Cute thought, but as far as I can tell remakes have never had a correlation with big anniversaries of the original titles. If they did ORAS would've released in either 2012 or 2017, and HGSS would've released in November rather than September.It's also gonna be the 15th anniversary of DP
As someone who wants a Sinnoh remake, I can also agree, though not for those reasons. I honestly think that a Sinnoh region remake would have made more sense in Gen 7, since the theme of Ultra Space fits in quite well with Sinnoh's Creation Trio, and especially since Platinum had the Distortion World to explore, which was our first taste of Alternate Universe in Pokemon. I also wouldn't mind Mega Evolution returning, since Professor Rowan researches Pokemon Evolution, and in XY, its stated that Professor Sycamore learned from Rowan in his youth. Love for that to be expanded on.It's a 2 for 1 special boys and girls, two steaming takes concerning the hotly anticipated Diamond and Pearl remakes!
#1: I do not care whether they use Mega Evolution or Dynamax as their central "gimmick", assuming they do have one. I don't really know what to say about this one other than to check out my previous post on why I like Dynamax in-game. Also, complaining about Dynamax being "forced" in to the plot of Sinnoh is hypocritical as shit if you're fine with ORAS or Let's Go "forcing" in Megas.
#2: I honestly don't think these games will be coming any time soon. There's a massive contingent of this fanbase that believes DP remakes are inevitable as the next big titles, but I honestly doubt it for a few key reasons. The biggest one being that usually when a remake is on the horizon, little bits of fanservice towards that generation are snuck in to the preceding original titles to tease it. OG DPPT did things like reference the Lake of Rage/Red Gyarados, have Jasmine cameo at Sunyshore City and give a sizable contingent of its new evolutions and Pokedex space to Gen 2 mons. XY had the Mega Blaziken event, major characters like Diantha and Calem/Serena using Hoenn megas, just a lot of Hoenn megas in general really along with some smaller hints via NPC dialogue. Following this trend, you'd think SWSH would have tons of little nods to Gen 4, like maybe Gigantamax/Galarian forms for a few Sinnoh mons or references to a couple of characters from those games, but nope! In addition, considering this year will be occupied by the SWSH DLC, the next possible year for a new title is 2021, which is gonna be a big anniversary year (the 25th) where I imagine that if anything they'd pull a Sun and Moon and try to get a new generation out the door.
I heard about the new evos not being in the regional dex, but this is ridiculous. Did they invent Tangrowth and then immediately forget about it?
I heard about the new evos not being in the regional dex, but this is ridiculous. Did they invent Tangrowth and then immediately forget about it?
Is this unpopular by any stretch? I feel like this is just the most logical way to view it. Pokemon wants to make money, theyll push whatever they think will make money. They push a lot of kanto mons because they make money. Of course, some of the reason that kanto mons make money is because they are iconic and people feel nostalgia.I definitely fall on the side of thinking that Kanto Pokémon are favoured because they're popular, not because they're from Kanto, and that the fact that the most popular Pokémon are from Kanto is only coincidental. It's a self-feeding cycle to an extent with characters like Pikachu, Charizard, Gengar, and Lucario, but as my inclusion of Lucario demonstrates I don't think that this is unique to Gen I. Pokémon from later generations I would identify as being in the same feedback loop are (Gen II) Togepi, Pichu, Umbreon, the Legendary Beasts, Tyranitar, Lugia, (Gen III) Grovyle, Sceptile, Torchic, Blaziken, Mudkip, Swampert, Gardevoir, Aron, Aggron, Manectric, Milotic, Absol, Salamence, Metagross, Rayquaza, (Gen IV) Turtwig, Infernape, Staraptor, Garchomp, Lucario, Munchlax, Rotom, (Gen V) Excadrill, Whimsicott, Darmanitan, Chandelure, (Gen VI) Greninja, (Gen VII) Rowlet, Incineroar, Rockruff, Lycanroc, and Mimikyu. I think it's too early to tell for Gen VIII, though Wooloo is definitely a contender to be on this list.
These Pokémon are listed because I think that, for whatever reason, their popularity has endured better than other Pokémon who TPCi have attempted to put into their own feedback loops. After Pachirisu won VGC they actually increased their production of Pachirisu plushies expecting an increase in demand, but it never came. Braixen and Weavile, two great designs with every chance of becoming all-time favourites, were included in Pokken Tournament but increased popularity didn't follow. Pumpkaboo and Gourgeist were pushed hard in Halloween season during Gen VI, but they never became popular either. Delibird is another case of a Pokémon who's still pushed every Christmas but who never has enduring popularity at any time of the year besides that.
The short of it is that though the trend above demonstrates a general decrease per generation, the outliers being Gen III with many enduring designs and Gen VI with practically none, that's looking at the state of things as they are right now. There are countless Pokémon from the more recent generations who TPCi has tried to make as popular as Charizard or Mudkip but they just haven't risen to the occasion and actually found the popularity that's needed for TPCi to keep pushing them. This is the same reason why despite being Kanto Pokémon, we don't see Dewgong or Poliwrath merch anywhere, because they're not popular enough to warrant it despite being in the series from the start. Most designs which TPCi identifies as having icon potential are tested to see if the general public is receptive to them, and we have slam dunks in more recent generations like Mimikyu, Lycanroc, Chandelure, Greninja, and Lucario to prove that it's not that TPCi is just sticking to their laurels by which I mean old favourites, because if they were these Pokémon would have never taken off to the extent that they have.
However, there is an issue, and it's that with each passing generation there are more Pokémon trying to share the limelight and therefore each one gets less of it. Frosmoth couldn't get a beautiful iridescent G-Max because they had to make one for Pikachu, Eevee and Meowth. Palossand didn't get a regional Galarian form (imagine one based on the White Cliffs of Dover!) because it was Gen V's turn to get some makeovers rather than Gen VII's. The more assets they have to balance the harder it becomes, and so necessarily the weaker or more nichely popular designs of newer generations can't compete with old Pokémon who were nichely popular but built up a fanbase over time. I feel confident in saying that Hatterene is a better Gardevoir, Shiinotic is a better Amoonguss, and Clauncher is a better Krabby. But Gardevoir was Wally's ace, Amoonguss has been holding down the fort in VGC since its introduction, and Krabby had that scene at the beginning of PMD Explorers where it blew the beautiful bubbles over the sunset. They've been in the series for longer so we have more memories with them, and therefore we feel more of a bond.
I think it's difficult to gauge the bias without looking at time frames. It's been 8 years since Gen VI and 24 since Gen I. That means we've been with Gen I designs for thrice as long as Gen VI -- many people who grew up with Red/Blue are married with kids of their own at this point. Perhaps in 16 more years we'll have a greater affinity toward certain Gen VI designs just due to their inclusion here or there, and we'll be arguing about Gen VI bias in the Gen XV games. It's unjust to expect new Pokémon to reach the levels of widespread popularity as the Gen I Pokémon because don't forget, the Gen I Pokémon are some of the most popular and known fictional characters in history. It was a social phenomena. If you were a kid in the 90s, your Grandma can tell you who Pikachu is, your parents can probably name a good 10-20 of the Kanto Pokémon, and half the people you went to school with could take a good stab at naming all 151 even now. In some ways, Pokémon is still using this early momentum, which means they have to be moderate in how they add to and revamp the series, meaning they can't stop favouring these early designs in favour of new ones. I mean, they tried that in Black/White when they only had new Pokémon until the postgame, and everyone hated it.
I definitely agree with this. Interestingly, the reason many people seem to want D/P remakes is "because they were the good old days". But the things that made the good old days the good old days are actively being stamped out these days. Sprawling areas that take a long time to navigate (and perhaps more importantly, a lot of time and money to re-create with modern graphics), route trainers using several Pokémon, competently designed Gym Leader teams, side quests like Pokémon Contests and the Sinnoh Underground, postgame facilities, and so on. This isn't stuff Game Freak has somehow forgot to make, they're simply choosing not to make them these days, and a remake of D/P would be likely to continue in that spirit. It would not contain all of the stuff that made the Sinnoh games so good.Main Point: Diamond and Pearl remakes struggle primarily due to their design being contradictory to current GF design and philosophy.
Ehhhh I dunno if I agree with these assertions, particularly paragraph 1 (and section 2 of DreamPrince's comment by extension). I'm not gonna do an exhaustive point-by-point, but I personally think SWSH actually has some of the best-designed gym battles in the series, easily on par with if not better than Platinum's. I also don't think GF is suddenly working to deliberately eliminate anything resembling complex route design, as recently as Gen 7 we got some friccin good, m e a t y areas like Vast Poni Canyon, hell in the Ultra games they actually revamped the relatively miniscule Mt. Lanakila to be more on par with other Victory Roads, and in SWSH we still got some stuff like Route 9 and the Wild Area. There's def some issues with underwhelming route design at points, but IMO it's not because of a change in design philosophy unless between Gens 7 and 8 there was a massive restructuring of the main dev team we're not aware of.I definitely agree with this. Interestingly, the reason many people seem to want D/P remakes is "because they were the good old days". But the things that made the good old days the good old days are actively being stamped out these days. Sprawling areas that take a long time to navigate (and perhaps more importantly, a lot of time and money to re-create with modern graphics), route trainers using several Pokémon, competently designed Gym Leader teams, side quests like Pokémon Contests and the Sinnoh Underground, postgame facilities, and so on. This isn't stuff Game Freak has somehow forgot to make, they're simply choosing not to make them these days, and a remake of D/P would be likely to continue in that spirit. It would not contain all of the stuff that made the Sinnoh games so good.
There's also the argument of graphics. Sinnoh was designed around a game system with vastly inferior capabilities than what is common today. The choice to have a semi-3D overworld actually made Sinnoh less complex in its graphics than the GBA games (look at building architecture, terrain shapes, textures in caves, etc). The game would need a complete style overhaul to be remade with today's graphics. A tile-by-tile remake like LGPE could work somewhat, but it would still look pretty bad for a modern game, and as established above, Game Freak would not be interested in recreating the troublesome aspects of Sinnoh such as the labyrinthine routes and numerous optional caves either. So a full fidelity overhaul would be necessary. Routes would have to be drawn up anew. Cities would get a touch of better architecture, not just the same copypasted buildings. It would probably be necessary to draw backgrounds, as the top-down camera probably wouldn't be accepted by everyone anymore. and I think that's too much effort to put into remaking an old region. It would alienate both camps too: for the old fans, it would not be faithful enough. For the designers, they would still be constrained by design choices made for an old system. It would not be a good remake, and it would not be new and interesting either. Why not use the time and effort to make an entirely new region from scratch instead?
I mean this is a problem but unless you are running Blissey, Snorlax and so on it's hardly a hard one to handle. I wouldn't decide the value of the game based on this minor detail.Are people really saying diamond and pearl are better than SwSh? If so, I implore anyone who does to try and replay those games (not platinum) without the help of an emulator speed up.
Yeah I'll admit, diamond and pearl were far from masterpieces. In fact, I agree with the common majority of people saying they're some of the worst in the series. At least Platinum much improved over these two though.Are people really saying diamond and pearl are better than SwSh? If so, I implore anyone who does to try and replay those games (not platinum) without the help of an emulator speed up. It’s unbearable, and even with a speed up there’s still numerous issues like pokemon variety. I don’t think a faithful remake of gen 4 (hopefully platinum) is impossible, SwSh feels like an outlier game with recent entries like USUM still having dungeons and large routes or LGPE being a very faithful remake. Even SwSh might become much more exploration heavy with the DLC’s introduction.
(also, a final gym leader that has type variety by choice and to fulfill a weather niche is much better than a final gym leader that has random other types because there weren’t enough electric-types left)
It’s not just the HP bar speed (although that does apply to more than just massive HP counts, it just generally hurts the pace). Stuff like surf speed being locked to a walk also hurts it. The games are just generally slow, and that makes it really hard to replayI mean this is a problem but unless you are running Blissey, Snorlax and so on it's hardly a hard one to handle. I wouldn't decide the value of the game based on this minor detail.
I disagree saying that SwSh had better Gym Leader design choices than Diamond and Pearl. In DP, Volkner has Raichu, Ambipom, Octillery, and Luxray. Raichu sets up with Light Screen and Thunder Wave, Ambipom has access to Baton Pass, Nasty Plot, and Agillity, which it proceeds to Baton Pass to Octilllery who can take advantage of the boosts through coverage moves like Octazooka, Aurora Beam, Bullet Seed, and Charge Beam, hitting Dragon, Ground, and Grass Super Effectively. Perhaps an inconsistent Strategy, but a potential strategy nonetheless that can steamroll you if unprepared.Ehhhh I dunno if I agree with these assertions, particularly paragraph 1 (and section 2 of DreamPrince's comment by extension). I'm not gonna do an exhaustive point-by-point, but I personally think SWSH actually has some of the best-designed gym battles in the series, easily on par with if not better than Platinum's. I also don't think GF is suddenly working to deliberately eliminate anything resembling complex route design, as recently as Gen 7 we got some friccin good, m e a t y areas like Vast Poni Canyon, hell in the Ultra games they actually revamped the relatively miniscule Mt. Lanakila to be more on par with other Victory Roads, and in SWSH we still got some stuff like Route 9 and the Wild Area. There's def some issues with underwhelming route design at points, but IMO it's not because of a change in design philosophy unless between Gens 7 and 8 there was a massive restructuring of the main dev team we're not aware of.
I never said that they were trying to completely get rid of complexity, I'm saying that they are more interested in streamlining the routes because they fear children will give up the game because its too complex games. Masuda says it right here:I also don't think GF is suddenly working to deliberately eliminate anything resembling complex route design, as recently as Gen 7 we got some friccin good, m e a t y areas like Vast Poni Canyon, hell in the Ultra games they actually revamped the relatively miniscule Mt. Lanakila to be more on par with other Victory Roads, and in SWSH we still got some stuff like Route 9 and the Wild Area. There's def some issues with underwhelming route design at points, but IMO it's not because of a change in design philosophy unless between Gens 7 and 8 there was a massive restructuring of the main dev team we're not aware of.
The primary reason for those was not to create a challenging dungeon, but to allow players to catch Pokemon unavailable in the previous games. With the exception of Mauville city, all those locations were designed to catch Pokemon that could found not be found in previous installments. The Sevii Islands were added to catch Johto Pokemon for RS should the player not have Colosseum and a gamecube, Scorch Slab for Heatran to allow catching every non mythical in Gen 6, and Mewtwo and the Legendary Birds were HGSS because they wanted to have a less of a reliance on GBA games.GF has also shown many times over they have no qualms making huge changes to the source material's map design, whether it be HGSS intensively modifying Mt. Silver and adding new areas like Cerulean Cave to let the player get the Kanto birds and Mewtwo, ORAS making Mauville City borderline unrecognizable from its RSE iteration and expanding Scorched Slab into a full-on dungeon with Heatran at the end, even as far back as FRLG adding the Sevii Islands.
Of course, if you disagree with the devs on what sections should be emphasized (I generally dislike pure open world, and prefer metroidvania as a way to make exploration interesting), than the lack of polish in the dungeons is still a notable criticism.I think the lack of substance in most of SWSH's overworld (heck, in its story) is at least partly due to the time constraints Game Freak has been under. They chose to focus on the areas that they wanted to develop the most (Wild Area, mainly), and left the rest to a relative minimum.
Here's the problem with the DP leaders: Intent. Maybe the non monotype teams dudes like Volkner and Flint had were an interesting shake-up, but you cannot say they were meant from the start, but rather a byproduct of Diamond and Pearl's utterly disastrous regional Pokedex, if they were intentional they would've been kept that way for Platinum like how Bugsy got to keep Drapion as his ace. Raihan was specifically built to use different types with a weather theme, if they wanted to they could've easily given him a mono-Dragon squad with Drakloak, Turtonator, Goodra etc. (He even gets the latter two in the Champion Cup!) but they chose not to. SWSH's Gym Leaders maybe don't have perfect strategy but they do some cool stuff, for instance Nessa's Drednaw actually has Swift Swim for synergy with Max Geyser, Kabu has freaking Arcanine and Coil Centiskorch in the mid-to-late 20s, Opal has the quiz gimmick with a Serene Grace Air Slash Togekiss, so on and so forth. I also don't understand what you're getting at with Piers not Dynamaxing when that's the entire point of his gym and part of his character and it's not like the player can Dynamax so it's an even playing field, no? Although I will give you the point on his Skuntank not knowing a damaging Poison move, that's kinda weird.I disagree saying that SwSh had better Gym Leader design choices than Diamond and Pearl. In DP, Volkner has Raichu, Ambipom, Octillery, and Luxray. Raichu sets up with Light Screen and Thunder Wave, Ambipom has access to Baton Pass, Nasty Plot, and Agillity, which it proceeds to Baton Pass to Octilllery who can take advantage of the boosts through coverage moves like Octazooka, Aurora Beam, Bullet Seed, and Charge Beam, hitting Dragon, Ground, and Grass Super Effectively. Perhaps an inconsistent Strategy, but a potential strategy nonetheless that can steamroll you if unprepared.
In SwSh, not only Piers feature pretty much no strategy resembling this, his Skuntank doesn't even know a single damaging Poison-type move. He doesn't even Dynamax! There is nothing stopping you from clicking Moonblast from your Sylveon and sweeping him. The only exception to this "lack of strategy " was Raihan, who admittedly used weather to his advantage.
On a similar note, I actually like it when a Gym Leader uses different types that are not specialty. It makes significantly harder to steamroll them with one type. Volkner's Octillery is a good example, it has coverage moves for the types that a player would use against an Electric type, including Dragon, Ground, and Grass. Might be an unpopular opinion, I prefer Volkner's team in DP over Platinum. Flint is also in a similar boat, Steelix has it water weakness halved while also serving Quad Resitence to Rock types the that the players might throw. Even Drifblim offers a ground immunity and can burn an Earthquake user with Will-o-Wisp.
I never said that they were trying to completely get rid of complexity, I'm saying that they are more interested in streamlining the routes because they fear children will give up the game because its too complex games. Masuda says it right here:So when we tried to think about how kids these days generally play games, what came to mind was mobile games really. Games which you play for a short time, and perhaps you'll be moving between various games pretty quickly, so if it was a game that kind of takes about two hours to get into, we thought that perhaps people might get a bit bored and then decide to move on to a different game. So back in the day, even playing in the virtual console version of the original Pikachu version, it might take you know thirty hours, forty hours to kind of complete, or progress significantly in the game. And in this age with so many games to choose from, we thought that we'd rather make something that was easier to progress through, and kind of tailor that playstyle to how we think that the playstyle has evolved over the years and how children are playing games now.
While you might be able to explore the Wild Area, you can't actually any of the Pokemon from the further areas until you have obtained badges, so even if you reach that area, you can't catch the Pokemon until you have the gym badges; it feels like an open area, but the way it handled makes it a facade: it's complete linear in terms of catching Pokemon. Its really problematic because when I wanted to catch an Ice type near Watchtower ruins after defeating the first gym, I was unable to because they were all level 21 +. How inconvenient
The primary reason for those was not to create a challenging dungeon, but to allow players to catch Pokemon unavailable in the previous games. With the exception of Mauville city, all those locations were designed to catch Pokemon that could found not be found in previous installments. The Sevii Islands were added to catch Johto Pokemon for RS should the player not have Colosseum and a gamecube, Scorch Slab for Heatran to allow catching every non mythical in Gen 6, and Mewtwo and the Legendary Birds were HGSS because they wanted to have a less of a reliance on GBA games.
This is not a problem in SwSh due to Dexit.
Nessa, fine Swift Swim + Rain Setter is cool but not the first time we’ve had weather set up, Byron’s Bastidon in DP utilized the sand from Steelix to set up iron defense alongside ChestoResto.Here's the problem with the DP leaders: Intent. Maybe the non monotype teams dudes like Volkner and Flint had were an interesting shake-up, but you cannot say they were meant from the start, but rather a byproduct of Diamond and Pearl's utterly disastrous regional Pokedex, if they were intentional they would've been kept that way for Platinum like how Bugsy got to keep Drapion as his ace. Raihan was specifically built to use different types with a weather theme, if they wanted to they could've easily given him a mono-Dragon squad with Drakloak, Turtonator, Goodra etc. (He even gets the latter two in the Champion Cup!) but they chose not to. SWSH's Gym Leaders maybe don't have perfect strategy but they do some cool stuff, for instance Nessa's Drednaw actually has Swift Swim for synergy with Max Geyser, Kabu has freaking Arcanine and Coil Centiskorch in the mid-to-late 20s, Opal has the quiz gimmick with a Serene Grace Air Slash Togekiss, so on and so forth. I also don't understand what you're getting at with Piers not Dynamaxing when that's the entire point of his gym and part of his character and it's not like the player can Dynamax so it's an even playing field, no? Although I will give you the point on his Skuntank not knowing a damaging Poison move, that's kinda weird.
Bullet Seed hits 2-5 times mind you. It also has Water/Ice coverage for the likes of Garchomp, Torterra, Hippowdown, Golem, Steelix, Roserade, and Wormadam, all of which can be useful against the final gym. When you combine it with Baton Pass and Charge Beam, you have the potential for snowball effect.Is Octazooka, 10 BP Bullet Seed, Aurora Beam, and Charge Beam (all below 70 BP) really considered threatening or competent for the last gym? lol
5 x 10 = 50 BP lol nice oneBullet Seed hits 2-5 times mind you. It also has Water/Ice coverage for the likes of Garchomp, Torterra, Hippowdown, Golem, Steelix, Roserade, and Wormadam, all of which can be useful against the final gym. When you combine it with Baton Pass and Charge Beam, you have the potential for snowball effect.
Well, you are facing an Electric Gym. You would be using a Ground type in that case.5 x 10 = 50 BP lol nice one
also what madman is gonna be facing octillery with golem or hippowdon
also +2 0 SpA Level 47 Octillery Aurora Beam vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Level 45 Roserade: 96-114 (80 - 95%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Broly?Alright so my unpopular opinion is that Broly is garbage, Drampa is the worst dragon type, and anyone that likes both is a poophead.
Alright so my unpopular opinion is that Brawly is garbage, Drampa is the worst dragon type, and anyone that likes both is a poophead.