Unpopular opinions

[Mex]

I personally also prefer HMs to ride mons simply because with HMs, it actually feels like i'm adventuring with my team using their skills to get past obstacles. With ride mons, it just felt like "hey there's gonna be an obstacle in your way, take this pokemon you have no connection to and you'll get past it". Same issue with BDSP where the usage is fulfilled by literal random wild pokemon that can use the move

HMs could have been implemented better, but for the sake of actually feeling immersed in the world they were easily my favorite way of doing it until Scarlet and Violet.

 

[S.A.C. Martin]

There isn't a single antagonist until you get to Area Zero.

Good! I am fed up of antagonists. I would rather have a Pokemon world that focused on the battling, the breeding and catching mechanics and generally just did a good job of exploring a huge open world.

I'm just having a hard time buying "best storylines and development" for a game in which the designated rival character insists on babying the player for literally the entire stretch of the game, and the villainous team is one of the most contrived executions of the awful "I just can't be bothered to talk to my friends to straighten out a misunderstanding" trope I've seen in recent memory.

I dunno that it was really “babying” but bear in mind, it’s not aimed at us old hats who’ve played and replayed the previous games to death.

Each one of the storylines and the fourth, final one, felt fresh and well worked to me. Having had dogs in my life growing up, the Herba Mystica/Titan storyline was phenomenal in writing and feel.

Could it have all been improved with good voice acting? Yes, a thousand times yes. I will be amazed if Gen 10 doesn’t take that forward.

 

[Just A Seaking]

the pokemon world felt more rewarding to go out ad explore in previous games with the hidden machines then it does now with riding pokemon

I actually agree in the case of Poke Ride, but Koraidon and Miraidon are implemented so seamlessly into the game that I have no idea where GF is going to go from them. They already mastered the perfect method of open world transportation on their first go. I have mixed opinions on SV overall, but Koraidon and Miraidon feel so good to control (especially when you get flight in Indigo Disk - eat your heart out, Braviary), their progression via the Herba Mystica is satisfying, and they even get their own good character arc in The Way Home. The main problem that I have with Poke Ride is that there isn't really a sense of progression as there is with HMs - you just rent a random 'mon to do it for you - but the 'dons avoid this.

I'm just having a hard time buying "best storylines and development" for a game in which the designated rival character insists on babying the player for literally the entire stretch of the game, and the villainous team is one of the most contrived executions of the awful "I just can't be bothered to talk to my friends to straighten out a misunderstanding" trope I've seen in recent memory.

The problem that I actually have with The Way Home is that it's very much the end of Arven's story, alongside Koraidon/Miraidon, and Nemona and Penny are just kind of... there. Everyone does become friends by the end of it, and it leads nicely into the post-game stuff at the Academy which I enjoy, but as much as I like The Way Home overall I wish it had more to do for Nemona and Penny. Penny opens a few doors, Nemona gets to fight a few Paradox 'mons, but there isn't much material overall for either of them.

 

[pika pal]

I'm just having a hard time buying "best storylines and development" for a game in which the designated rival character insists on babying the player for literally the entire stretch of the game, and the villainous team is one of the most contrived executions of the awful "I just can't be bothered to talk to my friends to straighten out a misunderstanding" trope I've seen in recent memory.

So first and foremost, Team Star do by definition count as antagonists. They are opposed to and obstruct the player's objective which is to disband Team Star on Cassiopeia's behalf. Whether or not one considers Antagonist figures necessary to the plots, saying the game lacks them as if it's an objective, self-illustrating problem is patently false.

Also, did you read the dialogue? It's laid out that Penny-as-Cassiopeia did tell them to disband after she took the fall for the Bully confrontation and cover up, and They still chose not to despite her word. This isn't "I can't be bothered to talk to my friends" it's "I talked to my friends/subordinates and they didn't listen to me." More to the point, why is this contrived and awful in execution? The context is that this comes from someone they should be expected to listen to and did not, Penny herself is very bluntly depicted as being bad with people as a character flaw for her, and the stakes themselves are small scale enough (students being expelled from a school) that you can't exactly call it an emergency or irresponsible to not press the matter before handling it internally.

 

[Bakugames]

idk why there being antagonists in a pokemon game would matter bc almost every single antagonist we've had in these games is "one note rival that exists to be a roadblock" or "one note evil team that exists to be a roadblock". you actively have to treat them as just some guys because theres no value they bring to the games if you try to analyze this game

 

[Yung Dramps]

Yknow from time to time I've seen suggestions for another wholly Doubles-centric Pokemon game like Orre but recently I've been thinking that a really fascinating spin on this would be having the rival equivalents and other notable characters constantly accompanying you for multi battles like a traditional JRPG party. Maybe you can make choices throughout the game that affect the NPC partners' Pokemon selection and strategy which you can build around in turn: for example, maybe one your rivals is a Charcadet user trying to become a Gym Leader and you eventually get to choose which type they specialize in between Ghost, Psychic and a third option with an accompanying new Charcadet evo.

If this series wants to keep expanding its storytelling potential and get people more and more attached to the human characters an idea like this seems very much worth exploring even if in a more limited capacity

 

[Hugin]

Yknow from time to time I've seen suggestions for another wholly Doubles-centric Pokemon game like Orre but recently I've been thinking that a really fascinating spin on this would be having the rival equivalents and other notable characters constantly accompanying you for multi battles like a traditional JRPG party. Maybe you can make choices throughout the game that affect the NPC partners' Pokemon selection and strategy which you can build around in turn: for example, maybe one your rivals is a Charcadet user trying to become a Gym Leader and you eventually get to choose which type they specialize in between Ghost, Psychic and a third option with an accompanying new Charcadet evo.

If this series wants to keep expanding its storytelling potential and get people more and more attached to the human characters an idea like this seems very much worth exploring even if in a more limited capacity

If it were up to me for a doubles game, that would be a significant part of it. Or rather, switching between traditional doubles, multibattles, and other alternate multi-mon modes. And then you could combo it with the Aggressive/Friendly rival structure they have currently to have one rival who is entirely about support moves and one who is all-out-offense, making the player adapt their team depending on which they're partnered with.

With the switching, you could keep different sections of the game from feeling repetitive, and even use which battle style you're in as a way of specifying which part of the story you're progressing. Meanwhile, the different rivals can work as a training method for the player on how different battle styles actually function.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

I do not see why this is an issue lmfao. Like, gen 7's "antagonists" are incredibly goofy and yet they are probably some of the best evil teams to date. Like sure, are antagonists in the Pokemon series cool? Yes. But half the time they do not matter for the story until the very end.

So nice, they had to do it thrice.

I'm ready for some actual antagonists again instead of this nonsense. They prompty ran the idea of Team Skull into the ground with Team Yell. Star isn't any better either.

Yknow from time to time I've seen suggestions for another wholly Doubles-centric Pokemon game like Orre but recently I've been thinking that a really fascinating spin on this would be having the rival equivalents and other notable characters constantly accompanying you for multi battles like a traditional JRPG party. Maybe you can make choices throughout the game that affect the NPC partners' Pokemon selection and strategy which you can build around in turn: for example, maybe one your rivals is a Charcadet user trying to become a Gym Leader and you eventually get to choose which type they specialize in between Ghost, Psychic and a third option with an accompanying new Charcadet evo.

If this series wants to keep expanding its storytelling potential and get people more and more attached to the human characters an idea like this seems very much worth exploring even if in a more limited capacity

Persona with mons would be fire ngl.

 

[Yung Dramps]

I'm ready for some actual antagonists again instead of this nonsense. They prompty ran the idea of Team Skull into the ground with Team Yell. Star isn't any better either.

See this is a funny statement because I also kinda agree thanks to Team Star, not because they suck but because in terms of battle-readiness they actually take a gigaton dump on basically every "serious" evil team other than maybe Plasma

Throw out levels and other game mechanics, think purely from an in-universe power perspective and it's no contest. We had a mafia and three different demented terrorist organizations and 99% of their ranks were worthless jobbers (in Magma/Aqua's case, 100%!) throwing the same half a dozen shitmons at you. Their higher-ups aren't much better: Every admin not named Mars, Jupiter or Colress has the team compositions and charisma of paper mache.

And then Team Star swoops the fuck in and shows these absolute CHIMP CHUMPS who the real TOP BANANAS are. They may have not filled out a job application, but they filled out their grunts' arsenals with an immense variety of Pokemon collectively covering just about every type, many of which are fully evolved. Meanwhile their bosses get to ride in with personalized Revavroom tanks wielding signature moves they invented, and those are just the backup to their actual Pokemon teams which also roflstomp most of the bozo failed world reforgers that came before them.

If they were to make another attempt at serious villains that are this stacked that'd rock, but for now it's literally just this meme

"Saturn, status report... Did our forces defeat Cassiopeia?"

"Master Cyrus... That was the Navi Squad Star Barrage"

 

[Sixfortyfive]

So first and foremost, Team Star do by definition count as antagonists. They are opposed to and obstruct the player's objective which is to disband Team Star on Cassiopeia's behalf. Whether or not one considers Antagonist figures necessary to the plots, saying the game lacks them as if it's an objective, self-illustrating problem is patently false.

Not really.

This is where SV's open world structure lets it down just as much as its writing. Because the three questlines (Pokemon League, titans, Team Star) are completely separated--with the player allowed to tackle them in any order--this means that it's impossible for Team Star to have an impact upon the rest of the world in the ways that prior villains did. Team Star doesn't do anything like the Silph Co takeover or the Spear Pillar climax because they literally can't. The game is simply not structured in a way that would allow for it. So, whereas previous villains got to present themselves as reoccurring roadblocks in a greater story, Team Star just kind of exists off to the side not interfering with anything that you do unless it directly involves them. This sticks out to me especially because I did happen to ignore Team Star until I basically had the rest of the other questlines taken care of, which really underscored how little they matter.

The stakes have never been lower.

Yknow from time to time I've seen suggestions for another wholly Doubles-centric Pokemon game like Orre but recently I've been thinking that a really fascinating spin on this would be having the rival equivalents and other notable characters constantly accompanying you for multi battles like a traditional JRPG party. Maybe you can make choices throughout the game that affect the NPC partners' Pokemon selection and strategy which you can build around in turn: for example, maybe one your rivals is a Charcadet user trying to become a Gym Leader and you eventually get to choose which type they specialize in between Ghost, Psychic and a third option with an accompanying new Charcadet evo.

If this series wants to keep expanding its storytelling potential and get people more and more attached to the human characters an idea like this seems very much worth exploring even if in a more limited capacity

I feel like putting a ton of focus on multi battles would just be taking away control from the player for not much benefit. Kind of blunts the strategic appeal of double battles if you're constrained by your CPU partner's team selection and AI.

Like, this concept kinda sorta already exists in the Emerald Battle Frontier with the whole apprentice training bit, and in the grand scheme of things, it'd still be on the lower end of worthwhile activities even if it didn't take an eternity to "train up" all of the potential apprentices.

 

[S.A.C. Martin]

I feel like I could sum up some peoples’ problems with SV as “they strayed too far from the known formula” at this point.

Again, been here (in terms of fandom, not Smogon) since Red/Blue and we’ve never had a Pokemon game with three very clearly distinctly storylines, every other game has been at best maybe two overlapping stories that focus on the “evil team/big bad” and the gym campaign (see also: totems).

SV’s three concurrent storylines are designed to make you take everything at your own pace, Team Star especially. It’s not fully and exhaustively optional, but you can pick it up when you want in relation to the rest of the game.

It’s the difference between a more rigid structure for storyline and gameplay and a more relaxed one.

Now, the point Sixfortyfive makes about the urgency (stakes) of it all has merit, for sure, but I think that’s deliberate: I wonder if we’d be saying Game Freak had made the game too rigid if Team Star had portions of the game where you had to physically drop everything you were doing and go sort them out (ala Silph Co - you physically cannot continue Red/Blue without completing Silph Co and that was always a big roadblock - look at how speedrunners deal with it online).

***

Re multiple battles - in the last two months I played Colosseum and XD (currently trying to figure out a team for the Ho-oh Mt Battle challenge) and I’d welcome a double battles only game. I thoroughly enjoyed my play though back in the Orre region. I will say this though, it was much harder than I remember it being, overall.

 

[Bakugames]

tbf i dont think a mainline doubles game would be anywhere as hard as orre, since orre has the double whammy of dogshit pokemon availability with awful power scaling and cheese strats you have to fight against

 

[Ironmage]

tbf i dont think a mainline doubles game would be anywhere as hard as orre, since orre has the double whammy of dogshit pokemon availability with awful power scaling and cheese strats you have to fight against

The bad availability and strange level curve I'll accept, but stuff like Dakim's Earthquake/Protect, Ein's Rain/Lightningrod, and Evice's Skill Swap/Slaking are why you might choose doubles when putting an emphasis on the battle mechanics.

 

[Bakugames]

The bad availability and strange level curve I'll accept, but stuff like Dakim's Earthquake/Protect, Ein's Rain/Lightningrod, and Evice's Skill Swap/Slaking are why you might choose doubles when putting an emphasis on the battle mechanics.

i dont have an issue w doubles games using doubles strategies, its just that the game ramps up on how effective they can use those while giving you very mediocre options yourself

 

[Sixfortyfive]

I feel like I could sum up some peoples’ problems with SV as “they strayed too far from the known formula” at this point.

Again, been here (in terms of fandom, not Smogon) since Red/Blue and we’ve never had a Pokemon game with three very clearly distinctly storylines, every other game has been at best maybe two overlapping stories that focus on the “evil team/big bad” and the gym campaign (see also: totems).

SV’s three concurrent storylines are designed to make you take everything at your own pace, Team Star especially. It’s not fully and exhaustively optional, but you can pick it up when you want in relation to the rest of the game.

It’s the difference between a more rigid structure for storyline and gameplay and a more relaxed one.

What are you talking about?

The main story/quest formula in SV is barely any different from RBY.

- Become the Pokemon League Champion.
- Defeat Team ___.
- Catch 'em all.

Area Zero is even kind of analogous to Cerulean Cave.

It's the same template. Again. Just assembled in a slightly different way, one in which each individual component has less impact on the others than ever before.

 

[Samtendo09]

What are you talking about?

The main story/quest components in SV are barely any different from RBY.

- Become the Pokemon League Champion.
- Defeat Team ___.
- Catch 'em all.

Area Zero is even kind of analogous to Cerulean Cave.

It's the same story. Again. Just assembled in a slightly different way, one in which each individual component has less impact on the others than ever before.

That’s not forgetting about the other components regarding new Pokémon lines like “late-game Ice-type” (lesser extent but still a big issue), Pseudo-Legendary Dragon since RSE, weak early-game Bug-type, fully evolved Starter trio with secondary type of either Fighting, Ghost, Fairy or Dark since XY (with exception of SwSh though not necessarily a good thing), or weak single-stage Pokémon that have no right to be obtained later than the early game.

 

[Karxrida]

What are you talking about?

The main story/quest formula in SV is barely any different from RBY.

- Become the Pokemon League Champion.
- Defeat Team ___.
- Catch 'em all.

Area Zero is even kind of analogous to Cerulean Cave.

It's the same template. Again. Just assembled in a slightly different way, one in which each individual component has less impact on the others than ever before.

The open world aspect of SV does change a lot about how you go about your objectives even if the template is still there on paper.

It's like saying BotW is similar to OoT when it's really not.

 

[S.A.C. Martin]

What are you talking about?

The main story/quest formula in SV is barely any different from RBY.

Please re-read my posts. I don’t believe I was arguing either way, only that the complaints could be summed up as straying too far from the formula. I wasn’t advancing a belief that SV is a huge leap from RBY, but I do think it’s a natural progression into a more modern take on the franchise.

It's the same template. Again. Just assembled in a slightly different way, one in which each individual component has less impact on the others than ever before.

Will agree to disagree, if that’s okay?

 

[Sixfortyfive]

The open world aspect of SV does change a lot about how you go about your objectives even if the template is still there on paper.

It's like saying BotW is similar to OoT when it's really not.

Again, not really. And what it does change arguably isn't for the better.

SV could have changed a lot about the flow of the quest for the player, had Game Freak gone to the trouble of, for example, scaling the levels and team compositions of your opponents based on how much overall progress you had made in the game up to that point. For example, giving the Bug gym leader a very low-leveled team if you fought against her 1st, but a much stronger team if for some reason you skipped around and completed other parts of the map before her. Or maybe even making unique events altogether for being in specific places at specific points of progression, to the point where you couldn't do all of them in any single playthrough.

But they didn't. All of the opponents are still static, so while you technically have the option to roam wherever you want, you can't really do whatever you want because you're still kinda railroaded into mostly staying on the intended progression path anyway. Like, it's not good enough to just allow the player to do things in a different order; there ought to be some kind of meaningful consequence for choosing to do certain things when you do them. Otherwise it's just kind of pointless to even have that option in the first place. As-is, all that this "freedom" really allows you to do is make the intended late-game material harder and the intended early-game material easier. And because each of the three questlines are siloed now, with no story events from any one of them being intertwined with either of the other two, it diminishes the impact of each of them on the game as a whole. It's an "open world" game where everything feels like a side quest instead of a cohesive adventure. The DLC arguably plays out better because it isn't shackled by that structure.

I'm probably coming off as if I hate SV or something, and I don't. But this is such a formulaic franchise that it sometimes feels like people will really oversell any kind of shake-up at all, even when it's superficial or half-baked in its implementation. Like, okay, I didn't hate that they at least tried something a bit different. B- or C+ for effort, but I'd be pretty irritated if gen 10 went back to this well without improving upon it a lot.

 

[Yung Dramps]

I've said this before and I'll say it again: The rosetta stone for understanding so many of this series' design choices over the years - especially a lot of the weird, controversial and flat-out unpopular ones - is realizing Game Freak fundamentally does not intend for these games to be replayed. Any and all continued engagement after beating the main story is meant to be some manner of PVP, functionally endless resource grinding mills like battle facilities and raids and building up your perpetually-growing collection via transfer software.

-Why was the handling of BW2's difficulty settings such byzantine nonsense? Because you're not actually meant to use them yourself, you're just supposed to trade them to other players for their own playthroughs, such as Easy Mode for your little sibling
-Why do some of these games have such sluggish, unskippable intros? Because they do not intend you to ever go through them again
-Why do they refuse to implement multiple save files and make deleting your current one essentially require a cheat code? Because given all of the above, they serve no purpose from the developers' perspective

If I'm right on this, then badge-based level scaling will never happen because that's a ton of extra design work for a feature where at least 50% of the appeal only kicks into gear on replays which, again, they do not want you to do. And yes, this is absolute horseshit for a JRPG series with hundreds of playable characters, but I'm just stating what I believe the facts to be, not what I want them to be.

 

[Karxrida]

-Why do some of these games have such sluggish, unskippable intros? Because they do not intend you to ever go through them again
-Why do they refuse to implement multiple save files and make deleting your current one essentially require a cheat code? Because given all of the above, they serve no purpose from the developers' perspective

I legitimately think these two specifically are at least in part the result of some bizarre mindset where the games have to be childproofed for complete morons. This naturally comes at the cost of basic QoL, even though the nonissue of "what if some idiot kid accidentally skips a cutscene" has been solved by the industry for about two decades with multiple potential safety nets (require confirmation that you want to skip, provide a text log of the cutscene's dialogue, etc.) that don't actively interfere with people who want to speed through stuff. The fact that the save file delete one has a tangible benefit (stopping a younger sibling from overwriting your file, which has happend to me at least once) seems to be a complete accident tbh.

The lack of multiple save files in particular can easily be explained by greed, though; good way to push someone into buying both versions of a game. At least the Switch and Switch 2 have built in ways to bypass it now.

 

[AztecCroc]

The lack of multiple save files in particular can easily be explained by greed,

You do comprehend that game cartridges have limited space for save data right? And that Pokémon saves are a lot bigger than most?

Some examples and comparisons:
The Gen 3 games have 128kb saves, all three save files for FF6 Advance total out to 64kb, same for either of the GBA Fire Emblems 64kb for all three combined. GBA Yugioh games? Only one save file which is 64kb or less.

DS Era games? 513kb (both Gens 4 and 5 are the same). Now for comparison:

• Fossil Fighters 1: 2 save files that take a combined 257kb.
• FFC: 2 save files that take a combined 513kb.
• Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon: 3 saves in 257kb.
• Dragon Quest 9: 1 save file at 65kb.

I don't have a bunch of 3ds save files on hand but I'm pretty sure the results are similar. Pokémon is a big RPG where you can collect hundreds of extremely customizable characters with basically none of the save file optimizations available to other RPGs and game cartridges only come in predefined save file capacities, with Pokémon always needing the largest available for just a single file.

 

[Heatranator]

You do comprehend that game cartridges have limited space for save data right? And that Pokémon saves are a lot bigger than most?

Some examples and comparisons:
The Gen 3 games have 128kb saves, all three save files for FF6 Advance total out to 64kb, same for either of the GBA Fire Emblems 64kb for all three combined. GBA Yugioh games? Only one save file which is 64kb or less.

DS Era games? 513kb (both Gens 4 and 5 are the same). Now for comparison:

• Fossil Fighters 1: 2 save files that take a combined 257kb.
• FFC: 2 save files that take a combined 513kb.
• Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon: 3 saves in 257kb.
• Dragon Quest 9: 1 save file at 65kb.

I don't have a bunch of 3ds save files on hand but I'm pretty sure the results are similar. Pokémon is a big RPG where you can collect hundreds of extremely customizable characters with basically none of the save file optimizations available to other RPGs and game cartridges only come in predefined save file capacities, with Pokémon always needing the largest available for just a single file.

Well, sure, maybe in the ds days and before. Now though? Not really.

I did a brief amount of research, and X-Y had a game size 1.7GB. The average 3ds game had between 1-4GB. ORAS also had 1.8GB.
Sun and Moon are 3GB, with USUM at 3.4GB.

Sword and Shield are 12.4GB and Scarlet and Violet at 6.8GB. 5-15GB is the size of normal switch devices, with some going up to 20GB.

Multiple saves can be possible, I even believe on some of the 3DS ones you can do temporary saves that ofc, don't save, but you can still play the normal story (I remember doing something like that, but cannot check due to my 3ds being uh, dead).
And this is coming off the fact that Pokemon games are sometimes unoptomised (I mean, look at the size of Sword and Shield compared to SV, that should show that you can definetely optomise them further).

In this day and age, even if you say, double the sizes of them (this is generous btw, probably 50% bigger would be better), only SM/USUM and Sword/Shield would be unable to have multiple save files.
Pokemon just doesn't want to do it, they aren't bigger in this day and age, they are normal sized.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

-Why do they refuse to implement multiple save files and make deleting your current one essentially require a cheat code? Because given all of the above, they serve no purpose from the developers' perspective

I legitimately think these two specifically are at least in part the result of some bizarre mindset where the games have to be childproofed for complete morons. This naturally comes at the cost of basic QoL, even though the nonissue of "what if some idiot kid accidentally skips a cutscene" has been solved by the industry for about two decades with multiple potential safety nets (require confirmation that you want to skip, provide a text log of the cutscene's dialogue, etc.) that don't actively interfere with people who want to speed through stuff. The fact that the save file delete one has a tangible benefit (stopping a younger sibling from overwriting your file, which has happend to me at least once) seems to be a complete accident tbh.

Yeah as someone who has had their save file overwritten by another kid before (I can't remember who it was that had "I fear nothing but save deletion" in their sig but honestly, the realest thing ever) I would much rather live in the world where deleting a save file takes additional steps and effort, regardless of how inconvenient some people might find it.

But I do agree with Dramps' take that GF don't seem to have replayability in mind as a core concept, which is frankly nuts in a series with so many options and where one-or-the-other choices are so frequent. But the obvious rebuttal to that (from GF's point of view) is "just trade for the other one!" which... sure, you can do that too.

Which is completely antithetical to the way I play because I generally consider my first save file on any game to be my "practice run"; it's inevitably the one where I'll fuck some stuff up. That's less of an issue as the series has progressed and it's harder to permanently fuck up (the first time I played Crystal I knocked out both Suicune and Raikou) but all the same, it's a mindset that's persisted.

 

[Worldie]

But I do agree with Dramps' take that GF don't seem to have replayability in mind as a core concept, which is frankly nuts in a series with so many options and where one-or-the-other choices are so frequent. But the obvious rebuttal to that (from GF's point of view) is "just trade for the other one!" which... sure, you can do that too.

The counterpoint to this will always be: You forget who the target demographic is.

The target demographic is *kids*. Most kids don't replay the games. They play the story and put them away to move to the next thing.

The adults who buy the game are a "extra", it's a playerbase they know will buy the game regardless (mainly for PvP or completionism) and don't require extra investment to maintain.
Even among the adults who play the game, the slice that actually *replay* the game is insanely small. This is the same issue with battle facilities, it's development time dedicated to a slice of playerbase so small that it was the first thing to be cut once GF started running out of time to develop the games per time.

So based off this assumption (which I believe is perfectly reasonable), it suddently becomes logical to not care for "making replayability comfier".

(And as usual, don't think that me understanding *why* they do it means I approve it. Incidentally, the terribly lenghty unskippable intro is why I never bothered learning the SV speedruns despite them being imo one of the funnier run of the series after L.A.'s: you have to sit through an hour of tutorial until the school sequence is done and you actually can play the game. It's half of that with Switch 2, but still, 30 mins of literally nothing but mashing through text every time you want to start a run isn't very interesting.)