I feel like the obvious answer to forced losses is to put them at the beginning of the game when the player shouldn't have many resources to waste or ways to cheese the fight. SV already did this with Houndoom. Having the evil head honcho show up at the end of route 1 and beat your punk ass with a level 56 Gyarados and four unknown Pokemon in the back before calling you lame and disappearing until the climax could work.
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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
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As a DP Adventure Stan, I want to add a detail that I think contributes to the Cyrus point and might actually be a workaround to the "Hopeless Boss Fight" issue.
Prior to the Gyarados scene mentioned, Cyrus is fighting and easily dominating a battle with Hareta's Piplup (delayed evolution but it's not a Pikachu situation I swear) using his Weavile, the latter fainting near the end to a Torrent boosted attack. Cyrus finds himself trembling with anticipation (not necessarily fear), only to bring out Gyarados and blow Hareta away because he considers letting his emotions slip a sign Hareta is dangerous (and even chastises himself for still flying off the handle in response too). Notably in this manga, Cyrus only displays these two Pokemon in Battle before Spear Pillar, but the Gyarados alone is imposing enough to cow every other opponent or ally into submission (Saturn visibly groveling despite flooring the Gym Leaders and holding the advantage for most of his battle with Hareta).
I think the following make this a reasonable approach even in gameplay
- Fighting only a portion of their team mans they can go "quality over quantity" with what may be a strong-for-mid game fully evolved Pokemon. Weavile would be a very high stat Pokemon for Celestic Town, and levels are easier to explain away as "gamey" than the Evo stage
- Member number can be excused by the "testing you/you're not worth my full power" mentality for an early encounter
- Defeating the battling mon avoids the resource-wasting issue by creating a section you have to win/survive (for another example, FF9 has several encounters with a scripted end, but if you die prior to the boss's health/time running out, you WILL get a Game Over)
- A cutscene follow-up like the Gyarados moment isn't subject to level disparity and highlights the villain's immorality, as Pokemon-sicced-on-humans is a surprisingly rare course of action in this series, primarily used by Ghetsis and the Paradise Protection Protocol and then some questionable candidates (does Mother Beast Lusamine or Lysandre nuking his own base count?)
Alternatively, just having a battle that's harder than what the player is expected to be able to handle could have a similar effect. Something I like about USUM is how certain fights (mainly, Lusamine and Malie Hau) will let the player lose and the story will advance regardless. Sure, none of these are a life or death situation, but letting the player live with that loss is an effective way to establish them as worthy rivals, way more than a forced loss would (imo)
What makes this so maddening is that I'm pretty sure one of the leaked RS early builds did exactly this! I seem to recall Matt having Huntail (a pokemon no major trainer in the final game uses!) and someone using Pelipper. If I'm right it means Game Freak knew what to do and then nerfed Team Aqua for literally no reason. Whyyyy
It's funny you say this because on a side note outside of aesthetics, playing through Diamond again has me notice how scarily closely DP in particular mirrors and mimics Kanto's original game design.
The three starters (saying this even though I adore them) have the same BSTs as their Kanto equivalents at every stage, and Grotle evolves into Torterra at Level 32 while Monferno and Prinplup evolve into Infernape and Empoleon at Level 36, which is the same case with Venusaur relative to Charizard and Blastoise. The first few routes introduce Bidoof and Starly, which are perfect mirrors of Rattata and Pidgey. Starly is the first early route bird to really mimic Pidgey from a game design standpoint as a three-stage bird.
Barry's team tends to mirror Blue's throughout the game too. He starts with the starter advantageous against your own, and his first teammate is Starly, much akin to Blue's Pidgey, and he forms an FWG trio in half his team, and two constants. Blue's team was Starter/Pidgeot/Rhydon/Alakazam/two of Exeggutor/Arcanine/Gyarados depending on the starter, Barry's meanwhile is Starter/Staraptor/Heracross/Snorlax/two of Roserade/Rapidash/Floatzel depending on the starter, which is a parallel.
The level curve and boss fight arrangements are fairly similar too. Roark is a Rock-type first Gym Leader like Brock and he has a Geodude and Onix too, with his ace being Cranidos at...Level 14, like Brock's Onix, which is then followed by an overall similar level curve with Volkner capping out with a Level 50 ace, much like Giovanni in RGB, and the second Gym Leader having a Level 22 really-strong-for-that-point ace too. Even though it's at a different point there's a point where two Gym Leaders have similarly leveled Pokemon as well, in this case Maylene and Crasher Wake (in Kanto it was Koga and Sabrina). The Elite Four and Cynthia are at similar levels to the Kanto League with the same level progression, the difference being that their aces are all one level higher than their Kanto equivalents.
A lot of other similarities pop up as well. Veilstone City is a near perfect mirror of Celadon City, with a Game Corner, a Department Store, and the evil team's secret hideout, and the next major city you visit, Pastoria, follows in Fuschia City's footsteps with its own equivalent Safari Zone and like Kanto's Safari Zone, the Great Marsh has a lot of exclusive Pokemon to the Safari Game, at first just Skorupi, Croagunk, and Carnivine, but then Platinum expands these to Tangela (Tangrowth) and Yanma (Yanmega), much like how Kanto's Safari Zone had Exeggcute, Rhyhorn, and a bunch of single stage Normal-types. Platinum despite changing things up makes the parallel here even more apparent since Maylene and Wake are moved to being the 4th and 5th Gym Leaders.
And the last thing is the obvious DP dex having 151 Pokemon which is basically a mirror of Gen 1, right down to the end of the dex having the major legendaries and 151 being the Mew equivalent (Manaphy). Not to mention the minor legendary trio (Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf) is positioned in a similar way to Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres, the three being Level 50 encounters you meet close to the end of the game, and then in the post-game you meet several Level 70 legendaries like Mewtwo in Gen 1, although DP does it threefold with Giratina, Heatran, and Regigigas all in post-game dungeons.
I could go on and on but this is something I definitely noticed. The notion of Sinnoh being "Kanto 2" can be described as quite accurate in another regard when you look at all this, in terms of how the game is designed and structured.
Professor Rowan: "I'm taking a long research trip to another region!"
His assistant: "ah, are you going somewhere you can experience something totally different to your usual surroundings?"
Professor Rowan: "What? No."
I like to think that Oak came to Sinnoh and was like "Shit's really the same everywhere, huh?"
If you think about it, Oak has to be the most well-traveled Professor since he's in the Johto and Sinnoh games.
Flygon, a pokemon that hides in the sandstorms it causes, has neither Sand Veil nor Sand Stream.
That may be true for now, but with Pokémon Legends: Z-A on the way, Generation 6, or more specifically, Pokémon XY may just be next in line to be the subject of "look at this hidden gem / actually the best games in the series" discourse. I write this as a strong Generation 6 fan.
I don't actually know if this is unpopular but I can't think of where else it'd go...
I wouldn't care about the lack of voice acting if they didn't keep making scenes in the last few gens that seem designed around having voice acting, and outside of those scenes I couldn't care less.
I wouldn't care about the lack of voice acting if they didn't keep making scenes in the last few gens that seem designed around having voice acting, and outside of those scenes I couldn't care less.
I don't think hoenns map is particularly good or worthy of any sort of special praise compared to other regions
7.8/10, too much water.
So this isn't just a one liner, I have to somewhat disagree on this. Splitting the world in half into water and land is great to tie it into the whole story of land and sea needing each other for everything to coexist peacefully. However, the water biomes are mostly mid, which detracts from the motif since they are now boring. The exception is routes 132, 133 and 134, with there fast flowing waters making for something interesting.
The land routes are pretty good, with the routes before fallarbar town (the ash routes, if I'm getting the town name wrong) being very atmospheric, and the jungle routes including the weather institute being something I don't think we have seen much besides the grass trial area in sm.
Idk it's leagues and bounds above any other, but is for me the best region map.
eh the ash routes are the only part of hoenn which are actually pretty cool, and thats mostly because of the cool effect with the grass changing colours as you walk on them. the rest of hoenn just feels like standard pokemon region stuff that doesnt really stand leagues above other regions. as for the water routes, having such a large portion of your late game map consist of same-y, uninteresting stretches of ocean drags down the fun of exploring the region. i dont care how well it "ties it into the whole story of land and sea needing each other" as you so put it, if the actual experience is boring then it drags the underlying idea and makes the region as a whole less impressive.
like hoenn is still fine as a region, but it doesnt really feel like anything special compared to other regions. i could probably see why it gets thought of as such when it came after kanto and johto, two regions which could be considered pretty "basic" for the most part when it comes to map design, so having something a bit more "varied" feels like an immediate upgrade, but i find that on its own it just feels like any other region, and that just because there is a variety of biomes in hoenn it doesnt necessarily make it worthy of any special praise
They already were doing that, but mostly talking about the potential of a 3rd entry (South Kalos this, South Kalos that), or just talking about the anime (sth I'm not even a fan of)
You are right, but that is not quite what I am getting at. I believe there may be an influx of fans who advocate the idea that Pokémon X & Y are objectively among the best games in the series, not merely somewhat underrated as I believe they are. They may point to things such as the introduction of Mega Evolution, the large Kalos Pokedex, and character customization among other things.
Pokémon Black & White Versions seem to have gone through this arc themselves: at launch, (based on what I can gather about how they were received) they were the most controversial entries in the series, and they had relatively low sales. Now, however, those games and their sequels are frequently ranked as among the best in the series thanks to many Pokémon of Unova Pokedex becoming fan favorites
, characters such as N and Ghetsis and the Pokémon World Tournament.Then again, how "online" is the average Pokemon fan? How does one objectively rank Pokemon games? So many questions... I was comfortable writing these posts in "Unpopular Opinions" because, for some reason, I have not read any forecast to this effect on Twitter, Serebii, Smogon, or anywhere else I go to gauge Pokémon fan discourse.
I'm at the point where every region doesn't feel particularly special (maybe Unova being much more heavily urbanized?). We've been through the kind of grasslands and forests people live near irl too many times. I want them to take the fantasy worldbuilding out of small one-off areas and make a fully alien region.
I'll give you a hint: the largest majority of pokemon players gives no fucks of tierlists, complaints, plot, difficulty and gameplay, doesn't even know what internet is outside of maybe Roblox, and rarely touches the games again after beating the plot.
All they cared in the past, and care now, is how cute the starters are.
Translation: Casual players run with whatever common opinions there are + marketing/anime
Kanto being overrepresented means that'll be their standard for mon design to ref. This can harm perception of later gen mon design
Similarly, the anime going to streaming and having a sporadic release date for eps meant many won't see it casually :(
So it's nestled interaction for Pokemon
Kanto being overrepresented means that'll be their standard for mon design to ref. This can harm perception of later gen mon design
Similarly, the anime going to streaming and having a sporadic release date for eps meant many won't see it casually :(
So it's nestled interaction for Pokemon
Also on a slightly less sarcastic and more serious remark, most Pokemon players, similarly to other franchises, will just consider the "best" Pokemon games the ones they played first, expecially if they did play them as kids.
It's simply a "issue" of the first experience of a game like those as kid trumping anything you can play after, because you cant have "another first time" for picking your starter, evolving your first pokemon, beating the rival, becoming the champion, and all those things.
Not exactly true for *everyone* but you'll quickly notice how it's very consistent.
I myself have fond memories of my playthroughs of Blue, Yellow and Silver (and I still remind spamming Dugtrio and Graveler against anything in Blue and *actually getting stuck on Lorelei* cause every other pokemon I had was lvl 30 whereas those two were level 60+).
(As much as I enjoyed playing the gen 1 and 2 games as kid, and I'll never forget my gigastupid duels with friends using my 3 separate dragonites with different elements as well as full eevolution teams, I have just grown up to embrace QoL and convenience and gave up on any hope that those games will ever be difficult. I have embraced the forbidden art of "just have fun and enjoy the cute pink pokemon", something I would recommend to half of this forum as well)
It's simply a "issue" of the first experience of a game like those as kid trumping anything you can play after, because you cant have "another first time" for picking your starter, evolving your first pokemon, beating the rival, becoming the champion, and all those things.
Not exactly true for *everyone* but you'll quickly notice how it's very consistent.
I myself have fond memories of my playthroughs of Blue, Yellow and Silver (and I still remind spamming Dugtrio and Graveler against anything in Blue and *actually getting stuck on Lorelei* cause every other pokemon I had was lvl 30 whereas those two were level 60+).
(As much as I enjoyed playing the gen 1 and 2 games as kid, and I'll never forget my gigastupid duels with friends using my 3 separate dragonites with different elements as well as full eevolution teams, I have just grown up to embrace QoL and convenience and gave up on any hope that those games will ever be difficult. I have embraced the forbidden art of "just have fun and enjoy the cute pink pokemon", something I would recommend to half of this forum as well)
In my experience, either "painfully and terminally so" or "not at all" and no happy medium exists between those two extremes
Don't worry, I am well aware the games and Pokémon themselves are primarily marketed to 6- to 12-year-olds. That was mostly rhetorical head-spinning at the thought of trying to establish anything objective... just read a few In-Game Tier Lists threads to see what I mean. Now that I think of it, that is why I don't post here nearly as often as I would like to, I can't convince myself of the soundness of my own ideas.
Opinions are, in the end, opinions. They can be right or wrong, but there's nothing wrong in sharing them *in civilized ways*.
In the end, you can't know if others agree with you if you first don't say what you're thinking
So, Hoenn's map design:
I made this a while ago. It's an intended route through pre-Fly Hoenn. (Blue-Yellow-Purple-White-Red-Black-Green)(red just means "get there" because there's too many options).
What makes Hoenn fun to me as a map isn't that it has diverse environments etc, what I enjoy is how you interact with the world. Because on the surface it's a fairly linear game, as always for Pokemon. Which way to go next is always fairly obvious. Until Meteor Falls. After that, you've almost encircled the left half of the map once, and the game says "okay, now get back to the volcano". And there's a few ways to do it, all of which are fairly obvious if you payed attention your first time around. And going those ways gives you the opportunity to use field moves you didn't have before, fight(or rematch) trainers you skipped, etc. It lets you reexplore whichever part of the map you want, without making that feel like wasted time. And then you get to Flannery, and again the game says "now get back to Norman". After Norman, it tells you to figure out how to return to Mauville. Each time you have a new HM to use that opens up more hidden parts of the map, possibly a different bike, etc. And even when you get to the second half of the map, it's still circles that send you back where you came. It's a map that really sold "you're exploring and finding new stuff" by actually making you do it.
Yes, you CAN explore areas you were already at in other generations. But then it's a conscious decision you have to make, and it feels artificial. "Okay, I got Surf and Fly. Let's revisit everywhere I was before and check for hidden Rare Candies." Hoenn makes going back to previous areas and finding hidden stuff a natural part of navigating the map, which is both fun and a good way to teach kids playing the game that that is something you can do.
I made this a while ago. It's an intended route through pre-Fly Hoenn. (Blue-Yellow-Purple-White-Red-Black-Green)(red just means "get there" because there's too many options).
What makes Hoenn fun to me as a map isn't that it has diverse environments etc, what I enjoy is how you interact with the world. Because on the surface it's a fairly linear game, as always for Pokemon. Which way to go next is always fairly obvious. Until Meteor Falls. After that, you've almost encircled the left half of the map once, and the game says "okay, now get back to the volcano". And there's a few ways to do it, all of which are fairly obvious if you payed attention your first time around. And going those ways gives you the opportunity to use field moves you didn't have before, fight(or rematch) trainers you skipped, etc. It lets you reexplore whichever part of the map you want, without making that feel like wasted time. And then you get to Flannery, and again the game says "now get back to Norman". After Norman, it tells you to figure out how to return to Mauville. Each time you have a new HM to use that opens up more hidden parts of the map, possibly a different bike, etc. And even when you get to the second half of the map, it's still circles that send you back where you came. It's a map that really sold "you're exploring and finding new stuff" by actually making you do it.
Yes, you CAN explore areas you were already at in other generations. But then it's a conscious decision you have to make, and it feels artificial. "Okay, I got Surf and Fly. Let's revisit everywhere I was before and check for hidden Rare Candies." Hoenn makes going back to previous areas and finding hidden stuff a natural part of navigating the map, which is both fun and a good way to teach kids playing the game that that is something you can do.