Unpopular opinions

Bakugames said:
i dont care for bdsp and never played it and i find it a Worthless Product in the franchise, but my point isnt that the games are good, its that we just cant take filtered bubble views on the generations as ways to define eras: bdsp Was successful whether its dogshit ass or mid or the best game ever, so it being part of any kind of era signified by death of hype seems silly to me.

as an example, i do not think many golden era disney movies are good. i find them mediocre products. doesnt meant they arent some behemoths of animation success
Click to expand...
Volt-Ikazuchi said:
Yeah, we agree on it.

And like we were saying it's all subjective, for example, that post you were replying to completely different from the usual take on what was the peak of the franchise.
Click to expand...
I feel like there isn’t one definitive “peak” or “lowest point” for this franchise since those terms are already very loosely opinionated. A lot of factors go into this- when the person grew up playing tends to be a major factor, and every game is going to offer different things that may or may not appeal to certain people. With a multimedia franchise this large and significant there’s just too many variables to keep in mind and too many different sides of a very large overall playerbase.

In fact, I’d argue there’s no one best or worst game on the Switch, either. If we’re just looking at Pokémon’s mainline offerings since 2018, it almost seems like the lineup is specifically designed for each game(s) to cater towards a different group of people: You want a more traditional style of remake? You’ve got Let’s Go and BDSP to pick from, even if they could have done more with both of those. You want something more unique than what we’ve gotten before? Legends is the game for you. New to the franchise? As much as I hate these games, Sword & Shield are pretty beginner friendly if you’re looking to play something that’s an introduction to what later games would become. Prefer open world games? Scarlet & Violet have more emphasis on story than a handful of other games and they run better on Switch 2 also. Things like this.

It leads to a situation where you’re unlikely to like every Switch game, but the odds are fairly high that you’ll enjoy at least one of them, as opposed to “I either love every game on this handheld or hate every game on this handheld with no in between”. Older fans tend to gravitate heavily towards an entire stsyem’s lineup if their top favorite was from that system, and the Switch games seem to have taken a different approach.
 
bdt2002 said:
Older fans tend to gravitate heavily towards an entire stsyem’s lineup if their top favorite was from that system, and the Switch games seem to have taken a different approach.
Click to expand...
Because the Switch games are wildly different from one another.

Gens 1-4 were pretty much constantly developing; they were building a foundation, so games on the same console were pretty similar.

Playing HGSS isn't as different from Platinum as SV was to BDSP. It makes sense that people view systems as the collective, especially since gens didn't really share consoles until the DS.
 
leafsaber47 said:
Why hasn't X-Scissor been buffed yet? Give it 90BP for crying out loud.
Click to expand...

A couple of generations ago, I would have agreed, but I think it's gotten enough of a buff becoming a slicing move. Bug coverage is pretty niche so it'll never be a very common move, but it's Kleavor's best STAB option when paired with Sharpness, and if anything with Sharpness in the future wants to run a Bug move, it'll probably be X-Scissor.
 
leafsaber47 said:
Why hasn't X-Scissor been buffed yet? Give it 90BP for crying out loud.
Click to expand...
I propose a different change- make this the Bug-Type version of Slash, Night Slash, and Leaf Blade (the Gen 3 version). I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten this move’s properties wrong, thinking it’s like those moves but it’s actually more like Seed Bomb if anything.
 
Adeleine said:
Seaking is right, and also Bug-types have a lot of other strong physical options in Lunge, Leech Life, and Megahorn, and U-turn and First Impression to think a bit outside the box
Click to expand...
And this is exactly why X-Scissor should get something.

Realistically, it's not competing with anything as it's essentially a coverage move now. Kleavor is one of the few mons that actually want to run it instead of Lunge because its ability enables it to stand out. It is the generic Bug-type coverage option, so it should at least have a trait to warrant using it since Bug is also one of the worst offensive types of the game.

No, U-Turn doesn't count for that purpose lol. And that should be nerfed either way.
 
maybe if u turn was like 20 bp or some shit theyd be more willing to give bug offensive buffs. its not like itd even be a nerf to bugs because the bug type is on average the worst user of the move anyway. the best ones are random shit like incin and urshufi that dont deserve to hit with a 70 bp move while switching out
 
On the subject of U-Turn, I think switching in general is extremely powerful in the meta right now and arguably the strongest it’s ever been since the original games. Most generations have introduced at least one thing to try and rebalance the game’s pivoting meta, so to speak, in the form of dedicated switch moves, entry hazards, trapping moves and Abilities, and other mechanics that revolve around switching.

It’s how those elements interact with each other that makes all the difference- Pursuit’s gone from the games at this point, and things like Heavy-Duty Boots, Regenerator, and the buffed Teleport have made it easier to get your Pokémon in and out of battle than it’s been in a very long time. That’s not taking into account all of the other pivoting moves, either. In fact, some Pokémon, like Incineroar for who knows why, get access to multiple of these meaning they can either run multiple on the same set or pick and choose depending on what’s needed the most. Seriously who thought it was a good idea to buff the Pokémon that already won Worlds in back to back years at this point

For comparison, Gen 1’s pivoting meta doesn’t include any of these moves. Unless you count partial trapping, Gen 1 doesn’t have any switch moves, like, all. Baton Pass would be the first one added in Gen 2. But to make up for this, Gen 1 also doesn’t have anything to counter switching either. Trapping, entry hazards, phazing, Taunt for the sake of stopping Baton Pass… none of that’s here, and neither is Hidden Power or Tera Blast to try and flip head-to-head matchups. This is why you’ll regularly see Rhydon switch into Zapdos so easily, because Zapdos can’t do anything to threaten it out. Back during Sword & Shield I remember seeing people make comparisons to Gen 1 about how strong pivots were becoming, and while I don’t disagree, I do think U-Turn specifically has a major advantage over all of the other switch moves.

I mentioned Taunt as a counterplay option to Baton Pass (specifically “Dry Pass” where there are no stat boosts involved) earlier, but Taunt shuts down Teleport as well as Parting Shot too, and all of the attacking switch moves have at least one way to block them, usually an Ability or a Ground-Type on the case of Volt Switch. To my knowledge, there is no way to block a Bug-Type attacking move unless you can pull off something like Imprison, and while it is resisted by seven Types, the damage from U-Turn often isn’t what players are looking for. To the pros, it’s all about maintaining momentum. It was fairly common during Gen 5’s tenure in particular for Pokémon with contact-punishing traits such as Rough Skin/Iron Barbs and/or holding a Rocky Helmet to try and “punish” the U-Turn users as efficiently as possible for this reason.
 
Here are some of my unpopular opinions:
  1. The main reason Ghetsis is popular is largely due to his reputation as a bad father rather than for being a manipulative mastermind of Team Plasma. The reason is that it can be an IRL situation that people can relate to, as opposed to kidnapping Pokémon or world domination. Even now, the only bad parents I can think of in Pokémon are Lusamine, Giovanni (left Silver to hide in the shadows in the hopes of reviving Team Rocket), and Brock's Mom (which is kinda treated as a joke). That's not to say he's a bad villain; he demonstrates how intimidating and manipulative he can be to the player and even his allies, and even attempts to kill the player. However, without the child abuse, he might not have differentiated himself from other villains like Cyrus.
  2. One thing that annoys me about Cynthia is that she doesn't contribute much to the main story, such as investigating the headquarters or even helping the player out, like stopping the Galactic Admins. Or, for some reason, doesn't arrest Cyrus when defeated in the Distortion World. She has similar problems to Diantha from XY; the only difference is that Cynthia is a much harder boss and therefore more respected. But even then, because of the lack of connection with her, the fight with her is not as impactful as I thought it would be. In contrast, I felt a greater impact fighting Lance, despite the fact that he is a much weaker boss. Because throughout the story, you know on who he is based on not on how powerful he is as a champion but also his willingness to help people, like investigating the angry shiny gyarados, raiding Team Rocket's base (which includes siding with his Dragonite in a double battle in HGSS) or helping Silver understand to be kind to his pokemon in order to be a stronger trainer. Throughout the journey with him, you know what kind of champion you would be facing.
  3. HGSS and Platinum require too much grinding, which makes them unfun. Doesn't help in the former that the wild Pokémon can only be battled at a low level, so you can't gain much exp from defeating them. Do the older games also face a similar issue?
  4. I don’t get why some of Ash’s mons aren’t fully evolved. I get some of his mons like his Bulbasaur or Dawn’s Piplup (which the episodes show that they don’t want to evolve), or maybe because it would be more comedic (like Ash’s Oshawott or Rowlet). But for most of them, I feel they don’t have a good excuse not to evolve. The list includes Ash’s Buizel, Pignite, Totodile (who Ash said he could grow up to be Feraligatr), Quilava, Bayleef, Boldore (although I guess having it evolve by trade limited that). And some of them evolved too late to make an significant impact in the anime.
  5. This is something I’m trying to work on for myself, but sometimes it’s good to separate out casual from competitive Pokémon, and that not every Pokémon would be highly competitive or good in-game, because realistically, it would be impossible. Some mons are unfortunately meant to be inferior to others, like how Golduck with its low BST was always going to come up short of other water types like Gyarados or Vaporeon, or how Mightyena, being an early game mon was always going to be inferior to other dark types. However, as Pokémon games aren’t exactly difficult, you could bring in “weak” mons, and with the right planning, you can beat the game reasonably in theory (I have to test this in practice). I may have begun to realise that Pokémon is meant to help you explore its many species and lands, rather than rushing ahead and beating the game. This applies to competitive too, as unfortunately, due to inevitable power creep, some mons can drop down tiers quickly and may never regain their glory, but at least they remain viable in at least one tier you can play in.
    That’s not to say that it’s perfect. For example, there could have been instances where a Pokémon was fixed, such as correcting Aggron's bad defensive typing in Rock-Steel or some Pokémon's weird stat distributions like Camerupt and Cacturne (although I think this is a Gen 3 issue). Or how some mons should be buffed (like Charizard having a special boosting form of Dragon Dance and Roost, Goodra with a recovering move), or how some mons got buffs far too late to be irrelevant. However, I do think that in most cases, I now try to follow a rule: for casual play, stick to the Pokémon I like to use; for competitive play, stick to the Pokémon you like, and play in the tier where they can be viable.
 
bdt2002 said:
Pursuit’s gone from the games at this point,
Click to expand...
I'll never understand that. Hidden Power? Sure, I can see why that got cut. But Pursuit?

I'd even argue it should be brought back and trigger on pivot moves.

bdt2002 said:
Heavy-Duty Boots, Regenerator,
Click to expand...
Timbs were an overcorrection on Stealth Rock being omega-busted. They should've nerfed that first, especially now that hazard removal is easier than ever with Defog. Shut up, Gholdengo.

Regenerator is a ridiculous ability too, you know it's bad when it's a major issue in both VGC and Singles. 33% is just way too much for something that's pretty hard to block like switching out. Again, the lack of Pursuit makes this a bigger problem than it should. 25% would be enough.


But then again, they still haven't done a lot to properly balance things that have been problematic since Gen 1 like Freeze and Sleep. (Especially Freeze).
Sleep has more counterplay nowadays, but it's still conceptually messed up, as once your mon does get put to sleep, there's literally nothing you can do except roll the dice and hope for the best, or delay the inevitable by switching out and giving your opponent even more free turns and pressure.

Krockodile said:
The main reason Ghetsis is popular is largely due to his reputation as a bad father rather than for being a manipulative mastermind of Team Plasma. The reason is that it can be an IRL situation that people can relate to, as opposed to kidnapping Pokémon or world domination. Even now, the only bad parents I can think of in Pokémon are Lusamine, Giovanni (left Silver to hide in the shadows in the hopes of reviving Team Rocket), and Brock's Mom (which is kinda treated as a joke). That's not to say he's a bad villain; he demonstrates how intimidating and manipulative he can be to the player and even his allies, and even attempts to kill the player. However, without the child abuse, he might not have differentiated himself from other villains like Cyrus.
Click to expand...
Agreed. BW1's story is extremely overrated imo, but that's a really good point. It's hard to take Cyrus seriously because his reasons are too vague to justify crashing out like that.

Ghetsis, on the other hand, was made to really drive the point that he was evil, evil. None of that "Strictly business" like Giovanni, or "Just dumb" like Maxie and Archie. Man is a classic comic book villain with the villain meter cranked up to the max. He wants world domination, and he'll sic a legendary on literal children for that. Did he need to freeze Opelucid? Probably not, but he did it anyway. :totodiLUL:

Krockodile said:
HGSS and Platinum require too much grinding, which makes them unfun. Doesn't help in the former that the wild Pokémon can only be battled at a low level, so you can't gain much exp from defeating them. Do the older games also face a similar issue?
Click to expand...
Yes, and no.

All games at least before the 3D era require some grinding before the Elite 4 if you have a full team. The catch is, you don't need to grind before that.

In the case of the Johto games, you need to explore, if you beat all trainers, you will have enough levels. I do have an issue with the rewards for said exploration, but Johto has a lot of poor design choices.

Sinnoh's level curve did get fixed in Platinum. Straight up. There's just no need to grind in that game before the E4. Unless you picked Chimchar. Then you'll need a bit of work to evolve it for Mach Punch against Roark.

What both games ask players, ironically for completely opposite reasons, is for them to strategize a bit before leaders.

The Johto games make players strategize because the available mons are generally trash, and all leaders have some kind of cheese factor. (Hypnosis, flinching, accuracy...)
Since players don't have the raw power to muscle through their nonsense in most cases, you have to do something to even things out and force mistakes. For example, giving a Mint/Chesto Berry to whatever is supposed to take down Chuck's Poliwrath/Morty's Gengar.

In Platinum, it's the opposite. Everything is hella buff, especially in the early-game, so you have to strategize to not get flattened by the likes of Jupiter and Fantina. For example, Intimidate spam and Pluck to steal their berries so your mon can heal up and deny their healing.

HGSS Lance is the perfect example of a fight that you actually have to grind for. It's very straightforward. If you walk in at say, high-30's/Lv. 40, you'll simply not have the stats to hit damage benchmarks, and you'll probably not have them defensively either.

But then again, no good grinding spots. Moronic ahh game.
 
Volt-Ikazuchi said:
I'll never understand that. Hidden Power? Sure, I can see why that got cut. But Pursuit?

I'd even argue it should be brought back and trigger on pivot moves.
Click to expand...
My understanding is that Pursuit does (I'm a Natdex player, I'm going to use present tense rather than past) work on pivot moves provided the pivot occurs before the Pursuit user normally acts. I could see having it delay for switching moves should it ever get updated since it otherwise can't trigger on Teleport's negative priority.
 
I feel like I might be the only one here who doesn’t mind Johto’s level curve. In fact, I actually find it quite generous and even pretty healthy. The first four Gyms I don’t have any problems with, and the remakes buffed Falkner’s levels a little bit for good measure, probably because the Sprout Tower became a mandatory visit in those games. The Route below Violet City, Union Cave, and the Team Rocket section all have enough “non-grinding” content to where I’ve never had issues with Bugsy level-wise, and while the gap between Azalea Town and Goldrenrod City is slightly shorter, I actually think Whitney feels a little bit underlevelled, though this was probably done on purpose because of Miltank’s high stats for that point in the game making up for this. That just leaves Ecruteak City. We can give Morty all the crap we want for not using a Misdreavus, but at the very least his levels are perfect where they are in my opinion.

The branching routes after Ecruteak tend to be where most fans start to dislike the level curve of this region. No matter what order you battle the next three Gyms in, at least one of them is going to be extremely easy no matter what you do. Let’s look at the numbers, though. The level gap between Morty’s Gengar and Clair’s Kingdra is 15-16 depending on the generation, and coming from someone who has personal beef with that particular Pokémon (Kingdra, not Gengar), Johto’s “split stretch” as I like to call it consists of a lot of gameplay that, especially with EVs and IVs taken into account, yeah, this isn’t the best level curve in Pokémon by any stretch of the imagination, but in practice I always felt like this could be a lot worse. None of the major fights during this stretch ever let too stressful to me, even without level grinding.

When the story merged back together after the Team Rocket stuff in Goldenrod, I can definitely see feeling underlevelled for Clair and the Pokémon League after that. On average I would say I get to Lance with my Pokémon around the early-to-mid-40s, maybe marginally higher depending on what’s actually on the team. At that number, the Dragonite trio in particular can seem threatening especially in the remakes with their better Dragon-Type attacks, but the Gyarados, Charizard, and even the Rock Slide Aerodactyl all feel manageable that late into the game.

Ultimately my opinion could be summarized like this. Johto’s one of the easiest regions to feel like you’re underlevelled in, sure, but it’s also in a weird spot where it’s one or the easiest to get overlevelled in too, at least before Lance and the Kanto “postgame that arguably isn’t actually a postgame”.


One of Sinnoh’s biggest problems with the PokéDex can be found pretty early on- no, literally, the problem exists in the earlygame. That is to say, Sinnoh’s earlygame is extremely top-heavy in my opinion, and while that does help against disproportionately difficult fights like Mars and Jupiter’s first fights and Fantina’s Platinum Gym battle, that doesn’t change the fact that almost all of Sinnoh’s best Pokémon to use on a team- the starters, Bidoof, Starly, Shinx, Budew, Buizel, Shellos, Abra, Geodude, Magikarp (Gyarados), Gible in Platinum… they’re all found early on and you can very easily have all of your team members picked out by the time you arrive at Hearthome City.

The problem here is that it discourages creative team building in the late game, where most other regions (albeit BW1 Unova went WAY too far in the opposite direction) try and still often fail and encourage you to pick up stronger Pokémon to replace your earlygame staples with. There’s virtually no incentive to try out dozens of Pokémon later in the region. Any incentive that is shown off is because you either found a full odds Shiny or you just really felt like using any number of underrated Pokémon most Sinnoh teams don’t commonly feature.

Admittedly Sinnoh isn’t the only region guilty of this (the Ultra games’ version of Melemele Island immediately comes to mind) and I don’t exactly know what the games could do to try and incentivize returning fans to try out lesser used Pokémon. The unlimited use TMs in Gens 5 through 8 is a good start, since you no longer have a reason to just slap all the best TMs onto your choice of an earlygame powerhouse and proceed to beat half the game with it. (Seriously, who thought putting the Earthquake TM in the same room as Gible was a good idea?) If you’re a newer fan or are playing Gen 4 Sinnoh for the first time, there’s nothing wrong with using stronger Pokémon that just happen to show up early. As a returning fan I just find myself bored with how strong Sinnoh’s earlygame is, that’s all.
 
Krockodile said:
Here are some of my unpopular opinions:
  1. The main reason Ghetsis is popular is largely due to his reputation as a bad father rather than for being a manipulative mastermind of Team Plasma. The reason is that it can be an IRL situation that people can relate to, as opposed to kidnapping Pokémon or world domination. Even now, the only bad parents I can think of in Pokémon are Lusamine, Giovanni (left Silver to hide in the shadows in the hopes of reviving Team Rocket), and Brock's Mom (which is kinda treated as a joke). That's not to say he's a bad villain; he demonstrates how intimidating and manipulative he can be to the player and even his allies, and even attempts to kill the player. However, without the child abuse, he might not have differentiated himself from other villains like Cyrus.
  2. One thing that annoys me about Cynthia is that she doesn't contribute much to the main story, such as investigating the headquarters or even helping the player out, like stopping the Galactic Admins. Or, for some reason, doesn't arrest Cyrus when defeated in the Distortion World. She has similar problems to Diantha from XY; the only difference is that Cynthia is a much harder boss and therefore more respected. But even then, because of the lack of connection with her, the fight with her is not as impactful as I thought it would be. In contrast, I felt a greater impact fighting Lance, despite the fact that he is a much weaker boss. Because throughout the story, you know on who he is based on not on how powerful he is as a champion but also his willingness to help people, like investigating the angry shiny gyarados, raiding Team Rocket's base (which includes siding with his Dragonite in a double battle in HGSS) or helping Silver understand to be kind to his pokemon in order to be a stronger trainer. Throughout the journey with him, you know what kind of champion you would be facing.
  3. HGSS and Platinum require too much grinding, which makes them unfun. Doesn't help in the former that the wild Pokémon can only be battled at a low level, so you can't gain much exp from defeating them. Do the older games also face a similar issue?
  4. I don’t get why some of Ash’s mons aren’t fully evolved. I get some of his mons like his Bulbasaur or Dawn’s Piplup (which the episodes show that they don’t want to evolve), or maybe because it would be more comedic (like Ash’s Oshawott or Rowlet). But for most of them, I feel they don’t have a good excuse not to evolve. The list includes Ash’s Buizel, Pignite, Totodile (who Ash said he could grow up to be Feraligatr), Quilava, Bayleef, Boldore (although I guess having it evolve by trade limited that). And some of them evolved too late to make an significant impact in the anime.
  5. This is something I’m trying to work on for myself, but sometimes it’s good to separate out casual from competitive Pokémon, and that not every Pokémon would be highly competitive or good in-game, because realistically, it would be impossible. Some mons are unfortunately meant to be inferior to others, like how Golduck with its low BST was always going to come up short of other water types like Gyarados or Vaporeon, or how Mightyena, being an early game mon was always going to be inferior to other dark types. However, as Pokémon games aren’t exactly difficult, you could bring in “weak” mons, and with the right planning, you can beat the game reasonably in theory (I have to test this in practice). I may have begun to realise that Pokémon is meant to help you explore its many species and lands, rather than rushing ahead and beating the game. This applies to competitive too, as unfortunately, due to inevitable power creep, some mons can drop down tiers quickly and may never regain their glory, but at least they remain viable in at least one tier you can play in.
    That’s not to say that it’s perfect. For example, there could have been instances where a Pokémon was fixed, such as correcting Aggron's bad defensive typing in Rock-Steel or some Pokémon's weird stat distributions like Camerupt and Cacturne (although I think this is a Gen 3 issue). Or how some mons should be buffed (like Charizard having a special boosting form of Dragon Dance and Roost, Goodra with a recovering move), or how some mons got buffs far too late to be irrelevant. However, I do think that in most cases, I now try to follow a rule: for casual play, stick to the Pokémon I like to use; for competitive play, stick to the Pokémon you like, and play in the tier where they can be viable.
Click to expand...

1. I can see that, although even before N's castle revealed him as worst father of all time, Team Plasma as a whole could qualify as extra hateable bc of how they believe they're doing the right thing, so they have this very self righteous opinion of themselves not seen in other games before. Yes, Magma and Aqua also believed to be doing good but their actions border so much on comically villanous that it's stupid they don't notice it (use a space rocket as a missile to blow up Mt Pyre???), while the worst thing BW1 Team Plasma does is stealing some trainer mons or robbing a museum or kicking a Munna, "small price for the greater good". Not to mention that there's some self aware hypocrites in that group who know exactly what and why are they doing, including Ghetsis.

2. I believe the anime and Adventures manga noticed this so they made her more proactive against Team Galactic there haha. I believe the intention for the games was to make Cynthia a mysterious figure so the champion reveal comes as a surprise, but like, who else is going to be lol. I prefer Lance too for the reasons you cited. Slight change of topic but I believe the only times a champion opponent reveal was legit surprising were Blue and SM Kukui.
 
Last edited:
pokemon4eva said:
2. I believe the anime and Adventures manga noticed this so they made her more proactive against Team Galactic there haha. I believe the intention for the games was to make Cynthia a mysterious figure so the champion reveal comes as a surprise, but like, who else is going to be lol. I prefer Lance too for the reasons you cited. Slight change of topic but I believe the only times a champion opponent reveal was legit surprising were Blue and SM Kukui.
Click to expand...
Pokémon “Try and create a character that doesn’t just feel like a clone of something that came before it” Challenge (IMPOSSIBLE!!!)

See kids, the joke here is that everything that was about Cynthia can be applied to Steven and to a lesser extent Wallace. I want to like Cynthia as much as everyone else does, but I just can’t in good faith. Her in-game iteration lacks any of the emotional depth of Blue or the “Wow Factor” of Lance and his bird Pokémon, and the idea of an ally character that you meet around the location of Gym #2, uses the region’s psuedo-legendary, and doesn’t actually help out that much against the evil team was done literally last generation. Heck, at least Steven had that Multi Battle in Emerald.

Actually, you know what? Let’s take this one step further. I think all of Cynthia’s appeal comes specifically from people that are still wearing their nostalgia glasses. She wouldn’t be anywhere near as popular if she wasn’t the first female Champion, either, and I say that because we basically have Male Cynthia in all but name now in the form of Volo and his novelty wore off just as quickly, if not even faster.
 
Krockodile said:
Here are some of my unpopular opinions:
  1. The main reason Ghetsis is popular is largely due to his reputation as a bad father rather than for being a manipulative mastermind of Team Plasma. The reason is that it can be an IRL situation that people can relate to, as opposed to kidnapping Pokémon or world domination. Even now, the only bad parents I can think of in Pokémon are Lusamine, Giovanni (left Silver to hide in the shadows in the hopes of reviving Team Rocket), and Brock's Mom (which is kinda treated as a joke). That's not to say he's a bad villain; he demonstrates how intimidating and manipulative he can be to the player and even his allies, and even attempts to kill the player. However, without the child abuse, he might not have differentiated himself from other villains like Cyrus.
Click to expand...

I think these points sort of go hand-in-hand, as his long-term indoctrination of N is itself yet another illustration of him being an evil mastermind. He knew he wouldn’t be able to awaken the dragons himself, so he spent over a decade molding someone for that purpose.

Though, within that, I think there probably is something that appeals to players who maybe started playing with RBY or GSC, who would’ve been teens or young adults by the time of BW, who might be intrigued by a Pokémon villain whose crimes are more “real” and less abstracted by fantasy.

However, I’ve always felt that what people tend to like about Ghetsis is that he is unrepentant and unsympathetic. At that point in the games’ history, we’d had Giovanni, Archie, Maxie, and Cyrus as the main villains, one of whom is completely one-dimensional due to being a character from a Game Boy game, and the other three are all misguided idealists. Then BW comes along with a dual-villain approach; we get N who is the misguided idealist (but with a much more acute degree of character focus than Archie, Maxie, and Cyrus), and Ghetsis who is not just one-dimensionally evil and cruel, but who actually revels in that, and whose cruelty directly impacts the idealist villain and makes him more sympathetic. There was simply a freshness to this approach that I think worked for people.
 
bdt2002 said:
Pokémon “Try and create a character that doesn’t just feel like a clone of something that came before it” Challenge (IMPOSSIBLE!!!)

See kids, the joke here is that everything that was about Cynthia can be applied to Steven and to a lesser extent Wallace. I want to like Cynthia as much as everyone else does, but I just can’t in good faith. Her in-game iteration lacks any of the emotional depth of Blue or the “Wow Factor” of Lance and his bird Pokémon, and the idea of an ally character that you meet around the location of Gym #2, uses the region’s psuedo-legendary, and doesn’t actually help out that much against the evil team was done literally last generation. Heck, at least Steven had that Multi Battle in Emerald.

Actually, you know what? Let’s take this one step further. I think all of Cynthia’s appeal comes specifically from people that are still wearing their nostalgia glasses. She wouldn’t be anywhere near as popular if she wasn’t the first female Champion, either, and I say that because we basically have Male Cynthia in all but name now in the form of Volo and his novelty wore off just as quickly, if not even faster.
Click to expand...
I'll actually take this a bit further and say that I don't know if there's a single champion that I like as a "character."

Some are decently designed boss battles, but hardly any of them have an interesting impact on the story.
 
I would personally say Leon is arguably my favorite Champion of the lot. SwSh aren't my favorite games but I do like a lot of the characters and Leon is a Champion I do genuinely like.

His fight was actually pretty fun despite the EXP All being permanent and he actually did put up a good challenge when I played SwSh the first time around.

But most of all it felt impactful because his Champion status is very relevant and he's very actively present in the adventure as someone we regularly meet, as the guy who has never lost and who everyone is aiming to eventually beat and defeat once and for all. As an extension of the League Challenge being a much, much bigger deal in Galar than in any region that came before.

He's actually pretty fun as a character too with a lively personality. And he puts a spin on how he feels about being the guy who's never lost, because he's the real deal, but he's been waiting for someone to actually defeat and surpass him to prove that he himself can still aim for greater heights, and is glad to experience the frustration of losing for the first time when we finally beat him.

His decision to create the Battle Tower after he loses, creating a place where the Trainers of Galar can come together to reach even greater heights together, was a clever spin on the existence of post-game battle facilities from a storytelling standpoint too.

SwSh isn't a perfect game, but Leon as a Champion was genuinely pretty cool in my eyes.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top