Unpopular opinions

Adding onto this, we could also consider that it was pretty quickly established that DP were made completely obsolete by Platinum. Whenever people bring up Gen IV and how good it was, they mean Platinum or maybe HGSS. Nobody ever looked fondly back on DP after Platinum was released. They literally didn't have anything over it. To a certain degree, this was true of Emerald to RS as well. BW to BW2? Less so, I think. BW's insistence on Unova 'mons only makes for a very different game experience, and the whole earlygame is different between the games too. I think BW2 were always seen as better than BW, but the originals still have something different to offer, at least.

Edit: and this might be some of the reason why some long-time fans seem to be losing faith in the series. It has been a long time since we had that game that indisputably left the previous ones in the dust. I mean, one could say there was a significant jump up from XY to ORAS, but ORAS leaned heavily on a region we'd seen before. It was good content, but not original content (as always, DexNav excepted. DexNav was too good for this world). Kalos to Alola was not that step up either, nor was SM to USUM. Gen VIII appeared to be poised to take that long-awaited leap, finally a main series game with the power of a home console behind it ... and then SwSh happened, with their innumerable flaws and without much to show for compared to USUM. More than half the Pokémon missing, for a start, and a region with vastly fewer routes, dungeons, or cities than ever before, and a plot regressing beyond the level of a joke and into tragedy.

Pokémon used to have these huge quality jumps, the polished games that were all the previous ones were and then some. And now it has been three generations since it last happened. Instead we're debating whether there has been any net quality increase since the GBA era. That's kind of sad.
 
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Late but XY being good games/having good features:

Gen 6 is the one generation I haven't played over twice yet (at least partially because we never got a 3rd version), and while I wouldn't say I hate/dislike the games, they definitely just felt... underwhelming/unimpressive to me. Seems kinda weird saying that, with the additions of the Fairy type, Mega Evolution, and the transition to full 3D, but I remember so little about the actual experience of playing them. That's probably mostly due to difficulty; the Exp Share was so imbalanced that I probably could have used just about any team and made it through the game just fine. It's also, interestingly, the only Generation where I can't really list any of its music as favorites (plus the only songs I really remember from it are in Smash, lol).

That said, I did think the region's story (separate from whatever Lysandre wanted to do) was pretty neat, and expected to see that expounded in "Pokémon Z," but was let down when said game never materialized, leaving the story good, but with loose ends. (this may or may not be the general consensus?). I also liked the Looker mission postgame section.

EDIT: another reason they were unmemorable (for me) was the really weak supporting cast. The NPC-forced railroading of Alola and Galar can definitely be grating but it at least makes its characters have personality and a presence beyond a one-off battle.
 
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Celever said:
Garbodor has always been considered a good design by the majority of the fanbase, and Trubbish has been included on a lot of PokéTubers' favourite Unovan Pokémon lists, for instance! Nobody who knows what they're talking about has ever criticised Trubbish / Garbodor which is why hating them is a meme, because plenty of people did dislike the designs, but they were people who couldn't justify their reasons for disliking it besides "it's just a bag of trash" hence the meme wars of "well this is a seal called Seel" etc.. This paragraph demonstrates how you're backreading reception and weren't there at the time, which of course isn't your fault, but it also means you're reading everything out of context and aren't understanding what a lot of these forum posts actually meant at the time. There was a very vocal minority of people hating on everything about BW when they were released, including their Pokémon designs, but the vast majority of the veteran fanbase were much more receptive to everything BW did besides having no oldgen Pokémon in the regional dex, including its designs. I'd be willing to bet many of the posts you've seen hating on Trubbish and Garbodor were written sarcastically. Of course, it's fine for a few people to legitimately dislike the designs because everyone has a few pet peeves with random Pokémon without necessarily having good reasoning for it, but it was nowhere near the overwhelming majority that you think it was.
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What in the fuck? I seriously can't get over how weirdly condescending this is. If you don't like Garbodor, you don't know what you're talking about? Oh, but it's fine if some people legitimately dislike the design, but of course they don't have good reasoning for it. And no, the point of all those Gen 1 vs 5 memes was not that all hate of Garbodor was just a meme, it was to point out that Gen 1 had a lot of duds with the same issues that the genwunners were complaining about like simplicity and object mons. Maybe Garbodor has gotten some traction in recent years (it did get a Gigantamax, after all), but I can guarantee you it was an unpopular Pokemon on release and that was not just from genwunners.
 
sb879 said:
What in the fuck? I seriously can't get over how weirdly condescending this is. If you don't like Garbodor, you don't know what you're talking about? Oh, but it's fine if some people legitimately dislike the design, but of course they don't have good reasoning for it. And no, the point of all those Gen 1 vs 5 memes was not that all hate of Garbodor was just a meme, it was to point out that Gen 1 had a lot of duds with the same issues that the genwunners were complaining about like simplicity and object mons. Maybe Garbodor has gotten some traction in recent years (it did get a Gigantamax, after all), but I can guarantee you it was an unpopular Pokemon on release and that was not just from genwunners.
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It's not condescending, but the people who publicly criticised that line did not have any justification for it because there was nothing to criticise. It's not like Kubfu where we recently had a discussion about its design flaws -- no one could actually identify any design flaws with Trubbish and Garbodor because they're well designed. It made everyone who kept saying "these Pokémon suck because they're just trash bags" annoying and it clogged up otherwise interesting discussions.

That's why it was memed, and it was definitely memed. The vast majority of the people hating on Trubbish/Garbodor did so to justify the argument that "Pokémon designs are worse now than they ever have been before", which yes is part of why the meme wars focused on Gen I Pokémon being just as bad/good as Trubbish and Garbodor, to point out that that argument is nonsense. But it's also why Trubbish/Garbodor were never actually unpopular, because much of the conversation was "people dislike these designs and so therefore the designs must be worse now" which missed out the entire part of the argument where they justify why people dislike the designs. In reality, it was an unjustified platform.
 
Codraroll said:
Adding onto this, we could also consider that it was pretty quickly established that DP were made completely obsolete by Platinum. Whenever people bring up Gen IV and how good it was, they mean Platinum or maybe HGSS. Nobody ever looked fondly back on DP after Platinum was released. They literally didn't have anything over it. To a certain degree, this was true of Emerald to RS as well. BW to BW2? Less so, I think. BW's insistence on Unova 'mons only makes for a very different game experience, and the whole earlygame is different between the games too. I think BW2 were always seen as better than BW, but the originals still have something different to offer, at least.

Edit: and this might be some of the reason why some long-time fans seem to be losing faith in the series. It has been a long time since we had that game that indisputably left the previous ones in the dust. I mean, one could say there was a significant jump up from XY to ORAS, but ORAS leaned heavily on a region we'd seen before. It was good content, but not original content (as always, DexNav excepted. DexNav was too good for this world). Kalos to Alola was not that step up either, nor was SM to USUM. Gen VIII appeared to be poised to take that long-awaited leap, finally a main series game with the power of a home console behind it ... and then SwSh happened, with their innumerable flaws and without much to show for compared to USUM. More than half the Pokémon missing, for a start, and a region with vastly fewer routes, dungeons, or cities than ever before, and a plot regressing beyond the level of a joke and into tragedy.

Pokémon used to have these huge quality jumps, the polished games that were all the previous ones were and then some. And now it has been three generations since it last happened. Instead we're debating whether there has been any net quality increase since the GBA era. That's kind of sad.
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I wanna expand on this a bit.

The cases where the third version is straight-up an upgrade over the past versions will never happen anymore, DLC means no more 3rd versions. And that's good.

On the other hand, this means the paired versions need to be good games on their own right, the DLC is being sold and marketed as an expansion pack. This means that the base games need to be good on their own right.

We're not getting that. The level of polish has dramatically decreased, the quality of the level design just backflipped off a cliff, you got corridor syndrome everywhere, and while I'll praise the QoL changes we've been consistently seeing with each passing generation (Nature Mints, Running on analog), you can't have dessert and call it a full meal.

The games have been lacking meat. There's little exploration, even less post-game, and last time I checked, online battles in-game are borked by dumb rules.

People have been discussing the decrease in quality of the franchise since XY. And while I'm willing to give XY a pass because of the transition to 3D and the deadline,(Remember, this is the first time I'm actually playing it) I'm not as lenient on the games after that.

We shouldn't even be having a serious discussion about whether Emerald was better than ORAS.

I like GSC a lot and played it countless times. Gold was my first Pokémon game. Heart Gold dunks on it. No questions about it. It just builds upon the original on every possible way and despite having flaws of its own, there's just no contest.

So why is it that most consider that there's a noticeable drop in quality starting from the 3DS games?

Sword and Shield in particular are abysmal. And that's not the first time Dexit happened in this franchise.

RS handled Dexit in a much better and more ambitious way. They got flack for it, but are we going to compare RS to Crystal and say that Game Freak was apathetic and/or lazy like people are describing Sword and Shield?

You can look even under Mew's truck. Not a single soul will say that.
 
Celever said:
It's not condescending, but the people who publicly criticised that line did not have any justification for it because there was nothing to criticise. It's not like Kubfu where we recently had a discussion about its design flaws -- no one could actually identify any design flaws with Trubbish and Garbodor because they're well designed. It made everyone who kept saying "these Pokémon suck because they're just trash bags" annoying and it clogged up otherwise interesting discussions.

That's why it was memed, and it was definitely memed. The vast majority of the people hating on Trubbish/Garbodor did so to justify the argument that "Pokémon designs are worse now than they ever have been before", which yes is part of why the meme wars focused on Gen I Pokémon being just as bad/good as Trubbish and Garbodor, to point out that that argument is nonsense. But it's also why Trubbish/Garbodor were never actually unpopular, because much of the conversation was "people dislike these designs and so therefore the designs must be worse now" which missed out the entire part of the argument where they justify why people dislike the designs. In reality, it was an unjustified platform.
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It is absolutely condescending. You are assuming the worst in any Garbodor critique because you presume it's nothing more than "it's a trash bag" coming from a genwunner. These absolutely exist and I find it baffling you've never seen them. Here's mine: Garbodor poorly evokes its concept. It is erupt at the bottom, yet the trash is still perfectly compact, and the trash looks more like sludge than anything. I have nothing against the concept of waste for a Pokemon, I love the Muk line and I actually think Trubbish works pretty well.

And again, the hate on Garbodor was not a meme. I don't agree at all that "it's a trash bag" is a good reason to hate Garbodor, but it was a lot of people's genuine reason. I don't know why you have this weird premise that people were just looking for something to hate. I have seen plenty of people that like the Unova games dislike Garbodor, so no, it doesn't all come from angry genwunners with a bone to pick. And I really don't know what you're on about with nobody justifying their dislike. Plenty of people have more nuanced critiques of it, and even the people that just have a visceral reaction to trash have justified their dislike: trash is a bad concept for Pokemon. It's needlessly exclusionary, but it's there.

And frankly...even if these people were the perfect strawmen, just absolute morons screaming "I HATE GARBODOR!!!" into the wind, how does that make it not unpopular? Things don't need to be unpopular for a good reason.
 
Mainly about Colo, XD, and BR
I know for a fact all Mons models were made and animated by HAL (noted in Credits as Special thanks, model comparisons from Stadium PERS containers and GS using HAL Dat, and HAL having access to them for SSBB). Colo actually had bad animations for humans
Then the other issue is a massive missed opportunity for Colo. We have Wes, who in the intro bows stuff up, telling us "Oh cool, we'll be an antihero!"
yet
Throughout the entire game our thief and explosives skills are suddenly nonexistent, our status is literally the same as a main character in regular games. Basically a mute nobody, with the only difference being we aren't a kid
Or we would if adults didn't just dismiss us like we are...like Main games
It just felt like a massive waste of potential, and the story wasn't that engaging either, outside 1 plot twist at the end. Our partner has derped eyes and is at max noted for being a Shadow mon alarm, for little reason

Speaking of, the mechanics for Shadow mons absolutely sucked,100% to purify them is garbage, and the dex is incomplete. Content wise for post game there's none besides a mini gym challenge, and a worse version of the Battle Frontier
Heck, back then reviewers noted it was a weak RPG for GC, and it showed

XD fixed human anims....then well the opportunity for a none kid protag with unique character outside design is gone completely. Shadow Lugia's a cool design (despite firing a laser from it's crotch in the intro), but shadow mechanics were only slightly mitigated, and again it didn't really change up things for Pokemon overall. Also faint anims were weirdly sped up, which BR kept

Now BR.....Remember how I noted HAL did Gen 1-3? It really shows with them not being involved for Gen 4 mons
Many were poorly animated in comparison to the first 3 gens. The new animations for walking to the other mon also were very shoddily done. The other issue was a mediocre attempt of subdividing some Gen 1 and 2 Mons, with some having worse proportions for their original anims like Mewtwo
The other issue I have is the shader, which cast a weird harsh rimlight. Well it could be worse *cough, MKWii cruddy oil shader used by so many MDL0 games*. Textures also were made to be flat colors. Gone were details like scales and brushed fur/feathers
In terms of content, it's ironically a worse Stadium, with far little and worse rentals, no other game modes out of battling. It also became almost obsolete once Wi-Fi battles started for Platinum

Pretty much, GS got too much cred from HALs work thanks to SwSh, and the actual game outside the Pokemon wasn't that impressive to me
As for Trozei, haven't seen it. Though the icon for Linoone shouldn't have feet...
 
Celever said:
no one could actually identify any design flaws with Trubbish and Garbodor because they're well designed.
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What do you mean? In Garbodor's case it's clear as day. It's the eyes that gives it a severe case of derp face:
569Garbodor.png
how-to-draw-garbodor-from-pokemon.jpg

Garbodor's main flaw is its expression, because the eyes are wide with tiny pupils as if it's in shock. It looks awful. Change the eyes up a little bit, and it becomes a much, much better design.

EDIT: Found another example of how the eyes can be used to change Garbodor's appearance completely:
fd17954a4176d5cbd9ed2b13e7ee4c0e.jpg
 
Sonikku A said:
Mainly about Colo, XD, and BR
I know for a fact all Mons models were made and animated by HAL (noted in Credits as Special thanks, model comparisons from Stadium PERS containers and GS using HAL Dat, and HAL having access to them for SSBB). Colo actually had bad animations for humans
Then the other issue is a massive missed opportunity for Colo. We have Wes, who in the intro bows stuff up, telling us "Oh cool, we'll be an antihero!"
yet
Throughout the entire game our thief and explosives skills are suddenly nonexistent, our status is literally the same as a main character in regular games. Basically a mute nobody, with the only difference being we aren't a kid
Or we would if adults didn't just dismiss us like we are...like Main games
It just felt like a massive waste of potential, and the story wasn't that engaging either, outside 1 plot twist at the end. Our partner has derped eyes and is at max noted for being a Shadow mon alarm, for little reason

Speaking of, the mechanics for Shadow mons absolutely sucked,100% to purify them is garbage, and the dex is incomplete. Content wise for post game there's none besides a mini gym challenge, and a worse version of the Battle Frontier
Heck, back then reviewers noted it was a weak RPG for GC, and it showed

XD fixed human anims....then well the opportunity for a none kid protag with unique character outside design is gone completely. Shadow Lugia's a cool design (despite firing a laser from it's crotch in the intro), but shadow mechanics were only slightly mitigated, and again it didn't really change up things for Pokemon overall. Also faint anims were weirdly sped up, which BR kept

Now BR.....Remember how I noted HAL did Gen 1-3? It really shows with them not being involved for Gen 4 mons
Many were poorly animated in comparison to the first 3 gens. The new animations for walking to the other mon also were very shoddily done. The other issue was a mediocre attempt of subdividing some Gen 1 and 2 Mons, with some having worse proportions for their original anims like Mewtwo
The other issue I have is the shader, which cast a weird harsh rimlight. Well it could be worse *cough, MKWii cruddy oil shader used by so many MDL0 games*. Textures also were made to be flat colors. Gone were details like scales and brushed fur/feathers
In terms of content, it's ironically a worse Stadium, with far little and worse rentals, no other game modes out of battling. It also became almost obsolete once Wi-Fi battles started for Platinum

Pretty much, GS got too much cred from HALs work thanks to SwSh, and the actual game outside the Pokemon wasn't that impressive to me
As for Trozei, haven't seen it. Though the icon for Linoone shouldn't have feet...
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Colosseum and XD, I can't speak for, since I never played them, but I disagree saying that Revolution animations were terrible. Maybe they were not as good as the previous generations, but they were some that really are entertaining to watch: Honchkrow literally bows its hat before fainting, while the Drifloon line literally deflates before being sent back to the Pokeball. Even the Piplup lines swims like a Penguin when using a move like Aqua Jet.

The main reason why PBR was a failure because people were disappointed that it was dedicated to battling solely without a story mode or mini games.



Codraroll said:
What do you mean? In Garbodor's case it's clear as day. It's the eyes that gives it a severe case of derp face:
569Garbodor.png
how-to-draw-garbodor-from-pokemon.jpg

Garbodor's main flaw is its expression, because the eyes are wide with tiny pupils as if it's in shock. It looks awful. Change the eyes up a little bit, and it becomes a much, much better design.

EDIT: Found another example of how the eyes can be used to change Garbodor's appearance completely:
fd17954a4176d5cbd9ed2b13e7ee4c0e.jpg
Click to expand...
Adding on more why Garbodor is a forgettable Pokémon, if you look at its stats, they are average at best, with Attack, it’s highest stat being a meager 95. In contrast, it’s counterparts Muk and Weezing have more optimal stat spreads. Muk has 105/100/100 HP, Sp.Def, and Atk making it a much better tank and attacker than Garbodor, while Weezing has incredible Defense and Levitate which only gives it one weakness. Garbodor has an impressive movepool consisting of Sludge Bomb, Focus Blast, Thunderbolt, and Dark Pulse, but it’s base 60 SPATK means that it cannot properly take advantage of it. Weezing has 85 SPATK, and has the moves Flamethrower and Thunderbolt to back it up.

It doesn’t help that both Muk and Weezing have regional variants that enhance their combat with no extra cost. Alolan Muk gains an incredible Dark Typing which only gives it one weakness while also being able walk the Majority of Psychic, Ghost, and Fairy Pokemon, while Galarian Weezing gains a Fairy typing which allows it to be more offensively threatening.

Garbodor gets a Gigantatamx form, but that doesn’t fix any of its problems. It stats are painfully average still, and it’s Gmax Move is stuck as a measly 95 max power thanks to the inherent restriction of poison moves being nerfed due to increasing SPATK. There’s also an opportunity cost for using Garbodor as a Gmax, such as Hatterene, Charizard, and Coalossal all of which have considerably more utility and stats than Garbodor when it comes to Gmax.

So yeah, I agree that Garbodor is a terribly designed Pokémon everything it has going for it is done better by its counterparts.
 
DreamPrince said:
So yeah, I agree that Garbodor is a terribly designed Pokémon everything it has going for it is done better by its counterparts.
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There is something I would disagree with.

"Terribly designed" when coming to stats is a relative term.

Pokemon needs "trash" Pokemon (sorry for the pun with Garbodor here). Not all pokemon are designed to be good, in fact several are designed to be literal trash.

When you say that its stats are badly designed, you're always implying that he was designed to be a strong, competitive Pokemon, while he could be just one of the many Pokemon whose design works around "making sense" rather than "Talonflame v2".

May be unpopular or not, but to me a Pokemon is well designed when it has fitting theme, stats and look, the "competitive viability" is a plus but not a necessity.
(The above can actually work for A LOT of pokemon in the last 3 gens: gen 6, 7 and 8 are full of pretty neat designs that end up being terrible competitively but at least fun to use in game or just to look at)

Going back to Garbodor, I do agree his stats are awful and his G-Max doesn't really give him anything good (also... that train in the back........), but, design wise, you can't really hate him.
There's also the two fan-theorys about how he was given to Oleana specifically because she hides a trash personality behind a sexy look, as well as it being her only childhood friends, which add to its "fitting" theme at least, but I don't know if they were ever confirmed or not.



edit: I realized I missed correctly stating what I meant:
To me a "terribly designed pokemon" when it comes to stats would be a pokemon whose stat spread doesnt make sense. Say a pugilist pokemon that has low attack and high spattack, or a snorlax clone that somehow has low HP. As long as the stats/ability fit the look and theme of the Pokemon, to me they're okay, even if they're hot garbage.
 
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Some mons have bad stats on purpose and that why I was disappointed when Sirfetch'd was announced. Farfertch'd is supposed to be underwhelming so to give this bad mon a evolution misses the point, looking at the others in-games trades in Red and Blue this is the only one which you would be better not doing because at least Spearow can evolve. This trade is GF being a troll just like the Magikarp at Route 4.

At least Dunsparce remains unsullied.
 
Blue glass said:
Some mons have bad stats on purpose and that why I was disappointed when Sirfetch'd was announced. Farfertch'd is supposed to be underwhelming so to give this bad mon a evolution misses the point, looking at the others in-games trades in Red and Blue this is the only one which you would be better not doing because at least Spearow can evolve. This trade is GF being a troll just like the Magikarp at Route 4.

At least Dunsparce remains unsullied.
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Technically that still applies as it's Kantonian Farfetch'd who's the joke Pokémon.
 
Anyone else dislike how Sugimori's Digital art after 2001 became extremely washed out or neon?
There's a reason I said *after* 2001 cuz he DID mess with digital as early as 1997
Before I found the color tone still good, despite preferring the watercolor
75acac08d0c6059d3dcd37cfe3a264de.jpg
tumblr_m9t7vxonIY1rxldc4o1_500.png

But then Gen 3 he was inconsistent on contrast. These are both from Ruby/Sapphire
Ruby_Sapphire_Wattson.png
Ruby_Sapphire_Team_Aqua_Grunts.png

The Grunts look way paler than Wattson here. Even some Pokemon look washed out compared to others
Then later TCG and FRLG cemented the low contrast pallete. I'm still wondering whether he's anticipating for CYMK printed colors, or if he just figured it'd be easier on the eyes
As for "Neon", certain humans in FRLG are fault of this. Them pants...
359px-FireRed_LeafGreen_Blue.png

Still wondering why he became a redhead, but at least he's not Kris and Ethan in HGSS
 
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I honestly don't think people give enough credit to the importance of Ash losing the League the first time around. Yeah yeah it just became kinda sad and pathetic after that "twist" was repeated ad nauseum until they decided at Alola that enough was enough, but the first time around I'm willing to wager that depicting the star of a popular children's TV series flat-out losing the big final challenge was probably genuinely shocking for the young viewers at the time, dare I say incredibly ballsy as well as a potentially striking lesson about how you can't always win big events like that. Again, it's a shame that the same old song and dance kept being repeated until it completely lost all meaning and just became routine, but we should try to forget that as best we can when thinking over its big role the first time around.
 
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