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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
- Start date
Ok I've got another one. So mine (and I have heard variants of this in some way on this thread) Lucario is heavily overrated. It's the sort of Pokemon that everyone dotes on for one of 2 reasons: either its design (which I have no real problem with) OR they are what I like to dub a diafanatic. Essentially, a player who excessively likes gen 4, almost to genwunner levels. It's all well and good liking a mon because of its design or its competitive use but, in my opinion, liking a pokemon because of the gen it comes from is something to draw the line at.
This is very odd. Where do all those 4th generation fans hang out? Sinnoh seems to be the least popular region according to the Pokemon topics I see.
If I had to guess, it might be because between ORAS and the Virtual Console games, Sinnoh is currently the region farthest from memory.
I am unsure about this, every other comment whenever a new Pokemon content is announced is about "When are Sinnoh Remakes coming?"
I think they've reached Half-Life-3 level of wanted now
(I still think they'll be the gen 8 2nd batch titles, if they keep up with the remake / 2nd version / remake / 2nd version trend so far)
A more accurate trend would be "a remake every new console" (FRLG for the GBA, HGSS for the DS and ORAS for the 3DS). Of course, that's assuming Let's Go does not end being THE remake for the Switch.
The thing with Sinnoh, to me, is that it's just a distant memory. Some like it, some don't, but few remember much from it.
I did a solo Pachirisu challenge in Pearl less than a year ago. Sinnoh is a bland region, especially compared to previous areas like Hoenn. That's probably why more people don't remember Sinnoh.
Sad when a 4 minute animation was able to show more of Silver's character development than the games did.
Not sure about the Archie and Maxie point, I don't think that has anything to do with the player but rather them seeing how badly their plan went (unless you're talking about them seeing the player as the only one who can stop the Legendary and giving us the Aqua/Magma suit, then maybe).
But I think the Latios/Latias thing AND Zinnia's interest in your is what pushes it a bit. The "welfare Lati@s" felt unnecessary, in XY it made sense to be handed the "welfare Lucario" because they wanted to show off Mega Evolution. But the only thing with the Eon Duo was their Soaring mechanic which you don't need them in your party for, just the Eon Flute. They could have the one you defend against Aqua/Magma find your worthy by letting your summon them for Soaring and then post game, after becoming the Champion, allow you to battle and catch it. Though the Zinnia thing would require re-writing the Delta Episode (which isn't a bad idea as Zinnia herself is a Mary Sue, would like her to get some more comeuppance than just Rayquaza rejecting her).
That said, the Battle Maison in ORAS provides a funny "this isn't just about you" to the player after you get all the trophies. Wally is amazed the trophies in the hallway are for the player, only for an NPC to come up and tell him that the trophies are meant to commemorate the Battle Maison reaching the milestone of a trainer completing that challenge and not for that trainer. Granted, they only got that milestone because of the player, though it does explain why the trophies are placed in the Battle Maison and not given to the player (even though we have our Secret Base we could put them in).
And they really pulled a u-turn of the player being important in Sun & Moon which was more about Lillie (herself a bit of a Purity Sue now thinking about it) and her family drama.
I actually don't mind it for Sun & Moon because, as you noted, those just feel like Marvel & DC's version of the "Elsewhere" and "What If" stories. Infact I find it quite an interesting idea, how would a world where the villains won be like? A world flooded by storms, dried up by droughts, erased of emotions, where Pokemon and people are separated, and where only a small organization of humans are the last remaining non-plant life forms.
Anyway, the one that bothered me was the one introduced in ORAS's Delta Episode. Instead of ORAS being a retcon, now it and XY (and Sun & Moon) take place in an alternate timeline where the Ultimate Weapon was fired. And the way we know this is what really irritates me: it's because somehow Zinnia knows of the non-Mega timeline and explains it to everyone after destroying the original plan to stop the meteor. Since apparently the meteor can only be destroyed by Mega Rayqauza, the GB, GBA, & DS era of games would be destroyed as they don't have Mega Pokemon (we'll just ignore how Pokemon Mystery Dungeon shows Rayquaza is perfectly able to destroy meteors in its normal form...). It felt unnecessary, and the only reason done was to get players behind Zinnia because she's saving the original RSE.
And Let's Go further complicates things as it's a THIRD main series timeline...
Also they're not appearing to you only because they sense you're "worthy", rather they only came out seeking a powerful trainer because Neo Team Plasma is really messing with things now that they're controlling Kyurem and you just so happen to be the first one worthy enough to come by ("Well, I was kind of hoping for a Gym Leader, Elite Four, or Champion to come by, but you'll become the Champion eventually so I guess you'll do").
Eh, I don't feel Pokemon is that type of game. Like if that was to happen I'd honestly just prefer to maybe see something done like the player sends their Pokemon out in a cutscene by the Legendary simply blows them back. No actual battle, and they can have someone heal your party so they don't have to program any fainted Pokemon in your party, but will still get the same point across: you're not yet strong enough to challenge the Legendary.
Or at the very least make it into a new room move: Inverse Room.
Though giving options to affect how battles are done in-game would be neat to have, even if it's something that needs to be done at the beginning. In addition to Inverse Battles they could have it set so all battles are Double, Triple, or Rotation Battles.
Wouldn't pay $300, but wouldn't mind if they did another PWT BUT would like to see some additional groups added instead of just being Gym Leaders & Champions: Elite Four, Frontier Brains, (Captains & Kahuna for Alola), Rivals, and a handful of the other special trainers (I could post a list but I feel that would be wishlisting). Eitherway I like PWT but felt it didn't fully reach its potential.
We need more locations like Black Tower and White Treehollow as post game locations! Such a great place to grind, and it had a neat little story both while progressing through it and how NPCs in Black City/White Forest had their own individual stories progress.
It has good publicity. GF gave it a good Typing, good stats, a good Mega, and made getting one a bit of a hassle so has "rarity" value. On top of that it was also the star of a movie.
I don't see this opinion expressed frequently but GameFreak really needs to find a way to make Pokemon not so reliant on available players and trading in order for a full experience. I think the trading-based evolutions are rubbish, for instance. It makes sense when a lot of people are currently playing the games and we have wi-fi to easily trade some rare stuff or make really needed trades, but when the years go by, these facilities can and will be moot, so if you really want to play older generations, you're locked from getting certain Pokemon in that gen because technology ages and whatnot. You're put at a disadvantage the less access to Pokemon you get (obvious ones would be Alakazam and Golem but it also limits team building and matchup familiarity outside of external research). This rings true especially for event Pokemon, which I imagine isn't an unpopular opinion to hate on events. I'm not sure if Virtual Console games can somehow make trading more available, but I think people can see what I mean.
Also, I haven't been playing Pokemon since Gen 4 but I've been recently acquired interest just from browsing the forums for a little and reading on competitive Pokemon, but once I started playing, I feel there's a lot of things GameFreak can do to speed up the game. You don't need "the rain continues to fall" and then the animation plays; have it play at the same time or just have visual effects. You don't need "lolwaut received a boosted 566 exp" and then play the animation; have it play at the same time. You don't need "Feebas used Splash" and then an animation plays; have it play at the same time. When the HP starts draining from a super/not very effect move, have the message box appear while the HP is draining. This sort of assembly-line message box sequencing (I have no other words to describe it) can waste a lot of time; it adds up. It's probably why people disable those move animations to begin with but why have animations be a liability rather than something that adds to the game. Random encounters also don't have to suck a lot of time; if there isn't an autobattle + speed up battle function by then, why not have it now? But again, Gen 4 is incredibly sluggish and I think it's the sloggiest generation by quite a bit. I think playing on emulator and speeding it up with a button is required to sit through it for me....
Oh, and I'm not fond of the bike being replaced by a ride Pokemon. Bikes are icons of the Pokemon games; they're like Reshiram's crotch spike. It just isn't the same without them. I'm not sure if that's an unpopular opinion per se, but I haven't seen it frequently expressed in this thread. But again, people talk a lot about Ice type defensive buffs.
Also, I haven't been playing Pokemon since Gen 4 but I've been recently acquired interest just from browsing the forums for a little and reading on competitive Pokemon, but once I started playing, I feel there's a lot of things GameFreak can do to speed up the game. You don't need "the rain continues to fall" and then the animation plays; have it play at the same time or just have visual effects. You don't need "lolwaut received a boosted 566 exp" and then play the animation; have it play at the same time. You don't need "Feebas used Splash" and then an animation plays; have it play at the same time. When the HP starts draining from a super/not very effect move, have the message box appear while the HP is draining. This sort of assembly-line message box sequencing (I have no other words to describe it) can waste a lot of time; it adds up. It's probably why people disable those move animations to begin with but why have animations be a liability rather than something that adds to the game. Random encounters also don't have to suck a lot of time; if there isn't an autobattle + speed up battle function by then, why not have it now? But again, Gen 4 is incredibly sluggish and I think it's the sloggiest generation by quite a bit. I think playing on emulator and speeding it up with a button is required to sit through it for me....
Oh, and I'm not fond of the bike being replaced by a ride Pokemon. Bikes are icons of the Pokemon games; they're like Reshiram's crotch spike. It just isn't the same without them. I'm not sure if that's an unpopular opinion per se, but I haven't seen it frequently expressed in this thread. But again, people talk a lot about Ice type defensive buffs.
I think Smash has also played a huge role in Lucario's popularity, since its was the sole representative of Gen 4. Makes me wonder if Zoroark would have been more popular if it was placed in Smash, since they tried doing the Lucario treatment for Zoroark.
I think the problem derives from GF not really putting any effort into promoting rarer battle styles, such as Triples, Rotation, and Inverse. Triples and Rotations were featured quite poorly in BW, with Triples being exclusive to White, while rotation being exclusive to Black. And there were very few battles to begin with. The reason Singles stays is because its the main story format, whiles Doubles is promoted via VGC. Sure Triples and Rotations had their own ladders, but they were very inactive, and who could blame them, I mean, why play formats that are hardly promoted in game when its much easier to learn standard formats that GF and TPCI promote? Theorymon mentioned in a closing article for Gen 6 Battlespot, he stated that while he was sad to see them go, he understood why: Triples had a very small community, while Rotation he considered himself lucky to have 5 battles per day. In GF eyes, why do program them when players barely play it? Inverse is a bit more interesting since it actually exists via the coding, and its promoted via the special ladder, which is the problem. Special Ladders are practically dead. I get paired with 1700 players when I'm at 1500s.
So if they want to promote special formats and keep them, they have to make it a MAJOR mechanic, not just an extra feature, such as making it the offical format for VGC or making it the main mode of fighting in core RPGs.
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This has been a thing since gen 5. In that gen there was a box on the bottom screen to show current weather, and as of gen 6 there's a constant visual effect.
Some of this has been addressed in more recent titles... to an extent. In gen 5, weather appears as an icon in the corner of the bottom screen, while gen 6 onward just has the weather visible in the background. And animations have generally sped up and removed the slight delays seen in Diamond and Pearl.
As for the Ride Pokemon feature, that was exclusive to the Alola region. The bike will likely return in Sword and Shield.
Are we sure of that? They brought it back in LGPE, and it seems to have generally been positively received as a step away from requiring HM slaves.
Hopefully they’ll still bring the bike back but I’m all for Ride Pokémon replacing HMs still (that was their original purpose it seems but the bike kinda got lumped in there)
That really only worked due to following pokemon feature though, which is not in gen 8 games as we seen.
A bike return or HM-replacement pokemon return is more likely.
I've said this before in a different context, but I'll repeat it again because I feel it's relevant: I find it both oddly amusing and frustrating how every time the Zelda series finally gets rid of some of its bullshit, Pokemon adapts it instead.
Aw, crap, does that mean in ShSw Pokemon are going to break after a couple combats?
Neato. Oh well, better late than never, didn't have to take them a lot of gens to fix this, as it's not hard to notice how slow the older generations are. This is like HMs not being done away with until the current gen.
But I'm still not sure about the bike because it was still there in Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee, and it was a real bummer that you couldn't use it. Cute references to older games are fine, but not at the cost of the nostalgia.
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I'm probably going to get smitten by fans, but I really don't like Eevee or its evolutions at all. I think it's pretty overstated that Eevee is versatile because not only the current choices are easily overwhelming and I feel aren't incredibly useful to me. But its how Eevee and its mothers are all featured so frequently in merchandise. It's a problem with merchandising in general. Pokemon seems to be obsessed about marketing the hell out of Pikachu, yes, but when it's not Pikachu, it's Eevee and its evolutions. And if it's not Eevee, then it's the Kanto starters (barring their second forms). If they were selling motifs of like Mudkip Torchic Treecko, I'd know I'd be buying those. It's really irritating, if not, super boring to see the same Pokemon all the time in the merchandising. Pikachu seems to be a lot more hated than Eevee, and while Eevee still has more utility than Pikachu, it doesn't justify its saturation in merchandising.
I don't think the Eevee hate is unpopular, but I am gonna state that I personally believe Eevee's evolution concept would be better executed if it had an evolution for every type. Y'know, so it can like actually be an Evolution Pokemon, instead of just randomly having 8 different evolutions.
I probably not in the right circles then because I don't see people hating on Eevee as much as I am, but hooray I'm far from alone in hating something. :] Eevee's evolutions aren't all that amazing either and honestly, I don't care if Eevee's evolutions get more or whatever, that'll just mean more of these things in the stores.
I get what you mean with the Trade Evolutions, though at the same time I do like the idea of them. If you have a friend with a game (or are part of an online community) you both can trade each other to get a powerful Pokemon early. Maybe they can meet things halfway, make the trade Pokemon able to evolve by themselves at a high level (and mybe we can get a few Pokemon who evolve at a high level able to evolve by Trading them). That way when it's the active gen players can get these powerful Pokemon early though when the gen's time in the spotlight is over (or you're playing alone) you can still get these Pokemon but it'll be a grind and probably not done until close to end game/at post game.
As for Event Pokemon, I always thought they should make the event Pokemon available normally in the next game. That way in their debut gen they're a special Pokemon, but if you couldn't get them then you just need to wait till next gen where you can finally add them to your collection.
If I recall, that's what they do in Battle Revolution (at least for the battling segments), telling you what's going on while the animation plays (when a Pokemon uses a move, a weather is active, how effective an attack was, etc.). And you're right, it does speed up battles. Maybe another helpful thing to have would be a Battle Log so if a player wants to check on what happened on past turns they can do that (I imagine the reason to have a assembly-line sequence is to let the player know what's going on so they don't get lost).
I always felt there was a bit of untapped potential with the bikes. As of right now they're just a faster way to travel when I feel they could have some extra stuff with them. They have done things here and there, like Bike Path time trials and making certain paths you need to use the bike to navigate (be it a thin platform or collapsing floor) , but feel they could further expand on it. Maybe have bike races or stunt competition, including tricks you can do on your bike. Also maybe even let us customize the bike a bit, think Mario Kart.
But the difference between the bike and HMs is that the bike is a trainer tool you don't need any Pokemon to use. Now Alola may have replaced it with some of the ride Pokemon like Tauros and Stoutland, but those two also had another function to them. Meanwhile LGPE took a step backwards as you could only ride on certain Pokemon, it shows if you're not going to have the Poke Pager it may be a good idea to bring back the Bikes.
HMs were always a problem as you needed certain Pokemon to use them and we've seen them experimenting on either not using them that much (Gen 5 & 6), replacing it with a service (Poke Pager in Alola), or having your partner Pokemon learn special out-of-battle skills that does them (LGPE). And with those changes being positive I'm sure they'll probably find a way to get around HMs in Gen 8 (I still say just make a set of trainer tools that does what HMs do and be done with it; yes they want to show how useful Pokemon are but also wouldn't mind to see my player avatar also becoming more independent by gaining skills they don't need to have their Pokemon waste energy on).
Nah, just the held items. You get various kinds of Swords and Shields when playing that power-up your Pokemon in different ways but it's only for that battle, kind of like the Roto Loto powers.
But how else are they going to string along Gen I fans without being too pandering obvious? "Hey, look who just got a new evolution! Eevee! Now it's time to figure out what convoluted method you now need to do to evolve it to explain why you couldn't evolve it into that Pokemon in the first place, even though players don't actually care about that and would be willing to overlook it if it just means the get to play with the new Pokemon!"
Well... it's gotten an evolution or two every other gen since gen 2, so... maybe Eevee will see another evolution or two this time? I do agree that Eevee has more unique evolution methods than is really necessary.