Opening it up to the community as a whole was really what helped solidify Gen IV as my favorite. I mean by the dawn of Gen II no one I knew was really into Pokemon anymore. Sure I was on the Internet and found other Pokemon communities to hang out on, but I still could not do anything and mostly had to trade with my brother when I even could. Gen IV opened up to playing with everyone in the whole world and really made the entire experience just a tiny bit better at least.
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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
- Start date
I didn't play RSE but I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that the encounter rates were drastically reduced in Gen VI. Also the Hoenn surfing music is pretty good which is nice.
New unpopular opinion: Happiness was a wasted idea.
As some of you may know, I'm currently trying to complete the National Pokédex, meaning that I have to evolve a lot of Pokémon through happiness, which is itself pretty annoying.
What really got to me, though, is that as I was thinking about happiness, I realized how little an impact it made in-game. 99.9% of the time, there's no difference between a lifelong partner and a Pokémon you caught in some nearby tall grass (except EVs, but those represent training, not friendship). The few exceptions include evolution, increased Return power, and a ribbon. To make things even more ridiculous, they introduced a new system in Pokémon Amie that had absolutely no relation to happiness, making it even more irrelevant. At the very least, I want to see proof in battle of how happy my starter is.
I know! It's either an evolution (which is a pain at times...I'm looking at you Baby 'mons), Return/Frustration, or some items. Plus Bulbasaur in Yellow with Pikachu's prototype happiness stat.
Happiness has potential but I mean Pokemon Amie is so much better. The more your Pokemon loves you in Amie, the more battle effects you get such as boosted EXP, surviving deadly attacks with 1 HP and increased critical chance. If these sorts of effects applied to happiness and they got rid of Pokemon Amie I would be perfectly OK with that, since it makes little sense that Pokemon Amie and Happiness are different anyway. Basically Pokemon Amie > Happiness
Also walking around and doing happiness raising actives is annoying. At least in Pokemon Amie you had semi fun actives to get Pokepuffs to feed to your Pokemon.
Also it annoyed me how you couldn't get non Gen I Pokemon in FRLG by happiness evolution until after the E4.
Also 151st post. Mew confirmed.
At this point they might as well fuse the Happiness stat into Pokemon-Amie, replace it with "Affection". Especially since it would make no sense for a Pokemon to have maximum affection for you but a low Happiness (unless we go into some territory I don't think the creator of these games would want to explore).
Well, it can be a slightly more family-friendly explanation in "I don't like you, but you pet and feed me soooo well!"
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Current levels of happiness is much more fickle than affection. You can be angry at someone, but still care about them.
Yeah, for actual emotions. But in Pokemon both Happiness and Pokemon-Amie's Affection are based on player's action. How is the player being kind in Pokemon-Amie different from treating its Pokemon nicely outside of battle and vice versa? And the Pokemon doesn't feel odd by the different way a trainer treats them if they mistreat it outside of Pokemon-Amie yet spoil it in?
Also, it's not Happiness. It's officially called "Friendship" (or "degree of emotional attachment" in Japan), which makes things more confusing. This makes it sound like practically the same thing (especially in the Japanese version).
I've always thought of "happiness", as in the kind that boosts Return, to be a measure of the Pokemon's trust in your skills as a Trainer as well as its gauge of how much you trust it. So for example, if you let a Pokemon faint in battle a lot, it will come to doubt your ability, hence its happiness going down. Conversely, when it gains a level, that's because you were able to bring out its potential, hence happiness going up. Using a Pokemon in an important battle also raises happiness because it conveys the idea that you believe in it and can depend on it for the big battles.
Amie affection is more just general love; that is, how much the Pokemon enjoys being with you. Showing it love and care in Amie (read: rubbing it at speeds that could cause friction burns and force-feeding it cupcakes) does exactly what the game says: makes it more affectionate towards you, because you're showing affection for it. Thus it doesn't want you to be disappointed in it / potentially box it, so it works extra hard in battle, thus the free Shed Skin, Focus Band, Brightpowder, and Scope Lens.
Amie affection is more just general love; that is, how much the Pokemon enjoys being with you. Showing it love and care in Amie (read: rubbing it at speeds that could cause friction burns and force-feeding it cupcakes) does exactly what the game says: makes it more affectionate towards you, because you're showing affection for it. Thus it doesn't want you to be disappointed in it / potentially box it, so it works extra hard in battle, thus the free Shed Skin, Focus Band, Brightpowder, and Scope Lens.
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Only thing I didn't like about the happiness was not getting Bulbasaur until after Blaine and trying to evolve Eevee you get in GSC. Luckily the latter was easy once I got smart and bred a new Eevee from that original using Ditto and used it instead.
I hated the amount of water in RSE but it wasn't so bad in ORAS since I knew how to get everywhere after trial and error in the originals. Might be the one time where I used the map feature in any game.
I hated the amount of water in RSE but it wasn't so bad in ORAS since I knew how to get everywhere after trial and error in the originals. Might be the one time where I used the map feature in any game.
I got Bulbasaur before Misty when I played Yellow originally.
I've never played through Yellow - does Pikachu's happiness follow the same mechanics it does in later games?
It's similar, but not exactly the same.
While I knew how to get Bulbasaur, I didn't do anything special. I just played the game.
In ORAS you have the PokeNav+ to show you exactly where you are at all times so no worries there. I honestly never had any issues in RSE with the water though.
I like gen 6 the most of all the games so far, even for ingame runs. While I did prefer the difficulty of gen 5, it's all the really random QOL stuff like catching a wild Pokemon still giving XP and legendaries having 3 perfect IVs that does it for me. Gen 5 is my second favourite; I love HGSS for nostalgia, but gen 5+ made one-use TMs feel awful to me.
But then, I've always preferred games that are create-your-own-difficulty. I can still challenge myself, but I have the option to just play the content without getting stuck if I want to.
But then, I've always preferred games that are create-your-own-difficulty. I can still challenge myself, but I have the option to just play the content without getting stuck if I want to.
(In a rush when I posted this so I might expand upon this later)
I personally prefer Gen 5 the most. Gen 6 felt hard to "create your own difficulty" without imposing some sort of unnatural challenge onto the game (for example, a Nuzlocke / Monotype run etc) due to Gen 6's lack of an existent difficulty all together.
Can you elaborate on "create-your-own-difficulty" in terms on Gen 6 please?
I don't see those challenges as that unnatural. But I mean more stuff like the EXP Share, Amie, and all the other nice goodies the game likes to throw at you. And the trading system, especially in XY, makes it easier to use different starters. If you get stuck, it's pretty easy to alleviate the problem, so the main reason you'll find something hard is if you want to. The games were still kinda easy without those goodies, but not egregiously so, even though XY's trainer battles left something to be desired.
I think the most entertaining challenge run I've done, that was intended to just be a joke easy-mode run but actually ended up being fairly hard, was when I was experimenting with Dream Radar and had all five gen 4 mascot Pokemon at level 5 at the start of BW2 (with perfect IVs and optimal nature because I got them primarily to transfer), along with Serperior as my starter (because it filled the HM gaps perfectly with no type overlap). I decided to just use those six for my playthrough, and the difficulty came from the fact that I was so underlevelled that wild Pokemon were consistently outlevelling me for the whole game (I fought every trainer but otherwise refused to grind), while legendaries' movepools (especially Lugia's and Ho-oh's) are severely lacking until the level 30 range. It's weird having to make a Ho-oh build around Weather Ball.
I'll freely admit, though, that I just don't mind easy games, as long as they're difficult enough that you have to strategise a little bit. I've done runs of gen 6 before where I caught the mascot legendary and then used it and nothing else for the remainder of the game. Fighting the rematched Elite Four in ORAS with a level 45 Primal Kyogre was interesting.
Why I love Gen VI in a nutshell as well. By the way, ORAS without the EXP Share is surprisingly challenging, to the extent that the trademark early-game hell tendencies make a return. Even a competently-leveled Grass or Water can run into trouble with Roxanne's Nosepass if it actually uses Rock Tomb more than once (which for some reason is an if), and Brawly can put up a decent fight against anything not named Ralts or Wingull. By Wattson you begin to enjoy a consistent 2-3 level advantage, but most games tend to really open up by gym three anyway. And let's not forget that lower levels means longer waits for evolutions.
I can't testify to XY without the EXP Share, but I'd be interested if anybody knows how that is.
You're imposing a mechanic (death in the case of a Nuzlocke) that the game isn't built around, so that qualifies as unnatural in my opinion.
The true challenge here is getting stuck. I think the only time I ever really became stuck was when I wanted to beat that one random realy overleveled trainer on the route before the 2nd Gym Leader
I do like some easy games as long as they're fun. An example are Kirby games, which are very easy but I have a blast each and every time I play through one of them. The issue with XY is that its low difficulty takes away from the game making it less fun.
XY without the EXP Share is easy unless you decide to ignore as many trainer and wild battles as you can. I think ORAS is slightly different (without the EXP Share) because a lot of major trainers had their Pokemon levels increased.
Another issue I have with XY is how quick evolutions come. Due to the game's more high level trainers compared to other games in the series, it naturally becomes quicker and easier to raise your Pokemon's level, but I find that their evolution comes to early not allowing my to enjoy their base forms without having to hold an Everstone / Evolution cancel. I can understand why some players may like this but personally I don't.
Playing pokemon competitively is more stressful than fun imo. Honestly don't know why so many people like it, myself included.
Same. I think I'm just a competitive person by nature so I like this sort of thing. The stress from minor hax tears me apart though ;;
But in fairness, when everything comes together and you win a match, it's one of the best feelings imo.
For me, it's getting that perfect match, where both players do well.
Cresselia~~
Junichi Masuda likes this!!
I wonder why people have so much problems with feminine Pokemon designs?
Girls play Pokemon too.
Plus, feminine Pokemon are not perceived as better or worse in Japan.
But American polls seem to favor only masculine, cool looking mons.
Seriously, if every Pokemon is the masculine cool looking type, Pokemon would have been really boring.
Girls play Pokemon too.
Plus, feminine Pokemon are not perceived as better or worse in Japan.
But American polls seem to favor only masculine, cool looking mons.
Seriously, if every Pokemon is the masculine cool looking type, Pokemon would have been really boring.