Countdown to XY: A Nostalgia Thread

Day 10: If you could change one thing about the Pokémon games, what would it be?
One thing I would change in Pokémon games are NPCs with EV trained Pokémon. Pokémon used by opponent trainers doesn't have EVs outside of battle facilities like Battle Tower (maybe trainers have EV trained Pokémon in gen IV or V games, correct me if I'm wrong but I think not, and I know isn't the case for gen III games). That would be a good way to increase in-game difficulty without having to rely only to absurdly high levels. And having Gym Leaders, Elite Four trainers or a Champion with untrained Pokémon makes zero sense for me.

Edit: I have something else to say about day 6. When I was younger, my brother told me that there was a Water-type move called Ocean, that Altaria and all Water-type Pokémon learn at level 100. This move was supposed to be more powerful than Water Spout at full power, and making the screen entirely blue as battle animation.
 
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Day 10: If you could changeDay 10: If you could change one thing about the Pokémon games, what would it be? one thing about the Pokémon games, what would it be?IVs, most definitely. I may not be a "hardcore" competitive player, but I still enjoy competitive matches a lot. IVs is the main reason I don't play wifi in the game (as for many others). In the training aspect we have EVs and leveling up which are enough for you to get satisfaction from effort. For the argument that every Pokemon is different in power, natures and EVs are enough IMO. Natures would describe their personality and strongpoints while EVS point towards effort and training (obviously lol). EVs, leveling up are a good challenge, but IVs are very hard to get without RNG or hacking. The latter two are done by players because it's so hard to get them "normally". So my one cent is for them to either delete IVs OR make IVs MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH easier to handle/get/manipulate. I've always hated IVs because obviously playing with the game is better than a simulator. Granted the simulator gives you much faster access to teams and community, but I'd still prefer game wifi if IVs were easily reached to desired level.

tl;dr tweak IVs or remove them all together so all competitive players can have more fun with the game.
 
Day 10: If you could change one thing about the Pokemon games, what would it be?

I would make the game less linear. I can handle not being able to use my in-game team competitively. I can handle steamrolling through everyone who opposes me in the game. I would much rather be able to make choices.

Pokemon doesn't seem like it should be a linear game in the first place, because you are traveling to get gym badges and then battle the E4. If it were real life, there wouldn't be anyone but myself to tell me which order I have to get the gym badges. In game, though, you are rarely given a chance to skip a gym to battle another one first. This would make the game a lot better, and it would encourage exploration. Currently I know that, if I try to explore past a city before beating a gym, there will be a person or obstacle to say that I can't go past until later. Therefore I do not explore.

Furthermore, this could lead to a varied plot. What if the game establishes two powerful trainers always battling each other? Then what order you could get the gym badges could determine who wins, and then who you have to face as the champion. What if there actually is a strong villainous team? Then, if you don't get a certain gym badge within a given range, they might succeed in a scheme and then they might actually conquer whichever region it is. Of course, there would be stuff to hint at where their next scheme will be, you just have to notice. Then, you would have to be the attacking side, saving the world from the villains that control it. What if the game gave you a choice? What if you could side with the villainous team? That could be fun, conquering the world with the villainous team, and laughing at the world's poorly executed attempts to resist the player character's unfathomable power. It could lead to all sorts of variations on plot, which would dramatically improve the game.

Not only that, but there could be more than eight gyms in a region. Because you can now choose the order in which you battle the gyms, you can choose which gyms to battle. Furthermore, that could lead to more varied difficulty if they make some gym leaders stronger than others, and give the gym leaders a better AI. That would also give some more post-E4 content, as you could battle the gym leaders you didn't battle in the main game post-game. That would also improve replay value, as different gyms could mean different challenges or storylines. What if the E4's pokemon and types were determined by which gym you battle in which order? Then, that would improve replay value even more. With just 10 gyms, there would be almost 2 million possible combinations. With 15 gyms, there is over 250 million possible combinations. With 20 gyms, there would be over 51 billion possible combinations. The replay value would be enormous, especially if the plot changed depeding upon the order in which you battled the gyms, and which ones you battled.

Furthermore, that could give the player character more choices. What if you join the villainous team? What if you choose to start your own villainous team? What if you choose to become a gym leader or E4 member? What if you choose to sit back in the champion room and wait for challengers? Any of those decisions could significantly change what happens. What if your champion and you lose? Instead of rushing back to the pokemon center immediately, you could be sent back home and have to gain eight new gym badges from tougher gym leaders and then defeat the E4 again to re-battle the guy who beat you and take your title as champion back from him. Furthermore, what if you choose to ignore the villainous team(s) and continue your journey. Would you face the leader of the team as champion, and the four below him as E4? Or would there even be an elite four to challenge? The possibilities are endless.

Sure modifying the IV system could help competitive battlers, and a harder game could make it better for some, but those are merely things I want. This would be a great idea. Sure, they might not include all of the parts a listed (siding with the villains and conquering the world might not happen, unfortunately) here, but it would significantly improve replay-ability and make it so you won't have the same experience with different foes and partners from a different region in different Pokemon games.
 
Day 10: I'm not completely sure on what I want changed. I want the AI to be more difficult, sure. But in the PWT, I get haxed enough by Mistys Starmie (8 straight hydro pumps). The one thing I know for sure that I want, is a more varied story. Make your best friend become the leader of the villainous team. Make your mother the first trainer you battle. Make it so I'm not bored grinding for the next gym leader. Also, I would've said character customization, but they got that covered.
 
Day 10: I guess the only thing I really would want to happen would be for you to be able to go through the region starting from any point, fighting through the gym leaders in any fashion you want and taking on the villainous team from any direction you want. Replay value would definitely go up.

Maybe you want to start from Veilstone, and have your journey start with access to decent Ground and Fire Pokemon? Maybe you want to start from Mossdeep, and need a boat to get to the mainland to start after you beat the twins? Perhaps you want to take on Blaine's Fire-types before you fight Lt. Surge's Electric-types. What if fighting Brock would be more fun if he had a powerful team of Rock-types? The possibilities are endless.
 
My competitive wish list is two fold.
1. First a means to manipulate IVs. This will allow for more time to play with your pokemon. I honestly am still hoping that poke amie or something in XY has a way to increase/manipulate IVs. Breeding would still be crucial to get the right nature, egg moves, and hell breed for good evs so you don't have to work as hard to fix the IVs. I am not sure if anyone can relate but I hate playing through the game knowing that my in game team will have no use outside of the game.
2. Well thought out move distribution to increase the viability of pokemon. I understand some pokemon are inherently weaker than others but there is no reason that a pokemon should not be able to hit with a powerful version of its stab at the very least.

In terms of the gameplay:
1. As several others have mentioned, an open world atmosphere. Allow me to choose where I go and craft my own adventure as that is the whole point of the franchise.
2. The game is clearly making IVs and EVs more evident. Thus with the changed IV system in mind, allow the trainers to have Good IVs, EVs, and move pool. I am not asking for significant prediction but a better AI with better pokemon without simply hiking up the level.
3. Bring back gen 3 contests!
4. Have two pokemon leagues: one the traditional fight your way through the best trainers in the elite four. The other you enter into a 16 man tournament with other people aspiring to become the pokemon champion of the region (the better AI would come in here)
5.Bring back walking pokemon

But if I could only have one thing, I would want more interactive characters. I would like the gym leaders to be doing something in their towns as they are the most revered trainer in town. Maybe you need to go on missions with the gym leaders. I would like more trainers to have a personality to them. More interaction with the elite four beyond just the champion, why are they so revered, why should I care who they are? Doing this would provide several side quests each with possible implications on the main quest. I want the villains to have depth to them beside their sole goal of world domination or being evil.
 
Day 10:
I would change the IVs, so they are much easier to get perfect. I'm not sure if I would like to get rid of them completely, but just would like to have a bit more controll of it so you are basically guaranteed a flawless 'mon within a certain time.

I would also want a Challenge mode from the beginning of the game, and make it harder than BW2 cause I still think the AI were pretty bad xD
 
Day 10: If you could change one thing about the Pokemon games, what would it be?
Like a bunch of peeps in this thread, I'd like to see a more open-ended Pokemon experience. I don't know if I wanna use the term "sandbox" or not, but a much more "personalized" journey is something I think everyone really wants.

It's all the anime's fault, really. Yeah, it's based on the games, but even if you haven't seen it since Ash was still a prepubescent wannabe (wait...), you remember all the random character-of-the-moments who had their own little ideas of what a Pokemon adventure really was. They all didn't start with Charmanders from their town professor with dreams of being the very best like no one ever was . Most of 'em didn't even want to earn badges as their life's goal, or were smart enough to realize that staking their entire future on being an all-star battler probably isn't the best retirement plan. You had contest-goers, people who made perfume, people who ran shops. Yeah, it's not glamorous, but it showcased another side of the world you don't see in the games. Maybe get some of the people from the Animal Crossing team down to the GF office for a day and have them brainstorm some ideas. I'm talklin' festivals, holiday events, daily events, random scenarios, seemingly mundane busywork that'll payoff later or at the very least make a bunch of money. Have your partners help you. Set up a secret base with your own garden you can tend, or even get a day job. You know, that whole spiel at the beginning of Red and Blue about people working and living with Pokemon? I wanna see that. No, wait, I wanna do that. Treat the Pokemon World like it's own character and flesh it out.
 
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Hulavuta

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It's hard to decide between Pokeathlon and Contests...I am going to have to go with contests though. As a whole, there wasn't really much I disliked about contests. I loved dressing up my Pokemon (especially with the top hat, my favorite accessory!) and making them dance. As for Pokeathlon, I absolutely adored some of the games and despised others.

If you're wondering, the Brick Break one was my favorite, and my least favorite was either Pennant Capture or that four way soccer-like game.
 
Day 11: Favorite mingame would have to be the contests from RSE. They were simple, yet fun! And going through the beauty contests with milotic was awesome.
 
Hulavuta pretty much summed it up. Pokéathlon and 3rd Gen Contests were both amazing and incredibly fun, as well as being surprisingly hard. I prefer the Contests, although the Pokéathlon is an extremely close second.
 
Day 11: What is your favorite mini-game (contests, musicals, Pokéathlon, underground, etc.)?

My favourite was mining in the underground looking for fossils and evolution stones as well as the secret base. Unfortunately though I picked up my copy of Platinum towards the end of gen 4 so I never got to play that flag game where you could get a spiritomb but still mining by itself is quite fun.
 
Day 10: Slot Machines in the game corner.....not that we will ever see that again other than in Japanese Pokemon Games.....
 

dwarfstar

mindless philosopher
The Pokeathlon is probably my favorite among the minigames - it was legitimately challenging, and the gameplay was fun. I spent a fair bit of time trying to get a score above 500 in all five courses with Sceptile, Honchkrow, and Alakazam... Good times.

EDIT: 253rd post, woo~
 

Stone RG

Megas are broke
Pokeathlon and Contests for me it is. Maybe i like pokeathlon a bit more since all the mini games in HG/SS were really fun and interactive for a pokemon game, and contest were generally cool to me due to the anime and cuz i could brag about my milotic in emerald and roserade in Platinum :]
 

cant say

twitch.tv/jakecantsay
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Like everyone has said so far, third gen contests and pokeathlon for me

I really liked the contests when I used to play Sapphire as a kid. They just offered a new way to use your Pokemon and their moves (even though it was still pretty similar to normal battling imo). The furthest I could ever get was Master Rank with a Pikachu, but apart from that I wasn't really that good at it, I just liked to get the first and maybe second ribbons for all my in-game 'mons. It wasn't until I found the ultimate combo of Banette with Faint Attack, Curse, Spite and Destiny Bond which pretty much broke the contests and won every medal ever. He was even helpful in the Battle Tower and won the medals there too, but that's another story.. The gen IV contests sucked though, mostly because they weren't the same and my old strategies didn't work (sorry Banette) so I never really got into them.

Pokeathlon is seriously the best though. Apart from Pennant Capture and the inevitable destruction of your touch screen, this was some of the best fun I've had in a main series game. The main series games never really fully utilized the touch screen and stylus apart from menu selection (but who seriously took their hand off the ds, grabbed the stylus out of the side and actually used that for selecting moves and all that?) so it was fun to have mini game that did a good job of it. I loved seeing the little sprites that normally followed you around Johto sweating it out on the track and having them immortalized as statues out the back (why is this better than the league Hall of Fame???) Also, SUNKERN FTW!!!

So in short, Pokeathlon FOREVER
 
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Day 10: HM moves should be redone. Mt. Coronet in Platinum is a prime example of this: At Spear Pillar and the Distortion World, you have to fight Mars, Jupiter, Cyrus, and Giratina, plus countless Galactic grunts. You'd love to take your whole team up, to level them in the process, right? NOPE! You need Surf, Strength, Rock Climb, and Rock Smash if you're coming from Oreburgh City. Also in practice it doesn't make sense: Why should I have to use a crappy 40BP move to get rid of a little boulder, when I could just have my Lucario Close Combat it to smithereens? Or my Sandslash dig a tunnel under it? Or just climb over the stupid thing? Same with Rock Climb: Why can't my Alakazam just use Psychic to lift me up? Or my Venusaur use Vine Whip as a grappling hook (Which would be infinitely awesomer)? Cut is by far the weirdest. It's a tiny little tree, but you need a crap move that you can't get rid of even though virtually every other move in the game outclasses it. Why can't I have some overkill if I want to? Really, any move that involves slicing or claws (such as Razor Leaf, Dragon Claw, Slash, Psycho Cut, Night Slash, Air Slash) should be able to get rid of the Y-shaped horrors. Or any damaging fire-type move that could incinerate them.

And this.

OK, I've calmed down.

Day 11: Pokeathlon, definitely. Gen 3 contests and underground come close, but really the Pokeathlon gets the top spot, because you get to interact with your favorite mons without having to battle, and I think that is pretty awesome. Plus it requires actual skill as opposed to other minigames.
 

Hulavuta

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Just felt like I should mention I meant 4th generation contests, since it looks like a few people are agreeing with me but saying they loved Gen 3 contests the best.
 
Day 11: What is your favorite mini-game (contests, musicals, Pokéathlon, underground, etc.)?
Sinnoh Contests (no matter how aggravating) and Sinnoh Underground are by far my favorite minigames. Although the musicals were fun, I don't felt like they were as... how would you say... rewarding or engaging?... as the contests/underground; in BW2, however, they kind-of made up for this with Pokestar Studios.

I was never really drawn in by the Pokeathlon like I was with the other minigames (partly because I was looking forward to contests in the remakes)...
 

Bull of Heaven

Guest
Day 10: HM moves should be redone. Mt. Coronet in Platinum is a prime example of this: At Spear Pillar and the Distortion World, you have to fight Mars, Jupiter, Cyrus, and Giratina, plus countless Galactic grunts. You'd love to take your whole team up, to level them in the process, right? NOPE! You need Surf, Strength, Rock Climb, and Rock Smash if you're coming from Oreburgh City.
They kind of fixed this in BW though.

I seem to have fallen behind here, so let's do a quick run through the last few days:

Favourite region: I'm going to have to jump on the Hoenn bandwagon here. The diversity in the environments was great, but so were the designs of individual locations; there are spots in the region where I really feel like my character is running through the wilderness on an adventure. It's great for exploring too, with so many nooks and crannies that are easily missed the first time. The best example for me is probably the Scorched Slab, where the Sunny Day TM is hidden. I played my Hoenn games for a long time without ever finding it, and while the cave itself isn't very interesting, it was great to finally discover it after so long. This kind of thing might be one reason I've gotten so many hours out of my Sapphire version without ever restarting it.

What I would change: This is a difficult one, but IVs I guess. I don't have much to add to that discussion though. I don't generally mind natures, but as someone that's presently using a modest Rhyhorn in an in-game team, I would have to give those some thought too.

Favourite minigame: Pokeathlon, easily. Two reasons: it's loads of fun (though my wrist tends to disagree after a while) and the rewards are great. It's both easy and fun to acquire points quickly, and next thing you know you're practically swimming in evolution items. Like, say, some stones that you can use on that Eevee you just got from Bill. I'm not sure I would count it as a "minigame," but I've also had a lot of fun with third-gen Secret Bases. Those should really come back in some form or another.

 
Day 11: Favorite Sidequest

Pokemon Contests, but only in the Hoenn region (noticing a theme here?). They were simple and not overly cutesy, what with the appeal round (I actually had alot of fun making pokeblocks) immediately followed by the battle rounds. Being able to use the moves to make combination, removing points from the opponents' team, and making sure your pokemon didn't lose their points was key, and it was far more strategic than Sinnoh's. Wtf is up with the dancing and dress-up? Sinnoh's contests completely ruined the idea for me.

To this day, I remember carefully tending to the best berries and waiting for the Pokeblock master to show up. I somehow got access to Mirage Island, so I had Gold pokeblock all around for my pokemon's cute, cool, and tough attributes. I used the five master berries (Watmel, Spelon, Belue, Pamtre, and Durin) as well. Finally, I won the master rank at all of the contests for the star on my trainer card, as well as the Lilycove Museum portraits. My champions?

Beauty: Milotic
Cool: Pikachu
Cute: Skitty
Smart: Lunatone
Tough: Banette

They were unstoppable.

EDIT: Emerald version's Battle Frontier comes in as a close favorite. It was new, fresh, was located on an island all its own, and was hyped up throughout the game by Scott so you were just itching to get there after the E4. It was an entirely new challenge given the rules of the facilities and none of its successors were able to capture its feel. Gaining all 7 golden symbols was much, MUCH more difficult than the main game could ever have been. Here's hoping we see it again in RS remakes.
 
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Coronis

Impressively round
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Day 10: Probably the IV system, and of course, a more in-depth storyline etc.

Day 11: Contests, for sure. I loved them. Imagine Wifi berry blending too :P
 
Day 11:
Hoenn's contests were my absolute favourite form of contests. It was simple and easy to learn and hard to master which is what you want in a game.
Battle Dome is the best Frontier place by far
 

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