Unpopular opinions

[Heatranator]

View attachment 628946

Yes I am. Mount Coronet, despite someone else saying something that was interesting with it, is just a cave, not a mountain. Mount Coronet is meant to be the centrepiece of the Sinoh region, and yet it feels like some cave that you see any old day.
B2W2 Victory Road is really cool area. You have to go through N's castle ruins a bit, which is a nice bit of continuity, and there are 4 different areas you have to traverse. First, there are N's ruins, which as I have said, good storytelling an ruins in general need to be utilised more in the series (they are utilised in the series, just not in a good way). Then, we have a mountain base which connects to a mountainside which goes in and out of caves. Thirdly, we have the caves area which is just stock standard but its alright when we have the other areas to back it up. Finally, we have the mountain area which is just caves 2.0, but at least it has more trainers.
Even after you beat the Champion League, you can then visit N's castle for real, which is so sweet. I didn't even talk about the enterance of it, which is just a little cool thing to see the gateways open for you. Imma just drop the maps of this place.

Maps of B2W2 Victory Road

Mount Lanikila is a good mountain area. Especially in USUM, where you can enter the base earlier. Seeing the mountain from the peak of Mount Hokulani (which is also a good mountain area tbh) is really good to establish it, but Sinnoh already establishes it so I won't take points away from it. When you do actually get to it, you of course face Gladion, but that's the same with every Victory Road. It's a short area, that's the main detractor of it, but going in and outside a snowy area is really cool. When you nearly reach the peak, you see Necrozma in an impact crater waiting for you to catch it (you give it some of your Z power and then battle it). This is a nice wrap up to that storyline. Finally, you reach the peak and the pokemon center, where you can finally reteach the mons you have moves they forgot, which is a bit of a bad point. Honestly, Mount Lanikila isn't a great area, but it is better than Mount Coronet in that it FEELS like a mountain. Mount Coronet feels like a cave, that is not a good thing.

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

It's true that the player is given more visual representations of Mt Lanakila's stature then Mt Coronet's, but to me it feels like less of a mountain when you actually climb it because most of the vertical movement is done via elevator screen transition. Mt Coronet's HM requirements have been discussed to death, but I really do think they help sell it as this imposing presence that you're scaling with the help of your Pokemon, even if you don't actually gain very much height.

Ultimately, all Pokemon dungeons suffer from the fact that they don't hold up well to repeat playthroughs. People love to replay Pokemon games to try out different teams and strategies against the major trainer battles, but even the most interesting location can end up feeling like busywork when you already know its layout and your mind is jumping ahead to the next boss fight. In some ways, dungeons get worse on repeat viewings the more interesting they were to begin with.

 

[Jenna Ortega]

PLA sucks because it didn’t have the beautiful 100% turn-based mechanics of Pokémon Red. Also it gets boring after 5 mins.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Yes I am. Mount Coronet, despite someone else saying something that was interesting with it, is just a cave, not a mountain. Mount Coronet is meant to be the centrepiece of the Sinoh region, and yet it feels like some cave that you see any old day.
B2W2 Victory Road is really cool area. You have to go through N's castle ruins a bit, which is a nice bit of continuity, and there are 4 different areas you have to traverse. First, there are N's ruins, which as I have said, good storytelling an ruins in general need to be utilised more in the series (they are utilised in the series, just not in a good way). Then, we have a mountain base which connects to a mountainside which goes in and out of caves. Thirdly, we have the caves area which is just stock standard but its alright when we have the other areas to back it up. Finally, we have the mountain area which is just caves 2.0, but at least it has more trainers.
Even after you beat the Champion League, you can then visit N's castle for real, which is so sweet. I didn't even talk about the enterance of it, which is just a little cool thing to see the gateways open for you. Imma just drop the maps of this place.

Maps of B2W2 Victory Road

View attachment 628952
View attachment 628953
View attachment 628954
View attachment 628955
View attachment 628956

Mount Lanikila is a good mountain area. Especially in USUM, where you can enter the base earlier. Seeing the mountain from the peak of Mount Hokulani (which is also a good mountain area tbh) is really good to establish it, but Sinnoh already establishes it so I won't take points away from it. When you do actually get to it, you of course face Gladion, but that's the same with every Victory Road. It's a short area, that's the main detractor of it, but going in and outside a snowy area is really cool. When you nearly reach the peak, you see Necrozma in an impact crater waiting for you to catch it (you give it some of your Z power and then battle it). This is a nice wrap up to that storyline. Finally, you reach the peak and the pokemon center, where you can finally reteach the mons you have moves they forgot, which is a bit of a bad point. Honestly, Mount Lanikila isn't a great area, but it is better than Mount Coronet in that it FEELS like a mountain. Mount Coronet feels like a cave, that is not a good thing.

That's why I said it needed some visual impact, a unique tileset would've elevated it tremendously.

You're constantly weaving in and out of the snow area on your way up. Here's what it looks like after the story segment where you get to fully explore for TMs like Rock Slide and with a bunch of Grunts around.

I could've gone for a longer version with all the content, but we're really just talking about the actual path to the Spear Pillar anyway.

It's not only very unique because players don't actually enter it through the northern entrances where they'd expect to see snow, it just hits you with that and the amazing music shift.

Just because there's room for improvement, it doesn't mean Mt. Coronet has major flaws beyond Gen 4 Sinnoh still using the HM system.

 

[ant4456]

See I don't even think of Mt. Coronet as a dungeon?

I literally go through it for like 20 seconds each way. I wasn't exaggerating. Early game I go east and that is about 30 seconds minus the talk with Cyrus, and then later I go west through it again.

On the way to the Pillar it really is just a regular ass cave but even that is a short bit.

You're all telling me you gave a fuck to explore the basic looking boring cave full of HM locks that has bleh Pokemon? Nah I'm doing the bare minimum lmao

And clearly anything you can explore in it isn't that necessary considering that no matter how many times I play Sinnoh games, this remains the same fact

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

See I don't even think of Mt. Coronet as a dungeon?

On the way to the Pillar it really is just a regular ass cave but even that is a short bit.

I'll bite.

What is a dungeon for you then?

 

[Sixfortyfive]

The interesting thing isn't the look or a specific puzzle, the interesting thing is that every time you come back to it, your abilities mean the layout is different and there's more to explore. It goes from a tiny tunnel with a couple of minor off-shoots to a massive cave system that connects the whole region, and does so with the only thing changing being your abilities. It's the player's growth represented in a clear, obvious manner by bringing you back to it repeatedly.

Yeah, one thing that D/P was really good at in comparison to a lot of other Pokemon games was demonstrating the player character's growth, both as an explorer and as a battler. As bloated as the HM system was in gen 4, it was also the closest this series ever got to scratching the sort of exploration itch that a game like Metroid is designed to do.

The Cave of Origin in Hoenn sort of comes out of nowhere and leaves the picture just as quickly. It's a very short and basic setpiece in a remote location for precisely one battle in R/S, and its role was reduced even further in Emerald. As positive as I am about Hoenn overall, there are at least a few important locations in the region like this where it doesn't really feel like they're there to flesh out the world as much as they're just there to house one specific key item or encounter. Like their existence is purely functional. Mt. Coronet is a presence that is literally always looming in a lot of the background scenery throughout the game, and its role only becomes more important over the course of the story in tandem with the player's ability to explore it. It represents something bigger, and it's foreshadowed appropriately.

It dovetails nicely with Barry's role, who is a pretty solid rival character. He's not an outright jerk like Blue or Silver were, but he still comes across both confident and competent, very much has his own motivations, actually wants to beat you, and is literally always one step ahead of you... until he loses to Team Galactic in the lake encounter right before the story's climax and falls one step behind you for the remainder of the quest. That's an incredibly basic example of "show, don't tell" storytelling, but it's still something that some other Pokemon games don't even bother to try.

Like, probably the one thing about S/V that I was most put off by is how every other character simultaneously babies you but also treats you like you're some kind of god prodigy before you even do anything. It was bizarre to play through an "adventure" that didn't even feel like it had a single antagonist until the very end of the game.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Yeah, one thing that D/P was really good at in comparison to a lot of other Pokemon games was demonstrating the player character's growth, both as an explorer and as a battler. As bloated as the HM system was in gen 4, it was also the closest this series ever got to scratching the sort of exploration itch that a game like Metroid is designed to do.

The Cave of Origin in Hoenn sort of comes out of nowhere and leaves the picture just as quickly. It's a very short and basic setpiece in a remote location for precisely one battle in R/S, and its role was reduced even further in Emerald. As positive as I am about Hoenn overall, there are at least a few important locations in the region like this where it doesn't really feel like they're there to flesh out the world as much as they're just there to house one specific key item or encounter. Like their existence is purely functional. Mt. Coronet is a presence that is literally always looming in a lot of the background scenery throughout the game, and its role only becomes more important over the course of the story in tandem with the player's ability to explore it. It represents something bigger, and it's foreshadowed appropriately.

It dovetails nicely with Barry's role, who is a pretty solid rival character. He's not an outright jerk like Blue or Silver were, but he still comes across both confident and competent, very much has his own motivations, actually wants to beat you, and is literally always one step ahead of you... until he loses to Team Galactic in the lake encounter right before the story's climax and falls one step behind you for the remainder of the quest. That's an incredibly basic example of "show, don't tell" storytelling, but it's still something that some other Pokemon games don't even bother to try.

Like, probably the one thing about S/V that I was most put off by is how every other character simultaneously babies you but also treats you like you're some kind of god prodigy before you even do anything. It was bizarre to play through an "adventure" that didn't even feel like it had a single antagonist until the very end of the game.

Not to mention Barry obtains a Munchlax, a Pokemon notoriously difficult and time-consuming to find. Absolutely excellent bit of detail there.

Wrt Mt Coronet, I actually wish we'd had to go through it more times in the story. As it is, you pass through from Eterna-Hearthome and then again when going through to Snowpoint, but they're both exceptionally brief - the Snowpoint one is built up to be a harsh journey but is basically just a long corridor with no trainers or significant obstacles.

If they'd designed the map so that Mt Coronet was truly omnipresent and the player needed to pass under it a few different times, I think there'd have been much more of a sense of scale and awe to it, and a real sense of "oh, I've got to climb to the top of this thing now". As it is it's just... there. I mean, the passage between Eterna and Hearthome isn't even as big as Hearthome City itself; you can speed through it in an instant.

 

[AztecCroc]

Not to mention Barry obtains a Munchlax, a Pokemon notoriously difficult and time-consuming to find. Absolutely excellent bit of detail there.

Wrt Mt Coronet, I actually wish we'd had to go through it more times in the story. As it is, you pass through from Eterna-Hearthome and then again when going through to Snowpoint, but they're both exceptionally brief - the Snowpoint one is built up to be a harsh journey but is basically just a long corridor with no trainers or significant obstacles.

If they'd designed the map so that Mt Coronet was truly omnipresent and the player needed to pass under it a few different times, I think there'd have been much more of a sense of scale and awe to it, and a real sense of "oh, I've got to climb to the top of this thing now". As it is it's just... there. I mean, the passage between Eterna and Hearthome isn't even as big as Hearthome City itself; you can speed through it in an instant.

Oreburgh Tunnel is also part of Mt. Coronet.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

Not to mention Barry obtains a Munchlax, a Pokemon notoriously difficult and time-consuming to find. Absolutely excellent bit of detail there.

Wrt Mt Coronet, I actually wish we'd had to go through it more times in the story. As it is, you pass through from Eterna-Hearthome and then again when going through to Snowpoint, but they're both exceptionally brief - the Snowpoint one is built up to be a harsh journey but is basically just a long corridor with no trainers or significant obstacles.

If they'd designed the map so that Mt Coronet was truly omnipresent and the player needed to pass under it a few different times, I think there'd have been much more of a sense of scale and awe to it, and a real sense of "oh, I've got to climb to the top of this thing now". As it is it's just... there. I mean, the passage between Eterna and Hearthome isn't even as big as Hearthome City itself; you can speed through it in an instant.

The thing takes up so much of the map and has obvious blocked passages during your early trips that do a good enough job of getting the point across that you're going to be scaling it eventually. I also used to be the sort of player who would revisit locations right away after receiving a new HM just to see what I could find, so that was reason enough to check in a couple more times. Forcing it any more than they did would run the risk of getting repetitive.

Also, in what may or may not be another unpopular opinion, I've actually grown to like the role that HMs play when I revisit old games. Very rarely do I use dedicated HM mules at this point; I think it's more fun as a team-building exercise to make sure that I've got all of the field moves covered and evenly distributed. It's not incredibly common for a Pokemon to learn 4 good and distinct battle moves without dipping into powerful TMs anyway, so giving up 1 of those 4 move slots for exploration purposes is fine.

The only thing that irritates me about it is the text box prompts that you have to mash through every. single. time. that you want to chop down another tree. It's like at least 70% of the reason why I'm baffled that anyone would play one of these games without setting the text display speed to Fast.

 

[Leif98]

Ultimately, all Pokemon dungeons suffer from the fact that they don't hold up well to repeat playthroughs. People love to replay Pokemon games to try out different teams and strategies against the major trainer battles, but even the most interesting location can end up feeling like busywork when you already know its layout and your mind is jumping ahead to the next boss fight. In some ways, dungeons get worse on repeat viewings the more interesting they were to begin with.

Replaying things will generally make you notice flaws more often, even in things you love (in my case I have played Sonic Adventure 2 and Pikmin 2 way too much and the little flaws both games do have become more apparent each time). Stuff that is done for visual flair obviously sticks out, and in Pokemon the unskippable cutscenes can also be annyoing on repeat playthroughs or when doing a nuzlocke or other challenge I feel

In Pokemons case it is mostly lots of little annoyances that build up to something aggravating for me. Interestingly I think you could easily fix the more annyoing parts of Gen 1-6 with some small touchups. The dungeons that feel most bothersome to me on repeat playthroughs are those who need HMs, whih Mt. Coronet is. (I do think Rock Climb is good use of making you feel you are scaling it.
Flash caves are by far the most annoying. I hate doing them without despite knowing the layout, and in Kanto you need to go through a boring corridor named Diglett cave to get it...
Gen 5 and Gen 6 victory roads are dungeons I have enjoyed on repeat playthroughs, so there is definitely some differences in how you could design interesting ones for replayers (especially since Pokemon is a game people replay often)

 

[Sixfortyfive]

Flash is the funniest HM.

Like they're just taunting you by making it not technically required, but trying to go without it is often miserable, but it's also a total waste in battle, especially with its 70% accuracy in the earlier games.

 

[Heatranator]

Also, in what may or may not be another unpopular opinion, I've actually grown to like the role that HMs play when I revisit old games. Very rarely do I use dedicated HM mules at this point; I think it's more fun as a team-building exercise to make sure that I've got all of the field moves covered and evenly distributed. It's not incredibly common for a Pokemon to learn 4 good and distinct battle moves without dipping into powerful TMs anyway, so giving up 1 of those 4 move slots for exploration purposes is fine.

HM's are so bad lmao. I honestly think that while they were a cool idea, but implementation was always going to be bad. They were inspired by a system in Dragon Quest 1. Just 1, not any other Dragon Quest games cause even they realised that it was doo doo too. The reason why they were so bad is because you had to keep subpar moves on your mons in order to traverse unless you swapped out your mons, which most people don't do. Stuff like surf or strength are what HMs should have been, strong moves that you would use to traverse, but are still good outside traversing. The ability to not remove HMs is the straw that breaks the camerupts back, you cannot replace said moves until midway or late game. So you are having to use rock smash or worse, cut, for half of your playthrough, potentially longer if you are worried about losing a precious TM by putting it on a mon and then having to delete it because you actually needed the HM. Back in like Gen 1 or 2, yes, you most likely couldn't learn good and distinct battle moves without dipping into TMs, but Gen 3 onwards, you absolutely can since they massively expanded mons learnsets from then on. Now you don't really have to use TMs, they are probably recommended but not necessary.

 

[Bakugames]

monster hunter stories still has the best "hm" system of all monster collector games imo

 

[ant4456]

In terms of dungeon talk, some of my favorite dungeons:

-Frost Cavern (XY)

This one is just interesting IMO, I love ice stuff and I always felt good traveling it. Sticks out in my mind.

-Victory Road (BW)

This one always stuck out to me because it has visual significance and is fun to explore to me. I like that it uses the 3D well.

-Trainer School (SM/USUM)

Now this, is an extremely unpopular take. In my opinion this is a great bit of gameplay. Good encounters to catch, a few battles to fight and then beating the Principle, who is actually kind of tough in USUM. I like the music, and while some may feel "degraded" I suppose by going through it, I never felt that way. To me its job was to establish that the player is superior as a battler, has talent, etc., which makes sense. I tend to like dungeons for their tight bits of gameplay where every part of the game is expressed, and this mini dungeon does that. Some battles, some optional items, encounters and a miniboss with a unique location done in about 20 minutes.

-Poni Poni Canyon (SM/USUM)

This one has such good music, such interesting backdrops and has a truly "epic" feel to me. Like I'm actually scaling a scary place full of tough Pokemon and trainers. I like the side areas, and I like the story for it.

-Victory Road (ORAS)

This is actually one of my favorite Victory Roads despite being a bit basic visually, but ORAS adds onto it and a much better Wally fight climax, rather than at the start.

I like that the HM use feels pretty clean rather than shit like Kanto/Sinnoh, and I like the trainer battles. Overall I think the pacing is good and right as I feel tired, it's over.

These are just a few, but I do like them. Some other honorable mentions: XY Victory Road, Johto Ice Cave, Mt. Pyre and Pokemon Tower.

 

[ant4456]

Okay sorry for double post but completely unrelated take:

Gen 4 (DPP/HGSS) being 30fps is fucking embarassing, and also feels kinda ass. The fact that the games look like the GBA + slight 3D elements does not justify 30fps for the next big leak for Pokemon.

While one could argue that not all of these aged well and thus Game Freak maybe made the right call, I think it's less that and more a case of "We need to get it out quickly", because Generation 5 is fucking beautiful for the system.

And it runs at 60FPS IIRC.

DPP spritework is so ass compared to something like Kirby Squeak Squad too lol. Like the overworld models especially

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

And it runs at 60FPS IIRC.

It doesn't.

 

[AztecCroc]

Okay sorry for double post but completely unrelated take:

Gen 4 (DPP/HGSS) being 30fps is fucking embarassing, and also feels kinda ass. The fact that the games look like the GBA + slight 3D elements does not justify 30fps for the next big leak for Pokemon.

View attachment 630018

View attachment 630019


View attachment 630020

View attachment 630021

View attachment 630022

View attachment 630023

While one could argue that not all of these aged well and thus Game Freak maybe made the right call, I think it's less that and more a case of "We need to get it out quickly", because Generation 5 is fucking beautiful for the system.

And it runs at 60FPS IIRC.

DPP spritework is so ass compared to something like Kirby Squeak Squad too lol. Like the overworld models especially

DS 3D graphics looked hideous even back then, and the DS couldn't do 60 FPS when rending 3D, screens rendering 3D were capped at 30.

 

[ant4456]

DS 3D graphics looked hideous even back then, and the DS couldn't do 60 FPS when rending 3D, screens rendering 3D were capped at 30.

My guy, you can't make an argument that the DS cannot handle DPP at 60fps when fucking Black and White exist.

This is not the hardware's fault, it is Game Freak was bad at optimizing the DS at the time. DPP are not that full of 3D! it is rudimentary at best! The battle graphics are basically at the level of the last console!

DPP is ugly as sin, and primitive as HELL compared to Black and White.

 

[AztecCroc]

My guy, you can't make an argument that the DS cannot handle DPP at 60fps when fucking Black and White exist.

This is not the hardware's fault, it is Game Freak was bad at optimizing the DS at the time. DPP are not that full of 3D! it is rudimentary at best! The battle graphics are basically at the level of the last console!

DPP is ugly as sin, and primitive as HELL compared to Black and White.

BW are also capped at 30 unless you're using one of the DSi models (or the 3DS).

 

[Sixfortyfive]

BW looks neither good nor impressive.

2D sprites on 3D backgrounds almost always clash, and locations like Castelia City where they really try to lean into it come off even worse for it. It's like a textbook case of "you're trying to do too much."

Very few Pokemon games actually look or perform impressively compared to contemporary games tbh, and that pair is not an exception.

 

[ant4456]

BW are also capped at 30 unless you're using one of the DSi models (or the 3DS).

I did not mention that BW was 60fps in that post bc I read what Volt said

What I meant was that you could absolutely optimize DPP to be 60fps lol

 

[Suspicious Derivative]

It doesn't.

It does, but not all the time.

"While the framerate for the overworld is still 30, the framerate has been increased to 60 for battles, the title screen, and 2D menus. However, the opening movie only has a framerate of 15." - Bulbapedia

I can't say if this is correct as I don't see a difference between 30 and 60 FPS (unless it is shown side by side). But it sounds reasonable. Gen 5 always felt a lot faster than Gen 4 to me, especially the battles. When I battled at the Battle Subway in 2020, even stall battles that went down to Struggling could be over in like 5 minutes, while they would have taken much longer in Gen 4.

FPS and graphics aside (neither is imporant to me in Pokémon, or in video games in general), I definitely prefer Gen 5 over Gen 4. In fact, I like to think of Gen 5 as a straight upgrade over Gen 4. Don't know if that's unpopular, but that's my opinion.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

Frame rate has absolutely nothing to do with battle speed.

 

[Leif98]

Gen 4 does give the impression that the devs struggled with the new hardware a lot (GF isn't known to have the best coders...)

the fact that all Gen 4 games are slow (DP especially, it's cruel) is another issue, though thankfully there are codes that unlock FPS, and because this is an older game the mechanics are tied to FPS, thus doubling the speed while maintaining the music (at least thats how I think it works)
I couldn't go back to Gen 4 otherwise, though this is very much a side effect of becoming really impatient due to less free time...