I can definitely see where you're coming from
Suspicious Derivative , though to me what made Blue great is the idea of player immersion. Unlike a movie or a show where you're simply watching a character and see them grow, as well as see things like antagonists getting character development that the character being focused on wouldn't see,
you are the main character. And as such, you don't really see anything behind the scenes more than the character you are supposed to be would. So from that viewpoint of the player purely being the character, I think Blue was done well because the character is not going to see him as this complicated person with an odd moral system and different values - the guy's just a massive dick. We all know people IRL who are just big, massive dicks whose complexities and morals we've never even thought about. They're just dicks that insist on impeding anything we do. That's what Blue is - a big, massive dick (and honestly a bully; which is great considering this game's age range) who is an obstacle for you to overcome.
I understand your views. And I kind of agree and disagree at the same time. I also like immersion in the Pokemon games, but in a different way compared to you. I like it when there are good storylines with memorable characters which get character development (Platinum and 5th gen being the best regarding this if you ask me, probably OR/AS too). And I like being the main character in such a story instead of the more basic stories so to say like in the Kanto games. Though these games do have other qualities, but overall I prefer the other games over them, especially when it comes to story and characters. And I have had enough of jerks in real life, seeing them in video games as well isn't something I appreciate. I believe we are after the same thing (more or less), we just like it in different ways.
Remakes: Now that the next remakes would be Diamond and Pearl, I'm now also wondering whether those games need to be remade. Maybe they should consider holding off a generation like they did with not releasing the Gen III remakes during Gen V. So it would be Gen VIII when they should consider doing a Gen IV remake. And even then I would suggest doing it only if they have new ideas rather then doing it out of obligation. I say instead of churning out a remake with pretty much the same story except with some new stuff and updated graphics maybe they should spend the time expanding the story and adding in everything they could before deciding that its ready for release. ORAS felt a bit rushed at some placed because they were racing against a deadline, proof being the Battle Frontier. Who would have been willing to take a few more months if the Battle Frontier would have been included (and maybe some other stuff in Emerald)? So yeah, now that they've finished Gen III remakes I think they can really slow down on the remakes since they'll not be doing games which honestly don't need remakes since the mechanic wouldn't have changed that much. The only major mechanical change a Gen IV remake would have at this point would be Mega Evolutions, not really a mechanic that desperately needs to be added (I'm sure we all want a Mega Arceus but I say unless they go all out they don't need to do a whole remake just to have one).
I also believe that the next remakes will be D/P, and they will be for the 3DS' successor. Though, at the same time I kind of don't want them to happen. Not going to continue on that track though because it leads into speculation and wishlisting.
Whether they
need to be remade is another thing. At the present point, I don't think so as I find D/P playable and enjoyable by modern standards (compared to R/S which I think are slightly outdated). I also agree that they should not make remakes every generation (one of the million things I loved about Gen 5 was the fact that it had no remakes, only new games!). Other than that, I agree with pretty much everything you said.
Mr/Ms Not Appearing In The Game... Or Did They: The opposite gender BW character appears in the Battle Subway as a partner for the Tag Battles. Neat way to include them if they didn't want to shove them to being one of your rivals and I think the game is better for it. Same for DP, Pearl/Barry was your rival while the opposite gender DP character was an assistant to Professor Rowan and pretty much only there for some tutorial. It was such a good idea they also did it for the opposite gender HGSS character.
While I agree to some point the opposite gender playable character shouldn't be that involved in the story, I do want to see them in the game as their own character. Don't have them as a rival exactly, but instead be them an off to the side character like an assistant to the Professor. One of my favorite personal touches in DP is that post game Dawn appears in the Department Store while Lucas would be in the Game Corner. That little detail shows they aren't just the same character, both have a preferred place to go (maybe stereotypical, but hey its something). And maybe even let us battle them as a bonus.
Thanks: Thanks
Suspicious Derivative &
HelenTheHero! :D
I think you misunderstood me here. I wasn't talking about how the player character of the opposite gender appears in some games as an NPC. I agree with most of what you said and I also liked the appearance of the other player character in R/S/E, D/P/P and X/Y, but not in HG/SS, that's because I didn't really like Ethan/Lyra as characters. At the same time, I didn't mind it being absent in 5th gen, the exception being - as you said - the Battle Subway where you can team up with them, and in the sequels, have a multi battle against Ingo/Emmet outside of the Subway before entering for the first time.
What I really meant to say was this: I liked the fact that Hilda/Hilbert (the playable characters from Black and White) were never physically present in the sequels (Black 2 and White 2, which had Nate/Rosa as the playable characters). This way, it meant that the playable character from both the first pair and the sequels never appeared at the same time (the only exception being the Subway, as you said). Instead, the player character from the first pair was referenced to multiple times throughout the games (at least if you had used Memory Link, not sure how it was without it). Even better, their names also appeared (I believe this was only through Memory Link), at several notable places like outside of their house in Nuvema Town which I thought was amazing. I prefer this over the situation in the Johto games where Red (the playable character from the Kanto games) appears as an optional boss at the end, which I honestly don't like.
And you're welcome!
I think the best solution to people who want more story to people who just want a basic adventure is probably to try to keep the two separate. While BW are my favorite game I can understand how some would feel the story sort of took over at certain points (especially during the end. While I like the plot twist of the villain team taking over the Pokemon League as you're going through it I can understand how some would be miffed they'd have to wait for post game to actually become Champion). Don't know how they'll exactly master that balancing act since at some point you would need to do some story and some League stuff in order to progress (you can't ignore the story due to the player being the only competent one to save the day while you can't ignore the League since that's your driving force). They'd have to keep both bare to those who don't want to do something but at the same time have it be expandable to those players who want to and are willing to explore to find it.
This is a very good idea, but I can't see how it would be implemented in a good way either.
On the contrary, the menu of HG/SS was one of the best things of the game. It actually used the touch screen to it's full extent, reducing the reliance on buttons, which if someone plays as much as I do, get screwed up, anyway. You could easily access any menu quickly and didn't need to keep a button pressed to sprint. It's far better than having a virtually useless C-Gear. I would take something like quick menu access over C-Gear and Poketch any day.
The pace problem isn't exclusive to hg/ss. Gen 4 games as a whole were much slower than any other games in the franchise and the pace was even more jarring considering how fast gen 3 battles were. Diamond and Pearl were worse and I can't replay d/p at all.
This is just the one thing I disagree with. I thought pretty much everything about the touch screen in HG/SS was terrible, including the menu. I found it to be too slow, as I have said. I didn't care that it used all of the touch screen as it was still badly executed, so it did nothing for me. It only made me worried that future games in the series would follow in its path. Which I'm glad wasn't the case, I find the 5th gen touch screen to be
much better because it is so much faster, better organized and more convenient to use. Not having it at all times didn't bother me as pressing X once is easy, and the red cross was awesome to exit all menus at once as opposed to HG/SS where you had to cycle through menus each time. I also preferred the situation in D/P/P where you didn't have the touch screen, but I still found the menus to be much faster (
especially the box system). The only bad thing about the D/P/P menu were the fact that you had to scroll down to the bottom every time you wanted to use your latest used item. The all-time running shoes did nothing to me either, I guess I should like it but somehow I just can't care for it. Pretty sure there were times I forgot about it and held B anyway. I knew all of this is unpopular because of how much praise HG/SS gets for their touch screen as I found it to be overall very bad and not deserving of any praise.
And, time for more unpopular opinions I guess: I like both the Poketch and the C-Gear because they actually do something instead of slowing down the game, and I'll take them over the HG/SS touch screen any day.
I do agree that Gen 4 on the whole was slow (D/P more than Platinum and HG/SS) but HG/SS has way too many problems which I think are larger than the slowness, which is why I'd definitely take D/P (even without Platinum) over them. This is also unpopular, I believe.
I think revisiting Kanto made g/s and hg/ss even more special since they pretty much become direct sequels to r/b and fr/lg. Granted, they could've improved the level curves in both regions, but having an entire region as a post-game is really exciting, since you can observe the changes in the region that've occurred in the 2/3 years between the games and also listen to remade music from the previous games. (Also as you stated, it even solves a complaint you have about Blue, who turns from an egotistical jerk to someone who is lot more philosophical and sporty, as seen from his comments at Cinnabar and the way he concedes that you are a great trainer after you beat him.)
That's funny, because I think it made them special too, but in a very negative way. I didn't care about the fact that you had a large area to explore when it was filled with nothing but low-level Kanto Pokemon (which you had already seen everywhere in Johto) as well as weak trainers. The levels didn't progress either as it was way too open and not linear enough, they could have solved this by ensuring there was a necessary order to beat the Gym Leaders in. But they didn't. Speaking of Gym Leaders, Kanto in the Johto games doesn't have any story whatsoever, and the Gym Leaders are literally just sitting there doing nothing but waiting for you to beat them so they can keep doing nothing afterwards. And like everything else, the levels of the Gym Leader's Pokemon didn't progress either since you could beat them in practically any order (except Blue, at least in HG/SS).
I preferred the post-games (when it comes to new areas to explore) in FR/LG, D/P/P, B/W and B2/W2. While their areas were smaller than what we got in HG/SS, they were at least filled with strong trainers and wild Pokemon that were both new compared to what you had seen in the maingame as well as at high levels. I also thought they had better post-game stories than the nothingness of HG/SS. I know this is unpopular as well because the one thing the Johto games seems to get the most praise for is the fact that they have two regions, which I think is something they should get criticized for instead.
You are right about how it solves my problem with Blue, but I would have liked them to expand on his character (as well as all the other important characters) even further.
Now to something else which isn't related to anything of the above. Don't know if this is unpopular but here we go. Play Rough sucks. It has horrible accuracy, pretty sure it has missed as many times as it has hit for me, feels like it is 50% instead of 90% which is not acceptable. It has missed at very bad times for me, which has costed me battles or put me in very bad situations. I sincerely hope future games/generations introduces other Physical Fairy-type moves with better accuracy, or they can just raise the accuracy of Play Rough and the problem is solved.
