to say that another positive is that this is a stand-alone game and not split in two for forced exclusivity!

 

[Hitman One]

My review:

Doomchuds will never recover.

 

[Rotollo 2]

My review:
View attachment 2935674
Doomchuds will never recover.

The Time Travel Triad

 

[Dammit Mandrake!]

Sorry I'm late, I had a bunch of errands to run this morning. Just let me get my notes and catch up for a second. Okay... alright, ahem!

OH HOHOHO LOOK HOW MAD THE BITCHES ARE.

They can't even handle the truth about their dead nigger franchise and have deluded themselves into settling for mediocrity. Maybe your grandchildren will get the Pokemon game that 2011 deserved. Oh wait!! You're never going to have grandchildren! HAH!! HAH I SAY!! AND AGAIN I SAY HAH!

PS: How do I battle the Pokémon that run away on turn 1? I can't battle Starlies because they keep buggering off!

You need to use Lightning Strike or Hatchet Man depending on who you have in the party and knock the metal slime down before it can run. Oh wait that's Dragon Quest, the series that Pokemon ripped off. OHHHH SHIT!!! HOW WILL THEY EVER RECOVER!? STOMACHS FULL OF BUTTERFREE! HEADS FULL OF SLOWBRO!

No but you're 100% right about how Sword and Shield used black screens and fade-outs to cover up a lack of animation. I hate it when games do that.

 

[SteelPlatedHeart]

PS: How do I battle the Pokémon that run away on turn 1? I can't battle Starlies because they keep buggering off!

Sneak up behind them and pop them in the back of the head with the Pokeball of the Pokémon you want to fight them. It’ll stun them for a turn or two.

Also saw my first “Pokémon up a tree” thing. A Psyduck in the forest jumped up into a tree to sleep and I caught him.

Also ran into my first “Pokémon swarm” led by an alpha. That was nuts.

 

[Kuchipatchi]

Also saw my first “Pokémon up a tree” thing. A Psyduck in the forest jumped up into a tree to sleep and I caught him.

Also ran into my first “Pokémon swarm” led by an alpha. That was nuts.

I've not done either of those yet. I found some of my favourite Pokémon in the beach level so I had to train them up for a while.

I did go in one of those dimension rifts and caught a normal Sneasel and get ganged up on by an Onix, two Lickitung or Lickilicky (can't tell, too focused on running).
My first one had a ton of Yanma with a Yanmega boss but I couldn't catch it which is a shame.

I have a Finneon on my team but I really don't want to evolve her, she's too precious and I love Finneon so I want to train a separate one for evolution and use for roaming and battling weaker Pokémon.
I remember someone saying earlier about having a mechanic to power up unevolved Pokémon like in Let's Go, I would welcome that in this game but I doubt we'd ever get it.

 

[SteelPlatedHeart]

Pokémon God literally yanks you into space-time, steals your phone, spits you out of a hole in the sky hundreds of years in the past, then throws your phone(now mutated with celestial tech) back at you and orders you to “catch them all”.

I kinda want this as the anime.

 

[Rathalos]

I’m curious if Gamefreak will now go through this route of Pokémon games in the future, and what sort of improvements, features, and the like will be added.

hopefully they do, because i cant imagine people will be too keen on returning to the super stale cookie cutter formula we had before, especailly since this game introduces so many changes that people adore

then again, gamefreak took away megas when people loved those so i wouldnt be shocked if they went back to the same boring shit after this for no reason

 

[Buttigieg2020]

Ah okay. It sounded like the name of the gas company or something.

That’s because it almost is.


Night music in Arceus is pretty good.

 

[Product Intervention]

then again, gamefreak took away megas when people loved those so i wouldnt be shocked if they went back to the same boring shit after this for no reason

Mega evolutions and changes along those lines were token attempts and never good.

 

[DDBCAE CBAADCBE]

Is Legends any good? It looks great but I want to check into it more without spoilers before I buy. It isn’t another GO game is it?

 

[NerdShamer]

Mega evolutions and changes along those lines were token attempts and never good.

Well, it certainly sped up the already stale gameplay by wiping out the NPCs and the Elite Four.

 

[NerdShamer]

Is Legends any good? It looks great but I want to check into it more without spoilers before I buy. It isn’t another GO game is it?

It's different from Go, but it's mostly you walking around in an open field to catch some mons. Sure, there's an handful of people to fight, but it's mostly you touching grass.


You like touching grass, right?

 

[Nauseated Courgi]

Is Legends any good? It looks great but I want to check into it more without spoilers before I buy. It isn’t another GO game is it?

It isn't GO and it is definitely different from the former games. Other users in this thread enjoy playing the game if that means anything to you.

 

[Banana Hammock]

Hey so here's another one.

I sort of kind of wish it were possible to use basic form or first form Pokemon and have them be useful. There has got to be some sort of way to make that work. Ash never evolved his Pikachu. Pikachu refused to take the thunder stone if I remember correctly. I like some of the earlier forms better than the evolved forms. How do we get more utility out of some of these?

Is it as simple as having stats boost significantly more when these forms hit very high levels? In that case you would at least have to do some work to run a sick nasty Dragonair or a Charmeleon. Should certain moves be form-specific? I dunno. But I want to be competitive with a kawaii Oddish like Ash Ketchum. And I don't want to fuck with the autistic busywork shit that is EV training.

I remember hearing about some Fire Red mod that has Pokemon evolve into bigger versions of themselves. You could also make your own mod that does the same thing, with one of the many rom editors.

 

[Dammit Mandrake!]

Is Legends any good? It looks great but I want to check into it more without spoilers before I buy. It isn’t another GO game is it?

It's more of the same. If you like Pokemon games you will probably enjoy it a lot. The gameplay is about the same as always which is to say it is addicting. You might notice some hiccups as the game is running with some new features that haven't been in this series before. But overall you'll probably enjoy it and have fun. I think you should give it a try. If you're really concerned you should be able to find some gameplay videos with minimal spoilers if you tweak your search parameters.

And that's coming from someone that thinks this game is lazy, reprehensible trash. But that's just me and you're welcome to be wrong and have fun and then we can argue about it in this thread and that will also be fun.