- Joined
- Jun 12, 2019
Even when they express remorse for what it's initial treatment lead to, they still don't want the games to be liked.
Pokémon (Not-So) Griefing Thread - Scarlet and Violet Released with 10 Million Copies in First 3 Days in Buggy States
- Thread starter Bugaboo
- Start date
- Joined
- May 13, 2019
Schrodinger's Gen.
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2019
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2019
Well, the reasons people didn't like Gen V didn't go anywhere. It's still the first region where the battle frontier left, and there's a few very cheap fights, like Elesa and her two emolgas who aren't weak to the ground types the game told you to get, or Retaliate Watchog.
It also started the 'too many rivals' problem too. Three rivals with 5-7 fights apiece.
There were some truly baffling choices made during gen 5 too, like how the difficulty modes worked. That was goddamn arcane. Did anyone ever get far with Entralink?
And lastly, if you're into the '1 pokemon run' groups, they really dislike gen 5 because thats where scaling exp was introduced.
I still think it's a good gen, and certainly one of the best story-wise. But there's a reason some people put the 'the game's going bad' point as after Gen 4, because Gen 5 was definitely where things got weird.
It also started the 'too many rivals' problem too. Three rivals with 5-7 fights apiece.
There were some truly baffling choices made during gen 5 too, like how the difficulty modes worked. That was goddamn arcane. Did anyone ever get far with Entralink?
And lastly, if you're into the '1 pokemon run' groups, they really dislike gen 5 because thats where scaling exp was introduced.
I still think it's a good gen, and certainly one of the best story-wise. But there's a reason some people put the 'the game's going bad' point as after Gen 4, because Gen 5 was definitely where things got weird.
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2019
I just think Gen 5 has a lot of shitty mons. It also had that weird thing where a decent chunk of the dex were Chinese bootleg versions of G1-3 Pokemon. I don't really give a fuck about story in Pokemon so the gen's biggest draw didn't grab me. I'll still admit B&W2 were fun though, just not my favorite. Definitely not anywhere near as bad as G6, for sure, but you could see some of the problems starting to pop up.
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2019
While we're talking about gen 5, can I get some help? I'm playing black for the first time and I want to get Petilil at Pinwheel Forest, but have had little luck.
Is it only accessible through the dark grass or am I just absurdly unlucky?
Is it only accessible through the dark grass or am I just absurdly unlucky?
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2019
It seems that some of the issues in the first were at least greatly attempted to be patched in the second. B1/W1 just had the Battle Subway? The sequel presents the memorable PWT. And from what I played of the srquel, the gym leaders aren't that bad, but Elesa is rough if you aren't prepared.
At least they fixed that issue by B2/W2 with just Hugh as a main rival. Though, we could count Colress on a lesser extent.
Those difficulty keys remind so much of that Streetpass Eon Ticket in ORAS. Seriously, why? But on the subject of the keys, is there a mix records option, similar to Gen 3?
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2016
There were some pretty stupid decisions made in BW but at least the rivals were actually good and I don’t consider three too many. The amount of rivals in gen 6 wasn’t the problem, it was how horribly they were executed. Gen 7 was decent with its rivals and in gen 8 Hop actually grew on me. I went in expecting to despise him because of his poor fan reception but was pleasantly surprised.
Besides it’s not like the previous games didn’t have cheap fights either. As for the Battle Frontier, while it is fun, is overrated and the amount of spergs that hold it on a high pedestal and demand it in every game makes me want GF to keep it gone out of spite. Also the one in HGSS was copy pasted from Platinum and actually pissed a lot of people off back in the day with cries of GF being lazy because they didn’t custom tailor a new BF for a remake. That said it does suck that they didn’t add anything good in its place.
Also the whole “series going to shit after *insert gen here” is not a new mentality. Gen 3 was the punching bag of oldschool fans for ages and 4 even got trashed too. Then there is the crowd that says the series went to shit after 5 alongside the “series went bad after gen 4” crowd.
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Vapewizard
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2019
Usually I'd say explorers of sky, but if you have a switch I can agree that the remake of Rescue team is really well done. They brought in a lot of QoL impovements with the only real downside being that IMO the old sprites were cuter than the new 3D models. But Explorers of sky is good too and it's not like there's a continuous storyline.
- Joined
- Jan 11, 2017
Wild Petilil are only available in White, but you can catch a Cottonee inside Pinwheel Forest (both normal and dark grass) and trade it for a Petilil in Nacrene City.
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2019
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2019
I actually kinda really liked that 'bootleg' part. The first four regions are relatively close to each other, being based on different parts of Japan. Unova is based on the USA, so it makes sense there would be different Pokemon filling the same roles. It also allows the various games to spice things up. We don't always need to have the cave pokemon be zubat and geodude, we can spice it up with roggenrola and woobat. We don't have to limit the fake pokeball trick to power plants, we can use it in forests with Foongus and Amoongus.
Gen 5 of Monster Hunter did something similar, with a lot of the new monsters filling similar roles to old staples, but being distinctly different. Like the Pukei-Pukei to the Gypceros.
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2019
- Joined
- May 13, 2019
Something that's been bugging me with Unova for quite some time has been the weird theming, or seeming lack thereof, with the region. It's Pokemon New York yet the legendaries are tao symbols, The 3 Musketeers and nature genies (if you ask me the Swords of Justice and Snivy line in particular were introduced a gen too early and should've been Kalos natives). Then there's ancient castles and stories of royal families and such and it's like, this is a North American region isn't it? I guess there's Alder for actual native American content but I guess they didn't want to get into that stuff too much considering how easily prickled people get with Indians in any context even back then. Not to say there wasn't ANY NA stuff (Braviary, Bouffalant, ect.) but it's nonetheless an odder mixture than usual I feel.
I'm sure plenty of people like it that way compared to more current gens where there tends to be lot more rigid theming but, idk, always felt like they weren't really sure what to do with the first non-Japanese region (not counting the Orre games) and kinda threw a bunch of ideas at a dartboard.
I'm sure plenty of people like it that way compared to more current gens where there tends to be lot more rigid theming but, idk, always felt like they weren't really sure what to do with the first non-Japanese region (not counting the Orre games) and kinda threw a bunch of ideas at a dartboard.
Picklechu
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2014
Finally finished the Toxtricity set I wanted. I might do a Gigantamax Lapras set next, or I may do one of the Eeveelutions so I can get rid of the roughly 30 Eevee I have sitting around in boxes and Home.
Unrelated, I cannot find one of these damn shiny Pikachu raids. None of the others have been this elusive.
Unrelated, I cannot find one of these damn shiny Pikachu raids. None of the others have been this elusive.
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2019
I personally think making the new region based on the Northeastern US at the very least gave the creative team carte blanche to be a little risky with what to pick and choose cultural elements to stick in geographically. You have to remember though, up until this point Pokémon regions were at the very least surprisingly realistic interpretations of their real-life counterparts; Kanto is a busy and closed bay area centered around Saffron (Tokyo), Johto reflects the countryside flavor of Kantō’s neighboring Kansai region to the west, Hoenn is very distinctly tropical in terms of the biomes it offers much like Kyūshū, and Sinnoh is very reflective of the more frigid island of Hokkaido to the north, with noticeable elements of Ainu influence in places like Snowpoint Temple, as well as the associated motifs of the lake guardians.
We’ve been about 10 or so years through this “world tour” phase that mainline’s been going through as of late, but with all this genuine history and geography that’s just thrown out since Gen V, I’ve been hoping for some time that a competent dev makes a more grounded, immersive Japan-walking-sim game with a Pokémon flavor; Yo-kai Watch almost filled in this niche for me, but anyone familiar with that series knows that Level-5’s approach to managing it is to just throw darts at the board and hope the resulting spinoff sells.
Edit:
I didn't really elaborate on Unova at all. Unova as a region... feels very weak. I know it started the trend of regions being designed to facilitate the box legendaries and story, but hear me out.
The original Black and White were a bit of a major departure from previous entries, that much is very obvious, but since it was also developed on such a very short notice to coincide with the impending retirement of the DS line of consoles, Masuda probably tried to compensate for the team's otherwise lack of familiarity with the USA and opted instead to make a soft reboot for the series, divorcing it from most of the series conventions up until that point and implementing what a lot of people wanted out of a Pokémon game by fully implementing a true JRPG story, and also drastically fleshing out the human characters by comparison.
Though this pleased a lot of people who actually played the game, not long after release online discussion bubbled with a bunch of (rightful) criticism people had about the game; the route design practically railroaded you into doing one big lap around Unova, every other Pokémon introduced was a boring carbon-copy of another Kanto Pokémon, and the biggest one; Pokémon outside the Unova Pokédex would be otherwise unavailable to use in the main campaign, and only a very small minority of non-Unovan Pokémon would be catchable post-game. Of all the grievances people had, this one was probably the least nuanced and the most obvious, making it ridiculously easy to transmit. Word quickly spread; "even though Castelia has a giant billboard with a Pikachu on it, you can't catch it in this game." With how big the Pokémon fanbase was at the time, it very quickly overshadowed a lot of the other minor structural problems people had with the games... sound familiar?
In hindsight though, a lot of it stemmed from the fact that people really didn't want a repeat of Gen III happening again and face the prospect of all their prior achievements, ribbons, Pokémon collected amount to nothing (though behind the scenes, Game Freak was actually working with people familiar with emulation and Pokémon data structure to retroactively fix that in time for their big 25th anniversary year in the form of 3DS Virtual Console releases with Bank support, though that's beside the point).
Black 2/White 2 took the brute force approach and outright directly addressed a majority of these concerns (mainly the drastically reduced roster), releasing as a somewhat stopgap title during building anticipation for the then-next-gen Pokémon title on the 3DS, which was only barely announced as X & Y barely less than 3 months from the North American release (6 months from the Japanese release), but due to Game Freak's corporate structure, it also meant that Masuda wasn't the driving force behind these sequel titles, rather, he was responsible for the upcoming 3DS games which would get a simultaneous release.
This also meant drastically scaling back the story proper in lieu of providing save-bonus worldbuilding cutscenes unlocked when linking with the previous entries, and having the overall structure of the game fit a lot more snugly into the conventional formula (Gym Leaders don't have as critical a stake in the plot as before, there's only really one central "villain" in Colress who isn't really given enough time to shine, (his other interpretations in manga, anime, etc. differ wildly), there's more side activities than ever but legitimately don't really fit into any of the story's framework either (Pokéstar Studios, a glorified mission mode that does well to introduce the novelty and function of legitimate competitive builds is only accessed after a meaningless NPC detour, the same with Battle Subway, PWT, and later on, a literal NPC roadblock that bars access to Black City/White Forest), Ghetsis fully embracing the role as a Giovanni and being comically bloodthirsty without any more reason, and N arriving unprompted to halt his plans, etc. All in all, I'd call these two games very chaotic in terms of content and what they bring to the table, since it ends up being neat sentiment, but as a cohesive game it falls very short.
Though this pleased a lot of people who actually played the game, not long after release online discussion bubbled with a bunch of (rightful) criticism people had about the game; the route design practically railroaded you into doing one big lap around Unova, every other Pokémon introduced was a boring carbon-copy of another Kanto Pokémon, and the biggest one; Pokémon outside the Unova Pokédex would be otherwise unavailable to use in the main campaign, and only a very small minority of non-Unovan Pokémon would be catchable post-game. Of all the grievances people had, this one was probably the least nuanced and the most obvious, making it ridiculously easy to transmit. Word quickly spread; "even though Castelia has a giant billboard with a Pikachu on it, you can't catch it in this game." With how big the Pokémon fanbase was at the time, it very quickly overshadowed a lot of the other minor structural problems people had with the games... sound familiar?
In hindsight though, a lot of it stemmed from the fact that people really didn't want a repeat of Gen III happening again and face the prospect of all their prior achievements, ribbons, Pokémon collected amount to nothing (though behind the scenes, Game Freak was actually working with people familiar with emulation and Pokémon data structure to retroactively fix that in time for their big 25th anniversary year in the form of 3DS Virtual Console releases with Bank support, though that's beside the point).
Black 2/White 2 took the brute force approach and outright directly addressed a majority of these concerns (mainly the drastically reduced roster), releasing as a somewhat stopgap title during building anticipation for the then-next-gen Pokémon title on the 3DS, which was only barely announced as X & Y barely less than 3 months from the North American release (6 months from the Japanese release), but due to Game Freak's corporate structure, it also meant that Masuda wasn't the driving force behind these sequel titles, rather, he was responsible for the upcoming 3DS games which would get a simultaneous release.
This also meant drastically scaling back the story proper in lieu of providing save-bonus worldbuilding cutscenes unlocked when linking with the previous entries, and having the overall structure of the game fit a lot more snugly into the conventional formula (Gym Leaders don't have as critical a stake in the plot as before, there's only really one central "villain" in Colress who isn't really given enough time to shine, (his other interpretations in manga, anime, etc. differ wildly), there's more side activities than ever but legitimately don't really fit into any of the story's framework either (Pokéstar Studios, a glorified mission mode that does well to introduce the novelty and function of legitimate competitive builds is only accessed after a meaningless NPC detour, the same with Battle Subway, PWT, and later on, a literal NPC roadblock that bars access to Black City/White Forest), Ghetsis fully embracing the role as a Giovanni and being comically bloodthirsty without any more reason, and N arriving unprompted to halt his plans, etc. All in all, I'd call these two games very chaotic in terms of content and what they bring to the table, since it ends up being neat sentiment, but as a cohesive game it falls very short.
TL;DR: All of the worldbuilding present in gens I-IV are sacrificed for character interaction of varying degrees of quality, and that only becomes more apparent the further down you go.
I could elaborate further but I don't want this looking as much as a text tirade as it already does here. It doesn't need much to explain why XY are very poor caricatures of France, and very forgettable games on their own right.
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- Joined
- May 27, 2013
Six Badges in, just outside of Spikemuth on the Water Route.
I dunno why I let initial reviews of the game put me off buying last November, I'm personally quite enjoying this game.
I rotated my Pokemon a lot but I've solidified my final team.
Cinderace
Corvinight
Crawdaunt
Coalossal
Vileplume
Beartic
I didnt even notice all the C Pokemon until I typed it out, lol.
Believe it or not, I'm already planning on playing through again. I'm loving the story that much, and I want to play all the Gyms again. I love that fanfare at the end of the battle. "RAH RAH RAHRAHRAH! RAAAAA-RAA-RA-RA!"
Though I do need the DLC. I need those Galar Form Legendary Birds.
I dunno why I let initial reviews of the game put me off buying last November, I'm personally quite enjoying this game.
I rotated my Pokemon a lot but I've solidified my final team.
Cinderace
Corvinight
Crawdaunt
Coalossal
Vileplume
Beartic
I didnt even notice all the C Pokemon until I typed it out, lol.
Believe it or not, I'm already planning on playing through again. I'm loving the story that much, and I want to play all the Gyms again. I love that fanfare at the end of the battle. "RAH RAH RAHRAHRAH! RAAAAA-RAA-RA-RA!"
Though I do need the DLC. I need those Galar Form Legendary Birds.
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- Joined
- Jan 24, 2020
I don’t know how I feel about regional forms of legendaries, especially when those new forms are completely unrecognizable to the originals
(I’m also a bit tired of the gen 1 pandering)
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2016
The whole box legendary thing started in gen 3. The trend can even be traced all the way back to Crystal with the Suicine plot. To me Crystal is where they started sowing the seeds that fully took root in Gen 3 and beyond with box legendaries.
I like Unova specifically because it is ugly and detached from gens 1-4. Don’t get me wrong I love those regions but after awhile the Pokemon world started feeling, for a lack of better terms, too pretty and clean. Unova has this ugly, chaotic nature that feels refreshing. For some reason the Pokemon reminded me a lot of the gnarly old school Digimon aesthetic. I used to hate a lot of the Unova Pokemon back in the day but as I got older I started to appreciate the uglier ones which extended to many ugly Pokemon in other generations.
That said I do agree that it is a little too chaotic and the linearity is bad. I think it suffered from having too many legendary Pokemon, a trend started in Gen IV but blew up bad in V. Trimming down some of the legendaries would fix some of the issues the region had with identity. For the linearity the could have added more optional side quests and areas outside of the loop. Out of the way places like Kanto’s Power Plant and Seafoam islands that don’t require the main story to go to for example.
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2019
I personally don’t have a problem with the number of legendaries, per se, but unlike the lake guardians, Regi archtypes, birds and beasts, the genies and musketeers have very little bearing on the plot and worldbuilding if at all, sort of close to what role the birds had in Kanto before they were retroactively made subservient to Lugia the following gen. Personally I think the genies being deities of fertility and disaster would’ve fared better in a region like Johto, so in my mind it feels like Pokémon ideas they implemented too late; you could also say the same for Zygarde in Sun and Moon; it’s hilariously out of place and also has zero plot relevance.
Compare Alola which also had a similar amount of side legends, but also justified them through proper worldbuilding; island deities make perfect sense for a Hawaiian setting, Ultra Beasts are deliberately alien and it’s softballed in the intro and slowly introduced. Type: Null feels like the only real exception since it almost seems like a leftover Gen IV design in concept and function, but they make it work having him stick by Gladion the entire game.
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