To be fair, I think a lot of fans have been saying Pokémon sucks at 3D graphics ever since XY, and I don’t feel like SM moved the needle of that discourse very much. (For what it’s worth, Alola is an absolute visual delight in my opinion.)
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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
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To be fair, I think a lot of fans have been saying Pokémon sucks at 3D graphics ever since XY, and I don’t feel like SM moved the needle of that discourse very much. (For what it’s worth, Alola is an absolute visual delight in my opinion.)
I could easily see whatever government wanting to use Colress' talents as a researcher to help prepare for whatever the next world-ending threat is and offering a significantly reduced sentence in return for his cooperation.
the 3d ace attorneys are ugly as hell. look at what they did with my beautiful phoenix. they made him ugly AND gave him blue eyes
Speaking as if the games were actually about the "main characters" as opposed to literally anyone else since they're far more interesting than them.
Don't give Gamefreak excuses, we deserve voice acting in the games
don't accept any excuses about how "we'd hav to translate it to so many laguages"
we must go to Gamefreak, look them in the eye and say
Wafiyutu rirana wafirupu rurana seafidu!
Rafimanyuu rutini rafimanyaa rufana maniwafidu!
Yumana enatoruu rirana enarupu rurana paduwidu!
Baryuefi ritura baryurupu rufana winawinadu!
Wait, aren't we complaining about lack of effort? If this is the lynchpin, shouldn't we be asking for a full and consistent conlang? That would get me far more interested than regular voice acting.
I'd sympathize more with this concern or consider the excuse more worthy of dismantling if Final Fantasy X hadn't already worked around this in 2001, with the mundane solution of simply never using the name-able characters' names during the voice cutscenes rather than the text dialogue. Tidus has a canon name but it's not spoken ONCE in his original release, which is itself one of the most famous if not most influential RPGs of the Sixth Generation of consoles (frankly it's only second to FF7 for notoriety in its own prestigious franchise).
If the game is going to give the PC main character significance, the writers owe the audience an actual character and not a walking mannequin with battle prowess (even as much as I like SV and think they're better utilized, they're not any more defined than prior entries)
What is your source for this? I have never heard about this before. I searched a little, but found nothing about this. The only thing I found was that in Japan, Bravely Default had five different demos released on the eShop before the original version of the full game was released, while Bravely Second had both a trial version and a demo available on the Japanese eShop before the full release of the game.
I read the discussion about Sun/Moon and their story on the last few pages, and I feel that it does a good job at showing why I think S/M are overrated and average games, as well as showcasing the issues with their story. I don't really want to join the discussion, but I need to get some things out of my head, so I'll share some of my own short thoughts on the subjects.
When I play Pokémon (or any other video game), it is for the gameplay, not the story. In Pokémon, story is not even among the five most important things for me, while in other games, it can be the second most important thing at best. Gameplay always comes first for me. If we look at S/M, it is clear that they had a very big focus on the story, not so much on gameplay. Which is very unfortunate, because I think S/M has some pretty big and notable gameplay issues. The biggest one for me has always been the lack of good training spots, which I consider a huge negative for any game where it is the case (it has always been the main reason HG/SS are my least favorites). I like the story in S/M, and I think it is the third best in the series, but since I consider gameplay more imporant, the story is not enough to make up for the gameplay issues. In comparison, I think B/W and ScaVio did a much better job with balancing gameplay and story, plus I prefer both of their stories over the one in S/M. We can also compare S/M to X/Y, which in many ways are the polar opposites of S/M as they had a mediocre story but excellent gameplay. Since I value gameplay higher than story, I think X/Y are the superior games here, they are even my third favorites in the series while S/M are somewhere in the middle for me.
Regarding the story in S/M, one thing that was brought up is that Lillie is the main character, not the player. I consider this an issue, since when I play a game, I want my player character to be the main character (or at least one of the main characters), I don't want an NPC to be the main character. Lillie being the main character would have been fine if it had been another form of media like a book, a movie, tv show or such, but for a game, I need the player to be the main character. Since that isn't the case in S/M, I feel that it hurts the story, especially compared to ScaVio and B/W where the player's role is much more vital and can't be removed.
I don't think S/M are among the most polished games in the series, especially not since US/UM added a lot more things and fixed/improved upon several of their issues. I think the most polished games in the series are Platinum, B/W, B2/W2, OR/AS and US/UM.
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I apologize for switching up the topic of this discussion so quickly, but I actually think that this right here is something worth talking about. By this point it's pretty much a given that most older Pokémon fans, on average, either dislike or really hate Sword & Shield as well as Scarlet & Violet. This bothers me for two reasons even though I'll have to agree with the masses on this one. The first problem is how this shared sentiment seems to only amplified by what I'll call The Nostalgia Factor. The second issue I have with this common consensus is that Gen 7 was the first generation what I've always called "the Shigeru Ohmori Era" (Gens 7-present), and as a result of that seeing people praise Gen 7 for some of the same faults as the later games of this era almost feels like a double standard. Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon significantly benefitted from being able to operate as the last hurrah for "the 3DS Era" (Gens 6-7) and show off the full extent of what a fully polished, realized version of a 3DS Pokémon generation could look like. Since these generations happened during a directorial shift in the core series, compared to Gens 4-5 and Gens 8-9, though, comparing Alola's polish and effort to, say, Kalos, doesn't feel entirely fair. Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon can instead be viewed as the Gen 7 equivalent of the Switch DLCs within the greater context of the Shigeru Ohmori Era, and that's where I come to my main point- can you really call any of Generations 7, 8, or 9 "polished games" on any front when the argument can be made that all three generations could have used an extra year in the oven? In Alola's case, this would effectively mean that Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon could have been what base Sun & Moon ended up as, just like how the Galar and Paldea DLCs could have just added to the polish of a not rushed base game in 2020 and 2023, respectively.
For me, the games released in a generation and when they are released has just as much to do with how well-made the final products are, since things like remakes may take away from much needed development time of new original installments. Conversely, a remake itself may feel rushed because of the need to release a new generation before it's done cooking in the oven. Third version games (Yellow, Crystal, Emerald, Platinum, and USUM) and DLCs can do a lot to improve upon their base games, yes, but I would almost rather not have any of those if their exclusion would mean more polish for their actual base games. Notice how once Platinum came out, no one had much of a reason to play Diamond & Pearl, or how when the Ultra games came out, the base Alola games suddenly felt irrelevant to many. In a vacuum, the need to monetize extra content ends up feeling counterintuitive to product quality because, using the Sinnoh example, pre-Platinum Sinnoh wouldn't feel nearly as irrelevant if we just skipped over Diamond & Pearl and released what was eventually Platinum as the original Gen 4 games (maybe alongside an Arceus game or something for the other version, I don't know)
Based on your second paragraph I imagine you will agree with what I'm about to say at least to some extent, but the ultimate Pokemon blackpill that I have yet to see any of the angry discourse of the past few years truly contend with is that by the most commonly agreed upon metrics of a "finished game" BW1 and Legends Arceus are pretty much the only times mainline Pokemon has actually achieved that bar at launch since the end of Pokemania. Maybe SM too, but honestly that's almost definitely just personal bias talking. Literally every other non-remake release after GS faced major compromises in some form or another - it was just a matter of whether they were lucky enough to get fixed later. Emerald, Platinum and USUM needing to exist is nothing less than a profound, sustained failure of project management with no equal in any other major Nintendo franchise (Can you imagine Mario, Zelda, Kirby or Metroid doing this shit?). You can actually make a credible argument that XY is on the less bad end of first version shoddiness: The main story may be a total mess with Zygarde MIA, but at least the map visuals and the stuff to do in those maps are pretty sound and fleshed out, which is more than can be said for DP! Postgame content's also a bit light, but at least unlike RS there's literally anything at all!
Regardless of who shares more blame between Game Freak and the suits, Pokemon was one of the biggest mainstream progenitors of "release now, finish later". They were able to get away with this for damn near 20 years, it's just that now the abandonment of third versions that soup up the main campaign and the increasing demands of console game development have finally made these bad habits come to a head. Now we must hope they can find the will to make the changes they should've made a long time ago before the Switch 2 brings us a true catastrophe.
You are aware that Emerald was the first Pokémon game to have post-game content right? The lack of it in RS is not the game being unfinished.
I take it you don't consider GSC Kanto to be "postgame content"? As far as I'm concerned it does considering the credits roll after you beat Lance.
The thing about voice acting is, there's a LOT of ways to make it cheaper. Only voice act cutscenes(Seriously WTAF Piers), only major characters, use Simlish, whatever. My personal fave is having the NPC read the first couple of words from a line and then letting the player read the rest, since it gets across the tone without nearly as much memory/VA work/etc. And if GF had gone with one of those a decade ago, we'd be fine. But now if they do one, it will be an obvious cost-cutting measure and annoy fans. They've basically forced themselves into HAVING to VA the entire game if they ever do it, since "We've voice acted the intro, the Legendary reveal, and the epilogue voice-over" will just piss people off even more.
This isn't a "here's why we shouldn't have voice acting" because it's just a personal opinion and I could easily toggle it off (hopefully. maybe? idk gamefreak is goofy sometimes lol) but I just think the pool of english VAs is pretty weak and/or repetitive. I have an insane conspiracy theory about the fact that most of american content is being made there and they don't need VAs, they just need normal actors, so the industry for VAing is much weaker than south america for example, because everything from movies to games to series needs to be dubbed, which means we need to invest in dubbing otherwise... suffer LMFAO.
Anyway I don't really like english VAs a lot. The good ones get picked up and placed everywhere so I get a bit tired of listening to their voices, and because they get placed everywhere they tend to get roles that don't fit them all that much, but they're the closest thing available that's also good quality and well known enough for a portfolio to hit the company. And then you just have VAs which aren't that good or can't pull off the tone or text. I'd probably swap to the OG japanese, and while I am learning japanese so I do gain something from it, that's more of a coincidence LOL.
Idk maybe I'm just a hater? The american VA industry is getting better than the 90s and 00s for sure, but it's just not that good yet for me to enjoy the average dubbing of a viddy game. NOW IF THEY TRANSLATED A POKEMON GAME TO PORTUGUESE AND GOT VOICE ACTING I'D BE EATING THAT SHIT UP BROTHER!!!!!!!
Anyway I don't really like english VAs a lot. The good ones get picked up and placed everywhere so I get a bit tired of listening to their voices, and because they get placed everywhere they tend to get roles that don't fit them all that much, but they're the closest thing available that's also good quality and well known enough for a portfolio to hit the company. And then you just have VAs which aren't that good or can't pull off the tone or text. I'd probably swap to the OG japanese, and while I am learning japanese so I do gain something from it, that's more of a coincidence LOL.
Idk maybe I'm just a hater? The american VA industry is getting better than the 90s and 00s for sure, but it's just not that good yet for me to enjoy the average dubbing of a viddy game. NOW IF THEY TRANSLATED A POKEMON GAME TO PORTUGUESE AND GOT VOICE ACTING I'D BE EATING THAT SHIT UP BROTHER!!!!!!!
Honestly, I don't particularly mind the lack of voice acting for Pokémon, but good lord, they HAVE to stop doing full-blown cutscenes that would require voice acting.
Notable examples: SwSh's intro, PIERS SINGING, and Clavell talking about the treasure hunt, but SwSh's cutscenes were way worse.
Notable examples: SwSh's intro, PIERS SINGING, and Clavell talking about the treasure hunt, but SwSh's cutscenes were way worse.
That's somewhat of an easy fix. The anime already has a set of voice actors. Just do the casting for those earlier and maintain consistency between the anime and the game.
I havent listened to the english dub of the anime in so long so idk how good it is but scheduling wise this seems pretty smart
To be honest, unpopular as is, I think the game that suffered the most from lack of voice acting was actually Legend Arceus.
That game has A LOT of text. Not as much as some of the bigger jrpgs but it definitely has parts where you're reading dialogues for a good 15-20 mins and you want to die inside cause obviously NOTHING is voiced and you just feel like mashing through it.
I don't know if this is an unpopular opinion but I really think we should have left the "welcome to the world of Pokémon" spiel behind a long time ago. SV's a perfect exemple of this: the first thing you do when you start the game is watch some guy do a long lecture (without voice acting) on the setting, and that's just not an exciting way to introduce your setting to new players! To make matters worse, it's followed by the cutscene of Koraidon/Miraidon's escape, which is visually exciting AND sells the appeal of Pokémon without any words at all!
Also having the "world of Pokémon" speech be in-universe is dumb. It makes zero sense and even the anime started doing that
Maybe it's just nostalgia but I like it. It's a tradition that makes me excited for what I'm about to see.
I don't really have like, a good defense for the speech, but it makes me excited every new gen/game that has a new one. Plus it's only like 2 minutes, and then it's done. I also think they've gotten better since XY- went from kinda just seeing a few Pokemon and the professor to actually pretty stylish in SM, seeing the environment in ORAS, seeing a Gmax Charizard in SWSH, and the in-character speech for SV. All of these really match the pesonality to me.
I don't really have like, a good defense for the speech, but it makes me excited every new gen/game that has a new one. Plus it's only like 2 minutes, and then it's done. I also think they've gotten better since XY- went from kinda just seeing a few Pokemon and the professor to actually pretty stylish in SM, seeing the environment in ORAS, seeing a Gmax Charizard in SWSH, and the in-character speech for SV. All of these really match the pesonality to me.
For me it depends on who’s the one giving the speech. Seeing professors do this for so long got a bit repetitive after a while, so I thought Rose being involved with Galar’s version was a nice change of pace, even though I was never the biggest fan of him as a character. Around that same time, we had the Detective Pikachu movie which I also think handled the introduction to the world of Pokémon pretty well within the context of its own universe.
I think we all made the mistake of thinking Geeta would be a lot more plot important given her obvious Glimmora connections.
I am the most avid defender of SV's story but...yeah we can only really speculate about what she actually knew before the events of the base game.
But I do agree on it being fresh when someone qho is not the professor does the speech-specially since the professors turned out to be simultaneously dead AND the main antagonist! Words apart from Rose. And Clavell is just and amusing character, I love his disguised role.
I am the most avid defender of SV's story but...yeah we can only really speculate about what she actually knew before the events of the base game.
But I do agree on it being fresh when someone qho is not the professor does the speech-specially since the professors turned out to be simultaneously dead AND the main antagonist! Words apart from Rose. And Clavell is just and amusing character, I love his disguised role.
Clavell's disguise is somehow worse than those fake glasses and mustache ones, I like that everyone looks at him like
"Who does this fed think he's fooling?"The reaction he has to the player not believing he is Casiopea is also great. In the manga he fools Violet, trough I do think Penny of all people was also fooled? Or am I remembering wrong?Clavell's disguise is somehow worse than those fake glasses and mustache ones, I like that everyone looks at him like
There is also when he asks the player what "trolling" means.
Incidentally, multiple sources both in and out of the game seem to imply that Scarlet & Violet may have had a darker storyline than we saw in the final release, with specific characters having more explained backstories and ulterior motives. The comparisons between Rose and Geeta as well as the underlying tone in the postgame of her being... not the best boss to work for tell me that Geeta very well could have been in an antagonistic role at some point. There's also the whole situation with Raifort, and how some sources have said she was originally going to be a more important antagonistic character, too. I don't necessarily have any problems with what we got, but the ways these things were executed bothers me a little bit. Maybe this is just a personal thing, but I like Pokémon games because they feel like an escape into another world that's noticeably more exciting than our own, and I don't want, say, someone like the overworked Larry existing to remind me of real life. At that point Pokémon starts to feel less like a game for kids and more like a propaganda piece about unethical work practices being shoved into the faces of children around the world.
The other thing about people like Rose, Geeta, and the different direction professors have been taken in lately is that we've seen this before. I don't mean that in the sense of "newer generations have ideas we've already seen in older generations" in one of my recent posts. I mean, we've really seen this before. In fact, I can think of a spin-off game off the top of my head that has both a secretly toxic/evil major company and a twist villain professor in the same storyline- Gen 4 fanatics may recall Pokémon Ranger's second installment, Shadows of Almia, playing around with the idea of a secretly evil teacher as well as a secretly evil company looking to... create a new energy... source... yeah, hang on a second, Macro Cosmos is literally just Altru Inc. but with less backstory, tf-
This is a very sinister framing for a theme that's extremely common in children's media, even kids' stories with fantastical/utopian elements. I think that first sentence is more honest (you, as an adult with responsibilities, want escapism) whereas the second is a convenient justification. Kids view Larry the same way they view Squidward: grumpy and boring but funny alongside more energetic characters. I don't think they're being indoctrinated into Marxism or whatever.