Unpopular opinions

Yung Dramps

awesome gaming
It's also gonna be the 15th anniversary of DP
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 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.
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.

Anyway, the real reason why I think its unlikely for a Sinnoh remake lies in two factors.

1. The Creation Trio and Lake Guardians are confirmed to return in the Crowned Tundra DLC. From a marketing standpoint, why would you put the mascots of the remakes in the current game? That's a huge selling point gone. Additionally, a forgotten reason why remakes are made in the first place is to allow the current games to have access to all the Pokemon without a previous game from older hardware. FRLG were made because RS did not have any methods to obtain those missing from the Hoenn Dex. HGSS were created to have less of a reliance on Pal Park and GBA games, a common criticism from the Sinnoh games. Between XY and ORAS, you can every non-mythical Pokemon.

With Dexit, SwSh, doesn't have that problem since several Pokemon don't exist in the game's code, hence the less need of a remake. The other thing I'd like to point that between Diamond and Pearl, the only missing Pokemon were either starter or Legendary Pokemon, with the exception of Tangela and Tropius. Every other Pokemon could be obtained in-game as long as you had both versions. This is contrary of Dexit, Diamond and Pearl strived to include every Pokemon, and trying to limit them, would hamper the experience. To keep that experience, they'd have to add a whole of bunch of Pokemon not part of Sinnoh at least up until 493. They could try removing these Pokemon, but that would ruin features like the PokeRadar, limiting the original experience.

2. The biggest hurdle, however, is the design philosophy of Sinnoh is completely different from Galar. In Sword and Shield, every route is streamlined. Every detour you find only leads to an item in back. Heck, when you reach postgame there aren't any new areas that could not be accessed in the game prior to the post game. This due to GF's philosophy being " Children don't have the attention span for complex battles thanks to mobile games! ". In contrast, Sinnoh has the Fight Area to explore, an island full of new spots and challenges like Stark Mountain and Battle Frontier. Areas like Turnback Cave and the new area in Victory Road give plenty of reason to return to routes. Even in the Pre-Ending, there are tons of additional areas in the pre-ending like Wayward Cave and Old Chateau to explore. In Sword and Shield, the only area that you can backtrack to is the lake outside of Professor Magnolia's house, and there aren't any areas in SwSh that opens up to you in the post game that you could not access in the pre-ending. The wild areas and Dynanaxing, are significantly harder to put in-game than Megas because it would require a massive change in design.

There's no way to make Sinnoh streamlined without designing it from scratch. And that of course, would defeat the point of a remake. Some other things like HMs and GBA insertion are also minor annoyances, but those can easily be fixed through basic QOL updates.

Main Point: Diamond and Pearl remakes struggle primarily due to their design being contradictory to current GF design and philosophy.
 
Last edited:
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 guess they didn't consider it issue because the DS was compatible with the GBA games (and the vast majority of players would have had Gen 3 games), meaning you could hypothetically obtain a Tangrowth on the first day of DP's release. By contrast, if this same situation happened today with Bank or Home not updating for months, you wouldn't be able to obtain a Tangrowth at all. Still an odd design choice, but not a game-breaking one.
 
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.
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.
 

Codraroll

Cod Mod
is a Forum Moderatoris a Community Contributoris a Top Smogon Media Contributor
Moderator
Main Point: Diamond and Pearl remakes struggle primarily due to their design being contradictory to current GF design and philosophy.
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?
 

Yung Dramps

awesome gaming
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?
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 also think you guys are underestimating GF's capacity to produce remakes even if they may not be 100% in line with what the main series is doing. One example that comes to mind is ORAS' gym leader design, which caps out at 5 mons still with Wallace despite Gens 5 and 6 refusing to give any of them more than 3 Pokemon with the exception of BW2's Challenge Mode. Going back to SWSH's routes, immediately before we got the Let's Go titles, which as far as I can tell didn't really mess with the design of Kanto's dungeons that much, although I haven't played them or compared them to previous iterations of the region so I could be 100% talking out of my ass. The fact of the matter is that design philosophy differences are inevitable with remakes, we're dealing with freshening up games that are a decade+ old! I also don't really get where the diatribe about graphics is going, ORAS and Let's Go were able to upscale the games they were based on just fine in 3D, I don't get what makes Gen 4 magically different. 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.
 

earl

(EVIOLITE COMPATIBLE)
is a Community Contributor
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)
 

Deleted User 229847

Banned deucer.
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.
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.

Anyway, it has been done to death but I reiterate what everyone knows, nostalgia glasses are the source of hieharchies between pokemon games, at least most of the time. I have no trouble admitting that my favourite game has been Emerald and I know for a fact that it's not a perfect game. People simply remember the good old times they were having fun on the couch with their favourite game and associate that engoodening sentiment with the supposed objective value of said game. And there's nothing wrong with that, really.

I don't trust Nintendo and I hate how the graphics changed since 6th gen, considering the older isometric one to be superior in pretty much every aspect (unplopular opinion thread, afte all), so I'd rather never have a remake. Nintendo is also slacking off, or to be more precise they simply don't invest that much time anymore, given the increased complexity of the graphics and the sheer quantity of pokemons we have now.
 

Jerry the great

Banned deucer.
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)
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.

But even then... They're STILL better than what sword and shield were. Trust me, I've beaten gen 8. Let me say, that I fully agree with those who say that FREAKING DIAMOND AND PEARL ARE BETTER THAN THEM. That's saying something if I'm saying it. Seriously. Yeah I'll admit. I hated how slow Diamond and Pearl felt. I hated there being late game bosses specializing in a type with only two or three Pokemon in the region of that type. I hated some other aspects too. But! Even they were better than these atrocities called sword and shield. For the first time... Ever, I was downright disappointed of an entire generation. I'll give some crucial reasonings of mine.

• Many of the Pokemon were lackluster. Some even downright horrible (Chewtle). The only Pokemon I truly liked from it was Corviknight. That's just one Pokemon!

• Horrible evil team. Seriously! How can I even call them evil?! They're just troublemakers if anything! Now you may be thinking "but what about team skull"? You see, at least they actually have some amusing dialogue, cool designs, and probably one of the best evil team leaders in the series! Team Yell? Lousy Dialogue, meh leader, godawful designs, and more!

• The rival fights you too many times, even for a rival. Seriously! The amount of battles you have with him can be the amount you have to fight two main rivals combined!

• The post game is way too short! And if they have to add DLC in a Pokemon Game, that just goes to show how bad it is!


Now, let's see how Diamond and Pearl deal with this stuff.

• Plenty of awesome Pokemon. Pokemon include stuff like Weavile, Lucario, Giritina, Infernape, Electivire, and many more. Not to mention these were the games that introduced my favorite Pokemon of all time, Darkrai.

• Solid evil team. They have an awesome goal of recreating the universe, they do it in a clever way, Cyrus actually feels understandable despite being evil (due to his past life and conclusions), which makes him pretty unique and interesting, and some other stuff.

• You fight your rival of course, but they don't overdo or underdo it. They do it just right.

• Very interesting post game. You have stuff like entirely new areas, lot's of Pokemon you could only dream of getting in the main game, and so much more.

So yeah. To be honest, I actually regretted getting Sword and Shield. And I'm not just saying it for the sake of saying it either. You can tell there is actual reasoning for my viewpoint, and they could be valid reasons for everyone else.

Now, you don't have to agree. You and anyone else reading this could argue against my claims if you wanted to. But it's my own viewpoint.
 
Last edited:

earl

(EVIOLITE COMPATIBLE)
is a Community Contributor
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.
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 replay
 
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 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 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:
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
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.
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.
 
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.
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.
 

Yung Dramps

awesome gaming
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.
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.
 
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.
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.

What’s so special about Arcanine in mid 20s? Gardenia and Misty had Roserade and Starmie in that range. Even if Centiskorch has Coil, he Gigantamaxes the first turn, so he cannot take advantage of Coil anyway, and by the time the Gigantamax wears off, the player should have probably have damaged it enough to the point that setting up isn’t an option.

I don’t understand why people like the quiz gimmick. The questions were very trivial answers that are all personal to a character that we just met. How am I supposed to know whether you like purple or pink? The worst was the final question though. She asks you how old she is, and when you say 70, the right answer, she’s like, “ Aww, you hurt my feelings ! Stat drop! “ Imagine if you got points subtracted on a test even when you got the right answer just because the teacher didn’t like your answer. If the questions were more general knowledge like, “ what games was Fairy Type introduced? “ it would have been more fair and tolerable. But the questions she asks are trivial to the point that they are guessing games.

Perhaps they were indeed a byproduct of a lack of certain types in the Dex. But you still cannot deny that they did put some thought of strategy in those teams since they had an opportunity to do so. I much prefer that rather than a Monotype team that can be KOED easily by Garchomp’s Earthquake.
 
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
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.
 

Yung Dramps

awesome gaming
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.
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
 
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
Well, you are facing an Electric Gym. You would be using a Ground type in that case.

I’m not saying that it’s perfect either. What I’m saying is that there is a tad of complex strategy that you don’t see in SwSh gym battles.
 

Deleted member 503163

Guest
Alright so my unpopular opinion is that Brawly is garbage, Drampa is the worst dragon type, and anyone that likes both is a poophead.
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 15)

Top