I'm sorry, but that's a ridiculous take.
My eyes roll every time they release a new game and Knock Off isn't on every single physical Dark Type, and then people complain and groan about how "Dark Types are so bad now!!!"
Tbh I think people got so used to certain moves like Knock Off and Toxic being on everything that they forgot the game wasn't like that for ages.
I'm of the opposite mind about Toxic. The corporate format hasn't given me a good reason to forget the game was like that for ages. Knock off at least became strong and common much later.
Knock off, the problem is, GF could have just reverted the change. It was a fun niche utility move with very slight usage in 3/4/5. When Gen 6 took it from 20 BP to 65 AND added a 50% power buff, that's when it became mandatory. Revert it to the old BP, or just remove the 50% buff, and it would stop being a problem without needing a limited distribution.
Toxic has always been near-universal. GF has just grown more and more anti-stall as the generations went on, until a benchmark move from Gen 1 is too powerful to have on most stall mons.
Yeah this is pretty similar to the conclusion I would write. I think the Zelda comparison is interesting because nowadays it seems like the preferred pre-BoTW 3D games among hardcore fans are Majora's Mask and Wind Waker. These are games that maybe could be argued to be "worse" than OoT if you drop everything other than the most cold and clinical form of Zelda level design dissection, but they make up for it by having extremely strong, well-executed identities both visually and gameplay-wise. "Cartoony sea-faring adventure" and "sinister, apocalyptic dark fantasy on a time limit" are concepts nothing else in Zelda even attempts to replicate, whereas OoT already re-used a lot of old tropes and in turn would have its tropes re-used from how vastly influential it was.
I know y'all ain't talking smack about the GOAT region, Sinnoh.
In all seriousness though, and that's a lot coming from me, Platinum is starting to show some wrinkles.
Not in the "omg, what a hag" way, but right now, in my opinion, it leans closer to Ocarina of Time.
I'll explain. Ocarina of Time needs no introduction, it's a generational game in every sense of the word, and it is recognized by many, including awards in an era when they actually evaluated games, as the game of the century.
More accurately, the game of last century.
If one were to play OoT in 2025, they would certainly recognize it as a masterpiece, but it just feels a bit... dated at this point. Mind you, I'm not talking about the graphics. For example, the warp points are extremely inconvenient.
Similarly, the best way to play Platinum nowadays is on an emulator so you can have easier access to QoL patches, and PkHex because IVs suck.
Granted, those could've been fixed by a remake, but...
Basically, what I'm saying is that as great as Platinum is, by now, it's more of a gold standard than an undisputed #1. Which is even more impressive tbh, there aren't a lot of games that can stand the test of time like this.
Platinum, and Emerald while I'm at it, have a LOT of lessons to teach to the newer games. When it comes to things like map design, they're still undefeated in this franchise.
Hell, Platinum still has the most iconic in-game team of all time, and unlike the Kanto games, it's not because of a lack of options early-game. But in terms of QoL, it has long been surpassed.
As for the last pages before this post... Man, I can't believe y'all still talking about Dexit.
But that's a topic for another post.
I've always interpreted it as a gameplay-first decision, though the fact that biology is fragile enough for water and oxygen toxicity to be real things doesn't harm it. Status effects matter, so they made sure that every team composition has some access to it in a straightforwardly effective fashion while the more exotic statuses or delivery methods belonged to the types specialized in them. An equivalent to gen 4 giving every type a serviceable physical and special STAB, if you will. Its removal then comes off as saying that status effects don't matter, which I feel is a fair reason to consider later iterations of battles to be worse.
i didnt connect these pieces together lol. neat
IVs and Nature don't come into play in any part of the game besides certain parts of the postgame, with some exception for low stat mons for whom perfect stats can def help
Yeah, my point was that QoL improvements, even tho they're less significant than hacking in rare candies, can smooth out parts of the game and lead to your overall experience feeling less rewarding. Then ended my post by saying that some of those inefficiencies were so dumb (like having to navigate through a menu to use another repel) that smoothing them out was common sense.
It's well-documented that we have polar opposite views on Alola, so I'm not opening that can of worms again
Trust me, when you get a zero IV mon, you'll absolutely feel it. Bad natures cutting your stats down by 10% is also very noticeable.
It mostly depends on what adjustments are being made, and how they interact with the rest of the game.
Toxic hasn't been near universal since gen 8 when it got removed from TMs.
Water has always been an elite neutral type, but if you think about it, whenever you play a Water-type, don't you get the feeling that you'd rather click anything but STAB?
Normal is probably one of the worst types rn.
How did I not notice that before? It almost seems like there was an extra layer to this after Zoroark came out: because the main ninja tricks were universal, none of them would give away Illusion. At least Zoroark-unova kept Toxic (Zoroark-Hisui didn't)?
Right, they are deliberately balancing to encourage offense and discourage stall, to the detriment of actual meta balance.
You don't pick Knock Off for removing items, you pick it because it's the highest BP dark physical move outside of Signatures. 97.5 if it lands once, 78.75 if it lands twice on the same mon. The closest comparison are Crunch or Throat Chop at 80 BP every time, much less relevant when you'll only click a Dark move a couple times per battle. The fact that it has a 100% chance of a useful unique secondary effect is just icing.
I know y'all ain't talking smack about the GOAT region, Sinnoh.
In all seriousness though, and that's a lot coming from me, Platinum is starting to show some wrinkles.
Not in the "omg, what a hag" way, but right now, in my opinion, it leans closer to Ocarina of Time.
I'll explain. Ocarina of Time needs no introduction, it's a generational game in every sense of the word, and it is recognized by many, including awards in an era when they actually evaluated games, as the game of the century.
More accurately, the game of last century.
If one were to play OoT in 2025, they would certainly recognize it as a masterpiece, but it just feels a bit... dated at this point. Mind you, I'm not talking about the graphics. For example, the warp points are extremely inconvenient.
Similarly, the best way to play Platinum nowadays is on an emulator so you can have easier access to QoL patches, and PkHex because IVs suck.
Granted, those could've been fixed by a remake, but...
Basically, what I'm saying is that as great as Platinum is, by now, it's more of a gold standard than an undisputed #1. Which is even more impressive tbh, there aren't a lot of games that can stand the test of time like this.
Platinum, and Emerald while I'm at it, have a LOT of lessons to teach to the newer games. When it comes to things like map design, they're still undefeated in this franchise.
Hell, Platinum still has the most iconic in-game team of all time, and unlike the Kanto games, it's not because of a lack of options early-game. But in terms of QoL, it has long been surpassed.
As for the last pages before this post... Man, I can't believe y'all still talking about Dexit.
But that's a topic for another post.
Ironically, what drives me away from BW2 the most is just how dated and ugly that game looks.
Can you honestly look at the Switch games and say they had better map design though?
