I mean, it functionally is already random given the possible range of IVs? I feel like this hyper reliance and worry on IVs being good is only applicable to competitive play, and that most, if not all challenges in-game don't need you to specifically get high IVs. There is fun that can be had even if you're not using the absolute statistical best. I personally don't see any major issues with this system given the context it seems most applicable to - casual play, and appreciate the little variation in stats they provide.
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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
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I mean, it functionally is already random given the possible range of IVs? I feel like this hyper reliance and worry on IVs being good is only applicable to competitive play, and that most, if not all challenges in-game don't need you to specifically get high IVs. There is fun that can be had even if you're not using the absolute statistical best. I personally don't see any major issues with this system given the context it seems most applicable to - casual play, and appreciate the little variation in stats they provide.
On the subject of IVs- I think Gen 2 had the best Shiny mechanics in the franchise and that they should never have been changed. I think the personality value system is a nice novelty addition for something like, say, Spinda’s spot patterns, but the idea that Shiny parents are more likely to have Shiny offspring thanks to IVs in Gen 2 just makes so much natural sense to me without being something that would be too hard for a kid in the late ‘90s to understand. Said kid might not get what all the coding stuff means, of course, but all that kid’s going to care about is that Shiny Pokémon were a big part of his or her childhood as soon as they saw that red colored Gyarados.
Oh, yeah, speaking of that, it’s made even better by the fact that Gyarados has a particularly large “breeding tree”, so to speak. I can’t remember the exact number off the top of my head, but Gyarados can be the catalyst needed to open up Shiny breeding opportunities for quite a lot of Pokémon. Odds that can go as high as 1 in 64 feels just barely rare enough still to where hatching a Shiny can still be rewarding without feeling too common, particularly with how long it can take to hatch Eggs in Gen 2, and because Ditto is a thing, even if your static Shiny Gyarados is female (meaning it could only help for more Magikarp), you can still try for and evolve a male Shiny Magikarp anyway at marginally worse odds.
Design wise, Shinies quite literally peaked on the Game Boy Color. This isn’t an opinion either, depending on your definition this is technically an actual provable fact. What I mean by that is that, because the Game Boy Color had such a limited color palette and are restricted by 8-bit sprite mechanics, this actually plays to the Shiny Pokémon’s favor because the difference between finite color values in the game is significantly greater than in games with seemingly much more options. For example, any randomly selected two different shades of the same color will look “more different” than they would on stronger hardware. What this all means in practice is that stuff like Gengar doesn’t have nearly as bad of a Shiny as it does in every other generation, and that’s not counting the Pokrmon that completely unique and original Shinies to Gen 2 such as Charizard, who, hot take, I actually prefer over the modern Shiny!
Also as a big fan of Johto in general, I just want to point out that I’m 95 percent confident that Hisuian Typhlosion was at least partially inspired by the very similarly colored Gen 2 Shinies of the Cyndaquil family. I had been telling myself for several years that I wanted their purple flames back, but I didn’t think they’d actually do it and BOY did they cook with this design! Easiest starter choice of my entire career.
Oh, yeah, speaking of that, it’s made even better by the fact that Gyarados has a particularly large “breeding tree”, so to speak. I can’t remember the exact number off the top of my head, but Gyarados can be the catalyst needed to open up Shiny breeding opportunities for quite a lot of Pokémon. Odds that can go as high as 1 in 64 feels just barely rare enough still to where hatching a Shiny can still be rewarding without feeling too common, particularly with how long it can take to hatch Eggs in Gen 2, and because Ditto is a thing, even if your static Shiny Gyarados is female (meaning it could only help for more Magikarp), you can still try for and evolve a male Shiny Magikarp anyway at marginally worse odds.
Design wise, Shinies quite literally peaked on the Game Boy Color. This isn’t an opinion either, depending on your definition this is technically an actual provable fact. What I mean by that is that, because the Game Boy Color had such a limited color palette and are restricted by 8-bit sprite mechanics, this actually plays to the Shiny Pokémon’s favor because the difference between finite color values in the game is significantly greater than in games with seemingly much more options. For example, any randomly selected two different shades of the same color will look “more different” than they would on stronger hardware. What this all means in practice is that stuff like Gengar doesn’t have nearly as bad of a Shiny as it does in every other generation, and that’s not counting the Pokrmon that completely unique and original Shinies to Gen 2 such as Charizard, who, hot take, I actually prefer over the modern Shiny!
Also as a big fan of Johto in general, I just want to point out that I’m 95 percent confident that Hisuian Typhlosion was at least partially inspired by the very similarly colored Gen 2 Shinies of the Cyndaquil family. I had been telling myself for several years that I wanted their purple flames back, but I didn’t think they’d actually do it and BOY did they cook with this design! Easiest starter choice of my entire career.
When I first played SV my Sprigatito failed to secure a 2HKO on Nemona's Quaxly with super effective STAB due to a -Atk nature. Getting a 0 Atk IV would have likely led to a similar result, and bad IVs can and will negatively affect your perception of the Pokémon you catch.
To put it another way: there is a reason why rolling for stats in D&D stopped being the standard starting with 3rd edition.
Not as extreme as this, but the last time I tried starting a Platinum playthrough
For GSC and to an extent HGSS, whilst I do appreciate that Steel and Dark types were introduced to counteract the Psychic dominance, I do think the games implemented them poorly when it comes to introducing these types.
For one there aren't many dark and steel types that you can catch in Johto. This includes:
Steel:
On top of which, the Gym fight with Jasmine and the Elite four fight with Karen don't do a good job on showing off their types:
For Jasmine's fight, it only shows two Magnemite with the same moveset, which is kinda underwhelming when you had to fight Chuck's Primeape and Morty's Haunter. Instead of a second Magnemite, why not replace it with Skarmory to mitigate the Fighting and Ground weakness with a moveset of Leer/Agility/Swift/Steel Wing, or Scizor to mitigate the Fighting weakness and have Leer/Metal Claw/Quick Attack/Focus Energy. Also lol Steelix having Sunny Day to weaken water attacks at the cost of getting cooked by fire moves.
Karen's team is alright, with Gengar and Vileplume added in to mitigate Dark types' weakness to fighting. I was thinking of adding Ttar to replace Murkrow, but it might make her ace Houndoom look terrible. Best that they could do is to have Umbreon's learnset tweeked to learn Moonlight much earlier so that Karen's umbreon can learn it at level 42, or have Gengar change it's moveset, like Hypnosis to make a terrifying combo with Curse, or learn coverage like Psychic and Thunder to take care of Fighting and Water mons respectively.
Overall I think some of the Steel and Dark types should have been in Johto at a reasonable stage (with the exception of ttar as he may be too powerful) and have some of their learnset tweeked so that they could be useful in-game. But without a good exposure of the two types, a casual player might not really think about them and think they're redundant, like Gen 1 Bug and Fighting.
HGSS does improve their movesets and learnsets, but it is a bit annoying you can't evolve your Magneton to Magnezone.
For one there aren't many dark and steel types that you can catch in Johto. This includes:
Steel:
- Skarmory (Only get it near Blackthorn city, which is pretty late)
- Scizor (Only acquired through a irl trade whilst holding metal coat)
- Steelix (Also acquired through a irl trade whilst holding metal coat)
- Forretress (Requires getting a Pineco first which has a terrible learnset)
- Magnemite/Magneton
- Murkrow (Only can get caught in post-game, and is pretty weak)
- Umbreon (Good defensive wall at the time, and eevee can reasonably evolve if taken well)
- Sneasel (Only can get caught in post-game, and is pretty weak)
- Houndoom (Only can get caught in post-game, but is pretty strong. Would have been nice to have in johto as the only fire alternatives are magmar, arcanine and flareon)
- Tyranitar (Only can get caught in post-game. Considering it's a powerful pusedo-legendary, it'll get an exception).
On top of which, the Gym fight with Jasmine and the Elite four fight with Karen don't do a good job on showing off their types:
For Jasmine's fight, it only shows two Magnemite with the same moveset, which is kinda underwhelming when you had to fight Chuck's Primeape and Morty's Haunter. Instead of a second Magnemite, why not replace it with Skarmory to mitigate the Fighting and Ground weakness with a moveset of Leer/Agility/Swift/Steel Wing, or Scizor to mitigate the Fighting weakness and have Leer/Metal Claw/Quick Attack/Focus Energy. Also lol Steelix having Sunny Day to weaken water attacks at the cost of getting cooked by fire moves.
Karen's team is alright, with Gengar and Vileplume added in to mitigate Dark types' weakness to fighting. I was thinking of adding Ttar to replace Murkrow, but it might make her ace Houndoom look terrible. Best that they could do is to have Umbreon's learnset tweeked to learn Moonlight much earlier so that Karen's umbreon can learn it at level 42, or have Gengar change it's moveset, like Hypnosis to make a terrifying combo with Curse, or learn coverage like Psychic and Thunder to take care of Fighting and Water mons respectively.
Overall I think some of the Steel and Dark types should have been in Johto at a reasonable stage (with the exception of ttar as he may be too powerful) and have some of their learnset tweeked so that they could be useful in-game. But without a good exposure of the two types, a casual player might not really think about them and think they're redundant, like Gen 1 Bug and Fighting.
HGSS does improve their movesets and learnsets, but it is a bit annoying you can't evolve your Magneton to Magnezone.
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the issue for them is that theyre useless in casual and only exist to make your life more annoying in competitive. like someone said: unless youre a trick room andie or playing a set thats 90% likely to be worse than the standard, the only value that matters is 31. this means ivs do not help w set customization or creativity, they literally are are there just to gatekeep you and spend more time of your life doing some sort of grind to get a good pokemon. at least other shit like natures, moves and evs are more customizable and feel more like properly building a mon to your desires
While I agree that IVs do influence perception, it goes both ways. For as annoying as a 0 Attack might be in missing crucial KOs, having a 31 Attack Sprigatito theoretically OHKO Quaxly would give just as much of a positive boost, so I still don't feel it's a net negative. If IVs were eliminated and every Sprigatito managed to theoretically OHKO Quaxly, then it wouldn't be as special - that experience wouldn't be unique to you. That's the sentiment I feel IVs succeed in, keeping subsequent usage of the same Pokemon different, even if it's not the most optimal.
Granted, I know very little of D&D, so maybe there are more reasons for its removal that I am not aware of, but in the context of Pokemon I have no issues with the usage of IVs.
To be fair, natures, moves and EVs also require a decent bit of investment - grinding out IVs in the era of Hyper Training isn't as bad as it once was, and is a few Bottle Caps away, comparable to any Mints, TM (material), or Vitamins you might have to get elsewhere - not all grind is necessarily bad in my opinion. I believe that IV's aren't useless in a casual setting, they help create an experience somewhat unique to you based on how the Pokemon performs in battle. In a competitive setting, as you said, yes, on the whole 31 across the board is ideal, but feel that they don't really make life annoying in modern games, given the quality of life features.
While I don't really value the first couple fights before the player has had any opportunity to build their own team, I definitely get the idea of wanting some variance in story-important encounters. The player 'Raidon has fixed nature (and I want to say IVs as well, but don't remember that off the top of my head) and it just contributes to the feeling of its first real fight being completely scripted (as if it needed to be more blatant).
As for D&D and its variants, I know my main system (PF1e, so based heavily on 3.5) does still list random generation as its "standard" method (though point allocation is available and I believe was adopted for organized play). I feel that including some randomness in stats, while hit or miss for player characters, is potentially pretty useful for NPCs within a single template. I personally don't care much, and prefer more complete rebuilds anyway, but it's generally assumed that the player characters don't have exact information on what they're fighting. But by the time they've fought their 20th goblin, the players have a pretty good idea of what numbers are in use. Introducing some fluctuations into the enemy stats reduces that certainty. (for PF1e, it's only readily available for HP numbers, but it's symmetric enough between players and NPCs that it isn't difficult to set this up for other base stats). So I guess what Pokemon needs to be doing is using random rather than fixed IVs for your average trainer (alongside potentially giving some access to IV maxing before postgame?).
The annoying part is you KNOW Magnemite only gives Steel an Edge because it was a retconned Steel type from the Kanto Dex. If it stayed pure Electric I'm convinced Jasmine would have been a Ground leader or something. Side note, Steelix should have had Sandstorm to chip damage you while Steel-tanking the Normals.
This is another reason I consider Johto such a lame region: The Pokemon selection is so lame and most of it isn't even the new Pokemon it introduced. How did no one find Houndoom for however long when that line only exists in Kanto unlike the other 100 new Pokedex entries?
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Honestly no, I think you're being too hard on yourself
Venusaur objectively is the best starter - it's advantageous against most of the gyms, and even the game's own guide calls it out as "the easy mode" compared to Charmander or Squirtle.
Competitively speaking it's not , but that was less of a consideration in Gen I
Idk that I'd say Wallace is the hardest champion but, for a single-type specialist, Water is one of the better choices and Wallace's team is deliberately set up to avoid a clean sweep - Ludicolo, Tentacruel, Gyarados, and Whiscash don't share weaknesses and eliminate one of the common Water counters
A mixed champion is generally going to be harder, but Wallace is objectively harder than, say, Steven or Lance.
It really is annoying HGSS didn't improve the distribution of the Darks and Steels compared to the earlier games.
Off the top of my head:
- Murkrow could have been a nighttime Ilex Forest spawn
- Houndour should have been a rare Burned Tower spawn
- Crystal moved Sneasel into the Ice Path and HGSS moved it back to just being found on Mt Silver, stupidly
- Always thought Larvitar should have been a rare Dark Cave spawn on the Blackthorn side (which can technically be accessed as soon as Surf is unlocked, for the more dedicated and discerning player)
- Pineco's distribution as a Headbutt mon is fine, but Crystal adds a Bug Catcher in Ilex Forest who hints at its existence (much as other NPCs exist in GSC and RBY who hint at the existence of Porygon2, Golem, Slowking, and others) - the remakes disappointingly removed him
especially as a krokodile, I think you should make more incendiary statements and make the community more toxic, personally. but to each their own.
But I do disagree with your original Cynthia take. I think Cyrus was acting like a petulant child, letting his loneliness and self loathing turn into anger against the world, and Cynthia saw that within him and didn't recognize him as a real threat. Even when he was on the precipice of destroying the world, she knew that as soon as he came up against any real resistance he would break. And he did.
One of my favorite moments in Pokemon is when Cyrus bemoans the incompetence of those around him, without recognizing that he created that situation. He surrounded himself with a bunch of idiots so stupid they had the naivety of children (Team Galaxy grunts), and lured in a bunch of self-serving midwits with promises of power (Team Galaxy admins). Keeping this company was a choice he made and when they all abandoned or failed him in his moment of need he doesn't understand that.
Idk, there's something really poetic to me about creating a villain who wants to hurt the world because of his deep rooted hatred for himself, that Pokemon never quite captured again. I like Ghetsis/N but Black/White almost works better in theory than what the actual plot is. I prefer B2/W2's story and "vibes" personally. I didn't finish S/M but I liked Lusamine. I agree with her that children and Pokemon should be controlled.
I think there aren't many good Johto pokemon to use in the game. Aside from the starters, the only useful Johto pokemon would be:
- Ampharos - a solid electric mon
- Furret - HM slave
- Quagsire - Unique typing in water/ground that will wall electric types
- Ursaring - Solid attack of 130
- Granbull - A weaker Ursaring (which is still good), althought it has niches in Charm, Scary Face and Rage
- Miltank - Gets Milk Drink, combo of Defense Curl + Rollout and has Heal Bell for clearing status
- Skarmory - Possibly too late to get, but at least it has a solid defensive type.
- Maybe Mantine, although it has to compete with a lot of other water types.
HGSS might have fixed the issue by making them more viable through abilities or giving them better learnsets, but still.
I haven't used the free Togetic and Sudowoodo the player gets in my Crystal playthrough, but from the in-game tier lists they don't seem to be very good.
Edit: I forgot Umbreon and Espeon, they're really good in terms of being a wall and offensive powerhouse respectively.
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Having my hands in many different pools of pokemon player communities has given me the absolute worst brainworms about IVs as a mechanic. So many people (or a very loud vocal minority at least) are incredibly confident that they're totally useless relics of game design, and that nobody really cares about them.
I then go into spaces where people play nuzlockes or strategy game fangames more broadly and suddenly EVs are the problem mechanic. They incentivize excessive grinding ingame, and when folks are making difficulty hacks that are meant to be a challenge to complete, and thereby often played and reset over and over, pushing players to numb their brains with EV grinding to hyper optimize their odds of success is looked down upon, and people make custom patches to make removing EVs from the games more convenient. Meanwhile, in those games, IVs are the mechanic preserving variety between playthroughs and pushing players to make adaptive strategies, rather than just taking every single pokemon at face value for its species. Natures alone can only do so much for variety in these settings when they only effect 2 stats at a time! And this function of IVs applies in its entirety to the vanilla games - it's a blessing that pokemon games are not so simply boiled down to "reach level X and use move Y in order to be able to KO Z opponent" across the play experience of every single player.
Most fangame designers with this mindset understand the function of EVs in competitive, and dont necessarily want the mechanic purged from all of the games outright. As far as IVs go, I don't think there's a need for any "fix" beyond perhaps a 0 IV Bottle Cap to prevent the lunacy of situations like 0 Speed IV Enamorus Therian. The negative influences of players who peak behind the curtain and frustrate themselves by seeing their IVs are suboptimal are something I'd compare directly to someone who wanted the vanilla games to remove EVs because they forced them to grind excessively to optimize a challenge run or razor edge strategy gameplan. I'd rather those two forms of emergent gameplay coexist messily than have one of them removed to the sole benefit of the other.
I then go into spaces where people play nuzlockes or strategy game fangames more broadly and suddenly EVs are the problem mechanic. They incentivize excessive grinding ingame, and when folks are making difficulty hacks that are meant to be a challenge to complete, and thereby often played and reset over and over, pushing players to numb their brains with EV grinding to hyper optimize their odds of success is looked down upon, and people make custom patches to make removing EVs from the games more convenient. Meanwhile, in those games, IVs are the mechanic preserving variety between playthroughs and pushing players to make adaptive strategies, rather than just taking every single pokemon at face value for its species. Natures alone can only do so much for variety in these settings when they only effect 2 stats at a time! And this function of IVs applies in its entirety to the vanilla games - it's a blessing that pokemon games are not so simply boiled down to "reach level X and use move Y in order to be able to KO Z opponent" across the play experience of every single player.
Most fangame designers with this mindset understand the function of EVs in competitive, and dont necessarily want the mechanic purged from all of the games outright. As far as IVs go, I don't think there's a need for any "fix" beyond perhaps a 0 IV Bottle Cap to prevent the lunacy of situations like 0 Speed IV Enamorus Therian. The negative influences of players who peak behind the curtain and frustrate themselves by seeing their IVs are suboptimal are something I'd compare directly to someone who wanted the vanilla games to remove EVs because they forced them to grind excessively to optimize a challenge run or razor edge strategy gameplan. I'd rather those two forms of emergent gameplay coexist messily than have one of them removed to the sole benefit of the other.
i will sound mean but i value the experience of these people way less and would not change things based on it alone. normal nuzlocke rules are a small deviation that dont change the game that much so i'll give it that, but the hardcore nuzlocke/fangame community is playing pain simulators that have completely left the realm of actual good game design years ago. theyre fascinating people to watch and i think if you get joy from it you should still do it, but at some point the grind and shit? issue of your own making. no one told you to play that shit. 90% isnt even official anymore.
i specify them because you only ever need evs to succeed at a nuzlocke if youre playing some of the hard mode hacks or shit. theyre completely unnecessary in normal gameplay. i dont even like the ev system that much either but i think if you play some insane deviation of a game youre not a base that will have opinions that can be applied to the normal game
not to be too mean but ppl on the Nuzlocke subreddit talk like they eat crayons. And half the stuff with their romhacks is bragging about how hard it is by saying stuff like: "You should reset if you don't get the right encounters" like what's the point then? Just pick those Pokemon to begin with lol.
I disagree here. I think that in GSC while Pokemon don't have the best learnsets or move options in Johto pre-postgame, your opponents don't have the best movesets either and it's well balanced. You do have to use the elemental punches tho and need to stick with the same team of 6 the whole game. I do agree they should have had better availability of Johto mons, but pretty much every new Pokemon shows off a new mechanic whether items, friendship, day/night cycles, etc.
I'd say Girafarig, Donphan (in GSC), Heracross, the trade Evos, Hoppip, Lanturn, and Espeon/Umbreon, are good, and Sneasel, Qwilfish, Swinub, Xatu, and Gligar are probably fine (i can't say I haven't used them yet). And that's off the top of my head. You can definitely make Wobbuffet and Smeargle work too if you want, although it will require some extra grinding. For a dex where there's only 100 new Pokemon added, it's not bad, especially once you take off the route 1 fodder, starters, and legendaries. Even more if you take off the trade evolutions if you aren't using those, and baby Pokemon (tbf those SUCK).
Putting Ttar in the first half of the game is a mistake, because it wouldn't level up enough in time for the E4. But Murkrow, Houndoom, and Slugma should have come earlier. And some of Crystal's improvements should have been in the base game.
As someone who's playing the postgame rn, I feel better about some of Gamefreak's decisions. They gave Houndoom and TTar the best moves of their type, which were not very common at the time (Aero didn't even learn Rock Slide this gen!!). You need to use them both to give other Pokemon moves through breeding, and they also seems like they'll be fun to use in the battle facilities.
I am glad that many of my favorite designs such as Sneasel and Gligar received more powerful evos in Gen 4, but imo HGSS has a worse distribution of Pokemon than Johto, and with powercreep is an actually unpleasant game because it switched out the Elemental Punches for Inaccurate/low-PP moves, hides the best TMs behind an annoying mechanic that you can't bypass with money like you could in every other game, and it leads to an inbalance that makes parts of the game annoying because you don't have the right tools to beat your improved opponents. tl;dr HGSS has worse balancing.
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Something else to consider with GSC specifically is that each badge boosts the damage of the corresponding type by 12.5%. Once you beat Whitney this means Headbutt and especially Return provide a lot more value, and beating Pryce boosts Ice Punch (on top of his badge being the general +Special badge).
Between that and Stat EXP, a lot of mediocre Johto Pokémon can muscle their way through the game better than you'd expect.
Between that and Stat EXP, a lot of mediocre Johto Pokémon can muscle their way through the game better than you'd expect.
That is something I haven't considered. If the opponent's pokemon don't have a great moveset, then in theory it shouldn't be a problem to take them down. That being said, I do think we should assume it's from a perspective of a player who's playing blindly for the first time, not one who would know on what to expect from the opponent through sites like serebii or bulbapedia. And I feel that is something the player doesn't have: a lack of control.
The thing is with the amount of limitations a player has they (or possibly me) is that they might not believe they are fighting at their potential to a reasonable degree. Sure there are tms but once you use it on a pokemon (that you may or may not use in the end), it cannot be taught again to a another mon. Combined with the weak movesets and the lack of variety of viable mons to have, it might make them feel unprepared when it's reasonably not their fault.
Sure the gym leaders and silver might have poor movesets, but that's more because of how poorly the boss's have been implemented as Clair is the only tough boss (Whitney might be more cheese than actually difficult). Plus, the elite four and lance have definitely have better movesets so it might come across as an unfair fight.
This might not be a fair comparison, but whenever I have to fight bosses in the 2000-20s era like Leon, Professor Turo and Ghetsis, I always feel in control because I have enough resources in viable mons and resuable TMs. If I lose a fight, I would say it's my fault for having a good strategy or using the resources possibly. Whereas in GSC (or any old game possibly) you can't be blamed if you have to stick with Powder Snow for Piloswine or Icy Wind for Tentacruel.
I do think the issue may be worsened in HGSS because it's a remake and it should have fixed its issue in the original, not to mention have some of the gen 4 evolutions available like Weavile, Magnezone, Rhyperior, Glaceon or Tangrowth.
Also sorry if this come as a nitpick, but I thought i should address the following:
- Girafarig - Has Agility, but doesn't get a strong psychic move until Level 41 in Psybeam (no Psychic). Also outclassed by other Psychics as Alakazam and Espeon
- Donphan - Doesn't get Earthquake until Level 49, so you're stuck with moves like Fury Attack and Rollout.
- Heracross - Honestly not a bad choice considering its unique defensive typing, as it resists Grass, Ground and Dark and you can get it in the early game. That being said, you don't get a STAB move until Level 54 in Megahorn.
- Jumpluff - It has no real offensive moves until level 44, and its real use is that it can put someone to sleep. I think
- Lanturn - Seems to be reliable, with having a STAB water and electric move. It's a shame that it can't learn thunderbolt naturally, but even if it can't i suppose it can be decent.
- Sneasel - It has a 35 special attack, can't make use of dark and ice moves
- Qwilfish - Not sure, how can it get by with its 55 special attack.
- Piloswine - Gets Powder Snow as its best move until Level 54 where it gets Blizzard (unless via TM). It needs to be taught the Earthquake TM.
- Xatu - Same issue as Girafarig, outclassed by most Psychic mons
- Gligar - Only real offensive moves are Slash and Faint Attack. Combined with its low attack and lack of ground STAB it would not hit hard.
But i will say the lack of resources, combined with the one time use of TMs and poor moveset would make the player feel unfair that they're not given sufficient preparations to beat bosses when playing blind.
Gengar's shiny was fine prior to XY. It wasn't amazing, but it wasn't pre-SV Garchomp bad like it became.
This isn't the case in Crystal, they moved it to the Ice Path. Still late game, but not outright post-game.
This isn't wrong if you approach the games as RPGs, but basically these challenge games are retooled to not actually function as RPGs anymore. They're made into something I'd best compare to a strategy game rogue like. In that framework, the games are succeeding at what they're being designed to do, it's just very understandable if the gameplay loop involved in that isn't appealing. I really don't like the functional requirement of an external spreadsheet for these games on my end, as well as the bandaid that is rare candy spam and hard level caps over the gaping wound that is EXP being a stranded mechanic in these games. But otherwise I see the appeal.
This is 100% true and is 100% why I simultaneously do not care for people who whine about getting bad IVs (or Natures for that matter) on mons for their ingame teams. Unless you absolutely crater an IV + nature combo on your only functional offensive stat, the effects of IVs are going to end up being far more on your mental perception of what's happening than what's actually happening. Having those differences remain relatively hidden improves the RPG play experience 95% of the time. The same relatively arbitrary desire for optimization drives both forms of frustration.
Fundamentally, for an in-game run, both IVs and EVs are useless. Players won't notice them unless told and also the difficulty level doesn't matter.
For various challenge runs, especially modded ones/fanhacks, they probably get patched(and also GF hates fanhacks). If you're playing some nightmare nuzlocke that requires RNG good IVs and also EV grinding, my first question is why you hate yourself.
They only matter to competitive, where both mechanics are unnecessarily obfuscated. Thing is, in competitive, at least EVs involve decisions. Walls speedcreep, mixed attackers target specific damage benchmarks, HP values are tuned for LO/Sub/SR, etc. Yes, 252/252/4 distributed however is standard, but every team will have at least one mon that deviates from that. IVs are binary, and binary in a way that involves no thought. Both EV training and IV breeding are timesinks, but at least the former adds player choice. IVs are just saying "How much of your time are you willing to trade for advantage in competitive? Any answer less than ALL is wrong."
For various challenge runs, especially modded ones/fanhacks, they probably get patched(and also GF hates fanhacks). If you're playing some nightmare nuzlocke that requires RNG good IVs and also EV grinding, my first question is why you hate yourself.
They only matter to competitive, where both mechanics are unnecessarily obfuscated. Thing is, in competitive, at least EVs involve decisions. Walls speedcreep, mixed attackers target specific damage benchmarks, HP values are tuned for LO/Sub/SR, etc. Yes, 252/252/4 distributed however is standard, but every team will have at least one mon that deviates from that. IVs are binary, and binary in a way that involves no thought. Both EV training and IV breeding are timesinks, but at least the former adds player choice. IVs are just saying "How much of your time are you willing to trade for advantage in competitive? Any answer less than ALL is wrong."
you worded my point way better than i ever could haha
my point isnt that "its bad because its grindy", but "its bad because its not offering anything other than the grind". moves also include a grind (and sv's systems is kinda ass) but theyre providing pivotal choices in how a set will be build, same with natures and your ev spreads. ivs aren't offering set creativity and expression, they dont make the game more complex or interesting. if you removed ivs now they wouldnt change anything, because everyone already runs 31ivs in their defenses and attacks so its all canceled out, and the mentioned non competitive reasons for them to exist dont actually affect 99% of prople in practice.
some enjoy them because they like the sense of discovery and not everything being told you, but imo obfuscation for the sake of it is meaningless. if the system you discover isnt contributing anything to your experience then you just found out some random useless gear in the machine
Gengar's Shiny for Gen 3 on OG hardware is not as contrasted as raw graphics ripped/emulation, largely due to the crap dim screen
Using the accurate shader
It's still markedly different than Sugi's art where that's less red shifted in comparison, but nowhere as drastic as what emulation and Gen 4/5 made it seem. FRLG is even funnier cuz it's less saturated there for reg color, and HGSS notably is ignored in these debates cuz it actually is fully blue shifted like art, despite saturation buff
A lot of beef with XY colors is literally "I hate that they made it accurate to Sugi's art". Which is a fine opinion to have, but not an issue with the fucking medium
The shiny didn't change, Gengar base did
Using the accurate shader
It's still markedly different than Sugi's art where that's less red shifted in comparison, but nowhere as drastic as what emulation and Gen 4/5 made it seem. FRLG is even funnier cuz it's less saturated there for reg color, and HGSS notably is ignored in these debates cuz it actually is fully blue shifted like art, despite saturation buff
A lot of beef with XY colors is literally "I hate that they made it accurate to Sugi's art". Which is a fine opinion to have, but not an issue with the fucking medium
The shiny didn't change, Gengar base did
On the subject of GBA color balancing, I think the Game Boy Advance is the only console in history that I genuinely hated.
It wasn't just that the launch model's screen lacked a backlight in the year of our lord 2001, while somehow making it harder to see than even its predecessors. It was also that a ton of games compromised their art direction in order to compensate for that low visibility. Play them on a proper screen and you'll notice the blown-out, washed-out colors right away.
That era, more than any other, was when Nintendo truly owned the handheld market all to themselves. Sega had thrown in the towel a few years earlier and Sony was still a few years out. Nintendo was virtually unopposed (outside of short-lived also-rans like NGP and Wonderswan) and could have released anything they wanted, and that was the hardware that they decided was good enough for the moment. Absolutely disgusting.
It wasn't just that the launch model's screen lacked a backlight in the year of our lord 2001, while somehow making it harder to see than even its predecessors. It was also that a ton of games compromised their art direction in order to compensate for that low visibility. Play them on a proper screen and you'll notice the blown-out, washed-out colors right away.
That era, more than any other, was when Nintendo truly owned the handheld market all to themselves. Sega had thrown in the towel a few years earlier and Sony was still a few years out. Nintendo was virtually unopposed (outside of short-lived also-rans like NGP and Wonderswan) and could have released anything they wanted, and that was the hardware that they decided was good enough for the moment. Absolutely disgusting.
To be fair, they were still working with disposable battery power and heavily valued the battery life. Backlights were possible back then, but those ate through the battery life and used even more batteries. The Sega Game Gear, for example, only had a max battery life of 5 hours and used 6 AA batteries. The GBA was also still functionally a portable SNES with some extra bells and whistles. That's honestly pretty good.
Though the GBA is admittedly a bit weird from a first-party perspective. No new traditional 2D Mario game, lots of SNES ports, and the system only lasted for 3 years before the DS effectively supplanted it.
The SP actually had a functional backlight and looked like how the games look on emulation/the DS.