Unpopular opinions

[DreamPrince]

you know how toxic has 100% accuracy when used by poison types? i think will o wisp should have 100% accuracy when used by fire types. maybe that's dumb considering that a lot less pokemon learn will o wisp compared to toxic but eh

Burn is a lot more in the detrimental in the official format though. Halving your attack can just make the likes of Gyarados and Dragapault deal underwhelming damage to the point you can ignore them. Toxic is significantly rarer because battles rarely last 5 minutes, so the increased poison isn’t as useful, with exceptions in 2017, where toxic was used to check Snorlax, Porygon 2 and Mandibuzz

Problem is Wisp is more commonly associated with the Ghost-type

I’m surprised it isn’t a Ghost type move. Pretty much every Ghost type can learn it, and wisps are spirits in folklore.

 

[Pikachu315111]

Problem is Wisp is more commonly associated with the Ghost-type

Still don't see why it can't be 100% when used by a Fire-type. Sure, the flavor behind the move means Ghost-types can easily learn it, but for it to really burn you need a Fire-type to give it that extra heat.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Still don't see why it can't be 100% when used by a Fire-type. Sure, the flavor behind the move means Ghost-types can easily learn it, but for it to really burn you need a Fire-type to give it that extra heat.

We obviously need the "Badly Burned" status.

 

[Pikaman_Ultra]

Gen 5 is the best gen, I don't care what you say. Best music, best 2d graphics, up there with the pokemon designs. Fight me

 

[Yung Dramps]

Gen 5 is the best gen, I don't care what you say. Best music, best 2d graphics, up there with the pokemon designs. Fight me

This is literally the coldest take ever, have you actually paid attention to any best Pokemon games discussion for the past 3 years? I dunno about BW1, but BW2 is extremely well-liked now.

 

[Pikaman_Ultra]

This is literally the coldest take ever, have you actually paid attention to any best Pokemon games discussion for the past 3 years? I dunno about BW1, but BW2 is extremely well-liked now.

I'm talking BW1, Which gets hated on quite a bit, also even tho genwunners are a small voice, they should still be considered and they toss dirt on this gen religiously

 

[DrPumpkinz]

best 2d graphics

Overworld maybe, but have you ever actually seen the battles?

Disgusting. Especially since the spastic camera zooms right in on those grainy monstrosities.

 

[Pikaman_Ultra]

Overworld maybe, but have you ever actually seen the battles?

Disgusting. Especially since the spastic camera zooms right in on those grainy monstrosities.

Yeah fair enough, and for the sake of not blindly loving this gen, and I want to (my first pokemon game was black) tf is the tepig line. I love snivy and I think the oshawatt line is good too, but they got the fire type really wrong on this one imo, tho that opinion isn't unpopular.

Also fun fact, serpirior has arms, it just folds them behind it's back.

 

[Pikaman_Ultra]

Also, gen 5s EXP share sucked so much, really glad its revised now

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Also, gen 5s EXP share sucked so much, really glad its revised now

Now that's a hot take and a half lmao.

 

[HanSoloIndie]

you know how toxic has 100% accuracy when used by poison types? i think will o wisp should have 100% accuracy when used by fire types. maybe that's dumb considering that a lot less pokemon learn will o wisp compared to toxic but eh

On the same note, why can't Water-types be completely immune to being burnt? If it is logical that Electric pokemon can not be paralyzed, Fire types can not be burned, and Steel types can not be poisoned under normal circumstances, why not for Water types? It's not like you can burn water, you boil it.

Since there seems to be on ongoing discussion about my previous post and other related subjects, I figured I would make a
follow-up post to clarify a few points and address some genuine feedback. I would first and foremost like to thank
everyone for voicing their thoughts and counterpoints, and I thank especially to those who intitally (and still disagree)
with me, as you guys are the most important thought I had in making this. Credits to all Smogon and online users is given.
My previous post

So I’ll address some common questions I got:
Q: Why make a big deal out of this? It seems like for an incredibly minor aspect, you make a huge image
and diagrams just to elaborate.

Answer

A: Well, after all, this is the UNPOPULAR OPINIONS forum, so in here it is appropriate to point out smaller things that major
threads in Smogon would overlook. Secondly, I find art important, and decided to put some effort into doing an art critique.
If you are the more pragmatic type of person, you can’t post what I originally posted on GameFAQs, 4chan, ResetEra, etc.
because those places are either toxic, prone to spam/trolls, have issues regarding moderators, the communities do
not usually post genuine feedback, and/or can not conduct even a simple debate civilly.

Also, first impressions mean everything. Being the box cover legendary often has high expectations, and that includes its design. There's a reason why people deliberately pick an exclusive legendary that's competitively inferior but love their designs.

Q: Isn’t it somewhat unfair to directly compare Zacian-Crowned and Zamazenta-Crowned’s poses side-by-side?
Zamazenta-Crowned being dynamic goes against character/the main theme, you know. Therefore, Zamazenta has to stay still to show that he is an immovable force.

Answer

A: Well, I will admit that I wished that I discussed more in-depth about how that were not meant to be a one-on-one comparison and addressed that in my previous post. That is a true statement if you contradict some of the canon. I don’t expect Zamazenta-Crowned to be doing jumps and flips like Zacian-Crowned, but in-game footage/data proves that Zamazenta-Crowned is better than just standing still with no personality/contrappasto (the forms are organized on a varying or curving axis to provide an asymmetrical balance to the figure) in his stance/looking into the distance, and is certainly no Bastiodon or Melmetal. Just look at Zamazenta-Crowned’s speed stat, Behemoth Bash animation, and official statements on the official website.

Disregarding its attack stat, if Zamazenta-Crowned is clearly capable of running at high speeds to ram into enemies with its shield, why can't the official art show it running defensively to ram an opponent? They clearly show Zacian-Crowned's agility, so why can't they? They already demonstrated its majesty, determination, defenses, and demeanor. Therefore, Zamazenta-C needs engaging and dynamic poses to some extent. This is easily remedied by pushing the poses/stance or extending something to solve the silhouette test, and still be in character.
That's why poses like these:

are more engaging than

if by solely looking at the subject (not the backgrounds). They also have more personality to such poses.
Even Zamazenta-Crowned can be "dynamic" by simply having proper contrappasto and stand still/lean as shown above.

Q: But what about fitting within the Pokemon universe?

Answer

A: While I find that as equally as important as the visual and character design, I don't think that is the main issue here in most Pokemon designs. You could argue that no matter how well a character fits (by design and so forth) within a fictional universe, if they are not written well and visually designed to stand on its own, it would fail. My point is best exemplified by looking at the Pokemon DLC legendaries:

Man, what a polarized reaction these guys received, arguably even worse than the dog duo and Eternatus! But why? The main culprit is not having appealing visual and character designs, rather than fitting into the Pokemon universe or their potential for lore. People were cringed by Calyrex's unappealing proportion exaggeration, Urshifu's major jump in design from Kubfu, Urshifu's so-so color schemes, and excessive ornate details that do not really contribute meanfully. I understand the reasoning behind the designs and we get that the Galar legendaries represent the medieval British royal court and myths (Calyrex = A king with a scepter/crown, Zacian = Morgan de Faye/Excalibur/ sword-based knight, Zamazenta = King Arthur/Wynebgwrthucher/shield-based knight, Urshifu = royal archbishop/head of Christianity in the medieval era/performed rituals/sacrements to purge evil), but can it be executed better?

(

(my images; were they trying to aim for a monochromatic cool-grey design with purple undertones and for contrast/complimentary colors, they added yellow-mustard accents? Where's the color differences for Urshifu's formes?)

Which leads to to my next subpoint: Zamazenta-Crowned can be designed better and retain the faithfulness of its theme. I'l give it a shot:

I did this in 45 minutes, and in lower quality in which I usually draw. Having a shorter cape, relocating the side shield parts, lightening the blues, simplfying some of the decoration on the shield, and darkening the yellows for improving the color scheme, and actually making the Behemoth Bash actually magneta (not orange) like how his name is based on I think makes it somewhat an improvement. It's not perfect, but its a start.

Q: Is there such thing as an ideal color scheme?

Answer

Technically no. But there are ways to experiment with varying color schemes that find one that makes sense within the context and don't conflict with another. You optimize and refine, as coloring is a process. That's way looking up color schemes online, using a color wheel, and understanding terms like analogous colors, tertiary colors, triadic colors, and tetradic color families will help.

Q: Are you really an artist?

Answer

If you haven't seen the answer two questions ago, I also now have an art thread in Smeargle's Studio. I have a wide range of experimentation including traditional charcoal, raster, and vector arts. Believe me, I don't say it just for boosting credibility. I am certainly not the world's greatest, but least I know I am at least adequate.

And to add something new to the conversation, another controversial opinion I have is that reusing animations and 3D assets by itself is not necessarily bad thing. In fact, it can save time in development and it is more common than you think throughout the industry. When repeated correctly, the audience usually doesn't notice. Even the comic books you read likely uses a library of assets, according to Freddie E. Williams, a DC artist. (sorry for the awkward image angles) in the book The DC Comics Guide to Digitally Drawing Comics.
https://www.kotaku.com.au/2019/06/t...sets-like-turning-a-tank-into-a-destiny-boss/

But notice how the book says, "Do be careful, though, not to overuse stat elements. If readers notice that your backgrounds appear to be repetitive again and again, they may feel cheated, and your illustrations will start to will repetitive". That's the problem with the usage of 3D assets and the animations in SwSh. If you ignore the fact that they stated to the press that they were remaking models, it is so blatantly obvious that they straight up reused them for the 4th time in a row (not including the Galar dex). If they updated them with HD textures or a style change, we wouldn't notice as much.

I would much rather a game reuse assets rather than remaking new ones from scratch and sacrificing quality development time that negatively impacts the entire gameplay and so forth. But SwSh, based on the fan reviews, seems to fail at revising their reused models and the overall quality decline.

Remember folks, it's how they are changed and revised, not if they did reused or not.

 

[Rapti]

Mmm... I kinda disagree here.
If a character's design doesn't work in tandem with the qualities and role of the character, it's probably a bad design. You can't really say to ignore important aspects of the character just because they're not the artist's choice - the artist's job is to work with those elements and communicate those elements through the design, and that's especially true of gameplay elements when they're tasked with designing a character for a game.

Actually, the people at Gamefreak don't coordinate when creating a character, a person makes a design, someone else gives it stats and movepool, and another person makes up its name and its lore

 

[DrPumpkinz]

Actually, the people at Gamefreak don't coordinate when creating a character, a person makes a design, someone else gives it stats and movepool, and another person makes up its name and its lore

View attachment 245463

What the... I can sort of forgive a lot of Game Freak's dumb decisions because "the higher ups want to continue doing things the way they were done in the beginning" and "Japanese culture frowns upon calling out your boss", but when would have this total division of labor ever made sense? It's of course a good idea to have each of those things mostly done by different people so that no one person has to be good at everything, but have some coordination between the teams! At the very least, the person who designed the Pokemon should lay out basic stats, moves, and lore. Nothing major. Just general stat descriptions like "fast" or "strong", and the few moves and bits of lore the designer had in mind when they made the Pokemon. The Pokemon then gets handed off to stats/moves and lore/name people to be fully fleshed out, and these people work together to make sure the mechanics and flavor don't contradict each other, as to avoid blunders like Vikavolt being described as speedy despite having base 43 Speed, or Poipole and Naganadel being unable to learn Sticky Web or Toxic Thread or literally anything to do with adhesives besides arguably Venom Drench.

 

[Hematite]

Actually, the people at Gamefreak don't coordinate when creating a character, a person makes a design, someone else gives it stats and movepool, and another person makes up its name and its lore

View attachment 245463

... I mean, you're not wrong, but I don't feel that that's at all applicable to the conversation here, haha. For one thing, I was talking about the example of a character's movements in a fighting game there, so that's obviously not something an artist would have the authority to do without considering the needs of gameplay.
But also, while that's true in most cases, we also know that the gameplay team can put in requests for designs that meet certain gameplay requirements, and I strongly doubt that the designs for the version mascots specifically were 100% within the control of a single artist without anyone else's orders coming into play.
Would you honestly believe that an artist decided on their own, with no input from anyone else, that the mascots would be a sword Pokémon and a shield Pokémon (thereby also singlehandedly deciding the names and design theme of the rest of the game), designed them on their own without asking for feedback, did not even consider the possibility that the shield Pokémon they designed would be defensively oriented, and still ended up getting them approved exactly as they were?
And even aside from whether the art or the gameplay came first in this case (you're right that the stats were probably one of the last things decided), surely an artist who worked on the series would have at least some understanding of how the series worked - it should be easy enough for them to infer, even without being told by anyone else, that the shield Pokémon would be expected to have a build similar to other defensive Pokémon and not move and act like a sweeper... and honestly, they would probably do that subconsciously even if it wasn't out of perceived obligation or because they knew that's what people would expect, because it's just the kind of build any designer would make for a shield-based creature that was supposed to represent "the immovable object" in that paradox.
All things considered, I stand by what I said: they did a fine job expressing that concept in Zamazenta... or even if not, they at least did... like... a better job than making it dynamic like Zacian would have been? I don't even know if I would call Zamazenta perfect - they didn't take that long to grow on me, but I didn't love the mascots this Gen when I first saw them (although Zamazenta has always looked visually better in my opinion, and that's especially the case for its color scheme, so I also take issue with the idea that that side of it makes it inferior on any technical or non-subjective level) - but I certainly respect the decision to make Zamazenta something steadfast and sturdy-looking over something that looks like... well... all of the designs that the gameplay team turned into sweepers in the past. It feels like a basic common sense decision to make it a little less dynamic and a little more covered up than Zacian.

Edit: also, Rapti, I think you're mistaken in interpreting those quotes to mean that the artist has no say whatsoever.
The second quote from James Turner straight-up has him saying he can suggest names if he wants, but he prefers to leave it to the naming specialist - and I'm sure something similar applies to moves learned and approximate battle role. The designers know that the people working in those areas are more experienced and know what they're doing, so they trust them and leave the final decisions to them, but that doesn't mean the "Name Rater" or the battle team don't even attempt to take the designer's wishes into account if the designer actually has something to offer. Also, to put this in perspective... even aside from stats, Naganadel learns 64 different moves - and none of them are signature, meaning none of them were designed for Naganadel alone. Do you really think curating movesets (not simply having being allowed to make individual move suggestions - the quote is "come up with the movesets") is even something the artists want to do themselves? There's a middle ground between "the teams do not interact at all" and "the artist does every step of the process for themself," and I think the conclusions you're drawing from these quotes go waaay beyond what Turner necessarily meant.

 

[Rapti]

When would have this total division of labor ever made sense?

That would be back in the silver age of comics when "comic book editors at DC Comics would come up with an idea for a comic book cover, have an artist draw that idea and then have the writers of the comic book come up with an explanation inside the comic book to fit the cover"

which gave us such wonderful stories like this one here

(This story was actually pretty bad)

The designers know that the people working in those areas are more experienced and know what they're doing, so they trust them and leave the final decisions to them, but that doesn't mean the "Name Rater" or the battle team don't even attempt to take the designer's wishes into account if the designer actually has something to offer.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1224880205568696325

 

[HanSoloIndie]

Actually, the people at Gamefreak don't coordinate when creating a character, a person makes a design, someone else gives it stats and movepool, and another person makes up its name and its lore

View attachment 245463

Even I have to say, while that is a fun fact and probably influences and explains some of their more questionable design and lore choices, I think you are using this fact a bit too much out of context here.

Not trying to attack you or anything, but I have to agree with Hematite here. And in any commercial project, it is generally a fact that artists/musicians have to face unique challenges. Quality and more time, or forced deadlines and crunch? It sucks having to give up creative freedoms, you know. Just look at the entire Doom Eternal soundtrack mixing controversy.

 

[Rapti]

I think you are using this fact a bit too much out of context here.

I'm not using this facts in any way, I'm literally just quoting dudes

 

[Hematite]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1224880205568696325

... I think you may have lost track of the context at this point.
You were trying to correct my statement that the artists do need to take gameplay into account by saying the teams don't coordinate. But now that I've responded by pointing out ways in which they do coordinate, you're trying to argue against that by giving an example of a time that an artist was required to take gameplay into account?
Allow me to clarify:
- The artists do need to take gameplay into account, as gameplay is the first priority, and the art needs to be designed to support that effectively. This is what I said in the first place. This is explicitly proven by the tweet you just linked.
- Once the design is approved, the artists are certainly allowed to make suggestions in other areas, including, as Turner said, for names - they just aren't the ones with the final say in every area, because, again, gameplay is the first priority. This explicitly contradicts your insinuation that the teams are completely isolated from one another, which is also what I was trying to convey in my previous post.
I really don't think this is as complicated or nuanced as you're trying to make it out to be, and I wholly believe that you're taking these quotes out of context and out of proportion.

 

[khlaylav]

I dunno if this is an unpopular opinion or a little thing you don't like or whatever, but I hate the term HM slaves. Don't really care if it makes me too PC or whatever, I just hate it.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

And to add something new to the conversation, another controversial opinion I have is that reusing animations and 3D assets by itself is not necessarily bad thing.

Seconding this. In fact, my biggest gripe with SnS's animations are that GF doesn't reuse the good animations.

Take the infamous Double Kick "animation", that could be "somewhat fixed" by just reusing the standard physical attack animations instead of "lol hops".

Fun fact, I'm told Tekken 7 (A PS4 fighting game) reuses some animations from Tekken 1. Tekken 1 was released in 1994 for the PS1.

 

[Yung Dramps]

People love to bash on SWSH for supposedly looking like shit and being less optimized compared to previous entries in the series among other technical things, but ya ever notice how it's the first new generation to actually allow for multiple savefiles, something which just about every previous title (including many spinoffs) neglected to do despite it being a bog-standard feature from the consoles like the SNES that existed before Pokemon was even a thing? This is frankly more of an indictment against the older games, but something this major alone puts SWSH higher than all of them technically in my eyes. And before you say "oh it's technically not multiple saves b/c you need other profiles" it's been proven devs can limit that stuff like was done with Animal Crossing (which has also gotten flack for this very sin) and a llmit of that sort has yet to be patched in, so this was almost certainly deliberate

 

[Siggu]

Seconding this. In fact, my biggest gripe with SnS's animations are that GF doesn't reuse the good animations.

They do reuse the good animations.

But there is a misconception: the good animations are not seen in battle.

 

[Worldie]

People love to bash on SWSH for supposedly looking like shit and being less optimized compared to previous entries in the series among other technical things, but ya ever notice how it's the first new generation to actually allow for multiple savefiles, something which just about every previous title (including many spinoffs) neglected to do despite it being a bog-standard feature from the consoles like the SNES that existed before Pokemon was even a thing? This is frankly more of an indictment against the older games, but something this major alone puts SWSH higher than all of them technically in my eyes. And before you say "oh it's technically not multiple saves b/c you need other profiles" it's been proven devs can limit that stuff like was done with Animal Crossing (which has also gotten flack for this very sin) and a llmit of that sort has yet to be patched in, so this was almost certainly deliberate

I'll be devil's advocate and say that tecnically Let's Go did this before SwSH :P

 

[Merritt]

People love to bash on SWSH for supposedly looking like shit and being less optimized compared to previous entries in the series among other technical things, but ya ever notice how it's the first new generation to actually allow for multiple savefiles, something which just about every previous title (including many spinoffs) neglected to do despite it being a bog-standard feature from the consoles like the SNES that existed before Pokemon was even a thing? This is frankly more of an indictment against the older games, but something this major alone puts SWSH higher than all of them technically in my eyes. And before you say "oh it's technically not multiple saves b/c you need other profiles" it's been proven devs can limit that stuff like was done with Animal Crossing (which has also gotten flack for this very sin) and a llmit of that sort has yet to be patched in, so this was almost certainly deliberate

Yes. SWSH certainly did allow you to have multiple save files. It's just in an incredibly cumbersome and unintuitive way when it would have been clearly pretty damn easy to do it right.

Oh hey this is BW2 difficulty options all over again.

 

[Rapti]

You were trying to correct my statement that the artists do need to take gameplay into account by saying the teams don't coordinate.

I wasn't, I was just pointing out how Gamefreak assembles its characters and how that approach has been used by others in the past

I have no horse in the race with HanSoloIndie about Zamazenta's character design (he is correct on how Zacyan has a much clearer silhouette and that is very important in character design philosophy but I personally consider Zacyan a much worse design overall;
so he's technically correct yet I don't care if he is so )

I just used your discussion to point out an interesting fact about Gamefreak's development