Unpopular opinions

[Pikachu315111]

-NLMRY- :
Fairy Lamb: Whimsicott being a Fairy-like Pokemon is something create by Pokemon, I was more talking about the Pokemon's design origin.

iamfanboy :
Type Chart: While I'm sure some balance was put into the type chart, for the most part the interactions are based on how that type would logically interact with the other type. Now there are some oddities and maybe, if it helps with balance, those changes should be made; but for the most part I think they made most of the logical connections. Actually I'd argue this was one of the reasons they needed to add a new type. Not only does it feel like a fresh idea after 5 gens of the same group of types, it helps try to balance out something GameFreak at least considered unbalanced.
Also I kind of like the types aren't balanced, it would be boring to have all the types be the same or be able to put them in groups as you suggested. Each type having its own unique amount of weaknesses and resistances help them carve out a niche. Sure that sadly means some types might have a disadvantage, but that just means Pokemon of that type who's able to excel itself (a Pokemon isn't just their type afterall, and even types may have something special about them that isn't obvious from their types match-up) stand out even more and if they're good enough they could even cause a slight change in the metagame. And with the metagame changing every generation (if not every major game release) who knows if a change could cause an increased use of a certain type.
The Culling: Still advocating that culling idea I see. I too been thinking of that idea and if it's all possible to remove a Pokemon and I concluded the problem isn't with the amount of Pokemon but the idea you need to "catch 'em all". Thinking about it, even if we did your culling idea, I don't think it'll change much. Sure it'll help make filling the Pokedex a bit quicker, but still I think the Pokemon they'll "get rid of" aren't that hard to get. The Pokemon which are "hard to get" by a single playing perspective would be starters, version exclusives, and especially Legendaries. Now thanks to the GTS those first two aren't really a problem, but the latter might be difficult as people would want a Legendary for a Legendary. And even we do get rid of some Pokemon we'll probably just go down to, what, around 500 Pokemon? That's still a lot and as more generations come the numbers would just increase again. What should we do when we reach 1000 again? Another culling, but had we not already gotten rid of the unpopular Pokemon and surely they would design the new Pokemon more carefully to make them unique and wanted to be use so they don't need to be removed? And this isn't even mentioning alternate forms...
GameFreak don't need to cut things, just change how things done. First we got to get rid of that "gotta catch 'em" all mentality. How? I suggest by putting all the focus on the Regional Dex and just making the National Dex a bonus thing. Simply put, you should get the Oval Charm for SEEING every Pokemon in the Regional Dex, the Shiny Charm for CATCHING every Pokemon in the Regional Dex, and get NOTHING for completing the National Dex. Actually, if anything, I think once you get the National Dex it should all be filled out with only an indicator whether you have that Pokemon or not (NOT caught, just have it, meaning if the Pokemon is only in the National Dex and you had evolved it all the way to it final form from its base form, it'll only say you have the final form. Only Regional will have the "Seen" and "Caught" markers). I think this would help ease the pressure of catching them all since you get nothing for "completing" the National Dex and it doesn't even permanently count the Pokemon there. Of course to balance this out they should do what they did in XY and make the Regional Dex BIG, even splitting it up in some way. And maybe having more version exclusives.
Second is something they already started, cutting back on the amount of Pokemon they release. Let's be honest, do we need any more early rodent/bird/bug Pokemon? With 6 generation of them I say let's use those and instead focus on designing more unique Pokemon. Also I would suggest mixing things up a bit, like how about the starters and pseudo-Legendaries being a two-stage evolution, or have no evolution, or maybe have alternate forms? Maybe have a singular com mon fill the early rodent/bird/bug role by having multiple forms that turn it into that type. Make the Fossils stand alones and have the challenge being they come from the same fossil and you don't know what will come out or need to do something with the fossil to get a certain result. I can go on but this is reaching wishlisting levels.
Finally, while I think a culling is going too far, I do think GameFreak needs to go back through all the Pokemon and either buff some early gens up or nerf some newer gens down. Power creep has entered the game and many Pokemon are struggling to keep up, some able to mitigate it by getting a Mega Evolution but even then they're competing for one spot that has stronger contenders in it. They need to look through stats, movepools, and even Abilities and maybe change somethings to give at least some Pokemon a better fighting chance. I'd even go as far as to saying they should also get rid of that "two Normal & one Hidden Abilities per Pokemon" and say give a Pokemon the Abilities they'll logically have (or for Hidden Abilities would be neat for them to have but would unbalance the game a bit so make it Hidden so that its hard to get).
In addition, I think they should make a change to how Mega Evolutions work. I think that if you have your Mega Evolved Pokemon faint, you should be able to Mega Evolve another one. I know this sounds gamebreaking, but hear me out. You can still only have one Mega Evolution at a time, so if you want another Mega Evolution you're going to need to have the current one you have faint. Second, if you're going to go in with multiple Pokemon that can Mega Evolve that means those Pokemon are going in without items, so if they're sent in while its trainer still have their other Mega Pokemon on the bench then they have a MAJOR disadventage. I think a change like this would allow more kinds of Mega Pokemon to be used but not break the game (which Mega Rayquaza already did, however I have a feeling come Gen VII (or even the third Kalos game) they may do something with Mega Rayquaza and the Primals to show them they were only made overpowered because ORAS was in their home region...).

JES :
Misty Temper: Misty is a tsundere character to be sure, Ash being the character its mostly directed too. And while things started out rocky between them over time Misty and Ash began seeing each other as friends (even forgetting about her bike), only time Misty getting really angry at Ash is when he's doing something stupid/lazy/rude/rash (though sometimes for rash she gets angry because she's worried he's going to lose or get hurt himself without thinking things through). Many times Misty also wants to hp Ash or give him advice, even though in early seasons he may not want it/tends to ignore it (but that's just him acting like a brat, later on he sometimes does it if h has his own plan he thinks would work or thinks they need to do something now and not wait). By the very end of her journey, when she gets her bike back and is told she needs to run the Gym, you can see Misty is torn up that means he adventures with Ash are over.
I'd say Misty's main problem was that she had nothing to do, only traveling with Ash because he destroyed her bike at first but later because they were friends as she forgot about her bike. She was supposedly suppose to fill the "collector" role, wanting to catch all the Water-type Pokemon, but the problem is they never did anything with that (plus coming from a family of Water-type Gym Leaders I'd imagine they already have a good number of the Water-type Pokemon).

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

RANT

It doesn't have the nostalgia or quirkiness of GSC while still managing to have a lot of the same faults purely for the sake of having two regions in one game. While the game really opens up after Morty, all of the levels are the same from Chuck to Pryce, making the game get rather boring as your Typhlosion kills another level 17 Rattata. You can't Nuzlocke it because there's literally nowhere good to grind. Once you get to Kanto, most of the leaders are easy once you grind up to their level, and in general it's too open to feel like you're doing anything other than walking around and beating the shit out of the gym leaders (although beating Red in a Nuzlocke is pretty great). Team rocket used to be this cool gangster organization, now it's mutilating slowpoke and mutating magikarp. 0/10. Finally, most of the characters are pretty shit, even for a pokemon game. Lance and Clair make a cool duo and Red is... Red, but most are fairly bland. Lyra is also so useless that I have no idea why she exists. Elm could have showed you how to catch a sentret. Below is the main reason for why HGSS gets on my nerves this much.

HGSS vs BW gym leaders

Falkner: A kid who got an illegal pidgeotto from his dad Chili/Cilan/Cress: Brothers who have some sort of offensive/defensive/neutral dynamic. ok
Bugsy: Are you a boy or a girl? Burgh: Artist, probably gay. Definitely a guy tho
Whitney: A...crybaby schoolgirl? Lenora: Black archeologist librarian gym leader, and a successful married woman with her own library and museum
Morty: A guy who wants ho-oh/lugia Elesa: Supermodel and runs an amusement park
Chuck: He's cool, but what does he do? Clay: Rich miner who makes his lame city into a major attraction and wears a cool hat
Jasmine: A girl. That's it Skyla: A girl who flies a plane and shoots cannons
Pryce: Old dude in a wheelchair Brycen: Ninja movie star. No contest
Clair: No issue. Big brother issues, attitude problems, a breath of fresh air Drayden: Wins purely because of that amazing beard. Also has a monologue and shit. Iris is lame tho

Lamest gym leaders by far. I don't even feel good about beating them

I don't really disagree with you much but I did want to demonstrate how easy it is to make any pokemon npc look pointless or interesting depending on appropriate emphasis

BW vs HGSS gym leaders

Falkner: A kid struggling to maintain the status of his father's gym and the dignity of his type despite the existence of mareep
Chili/Cilan/Cress: Three thirds of a gym leader who rely on contrived type advantages to pose a threat
Bugsy: CLEARLY A BOY who balances gym leadership with lofty academic goals
Burgh: Populates his gym with clowns while trying to capture challengers with cocoons/honey
Whitney: Appears casual about being a leader but really cares very deeply to the point of crying to mourn a loss
Lenora: "My ace literally just evolved this level, hope you like sleep clause violations and dated racist stereotypes!" (the apron/mammy stereotype)
Morty: A guy given reason to believe that he is the chosen one only to find that a 10yo is the Special instead. Also has visions
Elesa: Tries to stall challengers into giving up with the Rollercoaster of Unexpected Tedium or scare them away with the Catwalk of Self-Consciousness
Chuck: Trains himself by standing in the path of a powerful waterfall?! He also has a cool wife so he must be pretty cool also
Clay: Is almost perpetually a dick to you, only seems to care about money
Jasmine: A girl who realises the importance of sailors' lives and the shipping industry to her port city and therefore prioritises caring for the sick Ampharos over a gym battle
Skyla: Has somehow managed to silence victims of the miscalibrated Cannon #8 and her Turbines of Surprise Bone Fractures
Pryce: Badass old dude who can apparently summon wind at will to majestically sway his trench coat/scarf combo
Brycen: Features in the mandatory Pokestar Studios movie and is therefore awful. Plus I don't appreciate huge chasms in my ice puzzles
Clair: Misunderstands the basic premise of being a gym leader, i.e. that you have to hand out badges to victors
Drayden: Ugliest beard I have ever seen and is among the hilarious few self-nerfing gym leaders, whose signature tms make them easier to defeat than if their pokemon had their wild movesets. Iris is lame though, I won't challenge you there

 

[Billy the Uncle]

Although I completely agree about Gardevoir, Whimsicott, and Mr. Mime, I feel Mawile is necessary as a fairy type because it's one of the few that truly represents the 'evil' or at least deceptive nature of most actual mythological depictions of fairies before Tinkerbell became the dominant image of 'fairies' in our collective consciousness.

I honestly didn't think about it this way. Even then, though, with Pokemon being aimed at kids and such I believe they'd stay closer to the popular culture depiction ("Tinkerbell") of fairies. Moreso, the "evil" or "mischievous" nature is usually portrayed with the Dark or Ghost type (Gengar the poltergeist, Houndoom the hellhound, Murkrow/Honchkrow the witch/mafia guy, Froslass the yuki-onna causing people to get lost in blizzards), this is why I don't see Mawile as a fairy. But you definitely have a point.

I wouldn't have minded if Fairy was actually weak to Bug instead of resisting it. A bit far fetched, maybe, but not more than Fairies resisting Bug. (Maybe because tiny feys get caught in spider webs when they fly? I dunno).

I also don't get why Fighting has to resist Bug. The other way around I get, it's not easy to fell a fly with martial arts. But "look, I'm Bruce Lee, bee's stings don't hurt me"... I really don't understand it.

 

[MZ]

I don't really disagree with you much but I did want to demonstrate how easy it is to make any pokemon npc look pointless or interesting depending on appropriate emphasis

BW vs HGSS gym leaders

Falkner: A kid struggling to maintain the status of his father's gym and the dignity of his type despite the existence of mareep
Chili/Cilan/Cress: Three thirds of a gym leader who rely on contrived type advantages to pose a threat
Bugsy: CLEARLY A BOY who balances gym leadership with lofty academic goals
Burgh: Populates his gym with clowns while trying to capture challengers with cocoons/honey
Whitney: Appears casual about being a leader but really cares very deeply to the point of crying to mourn a loss
Lenora: "My ace literally just evolved this level, hope you like sleep clause violations and dated racist stereotypes!" (the apron/mammy stereotype)
Morty: A guy given reason to believe that he is the chosen one only to find that a 10yo is the Special instead. Also has visions
Elesa: Tries to stall challengers into giving up with the Rollercoaster of Unexpected Tedium or scare them away with the Catwalk of Self-Consciousness
Chuck: Trains himself by standing in the path of a powerful waterfall?! He also has a cool wife so he must be pretty cool also
Clay: Is almost perpetually a dick to you, only seems to care about money
Jasmine: A girl who realises the importance of sailors' lives and the shipping industry to her port city and therefore prioritises caring for the sick Ampharos over a gym battle
Skyla: Has somehow managed to silence victims of the miscalibrated Cannon #8 and her Turbines of Surprise Bone Fractures
Pryce: Badass old dude who can apparently summon wind at will to majestically sway his trench coat/scarf combo
Brycen: Features in the mandatory Pokestar Studios movie and is therefore awful. Plus I don't appreciate huge chasms in my ice puzzles
Clair: Misunderstands the basic premise of being a gym leader, i.e. that you have to hand out badges to victors
Drayden: Ugliest beard I have ever seen and is among the hilarious few self-nerfing gym leaders, whose signature tms make them easier to defeat than if their pokemon had their wild movesets. Iris is lame though, I won't challenge you there

My point isn't that they seem pointless, it's that they lack character. Look at Olympia vs Wulfric in XY. Olympia teleports you, and that's about all that distinguishes her from any other npc really. Wulfric hangs out in a forest and slaps his belly. It might be stupid, but he's different from the average npc. It's so much better to fight Clay or Volkner or some other unique character than one who you don't see until you've gotten through the gym and don't even look vaguely interesting. Most HGSS leaders fall into the second category. That's why I think nintendo takes a random person like viola and gives her a camera and a sister.

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

My point isn't that they seem pointless, it's that they lack character. Look at Olympia vs Wulfric in XY. Olympia teleports you, and that's about all that distinguishes her from any other npc really. Wulfric hangs out in a forest and slaps his belly. It might be stupid, but he's different from the average npc. It's so much better to fight Clay or Volkner or some other unique character than one who you don't see until you've gotten through the gym and don't even look vaguely interesting. Most HGSS leaders fall into the second category. That's why I think nintendo takes a random person like viola and gives her a camera and a sister.

I do actually agree overall despite what I said. I was just looking for an excuse to make stupid jokes. Where black and white failed for me in creating interesting gym battles (no more than 3 pokemon? extremely predictable teams?) they succeeded in having distinct and well-characterised gym leaders and other npcs

Oh and Olympia speaks entirely in haiku which is neat, so there is that

 

[antemortem]

My point isn't that they seem pointless, it's that they lack character.

The same could probably be said about most Gym Leaders pre-DPPt. There really was very little involvement plot-wise as far as Gym Leaders were concerned, aside from maybe Wallace in RSE? They didn't begin developing character and unique personalities until DPPt, where most of the leaders appeared outside their gyms at one point in time or had some sort of really neat quirk about them (Fantina was very obviously a French performer, Wake ran the Great Marsh, Byron had something to do with mining operations on the island near Canalave, and so forth). While HGSS leaders didn't follow this trend very well, the leaders in GSC weren't very intrinsic to the plot, either, so it aligned well if you think about it. Of course, this doesn't include Clair, as she was a brat in GSC and HGSS all the same.

 

[KingHeracrossTheBug]

Do people really hate Gen 4 and love Gen 1 that much? I understand that DP was slow as fuck, but let's compare them. DPPt had very good plot arguments (RBY's argument was... Was... What the hell was it? I don't even think it had a solid plot), a right level of challenge (RBY was hard and annoying at the beginning, piece of cake towards the middle end, then hard again at the end. Mountain Syndrome I claim), a starter group in which all looked sick (only Charizard was cool in Gen 1, flying lizard vs. bigass turtle and plant frog isn't fair) and were viable to beat the game (looking at you Bulbasaur, I still remember the struggle), legendaries (Articuno kinda sucked, Zapdos was the only useful one, Moltres sucked and was end-game, Mewtwo... It's just Mewtwo), post-game stuff so you wouldn't get bored that easily (RBY ends when you catch Mewtwo or otherwise complete the Pokedex, no Battle Tower or anything), and beat of all: HM Slaves (Bibarel + Starly is enough for HMs, while you needed to sacrifice several team/move slots until mid-late game on RBY. The only thing RBY has on its favor is easy to complete Pokedex and glitches (no, being the first game does NOT count)

 

[Norne]

A recent one but I think Hoopa and Hoopa U are being overhyped as hell and they will barely shake the meta at all.

On the hate bandwagon only platinum was memorable of gen IV, revisiting jotho without fixing it's issues was just fanservish at best.

Walking with your lead pokemon was a boring mechanic as most of the time you are on a bike, flying to points or surfing. I'm glad they didn't waste game resources on it after hgss.

 

[Codraroll]

DP had, in my eyes, the worst music and the worst layout of the regions so far. I never really played Platinum that much, so can't really comment on that one.

To elaborate on the music, it seems like GameFreak's composers mostly wanted to show off how many instruments they could have playing at the same time, while giving melody the lowest priority. Half the tracks in the game are simply jumbled cacophonies, with no coherent theme or melody to speak of, and they do not compliment the setting of the place in any way. This is especially bad in the music for the routes. Exceptions do exist, though, such as the theme for the Sinnoh Underground. Here you hear what the D/P music software was capable of when given a melody to work with. Here you hear what kind of mess results when it doesn't. Mellow and calm at first, then descends into madness as the composer ran out of imagination. And just by listening to it, can you tell you're supposed to be in a snowy field? That music sounds closer to a sports pub to me. Even in the cases when route music did have a good melody, they still stuck a lot of unnecessary instruments on it. And what is this even supposed to be?

As for layout, well, Sinnoh was always the "wildest" region out there. There were no big roads connecting the biggest cities, it was all zig-zagging between trees and up and down stairs and bike across bridges and ledges and what-have-you-not. Even the cycling road went from a city and ended in... wilderness. Okay, it was possible to get to a city from its southern terminus without walking in grass, but it seemed like you had to cross a small quarry pit first. Crossing Sinnoh on foot was also a major pain in the butt. To travel between most locations, you had to cross through Mt. Coronet. The three most post-game-relevant locations are Pal Park, the Battle Zone and the Day Care. Try walking between those regularly, I'll wait. Most likely, you give up after one or two traverses, because it feels you have to fight your way from A to B wherever you go, whenever you go. The weather is miserable too. The result being: you Fly whenever you're travelling somewhere, meaning you get to see most of the region excactly once during your adventure, and that's when you have to walk through it for plot purposes. Contrast Hoenn and Kanto, where shortcuts open up everwhere after a few badges, making pretty much the entire mainland easily accessable by foot within a couple of minutes. That meant you might as well take the walk instead of scrambling through your PC for a flyer, and the convenient travels make the region more memorable by virtue of frequent revisits.

Sinnoh also had its biggest city awkwardly stuck at the beginning of the game, in a corner of the map, meaning it never felt like a place where things went on. What really happened in Jubilife? Okay, a TV station, but... yeah, that city was pretty forgettable. The landmarks of the region weren't much to cheer for either. Three near-identical lakes, a hotel and a big bog? Props for the Old Chateau (a legitimately creepy house in the middle of a forest) and Fuego Ironworks (for being a neat, hidden location), though. Stark Mountain was also very cool, in that it did everything right with regards to Legendary Pokémon as far as I'm concerned. You had to really go out of your way to find the Legendary Pokémon, and it was never relevant to any plot but its own. Unless you went to look for it, you might as well never have found out Heatran existed. You know... that's exactly what I think of when I hear "legendary Pokémon".

Also, after the roaring success of Secret Bases in RSE, I was pretty gutted to see them being mistreated so horribly in D/P. Half the point of them was to let you claim a little corner of the region for your own, and make your own cozy little hideout there. Not so much in D/P, where you had to make your base in a random wall completely identical to all the other random walls in the Underground. You also had to connect to your friends an awful lot of times to clear the place of the stupid rocks, and you could only access the Base if you dropped into the right section of the tunnel network, as it wasn't continuous (nor did its layout make any sense. Why was it symmetrical, for instance?).

I must admit that D/P did some things right. But it also did a lot of things badly, and that's why I rank it the lowest among the Pokémon games to date.

 

[stage7_4]

I don't really think Gen 4 is "hated" as much as it's now it's turn to be the generation whipping boy thanks to ORAS cleaning up the previously most hated generation 3. And I don't even think Gen 3 would be as hated if not for the initial fan outcry due to R/S cutting off all but 10% of the old pokemon and access to the old games.

Heck, I think Generation 4 will always hold a very special place for the physcial/special split and introducing online trading (THANK YOU ARCEUS!)

I'll ignore all the D/P "obvious beta" problems that Platinum cleaned up (slowdowns, weird pokedex, glitches) and do the pro/con's:

Pro: Most challenging game (in a fun way) of the main series (not counting Colosseum/XD), many cool Pokemon additions (but I could say that for every gen), online trading, phys/special split, 95 TM's, much improved Battle Frontier, the Team Galactic theme (and to a lesser extent the Lake Trio theme).

Cons: Oh-so many HM's. Seriously, the worst in the series for HM slaves. I remember climbing the Spear Pillar with only two of my main battling party because three were HM slaves and the last was a synchronizer for Giratina, Lucas' beret (U.G.L.Y. Gamefreak got no alibi), and for a region design that focused on exploring there was a lot of forced roadblocks (less than Gens 5 or 6, but those have the excuse of cutting HM usage). And while not as bad as Gen 5, this was the generation where the legendary count started to get ridiculous.

Lastly, for the other unpopular opinions:

1. Misty. She was the best girl, but not the best girlfriend for Ash (Serena is filling that role nicely). No, she was a mentor and battle companion but never meant to be "that girl." She was feisty and didn't take no crud from Ash, yet still a bit motherly and caring. They would never work because they were never equals, Misty was a gym leader and way better than Ash. So when Ash came into his own and became less of a greenhorn there was only one destiny for Misty, back to running her own gym.

Granted, her best qualities got nerfed on two accounts, first was that dang Togepi over-inflating "Misty the mother" making her way too bland. Secondly was her roster nerf when Starmie got benched and Psyduck's comedy gimmick got out of hand. She recovered towards the end of Johto when she got Corsola (who unlike in-game was great in the anime), but by then the character damage was fatal. And like others have said, lacking a solid goal (like Brock did) always meant that Misty was only temporary until Ash caught up to her in talent and skill. Which would have made more sense if Ash didn't start getting hit by the reset button over and over after Misty left.

2. "Culling" I'm against cutting any pokemon mainly because it's a slippery slope. Sure, you might not like Mothim or forget that Lumineon exists but who are we to say what is "redundant" or not? Plus I guarantee that no matter how little a pokemon is liked now, just wait until they cut them and see the martyr syndrome in full effect (like about any before and after Smash Bros cut. Remember how many people loathed the Ice Climbers due to lack of game representation and how cheap chain-grabbing was? How about now that they are gone? Same with Wolf and Roy for the "clones" arguments).

 

[Norne]

Trust me my hate for sinnoh and hoenn won't be spared by remakes. I almost dropped the franchise till smogon gave me hope in gen 4.

Honestly I barely touch hoenn... It's a drag to move in ORAS, I just battle and turn it off at this point.

Sinnoh was not hard, just slow-paced and bloated, filled with roadblocks and horrible gyms that only relied in confusion to attempt to give a false sense of difficulty. I hated to do runs trough it for the tm. And it had the most horrible e4 to date, I remember Bertha for being a cute Agatha and Lucian for being the only challenge in the game, till platinum gave us Cyrus pumped up. Cynthia despite the level up felt like a freaking cakewalk on every run, even when using lv 48 pokemon on the league... I fail to see how people see Cynthia as memorable or roadblock, defog and MT screw you to be amazing... I hate hoenn but sinnoh just takes the cake fills it with hate adds rotten cabbage and eggs to the mix and forcefully chokes it trough your nose with slow paced story while you are forced to watch the same vacuum cleaner 30 minutes ad on the TV, unable to look away to boot.

Platinum made it bearable with the details allowing some experimentation on that slowfest... Yet MT screw you lingered.

 

[KingHeracrossTheBug]

Cons: Oh-so many HM's. Seriously, the worst in the series for HM slaves.

Bidoof family calls bullshit on that. And you get all the cards
Seriously tho, for early game Bidoof works with Rock Smash + Cut, then you can get his evolution while keeping Bidoof to get Surf, Strength, Waterfall, and Rock Climber. After that, Startly covera Fly/Defog, and Staraptor is a great team choice, thus not being as much of a 'slave'

 

[stage7_4]

Bidoof family calls bullshit on that. And you get all the cards
Seriously tho, for early game Bidoof works with Rock Smash + Cut, then you can get his evolution while keeping Bidoof to get Surf, Strength, Waterfall, and Rock Climber. After that, Startly covera Fly/Defog, and Staraptor is a great team choice, thus not being as much of a 'slave'

Sorry, that was bad writing on my part. I meant how many HMs you needed (and therefore how many slaves you needed) and how often you needed them on a route, not the quality of the slaves themselves. I personally used the tag-team of Bibarel and Tropius.

Bottom line was there were 9 required field moves (cut, fly, flash, defog, strength, rock smash, rock climb, waterfall, surf) and few of them ever "phased out" (like how cut becomes rarer as the game progresses in other generations). And overall it was just too much.

 

[Lady Vader]

Here's more of a random opinion no one else thought of but annoys me:
Unlike the Jigglypuff line, Clefairy lost its Normal-typing when it became a Fairy. This annoys me because of Whitney's Gym. Not only does she use Clefairy, but her freaking gym is in the shape of a Clefairy!!!!:

The design of the Gym just became pointless!

 

[KingHeracrossTheBug]

Sorry, that was bad writing on my part. I meant how many HMs you needed (and therefore how many slaves you needed) and how often you needed them on a route, not the quality of the slaves themselves. I personally used the tag-team of Bibarel and Tropius.

Bottom line was there were 9 required field moves (cut, fly, flash, defog, strength, rock smash, rock climb, waterfall, surf) and few of them ever "phased out" (like how cut becomes rarer as the game progresses in other generations). And overall it was just too much.

Oh, makes sense. Biba + Tropius is pretty neay too, but I was mainly saying for DP, where you have no Tropius. Also Defog, Flash, and Cut all phase out afaik, soooo...

Here's more of a random opinion no one else thought of but annoys me:
Unlike the Jigglypuff line, Clefairy lost its Normal-typing when it became a Fairy. This annoys me because of Whitney's Gym. Not only does she use Clefairy, but her freaking gym is in the shape of a Clefairy!!!!:

The design of the Gym just became pointless!

I think I'm the only one that liked that gym battle

Hide

SAID NO ONE EVER AT ALL, and if someone ever says that they're probably a communist Russian spy and you should poison them

 

[Norne]

I think I'm the only one that liked that gym battle

Hide

SAID NO ONE EVER AT ALL, and if someone ever says that they're probably a communist Russian spy and you should poison them

Mexican capitalist as hell and I did like Withney, although I rofl stomped her with Bayleff slowpoke zubat and mareep.

On an unpopular opinion I think I'm the only guy in the world who enjoys using crobat in all of his runs, I mean even in sinnoh I ran crobat and staraptor XD. Only BW made me break my crobat streak since silver XD. I did use Golbat's on blue....

 

[KingHeracrossTheBug]

Mexican capitalist as hell and I did like Withney, although I rofl stomped her with Bayleff slowpoke zubat and mareep.

On an unpopular opinion I think I'm the only guy in the world who enjoys using crobat in all of his runs, I mean even in sinnoh I ran crobat and staraptor XD. Only BW made me break my crobat streak since silver XD. I did use Golbat's on blue....

I like Crobat as well, but not in every single run. That goes for the first route bird, since I always use it barring Hoenn (there's no first route bird anyways xD)

 

[JES]

Sorry, that was bad writing on my part. I meant how many HMs you needed (and therefore how many slaves you needed) and how often you needed them on a route, not the quality of the slaves themselves. I personally used the tag-team of Bibarel and Tropius.

Bottom line was there were 9 required field moves (cut, fly, flash, defog, strength, rock smash, rock climb, waterfall, surf) and few of them ever "phased out" (like how cut becomes rarer as the game progresses in other generations). And overall it was just too much.

Ugh, agreed. Between Mt. Coronet dividing half the region, and the need for all those HMs, it can be a bit too much. If they ever remake D/P/P, they should just make Rock Smash and Defog TMs. Defog is useful anyways, due to being able to remove entry hazards, and spin-blockers can't stop it. But I want to be able to replace it when I'm not expecting entry hazards. In fact, why not just remove the permanent nature of HMs, and just make them TMs? It's not like you can get rid of the discs, and if you forget them, all you have to do is relearn them, so only a completely incompentent imbecile could possibly get trapped. This has worked extremely well for Flash.

You teach the HMs to get to you're destination, and replace them with powerful TMs when you get to you're destination, such as battling Cyrus. It'll just make life so much easier, and I won't have to use HM slaves anymore.

 

[Lady Vader]

Ugh, agreed. Between Mt. Coronet dividing half the region, and the need for all those HMs, it can be a bit too much. If they ever remake D/P/P, they should just make Rock Smash and Defog TMs. Defog is useful anyways, due to being able to remove entry hazards, and spin-blockers can't stop it. But I want to be able to replace it when I'm not expecting entry hazards. In fact, why not just remove the permanent nature of HMs, and just make them TMs? It's not like you can get rid of the discs, and if you forget them, all you have to do is relearn them, so only a completely incompentent imbecile could possibly get trapped. This has worked extremely well for Flash.

You teach the HMs to get to you're destination, and replace them with powerful TMs when you get to you're destination, such as battling Cyrus. It'll just make life so much easier, and I won't have to use HM slaves anymore.

Or at least let them be deletable in towns or anywhere there is a PC. And if you don't have anything that can learn it, have a good out built in so no one can be trapped in certain areas.

 

[WideTomato]

Well, the reason why HMs are not delete able is because you could be stuck in places had you traded over an pokemon that had the HM without having the actual item, and the deleted the move in a place that you can't return from without it. This is potential in all main series games. IIRC you can actually be stuck in DPPt because there is a NPC trade that require a pokemon able to learn surf, that requires surf to get to.

 

[Norne]

The fact that people praise GSC after Morty bifurcation. If anything that's the point where the level progression went downhill and impacted negatively on the entire game.

People go under the open world fallacy and praise it, but honestly, GSC would have been better if a roadblock on pryce happened and 8 levels where added to the entire zone.

Yet people bash at XY that had actually great diversity and without the exp share could be entertaining to test. Due to its linearity... I don't even know if people are blinded by nostalgia or want a pokemon game to be a boring non turn based RPG anymore...

It's unpopular as people kept praising the choices but forget the horrible scaling that came along it.

 

[Raikaria]

I'll ignore all the D/P "obvious beta" problems that Platinum cleaned up

Which is why there is a very valid reason to hate Gen 4; seeing as ultimately; D/P is Gen 4. Platinum is the fixed version and then there are remakes.

I stand by the opinion that Diamond and Pearl are the worst pokemon games. Platinum is one of the best; but D/P is awful. Going back to play Diamond/Pearl after playing Platinum is outright unbearable.

And it is why I hope if they remake Gen 4 any time; they take from Platinum and not Diamond/Pearl. Especially in regards to the Pokedex.

===

Here's an unpopular opinion: X/Y and ORAS are not 'dumbing down' the games. Things like the EXP Share being broken; Pokemon Amie giving you insane buffs and Super Training; as well as Megas and free Legends are difficulty sliders. You don't have to use the EXP.Share, you don't have to use Mega Lati@s or Mega Lucario. In fact if you go through the games without using Megas or the EXP.Share X/Y and ORAS are probobly among the HARDEST games; because you have to beat Megas.

It's a far better implementation of 'difficulty' than that botched version B/W2 had which was 'you get half the difficulty setting at the end of the game huehuehue have fun with it being pointless'.

 

[Caramel Prisoner]

I have a different solution to the HM problem discussed a couple posts above: Make field effects permanent even if the move itself is forgotten. In essence, if I teach my Zigzagoon Cut it will forever be able to cut trees, even if I replace Cut with Return later in the game.

 

[JES]

Which is why there is a very valid reason to hate Gen 4; seeing as ultimately; D/P is Gen 4. Platinum is the fixed version and then there are remakes.

I stand by the opinion that Diamond and Pearl are the worst pokemon games. Platinum is one of the best; but D/P is awful. Going back to play Diamond/Pearl after playing Platinum is outright unbearable.

And it is why I hope if they remake Gen 4 any time; they take from Platinum and not Diamond/Pearl. Especially in regards to the Pokedex.

===

Here's an unpopular opinion: X/Y and ORAS are not 'dumbing down' the games. Things like the EXP Share being broken; Pokemon Amie giving you insane buffs and Super Training; as well as Megas and free Legends are difficulty sliders. You don't have to use the EXP.Share, you don't have to use Mega Lati@s or Mega Lucario. In fact if you go through the games without using Megas or the EXP.Share X/Y and ORAS are probobly among the HARDEST games; because you have to beat Megas.

It's a far better implementation of 'difficulty' than that botched version B/W2 had which was 'you get half the difficulty setting at the end of the game huehuehue have fun with it being pointless'.

Exactly, especially for EXP. Share, Amie, and Super Training, which I think are fun and useful tools to use, but you don't have to use them, but I'd rather that they stay in future games. Super Training especially makes changing the IVs for competitive battles relatively fun and easy, and I'd be lost without it, especially with all those Power Save Pokegenned monsters running about.

 

[Pikachu315111]

HM0?: Here's another solution to the HM problems that doesn't change how they work: let us carry around more Pokemon and let our Pokemon know more Moves. Just because during battle we can only use a max of 6 Pokemon each having a max of 4 Moves doesn't meant that limit has to exit outside of battle. Basically I think you should be able to carry 3 extra Pokemon in some kind of portable device and each Pokemon can have 2 extra moves maybe stored on their Pokeballs. Now you need to select 6 Pokemon to be on your "active" party and each Pokemon can only have 4 "active" moves for battling purposes, but outside of battle you can select and use the extra Pokemon and Moves. Not only would this provide you extra room to carry around an HM slave or one of your mains have an HM move without interfering with their main moveset, but I imagine it would be very helpful with training and preparing your team for battles. Oh, and when you go and challenge the Pokemon League the options lock you to only being able to select the 6 Pokemon you had set to active and the 4 moves they had set as active, to prevent players from trying to cheat. :P

Gen IV Remakes: While I'm looking forward to Gen IV remakes, seeing what they did with ORAS makes me a bit worried about what they may decide to do. ORAS is based on Ruby & Sapphire, to the point of excluding anything that was added to Emerald. Now for story purposes I can understand why, but why remove things such as Gym Leader re-battles, the Gym Leader's Emerald team lineup, Mirage Tower (and able to get the other Fossil post game which would give the Fossil Maniac some purpose), Trainer Hill (though you can argue that was replaced by the Battle Maison), and Battle Tents (I can understand not having the Battle Frontier due to time constraints, but you could still have had the Battle Tents. Maybe even added one for each non-Battle Tower Facility)? I feel like those would have been easy to implement. Now granted DPP's story are pretty much all the same except that in Platinum both Dialga & Palkia are captured and Cyrus is stopped by Giratina who drags him, you, and Cynthia to the Distortion World. But would they include the Distortion World and the Gen IV Battle Frontier or would they once again be focused on remaking Diamond & Pearl they cast aside what they did in Platinum?

Difficulty Scale: Yeah, I have no idea what they were thinking with making BW2's Easy and Hard mode not only locked until AFTER you beat the game but also make them version exclusive until you traded keys over! Also they weren't really anything impactful, Easy Mode just lowered levels (and honestly not needed, the normal game is easy enough) while Hard Mode raised levels and gave the important NPCs and extra Pokemon (okay, their Pokemon also have better moves and some are holding items, but it's not like they're using a full team against you which I think is the challenge everyone is looking for).
Anyway, that does seem to be a problem GameFreak have when they give some space to roam, they sort of have no idea what they should do about the scaling. Now I would say they "fixed" that with recent games by making them more linear, of course that just makes people feel like they're on a per-determined path more so then usual. Also it seems like they don't want to try and figure out a way on how to make a at least semi-free roaming game that still has a story and appropriate scaling, an example of the later can be seen with HGSS which just copied and paste GS without bothering to try and fix an old and well known problem with the post game/second part/Kanto story's level scaling.
As for the Exp. Share, Pokemon-amie, Super Training, and "welfare" Pokemon (Lucario in XY, Latios/Latias in ORAS), as others have said you have a choice to use them or not. Maybe the Exp. Share is a bit overpowered, but honestly all it's doing is saving you training time and I imagine to "make it fair" would require a lot of unnecessary work that could be used elsewhere. Still would like a "Hard Mode" option to choose from at the beginning, but for a personal challenge you can turn off the Exp. Share.