Unpopular opinions

[Sonikku A]

Yes, but the SP changed the colorspace to be closer to GBA player. That's not what many 2001-3 GBA games like RS were made for, and especially irrelevant to the Gengar topic

SMW's GBA port looks attrocious on SP/Micro/GB Player for this reason. It was made way earlier for the original GBA

This disconnect of what devs intended for OG hardware and raw emulation leads to very bad misnostalgia btw. Salamence is another example of very deliberately being meant to be displayed on OG GBA, where the blues/reds are different to the standard sRGB colorspace

It's actually funny, cuz DPP leaks indicate GF were unaware that DS Lite displayed closer to sRGB, so mons initially just reused Gen 3 palettes before being updated. Even then Gen 3 mons were given lower priority to Gen 2 and 4's, so many didn't change even if they needed to

For instance, Cradily on OG GBA hardware's petals are pinker

The raw ripped sprite is orangish, but DP doesn't update this even though it's incorrect. Again, priority to Gen 2 and 4

Lickitung is another example, the orangish pink in the RSE and FRLG sprite looks pinker on OG hardware, but DP doesn't update it. HGSS interestingly does fix this, but BW oddly reverts

Lickilicky meanwhile is pinker, taking advantage of the DS lite

 

[Sixfortyfive]

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 Game Gear (and Atari Lynx!) were ELEVEN YEARS OLD when Nintendo released the GBA. Yes I know a core pillar of the Game Boy line's design was "making the most of low-spec hardware," but that kind of time span was an eternity at that specific moment and the lack of a backlight in the 21st century was a decision that drew criticism from pretty much every outlet at the time, especially since Nintendo had already released a Game Boy variant with a backlight. And even putting aside the lack of backlight itself, the GBA was somehow even harder to see than the Game Boy Color. I couldn't tell you the technical reason for that but it literally felt like they were going backward in screen tech.

I also object to the idea of the GBA as a "portable SNES" because the GBA hardware is also compromised for even that simple job. The audio hardware sucks and too many SNES ports sound too crunchy. It doesn't have parity with the number of buttons, so some games just control weird.

Again, Nintendo had an effective monopoly on the handheld market at that moment, so they could have released anything that they wanted. It's not like they had to position themselves as a low-cost alternative anymore, because they weren't even competing with anybody else anyway. I'm sure it was more than justified as a business decision, but that's not terribly important to me as a consumer.

Whenever I play GBA games on GBP+GBI these days, I appreciate that there are at least colorspace configuration options to make the games look more appropriate on a TV, but most of the time I can't be bothered to tweak those settings on a per-game basis to figure out which narrow hardware/viewing environment they were actually calibrated for.

Just fundamentally bad hardware that literally made its games worse than they needed to be.

This disconnect of what devs intended for OG hardware and raw emulation leads to very bad misnostalgia btw. Salamence is another example of very deliberately being meant to be displayed on OG GBA, where the blues/reds are different to the standard sRGB colorspace

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You know, I wonder if this kind of discrepancy contributes a little to the community perception that gen 3 was a radical art style shift.

The bottom examples look more in line with what I'd expect from a progression from gen 2.

 

[Sonikku A]

You know, I wonder if this kind of discrepancy contributes a little to the community perception that gen 3 was a radical art style shift.

Tbf the main artwork not being watercolor did a lot. Even compared to his digital late 1996-2001 art, Sugi's sense of saturation just weirdly died middle of RS dev (early presented RS mons are mostly fine for contrast, but then you look at Team Aqua or especially FRLG art it gets super pale...)

I do think mon design wise Gen 3 mons are closer to 1 for adapting more monstrous inspos. Gen 2 is very contemporary cutesy outside very late game mons

Regardless, the fact GBA was emulated super early (literally before US release) meant many have nostalgia for that instead of OG hardware

 

[Karxrida]

The Game Gear (and Atari Lynx!) were ELEVEN YEARS OLD when Nintendo released the GBA. Yes I know a core pillar of the Game Boy line's design was "making the most of low-spec hardware," but that kind of time span was an eternity at that specific moment and the lack of a backlight in the 21st century was a decision that drew criticism from pretty much every outlet at the time, especially since Nintendo had already released a Game Boy variant with a backlight.

I'm no tech expert, but I know enough to say that stronger hardware can have a much higher power draw. Considering that the Game Boy Light's battery life was nearly cut in half when using the backlight and Nintendo was really married to sticking to 2 AA batteries, I can kind of see why they left that feature out. Should they have? Probably not. But I can see why.

And even putting aside the lack of backlight itself, the GBA was somehow even harder to see than the Game Boy Color. I couldn't tell you the technical reason for that but it literally felt like they were going backward in screen tech.

I don't have any retort to this, just want to say that I'm curious as to what screen tech was like at the time. We were still a few years off from the iPod Touch so I wonder what was available to Nintendo. I at least know the original Game Boy's screen was basically the best they could reasonably do at the time.

I also object to the idea of the GBA as a "portable SNES" because the GBA hardware is also compromised for even that simple job. The audio hardware sucks and too many SNES ports sound too crunchy. It doesn't have parity with the number of buttons, so some games just control weird.

fwiw the SNES's sound chip was made by Sony, and Nintendo very likely didn't want to deal with that headache. Plus the games actually made for the GBA could still sound amazing regardless. We all know Gen 3 Pokémon has a bunch of iconic tunes, and the OST of Mother 3 is legendary. (There are more examples obvs but I just wanted to highlight those.)

And a good chunk of the ports were platformers or RPGs that didn't really need the extra face buttons.

Again, Nintendo had an effective monopoly on the handheld market at that moment, so they could have released anything that they wanted. It's not like they had to position themselves as a low-cost alternative anymore, because they weren't even competing with anybody else anyway. I'm sure it was more than justified as a business decision, but that's not terribly important to me as a consumer.

Considering the state of the console industry at the time I can understand why Nintendo still went with being low-cost, especially with how inexpensive GBA games could be. (Also, I think they purposefully tried to kill the WonderSwan Color with the GBA so they weren't entirely unopposed for a very short period.) I believe GBA games in Japan were priced relative to the cart capacity, so some games could be even cheaper than they were in the US ($20-$40 USD I want to say?) and thus easy for kids to pick up with allowance. You also need to consider that Sony could and eventually did try to break into the market. It wouldn't shock me if Nintendo was trying to preemptively undercut the inevitable competition.

Just fundamentally bad hardware that literally made its games worse than they needed to be.

Considering that the GBA still has an active homebrew community due to how relatively simple it is to develop games for the system, you cannot say it's bad lol. (Reminder that it is actually capable of 3D rendering.) WayForward was able to finish their previously canned GBA Shantae game and have it run on original hardware because they felt like it and still had the files lying around.

Regardless, the fact GBA was emulated super early (literally before US release) meant many have nostalgia for that instead of OG hard

I remember seeing people play GBA games on their iPod Touches in like 2007ish. It's crazy how easy it was to emulate the system even back then. It's a good thing Nintendo actually put effort into NSO's GBA emulator to make it basically perfect and probably the best one available lmao.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

Considering that the GBA still has an active homebrew community due to how relatively simple it is to develop games for the system, you cannot say it's bad lol. (Reminder that it is actually capable of 3D rendering.) WayForward was able to finish their previously canned GBA Shantae game and have it run on original hardware because they felt like it and still had the files lying around.

Homebrew exists for like every commercially successful platform, so I'm not sure what that's supposed to prove.

And 3D rendering? Yeah, I remember people trying to hype me up for Super Monkey Ball Jr, and the only thing I could think of while playing it was "jesus christ I wish I was playing real Super Monkey Ball."

 

[Karxrida]

Homebrew exists for like every commercially successful platform, so I'm not sure what that's supposed to prove.

The fact that it's easy to develop for? Bad hardware doesn't tend to be easy to develop for lol. This isn't the Sega Saturn, aka the "the instructions we shipped to English devs were written in Japanese and weren't even comprehensive when translated" console or the PS3, aka the "Gabe Newell publicly blasted us for being terrible" console. (Seriously though look up the development of early Saturn games – that's the stuff of nightmares. One dev had to borrow Sega's only development kit during the night and another had to risk breaking theirs constantly because they had to constantly hardwire it into their own computers. The first kits were also the size of minifridges and everything had to be programmed in the complicated Assembly coding language without finalized console specs.)

And 3D rendering? Yeah, I remember people trying to hype me up for Super Monkey Ball Jr, and the only thing I could think of while playing it was "jesus christ I wish I was playing real Super Monkey Ball."

Admittedly, most devs at the time didn't make good use of it, but homebrew has shown the potential of the GBA's 3D tech. It's still not, like, the most high tech 3D, but it's impressive for the time and context.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

The fact that it's easy to develop for? Bad hardware doesn't tend to be easy to develop for lol. This isn't the Sega Saturn, aka the "the instructions we shipped to English devs were written in Japanese and weren't even comprehensive when translated" console or the PS3, aka the "Gabe Newell publicly blasted us for being terrible" console. (Seriously though look up the development of early Saturn games – that's the stuff of nightmares. One dev had to borrow Sega's only development kit during the night and another had to risk breaking theirs constantly because they had to constantly hardwire it into their own computers. The first kits were also the size of minifridges and everything had to be programmed in the complicated Assembly coding language without finalized console specs.)

I am rather familiar with several second-hand accounts of Sega Saturn development. Retro Sega is kind of my main thing, and Sega of the mid 1990s basically followed an outdated philosophy of "release the hardware now and just have the programmers figure out the software as we go." Which was sort of acceptable for the Mega Drive in 1988 when they could tell their programmers who were already familiar with System 16 arcade architecture "just apply what you already know about 68000 development to our new console variant and go from there" but completely unacceptable for a dual-CPU dual-VDP beast.

That's also completely beside the point of me just thinking that the GBA should have been built to be a more capable machine than what it was, and that its library on the whole largely underscored the shortcomings of portable games in how they're at their worst when they're just trying to mimic contemporary console games when they don't have the tech to really do that.

 

[Sonikku A]

Frankly the weird colorspace instead of using a more standard one like what SP/Micro did is weird. The fact GB Player doesn't handle it properly makes it more odd

Same for straight up not having link cable support for GB/GBC. Nintendo should've been aware how enormous of an IP Pokemon was for using that tech. Even more baffling given GBA could play GB/GBC games, so there's that

DS...Lite (rip OG DS) they seemed aware to enable trade from Gen 3 to Gen 4 (admittedly GF handled this moronically, but whatever), but that was well after Pokemania died. Vs GBA dev being right when Pokemania was dying, but Pokemon was still an important user interactivity IP

It's just baffling alongside the "they had the entire serious handheld market to themselves"

 

[Sixfortyfive]

Frankly the weird colorspace instead of using a more standard one like what SP/Micro did is weird. The fact GB Player doesn't handle it properly makes it more odd

I think it's a good example of something that is more common than certain retro game "purists" would like to admit: sometimes the designers are just shipping something that's "good enough" rather than meticulously crafting every facet of a game with purpose and intent. Or, sometimes details are just getting overlooked in crunch.

There's a very vocal subset of retro gamer that insists on the "right" kind of video hardware and cables. The sort of person who will insist that 80s/90s games are "never meant" to be viewed through a signal with more clarity than composite video, citing things like dithered patterns that are "always" meant to be blended via low-bandwidth video signals... ignoring that there's an entire medium of arcade and computer games (and ports of those games to contemporary consoles) that were built for and on crisp RGB/VGA monitors, and whose pixels were very much always presented sharply. Then there are cases where the video capability of a console will just straight-up differ by region: the NES having composite output but the Famicom being RF-only (and then that being reversed for their revised models). There's a ton of granular factors to all of it that makes people sound silly when they talk about "developer intent" in broad strokes.

 

[Sonikku A]

Yeah like those Retro """purists""" ignore that Devs generally had better hardware than what the consumer had, making assets at a much higher res than what the TV showed. Arcade screens generally weren't composite dogshit consumer CRTs like purists overrate for home console. They also notably tunnel vision themselves to basically 8/16 bit eras, maybe include early 3D, but they overgeneralize things without dev acknowledgement A L O T

I've seen some try to excuse MvC2 Morrigan with "CRT hides this" when no, it's on a crisp fucking arcade, and still notably contrasts every other character sprite in the game

Something that gets me, they never mention how CRTs in Japan differ to the US. It's a large temperature difference of 3000, so things look bluer on Japan CRTs. Led to an issue of a US release of Spirited Away not having a master compensating that, so it looked incorrectly too warm than what Ghibli intended. 2006-9 marked when monitors got standardized across multiple industries, so these hiccups became rarer

Being aware of format, tech, and monitor changes is useful. But it's typically case by case, and unfortunately, a lot of Retro elitists would rather just overgeneralize if it "makes them feel fuzzy and warm"

Which for media preservation and teaching of the art process, pretty horrid honestly

 

[Sixfortyfive]

I've seen some try to excuse MvC2 Morrigan with "CRT hides this" when no, it's on a crisp fucking arcade, and still notably contrasts every other character sprite in the game

Capcom fighters are an especially amusing category for this kind of stuff because they're one place where you often *don't* have to guess what the intent is. They tend to make it very explicit.

The Saturn version of Street Fighter Zero 3 has option toggles for video format (RGB vs Video, which alters how dither mesh transparency graphics are handled) and screen size (Arcade vs Console, which alters how close characters can get to the very edge of the screen; the "Console" option limits this for the sake of overscan). The Dreamcast version of CVS2 just automatically changes the position of HUD elements depending on what kind of video cable is connected: if it's VGA, then the HUD mimics the arcade exactly; if it's composite, then the HUD is moved inward to compensate for overscan.

 

[WinterArcanine]

Brand new unpopular opinion: Mega Dragonite looks pretty good and doesn't even look lazier than the average mega. I have to think people forgot what most megas looked like because most of them really don't change the designs all that much, Mega Dragonite genuinely just looks like a typical mega lol.

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

Mega Dragonite looks majestic actually, and I love that it incorporates the more beautiful and magnificent elements of Dragonair's design into it, truly being magnificent and larger-than-life.

 

[Frostbiyt]

I'm already not a fan of regular Dragonite (at least as an evolution to Dragonair), this new design is even goofier looking, but Dragonite already looks pretty goofy. While it does incorporate some fo Dragonair's features, it still looks completely different. If the wings were on its back rather than it's head, I think this would be pretty uncontroversial.

 

[pokemon4eva]

I'm not a fan of Mega Evolutions in general, I think most of the design fall into the category of "not trying hard enough" and it's only a few outliers that really go all out with the execution, like Mega Rayquaza, Metagross, Diancie, (and bc this is the Unpopular Opinions thread) Heracross, etc. Like just look at stuff like Tyranitar or Aggron, it's just the same but spikier and wondering myself how do they even move around lol.

On that sense, Mega Dragonite fits right at home. It's mid.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Brand new unpopular opinion: Mega Dragonite looks pretty good and doesn't even look lazier than the average mega. I have to think people forgot what most megas looked like because most of them really don't change the designs all that much, Mega Dragonite genuinely just looks like a typical mega lol.

I agree. It's very consistent with how Megas are generally designed.

With that said, I hate most Mega designs.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

Yeah Megas are so fundamentally silly that it's just not worth getting worked up over any specific one.

 

[pika pal]

I'm not a fan of Mega Evolutions in general, I think most of the design fall into the category of "not trying hard enough" and it's only a few outliers that really go all out with the execution, like Mega Rayquaza, Metagross, Diancie, (and bc this is the Unpopular Opinions thread) Heracross, etc. Like just look at stuff like Tyranitar or Aggron, it's just the same but spikier and wondering myself how do they even move around lol.

On that sense, Mega Dragonite fits right at home. It's mid.

I mean on this front I always just assumed Megas were only assumed for battle or other specific activities rather than meant to be a consistent liveable physiology. Hedgehogs don't walk around with their quills CONSTANTLY spiked, it's only when they need it for a confrontation.

 

[Ironmage]

I mean on this front I always just assumed Megas were only assumed for battle or other specific activities rather than meant to be a consistent liveable physiology. Hedgehogs don't walk around with their quills CONSTANTLY spiked, it's only when they need it for a confrontation.

This is backed up by dex entries of the mega forms and similar lore. It's taxing and uncontrollable over a long duration, which is why it's only active mid-battle.

 

[Sonikku A]

I feel like there needs to be a gimmick clause for official comp. Natdex on Showdown is very silly with it

Like I don't need to face an opponent using a Mega, Zmoves, Dmax, AND Tera across mons, the gimmicks are already busted where 1 on a team is enough. VGC especially this gets silly

 

[Mad Ram]

I feel like there needs to be a gimmick clause for official comp. Natdex on Showdown is very silly with it

Like I don't need to face an opponent using a Mega, Zmoves, Dmax, AND Tera across mons, the gimmicks are already busted where 1 on a team is enough. VGC especially this gets silly

Realistically I can see them changing what gimmicks are allowed for different seasons. It would be like how they've been shifting what pokemon are legal per season. For example one could be Megas and Tera, next could be Megas and Z-moves, next could be just Z-moves, so on and so forth.

 

[Krockodile]

I never felt excited about catching Legendary Pokémon, and the main reason is the lack of connection with them. Sure, you can understand them based on their dialogue from other characters, diaries, and lore, but you never feel like you truly get to know the Pokémon on a personal level. Plus, all it takes is just to capture the Pokémon in a master ball, and that’s really it. Because these legendaries are so strong, I feel like playing with them is on easy mode, and I never felt satisfied or deserving of using these Pokémon. There are a few exceptions, such as Koriadon/Miraidon, where the game clearly establishes a relationship between the player (and their friends) and the legendary Pokémon. For example, Koriadon/Miraidon helps the player fight off a group of Houndour and Houndoom, allows the player to ride it throughout the journey, “shares” a sandwich with the player, and annoys Arven, helping in the final battle against an opposing Koriadon/Miraidon. These interactions make it clear that Koraidon/Miraidon enjoys being with the player due to the trust that has developed between them. There are other examples, like “Nebby” and Zacian/Zamazenta, but I feel Koriadon/Miraidon best demonstrates how a legendary Pokémon can naturally become friends with the player.

In contrast to legendaries, I feel more excited to catch the common Pokémon met throughout my journey. Some are powerful, like BW Darmanitan, RB Snorlax, or USUM Hawlucha, but you have to work to make them strong. There are times when they can’t defeat a boss alone and need help from their allies, not to mention they would start with weak move sets and poor stats, or require special evolution methods. Spending time with them, catching them, using them in battles, and evolving them got me more interested in them, as opposed to most Legendaries. Not to mention, most of them are like the “everyman” Pokémon (for lack of a better word), so I feel it's also more of a fair fight against bosses, who also happen to be using the same kind of Pokémon.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

The Arceus encounter in DPPt is cool because the combination of the Hall of Origin music and the fact that the key item was never released gives it a very strong "you're not supposed to be here" vibe.

 

[Sonikku A]

Too bad his theme is ass as a battle theme

First 12 seconds as an intro is fine....but looping that infinitely is so lame

 

[CPU]

Hey, looping the first 12 seconds worked fine for the SV Elite Four battle theme... right?