Unpopular opinions

[DreamPrince]

This has been my mind since USM. In SM, the ultra beasts play a crucial role since Lusamine releases them in Alola, and then goes off to the ultra deep sea in order to be with Nihilego. Let's stop here. This is what I like about the evil team in SM. They don't focus on the legendary Pokemon- rather its you who uses the legendary to aid you- instead of you catching the legendary as a result of the team's failure to use it properly. Once the Lusamine threat is gone, there's still the UB hunt which is carried out by the International Police, which the post game is centered around. What I'm trying to say is that the UBs were the focus- not Solgaleo/Lunala of SM- and the driving force around the characters.

Then USM came around. Oh boy, by shifting everything to Necrozma, the whole story becomes questionable. Since Lusamine is now determined to save the world from Necrozma, the scene where Nihilego appears doesn't have to be there, since Nihilego is not a factor in the plot anymore. The cutscene of the UBs going against the Kahunas should also be removed, since the UB hunt has been replaced by Rainbow Rocket, which ruins their " threatening " notion. In fact, Lusamine personality should be totally different in USM, since without Nihilego, Lusamine should have retained her "kind" personality. But no. Necrozma ruins everything.

Instead the UBs are delegated to being stuck in their homeworlds, where you can obtain multiple copies. That's nice, but that's only a feature a competive player would appreciate. And they had the nerve to introduce new UBs in the game...

My Unpoular Opinion: The UBs should not appear in USM because their presence doesn't make any sense and isn't relevant to the story.

 

[Kurona]

I really like that everyone's referring to USUM's story problems as "Necrozma Ruins Everything" or some variation thereof.

That's not even irony I just kinda love it. Carry on

 

[Pikachu315111]

I really like that everyone's referring to USUM's story problems as "Necrozma Ruins Everything" or some variation thereof.

That's not even irony I just kinda love it. Carry on

To be fair that's also how USUM's storyline goes: Everything was whole hunky-dory in Alola until Necrozma ruined everything by eating the light.

It's USUM's story problem in both the sense that it's the main antagonist and in the meta sense that many player feel its forced inclusion into SM's story wasn't properly done to make it feel natural nor made it better.

 

[Detective Barricade]

To be fair that's also how USUM's storyline goes: Everything was whole hunky-dory in Alola until Necrozma ruined everything by eating the light.

It's USUM's story problem in both the sense that it's the main antagonist and in the meta sense that many player feel its forced inclusion into SM's story wasn't properly done to make it feel natural nor made it better.

Then when gen 8 comes around we'll be singing Necrozma's praises because the plot is somehow "worse" than USUM's, and Let's Go will be blamed for taking development time away from the Pokemon games "anyone actually cares about"...

 

[Pikachu315111]

and Let's Go will be blamed for taking development time away from the Pokemon games "anyone actually cares about"...

I know what you're saying, though looking through things at a logical viewpoint, I'd say with Let's Go out they've now started the meat of the development for Gen 8 now that they laid down the foundation via Let's Go. If Let's Go influences anything about Gen 8 it would be due to engine restraints (though one would hope they'd make sure the engine was flexible) and them closely listening to early reports and keeping an ear out on what players/critics liked and didn't like (which is a good and bad thing, can be good as it means they're taking feedback early they can put it in the game though bad as opinions change when the hype wears down). However I would think anything story-related or the lore of the new region, Pokemon, & characters would be pretty much settle on by now; it's all about modelling the region now and seeing what their limits are (and any emergency changes/things they'd need to cut).

 

[Detective Barricade]

I know what you're saying, though looking through things at a logical viewpoint, I'd say with Let's Go out they've now started the meat of the development for Gen 8 now that they laid down the foundation via Let's Go. If Let's Go influences anything about Gen 8 it would be due to engine restraints (though one would hope they'd make sure the engine was flexible) and them closely listening to early reports and keeping an ear out on what players/critics liked and didn't like (which is a good and bad thing, can be good as it means they're taking feedback early they can put it in the game though bad as opinions change when the hype wears down). However I would think anything story-related or the lore of the new region, Pokemon, & characters would be pretty much settle on by now; it's all about modelling the region now and seeing what their limits are (and any emergency changes/things they'd need to cut).

That's no necessarily my view, just the initial Let's Go naysayers. Gen 8 is probably still going to feel very rushed. Perhaps Nintendo doesn't let Game Freak take the time they need on these because the merchandise and such is too lucrative to allow more than a year or so of "down time". (and fans will probably go ballistic if they can't throw money at new Pokemon titles) I don't know how these companies operate, (I very much doubt any of us really do, and anyone who actually does is likely contractually obligated to keep quiet) but I'm sure more than a few fans are willing to throw Let's Go under the proverbial bus for any of gen 8's shortcomings.

 

[Pikachu315111]

Perhaps Nintendo doesn't let Game Freak take the time they need on these because the merchandise and such is too lucrative to allow more than a year or so of "down time".

You may very well be right, though I'm just more hoping that GF got themselves stuck in a moment in time where they needed to make a Pokemon game in a short amount of time:

Skipping over Gen VI's third version and speeding up production of SM because they felt they needed to have a game for the 20th Anniversary and was more appropriate for it to be a new generation.
Doing USUM a year later because Nintendo was pushing them to move to the Switch. Either they wanted to make them the "last hurrah" for the 3DS like B2W2 was for the DS and/or they were already in the middle of developing USUM and didn't want to throw everything out like they had to do last gen.
Doing Let's Go because they were really being pushed to have a Pokemon game for the Switch and Gen VIII wasn't ready. They also probably wanted to do some GO integration while it was still fairly popular (though were still late to the party).
And now Gen VIII is planned for next year because, while Let's Go gave what Nintendo wanted, it didn't really give what Nintendo wanted and that was a new generation of Pokemon. Also the core series fans are feeling pretty burned by now due to USUM & Let's Go not being what they thought they would be.

I'm hoping once they have Gen VIII out they'll finally be able to slow back down and give Pokemon games the development time they need.

 

[DreamPrince]

I really like that everyone's referring to USUM's story problems as "Necrozma Ruins Everything" or some variation thereof.

That's not even irony I just kinda love it. Carry on

From my perspective there are two problems with Necrozma:

1. Like Pikachu315111 and everyone else mentions, the story seems to be poorly suited for Necrozma. I think the issue is that they keep the first half of the game the same, which doesn't work cause that's the buildup for the UBs, not Necrozma. Of course there's the Ultra Recon Squad, but all they do is say, " Necrozma is Coming. " The other 3rd versions have had the plot altered for the legendary Pokemon, like how Team Magma and Aqua are both your enemies in Emerald, and there conflicts leads to Kyogre and Groudon fighting which requires Rayquaza to come and Calm them down. That change is from the very beginning. But in USM the change isn't present until infiltrate the Aether Foundation, which was the first sign of the storyline change, which was already at the climax, so the other changes felt rushed at the very end.

2. The more nitpick reason is that the Necrozma forms are a rip-off of Kyurem. While I don't mind Dusk Mane and Dawn Wings, the Ultra form is what infuriates players the most, because its something that Kyurem should have gotten first. Remember how the lore of BW states that Reshiram, Zekrom, and Kyurem were one being? Kyurem's " Ultra " would be that original dragon. I guess players think that its unfair the rip off get this treatment before the original two who started their fusing gimmick got their Ultra, which I'm expecting to see in the Unova remake, since I see no reason not to do one since now mechanics like Ultra Burst and Mega Evolution exist, though I suppose that's a long time from now.

 

[Pikachu315111]

2. The more nitpick reason is that the Necrozma forms are a rip-off of Kyurem. While I don't mind Dusk Mane and Dawn Wings, the Ultra form is what infuriates players the most, because its something that Kyurem should have gotten first. Remember how the lore of BW states that Reshiram, Zekrom, and Kyurem were one being? Kyurem's " Ultra " would be that original dragon. I guess players think that its unfair the rip off get this treatment before the original two who started their fusing gimmick got their Ultra, which I'm expecting to see in the Unova remake, since I see no reason not to do one since now mechanics like Ultra Burst and Mega Evolution exist, though I suppose that's a long time from now.

A problem with getting "Ultra" Kyurem is that it needs to be a fusion of three Pokemon. Necrozma is able to go into its true form because all it needs from Solgaleo or Lunala is their light. What I think would be the easiest thing to do would allow us to turn Reshiram/Zekrom into their Orb form, fuse Kyurem with Zekrom/Reshiram, have the fused Kyurem hold the Orb, and from there either have it become the Original Dragon either through a Mega Evolution-like or Ultra Burst-like transformation (probably the former).

 

[DreamPrince]

A problem with getting "Ultra" Kyurem is that it needs to be a fusion of three Pokemon. Necrozma is able to go into its true form because all it needs from Solgaleo or Lunala is their light. What I think would be the easiest thing to do would allow us to turn Reshiram/Zekrom into their Orb form, fuse Kyurem with Zekrom/Reshiram, have the fused Kyurem hold the Orb, and from there either have it become the Original Dragon either through a Mega Evolution-like or Ultra Burst-like transformation (probably the former).

I suppose that is a fair point. But remember B2W2 Pokedex's entry states this: This legendary ice Pokémon waits for a hero to fill in the missing parts of its body with truth or ideals.

They could play around this, saying that Kyurem only needs one of these beliefs to revert back to its original self.

 

[Detective Barricade]

I suppose that is a fair point. But remember B2W2 Pokedex's entry states this: This legendary ice Pokémon waits for a hero to fill in the missing parts of its body with truth or ideals.

They could play around this, saying that Kyurem only needs one of these beliefs to revert back to its original self.

Not really. We've seen what happens when it's infused with truth or ideals - White Kyurem and Black Kyurem respectfully. And these clearly aren't the original dragon. At this point, I believe Reshiram and Zekrom have become too distinctly their own entities to be recombined with each other.

Not that that would necessarily stop Game Freak from creating a new forme of Kyurem like that of Ultra Necrozma if they really wanted to. Perhaps have Colress mess with the DNA Splicers or something. It'll be a very long time before Unova remakes happen, though, given gen 8 isn't until next year and they may not even have interest in Sinnoh remakes let alone Unova.

 

[Techkid040]

Not judging, but you have very interesting tastes compared to many others.

That's the entire point of this thread. Unpopular opinions.

 

[DreamPrince]

Not really. We've seen what happens when it's infused with truth or ideals - White Kyurem and Black Kyurem respectfully. And these clearly aren't the original dragon. At this point, I believe Reshiram and Zekrom have become too distinctly their own entities to be recombined with each other.

Not that that would necessarily stop Game Freak from creating a new forme of Kyurem like that of Ultra Necrozma if they really wanted to. Perhaps have Colress mess with the DNA Splicers or something. It'll be a very long time before Unova remakes happen, though, given gen 8 isn't until next year and they may not even have interest in Sinnoh remakes let alone Unova.

I don't see how Reshiram and Zekrom have become separate entities would stop them from making an "Ultra" Kyurem. Solgaleo and Lunala have their own IDs, but that doesn't stop Necrozma from using their light to become Ultra Necrozma. Kyurem could do a similar thing, but with the " energy", truth, ideals, etc. instead.

 

[Detective Barricade]

I don't see how Reshiram and Zekrom have become separate entities would stop them from making an "Ultra" Kyurem. Solgaleo and Lunala have their own IDs, but that doesn't stop Necrozma from using their light to become Ultra Necrozma. Kyurem could do a similar thing, but with the " energy", truth, ideals, etc. instead.

But Necrozma's just taking over one of them, not both at once. Kyurem would need to fuse with both Reshiram and Zekrom, and perhaps it can't contain them both.

But you're right. And I even said it wouldn't stop Game Freak from going even further with Kyurem if they wanted to. But they're probably not going to do it until they get around to Unova remakes, if indeed they're interested in doing Unova remakes. We currently don't know what the gen 8 games are going to be like, much less if we're going to see Sinnoh remakes within this generation, and possible Unova remakes are almost definitely not on the table at this time.

 

[Codraroll]

I think Pokémon has become too successful for its own good.

No, I'm not saying it in a hipster type of way, like the franchise has become too mainstream, has lost contact with its roots, or that money has gone to the developers' heads. I'm saying Pokémon's quality is severely hurt by its success.

They call it the "winner's curse", and I think I've said something about it before. Basically, the problem is that Pokémon as a brand is so strong that its products are pretty much guaranteed financial success, no matter their quality. This sounds like a non-problem like no other at first glance, but it's actually quite detrimental in the long run, and may bite back unexpectedly when the financial success suddenly crashes to a halt.

To give an example, the Star Wars brand has just suffered a nasty backlash from the winner's curse. Disney took it for granted that any new Star Wars movie was guaranteed to create a huge profit and lots of hype. For a while, that seemed to hold true. Even the reviled prequel trilogy made tons and tons of money. But then huge sums of money was poured into Solo: A Star Wars Story, and it utterly failed to make it all back. Nobody managed to predict that this particular Star Wars story didn't excite moviegoers to the same degree that the previous nine movies had. And that's not even mentioning all the fuss about Episode VIII: The Last Jedi and its reputation.

The problem with the winner's curse is that a bad decision, or even a string of bad decisions, appear to have no impact because it's not reflected in the sales figures. For a while, everything seems to go swimmingly, no matter what happens. The product is printing money, its reputation securing huge sales numbers. Rushed or buggy products are then shoveled out, generating a nice fat return on their investment. But one day, the series' reputation catches up with its quality, and suddenly the numbers are red for the first time ever. And nobody quite knows what went wrong.

I don't think Pokémon is quite into that last phase yet, but it's heading there. I'm not that worried about the moment Pokémon stops making money, though, I'm worried about what happens in the meantime. While BW2 have been hailed as the pinnacle of content inclusion in a Pokémon game, X and Y were purposefully stingy with features, saving them for a third version that never came. ORAS were a visually nice update of the beloved Hoenn games, but neglected to follow up some of their flaws, and the exclusion of the Battle Frontier was a punch in the gut. Gen VII is hands down the worst generation we've seen since Pokémon found its tone (i.e. post the GameBoy era), riddled with terrible design decisions (Pelipper everywhere and the new Pokémon nowhere to be seen, literally hours of unskippable cutscenes, horrible multiplayer interface, a Rotom Dex that never shuts up, etc.) ... yet it still made money. Lots of it, too.

If you only look at the sales numbers, Gen VII has been a roaring success. The games' directors must be held in very high regard, because the games sold so well. Who can argue against such results? If an intern speaks up against what he believes to be a bad design decision, why should his opinion matter over that of a director who sold millions of copies? Wouldn't it be a terrible insolence to disagree with the well-esteemed head honcho, thinking you can do better? Never mind the effects of Japanese corporate culture, the same thing happened when The Phantom Menace was scripted.

Gen VII is to Pokémon what the prequel trilogy was to Star Wars. Or perhaps what the sequel movies were to Home Alone, or Superman, or any old franchise that went down the drain by the 3rd installment onwards. A flawed product, whose flaws are masked by the money it keeps making. Conversely, the success also masks the good bits. When asssessing later on what went wrong, it's hard to tell a good decision from a bad one. Does the financial success of XY mean that players don't care for postgame content? Gen VII made money, does that mean its story-focused gameplay, extreme linearity and excessive handholding was well-received? What gave ORAS such high ratings, was it the fact that it was a faithful remake, or perhaps all the water? It's very hard to single out what made the beloved games beloved when all the arrows are pointing up, and the well-designed and badly designed games have the same huge sales figures and high review ratings. How can the designers tell which is which? How can they find out where the decline began, when they kept making good money for a long time after that?

To improve the quality of the games, Pokémon needs a thorough assessment of what it does right and wrong, and the designers need to care about the implications. Right now, "It doesn't matter, it will sell anyway" can be a valid statement, but then one day the franchise will have a reputation for rushed games of dubious quality, where people correlate its name with basic design mistakes that are never patched. Financial ruin seems unlikely, just look at the Sonic games. That brand is still strong enough to consistently make money, but the franchise's reputation is still tarnished by the terrible games made in the 2000s.

I don't want the next Pokémon games to be another rush job, where perceived-infallible directors make bad decisions without even being made aware of the consequences, because objections are drowned by the piles of cash dumped over them. I don't want them to get away with shipping inferior products, because the concept is so good the execution doesn't matter. But seeing how PLG became a hit, despite offering less than FRLG did in all aspects except graphics and sound, I don't have my expectations up. And I fear that Game Freak will keep making mistakes for a long time before realizing that something is wrong. The alarms are drowned out by the sound of cash registers.

 

[Worldie]

. But seeing how PLG became a hit, despite offering less than FRLG did in all aspects except graphics and sound, I don't have my expectations up. And I fear that Game Freak will keep making mistakes for a long time before realizing that something is wrong. The alarms are drowned out by the sound of cash registers.

On this matter, it must be noted Let's Go was actually *not* a great seller.
Despite the strong initial sales, the sales have hit a very fast stop.

I pointed a actual numerical example on discord earlier couple days ago:

Sun/Moon sold just short of 15 million copies in their fist 45 days, while Let's Go just barely hit 4 million sold so far.
However, there are 3 times more Switches around now than 3DS there were around at the end of 2016.
So despite strong early sales (third most release sold Switch title behind Splatoon 2 and Smash) it wasn't as big as a success as people might think.

Obviously we do not know how much money developing Let's Go actually costed, but the numbers aren't really *great* at all.
Assuming those numbers don't improve much in the next months, Let's Go could very well give that signal you speak of, that "bad quality is catching up with the sales".
If they were expecting Let's Go to sell much more (something I think, considering how much they tried to feed us that it's a game enjoyable by everyone when it's clearly meant for parents with kids and nostalgic people that haven't played Pokemon for 10+ years) this should really give them the red warning that if Gen 8 doesn't catch back up with the quality the customer base expects, disasters might happen.

 

[Karxrida]

To give an example, the Star Wars brand has just suffered a nasty backlash from the winner's curse. Disney took it for granted that any new Star Wars movie was guaranteed to create a huge profit and lots of hype. For a while, that seemed to hold true. Even the reviled prequel trilogy made tons and tons of money. But then huge sums of money was poured into Solo: A Star Wars Story, and it utterly failed to make it all back. Nobody managed to predict that this particular Star Wars story didn't excite moviegoers to the same degree that the previous nine movies had. And that's not even mentioning all the fuss about Episode VIII: The Last Jedi and its reputation.

While your point is still valid, the main issue with Solo is that they had to reshoot like 70% of the movie (and thus dump more money into it) after the original directors were fired. If that never happened then it probably would have made at least a modest profit.

 

[Hugin]

Main issue with Solo was...well, no, ONE of the issues with Solo was that it was shot so dark that it was unwatchable in many theaters. And that it was a story that no one has ever cared about*. And that the EU did it better in 2 paragraphs than they could in 2 hours. And that it wasn’t starring Harrison Ford. Basically, it was doomed from the concept level, and then poor execution put the nails in the coffin.

*”Hey, how did this guy end up drunk in a dive bar?” Have you ever said that? No. Because why would anyone ever need an answer to that question.

On-topic, I’m going through OR atm, and wow is the leveling curve a pain mid game. I try to avoid outleveling the next gym leader’s ace, but even with 5 mons and dumping XP into my HM slave, I’m still running high by the time I reach the gyms. There needs to be an easier way to do challenge runs without level advantage turning supposedly difficult fights into a cakewalk.

 

[Detective Barricade]

I think Pokémon has become too successful for its own good.

No, I'm not saying it in a hipster type of way, like the franchise has become too mainstream, has lost contact with its roots, or that money has gone to the developers' heads. I'm saying Pokémon's quality is severely hurt by its success.

They call it the "winner's curse", and I think I've said something about it before. Basically, the problem is that Pokémon as a brand is so strong that its products are pretty much guaranteed financial success, no matter their quality. This sounds like a non-problem like no other at first glance, but it's actually quite detrimental in the long run, and may bite back unexpectedly when the financial success suddenly crashes to a halt.

To give an example, the Star Wars brand has just suffered a nasty backlash from the winner's curse. Disney took it for granted that any new Star Wars movie was guaranteed to create a huge profit and lots of hype. For a while, that seemed to hold true. Even the reviled prequel trilogy made tons and tons of money. But then huge sums of money was poured into Solo: A Star Wars Story, and it utterly failed to make it all back. Nobody managed to predict that this particular Star Wars story didn't excite moviegoers to the same degree that the previous nine movies had. And that's not even mentioning all the fuss about Episode VIII: The Last Jedi and its reputation.

The problem with the winner's curse is that a bad decision, or even a string of bad decisions, appear to have no impact because it's not reflected in the sales figures. For a while, everything seems to go swimmingly, no matter what happens. The product is printing money, its reputation securing huge sales numbers. Rushed or buggy products are then shoveled out, generating a nice fat return on their investment. But one day, the series' reputation catches up with its quality, and suddenly the numbers are red for the first time ever. And nobody quite knows what went wrong.

I don't think Pokémon is quite into that last phase yet, but it's heading there. I'm not that worried about the moment Pokémon stops making money, though, I'm worried about what happens in the meantime. While BW2 have been hailed as the pinnacle of content inclusion in a Pokémon game, X and Y were purposefully stingy with features, saving them for a third version that never came. ORAS were a visually nice update of the beloved Hoenn games, but neglected to follow up some of their flaws, and the exclusion of the Battle Frontier was a punch in the gut. Gen VII is hands down the worst generation we've seen since Pokémon found its tone (i.e. post the GameBoy era), riddled with terrible design decisions (Pelipper everywhere and the new Pokémon nowhere to be seen, literally hours of unskippable cutscenes, horrible multiplayer interface, a Rotom Dex that never shuts up, etc.) ... yet it still made money. Lots of it, too.

If you only look at the sales numbers, Gen VII has been a roaring success. The games' directors must be held in very high regard, because the games sold so well. Who can argue against such results? If an intern speaks up against what he believes to be a bad design decision, why should his opinion matter over that of a director who sold millions of copies? Wouldn't it be a terrible insolence to disagree with the well-esteemed head honcho, thinking you can do better? Never mind the effects of Japanese corporate culture, the same thing happened when The Phantom Menace was scripted.

Gen VII is to Pokémon what the prequel trilogy was to Star Wars. Or perhaps what the sequel movies were to Home Alone, or Superman, or any old franchise that went down the drain by the 3rd installment onwards. A flawed product, whose flaws are masked by the money it keeps making. Conversely, the success also masks the good bits. When asssessing later on what went wrong, it's hard to tell a good decision from a bad one. Does the financial success of XY mean that players don't care for postgame content? Gen VII made money, does that mean its story-focused gameplay, extreme linearity and excessive handholding was well-received? What gave ORAS such high ratings, was it the fact that it was a faithful remake, or perhaps all the water? It's very hard to single out what made the beloved games beloved when all the arrows are pointing up, and the well-designed and badly designed games have the same huge sales figures and high review ratings. How can the designers tell which is which? How can they find out where the decline began, when they kept making good money for a long time after that?

To improve the quality of the games, Pokémon needs a thorough assessment of what it does right and wrong, and the designers need to care about the implications. Right now, "It doesn't matter, it will sell anyway" can be a valid statement, but then one day the franchise will have a reputation for rushed games of dubious quality, where people correlate its name with basic design mistakes that are never patched. Financial ruin seems unlikely, just look at the Sonic games. That brand is still strong enough to consistently make money, but the franchise's reputation is still tarnished by the terrible games made in the 2000s.

I don't want the next Pokémon games to be another rush job, where perceived-infallible directors make bad decisions without even being made aware of the consequences, because objections are drowned by the piles of cash dumped over them. I don't want them to get away with shipping inferior products, because the concept is so good the execution doesn't matter. But seeing how PLG became a hit, despite offering less than FRLG did in all aspects except graphics and sound, I don't have my expectations up. And I fear that Game Freak will keep making mistakes for a long time before realizing that something is wrong. The alarms are drowned out by the sound of cash registers.

So... pretty much just like many of the AAA published titles these days, only without the microtransactions.

But yes, I really don't want Pokemon to release anything approaching Fallout 76 levels of "should be embarrassed and ashamed of how not ready for the public it is yet launched anyway"

I love ORAS, but I've heard somewhere that it was rushed. (which might be the real reason for its lack of certain features like the Battle Frontier, instead just copy-pasting the Maison) I'd say that if Game Freak cares at all, they should remember Miyomoto's words about delayed games vs. rushed ones... but I fear that in today's industry culture, a "good" game is less important than one that makes a ton of money up to the launch week. And that's sad and dangerous in the long-term that many of these publishers refuse to account for these days.

 

[Kurona]

LGPE is fun and enjoyable, but nowhere near £50 fun and enjoyable. It'd be perfectly fine if it was £20 or so.

 

[Codraroll]

While your point is still valid, the main issue with Solo is that they had to reshoot like 70% of the movie (and thus dump more money into it) after the original directors were fired. If that never happened then it probably would have made at least a modest profit.

Not only that, it also introduced the term "Star Wars fatigue" and put all the planned spin-off movies on hold indefinitely. Disney had expected it to make enough money that the extra costs didn't matter, but it clearly earned way less than forecast, and this rocked some very fundamental beliefs Disney had about the franchise.

I'm not sure if Pokémon will get there, at least not any time soon, but I'm worried about the interim. The period where the developers feel they can get away with anything, and where the quality of the games keeps declining until a real wake-up-call comes.

 

[Worldie]

LGPE is fun and enjoyable, but nowhere near £50 fun and enjoyable. It'd be perfectly fine if it was £20 or so.

I do agree. The fact they put a full AAA price tag on a game that's basically a minor spinoff probably had something to do with the sales not being particularly amazing.

 

[Suspicious Derivative]

I think Pokémon has become too successful for its own good.

...

and I think I've said something about it before.

Indeed. I remember this post from you which was posted three years ago, so that's one situation at least. Don't know if you have said it at any other times too, but that is one I remember. And it is interesting how you chose to make another post on the subject now because I have been thinking about this lately, as well as trying to find your old post and re-read it (which I got to do now, so thanks for that). And while we're at it, I might as well share some of my own thoughts on this subject.

Back when that original post was made in 2015, I read it, but I wasn't sure if I agreed. Or rather, if I agreed completely. I felt that in a way, Pokémon was actually too successful for its own good, but I had a hard time accepting that it was the truth.

Because I like Pokémon. I like the Pokémon games. I did three years ago, I still do today. I like most of the recent games too, despite their flaws. To put this into perspective, I want to share some short thoughts on the latest three generations as well as what I feel that they did right and wrong.

I think I have said enough times that Gen 5 is my favorite and that B/W and B2/W2 are my favorite games, so let's not go into any deeper explanation there. To me, these games have very few issues and the little ones they have are very minor things that doesn't affect their gameplay negatively in any major way.
X/Y are a bit of a weird case. While I won't deny that they have flaws, the things they do right are for the most part things I care about the most in Pokémon games, so I'm willing to forgive them for their issues just because of the things they do right.
OR/AS felt like the first step in the wrong direction. Mainly because I don't really like remakes, and I wasn't sure if I should get them. I was unsure about getting them during the entire pre-release period and I ended up not getting them on the release date since I did simply not have enough interest in them. I later got them in 2015/16, but that's mostly because we never got the X/Y follow-up game that I really wanted. If the X/Y follow-up had been released in 2015 like it should, I would have skipped OR/AS and I would probably still not have gotten them. Looking back now though, I really enjoyed OR/AS, and they are even among my top favorites in the series (beaten only by Gen 5 and X/Y). Even so, I feel that they could been better.
Next, Gen 7. I think that this is where things went even more wrong. They could have done an epic, amazing game that made Gen 6 completely obsolete, but they failed. Instead, I find Gen 7 to be worse than Gen 6. If anything, I can appreciate Gen 6 a lot more after playing Gen 7. That said, I still enjoyed both S/M and US/UM, but for me, their flaws are a lot more significant and gamebreaking compared to those of Gen 6. I get easily annoyed by the Rotom Dex and SOS mechanics whenever I play US/UM, and that's not good. There's also the lack of training spots (especially in S/M) and the lack of a National Dex which are very big issues for me personally.
Finally, LGP/E. These are the first main series games that I'm skipping completely. Though I'd be lying if I said I didn't have any interest in them, but I just don't have enough interest to get them. On a scale from 1 to 100, my interest for them is at 5, maybe. And with there being so many other interesting Switch games out there that I'd rather buy, I just can't see any reason to get them. I recently bought Super Mario Odyssey instead and it is a lot of fun, I doubt LGP/E can live up to that level of enjoyment.

As for the future, I think that the 2019 games can go either way. They can either become very good and successful games with really good gameplay, or they could become even worse than Gen 7. We'll have to see how the future turns out. Sadly, I'm a bit more pessimistic about them compared to what I usually am, and that's because the series has recently not been going in the right direction for me personally. Regardless, I expect these games to sell quite well no matter their actual quality... for better or worse.

In a way, I kind of hope that some future main series Pokémon game will flop financially so that Game Freak realizes that their current ways are not flawless. Many fans also feel that there's too much appeal to Gen 1 lately, myself included. And that might also cause a flop. I still believe that what Rapti said about too much nostalgia appeal here is true, and that in a way, Game Freak are setting themselves up for a future failure.

This became rather messy but I really I wanted to get some thoughts out of my head that I have needed to say for a while now, and this was a great opportunity for that. To end this, let's take a look at the original statement once more:

I think Pokémon has become too successful for its own good.

Three years ago, I wasn't sure if I agreed with this. But today, three years later? After everything that has happened with Pokémon since then?

I agree.

 

[Magnus0]

I´m not sure how unpopular this opinion is, but I sure don´t hear a lot of discussion about it: I think that it is time for a fifth moveslot.

We're zeven generations into pokemon and there are still just four move slots on every pokemon. With how many different moves there are right now, four move slots feels very restrictive. Even in some of the older games when there weren't as many moves as now, like gen 4 games, four moveslots felt restrictive because of the stupid amount of HM's that were needed then. And knowing GF, I woudn't be surprised if HM's returned in gen 8.

Personally, I would even go a step furhter and give all pokemon a second ability as well. Not like a second hidden ability, but like, every pokemon can use two abilities at the same time. If done well, it could be a perfect opportunity for weaker pokemon to become more usable with cool ability combinations.

Let's take beedrill as example. It has swarm and sniper. Fair enough, these abilities make perfect sense for beedril. However, there are many other abilities that were released later on that also make perfect sense for beedrill to have. Abilities such as levitate, merciless, poison touch, intimidate and anger point come to mind. I think it's a shame that there are so many interesting abilities in the game that rarely see use because they just aren't distributed to older pokemon.

The way I envision this mechanic is that every pokemon gets two 'pools' of two abilities. Each pokemon can have one abilitiy from each pool. Beedrill could have poison touch/sniper and merciless/ anger point. With these two pools, there are actually four possible combinations of abilities for beedrill to use. Poison touch + merciless, sniper + merciless and sniper + anger point would all be really cool, albeit gimmicky, combinations. Because beedrill is a bad pokemon, it is 'allowed' to have some really strong combinations of skills to close the gap between it and all the broken shit that came out since gen 5. There are lots of interesting combinations that could make underused pokemon more interesting to use both in-game and in competitive. Think of drizzle + swift swim for seaking, fluffy + thick fat for purugly, technician + skill link for ambipom, reckless + rock head for rampardos or analytic + stall for beheeyem. So many possibilities.

 

[Nelson Tangela]

I´m not sure how unpopular this opinion is, but I sure don´t hear a lot of discussion about it: I think that it is time for a fifth moveslot.

We're zeven generations into pokemon and there are still just four move slots on every pokemon. With how many different moves there are right now, four move slots feels very restrictive. Even in some of the older games when there weren't as many moves as now, like gen 4 games, four moveslots felt restrictive because of the stupid amount of HM's that were needed then. And knowing GF, I woudn't be surprised if HM's returned in gen 8.

Personally, I would even go a step furhter and give all pokemon a second ability as well. Not like a second hidden ability, but like, every pokemon can use two abilities at the same time. If done well, it could be a perfect opportunity for weaker pokemon to become more usable with cool ability combinations.

Let's take beedrill as example. It has swarm and sniper. Fair enough, these abilities make perfect sense for beedril. However, there are many other abilities that were released later on that also make perfect sense for beedrill to have. Abilities such as levitate, merciless, poison touch, intimidate and anger point come to mind. I think it's a shame that there are so many interesting abilities in the game that rarely see use because they just aren't distributed to older pokemon.

The way I envision this mechanic is that every pokemon gets two 'pools' of two abilities. Each pokemon can have one abilitiy from each pool. Beedrill could have poison touch/sniper and merciless/ anger point. With these two pools, there are actually four possible combinations of abilities for beedrill to use. Poison touch + merciless, sniper + merciless and sniper + anger point would all be really cool, albeit gimmicky, combinations. Because beedrill is a bad pokemon, it is 'allowed' to have some really strong combinations of skills to close the gap between it and all the broken shit that came out since gen 5. There are lots of interesting combinations that could make underused pokemon more interesting to use both in-game and in competitive. Think of drizzle + swift swim for seaking, fluffy + thick fat for purugly, technician + skill link for ambipom, reckless + rock head for rampardos or analytic + stall for beheeyem. So many possibilities.

Can you imagine Sand Rush + Sand Force Excadrill with 5 moveslots?
...or Adaptability + Download Z-Conversion Porygon-Z with 5 moveslots?
...or Moody + Simple Bibarel with 5 moveslots?

How would Skill Swap work? Or Trace?

Even if Game Freak managed to avoid making the obviously broken combinations legal, I have a feeling that 5 moveslots alone would be enough to put power creep and role compression on full tilt, making even more Pokémon outclassed.


Guts + Quick Feet Facade Ursaring is crying in the corner, mumbling "55 base Speed..."