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Unpopular opinions

Lemingue said:
My main problem with difficulty in rom hacks and just most fans suggestions is that most of them are just really fucking boring and grindy. They feel more like kaizos than someone trying to design a difficult game. When the only way to progress is just "bruteforce it with higher levels" then theres nothing interessing going on.

At least kaizo roms are transparent that their whole process is making the game frustrating and stupid, bordeline unfun for most, so the audience knows exactly what theyre getting into. Hell, some kaizo roms have better diversity and choice in the pokémon you can get and build for every gym than actual "hard roms"

Edit: something to add is that just increasing the fights levels isnt the only way that a difficulty setting ends up like a grind fest. Doing things like "the second gym leader alreadyy has extremely powerful coverage moves" or anything that is super hard/impossible to counter with the pokémon you can catch means that the only valid option you're giving the player is "get to a higher level and bruteforce it lol"
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I don't think this is the case with the 3ds era rom hacks since they all are balanced around perma-on exp shares (not to mention trainers having an appropriate amount of mons that give good exp). I have probably played 8-10 different gen 6 and 7 rom hacks (with ending levels around 70-100) and never recall grinding once.
Anyone who hasn't played one is missing out on some pretty good fun I think:
You get pokemon and move rebalancing around both flavor and bst:

some rom balance changes.png
Most important is a generally superior battling experience. Playing on set lets you use pivot moves to their full potential for example. I went from never using volt-turn in game to slotting 2-6 users. Even if you play on switch you might get a few surprises due to a handful of type changes or bst increases ranging from 20-40 for the vast majority and up to 60 for the truly bad pokemon.
 
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benjamin4321 said:
I don't think this is the case with the 3ds era rom hacks since they all are balanced around perma-on exp shares (not to mention trainers having an appropriate amount of mons that give good exp). I have probably played 8-10 different gen 6 and 7 rom hacks (with ending levels around 70-100) and never recall grinding once.
Anyone who hasn't played one is missing out on some pretty good fun I think:
You get pokemon and move rebalancing around both flavor and bst:

View attachment 294566
Most important is a generally superior battling experience. Playing on set lets you use pivot moves to their full potential for example. I went from never using volt-turn in game to slotting 2-6 users. Even if you play on switch you might get a few surprises due to a handful of type changes or bst increases ranging from 20-40 for the vast majority and up to 60 for the truly bad pokemon.
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That attachment is broken and doesn't go anywhere
 
The Rotom bike feels like a step back from PokeRide. The bike as it is currently is perfect for exploring the wild area, I’ll give it that. However, I think PokeRide might’ve been one of Pokemons biggest steps into a more immersive world - and it finally allows the games to do one of the cooler things in the show, riding pokemon in the overworld! I also miss the puzzle solving, off the beaten path aspect to rock climb, strength and such. In SwSh it feels like there’s little reason to revisit the routes at all once you pass through them and hunting down TMs has been reduced to farming Max Raid dens and shuffling between watt traders.

edit: i guess you could ride Pokemon in XY too, but it was way more limited.
 
I think the reason they didnt include the pokeride is the same that they change the online method every game, that they change the amie method every game and so on: gamefreak wants to make these parts fit the culture and aesthetixs of the region theyre making. Pokeride was an alolan exclusive because alola is known as a knit community, pokémon collaborating with humans beyond a trainer relationship. Meanwhile, galar seems more individual, technologic, with a more cozy look at your own pokemon and you than other people. They're trying to reflect what they see in their travels for these regions into pokemon, the issue is sometimes those changes end up making a system worse.

Also maybe the galar ones are bad because britain is boring lol
 
Lemingue said:
I think the reason they didnt include the pokeride is the same that they change the online method every game, that they change the amie method every game and so on: gamefreak wants to make these parts fit the culture and aesthetixs of the region theyre making. Pokeride was an alolan exclusive because alola is known as a knit community, pokémon collaborating with humans beyond a trainer relationship. Meanwhile, galar seems more individual, technologic, with a more cozy look at your own pokemon and you than other people. They're trying to reflect what they see in their travels for these regions into pokemon, the issue is sometimes those changes end up making a system worse.
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I rather suspect it was for technical reasons during development. First, it's easier to animate the player character on a bike than on a running Pokémon. Second, it's easier on the game. The reason the Wild Area has the issue of "popping" Pokémon is because the engine can't handle a large number of Pokémon models in motion at the same time. Having another Pokémon model run around with the trainer would mean fewer spawns, at least for base SwSh (somehow they fixed it in the DLC).

Besides, I don't buy the cultural argument. Collaborating with Pokémon is a core concept of the whole franchise, it's universal between regions. The Ride Pokémon concept was used both in Kalos and Alola and even introduced to Kanto in LGPE. It doesn't seem like a concept they would scrap if they didn't need to. If anything, Galar would have received a new set of ride Pokémon to distinguish it from Kalos and Alola (except Lapras because ... you know). I think it was just cut because they didn't have time to implement it properly for the base game.
 
Codraroll said:
Collaborating with Pokémon is a core concept of the whole franchise, it's universal between regions.
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It is universal to the franchise but often in an individual way. You collaborate with YOUR pokemon that you caught. Even in a utopian world, where people give out things for kids because they want to, no one actually lends their pokemon, outside of alola. What you get is just the tools to get rid of stuff, but youre the one who needs to go and fix it.

In alola, ride pokemon are a result of a community-based region. Theyre not your pokemon, they seem to be admnistrated by kahunas, yet they still help you around. These pokemon dont need to be caught, dont have obedience issues, they want to help, because alola is a region where helping others is important, as its been even used in some plot points. The bond are simply different there.

Galar, japan and america are individualistic, the concept of ride pokemon could fit, but will never fit as well as it did in alola. In fact, it'd probably be butchered.

Of course the technical point is more important, but downplaying the importance of culture in pokemon games is a mistake imo. Although gamefreak is not good at seeing other countries without trying to shoehorn japan in every way, they still show a lot more care for those concepts vs most other japanese companies
 
Lemingue said:
In alola, ride pokemon are a result of a community-based region. Theyre not your pokemon, they seem to be admnistrated by kahunas, yet they still help you around. These pokemon dont need to be caught, dont have obedience issues, they want to help, because alola is a region where helping others is important, as its been even used in some plot points. The bond are simply different there.
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This is also the case in Kalos, though. None of the Pokémon you ride there are your own.

Again I suspect it's for technical reasons: it'd take too long to animate the player riding every available Pokémon, so they had to restrict it to a few, and they couldn't rely on the player always having access to the specific 'mons they needed to solve puzzles. A commonly-shared pool of Pokémon (which the player in Gen VII rides wearing a standardized outfit, for even easier animation!) was probably deemed to be the best compromise. In Kalos, each ride Pokémon is available only in the locations where it's needed, while in Alola you can summon any of the mounts anywhere like some sort of taxi. However, this did reduce the overworld puzzles to "remember which Pokémon to use in which situation", and then only in Gen VII where you had several Pokémon to choose between. However, to ensure nobody could possibly get it wrong anyway, the game offers to summon the right Pokémon for the job when you interact with the obstacle. It rendered the whole point of many obstacles quite moot. The worst offender in my eyes is Mudsdale Gallop, which only serves to get you across a barrier you can't even see before you access Mudsdale, and it's only used right there and in one other situation (Vast Poini Canyon). It's an obstacle that only exists to give a purpose to its Ride Pokémon.

In LGPE, they decoupled the Ride Pokémon from obstacles altogether, so riding was just a visual thing. With a much smaller pool of Pokémon to choose from (and no trainer customization if I recall correctly), it was feasible to make an animation for every ridable Pokémon too.
 
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My take on PokeRide is that while the concept was cool, it was awkward in execution. The ugly suit, the lackluster (in my opinion) theme, Stoutland being a poor replacement for dowsing, and Charizard showing up outside of the dex are my negatives. I'm not a fan of Gen 7 or Alola in general, so I prefer any other Bike/overworld exploration method.
 
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Codraroll said:
However, to ensure nobody could possibly get it wrong anyway, the game offers to summon the right Pokémon for the job when you interact with the obstacle. It rendered the whole point of many obstacles quite moot. The worst offender in my eyes is Mudsdale Gallop, which only serves to get you across a barrier you can't even see before you access Mudsdale, and it's only used right there and in one other situation (Vast Poni Canyon). It's an obstacle that only exists to give a purpose to its Ride Pokémon.
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And that's exactly my gripe with how Pokémon implements field moves since RBY.

Most of them are not puzzles, they're just a checkmark.

Take this for example:
Trick_House_puzzle_room_1_E.png


Bulbapedia doesn't show it, but each narrow passage is blocked by a Cut tree.

What's the problem here?

There is literally no possible way to mess up in this "puzzle".

It's literally "Press A to cut tree." Nothing more than a roadblock that simply requires a mon with Cut on the party.

Now compare it to all the ways Strength has been used in this franchise and you'll start to notice just how bad some field moves are.

Flash is mildly annoying at best.
Cut is a simple roadblock.
Whirlpool is literally Cut, but on water.
Waterfall is criminally underused.
Rock Smash is Cut, but on a rock.

The exploration-focused ones tend to work out fine.

Fly is just a nice fast travel system, until you realize you're burning a slot on it. Most Flying mons struggled STAB-wise back then, so it kinda gets a pass.

Surf just opens chunks of maps.

Defog is actually nice because if you don't use it, you actually have an accuracy penalty. Otherwise, lol. Also very underutilized.

Dive is great. It has functional puzzles and also doubles as an exploration tool.

Rock Climb adds a sense of verticality that is unmatched in a region. Seeing mountains and climbing them is amazing. It had some potential to be a bit better, but it's not bad.

The rides are pretty much HM replacements with Mudsdale being the only one that wasn't an HM before. (Sharpedo doesn't count.)

And again, it suffers from being just a simple roadblock.

TL;DR
Most of the field moves in Pokémon are very poorly handled if they're puzzle-based but they kinda turn out fine when they're exploration-based.

Honestly, the puzzle ones need to be reworked from the ground up. Cut was never a good HM. Ever.
 
Volt-Ikazuchi said:
And that's exactly my gripe with how Pokémon implements field moves since RBY.

Most of them are not puzzles, they're just a checkmark.

*snipped*

TL;DR
Most of the field moves in Pokémon are very poorly handled if they're puzzle-based but they kinda turn out fine when they're exploration-based.

Honestly, the puzzle ones need to be reworked from the ground up. Cut was never a good HM. Ever.
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This is why my argument has always been that HM moves aren't the problem, how they're used is. You could come up with really interesting puzzles for certain field moves and combos of field moves. Make them not utterly suck in battle and interesting out-of-battle and people wouldn't mind them at all.
 
Despite people bitching about Gen 7 and 8 pulling this I still think it's XY that completely salted the earth in regards to the whole "Kanto Pandering" complaint. Even as someone who has always found that meme to be stupid and reactionary anyway, it's just ridiculous when you look back, I mean seriously, these games are guilty of:

-The regional dex having 111 Kanto Pokemon, or nearly 3/4 of the Kanto dex in it
-Just straight up giving you Kanto starters as a gift before the 2nd gym
-Said Kanto starters getting Megas while the non-Greninja Kalos starters got nothing, and even Gren had to wait till Gen 7 to have a playable super form
-Charizard and Mewtwo getting TWO Megas
-Mewtwo and the legendary birds... just... being there when no other old-gen legend is available
-Santalune Forest being an almost tile-for-tile remake of Viridian Forest right down to Pokemon selection minus a few additions
-The catching tutorial not even being against a Kalos mon, but a Pidgey
-God damn story setpieces being ripped from RBY (the evil team raiding an industrial complex where Pokeballs are created to obtain a Master Ball, as well as the first encounter with them being in a cave where at the end you choose between 1 of 2 regional fossils)

And I'm sure there are even more examples within the cracks that I've either forgotten or don't know about. It has never been this blatant before or since, I shit on Gen 2 a lot for kissing Kanto's ass to its detriment but that had the excuse of being a direct sequel of sorts with direct geopraphical ties to the region. For Kalos meanwhile it's just one of the major symptoms of Game Freak trying to over-course correct after the nuclear reception to BW1's dex
 
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Yung Dramps said:
-Charizard and Mewtwo getting TWO Megas
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You know, the Charizard thing still boggles me.

Like, I'm fine with Mewtwo having two, he's the first """legendary""" Pokemon (or "restricted" to be precise), but why exactly they gave Charizard two still eludes me.

With Charizard also getting a pokeride (in SM) AND being the champion ace as well as getting a Gigamax (albeith, the other 2 kanto and the 3 galar ones did get one in the DLCs), I do wonder if Charizard really is *that* popular in Japan to warrant so much attention over every other fellow starters.

Not even Greninja, actual fan favourite, has this much attention, and wasn't even included in gen 8 dex.
(Though, iirc it actually was in the very first beta version, just for some reason they opted to not include it in the end, maybe to not need to code in Battle Bond)
 
Yung Dramps said:
Despite people bitching about Gen 7 and 8 pulling this I still think it's XY that completely salted the earth in regards to the whole "Kanto Pandering" complaint. Even as someone who has always found that meme to be stupid and reactionary anyway, it's just ridiculous when you look back, I mean seriously, these games are guilty of:

-The regional dex having 111 Kanto Pokemon, or nearly 3/4 of the Kanto dex in it
-Just straight up giving you Kanto starters as a gift before the 2nd gym
-Said Kanto starters getting Megas while the non-Greninja Kalos starters got nothing, and even Gren had to wait till Gen 7 to have a playable super form
-Charizard and Mewtwo getting TWO Megas
-Mewtwo and the legendary birds... just... being there when no other old-gen legend is available
-Santalune Forest being an almost tile-for-tile remake of Viridian Forest right down to Pokemon selection minus a few additions
-The catching tutorial not even being against a Kalos mon, but a Pidgey
-God damn story setpieces being ripped from RBY (the evil team raiding an industrial complex where Pokeballs are created to obtain a Master Ball, as well as the first encounter with them being in a cave where at the end you choose between 1 of 2 regional fossils)

And I'm sure there are even more examples within the cracks that I've either forgotten or don't know about. It has never been this blatant before or since, I shit on Gen 2 a lot for kissing Kanto's ass to its detriment but that had the excuse of being a direct sequel of sorts with direct geopraphical ties to the region. For Kalos meanwhile it's just one of the major symptoms of Game Freak trying to over-course correct after the nuclear reception to BW1's dex
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First things first: you're completely right.

SwSh however, at least as far as I am personally concerned, takes the cake for the most obnoxious, irritating and blatant slap in the face.

I am talking about when you step into Hop's place and you discover a poster with "Galar's most popular Pokemon"... comprised of Charizard, Gengar, and Machamp.

Since context is important: you've just stepped into a new region and, especially if you're playing blind like I was (sort of...), it's the most exciting time of a Pokemon game: you cannot wait to meet new creatures, discover new evolution methods, and fully immerse in the new region. The starting town is one of the best designs in terms of graphics and environment in Swsh (little you know that after the second one you enter a nightmare copy-and-paste world), I think you already saw Wooloo rolling outside (one of the best designs in terms of Pokemon interaction with the environment) and...

You're slapped with the fact that Charizard, Gengar and Machamp are the most famous and notorious Pokemon in Galar. HOW IN THE WORLD is this possible.

To GF's credit, there are a lot of designs in GenVIII that I both like and I think the general public may find iconic: Dragapult (perfect for a Champion's Ace, to boot), Frosmoth, Centiscorch (G-Max Kaido Dragon Form would be a pretty dope ace as well), Copperajah Grimmsnarl... or even some regional evolutions: you have the elusive evolutions Sirfetch'd and Runerigus, the punk Obstagoon (while heavily linked to Team Yell, it could still be a very popular mon)... or, if you want to be even fancier and focus on Regional Variants, you have the overpowered Darmanitan, the surely iconic Weezing-G, or the beauty standard Rapidash. Some of the aforementioned mons even overlap in the categories I came up with in two minutes.

Take one per group and you're set.

No, instead of wondering how you could get the Champion's Ace (which happened with both Metagross and Garchomp to me), or how fast you can get Sirfetch'd the jouster, you're reminded that Charizard, Gengar and Machamp (of all things, and I love both) are the most popular in Galar. It's almost like they were trying to hide the novelty to focus, again, on old, safe favorites. Which is counterintuitive to a new Pokemon game.

Your point is still 100% correct, though.
 
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Charizard is definitely one of the most iconic Pokemon, so it makes some sense that Game Freak has utilized it as much as they have. But I have to say, you can only milk something's existence for so long before it starts to get stale. It's one thing to show occasional preferential treatment once in awhile, but it's another to keep doing it every single generation. Hell, even my own all-time favorites like Volcarona and Alolan Ninetales would get boring if Game Freak were to do that for them every time as well.

But honestly, I think if there's one collection of mons that has become even staler than Charizard lately, it's the Eeveelutions (and Eevee itself, for that matter). The last games Eevee couldn't be obtained in were Black/White, and Game Freak has given it and its evolutions virtually nothing of note to make them feel fresh or interesting since then (unless you count Eevium Z, but how often did you use that over other Z-Crystals?). GF just seems to throw them into the games and call it a day, and all they seem to do within said games is just exist. Look, I love the Eeveelutions as much as the next guy (especially Umbreon, Espeon, and Sylveon), but they seriously either need something awesome to incentivize me to train them again next gen or a break from the games altogether. And no, I don't want new regular Eeveelutions; they'll just get stale themselves in another couple of generations.

So if the Gen 9 games follow the same formula that Sword/Shield did, I'd like for the Eeveelutions to be given the same treatment that the Legendary Birds got this generation - inactive during the base game, then reintroduced in the form of regional variants about a year later. I keep visualizing a regional Espeon based on a solar flare and an Umbreon based on an aurora (the latter's Shiny coloring in Gen 8 already kind of reminds me of the Northern Lights as is), just to give a couple of examples (and they'd be great ways to introduce Fire/Fairy and Ice/Poison respectively). Of course, the chance of Game Freak doing this is slim to none, but it's about the only way I can think of to make them feel exciting and fresh to see again. The Galarian Birds immediately became the Pokemon I was most looking forward to catching when the Crown Tundra was first announced, and I can guarantee that if they did the same for the Eeveelutions, I personally would be over the moon about seeing them come back - a feeling I haven't had about seeing them in several years.

And as for the Kanto starters in that hypothetical scenario... give them a break too, and when reintroducing them, don't give them any preferential treatment at all. One generation every 7 years or so of Charizard not being shoved in our faces at every opportunity isn't going to kill us, I promise.
 
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PokePoindexter said:
So if the Gen 9 games follow the same formula that Sword/Shield did, I'd like for the Eeveelutions to be given the same treatment that the Legendary Birds got this generation - inactive during the base game, then reintroduced in the form of regional variants about a year later. I keep visualizing a regional Espeon based on a solar flare and an Umbreon based on an aurora (the latter's Shiny coloring in Gen 8 already kind of reminds me of the Northern Lights as is), just to give a couple of examples (and they'd be great ways to introduce Fire/Fairy and Ice/Poison respectively). Of course, the chance of Game Freak doing this is slim to none, but it's about the only way I can think of to make them feel exciting and fresh to see again. The Galarian Birds immediately became the Pokemon I was most looking forward to catching when the Crown Tundra was first announced, and I can guarantee that if they did the same for the Eeveelutions, I personally would be over the moon about seeing them come back - a feeling I haven't had about seeing them in several years.
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While I understand where you're coming from, this is really never going to happen.

Regional form's main perk is that they change type, not just appearance.
You can't have a "Flareon" that isn't a fire type, or a "Espeon" that is not a psychic type.
And the main design of the Eevolutions is that they are single typed, so you can't multitype them either.

The only thing you can see happening for them is, well, more Eevolutions. With Eevee becoming the de-facto 2nd mascot with Pikachu, it's deemed to receive attention (it did get a Gigamax this gen, completely useless, but it exists I guess) it's not impossible...
.....who am I kidding, at best we'll start to get unevolvable Cap Eevees on top of Cap Pikachus.

Some people would have loved if the Eevolutions could get their signature moves from Let's Go, which for whatever reason are actually present in SwSh's data (at least, the data is, I believe they aren't clickable though) and even received balance changes, but that's really as far as it can get.
 
Worldie said:
unevolvable Cap Eevees
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this is one of the things that gets me about lgpe - the entire point of eevee is that it evolves! it's literally in its name. the dex classifies it as the "evolution pokemon". from gen 1, it's always been the mon with multiple evolutions, & i suspect that's a major part of what makes it so iconic. if you take away eevee's ability to evolve, you might as well have made let's go pokemon dunsparce or spinda or something.
 
Total Clefairy said:
this is one of the things that gets me about lgpe - the entire point of eevee is that it evolves! it's literally in its name. the dex classifies it as the "evolution pokemon". from gen 1, it's always been the mon with multiple evolutions, & i suspect that's a major part of what makes it so iconic. if you take away eevee's ability to evolve, you might as well have made let's go pokemon dunsparce or spinda or something.
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They put on Eevee the same thing of Ash's Pikachu, "it's so special that it refuses to evolve".

Which is a pretty big reference to this Eevee from the Anime
 
Worldie said:
While I understand where you're coming from, this is really never going to happen.

Regional form's main perk is that they change type, not just appearance.
You can't have a "Flareon" that isn't a fire type, or a "Espeon" that is not a psychic type.
And the main design of the Eevolutions is that they are single typed, so you can't multitype them either.

The only thing you can see happening for them is, well, more Eevolutions. With Eevee becoming the de-facto 2nd mascot with Pikachu, it's deemed to receive attention (it did get a Gigamax this gen, completely useless, but it exists I guess) it's not impossible...
.....who am I kidding, at best we'll start to get unevolvable Cap Eevees on top of Cap Pikachus.

Some people would have loved if the Eevolutions could get their signature moves from Let's Go, which for whatever reason are actually present in SwSh's data (at least, the data is, I believe they aren't clickable though) and even received balance changes, but that's really as far as it can get.
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This is gave me idea, what if the create a regional Eevee with regional Eevolution with those Physical type that we've been asking before? Things like Fighting type Umbreon, Poison type Vaporeon, and so on.
 
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