Unpopular opinions

[DreamPrince]

Can I please get a concise explanation on why suddenly people are begging for voice acting in Pokemon? I thought voice acting in JRPGs turns out as corny at best and outright ear-grating at worst.

No, no voice acting please. It's just cringe in any language other than Japanese

Lot of JRPGs on the Switch have had voice acting recently. Fire Emblem: 3 Houses is already mentioned, but some other games with great voice acting that are on the Switch and I have played include: Dragonquest 11S, AI: The Somnium Files, Catherine: Fullbody, Xenoblade Chronicles, and the aforementioned 3 Houses. In fact, now that I think about it, I think Pokemon is the only JRPG I played on the Switch that did not have voice acting at all.

Celever and R_N have already covered the main points, but I'd like elaborate why people want voice acting in Pokemon. Yeah, sure, the game does not need, but here's the thing: It's much nicer. Yes, you don't need it, but it can really enhance the experience and make people really like the product. Let's look at pasta. You can eat Pasta without Alfredo sauce, and you would survive to the end. But it wouldn't taste as good, and you'll probably think that it tasted too bland and it really needed that sauce to enhance the experience. But of you put the Alfredo Sauce from the beginning, people will have a much more positive reception from the beginning. Its simple as that. As MrHands and Pikachu315111 have mentioned, the Piers scene and Rose introduction scene would have been a lot better received since those areas in game feel like they should have huge sounds, but nothing-just bland text- it really feels so flat.

That being said, I agree that does Pokemon does not need full voice acting. If it were things like important cutscenes and in-game dialogue, those Definitely would benefit from voice acting. Or maybe every time Hop interrupts you. Voice Acting would make it much less annoying.

Speaking of which, I disagree saying that Japanese Games have bad English Dubs. Sure somethings like Lip Syncs and certain character's voices might be worse, but the dubs are still really good.

Here are some examples, be wary of some spoilers:

Xenoblade Chronicles:

Dragonquest 11S:

,

,

Fire Emblem: 3 Houses:

,

,

One of the details about Dragonquest 11S I really like is that for each of the towns, they have a cultural theme, like one town is based off Spanish culture, and another is based off of China. They had accents for each of those towns, for example, Sylvando is from the Spanish town, so he speaks with a Spanish Accent, as well as his father.

Interestingly enough, here's an article from Ohmori explaining why SwSh does not have Voice Acting. BTW, there's a whole set of people getting mad on the reasons, and I can kind of see why: Reason 1: This makes sense, it would be hard and lot of effort to voice over different languages, 9 I believe? That being said, TPC could definitely provide money, I mean they are the biggest media franchise in the world, if any company has the money to provide dubbing for language its Pokemon. Or alternatively, they just dub in Japanese and English, which most JRPGs do if time is not on their side. Reason 2 is where people got mad. Ohmori states that another reason why is because they don't want to intrude on the player's "imagination " when the text appears, they want the player to imagine the voice.



Really? Ohmori, through that logic why bother coloring the Pokemon? We should just imagine the color instead! Or animating moves? Let's just imagine the move's animation instead! In fact, why bother making the entire game? We should imagine the adventure instead!

 

[DrPumpkinz]

One of the details about Dragonquest 11S I really like is that for each of the towns, they have a cultural theme, like one town is based off Spanish culture, and another is based off of China. They had accents for each of those towns, for example, Sylvando is from the Spanish town, so he speaks with a Spanish Accent, as well as his father.

Interestingly enough, here's an article from Ohmori explaining why SwSh does not have Voice Acting. BTW, there's a whole set of people getting mad on the reasons, and I can kind of see why: Reason 1: This makes sense, it would be hard and lot of effort to voice over different languages, 9 I believe? That being said, TPC could definitely provide money, I mean they are the biggest media franchise in the world, if any company has the money to provide dubbing for language its Pokemon. Or alternatively, they just dub in Japanese and English, which most JRPGs do if time is not on their side. Reason 2 is where people got mad. Ohmori states that another reason why is because they don't want to intrude on the player's "imagination " when the text appears, they want the player to imagine the voice.



Really? Ohmori, through that logic why bother coloring the Pokemon? We should just imagine the color instead? Or animating moves? Let's just imagine the move's animation instead? In fact, why bother making the entire game? We should imagine the adventure instead?

Ohmori, my cousin, my dude, my pal, my friend. You do realize that Pokemon also has a very recognizable TV show, right? So recognizable that Red is frequently called Ash, and that the main theme song of the games has been usurped in the public consciousness (and YouTube's search algorithms) by the show's original opening song? You know that show has characters voiced, right?

 

[Suspicious Derivative]

Regarding voice acting in Pokémon, I agree with what DreamPrince and others who are positive to voice acting have said. For me personally, it was especially annoying as I had played BOTW and XC2 before Sword, and since those games feature voice acting in various ways (the same goes for Super Mario Odyssey to an extent), the major cutscenes in Sword just felt so empty without voices. That said, I really don't think they need voices for everything, having them in major cutscenes would be enough, the 2 most notable being the intro scene where Rose speaks and the scene where Piers is singing. I really don't think they should go to the lengths of Three Houses where it seems like literally everything is voiced, which surprised me when I first played that game. Also, I think that if Pokémon really wants to take their storytelling to the next level, voice acting is one of the things that can help with that (another being to get rid of the silent protagonist, but that's for a different discussion).

A somewhat unrelated unpopular opinion of my own regarding voice acting in video games is this: if I'm playing a video game with voice actors, I always want to have the voices in a language I can understand, no matter how "bad" or "cringy" they might be. I don't agree with the statements about voice acting in video games in any other language than Japanese is bad. I think most/all of the games I have played with voice actors in English have been good, at least in my own personal opinion. If I'm given the choice between English and Japanese voices in a game, I'll always take English, no contest. And if a game only has voice actors in Japanese, that actually makes me less interested in the game. For instance, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore, which I was interested in until I learned that it only had Japanese voice actors, now I do no longer have any plans to get the game because of that. And playing a game with Japanese voices would only make the experience worse for me because I wouldn't understand what is being said. That could of course be helped if there's text to go along with the voices which there pretty much always is, but if so then I'd rather play without the voices and only text if there are no English voices. So that's my opinion. But there is a simple solution to all of this for games with voices: make the voice acting completely optional, and make it so that you can choose to have the voices in a different language than the text (for instance, English text and Japanese voices). I believe many games do this, and this is something Pokémon should do as well if there were to be voices in future Pokémon games.

To get back on track, I have a new unpopular opinion which I have never posted here before. I want to talk about Pokémon designs, so this is going to be very subjective. It is this: I think Gen 1 failed when it comes to cute Pokémon. For me, there are only five in total from Gen 1 that I'd consider cute: Pikachu, Eevee (yes, really), Vulpix, Seel and Dratini. There are some others that are close though, such as Chansey. But on the whole, I think Gen 1 has very few (too few, actually) Pokémon that I consider cute. Another unpopular opinion of mine is that I think that some Pokémon from Gen 1 that are generally considered cute such as Clefairy and Jigglypuff aren't cute IMO. Jigglypuff is decent but not cute, but I'd say Clefairy is closer to ugly than cute (it should have been named Clefugly instead, and Clefable could have been named Clefuglier). Cleffa and Igglybuff are cute though. But they are from Gen 2.

On the whole, I think Gen 1 has considerably fewer cute Pokémon than any other generation, both in terms of the actual number and in terms of percentage. I think Generations 2-8 have many more cuter Pokémon. But to say something more positive about the designs of Gen 1, it succeeded in many other categories such as cool, tough and jolly. However, I still think Gen 1 has the worst Pokémon designs on the whole.

 

[Worldie]

A somewhat unrelated unpopular opinion of my own regarding voice acting in video games is this: if I'm playing a video game with voice actors, I always want to have the voices in a language I can understand, no matter how "bad" or "cringy" they might be. I don't agree with the statements about voice acting in video games in any other language than Japanese is bad. I think most/all of the games I have played with voice actors in English have been good, at least in my own personal opinion. If I'm given the choice between English and Japanese voices in a game, I'll always take English, no contest. And if a game only has voice actors in Japanese, that actually makes me less interested in the game. For instance, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore, which I was interested in until I learned that it only had Japanese voice actors, now I do no longer have any plans to get the game because of that. And playing a game with Japanese voices would only make the experience worse for me because I wouldn't understand what is being said. That could of course be helped if there's text to go along with the voices which there pretty much always is, but if so then I'd rather play without the voices and only text if there are no English voices. So that's my opinion. But there is a simple solution to all of this for games with voices: make the voice acting completely optional, and make it so that you can choose to have the voices in a different language than the text (for instance, English text and Japanese voices). I believe many games do this, and this is something Pokémon should do as well if there were to be voices in future Pokémon games.

I actually agree with you, and expecially I have a hard time enjoying a game if the voicing isn't matching the written text. I wouldn't play a game in Italian with Eng voicing in same way I wouldnt play a Eng game with JP voicing.
I did play TMS and a couple "Eng text / JP voice" combinations and it greatly reduces my enjoyment of them sadly.

 

[DreamPrince]

Pikachu, Eevee (yes, really), Vulpix, Seel and Dratini

Interesting to note, most of your choices, Pikachu, Eevee, Dratini, and Vulpix, were designed by Atsuko Nishida, which Ken Sugimori has called the "Queen" of designing cute Pokemon. Notably, she designed the Pikachu and Charmander line ( alongside Mega Charizard X ), all the Eeveelutions, except Flareon and Jolteon. Here is all the work she has done.

Speaking of odd preferences of Pokemon, I wanted to say I really like the Burmy line. I bring this up because Suspicious Derivative gave me a thread showing the worst Pokemon of DP, and the Burmy line gets a lot of hate. I can see why, its stats suck, but I still like the idea of the line. Its cloak changes depending on where it last battles, and that determines the cloak for its evolution, or at least for Wormadam. You can choose which cloak you want for Wormadam. Mothim is odd since that it evolves from a Pokemon without form differences, not to have form differences itself. Anyway the main reason I really like this line because its the only line to have completely different evolutions based on Gender. There have been similar concepts, like how only female Snorunt and Male Kirlia can evolve into Froslass and Gallade, or how only female Combee and Salandit can evolve. Its not really the same former, since you only have extra options for specific genders, and I think the latter is handled terribly. The only other line who has done something similar is Meowstic, which has different move pools and abilities based on gender, but its still the same Pokemon. For the latter, both have 7/8 chances of being Male out of Female, and only females can evolve. This is just obnoxious since it add nothing but tedious grind looking for females. I remember spending 30-45 minutes looking for a Salandit in Moon that was female. What's worse gives you no clue that only female evolves, so there are several cases who have raised Male variants to like Lv.60, wondering when they are going to evolve only have to be given a hard truth. At the very least, they should just make gender ratios 50-50 just to reduce the grind.

Lastly, I want to and with some interesting trivia. The Burmy line is the case of another forgotten Pokemon. Its only available in all Gen 4 games and XY, and only through tree mechanics. However, the most interesting about it is that this line's HA could only be obtained from the DreamWorld, which has closed down. This makes them the only line with a "discontinued" ability, and the only way to obtain them now is to breed them from HA Burmy obtained from the DreamWorld. So if you have a HA Burmy, treasure it, its very valuable!

 

[SpookMÆN]

Interesting to note, most of your choices, Pikachu, Eevee, Dratini, and Vulpix, were designed by Atsuko Nishida, which Ken Sugimori has called the "Queen" of designing cute Pokemon. Notably, she designed the Pikachu and Charmander line ( alongside Mega Charizard X ), all the Eeveelutions, except Flareon and Jolteon. Here is all the work she has done.

Speaking of odd preferences of Pokemon, I wanted to say I really like the Burmy line. I bring this up because Suspicious Derivative gave me a thread showing the worst Pokemon of DP, and the Burmy line gets a lot of hate. I can see why, its stats suck, but I still like the idea of the line. Its cloak changes depending on where it last battles, and that determines the cloak for its evolution, or at least for Wormadam. You can choose which cloak you want for Wormadam. Mothim is odd since that it evolves from a Pokemon without form differences, not to have form differences itself. Anyway the main reason I really like this line because its the only line to have completely different evolutions based on Gender. There have been similar concepts, like how only female Snorunt and Male Kirlia can evolve into Froslass and Gallade, or how only female Combee and Salandit can evolve. Its not really the same former, since you only have extra options for specific genders, and I think the latter is handled terribly. The only other line who has done something similar is Meowstic, which has different move pools and abilities based on gender, but its still the same Pokemon. For the latter, both have 7/8 chances of being Male out of Female, and only females can evolve. This is just obnoxious since it add nothing but tedious grind looking for females. I remember spending 30-45 minutes looking for a Salandit in Moon that was female. What's worse gives you no clue that only female evolves, so there are several cases who have raised Male variants to like Lv.60, wondering when they are going to evolve only have to be given a hard truth. At the very least, they should just make gender ratios 50-50 just to reduce the grind.

Lastly, I want to and with some interesting trivia. The Burmy line is the case of another forgotten Pokemon. Its only available in all Gen 4 games and XY, and only through tree mechanics. However, the most interesting about it is that this line's HA could only be obtained from the DreamWorld, which has closed down. This makes them the only line with a "discontinued" ability, and the only way to obtain them now is to breed them from HA Burmy obtained from the DreamWorld. So if you have a HA Burmy, treasure it, its very valuable!

Yeah well that treasure is going to lose it's value since GF introduced an item that allows a mon to gain access to its HA, but judging by the datamine Burmy isn't in and will likely never be (pretty sure even the executives forgot about its existance) so the most you can make out if is to stuff it in the vast cold void that is pokemon bank, waiting for the day it makes the dex cut to unleash its ground breaking 29 stats on both sides of the spectrum, decimating all those before it.

Plot twist, its removal wasn't an oversight, the devs were protecting us from the unholy the combo of overcoat wormadam / wurmple and tinted lens mothim, threats that would be centralizing everything from VGC to OU, creating their own tier above AG, BTR. (stands for better than Rayquaza).

 

[Suspicious Derivative]

Interesting to note, most of your choices, Pikachu, Eevee, Dratini, and Vulpix, were designed by Atsuko Nishida, which Ken Sugimori has called the "Queen" of designing cute Pokemon. Notably, she designed the Pikachu and Charmander line ( alongside Mega Charizard X ), all the Eeveelutions, except Flareon and Jolteon. Here is all the work she has done.

Very interesting, thanks for letting me know. She has designed several Pokémon from the newer generations that I also think are cute, such as Alolan Raichu, Leafeon, Glaceon, Munna, the Cottonee, Petilil and Minccino lines, as well as Sylveon. And she designed Mega Charizard X too, which isn't cute but very cool, I prefer it over regular Charizard and Mega Charizard Y. She also designed a majority of the Gen 1 starters, that's interesting.

Regarding Burmy, I think it is the kind of Pokémon which has a really cool concept, but the overall execution isn't quite as great. I used a Plant Cloak Wormadam in Gen 5 as I talked about in another thread recently, and it wasn't all that great. Though I thought it was better than Parasect as it could at least defeat stuff with Leaf Storm, so that was something.

Regarding Burmy with HAs, I do have a HA female Burmy on Gen 5 which I picked up in the Dream World back when it was open. I didn't know how elusive it was. Makes me happy to have it now, and I will be sure to keep it. I made some use of it too as the Wormadam I did train has its HA (Overcoat, which is way better than Anticipation).

 

[DreamPrince]

Very interesting, thanks for letting me know. She has designed several Pokémon from the newer generations that I also think are cute, such as Alolan Raichu, Leafeon, Glaceon, Munna, the Cottonee, Petilil and Minccino lines, as well as Sylveon. And she designed Mega Charizard X too, which isn't cute but very cool, I prefer it over regular Charizard and Mega Charizard Y. She also designed a majority of the Gen 1 starters, that's interesting.

Regarding Burmy, I think it is the kind of Pokémon which has a really cool concept, but the overall execution isn't quite as great. I used a Plant Cloak Wormadam in Gen 5 as I talked about in another thread recently, and it wasn't all that great. Though I thought it was better than Parasect as it could at least defeat stuff with Leaf Storm, so that was something.

Regarding Burmy with HAs, I do have a HA female Burmy on Gen 5 which I picked up in the Dream World back when it was open. I didn't know how elusive it was. Makes me happy to have it now, and I will be sure to keep it. I made some use of it too as the Wormadam I did train has its HA (Overcoat, which is way better than Anticipation).

I never said it was a good choice in the long run. I would imagine that Trash Cloak would be the best because Bug/Steel is excellent defensively, while Bug/Ground is more useful offensively for Sandy Cloak.

I’m personally a bigger fan of Mothim, and looking at Mothim’s movepool in Gen 4, I’d imagine it be a lot easier to use thanks to higher offensive stats and pretty good moves like Shadow Ball, Psychic, Bug Buzz. I guess I like Mothim more because I’m a big fan of Moths even if GF does not treat them very well.

 

[Ironmage]

I never said it was a good choice in the long run. I would imagine that Trash Cloak would be the best because Bug/Steel is excellent defensively, while Bug/Ground is more useful offensively for Sandy Cloak.

I’m personally a bigger fan of Mothim, and looking at Mothim’s movepool in Gen 4, I’d imagine it be a lot easier to use thanks to higher offensive stats and pretty good moves like Shadow Ball, Psychic, Bug Buzz. I guess I like Mothim more because I’m a big fan of Moths even if GF does not treat them very well.

I can confirm that trash cloak does have some use in the early game, at least if you are doing a monosteel run and need something to beat Gardenia.

 

[Pikachu315111]

Interestingly enough, here's an article from Ohmori explaining why SwSh does not have Voice Acting.

Many have given their opinion on this, but I also want to say a few things:

• Now, had he just stuck to "it would be a lot of work and we don't have the time", fine. It would be yet another example of why Pokemon games shouldn't be yearly releases. Though, as some of us have stated, that doesn't mean they couldn't do it for a few scenes. Or, GF, if you're not going to have voice acting in your game, maybe DON'T MAKE SCENES WHERE THE LACK OF VOICES IS NOTICEABLE. You know, like someone speaking to a large crowd in a big stadium or a someone rocking out to a song... Oh, and this also ignores that their parent company is NINTENDO. If the problem is with not having enough resources to do some voice acting lines I'm sure if they gave the Big N a call they can get the performances they need in no time. Infact, GF acts as if the main Japanese office is going to have to handle all the languages. But, GF, does your main offices handle all the text translation? No, you have the Pokemon Company International doing that, so they'll probably also handle their own languages translation while you just need to focus on the Japanese and maybe make sure the English lines up.
• But, much like his mentor Masuda, Ohmori can't keep his mouth shut when he should. We've now come to the second excuse of not wanting to give the characters a voice: because they want the players to imagine what they sound like. This is a weak excuse, because it's not like these characters don't have a personality. They do, for the short time we see them GF does try writing them a certain way and maybe even give them a vocal tic if they find the room. And because of this a lot of players probably imagine the characters speaking the same way or similar enough, likely giving them a voice of a similar character from another show or game. Or, you know, the POKEMON ANIME! And not just the main series, but also the side series like Twilight Wings. The voices they gave to each character in Twilight Wings I felt matched the character perfectly fine. Heck, in the main anime I felt the voices they give to most characters matched fine.
• But wait, the interview did bring up the anime... and either Ohmori misunderstood or deflected hard. First, we're not talking about giving every Pokemon their Japanese voice, it's fine to keep those as they are. We're talking about the human characters. And as for everyone having different names, once again, it would be Pokemon Company International that's handling the translation which they have been doing for YEARS with the anime.

I think there's also another factor here, a major factor infact. Despite being the makers of one of the, if not the most, popular franchises in the world, and they sure do love the attention and money that comes from it, GF also seem to want to pretend they're a indie company. Oh, they can't do all these big things, they're just this small company... who owns a franchise that makes millions (maybe even billions) from merch. Despite the company growing, it seems like the people running the company haven't, but the fanbase for their games have also grown and we're now (or possibly have) reached an apex where the head's limited ideology is now disappointing the fanbase.

I’m personally a bigger fan of Mothim, and looking at Mothim’s movepool in Gen 4, I’d imagine it be a lot easier to use thanks to higher offensive stats and pretty good moves like Shadow Ball, Psychic, Bug Buzz. I guess I like Mothim more because I’m a big fan of Moths even if GF does not treat them very well.

Don't forget it also gets Quiver Dance. Granted it struggles finding a place to setup, but if it can get a few Quiver Dances off it could be a pretty potent glass cannon.

 

[CoolMan6001]

Look I need to ask a serious question:

People feel the need for Rose to have a voice in the introductory cutscene of SwSh?

No seriously. I though the subtitles underneath worked just fine for me. The cutscene still felt like an intro to Pokemon, and I never considered that voice acting should have been needed.

I do kinda get why people wanted Piers to have a voice at the song though. I just need input on why people felt like Rose needed to have words to say in the intro cutscene.

Don't forget it also gets Quiver Dance. Granted it struggles finding a place to setup, but if it can get a few Quiver Dances off it could be a pretty potent glass cannon.

Unfortunately Mothim only gained Quiver Dance in gen 7. It's gonna have a hard time in earlier generations.

 

[Sonikku A]

na i would say they are somewhat normal and even expected (at least for communicates who would be more interested in anime)

Anime sub fans grossly misinterpret Japan language syntax and culture, so no, it's not normal
It'd be like if I was translating from Spanish to English and randomly spammed El or La, or assume English has no honorifics despite Mr/Ms existing

Most Anime are NEVER a good resource to learn Japanese. And Subbing errors does not mean you're more faithful. 90% of the time subs now are either too formal and over literal, or for fansubs, too crass and offensive

 

[earl]

Most Anime are NEVER a good resource to learn Japanese. And Subbing errors does not mean you're more faithful. 90% of the time subs now are either too formal and over literal, or for fansubs, too crass and offensive

It’s a fine supplement, but if you’re using anime as a primary way to learn the language than yeah I definitely agree. It’s a bit misleading to say anime (and japanese media in general) have no value in learning the language, though. You have to be at a certain point in learning a language (I’d say being able to read the script of a scene in the respective native language, subs are distracting at best and should probably not be visible) to really gain value out of consuming general foreign language media, but the value is there.

Source: Anime (and other media) scenes have been shown before in my Japanese class. Watched a scene from Promised Neverland the other day in it. Pretty cool stuff

Don't forget it also gets Quiver Dance. Granted it struggles finding a place to setup, but if it can get a few Quiver Dances off it could be a pretty potent glass cannon.

This niche would be more appealing if there weren’t like 5 other Bug/Flying types with the exact same niche. Actually, it is literally 5 bugs with the exact same function:

Butterfree
Beautifly
Masquerin
Mothim
Vivillon

How dreadfully boring. And how pathetic is it that Butterfree is the second best of the bunch? Mothim gets the most points off for being latest to the party. Should’ve gotten a good physical set up move like Shift Gear (lol) to capitalize on the fact that it has mixed offenses.

Edit: Mothim was 2nd last to the party. Latest addition was Vivillon, but Vivillon is actually good (relatively) so forgive me for forgetting about it here

 

[Pikachu315111]

No seriously. I though the subtitles underneath worked just fine for me. The cutscene still felt like an intro to Pokemon, and I never considered that voice acting should have been needed.

I do kinda get why people wanted Piers to have a voice at the song though. I just need input on why people felt like Rose needed to have words to say in the intro cutscene.

It's the context of the scene.

If Rose was just talking to you personally like in previous games, then yeah, just plain text would have been fine. However, Rose is in a middle of a big stadium talking to a large crowd. And he wouldn't also just be talking louder, you'd expect there to also be an audio reverb as if he's talking over a loudspeaker. GF wants to create an atmosphere that this is like a big sports event, and while the visuals says it is, the audio doesn't. Sure there's a crowd cheering in the background (which, thinking about it, they wouldn't be doing in a middle of someone doing a speech), but otherwise it's pretty quiet opening.

• Here's the opening as it is in the game.
• Here's the opening with VA adding in what I suggested (ignore them giving some of the audience commentary).

Even though the bottom is a joke dub, for me I'm still more interested in what's going on and what's being said even though it's just another "welcome to the world of Pokemon speech". The scene demands you pay attention to it, but without the voice acting I feel most veteran players would be on auto pilot until they finally are able to move around their character.

It’s a fine supplement, but if you’re using anime as a primary way to learn the language than yeah I definitely agree. It’s a bit misleading to say anime (and japanese media in general) have no value in learning the language, though. You have to be at a certain point in learning a language (I’d say being able to read the script of a scene in the respective native language, subs are distracting at best and should probably not be visible) to really gain value out of consuming general foreign language media, but the value is there.

Source: Anime (and other media) scenes have been shown before in my Japanese class. Watched a scene from Promised Neverland the other day in it. Pretty cool stuff

As you said, if the language teacher is going to use anime or other Japanese media it should be as a resource and match the lesson being taught. Because, yeah, obviously if you're just watching an episode of an anime or Japanese media, even if there's a translation somewhere or the teacher is translating along site, it's not going to mean anything. However, if the language teacher clipped several instances of a word/phrase that lesson is teaching today to show the various ways it's used in conversation, then that is the correct way to use it as a resource.

 

[Worldie]

This niche would be more appealing if there weren’t like 5 other Bug/Flying types with the exact same niche. Actually, it is literally 5 bugs with the exact same function:

Butterfree
Beautifly
Masquerin
Mothim
Vivillon

To be fair, of those 5, Vivillon and Butterfree have found the occasional competitive usage as Rage Powder redirectors.
Butterfree was even given a Gigamax...if it wasn't for the small issue that it's still Butterfree and there's *definitely* better Gmax options.

 

[DreamPrince]

To be fair, of those 5, Vivillon and Butterfree have found the occasional competitive usage as Rage Powder redirectors.
Butterfree was even given a Gigamax...if it wasn't for the small issue that it's still Butterfree and there's *definitely* better Gmax options.

Even with a Gigantamax, Vivillon would still outclass Butterfree. Vivillon has literally better stats everywhere as well as Compound Eyes, so there’s no reason to use Butterfree over Vivillon in formats both are legal. I remember using Butterfree as Quiver Dance + Substitute + Sleep Powder in early Gen 8 BSS and it was really mediocre overall, especially the drop in speed- 89 to 70 is not good in a metagame full of Togekiss, Rotom, Excadrill, Dracovish, and Dracozolt. Dang, I miss Vivillon so much.

 

[hjyboy1218]

Johto had the worst 'new cohort' of pokemon. Don't get me wrong, Johto had some amazing evo lines(The starters, Mareep, Houndour, Larvitar) and added evolutions(Crobat, Scizor, Steelix, Kingdra), but had too few standouts and a lot of... 'background' pokemon. Who am I kidding, let's be honest, we all call them Dex Fillers. Ledian, Ariados, Xatu, Quagsire, Qwilfish, Stantler, Sunflora, Pineco, Smoochum, ... how many of them do you even remember? It also got the short end of the stick when it comes to cross-generational evolutions. Everyone remembers Sinnoh and its awesome new additions to some evolutionary lines, including(but not limited to) Honchkrow, Mismagius, Gliscor, Mamoswine, Yanmega, and Weavile, but hardly anyone remembers Johto where those cool new evolutions had their humble beginnings.

In short, Johto had too many dex fillers and unresolved potential that Sinnoh took away from it. (Not that I'm dissing Sinnoh, mind you.)

 

[Rarycaris]

Johto had the worst 'new cohort' of pokemon. Don't get me wrong, Johto had some amazing evo lines(The starters, Mareep, Houndour, Larvitar) and added evolutions(Crobat, Scizor, Steelix, Kingdra), but had too few standouts and a lot of... 'background' pokemon. Who am I kidding, let's be honest, we all call them Dex Fillers. Ledian, Ariados, Xatu, Quagsire, Qwilfish, Stantler, Sunflora, Pineco, Smoochum, ... how many of them do you even remember? It also got the short end of the stick when it comes to cross-generational evolutions. Everyone remembers Sinnoh and its awesome new additions to some evolutionary lines, including(but not limited to) Honchkrow, Mismagius, Gliscor, Mamoswine, Yanmega, and Weavile, but hardly anyone remembers Johto where those cool new evolutions had their humble beginnings.

In short, Johto had too many dex fillers and unresolved potential that Sinnoh took away from it. (Not that I'm dissing Sinnoh, mind you.)

I don't think this would be nearly as much of a problem if they hadn't mostly had you fight Kanto mons throughout the games. The dex filler mons were mostly fine imo, but you just didn't encounter them enough.

 

[hjyboy1218]

Hmm. I hadn't thought about that. Johto was originally made to complement Kanto, so having a lot of Kanto mons would certainly make the Johto ones seem more forgettable. (then they actually were: I wouldn't exactly say they were memorable.)

 

[Celever]

I don't think this would be nearly as much of a problem if they hadn't mostly had you fight Kanto mons throughout the games. The dex filler mons were mostly fine imo, but you just didn't encounter them enough.

It's definitely down to the low exposure people had to the Johto mons during the games. I played Colosseum and XD before Johto or Hoenn and didn't know which Pokémon were Gens II or III (I had Red as a young kid but then skipped to Colo), and I have an affinity toward most of the Gen II Pokémon since these were primarily the ones used in those games. They're not bad designs at all, and were very interesting to use in those games were their niches being put to the forefront in a double setting. Aipom being the only thing you get with Tickle is actually nice in doubles with its speed, for instance, or Piloswine being able to use both Earthquake and Blizzard.

Gen II just seemed to hate its own Pokémon. Relegating some of your new Pokémon to exclusively the post-game is extremely bizarre, especially when they ones chosen are every Dark-Type (except technically Umbreon). And then fan-favourite designs like Heracross were absurdly hard to locate and use despite being available earlier on, and most Pokémon were only available on one route which made them very easy to miss. There are a lot of flaws with the game that had repercussions for the perception of the designs that are independent from the designs themselves.

 

[Yung Dramps]

Gen II just seemed to hate its own Pokémon.

You basically summed it up. Sometimes I genuinely wonder if the gen 2 dev team was ashamed or unhappy with the final dex so they consciously buried many of its Pokemon as to not disgrace players' screens. It's one of the few ways I can explain choices like the only new Ghost type not appearing at all in the Ghost gym.

Remember how Gen 6 made the Fairy type this huge event with not only lots of early-game Fairies but also every single old Pokemon who got retconned into that type being added to the regional dex? A far cry from Gen 2 locking off every non-Umbreon Dark to postgame, seriously what the hell????

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

A lot of the oddities and bizarre design choices about GSC compared to other games can be attributed to the fact that it wasn't really designed to be its own self-contained adventure. The Johto games are more of a sequel to the Kanto games in that back then they were essentially "Pokemon 2", a continuation of the original RGBY. It's not like all the games that came after in that everything from Ruby/Sapphire onwards is essentially a standalone, self-contained adventure and Game Freak designed most of the games from there with the mindset that they want to "recruit" new fans into the franchise with each new generation, showcasing new sets of Pokemon to be beloeved by fans each new gen, and vice versa.

Gen 2 likely wasn't designed with that mentality in mind. As I said, GSC is a sequel to the original Pokemon games, in other words "Pokemon: RBY Part 2", and as such, it essentially operates on the assumption that someone playing GSC already played Gen 1. In that sense, it was meant to draw in familiar players who were already fans of the original games, and wanted more Pokemon content because they loved playing the originals.

The reason Johto mons were designed to be so rare, in my opinion, isn't that the designers disliked the new Pokemon, but that they wanted the new Pokemon in GSC to feel more "special" to players. As I said, GSC being a sequel to RBY means that it's assuming the player is coming in from having played Gen 1, and Johto is a complementary region to Kanto. So as such, it basically treats the player with familiar old Kanto Pokemon that they saw in the originals, and players will be like "Yeah, I know that Pokemon", but then they suddenly find that rare "new Pokemon" that they see, like Natu, Wooper, Heracross, etc. and the player suddenly has a "WOW I found something new!!! This is awesome!!!' reaction to finding it, and give people that amazing rush of excitement when they find a new Pokemon that didn't exist in RBY. Like you found something remarkably new, and it's something you, the player, have found and discovered for yourself. It's supposed gives a sense of having an amazing discovery after being familiar with the original Gen 1 Pokemon. Of course, in hindsight, this didn't work as well as it was intended, but this was likely the specific intention they had in mind with why the Gen 2 Pokemon tend to be so uncommon in GSC and rarely seen in Trainer battles.

This mentality also likely applies to them designing the Kanto segment of the game: some new Pokemon like Houndour, Slugma, Murkrow, etc. were placed there so that players could still have more "new Pokemon" to discover and find when they go to Kanto. Like you go there, and you think it'll just be all the Pokemon you saw in RBY and the Johto segment of GSC, but then you see stuff like Houndour, and it just invokes more of that special feeling of still finding something new you never saw before in RBY.

This also further ties into GSC's weird level curve, which based on my experience it's designed with a bit of freedom in mind in terms of exploration, but the Johto segment I am inclined to believe was meant to be gone through with 3-4 Pokemon, up until the Kanto segment. In that sense, the Kanto segment isn't really a "post-game" in the traditional sense, but is more accurately described as the second half of the game, where you pick up 2 more Pokemon or so to round up to a full team of 6: so stuff like Houndour and Slugma are more "late-game inclusions" to a team that you use throughout the Kanto half of the game up to the Mt. Silver battle with Red. So the new mons here are more "late-game" than post game: the game was likely meant to have Kanto as a "Part 2" of the game, and the game's main story effectively ends with Mt. Silver.

That being said, this was moreso my analysis of what Game Freak was likely thinking with designing GSC, and I think this is the idea they were going for with the new Pokemon: they were meant to be "rare, but special discoveries" to people who came in off of RBY and were playing this for more Pokemon content after the first games. GSC was designed with the mentality that it's a sequel, and therefore is inherently attached to RBY and assumes you know and have played that game. Gen 2 mons unfortunately do end up being more obscure as a result because the general thing with sequels is that a lot of the things in sequels aren't quite as memorable as the original thing when it comes to a series, so the Gen 2 Pokemon and the way they were implemented resulted in them ultimately being, unfortunately, less memorable than the original Kanto Pokemon and the Pokemon that came in generations afterwards.

 

[Samtendo09]

A lot of the oddities and bizarre design choices about GSC compared to other games can be attributed to the fact that it wasn't really designed to be its own self-contained adventure. The Johto games are more of a sequel to the Kanto games in that back then they were essentially "Pokemon 2", a continuation of the original RGBY. It's not like all the games that came after in that everything from Ruby/Sapphire onwards is essentially a standalone, self-contained adventure and Game Freak designed most of the games from there with the mindset that they want to "recruit" new fans into the franchise with each new generation, showcasing new sets of Pokemon to be beloeved by fans each new gen, and vice versa.

Gen 2 likely wasn't designed with that mentality in mind. As I said, GSC is a sequel to the original Pokemon games, in other words "Pokemon: RBY Part 2", and as such, it essentially operates on the assumption that someone playing GSC already played Gen 1. In that sense, it was meant to draw in familiar players who were already fans of the original games, and wanted more Pokemon content because they loved playing the originals.

The reason Johto mons were designed to be so rare, in my opinion, isn't that the designers disliked the new Pokemon, but that they wanted the new Pokemon in GSC to feel more "special" to players. As I said, GSC being a sequel to RBY means that it's assuming the player is coming in from having played Gen 1, and Johto is a complementary region to Kanto. So as such, it basically treats the player with familiar old Kanto Pokemon that they saw in the originals, and players will be like "Yeah, I know that Pokemon", but then they suddenly find that rare "new Pokemon" that they see, like Natu, Wooper, Heracross, etc. and the player suddenly has a "WOW I found something new!!! This is awesome!!!' reaction to finding it, and give people that amazing rush of excitement when they find a new Pokemon that didn't exist in RBY. Like you found something remarkably new, and it's something you, the player, have found and discovered for yourself. It's supposed gives a sense of having an amazing discovery after being familiar with the original Gen 1 Pokemon. Of course, in hindsight, this didn't work as well as it was intended, but this was likely the specific intention they had in mind with why the Gen 2 Pokemon tend to be so uncommon in GSC and rarely seen in Trainer battles.

This mentality also likely applies to them designing the Kanto segment of the game: some new Pokemon like Houndour, Slugma, Murkrow, etc. were placed there so that players could still have more "new Pokemon" to discover and find when they go to Kanto. Like you go there, and you think it'll just be all the Pokemon you saw in RBY and the Johto segment of GSC, but then you see stuff like Houndour, and it just invokes more of that special feeling of still finding something new you never saw before in RBY.

This also further ties into GSC's weird level curve, which based on my experience it's designed with a bit of freedom in mind in terms of exploration, but the Johto segment I am inclined to believe was meant to be gone through with 3-4 Pokemon, up until the Kanto segment. In that sense, the Kanto segment isn't really a "post-game" in the traditional sense, but is more accurately described as the second half of the game, where you pick up 2 more Pokemon or so to round up to a full team of 6: so stuff like Houndour and Slugma are more "late-game inclusions" to a team that you use throughout the Kanto half of the game up to the Mt. Silver battle with Red. So the new mons here are more "late-game" than post game: the game was likely meant to have Kanto as a "Part 2" of the game, and the game's main story effectively ends with Mt. Silver.

That being said, this was moreso my analysis of what Game Freak was likely thinking with designing GSC, and I think this is the idea they were going for with the new Pokemon: they were meant to be "rare, but special discoveries" to people who came in off of RBY and were playing this for more Pokemon content after the first games. GSC was designed with the mentality that it's a sequel, and therefore is inherently attached to RBY and assumes you know and have played that game. Gen 2 mons unfortunately do end up being more obscure as a result because the general thing with sequels is that a lot of the things in sequels aren't quite as memorable as the original thing when it comes to a series, so the Gen 2 Pokemon and the way they were implemented resulted in them ultimately being, unfortunately, less memorable than the original Kanto Pokemon and the Pokemon that came in generations afterwards.

It's not just the attempt of making the Gen 2 Pokémon feels more special and the "sequel things cannot be as memorable as the original" mindset, what GF did had instead reinforced that mindset even more. A lot of Gen 2 Pokémon were not even too useful in-game to begin with barring few exceptions, and those exceptions do ends up being either rare or absurdly difficult to find.

Even if they would be more common, people wouldn't use Sunflora over Victreebel/Vileplume, Magcargo over Rhydon, Qwilfish over Tentacruel, Girafarig over Alakazam, Misdreavus over the Gastly line, Ledian over Butterfree, Meganium over Venusaur, Noctowl over Dodrio/Pidgeot, Corsola over Kabutops or Omastar, Miltank over Tauros... you get the deal. The opposite case is much rarer (Tyranitar over Dragonite may be an obvious example unless you take availability into serious account), and overshadowed by the case I had just said.

Gen 2 Pokémon either have mediocre BST or awkward stat distribution, awful movepool, unfavorable defensive type combination, design too plain or outright embarrasing one, or even all of above. So I doubt Gen 2 Pokémon being easier to find in their debut generation would make them anymore memorable.

 

[Bull Of Heaven]

Johto had the worst 'new cohort' of pokemon. Don't get me wrong, Johto had some amazing evo lines(The starters, Mareep, Houndour, Larvitar) and added evolutions(Crobat, Scizor, Steelix, Kingdra), but had too few standouts and a lot of... 'background' pokemon. Who am I kidding, let's be honest, we all call them Dex Fillers. Ledian, Ariados, Xatu, Quagsire, Qwilfish, Stantler, Sunflora, Pineco, Smoochum, ... how many of them do you even remember?

I wish people wouldn't do this "be honest, you all agree with me" thing when in fact I don't agree with them.

On a related note, here comes an opinion that I don't think is unpopular in the broader fandom, but I do think is unpopular here. I see a lot of posts here that more or less assert that a Pokemon without a competitive niche / good stats / whatever is a waste of time, and not worthwhile for Game Freak to have made. I get why Smogon would attract that kind of thinking, and I can agree that it might be better that those Pokemon have something noteworthy in their battling abilities, but let's remember that there are a lot of different reasons people might like or dislike certain Pokemon.

I'm here mainly for the designs and lore. Battling performance is secondary.

 

[Celever]

I wish people wouldn't do this "be honest, you all agree with me" thing when in fact I don't agree with them.

On a related note, here comes an opinion that I don't think is unpopular in the broader fandom, but I do think is unpopular here. I see a lot of posts here that more or less assert that a Pokemon without a competitive niche / good stats / whatever is a waste of time, and not worthwhile for Game Freak to have made. I get why Smogon would attract that kind of thinking, and I can agree that it might be better that those Pokemon have something noteworthy in their battling abilities, but let's remember that there are a lot of different reasons people might like or dislike certain Pokemon.

I'm here mainly for the designs and lore. Battling performance is secondary.

I 100% agree with you that designs and lore are way more integral to a Pokémon than their battling capability, but I also think it's entirely plausible to have every fully evolved Pokémon have an adequate individual niche over any other fully evolved Pokémon considering the amount of content in the franchise. I mean, Riolu was extremely viable, before they nerfed Copycat, as a Roar-Copycat Prankster phaser that could rack up extreme amounts of hazard damage, even in OU. Those sorts of niches are plentiful and with the number of different possibilities within the potential combinations of moves, abilities and the like present in Pokémon, every Pokémon could be the best at something. And I think Game Freak figuring out something that every mon is best at would be really great, because then every Pokémon has at least the smallest niche going at the highest level of play.

The go-to example for this always ends up being Dustox. The amount of Bug-Type Quiver Dance users that Dustox has to compete with basically makes Dustox an awful Pokémon with no discernible niche. Imagine being outclassed by Beautifly! Admittedly in Gen III ZU it's the best Whirlwind phaser thanks to an anti-meta typing, but realistically speaking this was neither intentional nor something that would endear Dustox to more people. If they're not interested in making it a good Pokémon, at least give it something like Spore to set itself apart from other Pokémon. Parasect and Dustox could comfortably compete as the best Bug-Type Spore user on different teams based on their differing secondary typings, and even that's enough to give a Pokémon a niche. As it is, Game Freak is content with letting Pokémon be comparatively useless compared with the rest of the roster.

But all of that aside, I agree with you. Kricketune is one of my all-time favourites because I had a plastic figurine of it as a kid and find the concept of a cricket (who are famed for making """musical""" noises) be able to make a true violin sound really cool. Kricketune is completely outclassed in-battle with nothing to set it above a Pokémon like Leavanny, but its lore and design are neat so hey it's good in my book. I just think Game Freak could also do more to not make it so dichotomous as choosing between whether you appreciate lore or battle prowess more.