Unpopular opinions

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

I wanna add a more thought-out post to the discussion, but one comment about close-combat: in boss battles and online you may not think about the drawbacks because you're getting value from it (and in boss battles you're more likely to outspeed with EVs honestly) but in game, something like Close Combat is interesting because you definitely feel the weaker defense over repeated battles. Same thing with recoil moves to a smaller extent: you get chipped down over time which is interesting drawback to overcome.

IE in the Platinum postgame, Close Combat on Staraptor wasn't working well because it wasn't getting KOs and I was taking too much damage from it.

it's also a fun drawback when used against you. Underleveled, weak to fighting? Well now your opponent is on an artificial timer.

This is a big reason why Torterra is kind of bad.

For example, it'd definitely be able to sweep Bertha clean... if it didn't get KO'd by Wood Hammer's recoil first. This is also why I keep Fly instead of U-Turn on Raptor too, Brave Bird is awesome, but the recoil really is something you don't wanna deal with if the extra power isn't needed.

Even online, CC's drawback is real, it's a lot easier to get revenge killed by priority when you're at -1.

 

[Basedwell]

This is a big reason why Torterra is kind of bad.

lmaooo Torterra was who I was thinking of too. I had benched mine and brought it back for the postgame and it was such a challenge to train. I ran shell bell on it to prolong its existence and tried to time EQs when I didn't need Wood Hammer... I did use Leech Seed but in hindsight I would have run something different.

For example, it'd definitely be able to sweep Bertha clean... if it didn't get KO'd by Wood Hammer's recoil first. This is also why I keep Fly instead of U-Turn on Raptor too, Brave Bird is awesome, but the recoil really is something you don't wanna deal with if the extra power isn't needed.

I don't like using switching moves in-game because most of the time it's not worth the time it takes. I think I grabbed the U-turn tm for Staraptor but never ended up finding a good opportunity to use it. It mainly came in handy for intimidating down Gallade and Garchomp, and closed out Cynthia with Brave Bird.

Even online, CC's drawback is real, it's a lot easier to get revenge killed by priority when you're at -1.

I mainly play ADV so I underestimated that bc I assumed you could switch out as needed since Pursuit is a non-issue on fighting types.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

I mainly play ADV so I underestimated that bc I assumed you could switch out as needed since Pursuit is a non-issue on fighting types.

I'm not exactly a great comp player, so anyone more experienced can chime in if they want to, but giving free momentum to your opps by needing to switch because your defenses are cooked isn't a great position to be in.

 

[Esserise]

Cynthia sees this, gauges Cyrus' plan, and his strength, and decides he isn't a threat. It feels like your whole final confrontation with Cyrus is like destiny, there is always something that would have come in Cyrus' way, something of the world that loves it and will stop at nothing to save it. What Cyrus needs to do is to see and be reminded of that love. And what better means to do that than have him be humiliated by the child who's intent on stopping him (also a good learning opportunity for the child). Cynthia is patient with Cyrus, asking him why he feels the way he does, and when he tells her, reveals how pathetic he is. And she says as much.

Were he really a threat, she would have taken him out there or the Distortion World. But that isn't necessary, and we, the child trainer, grow from the experience.

In all seriousness, I think that’s a pretty good read, and I’d even add to it that I think it’s actually rather shrewd for Cynthia to let you, a Trainer whom she clearly recognizes as capable, take on Cyrus first — by doing so, she makes herself, the strongest Trainer in Sinnoh, the last line of defense against a Cyrus whose team has been softened up. There is, after all, no reason why she can’t also battle him in the event that you lose.

The problem, I feel, is mainly with the presentation of the moment. There’s ways you could indicate that this is Cynthia’s plan, giving her a sort of sharp analytical portrayal that would be befitting of a Champion, but the actual sequence in the game just sort of… deflates. Cyrus goes on a rant, and if you even bother to take a moment to talk to Cynthia, she just protests that “That’s no justice at all!”, and then the game just stops as if sitting there saying, “… Well? It’s boss time; you’re gonna walk up and challenge him now, right?”

(I should note that any praise in this post only extends to Platinum, since in DP and BDSP, Cynthia isn’t involved in the climax at all, and is only marginally more excusable than Diantha by virtue of the fact that the Spear Pillar is more out-of-the-way than Geosenge Town, and that Cyrus didn’t publicly announce his plans over the airwaves like Lysandre did — though she definitely knew that Team Galactic were dangerous, given that they bombed a lake.)

 

[ant4456]

That's one thing that L:A was trying to return to, the sense of mystery.

Incoming rant about PLA's writing/ideas since I hate it:

I hate how PLA basically retcons what you believe to be a retcon. It basically tears at the seams of cognitive dissonance.

Where Pokemon games for literally decades have played behind the curtain of "The Pokemon we see in the wild are testing the player to see if they are strong enough to be caught", (canon btw), now we're chucking balls at Pokemon that are scared running away from us. Where Pokemon are both simultaneously supposed to be cute friends, but also have to be savages and bla bla bla.

PLA trying to reverse Pokemon understanding doesn't even make sense within its own game. You talk to NPCs in Jubilife and they talk about how other regions have Pokemon Battles, and yet battles in this region are just "whatever" despite 90% of the characters we see being immigrants anyways.

I think a lot of the mythology of PLA is really fucking boring. Before 2021, I had the idea for "what if the remakes of Gen 4 were based on Arceus instead", and Arceus was plot relevant and everything. Imagine my excitement when they announce a game called Legends Arceus.

I know exactly 0 fucking new shit about Arceus since the game's reveal. At best we get like, confirmation of something we've already inferred in lore communities for a long time, (Arceus itself is just 1 form of the deity, you didn't actually catch God), and I also don't really know anything more about the Creation Trio either, except new forms that don't really reveal anything special.

The moment where we're kicked out of the village should be interesting except I end up feeling zero payoff because the actual conclusion to the story is just mid.

Then you have the big twist which is Volo which yawn fuck nostalgia pandering. Fuck having two Cynthia clones in the same game. I found that shit so exhausting and cringe. Volo is somewhat interesting but I think he'd be significantly cooler if he was just a real original character rather than "how can we sneak the meme/nostalgia pick into being the final boss".

As for the rest of the writing in this game, I find it just annoying and boring. I hate the concept of ancestor characters in the way anime deals with it, always being the same fucking character but slightly different and with a slightly different name. Going through Jubilife/the game is just like "woah that's the character I already know who acts basically the same anyways" and I don't care. I want new ideas. I want a new cast of characters.

PLA is a game that I go between "Wow this is fire" and "Wow this shit's ass" and part of that is I think the storytelling/how it wants to tell this kind of game through its writing/atmosphere is fucking boring, dull, mundane pandery anime bullshit, while the gameplay also has the problem of "This is peak except I'm also basically just doing mobile game tasks for 30 hours"

 

[Basedwell]

Incoming rant about PLA's writing/ideas since I hate it:

I hate how PLA basically retcons what you believe to be a retcon. It basically tears at the seams of cognitive dissonance.

Where Pokemon games for literally decades have played behind the curtain of "The Pokemon we see in the wild are testing the player to see if they are strong enough to be caught", (canon btw), now we're chucking balls at Pokemon that are scared running away from us. Where Pokemon are both simultaneously supposed to be cute friends, but also have to be savages and bla bla bla.

I think it's possible that the relationship between Pokemon has shifted over time. I imagine petilil doesn't have to worry about a human getting scared and hitting them in the head with a large rock in contemporary times. You can also imagine it like smaller, more fearful Pokemon tend to shirk their natural duties.

And some of it was always in the game, some Pokemon Roar you away, Abra teleports, and Rattata has the ability Run Away.

PLA trying to reverse Pokemon understanding doesn't even make sense within its own game. You talk to NPCs in Jubilife and they talk about how other regions have Pokemon Battles, and yet battles in this region are just "whatever" despite 90% of the characters we see being immigrants anyways.

That's why they're immigrants. jk. but people vary from place to place as to level of achievement at a given time. Even in game different regions have different levels of tech.

I think a lot of the mythology of PLA is really fucking boring. Before 2021, I had the idea for "what if the remakes of Gen 4 were based on Arceus instead", and Arceus was plot relevant and everything. Imagine my excitement when they announce a game called Legends Arceus.

I know exactly 0 fucking new shit about Arceus since the game's reveal. At best we get like, confirmation of something we've already inferred in lore communities for a long time, (Arceus itself is just 1 form of the deity, you didn't actually catch God), and I also don't really know anything more about the Creation Trio either, except new forms that don't really reveal anything special.

Mystery >>> Payoff. I don't disagree tho. They were building up to Sinnoh being palkia and dialga the whole time and then it happens and you just accept it and it keeps going. I know it was more cinematic than the older games in a literal sense but I still wasn't impressed. I haven't got Arceus yet, but either way aside from the aesthetic the writing was wtv. It's hard to have any real mystery when mechanics have been fleshed out over 8 generations, and you directly show off every new Pokemon. And when the protagonist has to be the most important character at every single moment, you're even more limited.

and if anything they blundered the Creation Trio.

The moment where we're kicked out of the village should be interesting except I end up feeling zero payoff because the actual conclusion to the story is just mid.

I was immediately like "Oh so I'm just gonna have to forgive them for this, word." Something similar happened to me irl and while I'm able to separate that and the plot of a children's game, it felt weird. Like you're abandoning a child who's done nothing but smile and nod their head and do everything you ask of them to save you and your people (which you beyond benefit from politically). Abandoning without a crumb of evidence, pure fear. And then ofc you're supposed to forgive them because after saving them yet again, they welcome you back in.

Their leader makes you fight him for even that honor, of course. And it's justified because he screwed up before (the only thing that shows is that he has a history of displaying poor judgement!!!).

There is a story you can tell where such things happen, that show the cruelty of society in the Old Days before we had structure and peace that would allow us to pretend we are civilized beings. That story doesn't end where your relationship resumes just as it was beforehand with no implications of shifting power dynamics and the cost of betrayal.

I watched a Charles Dickens movie with my mom where the theme seemed to be Charles should forgive his abusive father who was shaking him down for money in the spirit of family and Christmas, and this read similarly, except instead of misplaced kindness, L:A's was done for thoughtless shock value.

Then you have the big twist which is Volo which yawn fuck nostalgia pandering. Fuck having two Cynthia clones in the same game. I found that shit so exhausting and cringe. Volo is somewhat interesting but I think he'd be significantly cooler if he was just a real original character rather than "how can we sneak the meme/nostalgia pick into being the final boss".

I JUST got to Volo's betrayal. I knew it was coming because I accidentally remembered the name through osmosis from skimming L:A posts. It was meh. Volo had no emotional connection beyond being nice and coming up progressively more and more in the story. I swear I was playing S/M and thought: this really reminds me of Hoodwinked. I forget how, but this was a straight up Hoodwinked twist. I've seen a lot of anime, but this was Hoodwinked through and through.

Also, in the fight, I get through him with a few Pokemon left. I see Giratina, assume I'm gonna capture it, and then bring its health down while intentionally trying not to KO it. I only have 1-2 turns left but figure i'll still catch it, I have God on my side here, I can feel it. Come to find out I ca't catch it, and then die when it has a sliver of health yet. I got so mad and tried again, but didn't make it through volo with enough Pokemon left.

See the thing is, I could beat it twice (which I think I need to) if I could choose which Pokemon I was starting with, or the fight against Volo was normal, or the game gave me any real reason to team build for a fight before now. See the thing about the Volo fight, is that It's like playing on Set mode with Arena trap turn 1. I can win every time, but when each new Pokemon coming in can get a hit in for free, I'm in a weird position where it's hard to come out with a team that can win against similar circumstances!!

As for the rest of the writing in this game, I find it just annoying and boring. I hate the concept of ancestor characters in the way anime deals with it, always being the same fucking character but slightly different and with a slightly different name. Going through Jubilife/the game is just like "woah that's the character I already know who acts basically the same anyways" and I don't care. I want new ideas. I want a new cast of characters.

I didn't quite see that. I liked most of the characters we met. I skimmed dialogue but I thought it was an improvement over most 3d games. Aside from Melli the characters all felt like they exceeded one dimensional bits. Calling the tribes names we're familiar with is embarrassing, but what are you gonna do.

PLA is a game that I go between "Wow this is fire" and "Wow this shit's ass" and part of that is I think the storytelling/how it wants to tell this kind of game through its writing/atmosphere is fucking boring, dull, mundane pandery anime bullshit, while the gameplay also has the problem of "This is peak except I'm also basically just doing mobile game tasks for 30 hours"

Agreed. Every day when I start playing it, I love it. Then, I'll get tired of getting chipped down by Pokemon half my level, wayyy more quickly than I think I should. Taking levels out of damage calcs may have been necessary to change the fighting system and make regions more challenging to come back to, but it can also make it feel like I'm not making any progress. A relevant thing to consider with level scaling that everyone wants. I'm not sure what the solution is there,

Similarly, going through areas where wild Pokemon are super agressive gets old after awhile. I understand I can use stuff to hide myself, but doing that repeatedly is annoying. It just gets old to constantly have to be 1-2 hits away from losing a ton of resources. And the few times I have, it's been because of that or a lack of fluidity in the HM pokemon. Like, flying seems like it could be better than a hang glider, and Sneasler is not fluid at all!!

I see what you're saying about the Mobile Game stuff. I downloaded Pokemon Go last October, and after 5 minutes on the app made an executive decision not to play it: there were like 5 different power systems and something was always telling me I leveled up or accomplised the goal, like a constant stream of dopamine from achieving little goals. It's bad when Duolingo does it and it's bad here. More forgivable in L:A but it does make me question myself.

That said, I love the game, and it's the best shot the 3d era has to crack my top 5 when I post my ranking of all Pokemon games in a month or so lol. i do like it a lot, and think it could be the future of Pokemon, and I'm excited for L:Z. I've only caught 1 shiny, and I can tell I'm on the cusp of catching another one.

I had a sobering realization the other day: if I see a shiny out in the wild, odds are it'll be from some shitty Pokemon like Geodude or Zubat, not an encounter that appears in one area of the map. With the outbreaks, it's feasible I could catch one from a rarer Pokemon just as easily. That's motivating me rn, I can't wait to catch one and post it on my IG.

 

[pokemon4eva]

Incoming rant about PLA's writing/ideas since I hate it:

I hate how PLA basically retcons what you believe to be a retcon. It basically tears at the seams of cognitive dissonance.

Where Pokemon games for literally decades have played behind the curtain of "The Pokemon we see in the wild are testing the player to see if they are strong enough to be caught", (canon btw), now we're chucking balls at Pokemon that are scared running away from us. Where Pokemon are both simultaneously supposed to be cute friends, but also have to be savages and bla bla bla.

PLA trying to reverse Pokemon understanding doesn't even make sense within its own game. You talk to NPCs in Jubilife and they talk about how other regions have Pokemon Battles, and yet battles in this region are just "whatever" despite 90% of the characters we see being immigrants anyways.

PLA isn't really contradicting anything when the Pokedex has been describing their behaviour of some species since the start, like Clefairy and Chansey being very timid, or Mankey/Primeape being very aggressive. Heck, Gold and Silver (and I think some mons in BW) had Pokemon that run away from you, like Teddiursa, Tangela, Delibird, etc.; so the Canalave Library thesis is that, a theory proposed to explain the behaviour of Pokemon, but is not absolute.

PLA using the "humans versus Pokemon" theme so little is a problem, though. It seems at the start and how the game was promoted in trailers that everyone in the village are wary about Pokemon, but you're quickly given sidequests to catch Pokemon for the villagers. They even offer you to take care of your caught mons in a ranch, they didn't commit to this premise whatsoever. Only when not-Rowan kicks you off the village due to paranoia kicking in, but it wasn't well executed.

 

[Yung Dramps]

PLA using the "humans versus Pokemon" theme so little is a problem, though. It seems at the start and how the game was promoted in trailers that everyone in the village are wary about Pokemon, but you're quickly given sidequests to catch Pokemon for the villagers.

-There are literally 3 meaningful, story-significant trainer battles in the entire game
-The recurring threat of the game are rampaging wild miniboss Pokemon
-The aforementioned sidequests are about the villagers slowly learning to trust Pokemon, they task you with these things because they don't yet know how to befriend Pokemon gud

I'm curious what you think needed to be done to make the theme more convincing because it already permeates the game design at the most fundamental levels

 

[pika pal]

I'm not exactly a great comp player, so anyone more experienced can chime in if they want to, but giving free momentum to your opps by needing to switch because your defenses are cooked isn't a great position to be in.

So in theory this would be a balancing aspect, but in practice the shortcoming is that Pursuit was most commonly ran on Proper Dark Types for a variety of reasons (Resist/Immune to the types they could "trap," more limited distribution for a while), with a few rare cases such as Aegislash or Metagross experimenting with it (and not being particularly strong if they didn't get the "switched" power).

Close Combat was relatively safe on Fighting Types since it was strong and reliable, and frequently employed to Wallbreak off STAB (usually not a massive loss losing the user if they got a key KO or 2). The main threat to a CC user is a revenge Kill, but before Gen 8 the main users were often reasonably fast for their tier such as Infernape or Terrakion with their 108 Speed over a then-benchmark of 100. This is also assuming the -1 made the difference in being KO'd or not given a lot of Fighters were pretty Glassy anyway.

CC's availability as a coverage move became a Homogenization problem when it was given to mons that had ways to circumvent this such as Priority (Scizor and Breloom) or for whom it was a straight upgrade over their existing option in something like Superpower (Tapu Bulu, Conkeldurr) or High Jump Kick (Blaziken, Scrafty). Practically every Pokemon that gets CC and runs any amount of Physical Prowess will consider it, because it's significantly less risky/debilitating than the alternatives of its power and in several cases they can exploit it better due to not being (pure) Fighting Types and thus having more tools to synergize with it.

tl;dr Close Combat's design made it strong but risky for a lot of Fighters, but the TM distribution gave it to things for whom many of those risks are mitigated/not applicable.

In all seriousness, I think that’s a pretty good read, and I’d even add to it that I think it’s actually rather shrewd for Cynthia to let you, a Trainer whom she clearly recognizes as capable, take on Cyrus first — by doing so, she makes herself, the strongest Trainer in Sinnoh, the last line of defense against a Cyrus whose team has been softened up. There is, after all, no reason why she can’t also battle him in the event that you lose.

The problem, I feel, is mainly with the presentation of the moment. There’s ways you could indicate that this is Cynthia’s plan, giving her a sort of sharp analytical portrayal that would be befitting of a Champion, but the actual sequence in the game just sort of… deflates. Cyrus goes on a rant, and if you even bother to take a moment to talk to Cynthia, she just protests that “That’s no justice at all!”, and then the game just stops as if sitting there saying, “… Well? It’s boss time; you’re gonna walk up and challenge him now, right?”

(I should note that any praise in this post only extends to Platinum, since in DP and BDSP, Cynthia isn’t involved in the climax at all, and is only marginally more excusable than Diantha by virtue of the fact that the Spear Pillar is more out-of-the-way than Geosenge Town, and that Cyrus didn’t publicly announce his plans over the airwaves like Lysandre did — though she definitely knew that Team Galactic were dangerous, given that they bombed a lake.)

I think the simplest explanation would have been an acknowledgement like Cyrus explicitly wanting to battle you for challenging him at every turn, not even acknowledging Cynthia; it's not "Cyrus is doing something and you have to stop him" like in DP, rather make it "Cyrus's plan is ruined and he's taking it out on you," especially since in this case Giratina was the wrench in his endgame but you're the only thing he can take it out on, so to speak. Some manga depictions sort of takes an approach like this, like Cyrus actually defeating Cynthia at Galactic HQ in Adventures, or DP Adventure having Cyrus not simply removing but trying to defeat the Protagonist since they're antithetical to his whole philosophy (actively making a point to wait for and Battle him with the Red Chained Pokemon rather than initiate the scheme immediately as they appear as in the game), which also feeds into my ongoing impression that the games were basically used as a "first draft" for the other adaptions rather than trying to stand on their own right before Gen 7 (XY and Delta Episode also being massive expansions).

Perhaps also some lip service to the idea that Cynthia trusts you to face Cyrus and it's "your" battle, while also wanting to be ready if Giratina comes back. A couple one-liners would be all it takes to iron out the scenario.

 

[ant4456]

PLA isn't really contradicting anything when the Pokedex has been describing their behaviour of some species since the start, like Clefairy and Chansey being very timid, or Mankey/Primeape being very aggressive. Heck, Gold and Silver (and I think some mons in BW) had Pokemon that run away from you, like Teddiursa, Tangela, Delibird, etc.; so the Canalave Library thesis is that, a theory proposed to explain the behaviour of Pokemon, but is not absolute.

PLA using the "humans versus Pokemon" theme so little is a problem, though. It seems at the start and how the game was promoted in trailers that everyone in the village are wary about Pokemon, but you're quickly given sidequests to catch Pokemon for the villagers. They even offer you to take care of your caught mons in a ranch, they didn't commit to this premise whatsoever. Only when not-Rowan kicks you off the village due to paranoia kicking in, but it wasn't well executed.

Pokemon has always had cognitive dissonance in this way because the original creator, Satoshi Tajiri, was not actually all about this.

I mean we have the whipping Trainer sprites and the Safari Zone where we throw rocks at Pokemon. But putting all of this into a 3D space and having them actually do it removes a lot of the game-y-ness and at times I'm like "wow this feels bad" lol.

When I walk up to like 3 small Pokemon all running away and I throw rocks at them to catch them it feels a lot worse than getting popped up in wild grass, or touching a Pokemon and initiating a battle where I can catch one.

Besides, I feel like you can still see them running/teleporting away as a "test" of sorts, while in PLA a lot of these Pokemon give a ! and then hurriedly try to run away, practically helpless lol.

I mean, I'm not here saying PLA is like evil or something, but I just felt like this game had some of that "What if Pokemon was realistic vibes" which I even saw people praise it for when it was new, with that alongside the "woah Pokemon attack humans edgy" shtick. The game wants to have its cake and eat it too IMO, because the game still has plenty of "wow self-insert you're sooo cool and your Pokemon love youuuu I wish me and my Pikachu had a bond like that" meanwhile I threw rocks at this guy like 20 times

I don't think this really makes the game "worse" but it does bother me lol

I think it's possible that the relationship between Pokemon has shifted over time. I imagine petilil doesn't have to worry about a human getting scared and hitting them in the head with a large rock in contemporary times. You can also imagine it like smaller, more fearful Pokemon tend to shirk their natural duties.

And some of it was always in the game, some Pokemon Roar you away, Abra teleports, and Rattata has the ability Run Away.

That's why they're immigrants. jk. but people vary from place to place as to level of achievement at a given time. Even in game different regions have different levels of tech.

Mystery >>> Payoff. I don't disagree tho. They were building up to Sinnoh being palkia and dialga the whole time and then it happens and you just accept it and it keeps going. I know it was more cinematic than the older games in a literal sense but I still wasn't impressed. I haven't got Arceus yet, but either way aside from the aesthetic the writing was wtv. It's hard to have any real mystery when mechanics have been fleshed out over 8 generations, and you directly show off every new Pokemon. And when the protagonist has to be the most important character at every single moment, you're even more limited.

and if anything they blundered the Creation Trio.


I was immediately like "Oh so I'm just gonna have to forgive them for this, word." Something similar happened to me irl and while I'm able to separate that and the plot of a children's game, it felt weird. Like you're abandoning a child who's done nothing but smile and nod their head and do everything you ask of them to save you and your people (which you beyond benefit from politically). Abandoning without a crumb of evidence, pure fear. And then ofc you're supposed to forgive them because after saving them yet again, they welcome you back in.

Their leader makes you fight him for even that honor, of course. And it's justified because he screwed up before (the only thing that shows is that he has a history of displaying poor judgement!!!).

There is a story you can tell where such things happen, that show the cruelty of society in the Old Days before we had structure and peace that would allow us to pretend we are civilized beings. That story doesn't end where your relationship resumes just as it was beforehand with no implications of shifting power dynamics and the cost of betrayal.

I watched a Charles Dickens movie with my mom where the theme seemed to be Charles should forgive his abusive father who was shaking him down for money in the spirit of family and Christmas, and this read similarly, except instead of misplaced kindness, L:A's was done for thoughtless shock value.

I JUST got to Volo's betrayal. I knew it was coming because I accidentally remembered the name through osmosis from skimming L:A posts. It was meh. Volo had no emotional connection beyond being nice and coming up progressively more and more in the story. I swear I was playing S/M and thought: this really reminds me of Hoodwinked. I forget how, but this was a straight up Hoodwinked twist. I've seen a lot of anime, but this was Hoodwinked through and through.

Also, in the fight, I get through him with a few Pokemon left. I see Giratina, assume I'm gonna capture it, and then bring its health down while intentionally trying not to KO it. I only have 1-2 turns left but figure i'll still catch it, I have God on my side here, I can feel it. Come to find out I ca't catch it, and then die when it has a sliver of health yet. I got so mad and tried again, but didn't make it through volo with enough Pokemon left.

See the thing is, I could beat it twice (which I think I need to) if I could choose which Pokemon I was starting with, or the fight against Volo was normal, or the game gave me any real reason to team build for a fight before now. See the thing about the Volo fight, is that It's like playing on Set mode with Arena trap turn 1. I can win every time, but when each new Pokemon coming in can get a hit in for free, I'm in a weird position where it's hard to come out with a team that can win against similar circumstances!!

I didn't quite see that. I liked most of the characters we met. I skimmed dialogue but I thought it was an improvement over most 3d games. Aside from Melli the characters all felt like they exceeded one dimensional bits. Calling the tribes names we're familiar with is embarrassing, but what are you gonna do.

Agreed. Every day when I start playing it, I love it. Then, I'll get tired of getting chipped down by Pokemon half my level, wayyy more quickly than I think I should. Taking levels out of damage calcs may have been necessary to change the fighting system and make regions more challenging to come back to, but it can also make it feel like I'm not making any progress. A relevant thing to consider with level scaling that everyone wants. I'm not sure what the solution is there,

Similarly, going through areas where wild Pokemon are super agressive gets old after awhile. I understand I can use stuff to hide myself, but doing that repeatedly is annoying. It just gets old to constantly have to be 1-2 hits away from losing a ton of resources. And the few times I have, it's been because of that or a lack of fluidity in the HM pokemon. Like, flying seems like it could be better than a hang glider, and Sneasler is not fluid at all!!

I see what you're saying about the Mobile Game stuff. I downloaded Pokemon Go last October, and after 5 minutes on the app made an executive decision not to play it: there were like 5 different power systems and something was always telling me I leveled up or accomplised the goal, like a constant stream of dopamine from achieving little goals. It's bad when Duolingo does it and it's bad here. More forgivable in L:A but it does make me question myself.

That said, I love the game, and it's the best shot the 3d era has to crack my top 5 when I post my ranking of all Pokemon games in a month or so lol. i do like it a lot, and think it could be the future of Pokemon, and I'm excited for L:Z. I've only caught 1 shiny, and I can tell I'm on the cusp of catching another one.

I had a sobering realization the other day: if I see a shiny out in the wild, odds are it'll be from some shitty Pokemon like Geodude or Zubat, not an encounter that appears in one area of the map. With the outbreaks, it's feasible I could catch one from a rarer Pokemon just as easily. That's motivating me rn, I can't wait to catch one and post it on my IG.

I read this post and I agree with a lot btw, though I think if you haven't engaged much with a lot of the convo around the game and just aren't super well-acquainted with deeper bits of the series I can see why you wouldn't agree on the characters.

But essentially almost every character in the game is an "ancestor" to some character from the prior entries, not even really just limited to Sinnoh. And honestly one thing I've always said to myself is that it's kinda silly that so many characters have their roots in Hisui, it feels like this artificially makes Hisui wayyy more important to Pokemon history than any other region.

Like this:

You mean to fucking tell me that Alder's family came from Hisui?

Why

Like that just doesn't make sense. I mean it can technically be true! But they do this kind of thing like 20 times and I think it kinda cheapens the series a bit.

Wulfric from Kalos, Clay from Unova, Wally from Hoenn, Laventon is Leon/Hop Galar, Irida has been speculated to be May, Karen Johto, and probably a few more.

Some of these are from regions that are close to Sinnoh/Hisui anyways so I don't quite mind as much, Karen/Wally/Irida, but I think the other three are just. Why lol.

Part of why I don't like this is also just, again, I hate this anime trope. As for the characters on their own merits, I find them to be weak. My gold standard is still Alola where the characters have actual arcs, they seem to exist for more than just to serve the player plot, and they have relationships with each other that effect how they act. To me the closest three is Adaman/Irida and Kamado, but ehhhhh. It's just not very important to the game imo. And that's fine but I still don't like it for that

Especially when they like. Talk a lot. Replaying this game is hard because the first like 2 hours of the game is just non-stop yapping from people I don't really care about

 

[pokemon4eva]

-There are literally 3 meaningful, story-significant trainer battles in the entire game
-The recurring threat of the game are rampaging wild miniboss Pokemon
-The aforementioned sidequests are about the villagers slowly learning to trust Pokemon, they task you with these things because they don't yet know how to befriend Pokemon gud

I'm curious what you think needed to be done to make the theme more convincing because it already permeates the game design at the most fundamental levels

The thing is that it happens way too quickly to feel impactful. All I described happens already at the start of the game, and I feel it would be more impactful if the process of gaining trust would've been more gradual. We never really see anyone in the village outright rejecting Pokemon as a whole despite the frenzied Nobles, in fact, you see the Galaxy Team working together with Pokemon since the start (e.g. Abra), like how things should be in the Pokemon world. That said, I'll try to replay this game sometime soon, before the inevitable ZA trailer this Pokemon Day, and see if I'm forgetting sth crucial.

 

[Yung Dramps]

The thing is that it happens way too quickly to feel impactful. All I described happens already at the start of the game, and I feel it would be more impactful if the process of gaining trust would've been more gradual. We never really see anyone in the village outright rejecting Pokemon as a whole despite the frenzied Nobles, in fact, you see the Galaxy Team working together with Pokemon since the start (e.g. Abra), like how things should be in the Pokemon world. That said, I'll try to replay this game sometime soon, before the inevitable ZA trailer this Pokemon Day, and see if I'm forgetting sth crucial.

Again, the Galaxy Team and the Clans alike mostly only use Pokemon at a very basic level, namely first or maybe second-stage helpers, with a large portion of citizens not having any Pokemon at all. Before the Origin Palkia/Dialga encounter you never fight anyone with a team bigger than 4. It's only after that point you begin to see anything resembling the more fleshed-out rosters of modern Pokemon trainers on a consistent basis. You fight a team of 6 two times: One of those instances is against a fellow time traveler and the other is The Obligatory Cynthia Fanservice Power Hour.

Could this conflict have been a more consistent throughline of the narrative? Maybe. But when you get right down to it videogames are a visual medium: You could have hired [insert your favorite prestige author here] as chief dialogue writer and no words they could've put in the textboxes of a game for children would've been able to sell "Pokemon are terrifying creatures" better than a Garchomp with glowing red eyes trying to maul you or the roar of a colossal Avalugg with glaives on its face

Wulfric from Kalos, Clay from Unova, Wally from Hoenn, Laventon is Leon/Hop Galar, Irida has been speculated to be May, Karen Johto, and probably a few more.

I respect your broader point but two little addendums:

-Laventon and Irida are not ancestors lol, this game and Indigo Disk show that when they wanna make a relative to a pre-existing character they beat you over the head with it ("SO THERE'S THIS GIRL WHOSE NAME IS AN ANAGRAM OF CLAY AND HER ACE IS EXCADRILL AND HER AREA'S THEME HAS A DRIFTVEIL MOTIF AND SHE SAYS SHE'S THE DAUGHTER OF A UNOVA GYM LEADER AND-")
-Iscan is actually likely an homage to an interview tidbit about Clay being a Japanese immigrant

 

[ant4456]

-Laventon and Irida are not ancestors lol,

Bulbapedia says Laventon is the ancestor of Hop and Leon

-Iscan is actually likely an homage to an interview tidbit about Clay being a Japanese immigrant

This is cool actually

 

[Yung Dramps]

Bulbapedia says Laventon is the ancestor of Hop and Leon

Where? All the Trivia section on his article talks about is the hints that he's from Galar, which isn't the same thing as being a direct Hop/Leon relative

 

[Basedwell]

In all seriousness, I think that’s a pretty good read, and I’d even add to it that I think it’s actually rather shrewd for Cynthia to let you, a Trainer whom she clearly recognizes as capable, take on Cyrus first — by doing so, she makes herself, the strongest Trainer in Sinnoh, the last line of defense against a Cyrus whose team has been softened up. There is, after all, no reason why she can’t also battle him in the event that you lose.

that's an interesting point I hadn't considered directly

The problem, I feel, is mainly with the presentation of the moment. There’s ways you could indicate that this is Cynthia’s plan, giving her a sort of sharp analytical portrayal that would be befitting of a Champion, but the actual sequence in the game just sort of… deflates. Cyrus goes on a rant, and if you even bother to take a moment to talk to Cynthia, she just protests that “That’s no justice at all!”, and then the game just stops as if sitting there saying, “… Well? It’s boss time; you’re gonna walk up and challenge him now, right?”

(I should note that any praise in this post only extends to Platinum, since in DP and BDSP, Cynthia isn’t involved in the climax at all, and is only marginally more excusable than Diantha by virtue of the fact that the Spear Pillar is more out-of-the-way than Geosenge Town, and that Cyrus didn’t publicly announce his plans over the airwaves like Lysandre did — though she definitely knew that Team Galactic were dangerous, given that they bombed a lake.)

To a certain point, I think you have to suspend belief at the particulars. NPC dialogue doesn't change as you progress through the game, when you repeat fights you originally lose there is no acknowledgement of it, and these two occasionally combine for boss fights where Koga will be talking shit about how it's not over yet to your +6 Gyarados who one-shotted his last 3 Pokemon.

In a region where every single student has been sent out to explore, no one discovers the really monstrous Pokemon wandering around, and in a region where there should be multiple champion level trainers, you only run into the one that happens to be your rival. Not only that, but in a region where Pokemon battling is such a normal activity, it's obscene that people don't use easy-to-find battle items or any semblance of a strategy. Even things like "Switching out" are beyond them.

The whole Area Zero thing flies under the radar too as far as I remember.

I think some of it can be filled in with your imagination, I have an idea for a Johto challenge run where I make it a plot device that Lance was in league with Team Rocket and you kept catching him at inopportune moments where he was forced to act a hero.

I do think Post Gen 4 they've made a more concerted effort to make the games feel realistic, and it hasn't been to their benefit. Even in Gen 5, it felt like they were constantly pulling up the football at the last second of a good boss fight with your enemies, and it does make the 7 Sages cooler but it also is dissatisfying. Similarly it was more fun to fight low-stakes mobsters than have a more realistic enemy of "sympathetic bullies" imo

I read this post and I agree with a lot btw, though I think if you haven't engaged much with a lot of the convo around the game and just aren't super well-acquainted with deeper bits of the series I can see why you wouldn't agree on the characters.

But essentially almost every character in the game is an "ancestor" to some character from the prior entries, not even really just limited to Sinnoh. And honestly one thing I've always said to myself is that it's kinda silly that so many characters have their roots in Hisui, it feels like this artificially makes Hisui wayyy more important to Pokemon history than any other region.

Like this:View attachment 713032

You mean to fucking tell me that Alder's family came from Hisui?

Why

Like that just doesn't make sense. I mean it can technically be true! But they do this kind of thing like 20 times and I think it kinda cheapens the series a bit.

Wulfric from Kalos, Clay from Unova, Wally from Hoenn, Laventon is Leon/Hop Galar, Irida has been speculated to be May, Karen Johto, and probably a few more.

Some of these are from regions that are close to Sinnoh/Hisui anyways so I don't quite mind as much, Karen/Wally/Irida, but I think the other three are just. Why lol.

Part of why I don't like this is also just, again, I hate this anime trope. As for the characters on their own merits, I find them to be weak. My gold standard is still Alola where the characters have actual arcs, they seem to exist for more than just to serve the player plot, and they have relationships with each other that effect how they act. To me the closest three is Adaman/Irida and Kamado, but ehhhhh. It's just not very important to the game imo. And that's fine but I still don't like it for that

Especially when they like. Talk a lot. Replaying this game is hard because the first like 2 hours of the game is just non-stop yapping from people I don't really care about

Okay well that is just silly. I have mixed thoughts on canon discourse especially for something like Pokemon that is explicitly trying to sell a toy, ie why did Pokemon decide to add a Paradox Pokemon of a Pokemon that only recently appeared? Because the design is popular and they can make money repackaging it!! but something like that is lazy nostalgia bait. Not everything has to tie together and nor is it cool because it does. It borderlines on the weird bloodline science that anime engages with where some bloodlines are just genetically superior to others. The whole "team galaxy" thing was bad enough, I talked about how its like making a movie about colonizing America with the different groups of settlers called Republicans and Democrats lol.

 

[ant4456]

Where? All the Trivia section on his article talks about is the hints that he's from Galar, which isn't the same thing as being a direct Hop/Leon relative

Oh sorry IDK why but Google SEO decided to just link a user's page on Bulbapedia, and I just thought it was an actual article lol

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/User:Force_Fire/List_of_ancestors

My bad on that, but I also do still think Laventon is related probably

Hop is implied to become a Professor at the end of SWSH. I think this is the biggest tie-in. Meta-contextually SWSH was the last game (BDSP is fake) and I think that just makes it easier.

Now for some stretches: This is probably debatable/maybe even just wrong, I think Laventon's hair color we see in the concept art is a very similar color to what is Leon's likely actual hair color (facial hair, compared to what looks probably dyed)

Next, if you make an even bigger leap/stretch, I think Laventon's hat fits into a motif between the three with puffy material stylized a similar way:

Now that one is just cope so feel free to 100% ignore it lol

Okay by the way I just realized Sugimori art for humans looks really fucking wonky nowadays what the fuck happened

 

[Basedwell]

Okay by the way I just realized Sugimori art for humans looks really fucking wonky nowadays what the fuck happened

Am I crazy or did a sizable chunk of S/V characters look like someone was screwing around on the Character creation page? Like how Miis used to look in Wii Sports Resort.

 

[ant4456]

Am I crazy or did a sizable chunk of S/V characters look like someone was screwing around on the Character creation page? Like how Miis used to look in Wii Sports Resort.

When I looked at Hop I realized his arms and pose is wild lol

 

[Esserise]

what is Leon's likely actual hair color (facial hair, compared to what looks probably dyed)

So, I’m only “um actually”ing you here because I think the sheer fact that I can even “um actually” about this is hilarious, but, um, actually, his hair is not, in fact, dyed:

 

[DaRotomMachine]

Where did close combat hate come from?

 

[Jungle cruiser]

Where did close combat hate come from?

Mostly how ubiquitous it's become distribution-wise (to the point getting it is not as unique anymore) and how it practically supplanted every other physical fighting type move in existence bar drain punch (well idk if that applies for everyone or if it's just me). That's just my perspective tho.

 

[ant4456]

So, I’m only “um actually”ing you here because I think the sheer fact that I can even “um actually” about this is hilarious, but, um, actually, his hair is not, in fact, dyed:

Nah you're so based for this, LOL

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

So in theory this would be a balancing aspect, but in practice the shortcoming is that Pursuit was most commonly ran on Proper Dark Types for a variety of reasons (Resist/Immune to the types they could "trap," more limited distribution for a while), with a few rare cases such as Aegislash or Metagross experimenting with it (and not being particularly strong if they didn't get the "switched" power).

Close Combat was relatively safe on Fighting Types since it was strong and reliable, and frequently employed to Wallbreak off STAB (usually not a massive loss losing the user if they got a key KO or 2). The main threat to a CC user is a revenge Kill, but before Gen 8 the main users were often reasonably fast for their tier such as Infernape or Terrakion with their 108 Speed over a then-benchmark of 100. This is also assuming the -1 made the difference in being KO'd or not given a lot of Fighters were pretty Glassy anyway.

CC's availability as a coverage move became a Homogenization problem when it was given to mons that had ways to circumvent this such as Priority (Scizor and Breloom) or for whom it was a straight upgrade over their existing option in something like Superpower (Tapu Bulu, Conkeldurr) or High Jump Kick (Blaziken, Scrafty). Practically every Pokemon that gets CC and runs any amount of Physical Prowess will consider it, because it's significantly less risky/debilitating than the alternatives of its power and in several cases they can exploit it better due to not being (pure) Fighting Types and thus having more tools to synergize with it.

tl;dr Close Combat's design made it strong but risky for a lot of Fighters, but the TM distribution gave it to things for whom many of those risks are mitigated/not applicable.

Exactly. At first, the balance of CC was like:

Scenario 1: Infernape punched through something with Close Combat. Now they got something with priority on the field. Do you keep Ape in at -1 and likely get clapped, or do you switch in something else and let your opponent get momentum?

Scenario 2: Hariyama yeeted something with Close Combat. Now they got an attacker on the field, and Yama's otherwise solid bulk is compromised because it's at -1, can it take a hit? Should it take a hit?

 

[Just A Shroom God]

Close Combat is a fine move imo. I think it's interestingly balanced- for a faster pokemon like infernape, you often have to be sure that you KO because at -1 you die to most attacks, sort of like gen 1 hyper beam, while slower pokemon have the downside of needing to take a hit before using it. It's not THAT strong- you won't be KOing neutral non-bulky targets (I'm thinking like support cinderace) with a non-stab close combat, and again, close combat is so much more reliant on getting that KO than a generic stab move like EQ. There's also the fact that fighting, while it does have a few key SE hits like dark and steel, is also far from a spammable type with resistances from ghost, fairy, flying, poison, and sometimes even bug. But you could say the same thing about Wellspring's Ivy Cudgel thudding into our many (6 OU proper and 8 at B or above on the viability rankings) dragons, and the difference in spammability is unreal- the point to make here is that when you use Close Combat, you basically are forced to switch out unless you are faster and can KO the next turn. So yeah, a balanced move, way more than that piece of shit Knock Off.

Also y'all are seriously exaggerating how many things get close combat, look at it versus earthquake knock off u-turn on showdown and you'll see the difference.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Close Combat is a fine move imo. I think it's interestingly balanced- for a faster pokemon like infernape, you often have to be sure that you KO because at -1 you die to most attacks, sort of like gen 1 hyper beam, while slower pokemon have the downside of needing to take a hit before using it. It's not THAT strong- you won't be KOing neutral non-bulky targets (I'm thinking like support cinderace) with a non-stab close combat, and again, close combat is so much more reliant on getting that KO than a generic stab move like EQ. There's also the fact that fighting, while it does have a few key SE hits like dark and steel, is also far from a spammable type with resistances from ghost, fairy, flying, poison, and sometimes even bug. But you could say the same thing about Wellspring's Ivy Cudgel thudding into our many (6 OU proper and 8 at B or above on the viability rankings) dragons, and the difference in spammability is unreal- the point to make here is that when you use Close Combat, you basically are forced to switch out unless you are faster and can KO the next turn. So yeah, a balanced move, way more than that piece of shit Knock Off.

Also y'all are seriously exaggerating how many things get close combat, look at it versus earthquake knock off u-turn on showdown and you'll see the difference.

Again, CC is a great move, ain't nothing wrong with it.

You could even make the case that Knock Off shouldn't be a TM either, that's the kind of thing I'm talking about. Certain moves just shouldn't be TMs.