Unpopular opinions

[pika pal]

If Sun and Moon is in the discussion, I'm gonna say straight up, the game's story is objectively worse for the player character's involvement and presence. Other iterations like the Manga fare better, but the incarnation of the story found in the lauded SM games is not the good one just because it shares those writing elements. I'd go as far as to say SV handles the thematically similar plot beats and structure better.

Game Freak didn't feel confident giving the PC a personality while simultaneously being too afraid to give major plot moments to anyone besides you: despite being an outsider to the Aether Family, you have to rescue Lillie and Nebby, then accompany them through the Ultra Space confrontation up to Lillie telling off Lusamine for being a horrible parent. That moment kind of gets undercut for me by the fact that when Lusamine becomes the Mother Beast, she battles you until Nebby decides the plot's over and roars the Jellyfish off her. To a lesser extent this persists even into the USUM rewrite where Lusamine screws everything up and Nebby is taken protecting Lillie, only for you to go and fight Necrozma yourself. In both games this culminates for me in you essentially being given the fully evolved Nebby, completely superfluous since the game includes an event to obtain your own Cosmog that can evolve into the same form anyway.

For all the criticism levied against the BW plot, as least there is a purpose to your character's existence in the narrative (challenging Team Plasma and becoming N's opposite with the Tao Dragons is what pushes him to reflect and deprogram his upbringing). BW's plot structure does not function as or more effectively if the player's role is removed without being filled in.

SV splits the player's attention between the three plots on smaller scale conflicts while connecting with the friend group before introducing the higher stakes plot in the endgame. Your character is designated as one of several people with a role to play in the Area Zero excursion: Arven knows the area, Penny is intended to understand the tech (I'll admit flat out this isn't utilized significantly), Nemona is additional muscle to reach the depths, and you're the trainer the "Professor" entrusted with the injured Raidon (given the territorial one is also extremely dangerous) to bring the team down. While Arven has a history with Area Zero, the stakes are bigger than him and the present situation isn't presented as "his" to handle anymore than it is yours, compared to SM's Lillie/Gladion/Lusamine conflict being personal within the family that your PCis just kind of an observer for that Lusamine decides to fight near the end in Ultra Space.

The central element to all this for me though is the trauma victim and how the game handles their narrative role. Lillie is presented as a child around the player's age, but despite the series history and the arc they want to give her, she remains a very passive character until the Aether incident, at which point she speaks her mind but hasn't been developed enough to display agency or capability to take action since that would have taken away from the totally-not-gym-challenge structure the player's doing while just leaving her at various safe locations. By comparison, SV makes the traumatized party the player's Raidon, who is presented as on the more animal-natured side of Pokemon behavior. Despite this, the player can witness a more gradual growth in the mon as it regains its forms from the territorial injury and they travel the region as a pair, setting up the payoff in the ending where not only is your partner fighting fit again, but they don't hesitate to fight their previous attacker (as opposed to trying to take you 4 and escape as the AI suggests).

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

My criticism with BW's story is much simpler

It's boring.

N is literally a guy that is touching grass for the first time.

 

[Esserise]

And then there are characters like, I think, the 5th gym leader? who speaks with a ridiculous Texan accent that is meant to amuse children but is just a depthless caricature to adults.

pika pal covered most of what I probably would have said, but I still want to hone in on this bit in particular — I don’t really see how Clay having an accent makes him a caricature? It’s not really any different from the handful of Kansai-dialect characters in the Japanese language versions of the games.

Clay being a caricature would be like if all he was talk exclusively about ten-gallon hats and making money off of oil sales before ending every sentence with “Yee-haw!” But in practice, the substance of what he says is no different from that of any other Gym Leader. And I’ve always particularly liked this line: “There's always room for folks to grow and change, ain't there? And, if ya only go after what ya think is right, ya might end up rejectin' all thoughts and opinions other than yer own. That's mighty dangerous.” Yes, it’s presented in a folksy Texan way of speaking, but you don’t get a philosophical point like that from a caricature who’s just supposed to amuse children.

despite being an outsider to the Aether Family, you have to rescue Lillie and Nebby, then accompany them through the Ultra Space confrontation up to Lillie telling off Lusamine for being a horrible parent. That moment kind of gets undercut for me by the fact that when Lusamine becomes the Mother Beast, she battles you until Nebby decides the plot's over and roars the Jellyfish off her.

I agree that Nebby defusing Lusamine by using Roar is a weak way to resolve that part of the plot, but I don’t see why the player wouldn’t inevitably be going along with Lillie into Ultra Space in any permutation of events — you two journeyed through the canyon together to make it to the altar and play the flutes, which there are two of. Why would the player just stop at that point and say, “Okay Lillie, see ya when you get your mom back!” and watch her and Nebby sail off? Ultra Space is an unknown environment full of unpredictable Pokémon, and for all of Lillie’s growth, she still isn’t a Trainer. It makes sense for the player to accompany her for safety’s sake at the very least, but I think it also makes sense because a consistent theme in the story is that Lillie draws her strength and inspiration from her friendship with you. So you both go into Ultra Space and get your respective hero moments — Lillie refutes Lusamine’s verbal abuse in the way that she rightly should, and you defend yourself when Lusamine decides to lash out at you and attack you with her Pokémon.

 

[pika pal]

I agree that Nebby defusing Lusamine by using Roar is a weak way to resolve that part of the plot, but I don’t see why the player wouldn’t inevitably be going along with Lillie into Ultra Space in any permutation of events — you two journeyed through the canyon together to make it to the altar and play the flutes, which there are two of. Why would the player just stop at that point and say, “Okay Lillie, see ya when you get your mom back!” and watch her and Nebby sail off? Ultra Space is an unknown environment full of unpredictable Pokémon, and for all of Lillie’s growth, she still isn’t a Trainer. It makes sense for the player to accompany her for safety’s sake at the very least, but I think it also makes sense because a consistent theme in the story is that Lillie draws her strength and inspiration from her friendship with you. So you both go into Ultra Space and get your respective hero moments — Lillie refutes Lusamine’s verbal abuse in the way that she rightly should, and you defend yourself when Lusamine decides to lash out at you and attack you with her Pokémon.

I disagree because this defense feels post-hoc. My contention is that things like needing 2 flutes and Lillie not growing into a trainer to battle Lusamine are basically there to justify your sole presence in a moment that your character has no role in compared to the rest of Lillie's supporting cast/system (Kukui, Burnet, Gladion, Wicke, the Captains/Kahunas that watch out for her). You're not there because you as a duo is a natural fit for the plot, you're there because Game Freak needs a PC and thus needs to pick a version of the events that calls for you. In any other game telling a story like this, Lillie would be the protag you follow and the one to both verbally and combatively challenge her mother to cap off her growth as a person.

I want to stress again that it doesn't have to be Lillie alone to work, but Lillie plus One (you) is a very weak take on the scenario. Hau and Gladion should have stuck with you two after the first Aether confrontation if anything.

 

[DrrT]

View attachment 654653
View attachment 654652
I sat down and made these two tier lists to confirm something I've suspected for a while to myself: A large part of the reason why I'm looking forward to Z-A is because the Sinnoh dex is highkey mid and I can't wait to experience Legends gameplay with a way better pool of native Pokemon before new additions and extensions of old lines (hence why cross-gen evos and megas aren't counted). This would've still applied if they went with Unova or even Johto probably

Despite my dislike for Kalos, I have always loved the short new pool of additions (and think the three legendaries are probably the best of the franchise in design, which I could probably write a post about, very funny that two of my favourite mons were bprn out of Sugimori's art block). I'm hoping they expand on them with the new Megas and , dare I say it, normal evolutions? Just not too much Kanto pandering again, please.I'm more curious as to what exactly they will add, assuming all the lines with Megas will be on it.

I wonder if the plot will really be more related to AZ and XY themselves. LA can be perfectly enjoyed by someone who has not played any of the Sinnoh games and I think that's part of its appeal as an unique entry.

 

[Yung Dramps]

Despite my dislike for Kalos, I have always loved the short new pool of additions (and think the three legendaries are probably the best of the franchise in design, which I could probably write a post about, very funny that two of my favourite mons were bprn out of Sugimori's art block). I'm hoping they expand on them with the new Megas and , dare I say it, normal evolutions? Just not too much Kanto pandering again, please.I'm more curious as to what exactly they will add, assuming all the lines with Megas will be on it.

I wonder if the plot will really be more related to AZ and XY themselves. LA can be perfectly enjoyed by someone who has not played any of the Sinnoh games and I think that's part of its appeal as an unique entry.

I'm guessing we'll have aged-up XY characters and such but things will be written in such a way that you aren't gonna be lost if you didn't play the original game. Quasar may have vengeful ex-Flare personnel and Sycamore may have a line or two forlornly lamenting his failure to keep an eye out on his friend all those years ago but this will largely be kept as backstory set dressing targeted at veterans in the vein of other very late gaming sequels like Streets of Rage 4. And of course even that much is assuming this isn't another game set in the past like LA

 

[Nokocchi]

And then there are characters like, I think, the 5th gym leader? who speaks with a ridiculous Texan accent that is meant to amuse children but is just a depthless caricature to adults.

pika pal covered most of what I probably would have said, but I still want to hone in on this bit in particular — I don’t really see how Clay having an accent makes him a caricature? It’s not really any different from the handful of Kansai-dialect characters in the Japanese language versions of the games.

Clay being a caricature would be like if all he was talk exclusively about ten-gallon hats and making money off of oil sales before ending every sentence with “Yee-haw!” But in practice, the substance of what he says is no different from that of any other Gym Leader. And I’ve always particularly liked this line: “There's always room for folks to grow and change, ain't there? And, if ya only go after what ya think is right, ya might end up rejectin' all thoughts and opinions other than yer own. That's mighty dangerous.” Yes, it’s presented in a folksy Texan way of speaking, but you don’t get a philosophical point like that from a caricature who’s just supposed to amuse children.

Funny thing is, in Clay's design notes, he is noted to be based on the idea of a Japanese businessman moving to the US and striking it big with oil(and while not stated outright, likely getting a bit too much into the idea of stereotypical American culture as depicted often in Japanese media). That is why his ancestor is in Hisui in Legends: Arceus.

In other words, he's the Pokemon version of the really old meme character Rawhide Kobayashi:
https://i0.wp.com/toiletovhell.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/rawhide-kobayashi.gif?resize=710,350&ssl=1

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Lillie not growing into a trainer to battle Lusamine

To be fair, she'd probably get packed up.

The answer, as always, is jumping.

This is why SwSh had a surprisingly good story. Eternatus is wildin? Leon got folded? Just jump him!

No one really feels out of place in that plot, despite the obvious shortcuts. Leon is the most proactive Champion since Lance and Cynthia, except even better since he was at the frontlines in the big crisis too.

Btw, the whole "Silent Protagonist gotta have the spotlight at all times" thing that Pokémon desperately tries to adhere to is cap. Chrono Trigger had this figured out decades ago, come on.

 

[pika pal]

To be fair, she'd probably get packed up.

The answer, as always, is jumping.

This is why SwSh had a surprisingly good story. Eternatus is wildin? Leon got folded? Just jump him!

No one really feels out of place in that plot, despite the obvious shortcuts. Leon is the most proactive Champion since Lance and Cynthia, except even better since he was at the frontlines in the big crisis too.

Btw, the whole "Silent Protagonist gotta have the spotlight at all times" thing that Pokémon desperately tries to adhere to is cap. Chrono Trigger had this figured out decades ago, come on.

SwSh the climax is good and Leon I think is an underrated/over criticized Champion, but I don't think highly of the story that spans the entire game and its overall cast.

Side note: Shield is canon because Hop getting his ass carried by G8 Zacian is the only explanation for him being a credible trainer in any future appearance.

 

[bdt2002]

I think part of Pokémon’s problem as a continued multimedia franchise isn’t necessarily the writing of any of the core series games, but rather the fact that their writers rarely actually try anything new. I saw a few posts here talking about Lusamine, so let’s start with that. “Parental figure who mistreats and possibly abuses her children” is a trope we had seen twice before this, with Ghetsis and Giovanni, meaning that anything Lusamine can do to stand out as an antagonist is welcome. My problem, particularly in the Ultra games where they completely missed the point of her character arc from base Sun & Moon, is that she never really feels like a threat, at least in the sense that the characters would have a reason to be scared of her. After reading some of these posts? Yeah, I absolutely think they could have set something up to where either Lillie or Gladion could have battled Lusamine. This wouldn’t be uncharted territory either- recall back to how Silver has had confrontations with Giovanni before, or how Ghetsis specifically has moved on his Hydreigon that seem to imply he was prepared in the situation of N’s betrayal. I mention this because, in a vacuum, Lusamine being stronger as a Trainer as either of her kids would not only make sense, but establish to the player that, even with their psychological growth, Lillie and/or Gladion would still have a long ways to go to catch up, kind of like how Norman actively challenges the player to meet him or her at his level. The difference here is that Lillie and Gladion would be training for a much different reason, helping establish themselves as their own individual characters too.

Alola’s storyline generally has a lot of the same issues that Unova’s does, albeit not to the same extent since they actually had true sequels to help build off of the first set of games. I’ve mentioned before how Ghetsis and Lusamine both fall off a bit in their respective second iterations, but in Unova especially there’s not much reason for the player to want to improve on a Pokémon training journey. Hugh going after Team Plasma in the sequels to get Purrloin back is at least something, but in a region where Cheren and Bianca’s whole character arcs are about them finding out what they want to do, the player by comparison almost feels forced into participating in what’s arguably an aging trope by the time Gen 5 rolled around. I get that collecting Gym Badges (or Z-Crystals, I guess) is the whole point of playing through a Pokémon game, but what if I wanted to, say, become a Pokémon Musical performer or something? When the game’s narrative about finding your own path is contradicted so heavily by the status quo, for me that’s a clear sign that Pokémon’s existing writing has some problems from an originality standpoint.

Let’s take a moment to compare Unova and Alola’s writing to the most region, Paldea, since their stories also have a lot in common. The neglectful parent trope returns again, but for the first time since Giovanni they actually did try and do something with Sada and Turo, beyond the fact that there’s two of them now and one is missing from your game version. In hindsight it’s kind of a shame Paldea’s writing attempts got lost in a crowd of rushed/unfinished gameplay and scrapped ideas, at least to me, because even before the Area Zero segment where the plot twist is revealed, Paldea almost feels like a 3-in-1 Pokémon game package, a sentiment that could be even stronger if the game had proper level scaling. Nonetheless, the differences here are that Nemona, Penny, and especially Arven are actively presenting to the player that they have motivations behind their actions. Shigeru Ohmori has gone on record and said that Arven’s backstory was at least partially inspired by that of his own upbringing, and having that personal connection to your craft is a grey way to make your characters in a piece of writing feel distinct and unique. Furthermore, going back to the Sada and Turo examples, we actually get to see the start of Arven forgiving his parents internally, something that doesn’t feel as impactful as Unova or Alola’s spin on this concept because the game lets us establish that connection with Arven instead of just shoving N or the Alola siblings into our faces and forcing us to care about them.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

SwSh the climax is good

Ehhh, I disagree, the climax is marred by Rose being a complete moron and Hop jumping the gun like a crazy person.

Hop in general is a pretty annoying character, and honestly, I agree the cast is mid at best. But the premise of SwSh is very underrated.

Instead of an aimless adventure, SwSh gives you a clear goal right from the start. Take on the Gym Challenge and beat Leon to become the Champion.

Other games are like, "Here's a starter and a pokédex, please complete it, but I won't be mad if you don't. Now go out there."

Each gym is a tangible mark of progress through the story instead of just something you do to clear some kind of roadblock, NPC or otherwise.

That's something that rarely happens in Pokémon and I'd like to see more of it.

 

[bdt2002]

Ehhh, I disagree, the climax is marred by Rose being a complete moron and Hop jumping the gun like a crazy person.

Hop in general is a pretty annoying character, and honestly, I agree the cast is mid at best. But the premise of SwSh is very underrated.

Instead of an aimless adventure, SwSh gives you a clear goal right from the start. Take on the Gym Challenge and beat Leon to become the Champion.

Other games are like, "Here's a starter and a pokédex, please complete it, but I won't be mad if you don't. Now go out there."

Each gym is a tangible mark of progress through the story instead of just something you do to clear some kind of roadblock, NPC or otherwise.

That's something that rarely happens in Pokémon and I'd like to see more of it.

Galar’s problem for me that unfortunately takes away from this just a bit is that of pacing. It takes a pretty long time for the appeal of Galar’s premise to come into effect- the first Gym is arguably the furthest away out of any Pokémon game thus far, and that first stretch of running across the Wild Area is deceptively slow without the Rotom Bike and the player’s desire to explore should this be their first time playing Sword & Shield. Any noteworthy events taking place in areas outside of cities or the Wild Area also break the pace up a bit, but nothing was as bad for me as when I first played and genuinely forgot about the Champion’s Cup because the Macro Cosmos section took that long. And that was after I decided to basically speedrun the rest of the main story with a overlevelled Gyarados because (at the time, anyway) Galar’s characters and world building was just that boring for me.

The Gym challenge in Galar being its own thing is also hurt marginally by the fact that we don’t see Leon performing in a mentorship role for the player or Hop as much as I would have liked. I’d like to think that in-universe it’s because Leon is secretly extremely overworked and busy (sound familiar, Paldea?), but when I compare Leon to someone like Alder from Unova, the moments where he shows up outside of the Pokémon League feel much more impactful to that region’s premise than Leon’s appearances do for Galar. By comparison, I would have loved to see an Alder and Cheren-esque connection between Leon and Hop that helped flesh out Hop’s character a bit more and make him more than just “that guy who’s related to the current Champion”.

 

[pika pal]

The Gym challenge in Galar being its own thing is also hurt marginally by the fact that we don’t see Leon performing in a mentorship role for the player or Hop as much as I would have liked. I’d like to think that in-universe it’s because Leon is secretly extremely overworked and busy (sound familiar, Paldea?), but when I compare Leon to someone like Alder from Unova, the moments where he shows up outside of the Pokémon League feel much more impactful to that region’s premise than Leon’s appearances do for Galar. By comparison, I would have loved to see an Alder and Cheren-esque connection between Leon and Hop that helped flesh out Hop’s character a bit more and make him more than just “that guy who’s related to the current Champion”.

You know what would have been really cool when put like this? Imagine if Leon was essentially a part of your group as the more experienced/mentorship role, sort of like Brock's part in Ash's Gen 1-4 posse or Cilan in Unova. They could justify him having the free time to mentor you (if not travel around) by being essentially between seasons/games, with him prepping you and Hop for the League Championship because he sees real potential (and if the anime is anything to go by, wants stronger/a larger group of challenging opponents than he already has). This could even give Rose some more leeway for his haste because compared to SwSh where Leon says "I'll help literally tomorrow when the Championship's over and there's time/no one will worry," this creates a genuine question of if Leon should be helping sooner but is "distracting" himself with you (1000 years off or not, Rose would be less crazy sounding if people were procrastinating rather than obligated elsewhere).

SwSh story to me feels like someone drew up an outline or storyboards but then had 5 weeks on Crunch to write the actual scenario with it.

 

[Esserise]

In any other game telling a story like this, Lillie would be the protag you follow and the one to both verbally and combatively challenge her mother to cap off her growth as a person.

How would you define “a story like this”? Because to me it doesn’t feel any different from something like, say, Zelda games such as Skyward Sword and Tears of the Kingdom, where Zelda’s role is the emotional spine of the story, where she goes through a major arc of development and growth in which she makes her own choices, but where it’s still up to Link, the silent protagonist, to be the one to face the ultimate evil in combat.

Because Link, much like the Alola player character, is the player’s avatar — they’re a vessel through which the player is able to become an equal part of this story. And as I said before, the main thing is that Lillie draws her inspiration and newfound strength from seeing your own accomplishments and growth. You’re the sun, she’s the moon. Your light reflects on her and allows her to shine brighter. And if the game has done its job correctly, you will feel attached to her and will want to help her see her journey through to the end. That’s why we have a separate, silent protagonist in Zelda, in Pokémon, and in plenty of other RPGs — so that the other characters are positioned as people for you to form a bond with, rather than being a central character for you to identify with.

Like, you could create a version of Skyward Sword or Tears of the Kingdom where Zelda is the protagonist (The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom debuts worldwide for Nintendo Switch on September 26, 2024!), and you could create a version of SM where Lillie is the protagonist of the entire game. You could also create a version of SV where you play as Arven, by excising the Mabosstiff plot, in which your main motivation is to gather the Herba Mystica specifically to restore to Raidon that your mother/father entrusted to you. And all of these approaches would be valid, just like how it’s a valid approach for The Last of Us Part II to have you play as Ellie rather than the silent protagonist friend-of-Ellie. But I don’t think that approach is inherently more suitable to any of these stories — it mostly comes down, I think, to the gameplay experience that the developers want to create. And when it comes to Pokémon, Game Freak obviously favor the experience generated by the immersive self-insert approach. So they design the game around that, and fill it with stories and people for you to become involved with.

Funny thing is, in Clay's design notes, he is noted to be based on the idea of a Japanese businessman moving to the US and striking it big with oil(and while not stated outright, likely getting a bit too much into the idea of stereotypical American culture as depicted often in Japanese media). That is why his ancestor is in Hisui in Legends: Arceus.

Yeah, I did think about mentioning this as well, but I also thought to myself, “Even if that weren’t the case, and if Clay had actually been intended to be a born-and-bred Texan sort, I still wouldn’t say he’s a depthless caricature. A bit of a stereotype, perhaps, but not a mockery designed for no other purpose than cheap comedy.”

Ehhh, I disagree, the climax is marred by Rose being a complete moron

My unpopular opinion to contribute here is that the climax is, on the contrary, very much enhanced by Rose being a complete moron! Because unfortunately, that’s what unchecked billionaires are like — totally out of touch with reality, and obsessed with reorienting the world according to their own weird personal pathologies and self-mythologizing.

Granted, I’m certain that this feeling of mine is heavily informed by my very American perspective, but like, I really don’t have much patience for the oft-suggested rewrites that position Rose as a noble and sympathetic corporate magnate who simply wants to take risky but theoretically justifiable action to fix climate change, because that’s just completely ass-backwards to how the world I live in seems to work.

 

[ant4456]

The bad part of BW's story isn't that it brings up the meta narratives and tackles them, it's that it doesn't commit, at all.

N isn't a person who disagrees with the protagonist (and the players aligned with the protag), he literally has no clue what he is talking about. He was groomed as a child and on a technical level from the story, the player is one of the first Pokemon trainers he meets.

Period.

That alone would literally destroy his narrative, and that alone should- but instead the game wants us to go through an entire game where N is categorically proven wrong within 15 minutes, and then at the end it's "Yeah Ghetsis groomed him so he never even really had a balanced perspective." Which, okay, cool, but it kinda means that none of this fucking mattered. Not only do so few characters have an actual arc that is finished (Bianca, Cheren and Iris do not have satisfying conclusions to their built up arcs at all, imo, only being actually satisfied in B2W2), but N is the only character that actually reeeallly matters for most of the game, and everything he's been telling us doesn't really matter.

It's not a good story about child abuse or manipulating people and it's not a good story about analyzing the meta narrative. I don't need Game Freak to pretend that their setting has this flaw, because even since like Gen 3 their stance on this type of stuff has been solid- before gen 3 there was imo a bit of a disconnect from the anime and the games, Pokemon is a very pantsed series narratively that took generations to get its footing, but from gen 3 onward this part of the lore was fully done.

But I want it to be that, at the very least, N is wrong for reasons that are in his control. I want him to be wrong but have some reasons beyond he was groomed for why he believes this. Give us an example, a single example, of a non-Team Plasma character abusing a Pokemon, have N have a more seasoned perspective.

The story like literally just does not matter imo. It has some neat moments and setpieces but it doesn't actually fully work.

As for the Sun and Moon critique I've seen:

I think part of Pokémon’s problem as a continued multimedia franchise isn’t necessarily the writing of any of the core series games, but rather the fact that their writers rarely actually try anything new. I saw a few posts here talking about Lusamine, so let’s start with that. “Parental figure who mistreats and possibly abuses her children” is a trope we had seen twice before this, with Ghetsis and Giovanni, meaning that anything Lusamine can do to stand out as an antagonist is welcome. My problem, particularly in the Ultra games where they completely missed the point of her character arc from base Sun & Moon, is that she never really feels like a threat, at least in the sense that the characters would have a reason to be scared of her. After reading some of these posts? Yeah, I absolutely think they could have set something up to where either Lillie or Gladion could have battled Lusamine. This wouldn’t be uncharted territory either- recall back to how Silver has had confrontations with Giovanni before, or how Ghetsis specifically has moved on his Hydreigon that seem to imply he was prepared in the situation of N’s betrayal. I mention this because, in a vacuum, Lusamine being stronger as a Trainer as either of her kids would not only make sense, but establish to the player that, even with their psychological growth, Lillie and/or Gladion would still have a long ways to go to catch up, kind of like how Norman actively challenges the player to meet him or her at his level. The difference here is that Lillie and Gladion would be training for a much different reason, helping establish themselves as their own individual characters too.

Alola’s storyline generally has a lot of the same issues that Unova’s does, albeit not to the same extent since they actually had true sequels to help build off of the first set of games. I’ve mentioned before how Ghetsis and Lusamine both fall off a bit in their respective second iterations, but in Unova especially there’s not much reason for the player to want to improve on a Pokémon training journey. Hugh going after Team Plasma in the sequels to get Purrloin back is at least something, but in a region where Cheren and Bianca’s whole character arcs are about them finding out what they want to do, the player by comparison almost feels forced into participating in what’s arguably an aging trope by the time Gen 5 rolled around. I get that collecting Gym Badges (or Z-Crystals, I guess) is the whole point of playing through a Pokémon game, but what if I wanted to, say, become a Pokémon Musical performer or something? When the game’s narrative about finding your own path is contradicted so heavily by the status quo, for me that’s a clear sign that Pokémon’s existing writing has some problems from an originality standpoint.

Let’s take a moment to compare Unova and Alola’s writing to the most region, Paldea, since their stories also have a lot in common. The neglectful parent trope returns again, but for the first time since Giovanni they actually did try and do something with Sada and Turo, beyond the fact that there’s two of them now and one is missing from your game version. In hindsight it’s kind of a shame Paldea’s writing attempts got lost in a crowd of rushed/unfinished gameplay and scrapped ideas, at least to me, because even before the Area Zero segment where the plot twist is revealed, Paldea almost feels like a 3-in-1 Pokémon game package, a sentiment that could be even stronger if the game had proper level scaling. Nonetheless, the differences here are that Nemona, Penny, and especially Arven are actively presenting to the player that they have motivations behind their actions. Shigeru Ohmori has gone on record and said that Arven’s backstory was at least partially inspired by that of his own upbringing, and having that personal connection to your craft is a grey way to make your characters in a piece of writing feel distinct and unique. Furthermore, going back to the Sada and Turo examples, we actually get to see the start of Arven forgiving his parents internally, something that doesn’t feel as impactful as Unova or Alola’s spin on this concept because the game lets us establish that connection with Arven instead of just shoving N or the Alola siblings into our faces and forcing us to care about them.

This doesn't make sense because Sun and Moon is a full story. It never needed a sequel.

The story is that the protagonist helps Lillie go through a Hero's Journey, albeit slightly out of order and with the Return part less mapped onto.

Call to Adventure: Seeing the abuse of Cosmog.
Supernatural Aid: Cosmog helping Lillie escape Aether Foundation.
In-Between note: The bridge they fail to cross here becomes a major part of her arc.
Threshold Guardians: Going to the shrines of the Tapus to learn more about Nebby.
Mentor/Helper: The Player, Kukui, and eventually Wicke.
Challenges and Temptations: When she decides against confronting her Mother and not going to Aether. When she wants to wear a new outfit but still can't commit to it. When she attempts to help one of the orphans and is kidnapped by Team Skull.
Abyss (Death & Rebirth): Lillie is arguing with Lusamine and tries to stop her from her ways. After this confrontation, she also talks about how her mindset is changing.
Transformation: On Poni Poni Island, Lillie talks to the player about her relationship with her Mom. This and Abyss are kind of combined tbh.
Atonement: At Poni Poni Canyon there is a major cutscene where she crosses the bridge with full confidence, despite the potential of being attacked. She confronts her Mother in Ultra Space and is the one that does the finishing blow.

This isn't exactly following every single stage, because the stages vary on interpretation and who wrote the version of the Hero's Journey, but she generally tracks, some are also just generally optional. The Return stage would not map very well onto Lillie, but it's not entirely missing:

Refusal of the Return: This does not generally happen in this order, Lillie gives the player Nebby and will become a Pokemon Trainer later.
Magic Flight: Funnily, Lusamine maps most onto "a thing that the protagonist brings back, that is almost as dangerous as the journey", in a way.
Crossing of the Return Threshold: Leaving Ultra Space with her Mother, surviving the impacts of the plot.
Rescue from Without: Does not really happen.
Master of Two Worlds: Lillie gains ultimate confidence in herself, and goes on a journey to Kanto as a real deal Pokemon trainer. She can be supportive and she can be a trainer on her own.

Every other character is a support character, and they do their jobs. I don't see why people would criticize that. Plus, criticizing USUM for blandifying the plot of SM makes no sense because SM is still, an entire product, that released. You can go play it, and the story is there intact. USUM is not a replacement, both exist; ironically this is why I think USUM being DLC would have been awful.

Sun and Moon is not like those other games because it is written like an actual story rather than 1/4th of a Shonen wrapped into a 20 hour adventure. Paldea got props for being 2/4ths of a shonen, and Galar didn't have the story finished- the climax was cut and we got the evil team revealing itself with the players becoming randomly suspicious, right to the battle at Rose Tower, where the cutscene is basically the concept art drawn better with no audio.

This is Sun and Moon:

edit: also the whole thing that people always say with "there were characters that abused their children before so lusamine isn't anything new" is so wild because there's a massive difference between a cutscene from a Celebi event that had 5 minutes of content, a character whose abuse was brought up 10 minutes before credits role, and a game where the entire story is about this subject and the protagonist was the abused

 

[ant4456]

Paldea got props for being 2/4ths of a shonen

Sorry for double post but wanted to talk a bit more about this, one unpopular take I have is that Scarlet/Violet's story is kinda bleh. People always talk about how it has the great ending and that's why I say it has 2/4th of a shonen. It nailed the ending. But it's a problem when 20 minutes before credits the main characters of your story are establishing their group dynamic!

These characters should've been more connected before the ending, which is hard because of the game's structure, but that doesn't mean you just give up. I think the ending would be far more impactful if say, the main characters were involved in each other's arcs before the ending, and all of their stories tied into the ending more. The main reason Nemona and Penny come is because Arven isn't confident and thinks they need more strong trainers, but like, idk that doesn't really sit well with me. I think it'd be better if Nemona and Penny had personal motivations to go in there, even if not actually selfish- have them be as invested in learning about Arven's past as the player is. Have Penny and Nemona or one or the other tag along in some of his questline, maybe Penny's hacking found some information and a lead and she wants to figure it out for herself, learns about Arven a bit more in person, and wants to find out for his sake, too. Hey, why is the Professor only seen in voice call, and nobody's seen him for a long time? Maybe there's a weird money trail, considering her history of hacking into funds? Nemona, being somewhat a pushy person, is so curious about Arven, that she practically forces her way into his business, and he accepts it as she is a strong trainer, and you know her.

This would make a stronger group dynamic into the ending and have the characters coalesce around Arven harder, and the ending walks wouldn't be rambling about "Hey I think I knew you that one time," "Yeah aren't you rich or something?"; it'd be more in-depth because these characters actually know each other.

In other ways, I think a similar approach would help all of the stories. Maybe Arven sees you at the end of a Gym Battle and talks about how something inspired/uninspired him to do things related to gym battles, especially considering how strong his Pokemon become. Get some extra information on his character. Nemona watches the the way you fight in Team Star bases and totally does not hint towards the totally-not-happening Generation 10 shift towards action combat totally-not-hinted towards with DLC2, talking about how it'd be an interesting battle style where Pokemon just keep attacking, attacking, attacking.

This story is a skeleton that needs to be fleshed out. The head is filled in, the feet are there, the legs have not flesh but rather a sticky note, and the stomach has no food.

 

[pika pal]

How would you define “a story like this”? Because to me it doesn’t feel any different from something like, say, Zelda games such as Skyward Sword and Tears of the Kingdom, where Zelda’s role is the emotional spine of the story, where she goes through a major arc of development and growth in which she makes her own choices, but where it’s still up to Link, the silent protagonist, to be the one to face the ultimate evil in combat.

Because Link, much like the Alola player character, is the player’s avatar — they’re a vessel through which the player is able to become an equal part of this story. And as I said before, the main thing is that Lillie draws her inspiration and newfound strength from seeing your own accomplishments and growth. You’re the sun, she’s the moon. Your light reflects on her and allows her to shine brighter. And if the game has done its job correctly, you will feel attached to her and will want to help her see her journey through to the end. That’s why we have a separate, silent protagonist in Zelda, in Pokémon, and in plenty of other RPGs — so that the other characters are positioned as people for you to form a bond with, rather than being a central character for you to identify with.

Like, you could create a version of Skyward Sword or Tears of the Kingdom where Zelda is the protagonist (The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom debuts worldwide for Nintendo Switch on September 26, 2024!), and you could create a version of SM where Lillie is the protagonist of the entire game. You could also create a version of SV where you play as Arven, by excising the Mabosstiff plot, in which your main motivation is to gather the Herba Mystica specifically to restore to Raidon that your mother/father entrusted to you. And all of these approaches would be valid, just like how it’s a valid approach for The Last of Us Part II to have you play as Ellie rather than the silent protagonist friend-of-Ellie. But I don’t think that approach is inherently more suitable to any of these stories — it mostly comes down, I think, to the gameplay experience that the developers want to create. And when it comes to Pokémon, Game Freak obviously favor the experience generated by the immersive self-insert approach. So they design the game around that, and fill it with stories and people for you to become involved with.

So when I say "a story like this" my primary point of reference is how your story and Lillie's do not overlap in terms of growth, progression, and interaction for large stretches of the playable narrative, and conceptually the player is given a disproportionately large significance compared to several other significant figures in Lillie's story. Why do her essentially-surrogate-parents not have any role or input in her developing past the emotional damage Lusamine caused to her, for example? The PC role seems justified because it's what we have in focus, but when viewed from top-down, the player is one of several members of Lillie's support system that is deemed fit to confront and rescue her mother over everyone else including her brother who was also oppressed by their mother. Gladion is the big case where this becomes a sticking point to me because compared to the anime, the game just kind of forgets about him when it comes time to payoff Lusamine's toxicity on her family to start them healing, unless the implication is Gladion took the (equally valid) direction of just cutting his mother out of his life, which the game doesn't seem to be committing to since he still actively assists with the rescue up until the point where you and Lillie actually go after her in Ultra Space.

To respond to the Skyward Sword parallel (haven't played TotK because I don't care much for the Open World Zeldas), where this separates for me is that Skyward Sword's narrative makes several points as to why Link stands out in Zelda's life and role in the conflict. Besides the reincarnation roles established in the backstory with Hylia and her Champion, Link and Zelda are depicted as childhood friends with potentially romantic interest in most adaptions or material, a departure from most story heavy Zelda games where (excluding explicitly direct sequels) the plot often leads to their first encounter, (ALttP, OoT, WW, TP, Spirit Tracks). The game makes significant points that the two are already heavily intertwined in each others' lives before the call to action.

I also think there's overlap but still a notable distinction to be made between a silent protagonist and an outright player Avatar that doesn't allow them to be used in the same narrative manner, which Skyward Sword Link was already touching on: while he lacks outright dialogue to match the rest of the cast, he still has very clear emotional reactions and decisions made in how the story plays out compared to Ocarina of Time Link having no emotional range or response to the events of his own (seriously count how many times his facial expression changes compared to characters like Zelda and Ruto, or later Links such as Wind Waker and Twilight Princess). The player character is given the attention of a Silent Protagonist but the range and behavior of a player avatar (see all the infamous jokes abouthaving the same blank expression and body language for every scene), so they're incredibly undercooked for what they're utilized for.

The second part of this to me is that SS makes clear that the two journies the characters are on are in parallel and inform each other: Link's strength and perserverence defeating Ghirahim or Demise directly is something Zelda lacks, but in turn Link is not afforded the opportunity if not for Zelda learning their heritage and taking the steps to maintain Demise's seal until he can be defeated (which is similar to the role she plays in BOTW as I recall of that synopsis). The two arcs play off each other and cannot function independently in this narrative, with other supporting characters like Groose given an explicitly lesser part to play even with their own significant contributions.

Back to the Pokemon story, this is where I think S/M fumbles the ball: Lillie is inspired watching you grow as a trainer, but up until her kidnapping, she is not in turn significant to the journey the game sets your PC on. What sets her sights on you above the rest, compared to

• Kukui and Burnet (parental substitutes with much healthier outlooks on Pokemon research)
• Wicke (the only positive figure she had within Aether)
• Gladion (who preceded her in escaping their mother's clutches with one of her victimized Pokemon)
• Hau (who is part of the early leg of both journies as another posse member, and stays with her at the Aether House even fighting Plumeria during the abduction)

Aside from main character syndrome, I don't see what singles the PC out as the only one to go as far as following her into Ultra Space, save for the read that you simply are more important to her than the latter two (obviously I get why the 3 Professors might not be able to leave their post for this). Going back to another depiction, the Alola anime makes a point that the entire class forms a friend group for Lillie (I acknowledge this being a depiction where her mother is more distant than toxic), and subsequently all accompany her into Ultra Space to rescue Lusamine. The final battle narrows it down to Ash, Gladion, and Lillie, but makes a point that alongside airing her grievances to her mother, Lillie contributes to the confrontation even if she's not as capable as the other two.

A story like what they want to accomplish with Lillie and the PC doesn't work when the Player Avatar has no expression or depiction of reciprocating the admiration and friendship beyond the game just telling you it's there. Even Mario RPGs, games with the most flat avoid-character-focused Protagonist in the game industry, still go out of their way to have the titular characters reacting to the events unfolding for basic characterization (gestures with expression, inflections on the "Italian" gibberish in M&L, Pantomiming like Paper Mario's Face Faults, Dialogue options the characters respond noticeably different to).

I'm not organized enough to write something coherent (the above has consisted of me stream-of-consciousness and then proofreading/rewriting over the course of a few hours) but especially on the last paragraph, my point is that yes, you COULD make a version where Lillie is the protagonist or the Player Character was more than a mannequin with "Friendship" written on their back, and I wish they did because the version we have is a much weaker take on the story they were trying to tell. The narrative sets out to accomplish a goal and does not manage to fulfill the criteria that goal entails because of design decisions that happened for gameplay rather than story, rather than making the elements work together or at least avoid conflicting.

My unpopular opinion to contribute here is that the climax is, on the contrary, very much enhanced by Rose being a complete moron! Because unfortunately, that’s what unchecked billionaires are like — totally out of touch with reality, and obsessed with reorienting the world according to their own weird personal pathologies and self-mythologizing.

Granted, I’m certain that this feeling of mine is heavily informed by my very American perspective, but like, I really don’t have much patience for the oft-suggested rewrites that position Rose as a noble and sympathetic corporate magnate who simply wants to take risky but theoretically justifiable action to fix climate change, because that’s just completely ass-backwards to how the world I live in seems to work.

As an American perspective myself, where the Rose thing loses me with that lens is the fact that I don't remember the story having the world around Rose react as that kind of "Screw the Rules I have Money" billionaire would be regarded. Public perception towards some I could think of is very tribalistic in that some will rabidly defend such figures in public discourse, but there's not really much controversy around Rose.

The second paragraph I also have to address because it gets into why I think Rose is poorly written and undercuts what should be a large scale story climax: everything we're reading here is not supported by the story compared to the real life parallels we're drawing. You cite in paragraph 1 the out-of-touch narcassistic "we're doing things my way" mentality fitting more than the "noble but risky" corporate leader rewrite on Rose, but that's just it: that's not a rewrite. Rose is espousing the point to Leon from a "we have a problem that needs to be solved NOW" angle rather than a "why won't you listen to me and fix this?" pattern you might see from, say, Lex Luthor disguising ego with charisma or surface-level Philantrophy. Considering Rose turns himself in at the end of the game plot (rather than fleeing as in the anime version), he seems to consider the deed being done a sufficient outcome, compared to how frequently real life celebrities or moguls attempt/manage to avoid consequences for their actions or insist they did not do wrong even after things blew up in their face. Whatever real life Billionaire behaviors one can project onto Rose's initial behavior, the aftermath make it just that: projection that doesn't align with the writing intent, sloppy though the latter is in many ways.

 

[ant4456]

The PC role seems justified because it's what we have in focus, but when viewed from top-down, the player is one of several members of Lillie's support system that is deemed fit to confront and rescue her mother over everyone else including her brother who was also oppressed by their mother.

Gladion is there and "commands" (as Bulbapedia puts it) the player to battle Lusamine because the player is a stronger trainer than him.

unless the implication is Gladion took the (equally valid) direction of just cutting his mother out of his life,

Gladion leaves because he sees Type Null's abuse, his Mother becoming insane, and eventually falls in with Team Skull. The narrative with Team Skull is that they are a group of outcasts, which tracks.

which the game doesn't seem to be committing to since he still actively assists with the rescue up until the point where you and Lillie actually go after her in Ultra Space.

Because he's her sister and from the beginning he never liked his Mother's plans.

Back to the Pokemon story, this is where I think S/M fumbles the ball: Lillie is inspired watching you grow as a trainer, but up until her kidnapping, she is not in turn significant to the journey the game sets your PC on. What sets her sights on you above the rest, compared to

• Kukui and Burnet (parental substitutes with much healthier outlooks on Pokemon research)
• Wicke (the only positive figure she had within Aether)
• Gladion (who preceded her in escaping their mother's clutches with one of her victimized Pokemon)
• Hau (who is part of the early leg of both journies as another posse member, and stays with her at the Aether House even fighting Plumeria during the abduction)

The Player saved Nebby when they cross the bridge, which alone exits out Hau. Lillie does not know where Gladion is in all likelihood, in the beginning of the game it is made pretty clear that Lillie did not choose where Nebby dropped her off in their escape. Wicke? Same thing. Kukui and Burnet, but keep in mind that in Sun and Moon everyone is on the move. Kukui is moving through the island, so is Hau, and so is the player; it's more like a pack than just The Player + Lillie and Hau or something. Kukui is also on the move, even throughout the different islands.

So really, that'd just leave Burnet, but then you have to realize: Lillie also wants to figure out why Cosmog is the way it is. Her going to Tapu Koko's shrine is part of her character motivations, where she is going to them in hopes of learning about Cosmog's nature. And from there, we get to Akala, which I will let Bulbapedia explain:

"After the player defeats Kahuna Hala, she goes to Akala Island alongside the player and Hau. Before their leave, Lillie makes a request, help learn more about Nebby. She respects the player's power and strength as a Pokémon Trainer, something she is not or has, and would like someone like them to help them out."

So, the Player was more personal in helping Lillie several times on the island, which she is going around because basically all of the main characters are going around it. The Player is the strongest of the group and, from a character perspective (which the player does not have much, but in a similar way to, well, Link; the way other characters talk about the player, it gives them some identity) the fact the Player character has shown courage.

the Alola anime makes a point that the entire class forms a friend group for Lillie (I acknowledge this being a depiction where her mother is more distant than toxic), and subsequently all accompany her into Ultra Space to rescue Lusamine. The final battle narrows it down to Ash, Gladion, and Lillie, but makes a point that alongside airing her grievances to her mother, Lillie contributes to the confrontation even if she's not as capable as the other two.

The anime is a pretty different story entirely even if, on the surface, it has some beats. For one, Lillie is introduced to owning a Pokemon much earlier, and she still lives with Lusamine for much of the story. It's not impossible to compare the two but frankly I think this conclusion to the story is more "shonen-y" in a way that the Sun and Moon game surprisingly avoids. Also, Lillie does contribute to the battle; she does the finishing blow. This is something that surprises me that people do not get from the ending of Sun and Moon: Lillie does command a Pokemon to attack Lusamine, and that is likely the most, at least on a base level, emotional plot beat in the entire series. It's not just Lusamine's Pokemon, it's her.

I will not touch on the climax of SWSH because I, in a weird way, see it as in poor taste. Not in the sense that critiquing writing is a bad thing, but I view it as a literally incomplete story. I see the climax as having not been finished and implemented in the original intention. I will critique it from the perspective of a product, but not from the perspective of the writer's knowledge and want to finish a story- do I think the story would be incredible or anything? Not really, but I don't want to put words or speculate words into a writer's mouth whose own words simply never hit the (public) page. I wouldn't critique any book where one of the major parts of it was simply cut, I would critique the publisher for forcing it to be published early.

 

[Sonikku A]

Noticing that besides execution, a lot of these complaints for story can be attributed to pacing, and lack of actual player motivation

For the former this is an issue that crept in a lot of US media after mid 2010s, mainly for how events just HAVE to happen, regardless of char action or motivation. For gaming this is extremely hard to balance, hence why simpler Pokemon stories don't stuggle as much as they dedicate mostly to gameplay flow, and chars are established into their role first

Of course this can be too repetitive and chars can be sidelined, hence attempting something BW on...

But as said, the player...isn't really a character. Their motivation is nearly nonexistent besides "beat the gyms" till Gen 9. You're forced to be a trainer only in how you explore the world with 1 of 3 preset mons, despite other RPGs having different classes generally to distract from being combat oriented only

People got fed up with Sun Moon cuz you the player are extremely divorced from context, express with :] all the time, and are unable to skip cutscenes. But more importantly, it disrupted gameplay flow A LOT, especially with early game tutorials. Despite how basic gameplay is

Mystery Dungeon Explorers has a similar issue with attrocious pacing when Team Skull assembles. Because you are forced to do missions over several days (the devs want missions), they pad out with scuffles with them, even though they mostly stop mattering after the Fogbound Lake expedition. I'm still mad they didn't really get closure post game, cuz their chars needed it. Similarly, Apple Woods is when people start hating Chatot for "overreacting", and the other guild members become vestigal after a point still pissed off Sunflora and Loudred got a special episode, made both chars look worse

Like I like Explorers, but early to mid game's pretty bleh

GTI has better char usage in general compared to Explorers, as much as I hate gameplay and roster changes, and has the partner actually experience in gameplay the loss of the player. Though Super reverts to...mostly rehashing GTI and wasting legendaries. It was admittedly the devs not knowing how to push the Isekai trope that point, hence RTDX being a remake, but whatevs

For mainline, the DLC stories Gen 9 legitimately focusing on chars felt refreshing. I genuinely forgot this was Pokemon at bits. If GF can nail down story and gameplay progression next game, that'd be amazing. But until then, we'll feel stibbed

How would you define “a story like this”? Because to me it doesn’t feel any different from something like, say, Zelda games such as Skyward Sword and Tears of the Kingdom, where Zelda’s role is the emotional spine of the story, where she goes through a major arc of development and growth in which she makes her own choices, but where it’s still up to Link, the silent protagonist, to be the one to face the ultimate evil in combat.

I mean I'd get that...if it wasn't for BotW/ToK severely not giving a shit for the supposed dystopian fantasy world for most NPCs

Like I can waltz through towns no biggie. They don't even have security, or really care/mention Ganon's supposed reign over Hyrule (in BotW this awkwardly highlights how little Ganon has presence outside giant robots in fields and the final boss, which ToK retcons to be an actual char). So Zelda awkwardly just looks like 1 person overreacting, and Link arguably has even less motive to care compared to traditional titles

Like, MM has several towns legit have giant gates to keep out monsters, with NPCs referring to this. Even outside that, Link has motivation for the game: his fairy is missing, then he gets mobbed. And then we have the looming moon later

Other games Link's motivations;

OoT: The known tree diety tasks you a mission. You also deal with being a sort of outsider in your own village

WW: Your sister gets kidnapped. You later befriend a dragon boat and pirate, then have to reacue the latter later

TP: Your birth village is ransacked, then you're cursed later. You have to avenge them

SS: You actually are raised/grew up with Zelda. When she's kidnapped, you're personally vested

For BotW you woke up with no memories, but everything's...ok? The mem entries sadly don't have much if any impact on the current situation. AoC I noticed just, ignored BotW, and both Link and the villain are more active/involved.

I feel this partially ties to why people miss dungeons: because of the open world nature, the story doesn't really progress at all, or is incentivized to. Dungeons in past games typically are there when the story itself acknowledges going into enemy territory, or meeting important npcs, getting bizarre weapons, etc

For Pokemon, I hope they lean more on improving player involvement and reaction to events. Mystery Dungeon tried, arguably more than most spinoffs

 

[ant4456]

People got fed up with Sun Moon cuz you the player are extremely divorced from context, express with :] all the time, and are unable to skip cutscenes. But more importantly, it disrupted gameplay flow A LOT, especially with early game tutorials. Despite how basic gameplay is

This is not an actual problem. At most, this is a preference.

I like games where I am not the main character, especially when my character is silent. I don't want to be the main character in every game, or a self insert. It didn't "disrupt gameplay flow", the game is about the story. That's it. The End.

It is a story game. That is, a game where the game flows around the story rather than the story flowing around the gameplay. And in my opinion, it is better that way. Just because it's a videogame doesn't mean it needs to be designed around being an optimal way to distribute gameplay moments to the player. This is how most RPGs work.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 pauses the game midway through to have around an hour of straight cutscene. Not intermittent, not with pauses; straight up cutscene. And it was the best part of the game. Not because the gameplay sucked, or because the rest of it wasn't great, but because it stood out and encaptured most of the themes of the game.

I also think people VASTLY overestimate the "tutorials" in Sun and Moon. It is not worse than most other Pokemon games. Period. They give you your Pokemon, you fight some trainers, fight the rival. The Trainer School is not just "a tutorial", it's a mini-dungeon full of encounters, items, NPCs and mandatory battles, ending in a fight that especially in USUM can actually win depending on how the player has played thus far, and the experience of the player. The main tutorials are for entirely new features such as the Pokemon Snap side mode, which lasts about 2 minutes.

Most of the dialogue even on the first island is important to the story. Lillie gives her first signs of abuse within the first 30 minutes of the game. By the time you get to the first Totem Pokemon you have fought 3 bosses of various levels, and that is not counting the Totem.

Gen 7 is actually one of the most tightly paced Pokemon games, to account for handheld play and the storybeats. Every like 15 minutes of gameplay finds you into a new interesting boss fight, which is part of why nuzlocking USUM is kinda a pain in the ass. Despite the story beats it's still the last new generation to actually have real dungeons, cool side areas, exploration, minigames (especially in USUM) and great polish.

You will not get me to ever compromise on the idea that Sun and Moon is worse off for the story. The story makes it the best Pokemon game, on top of being a very polished RPG.

 

[Sonikku A]

I feel if GF had a "veteran" play mode that disabled most tutorials, most wouldn't be mad. Same for if cutscenes had voice acting, or strong choreography. Xenoblade at the very least has that

But for Pokemon by Gen 7 the games still are simplistic in presentation and gameplay. Even with Z Moves added

The story's still good, but still falls into archaic pitfalls due to gameplay. Like how story relevant boss fights are always standard mon battles. Imagine if you could fight Cursed Lusamine directly, or a group fight against a mecha. Instead it's just strictly Totem battles that...mostly aren't relevant to the conflict

Mario and Luigi Dream Team and Paper Jam had a similar issue with story being a lot longer than it probably actually felt due to fetch quests and tutorials early game. The "padding" caused it to be a 12-20 hour campaign, vs BiS and earlier Mario RPGs being around 4-6. In PJ's case it felt REALLY shit given how downgraded story and setting was compared to the rest, and how literally repetitive the fetch quests were. SM is nowhere as bad, but still longer for early game compared to other Pokemon games for the beginning, which can unfortunately shape most opinion, regardless of later game being really tight

So basically

Out of context to the series, SM's early game is only mildly annoying. With context, it feels like "why are we STILL doing this?"

Similarly, USUM probably got favorably seen because in addition for better gameplay balance, early game is streamlined slightly...even though they fucked up Lusamine and other story beats

 

[ant4456]

I feel if GF had a "veteran" play mode that disabled most tutorials, most wouldn't be mad. Same for if cutscenes had voice acting, or strong choreography. Xenoblade at the very least has that

But for Pokemon by Gen 7 the games still are simplistic in presentation and gameplay. Even with Z Moves added

"What could be" does not make the actual game worse. Yes, Xenoblade is more cinematic, but also I do just fine reading dialogue rather than hearing it. It should be a standard by this point in the series, I agree, but we got the game we got, and I think it is still fantastic.

I'll also say: I don't agree on the presentation. I think Sun and Moon is probably one of the most polished Pokemon games, if not the most polished. This is the only game in 12(+?) years where every single Game Freak development team (that wasn't the small one dedicated to non-Pokemon titles) was involved in development. XY finished, ORAS was finished, and X2Y2/Z was canceled- all teams were working on SM, before it diverged afterwards (USUM, LGPE, SWSH). In turn, Sun and Moon is one of the most impressive games on the 3DS.

Keep in mind, before Sun and Moon, and most games on the 3DS in general, are chibi. We went from chibi games with artwork in the battle transition to show the opposing trainer, to actually seeing everything.

Seeing the opposing trainer actually animated and reacting in battle.

The actual battle grounds were also fairly varied in this game, and there are many more than say, X/Y and ORAS, where it was generally biome based. But Sun and Moon has many battle backgrounds for many areas.

Rather than just having a regular grassy field for the Trainer School, there's an entire battle background dedicated to this one 15-20 minute segment of the game.

And when you get to a trainer closer to the field, there is a different variant within the same area. It's a very polished game visually in that they don't leave much to the imagination, compared to prior games. Sun and Moon embraces its anime side, and things are proportional- they're detailed. The only complaint I have is the indoor battle backgrounds, but that is a minor nitpick and many indoor locations such as Aether Foundation have their own battle backgrounds.

The UI imo could use work, but USUM did that and made it far prettier. The camera angles are also handled very well in this game, it's still a topdown Pokemon game at its core, but the camera angle pans are constant and keeping the region more lively than prior games. You walk a bit through the city and the camera angle entirely changes. This game being played in higher resolution still looks pretty good.

SM is nowhere as bad, but still longer for early game compared to other Pokemon games for the beginning, which can unfortunately shape most opinion, regardless of later game being really tight

Again, I feel like people only see this in terms of a "vibe". Sun and Moon does not have that much tutorial. It shows you how to catch a Pokemon, it shows you the new camera feature, and some NPCs early on talk about features. Is that not standard? Talking to characters about story is not tutorial! That is just part of the game!

 

[Esserise]

pika pal I’ll come back with a more fully-formed response to the Lillie half of your post when I have more time, but for the moment I’m just going to carry on with to this half.

As an American perspective myself, where the Rose thing loses me with that lens is the fact that I don't remember the story having the world around Rose react as that kind of "Screw the Rules I have Money" billionaire would be regarded. Public perception towards some I could think of is very tribalistic in that some will rabidly defend such figures in public discourse, but there's not really much controversy around Rose.

I’m not saying that Rose is a thorough and incisive critique of real-world billionaires and the culture surrounding them. I’m saying that real-world billionaires, particularly the ones that sit at the intersection of Silicon Valley tech and Dark Enlightenment ideology, are the exact kinds of people whom I could believe would be willing to attempt an ill-advised controlled release of a demonic energy dragon in order to establish a new society in their own image, so Rose being characterized in that sort of mold (at least in the ultra-simplified context of the Pokémon world) feels fitting, to me.

The second paragraph I also have to address because it gets into why I think Rose is poorly written and undercuts what should be a large scale story climax: everything we're reading here is not supported by the story compared to the real life parallels we're drawing. You cite in paragraph 1 the out-of-touch narcassistic "we're doing things my way" mentality fitting more than the "noble but risky" corporate leader rewrite on Rose, but that's just it: that's not a rewrite. Rose is espousing the point to Leon from a "we have a problem that needs to be solved NOW" angle rather than a "why won't you listen to me and fix this?" pattern you might see from, say, Lex Luthor disguising ego with charisma or surface-level Philantrophy. Considering Rose turns himself in at the end of the game plot (rather than fleeing as in the anime version), he seems to consider the deed being done a sufficient outcome, compared to how frequently real life celebrities or moguls attempt/manage to avoid consequences for their actions or insist they did not do wrong even after things blew up in their face. Whatever real life Billionaire behaviors one can project onto Rose's initial behavior, the aftermath make it just that: projection that doesn't align with the writing intent, sloppy though the latter is in many ways.

That “ultra-simplified context of the Pokémon world” that I mentioned also comes into play here. In general, Pokémon doesn’t like to have irredeemable or unrepentant antagonists. The setting is (mostly) too idealistic for that. Obviously there are a few exceptions, but like, look at Xerosic — a gleefully willing participant in attempted genocide, who was perfectly happy to exploit and experiment on a child for his own gain, willingly turns himself in because aw, look, he has started to care about Emma. Colress gets to walk free and eventually score his own hero moment in USUM, even though he had zero compunctions about raining ice bombs down upon Opelucid City. Rose realizing that he miscalculated by awakening Eternatus, and opting to turn himself in, is just sort of par for the course.

 

[Yung Dramps]

I genuinely loathe how SWSH and SV made people think Game Freak has always sucked at 3D visuals when the Alola games are pretty much the gold standard for graphical fidelity on their hardware. The only games that debatably may look just as good or better are partially or totally on-rails, stuff like the 3DS Ace Attorneys and Kid Icarus Uprising. To wheel out a genre-specific comparison that came out the same year as SM, here's Bravely Second:
https://www.rpgfan.com/gallery/bravely-second-end-layer-screenshots/2/?album_id=44915

A bad-looking game? Not by any stretch, that Square Enix-esque fantastical art direction pulls its weight. At the same time, however, the compromises compared to Alola are noticeable: they had to wheel out the PS1 "matte painting" strat for environments, and the polygon counts on the character and enemy models are piddling. I don't know much about the Bravely Default duology, but I feel confident that the grand total amount of playable characters in either game is likely a great deal smaller than Alola's new Pokemon roster!

 

[AztecCroc]

Same for if cutscenes had voice acting

I am extremely opposed to voice acting in Pokémon, because of the compromises to being able to actually name your character that usually accompany a series starting to do so.

I don't know much about the Bravely Default duology

They were eShop exclusives at first and only got physical releases later. They have cut down graphics for storage space reasons not technical ones.