I think another aspect from Colosseum that gave me nightmares was having to save at specific spots. Specially with the Mirror B battle which I lost 4 times (admittedly I wasn't playing too finely on the first two but still), and with having to backtrack all the time to save and on each reload, and with how slow you move, the game felt incredibly grindy at times
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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
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Losing to Miror B’s first battle isn’t anything to be ashamed of. There is like a grand total of two mons that are okay there and that’s literally it.
XD I assure you will enjoy a lot more. The only real problem it has is how insanely long the last area is. The game means it when it says the amount of Shadows there will floor you (tiny spoiler: literally roughly HALF of the game’s 84 or so Shadows are in the final dungeon, lol).
But yeah. I’m a series veteran and the Orre games are both really tough, so don’t feel bad about losing to the Admins in Colosseum and the early parts of XD!
I remember the first time I beat Evice in Colosseum as a kid, my game froze on the credits. I couldn't believe it. Overall, XD does feel easier than Colosseum, it's most likely because of a wider variety of Pokémon.
Also, unpopular opinion(?), I think X and Y are ok. I don't think they're the worst games in the series, they're just alright.They do have their flaws; the rivals aren't great, the Gym Leaders were pretty forgettable, the villains weren't incredible, etc. It's really lame, they're the first main series games to be in 3D and they're just ok. They're perfect examples of unused potential. Maybe in 10-15 years they'll get remakes that will fix everything. Before that we need those Gen 4 remakes. Any day now.
So... you're saying... basically same as Sword and Shield? :P
"unused potential" is sadly a recurring term for GameFreaks, every time they try something new.
Good ideas, poor execution.
Nah, you can notice the effort in XY.
Though tbh, for as much as I dunk on SnS, the games had the most hype Gym challenge in the franchise.
This is something that really bothers me in XY. The Gym challenge is tacked on af.
Not just tacked on, but a huge regression from the BW games. In those they tried the hardest they ever had to make the Gym Leaders active presences in the region, helping out in various affairs especially those relating to Team Plasma, so on and so forth. Then comes XY and it's like we went back to RBY/GSC-era generic boss syndrome where they seemingly have no actual lives outside of standing in their gyms. There's Korrina and Wulfric I guess, but that's basically it. Doesn't help the fights themselves are consistently ass with not a single stand-out tough bout on the level of, say, Raihan or Elesa. Gen 7 and 8 thankfully proved the XY leaders were just a fluke, but sheesh even then what an embarrassing slip-up.Nah, you can notice the effort in XY.
Though tbh, for as much as I dunk on SnS, the games had the most hype Gym challenge in the franchise.
This is something that really bothers me in XY. The Gym challenge is tacked on af.
At least they're better than the Elite 4.
Across the whole main series, how many of them actually do stuff outside the league?
Not counting the champion, there's Lorelei in Let's Go... and... well... everyone but Kahili in the Alola games, because there wasn't an Elite Four yet when they appeared. We could add Caitlin as well, but she doesn't do anything outside of the Battle Frontier (or in it, for that matter) either.
I will stop you right there sir, it is forbidden to aknowledge that GameFreaks learned from a mistake.
You shall follow me to the believer-jail
Honestly, yeah, while X and Y fall really short in perhaps the most important areas (the main campaign is a total disaster in plot and boss design and no one can convince me otherwise), they also really shine in some areas - areas that just get dragged down by the rest of it.
Like, despite their flaws, there's one very specific and very important aspect that they totally nailed:
Kalos as a region is honestly one of my favorites in the series, and nearly every area is both aesthetically gorgeous and mapped perfectly. There are a handful of maps that fall short (Route 1, arguably Route 13, Kalos Power Plant, the Unknown Dungeon and Sea Spirit's Den not being proper dungeons at all, and Camphrier Town is sort of bland), but there are also so many good ones, to the point that it really can't be said at all that Kalos is a bad region with only a few gems - it's a very good region with only a few errors. It has some surprisingly underrated dungeons (Glittering Cave is an interesting early-game dungeon; Reflection Cave and Frost Cavern are both fantastic; Terminus Cave is perfectly good, if not quite as visually interesting; Lysandre Labs is as good a villain base as anysetting aside the weird choice to give it a postgame expansion that was the same as the first part and just taking its role in the main story in isolation; Victory Road is honestly one of the best in the series), several very underappreciated routes especially 8, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20 and 22 that definitely swing the balance in a favorable direction, and a good number of the settlements are memorable and gorgeous to top it off. Incidentally, while the Gym Leaders really needed to be better than they were, a decent number of the Gyms themselves were also pretty great - like, Shalour, Lumiose and Laverre were pretty bare-bones on the mapping side (although Laverre makes it pretty far on aesthetic alone), but Santalune is arguably better than most first Gyms, and I genuinely like Cyllage, Coumarine, Anistar and Snowbelle Gyms, no qualifiers attached. It's not quite BW-tier, but it's not a bad array on the whole, either.
Kalos itself is the best part of X and Y by far, and it turns what would have been a total mess of a game into something I've found genuinely enjoyable to revisit more than once despite everything working against it. C'mon, if a game with a story this bare-bones and bosses this bad can still be fun enough to be worth replaying I can guarantee you that I have not felt compelled to replay Shield so far and almost certainly never will, the mapping that carries it so far deserves some credit!
Kalos just really feels like a great sendoff to the tile-based era of the series - as the last region that was designed to be played on a grid, it definitely showed how far they'd come in area maps since the early days of the series.
And that's not to mention some of the other great innovations - the PSS, Mega Evolution I know Megas have always been slightly controversial but I personally love them without reservations if you can't tell, literally just being the first 3D Pokémon games... I definitely don't consider the Dex cuts to be as important as everyone else, but it will always be ten times more embarrassing for Sword and Shield to know that X and Y required actually making all of the 3D models and still managed it, while just updating their textures was apparently the main thing that stopped Gen VIII from keeping them.
I think it's kind of sad to see how X and Y turned out in the end, because so much heart and so much effort was poured into almost every part of them, only to be dragged down in the end by one of the most lackluster campaigns... And since we know that the final implementation of the plot/eventing is among the last steps in the development process (and the final stages of NPC team design likely come after that - how can you have all of the bosses' teams, let alone the level curve and their exact movesets, set in stone before you know when the player is fighting them?), it really feels like the botched execution let down what would otherwise have shaped up to be one of the most memorable entries in the series. I can't think of anything except those two areas that's bad at all, and a lot of it is really impressive... it's just that those are the areas that define the gameplay experience more than anything else, and getting neither of them right means I can't call X and Y good games. They're still more mid-tier than bottom-tier in my opinion, but I can't help but be frustrated knowing that they would have been top-tier if not for the very last stages of development...
Maybe that's why I'm so fixated on ways to redeem them and imagining what could have been hence my attachment to conspiracy theories about scrapped plot ideas and now my attempts at boss battle revisions: attempts to turn the two areas that ended up the worst into something good - they're truly underwhelming entries in the end, but they just came so close?
Like, despite their flaws, there's one very specific and very important aspect that they totally nailed:
Kalos as a region is honestly one of my favorites in the series, and nearly every area is both aesthetically gorgeous and mapped perfectly. There are a handful of maps that fall short (Route 1, arguably Route 13, Kalos Power Plant, the Unknown Dungeon and Sea Spirit's Den not being proper dungeons at all, and Camphrier Town is sort of bland), but there are also so many good ones, to the point that it really can't be said at all that Kalos is a bad region with only a few gems - it's a very good region with only a few errors. It has some surprisingly underrated dungeons (Glittering Cave is an interesting early-game dungeon; Reflection Cave and Frost Cavern are both fantastic; Terminus Cave is perfectly good, if not quite as visually interesting; Lysandre Labs is as good a villain base as any
Kalos itself is the best part of X and Y by far, and it turns what would have been a total mess of a game into something I've found genuinely enjoyable to revisit more than once despite everything working against it. C'mon, if a game with a story this bare-bones and bosses this bad can still be fun enough to be worth replaying I can guarantee you that I have not felt compelled to replay Shield so far and almost certainly never will, the mapping that carries it so far deserves some credit!
Kalos just really feels like a great sendoff to the tile-based era of the series - as the last region that was designed to be played on a grid, it definitely showed how far they'd come in area maps since the early days of the series.
And that's not to mention some of the other great innovations - the PSS, Mega Evolution I know Megas have always been slightly controversial but I personally love them without reservations if you can't tell, literally just being the first 3D Pokémon games... I definitely don't consider the Dex cuts to be as important as everyone else, but it will always be ten times more embarrassing for Sword and Shield to know that X and Y required actually making all of the 3D models and still managed it, while just updating their textures was apparently the main thing that stopped Gen VIII from keeping them.
I think it's kind of sad to see how X and Y turned out in the end, because so much heart and so much effort was poured into almost every part of them, only to be dragged down in the end by one of the most lackluster campaigns... And since we know that the final implementation of the plot/eventing is among the last steps in the development process (and the final stages of NPC team design likely come after that - how can you have all of the bosses' teams, let alone the level curve and their exact movesets, set in stone before you know when the player is fighting them?), it really feels like the botched execution let down what would otherwise have shaped up to be one of the most memorable entries in the series. I can't think of anything except those two areas that's bad at all, and a lot of it is really impressive... it's just that those are the areas that define the gameplay experience more than anything else, and getting neither of them right means I can't call X and Y good games. They're still more mid-tier than bottom-tier in my opinion, but I can't help but be frustrated knowing that they would have been top-tier if not for the very last stages of development...
Maybe that's why I'm so fixated on ways to redeem them and imagining what could have been hence my attachment to conspiracy theories about scrapped plot ideas and now my attempts at boss battle revisions: attempts to turn the two areas that ended up the worst into something good - they're truly underwhelming entries in the end, but they just came so close?
Lorelei has stuff on her home island in FRLG, Koga doesn't count since he just changed rooms, Flint shows up on the overworld too, Caitlin showed up in Plat, but like Koga, she just changed rooms, Grimsley shows up in Alola to unlock a Ride and does nothing because he earned that vacation and there's Malva.
4 Elite Four members aren't trapped in a room. That's it.
Congratulations Hematite, you have once again voiced my thoughts on a topic in a far more detailed manner than I ever could. I've come to believe for a while now that XY felt like it was a masterpiece of a Pokemon game in another timeline and what we got was some Silent Hill HD Collection-tier shitty remake of that classic. So many excellent, even ambitious ideas such as the utterly massive Pokedex that were either squandered or came with caveats, and of course as you said when it came to things that XY wasn't good at such as story and characters it didn't just stumble a bit, it utterly bombed so catastrophically that the entire game was dragged down several pegs.
There is one thing though. You mention in passing how XY was able to get every Pokemon at the time in 3D compared to SWSH. And while I really really really really REALLY don't wanna start a Dexit argument, ever since the peak of the controversy passed and I began to think about XY more I now seriously wonder: What if the mad rush to get every Pokemon in 3D was what ultimately crippled XY? Like, suppose they hadn't implemented anything beyond the returning mons in the regional Pokedex or even a truncated version of that, would that have left more time to work on stuff like refining the story and characters or even adding more new Pokemon/Mega Evolutions? A lot of this is speculation, we frankly have no clue what it took or how much dev time and resources were consumed to get the 649 pre-existing Pokemon at the time + the new guys in, but it's worth thinking about.
oh, thanks! : D
That said, if we're considering it not as a theory or an explanation and more just as a hypothetical, then... yes, oh my goodness, I would make that trade in a heartbeat!
I'm not quite certain if this is correct, but I kind of got the impression, at least from Game Freak's explanation of the issue, that it wasn't necessarily something that needed to happen right away so much as a future problem they were trying to address before it was too late.
I mean, I'm sure it's not quite that simple - I would have a very hard time believing that there were no other developmental struggles with Sword and Shield, and I can imagine that whatever was going on with that might have forced their hand as well - but I don't think their claim in the first place was that Generation VIII would necessarily have been the cutoff or that it was impossible to hold off any longer.
Sword and Shield weren't the breaking point in themselves - they were supposed to be, like, the "moderate first impression" of the dex cuts, because it would only get harder to drop compatibility the longer they waited as we all saw from how hard it was just for waiting this long.
In other words, they were counting on Sword and Shield to win everyone over on the premise of a game without every Pokémon so they could be free to do the same in the future.
... yeah, we all know how that turned out.
I think this is the real problem: not that the change happened at all, but that Sword and Shield were the wrong games to introduce it. I think it would always have been controversial at first, but I bet half of the reason Sword and Shield get so much flak for the dex cuts is simply because they wouldn't even be good with every Pokémon.
Like... For most people, compatibility with transfers has no bearing on the experience until the postgame or a subsequent playthrough - from a player perspective, it generally has nothing to do with the quality of the main campaign. And as with Generation VI or VII, even if SwSh did have full transfer compatibility, we would still have waited just as long for HOME to be made compatible - the first three months or so would have been exactly the same as they were now.
The problem is just that Sword and Shield are worse games with or without transfers to be quite honest, I don't know why so many people even want to send their Pokémon permanently to Gen VIII when there's so much more to do with them in every other game, and this was the absolute worst time possible to add the breaking point that would put them under every fan's scrutiny.
The dex cuts aren't the problem with Sword and Shield. Sword and Shield are the problem with the dex cuts.
And if I could choose for that to happen sooner, on a better game than Sword and Shield, in a way that would make a better first impression and actually help people to move past the initial controversy... and in exchange, I could also choose to turn an almost-good-but-unfortunately-mediocre entry into the masterpiece that it could have been... that's not even a trade - both of those would be fantastic as far as I'm concerned!
and then people would stop judging SwSh for the Pokédex and start judging them for everything else they did badly
and then people would stop thinking the only problem anyone has with SwSh is the National Dex and they're otherwise better than Generation VII
and those are a third good thing and a fourth good thing as far as I'm concerned
Hmm... so the main thing that makes me hesitant is just that I don't think the parts that fell short really could have that much to do with the National Pokédex. I would just find it a bit hard to believe that similar people were involved with the story or boss design who were also responsible for implementing core gameplay mechanics, Pokémon and 3D modeling.
That said, if we're considering it not as a theory or an explanation and more just as a hypothetical, then... yes, oh my goodness, I would make that trade in a heartbeat!
I'm not quite certain if this is correct, but I kind of got the impression, at least from Game Freak's explanation of the issue, that it wasn't necessarily something that needed to happen right away so much as a future problem they were trying to address before it was too late.
I mean, I'm sure it's not quite that simple - I would have a very hard time believing that there were no other developmental struggles with Sword and Shield, and I can imagine that whatever was going on with that might have forced their hand as well - but I don't think their claim in the first place was that Generation VIII would necessarily have been the cutoff or that it was impossible to hold off any longer.
Sword and Shield weren't the breaking point in themselves - they were supposed to be, like, the "moderate first impression" of the dex cuts, because it would only get harder to drop compatibility the longer they waited as we all saw from how hard it was just for waiting this long.
In other words, they were counting on Sword and Shield to win everyone over on the premise of a game without every Pokémon so they could be free to do the same in the future.
... yeah, we all know how that turned out.
I think this is the real problem: not that the change happened at all, but that Sword and Shield were the wrong games to introduce it. I think it would always have been controversial at first, but I bet half of the reason Sword and Shield get so much flak for the dex cuts is simply because they wouldn't even be good with every Pokémon.
Like... For most people, compatibility with transfers has no bearing on the experience until the postgame or a subsequent playthrough - from a player perspective, it generally has nothing to do with the quality of the main campaign. And as with Generation VI or VII, even if SwSh did have full transfer compatibility, we would still have waited just as long for HOME to be made compatible - the first three months or so would have been exactly the same as they were now.
The problem is just that Sword and Shield are worse games with or without transfers to be quite honest, I don't know why so many people even want to send their Pokémon permanently to Gen VIII when there's so much more to do with them in every other game, and this was the absolute worst time possible to add the breaking point that would put them under every fan's scrutiny.
The dex cuts aren't the problem with Sword and Shield. Sword and Shield are the problem with the dex cuts.
And if I could choose for that to happen sooner, on a better game than Sword and Shield, in a way that would make a better first impression and actually help people to move past the initial controversy... and in exchange, I could also choose to turn an almost-good-but-unfortunately-mediocre entry into the masterpiece that it could have been... that's not even a trade - both of those would be fantastic as far as I'm concerned!
and then people would stop judging SwSh for the Pokédex and start judging them for everything else they did badly
and then people would stop thinking the only problem anyone has with SwSh is the National Dex and they're otherwise better than Generation VII
and those are a third good thing and a fourth good thing as far as I'm concerned
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Too late. Now we gotta address Dexit again. It's the gift that keeps on giving in terms of discussion topics. (I honestly don't mind since we're all civilized about it.)
I'll admit, I only got as far as Coumarine, so I can't talk about the games as a whole.
Here's the thing though, XY suffers from being rush jobs, and yes, the 3D models are very likely the cause. I mentioned this early, don't remember in which thread though. X and Y are games where you see that GF messed up for biting more than they could chew. The games actually seem to have interesting ideas, Reflection Cave has an awesome map design, and honestly, you can see that they put some real effort into these games.
However, they bit more than they could chew with the gigantic regional dex forcing them to have to do a lot of models and high-quality animations. (Yes, GF does have them, how they use them is a problem for another topic.)
What they could have done is: Make a smaller, Platinum-sized regional dex, only add these models so they had the time to work on the rest of the game, then patch them in with Bank when it released. Maybe adjust some encounter rates after National Dex. Problem fixed, no delays necessary.
Sword and Shield's Dexit suffers from the exact same planning issue and could've worked with the exact same solution, but worse since we know that well, "effort" isn't something you can easily gleam in these games.
Sure, back then, DLC and patching were memes for GF, but not now. In fact, they're re-adding some of these mons in the DLC. Funny how that works. There's absolutely no excuse for SnS's Dexit. Every single one of them was blown up already, so I'm not going down that old road again.
And while I'm at it, let me drop an unpopular opinion.
Gigantic Regional Dexes are detrimental to the game's design.
Most times they just break the sense of continuity for trying to cram too many different mons in adjacent routes, but that's just a nitpick compared to the biggest issue.
The encounter rates for mons become a mess. You get a lot of 5% mons, and some times even worse.
For example, Ralts has a 2% visible encounter rate in the Rolling Fields while cloudy. I'm sorry, what the heck is that!?
With all the RNG involved with catching mons (Imagine finally finding said Ralts and then looking up its nature and it's a Gentle one. With terrible IVs just to twist the knife further.) this kind of thing is just unacceptable. Even 5% encounter rates can get annoying as is.
And while I understand that larger dexes have the appeal of replayability (Which kinda can be circumvented by a good selection of mons in a concise dex, as proven by Platinum.) it's just annoying to have this kind of encounter rate problem. There may be even worse examples, like the Rare Raid pools also having common raid mons, but this post is long enough as is.
Y'know, as much as we're talking about how SWSH failed to sell the idea of a Pokemon game with the National Pokedex dropped... That's honestly kind of an objectively incorrect statement.
Because yeah, some of us on this forum are still a bit grumpy, but in the metric that matters most - sales - they were a resounding smash hit that continued to sell like hotcakes long after the initial hype period was up compared to something like 2017's Justice League, a movie which had a solid opening week but rapidly faltered afterwards from bad press until it outright failed financially.
And it's not as if it did larger damage to the brand beyond the seemingly promising sales nor had opinions on it sour overtime. Consider how just earlier this month it won Game of the Year status on Famitsu via a community-driven poll, so one can't even accuse the magazine of shacking up with Game Freak via some backroom deals.
Can you be unhappy with the state of the game? Of course you can! But whether intentional or not implying via wording that it failed at its purpose could not be further from the truth.
Because yeah, some of us on this forum are still a bit grumpy, but in the metric that matters most - sales - they were a resounding smash hit that continued to sell like hotcakes long after the initial hype period was up compared to something like 2017's Justice League, a movie which had a solid opening week but rapidly faltered afterwards from bad press until it outright failed financially.
And it's not as if it did larger damage to the brand beyond the seemingly promising sales nor had opinions on it sour overtime. Consider how just earlier this month it won Game of the Year status on Famitsu via a community-driven poll, so one can't even accuse the magazine of shacking up with Game Freak via some backroom deals.
Can you be unhappy with the state of the game? Of course you can! But whether intentional or not implying via wording that it failed at its purpose could not be further from the truth.
This thought just came into my head; what if the dex cut happened in X and Y? What would the reaction have been then? I could understand it if it happened then. They literally went from 2D sprites to 3D. Yes, they did have 3D models in the Orre games and in both Stadium 1 and 2 (and Revolution I forgot about that one), but honestly some of those models aren't that great. Some of the Pokémon just look absolutely ridiculous, while others are good. They were also most likely being used on a completely different engine to the one used for the main games. I could understand if the dex cut happened, and then X and Y ended up as the best games in the series. Alas, X and Y will be remembered as ok games, not the masterpieces that could have been.
And on the topic of large regional dexes; they can work, but there has to be enough routes in the game to shove all of the Pokémon into. You don't want to fin the same five Pokémon on every route (like Yungoos), but you also don't want a million Pokémon shoved into each route. I can't really say if X and Y do this correctly, every playthrough I've done has been some sort of a wonderlocke. And about encounter rates, a lot of the Pokémon games have that issue. Using your Ralts example, in Hoenn, it has a 4% encounter rate. Not too bad, except for the fact that it is the only place you can find Ralts in the entire game. Surskit is also on that route, at an even lower rate of 1%, but you can find them in a bunch of other routes. Or how about Chimeco? It's found in a patch of grass that's off the beaten path at a 1% encounter rate. Most people probably didn't even know Chimeco was a gen 3 Pokémon. I don't think any trainers even use it in battle, which makes me ask; why is it even in the game? I could understand if it was for a really strong Pokémon like the level 10 Salamence (even though I've heard it's not that good in game?), but for Chimeco? Nah. Sun and Moon are criticized for encounter rates, but they aren't the only games with bad encounter rates.
Yes, that's the best solution if you must have a larger dex because then you can actually have more mons without crippling the encounter rate and also giving them more room to shine.
Exactly. It's a franchise problem that tends to be worse on larger dexes, but Route 103 is just atrocious.
And the 1% mons aren't even good. Not that this would justify this blatantly horrible decision, but it just makes it even worse.
To add my 2 cents to this, I think it's fairly evident from the games we've had thus far that between 200 and 300 is the optimum amount for a region, and any more than 300 is just too much.
Hoenn is probably the best example of a region that gets Pokemon distribution broadly right, imo. There's a good spread of Pokemon across the routes and several species like Snorunt, Tropius, Slakoth, and Shroomish that can only be found in one specific location while not being horrendously rare in those areas. And then there are a fair few Pokemon that have a single-digit percentage chance of appearing. Some, like Ralts and Absol, are absolutely worth the time it takes to root them out (fun fact: when RS first came out my friend told me that Absol could only ever be encountered once, and then never again, and from then on I always seemed to encounter it fairly quickly, but only once per playthrough - dumb luck backing up that misconception) and others, like Chimecho or Volbeat/Illumise depending on version, are junk rares. Some are even things like Swellow and Wailord which aren't essential to catch because you can just evolve them, but they're nice to encounter all the same. But it's not vastly more laborious than the Kanto Dex or either of the Sinnoh Dexes to complete.
Even the Johto Dex isn't too infeasible. I've often theorised where a potential new Johto game could incorporate all the Pokemon that don't appear in Johto in GSCHGSS like Slugma, Murkrow, and Houndour and there is ample space for all 251 Pokemon to be included (barring the obvious exceptions like the legendary birds and the Kanto starters). I'd say the first four generations manage this fairly well. Unova in BW does too to an extent.
But I'd say no region we've seen so far has felt spacious enough for anything more than 300 Pokemon at best. The Unova Dex in B2W2 is one of my favourite listings for its sheer diversity, but it also proves my point - there are several Pokemon in it, like the Slakoth line, which can't even be found pre-E4, raising the question of why they're there at all. Meanwhile Kalos, Alola, and Galar are even more stuffed full. It's especially evident when comparing ORAS to XY. The threefold Kalos Dex was a good idea in theory, but most of the routes in XY have over 10 Pokemon available. It's excessive and it doesn't make the game world feel natural. The Kanto starters and legendary birds didn't need to be there (yeah yeah Mega Evolutions, I know). Nor did Dragonite, Salamence, Hydreigon, and Tyranitar: let Goodra have its spotlight for the moment.
And frankly, I know I'm probably in the minority here, but I don't mind a limited selection early on, provided we're getting the National Dex later anyway. Given that the last 3 regions have given us ~80 new Pokemon each time, 220 older mons seems like an ample amount to complement them. Save the rest till the postgame. It's honestly more interesting that way.
Hoenn does it great until the water routes imo- the large sea routes have very same-y encounter pools
Aight, time to get really saucy: I think that on the whole ORAS have a superior postgame to Emerald in terms of the amount of substantial and accessible things to do.
People love to talk about the Battle Frontier in regards to Emerald, Battle Frontier this, Battle Frontier that. But here's a fun little thought experiment: What if the Battle Frontier didn't exist? Now it sounds silly to ask "What if the headlining postgame attraction was removed", but you could pose a similar question for other games like Platinum or BW2 where if you took out the Sinnoh Battle Frontier/PWT respectively there's still lots to do besides those. Meanwhile the Emerald Frontier is literally the only thing keeping the game from having a postgame on the level of X and Y, maybe even below that considering all you really have is catching Groudon and Kyogre, the Gym Leader rematches and the secret Steven battle as well as a series of incredibly underwhelming optional locations like Artisan Cave. Sure there's also stuff like Pokemon Contests and Secret Bases but those are universal across every iteration of Hoenn so they don't count. Compare this to ORAS, where let's once again perform that thought experiment on hard mode and pretend that both the Battle Maison AND the Delta Episode didn't exist. Even with those tossed aside you get the numerous legendary encounters (which I personally loathe but clearly plenty of others love to the point where some are masochistic enough to shiny hunt these fucks), the Mirage Islands which while often not the most interesting geographically at least have quantity going for them over Emerald's new postgame locations as well as lots of elusive foreign Pokemon, DexNav hunting and some of og RSE's optional areas like Abandoned Ship (now Sea Mauville) and Scorched Slab being souped up to be a lot more interesting and rewarding to explore. Aside from the frontier Emerald's one and only other interesting postgame activity unique to it are the gym leader rematches which ORAS matches easily via the incredibly badass Elite 4 rematches, all significantly higher leveled than anything in the main story while all having Mega Evolutions, the definition of quality over quantity (lol at T&L using Level 50+ Slowpoke in Emerald).
But notice how earlier I didn't just say ORAS have more to do, but that they also have more accessible content. Now what do I mean by this? Well here's another hypothetical: Pretend you're some kid who just got Emerald for Christmas or something. You go through the game having a blast facing off all the game's challenges with a team you just get more and more attached to. You beat the Champion and then you find out about the Battle Frontier, a super tough new challenge for your party! You go in with this squad you've raised... Only to get consistently decimated. You research why on the developing Internet and ask around on various Pokemon forums only to be told you have to essentially start from scratch and throw out your beloved in-game squad for an optimized team with all this wack-ass EV and IV shit just to stand a chance. Even if you don't mind doing this, the average kid probably isn't gonna have the patience or will to actually go through the process of building a team of at least 3 properly raised mons, especially not in freaking Gen 3, long before GF woke up and started working to make the process less of an ass ulcer. In contrast just about all the cool optional goodies ORAS has to offer can be enjoyed fresh out of beating the League, even the E4 rematches just take a bit of regular grinding, nothing overly specific or precise like what the Battle Frontier requires.
People love to talk about the Battle Frontier in regards to Emerald, Battle Frontier this, Battle Frontier that. But here's a fun little thought experiment: What if the Battle Frontier didn't exist? Now it sounds silly to ask "What if the headlining postgame attraction was removed", but you could pose a similar question for other games like Platinum or BW2 where if you took out the Sinnoh Battle Frontier/PWT respectively there's still lots to do besides those. Meanwhile the Emerald Frontier is literally the only thing keeping the game from having a postgame on the level of X and Y, maybe even below that considering all you really have is catching Groudon and Kyogre, the Gym Leader rematches and the secret Steven battle as well as a series of incredibly underwhelming optional locations like Artisan Cave. Sure there's also stuff like Pokemon Contests and Secret Bases but those are universal across every iteration of Hoenn so they don't count. Compare this to ORAS, where let's once again perform that thought experiment on hard mode and pretend that both the Battle Maison AND the Delta Episode didn't exist. Even with those tossed aside you get the numerous legendary encounters (which I personally loathe but clearly plenty of others love to the point where some are masochistic enough to shiny hunt these fucks), the Mirage Islands which while often not the most interesting geographically at least have quantity going for them over Emerald's new postgame locations as well as lots of elusive foreign Pokemon, DexNav hunting and some of og RSE's optional areas like Abandoned Ship (now Sea Mauville) and Scorched Slab being souped up to be a lot more interesting and rewarding to explore. Aside from the frontier Emerald's one and only other interesting postgame activity unique to it are the gym leader rematches which ORAS matches easily via the incredibly badass Elite 4 rematches, all significantly higher leveled than anything in the main story while all having Mega Evolutions, the definition of quality over quantity (lol at T&L using Level 50+ Slowpoke in Emerald).
But notice how earlier I didn't just say ORAS have more to do, but that they also have more accessible content. Now what do I mean by this? Well here's another hypothetical: Pretend you're some kid who just got Emerald for Christmas or something. You go through the game having a blast facing off all the game's challenges with a team you just get more and more attached to. You beat the Champion and then you find out about the Battle Frontier, a super tough new challenge for your party! You go in with this squad you've raised... Only to get consistently decimated. You research why on the developing Internet and ask around on various Pokemon forums only to be told you have to essentially start from scratch and throw out your beloved in-game squad for an optimized team with all this wack-ass EV and IV shit just to stand a chance. Even if you don't mind doing this, the average kid probably isn't gonna have the patience or will to actually go through the process of building a team of at least 3 properly raised mons, especially not in freaking Gen 3, long before GF woke up and started working to make the process less of an ass ulcer. In contrast just about all the cool optional goodies ORAS has to offer can be enjoyed fresh out of beating the League, even the E4 rematches just take a bit of regular grinding, nothing overly specific or precise like what the Battle Frontier requires.
Let's see:
Gen I: Aside from Lance (who role only got bigger after he became Champion) Loreli has had a few instances outside of the League. FRLG had her appear on Four Island where she grew up and gets help from the player protecting the Icefall Cave from Team Rocket. Then in Let's Go on Route 10 to help the player when they get ambushed by Team Rocket.
Gen II: Nada.
Gen III: ORAS tried to give each Elite Four member a scene outside the League in the post game. "Tried" being the keyword. Sidney just appears at the Battle Maison to tell Steven they need him back at the League, Drake appears on the SS Tidal to visit Mr. Briney, and Phoebe goes to see her grandparents on Mt. Pyre. Yeah, nothing that interesting to be honest, and Glacia only is said to visit the Battle Buffet in Mauville City but never actually leaves the League in-person.
Gen IV: Flint is probably the most well known example, him asking the player to help get Sunyshore's Gym Leader Volkner out if his funk. Post game you can also find Lucian in Canalave Library where he can say one of five scripts before heading back to the Pokemon League.
Gen V: Marshal will be in Victory Road post game of BW and in BW2 turning people away from Twist Mountain because there's a cave-in. Shauntal and Caitlin both appear in Cynthia's Villa. Grimsley wouldn't leave the League until Gen VII where he has stepped down as Elite Four member and now lives in Alola, occasionally helping young trainers taking the Island Challenge by letting them use the Sharpedo Jet PokeRide.
Gen VI: Malva is the Holo Caster news reporter. In the post game she also appears during the Looker Missions, implied to have made a deal with Looker for him to get rid of all information about her being part of Team Flare in exchange of helping the player get into the Flare HQ. Otherwise all appear in the Battle Chateau.
Gen VII: Since Alola's Elite Four is made up of trainers you mostly met before no need to go over them. The only standout is Kahili who you first need to beat in the League for her to appear in Hano Grand Resort. However in USUM you can meet her before then, if you get the Flying Z-Crystal she'll quickly show-up, show you the pose, and then walk off.
Yeah, I don't know why but GF just doesn't seem to have any interest in developing the Elite Four characters.
Seems like I’m in the minority from a few of these recent posts here but hey, I love having Pokemon/Pokemon lines with really low encounter rates, I don’t mind the grind of searching for them it makes it feel more challenging for me but whatever.
Yep its Pokemon. While there have been vocal criticisms from parts of the fandom (deservedly so), so long as they stick to that basic premise and formula the games are going to end up being the best selling on the platform and its not necessary for them to make groundbreaking stuff to do so and they seem content enough with that.
Yep its Pokemon. While there have been vocal criticisms from parts of the fandom (deservedly so), so long as they stick to that basic premise and formula the games are going to end up being the best selling on the platform and its not necessary for them to make groundbreaking stuff to do so and they seem content enough with that.
I can confirm from experience that this is true. Since I steamrolled pretty much the entire game with Swampert and later Rayquaza, I only a single legal Pokemon above level 50, and it was so above level 50 that once he went down, the rest of my team stood no chance (trainers match your highest level in Open format). While I've made some progress with my B team of Alakazam, Raichu, and Wailord, it's only been in the Battle Pike, Battle Pyramid, or Battle Factory, which either don't focus on battling, or don't focus on battling with your own Pokemon.
Though I do at least have a fun little story about when I beat Lucy. The first time I fought her, I got stalled to death by her Shuckle. The second time I got to her, it ended up as Raichu vs Milotic. Despite the type advantage, Raichu wasn't strong enough to KO, and Milotic was set to win with Mirror Coat. Then, on the last turn possible, Raichu got a crit, and Milotic went down. It was a fitting way to earn the Luck Symbol.
Since we don't have a WTF reaction, the Angry one will have to make do.
This is an incredibly bad take. For very simple reasons.
The frontier was only really tough if you went for the Gold symbols. Even in Open Level, you face a lot of unevolved mons, and not Scyther-tier NVEs, Igglybuff-tier NVEs.
This struck me as incredibly underwhelming when I was a kid, (I first played Emerald when I was like, 9 years old) but looking back, this was great for a warm-up and understanding the rules of each of those unique facilities.
Even as a kid who knew *nothing* about IV, EVs, Natures or anything that involved optimizing my mons', I just had a ton of fun with those new, gimmicky challenges.
Sure, if you just solo'd the game with your starter, you were at a disadvantage. But with how many cool pokémon Hoenn has, I had to catch some of them. Also, I was a bit more used to building bigger teams because of the Stadium series.
So to answer your question, yeah, if you remove the Battle Frontier, you get a nice game that's better than the 3DS ones, but not good enough to stand with the golden age of the DS ones. If you remove the Delta Episode from ORAS and the random french facility, you also get an incredibly lame post-game that would probably struggle to compete with XY on that front.
Well, that's where I'm inclined to disagree.
That's the problem with the Battle Frontier - outside of the Tower and the rental facility, they are too gimmicky to be enjoyable.
I'm also on the crowd that the Delta Episode is better than the Battle Frontier. The only thing I miss from the latter in ORAS is the Battle Factory.
(I'm aware the Battle Arcade is quite non-gimmicky, but by the time I found out, I had stopped caring about the Frontier)