Unpopular opinions

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

Delphox is one of my favorite starter Pokemon from a design standpoint, and I feel that it is an incredibly underrated Pokemon. I'm honestly not sure why some people seem to dislike it so much, because I really think its design is overall very neat and nails the concept it wants to go for. It's not a flaming animal of rage like the Fire starters that came before it, and after having three Fire / Fighting types in a row, Delphox being Fire / Psychic is honestly very refreshing. It's a mage or sorcerer/witch, which I think is a really nice spin to have for a Fire-type Pokemon starter, and it has a pretty pleasant and naturalistic flow to its design, while remaining relatively simple, but nailing the overall "witch" vibe it's going for, with the stick wand and having something resembling a witch's robe. I really like the smug and confident look it's got on its face in official artwork and in the anime, and I like how it doesn't look like a raging beast like the others but still manages to give off a cool and confident vibe. It's an overall incredibly neat and cool design that manages to look pretty simple but overall natural and it works well. I personally like it more than Braixen.

One of my favorite things (and imo most overlooked things) about Sun and Moon aside from having a very good story imo is the sheer amount of sidequests the game has to offer. There are a bunch of side quests everywhere to be found, including ones with the Trial Captains of Melemele and Akala, and it gives the player plenty of incentive to go back to other areas and do something like have a battle with a Trial Captain or do something small. People criticize Sun and Moon for being very linear, and while it does have a linear progression, it also has plenty of side stuff to do throughout the main story, such as the side quests. Alola also has plenty of hidden side areas that you're not forced to visit in the main story but make good side areas to visit if you wish, such as Melemele Sea, Kala'e Bay, Haina Desert, you get the drill. I also think it has a pretty solid postgame for a "first versions" thing, about on part with BW1 imo. There's a lot of Poni Island locked up till the postgame, the Battle Tree is great, the Looker quest and the Eevee user sidequest are both great as well, and of course, there's Title Defense. That gives plenty of incentive to keep playing even after the main story. Mind you, USUM has a better postgame overall, but SM has a pretty above average postgame for a non-enhanced version amongst those games in the series.

 

[Nickeljorn]

Unrelated to the games, but I’ve seen people lately say they wish Adventures was adapted into the anime instead of the anime being completely original. I mean no disrespect to Ash or any of the Adventures protagonists but to me Ash is much more of a “kid-appeal character” than most of the Pokedex Holders. People complain about Ash staying 10 forever but the Adventures protagonists age as the story goes on. As of the ORAS chapter, Green (The girl) is TWENTY. Let’s say after the Sword and Shield chapter ends, if we DO get Diamond and Pearl remakes and a chapter based on them, Diamond, Pearl and Platinum will be in their mid/late teens at least. The target audience of the Pokemon anime is much closer to 10 years old than mid/late teens. Many of Ash’s personality traits (Hot-Blooded, The Pollyanna, All-Loving Hero) also appeal to kids more in general to me. IMO it would be really cool if Adventures got an anime adaptation and its way of adapting the Pokemon games is no less valid than the main series anime but it would work better as a separate series (Like Origins, Generations, and Twilight Wings) than completely replacing the main series anime.
Speaking of Diamond and Pearl remakes, another unpopular opinion: Space Sunrise Live was way too early to expect a remake announcement and we should keep our feet on the ground until Pokemon Day at the end of February.

 

[Eonatator]

Speaking of which...

Kanto is already overrated and frankly boring as a region in the games it takes center-stage. In GSC/HGSS?

It's a barren wasteland devoid of anything worth its salt. You take a boat, have a massive power trip stomping the likes of Janine, and then when you're done, you gotta grind on either the E4 or Mt. Silver on Lv. 40 wilds or Lv. 40-50 trainers to beat Red's Lv. 70+ mons.

Edit: Oh yeah, in HGSS is mid-80's for Red's mons. Lovely.

Matter of fact, HGSS in general is very, very overrated.

Very interesting points here and you've definitely gone a long way in changing my perspective on HGSS. In hindsight I feel, like many, that I've been blinded by the overwhelming love and appreciation you see online for these games. But laying it out like you have done, it's really made me realise that HGSS has a LOT of shortcomings that people who herald them as the gold standard of Pokemon games are unwilling to accept.

They're still undoubtedly very good games, but definitely not as great as I once thought. I completely agree with these points however upon reflection so consider my perspective changed.

Anyways, my rather small unpopular opinion: Black/White 2 is superior to Black/White. I won't elude this statement further because this may or may not be popular after all and not fitting for this thread.

Hmm, I was always under the impression that the community almost unanimously agreed that BW2 were the superior games to BW so it comes as a surprise for me to see this as an unpopular opinion here. In my opinion the only aspect of BW that prevails over BW2 is the story, and only just. But everywhere else I feel like BW2 completely excels in comparison to the base games. It has a bigger, less linear map (although BW is still nowhere near as linear as people say), returning Pokemon from previous regions to use in the story, although I am a fan of BW containing Pokemon exclusive to Unova, and it contains far more content both during the main storyline and post-game.

As for my own unpopular opinion, although I'm not sure how unpopular this is after the famous IGN meme, I for one love the expansiveness of the ocean in RSE. To me, it makes perfect sense to give equal attention to the other half of the ecosystem (and a vastly underutilised one at that in the Pokemon games) which plays such a vital and integral role in our own ocean planet. Although I'm not sure of the exact water to land ratio both in Hoenn and irl. I personally loved the feeling of exploring the vastness of the ocean, not to mention that diving underwater also accompanied this to break up the monotony, although granted this feature was a bit bare bones and underwhelming. I can see why people would easily get bored of traversing the endless deep blue though (and the endless Tentacools and Wingulls) but they at least acknowledged this and tried to make it more interesting with various islands and the underwater to explore.

 

[pokemon4eva]

One of my favorite things (and imo most overlooked things) about Sun and Moon aside from having a very good story imo is the sheer amount of sidequests the game has to offer. There are a bunch of side quests everywhere to be found, including ones with the Trial Captains of Melemele and Akala, and it gives the player plenty of incentive to go back to other areas and do something like have a battle with a Trial Captain or do something small. People criticize Sun and Moon for being very linear, and while it does have a linear progression, it also has plenty of side stuff to do throughout the main story, such as the side quests. Alola also has plenty of hidden side areas that you're not forced to visit in the main story but make good side areas to visit if you wish, such as Melemele Sea, Kala'e Bay, Haina Desert, you get the drill. I also think it has a pretty solid postgame for a "first versions" thing, about on part with BW1 imo. There's a lot of Poni Island locked up till the postgame, the Battle Tree is great, the Looker quest and the Eevee user sidequest are both great as well, and of course, there's Title Defense. That gives plenty of incentive to keep playing even after the main story. Mind you, USUM has a better postgame overall, but SM has a pretty above average postgame for a non-enhanced version amongst those games in the series.

Agreed, I loved the sidequests that Alola had to offer, some even having meaningful messages to tell. The Eeveenium Z quest for example, which consists of battling old trainers that used to be quite the legend, and now they're stuck in some job to pay the fees or retired, the Jolteon trainer shows Alzheimer signs, the Leafeon trainer has undergone lots of surgeries, the Sylveon trainer passed away. Kind of a grim remainder of reality and the pass of time in a Pokemon game of all things.

Unrelated to the games, but I’ve seen people lately say they wish Adventures was adapted into the anime instead of the anime being completely original. I mean no disrespect to Ash or any of the Adventures protagonists but to me Ash is much more of a “kid-appeal character” than most of the Pokedex Holders. People complain about Ash staying 10 forever but the Adventures protagonists age as the story goes on. As of the ORAS chapter, Green (The girl) is TWENTY. Let’s say after the Sword and Shield chapter ends, if we DO get Diamond and Pearl remakes and a chapter based on them, Diamond, Pearl and Platinum will be in their mid/late teens at least. The target audience of the Pokemon anime is much closer to 10 years old than mid/late teens. Many of Ash’s personality traits (Hot-Blooded, The Pollyanna, All-Loving Hero) also appeal to kids more in general to me. IMO it would be really cool if Adventures got an anime adaptation and its way of adapting the Pokemon games is no less valid than the main series anime but it would work better as a separate series (Like Origins, Generations, and Twilight Wings) than completely replacing the main series anime.
Speaking of Diamond and Pearl remakes, another unpopular opinion: Space Sunrise Live was way too early to expect a remake announcement and we should keep our feet on the ground until Pokemon Day at the end of February.

While I love Adventures as well and don't like the anime nowadays, I don't think an anime adaptation of the manga to replace the current anime would be a great idea. The intended audience is small, like, extremely niche; it would flop for sure. Not sure about a miniseries either, since we already got nice retellings of events with Pokemon Generations. Adventures is its own thing.

Also, it was embarrassing to see pokefans commenting and spamming in the space sunrise about the remakes, legit reminded me of k popers...

As for my own unpopular opinion, although I'm not sure how unpopular this is after the famous IGN meme, I for one love the expansiveness of the ocean in RSE. To me, it makes perfect sense to give equal attention to the other half of the ecosystem (and a vastly underutilised one at that in the Pokemon games) which plays such a vital and integral role in our own ocean planet. Although I'm not sure of the exact water to land ratio both in Hoenn and irl. I personally loved the feeling of exploring the vastness of the ocean, not to mention that diving underwater also accompanied this to break up the monotony, although granted this feature was a bit bare bones and underwhelming. I can see why people would easily get bored of traversing the endless deep blue though (and the endless Tentacools and Wingulls) but they at least acknowledged this and tried to make it more interesting with various islands and the underwater to explore.

I also loved exploring the waters area in Hoenn, both the surface and underwater. What's kinda ironic is that ORAS offered alternatives to ease up the backtracking like flying to any route you want and the faster Kyogre/Sharpedo alternative, and yet this is the game that gets the "too much water" treatment from IGN. And even then, I think 7.8 is a fair score.

 

[Sonikku A]

Speaking of which...

Kanto is already overrated and frankly boring as a region in the games it takes center-stage. In GSC/HGSS?

It's a barren wasteland devoid of anything worth its salt. You take a boat, have a massive power trip stomping the likes of Janine, and then when you're done, you gotta grind on either the E4 or Mt. Silver on Lv. 40 wilds or Lv. 40-50 trainers to beat Red's Lv. 70+ mons.

Edit: Oh yeah, in HGSS is mid-80's for Red's mons. Lovely.

Matter of fact, HGSS in general is very, very overrated.

Reminds me how varied RSE is
Grassland, Water, Volcanic Ash fields, Desert, Canyons/Cliffs, the caves, Dense thickets. And that's ignoring town themes, like default, tiled city, Bazaar shop and harbor, Treeville, Mountainside
Literally it just needs a swamp, jungle, and icy places
But no, Too much water memes make people think it's only water...

 

[pokemon4eva]

Compared to Kanto, who has a volcanic town in Cinnabar Island but, where's the volcano?! Granted, we get to see it in GS and HGSS, where it destroyed the place, but first time playing I was very confused since there was no volcano in that city three years ago (the anime showed one though, Blaine's gym was inside of it)...And you might think console limitations were to blame for not being in the og games, but neither of the two modern remakes show a volcano either.

A volcanic island without a volcano, smh...

 

[Pikachu315111]

Compared to Kanto, who has a volcanic town in Cinnabar Island but, where's the volcano?! Granted, we get to see it in GS and HGSS, where it destroyed the place, but first time playing I was very confused since there was no volcano in that city three years ago (the anime showed one though, Blaine's gym was inside of it)...And you might think console limitations were to blame for not being in the og games, but neither of the two modern remakes show a volcano either.

A volcanic island without a volcano, smh...

According to the artwork of the Kanto region the volcano is usually to the left of Cinnabar Island. From what I can tell Let's Go provides a space offscreen for it to be, but RBY and FRLG does make it seem if there is a volcano it's unconnected to the inhabited island.

 

[Pikachu315111]

Hot take from Lance:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1345645922768752645

(Though he could be referencing the Dragon Egg Group now thinking about it...)

 

[Siggu]

Hot take from Lance:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1345645922768752645

(Though he could be referencing the Dragon Egg Group now thinking about it...)

Pretty much the same take as mine. "Dragonlike" and "Dragon-type" not always go together.

That being said, the Dragon Egg Group does hold some definitely not dragonlike Pokémon. In the case of the snake Pokémon, however, it might be a reference on how dragons might be inspired by snakes (and how the word "dragon" derives from the greek word for "serpent").

 

[Mova]

If dragons and Dragon-type Pokémon are not interchangeable, does this mean "regular" dragons exist in the Pokémon world alongside earth animals and everything else? Or dragon people for that matter?

 

[Bakugames]

If dragons and Dragon-type Pokémon are not interchangeable, does this mean "regular" dragons exist in the Pokémon world alongside earth animals and everything else? Or dragon people for that matter?

it probably means dragon is a classification of the type of animal the pokemon is (like some pokemon are mouse pokemon)

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Compared to Kanto, who has a volcanic town in Cinnabar Island but, where's the volcano?! Granted, we get to see it in GS and HGSS, where it destroyed the place, but first time playing I was very confused since there was no volcano in that city three years ago (the anime showed one though, Blaine's gym was inside of it)...And you might think console limitations were to blame for not being in the og games, but neither of the two modern remakes show a volcano either.

A volcanic island without a volcano, smh...

Then you look at Seafoam Islands...

Ice cave.

If dragons and Dragon-type Pokémon are not interchangeable, does this mean "regular" dragons exist in the Pokémon world alongside earth animals and everything else? Or dragon people for that matter?

For those who aren't in the OI Discord...

No, he just wants to justify him being a Flying-type specialist instead of a Dragon one.

 

[Bloomer28]

Very unpopular opinion especially amongst longtime fans, but the original GSC were terrible. First to begin although I understand why the story is very limited you feel like you’re just picking up Red’s leftovers in terms of team rocket and even the champion. Leaving the story to feel extraordinarily underwhelming and have half delivered. Although I can appreciate some of the landmarks of the region the region itself has been a mistaken for having nonlinear because you can battle the gym leaders out of order when the gameplay gameplay is linear it just gives you a choice of several different linear paths. Which also allows the character to be able to “over over level” during standard gameplay meaning that you just powerhouse in your way through mons that are like 20 or 15 levels below you.

I’m surprised I’ve never heard anyone else complain about it I mean I’m sure someone has at some point but I’ve really haven’t heard anything and this also applies to the gen 4to remakes but the Pokémon choice is extremely extremely extremely limited until you unlock Kanto For example even a lot of the native Johto Pokémon you can’t in counter or in gen 4 remakes case cannot evolve many of those Pokémon. Which leaves casual team design feel very unfinished

compared to the modern games like sword and shield, yes GSC is a hard game, however looking back on the game and even the GEN four remakes The game is quite easy at least until you rematch the Elite 4 and obviously the battle with a red which I do have to give credit to the game for because instead of over leveling for almost Lv. 90 fight you have to design a unique game plan for it which I can really appreciate, but nevertheless the majority of the game is fairly underwhelming and disappointing cool for its time now I guess. And NO having 2 regions doesn’t make up for this.

With that, you are pretty correct. the original games were very over-rated since that's where a lot of fans grew up, so everyone sees it through rose tinted glasses. It is very buggy and bad running, a staple for old consoles, but everything else doesn't make up for that. the difficulty wasn't GOOD difficulty, it was just " Hey, go fight this level 20 unkillable mess of a milktank with your level 15 spinarak " kind of difficulty, or artificail difficulty. Also, you're new pokemon are either useless, locked until the post game, or are too spread out to actually use well. Also, sometimes the game feels rushed with the re-use of team rocket with no reason why they're here, no real plot hook, the only real redeeming factor is the dynamic between silver and giovanni in the REMAKES ONLY, so the original games are flawed as heck and literally just kanto but you have to walk 2x as far and even more terrible. While the remakes have their charm and have much improved the post game, they couldn't fully fix that mess.

Edit: HGSS are still good games, but from the beginning, they were flawed because johto is fundamentaly flawed. Also, people liek ignoring everything this game did wrong because it crammed a bunch of really good features and other stuff, people always focus on taht, but refuse to look at what actually is happening, because of their nostalgia.

 

[Scorpio]

Hot take from Lance:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1345645922768752645

(Though he could be referencing the Dragon Egg Group now thinking about it...)

Something from a different franchise, but of a related concept:

Minor spoilers for One Piece

There are multiple Devil Fruits shown in-series that can transform those that eat it into a dragon (just one of many, many powers they can give, for those unfamiliar)... and this one apparently classified as a Fish Devil Fruit. So, much like how not all dragons are Dragon-type Pokémon, not all dragons make for Dragon-type Devil Fruits.

So, uh, game set and match, I guess.

Edit: I’m just now realizing this logic can apply to Charizard too.

 

[Ironmage]

I don't like the big new menu sprites.

Firstly, there's that a size disparity exists at all. One of the main reasons the menu sprites exist is to be laid out on a grid (in the PC box), so having an inconsistent size looks really clunky.

Secondly, I don't like the selection process for the larger sprites. It's not great for what it picks as "fully evolved" when looking at crossgen evolutions (e.g. linoone-Hoenn is small despite being incapable of evolving), and it brings the series historic inability to get sizes right to a new format (why is 40cm bellossom shown larger than 200 cm wailmer?). As someone who plays for the interesting combinations, it also bothers me when a NFE that fulfills a different niche as its evolution (e.g. Dusclops) is labeled as 'lesser' solely because of being related to a mon doing something else.

I also don't have any that I think look that much better than the old ones, but that's not a conceptual problem.

 

[Sonikku A]

Is it bad I don't generally like any gen that much? Well besides not wanting to prefer post 6, I find the ones before a bit overrated

Gen 1 flaws are known, 2 more people are realizing it's mediocre distribution and level curve. 3 the Rival feels semi aimless along with Wally being underutilized (somewhat addressed in Oras), and then Dexit....
4 is unbelievably slow and wonky with the maps being 3D tiles with very little variation for land (seriously the cliffs suck), 5 the tweened anims are extremely hit miss, and the story in BW1 is very overrated, while 2s is significantly attempting less. BW1s evo rates were garbage too Also Nate is uuuuuugly, and no one can change my mind otherwise

For all its flaws though, I do like the combat and creature designs. But I fear the fanbase being so hung on older gens on the bare surface level is why most fangames or hacks repeat the same issues

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

Is it bad I don't generally like any gen that much? Well besides not wanting to prefer post 6, I find the ones before a bit overrated

Gen 1 flaws are known, 2 more people are realizing it's mediocre distribution and level curve. 3 the Rival feels semi aimless along with Wally being underutilized (somewhat addressed in Oras), and then Dexit....
4 is unbelievably slow and wonky with the maps being 3D tiles with very little variation for land (seriously the cliffs suck), 5 the tweened anims are extremely hit miss, and the story in BW1 is very overrated, while 2s is significantly attempting less. BW1s evo rates were garbage too Also Nate is uuuuuugly, and no one can change my mind otherwise

For all its flaws though, I do like the combat and creature designs. But I fear the fanbase being so hung on older gens on the bare surface level is why most fangames or hacks repeat the same issues

It's a master of nostalgia that makes people look at older gens in a more positive light. For all their flaws, people are inherently the most attached to the generation of Pokemon they started with, and the things that stood out about that generation in particular. You have a lot of people in their late 20s-30s who grew up with Gens 1 and 2, people as old as I am (I'm 21, for the record) grew up with Gen 4 so we have positive memories of that from our childhood, and same with Gen 5 with people just a bit younger than me having grown up with that gen. Regardless of the flaws that those generations had, they were what got many people either older than me or around as old as I am (early 20s, some people in late teens now) into the series and thus many of us have that inherent attachment because so many people grew up with at least one of those gens pre Gen 6.

I'm not sure how old many of the Gen 6 onwards kids are now, but I imagine one of these days you'll see more people who look at Gen 6 in a positive light because they grew up with XY and ORAS. Those kids are probably in high school now and are approaching the point where many of them will likely (or are already becoming) people who frequent the internet and may even stumble across online Pokemon communities. We'll see plenty of that soon. And someday, years from now, there will be people who look at Gens 7 and 8 with glimmering nostalgia and talk about how great those gens were and how newer gens don't hold a candle to them. Those people are still kids right now, but one of these days when those kids who started with SM or Sword and Shield start approaching later years and even start using the Internet more freely, they'll be singing the high praises about SM/SwSh.

Nostalgia is a pretty fascinating and powerful thing. It's true that the old gens were incredibly flawed, and for what it's worth, despite the newer gens also being flawed they are probably more playable overall than the likes of Gen 1 or 2, but so many of us have nostalgia for them because we grew up with those older games. It's an inevitability that because those games came at such an innocent point in our lives that we'll have nostalgia tinted lenses and look at those games fondly.

Such will be the case with newer gens 6 and onwards when the kids who grew up with those games start becoming more frequent visitors of the Internet.

 

[Hex Poisonous]

I'm probably a rarity that I've played since Gen 1, but Gen 7 is my favorite generation.

Alola to me had the best story/characters, great Pokemon/Trainer designs, and really fun competitively. It also has the largest selection of Pokemon for any generation, had great wifi play options, and good systems for training up your team to what you want for online. The Sun/Moon anime is also probably the most fun the series has been in forever, they really went wild.

 

[SpiritGuy]

And on the contrary, I've a friend who was born in 2004, who've played BW and XY (so he still was a child when he did) and enjoyed them but he's favourite games are RBY. I think it can also depends of your tastes, and sometimes, tastes can prevail over nostalgia.

 

[Scorpio]

I don't like the big new menu sprites.

Firstly, there's that a size disparity exists at all. One of the main reasons the menu sprites exist is to be laid out on a grid (in the PC box), so having an inconsistent size looks really clunky.

Secondly, I don't like the selection process for the larger sprites. It's not great for what it picks as "fully evolved" when looking at crossgen evolutions (e.g. linoone-Hoenn is small despite being incapable of evolving), and it brings the series historic inability to get sizes right to a new format (why is 40cm bellossom shown larger than 200 cm wailmer?). As someone who plays for the interesting combinations, it also bothers me when a NFE that fulfills a different niche as its evolution (e.g. Dusclops) is labeled as 'lesser' solely because of being related to a mon doing something else.

I also don't have any that I think look that much better than the old ones, but that's not a conceptual problem.

To me, while they look good from an artistic standpoint, there are two issues where I feel the old sprites are better:

First, you mentioned the size disparity, but GF seems to have been bizarrely inconsistent in doling out the big sprites. You mentioned Linoone, but then you have Farfetch’d, which has a tiny Kanto-form sprite and a big Galar-form sprite, while Mr. Mime has big sprites in both forms. And then all the Alolan forms have tiny sprites... except, for whatever reason, Marowak and Exeggutor, which have two big sprites.

Second, this isn’t a problem unique to Gen 8, but does anyone else miss the animated menu sprites of Gens 3-5? I feel they gave the menu a bit more character then the ones in Gen 6 onwards, even if the latter were more accurate.

 

[Bakugames]

Second, this isn’t a problem unique to Gen 8, but does anyone else miss the animated menu sprites of Gens 3-5? I feel they gave the menu a bit more character then the ones in Gen 6 onwards, even if the latter were more accurate.

too many of the old menu sprites were just plain wrong, and a lot were really ugly (rayquaza lol) for me to miss any of that

 

[Sonikku A]

Second, this isn’t a problem unique to Gen 8, but does anyone else miss the animated menu sprites of Gens 3-5? I feel they gave the menu a bit more character then the ones in Gen 6 onwards, even if the latter were more accurate.

Eh, old menu sprites suffered color limits of all sharing 3 palettes, since GBA was limited to 16 palettes for dynamic objects, and they needed extra for menu themes. Hence odd colored ones

 

[Hugin]

Gen1 player here who really liked Kalos. Not challenging enough, but they made an effort to put a lot of different pokes early, which is so big for replayability. Most games you get early route normal/bird/bug/monotype, a cave or forest with about 4 mons, and that's it for variety until the second gym. In Kalos you've got 4 routes with a decent variety of unique mons per route before gym 1.

 

[Suspicious Derivative]

Regarding favorite generations and nostalgia, I think I have posted my thoughts on this before but I’ll post them again since the topic came up once more. This whole thing about someone's first generation also being their favorite doesn’t apply to me because I started with Gen 1, but my favorite is Gen 5. While I have many positive memories from Gen 1, I don’t care much for it anymore and I actually find it overrated nowadays. The extreme focus it has gotten in many other generations (notably Gen 2 and 7, but also 6 and 8 as well as 3 and 4 to various extents) has also made my feelings towards it more sour. In comparison, Gen 5 is my favorite because it is the generation I had the most fun playing. It is not my favorite because of nostalgia because I don’t find it old enough to feel nostalgic for… yet. It is getting closer, though. It will be 10 years since the English release of B/W in just two months... where did all these years go? Time flies.

Anyway the real reason I’m posting here is because I came up with a some new unpopular opinions, so here they are.

I have never understood the hype for Goomy or Snom. While those are fine Pokémon, I don’t think there’s anything really special or unique about them.
First, we have Goomy. Gen 6 introduced many great Pokémon, but while the fandom at large seemed to fall in love with Goomy, I have personally never cared much for it. In fact, I like the majority of the other Gen 6 Pokémon better than the Goomy line. I’m not a huge fan of slimy things, so that’s probably the main reason. I have also never found Goodra to have any unique or special niche in battle, something I feel that all other pseudo-legendaries have. I have used Goodra twice on two different teams, and while I liked it a bit better afterwards, it is still my least favorite pseudo-legendary without any doubt.
Then there’s Snom. Apparently, this is one of the most popular Pokémon from Gen 8? I don’t get it. While I think it is fine, there are many similar small Bug Pokémon which I like about equally or better than it. For me, the best thing about Snom is that it evolves into the much more awesome Frosmoth which is an awesome Pokémon with a cool design.

One discussion that seems to pop up rather often is whether the 2D sprites or 3D models are better for Pokémon. My possibly unpopular opinion here is that I liked both the sprites and the models. I think the sprites were really good, especially in Gen 5. Gen 4 & 3 had several good ones too, and I think even Gen 1 & 2 had some sprites that were pretty good. But I like the 3D models too. I think they mostly did a great job with them in the 3DS games, but I like them even better in Gen 8, the Switch allows them to really shine. While there are both sprites and models that could have been even better, I still like both in the end.

I don’t think D/P are the worst Pokémon games. I won’t deny that they have issues, but I think they had a large number of positives too. New and awesome Pokémon, good training spots, a great post-game, the P/S split, better movepools for most Pokémon, and I think Sinnoh is a really great region, my second favorite after Unova. On the whole, I think I’d rank D/P somewhere in the middle if I were to rank the main series Pokémon games. I would place them right below S/M, which is interesting since I feel that those two pairs are very similar to each other in many ways. If anything, the big problem for D/P is not necessarily that they are bad, but rather that they are obsolete. There’s no reason to play them now when Platinum exists. But even so, I still think they were good for their time, I had tons of fun with them back in 2007-08. With that said, my least favorite Pokémon games are still a certain pair from Gen 4… but it isn’t D/P.

Not sure if this is unpopular, but this is something I wanted to say anyway. I think I have partly said it before, but I might as well say it again. As stated earlier in this post, Gen 5 is my favorite. B/W & B2/W2 are my favorite Pokémon games. But… I don’t want it to stay that way. Ever since the end of Gen 5, I have wanted a new generation and new games to take their place and become my new favorite Pokémon games. But that has yet to happen. I think the ones that got the closest so far were X/Y which are awesome games, but they didn’t quite reach the top. I really want the series to move forward instead of backward, which is what I feel that it has been doing in recent years, starting with Gen 6 and then sadly continuing from there with almost every new game release. In the past, I wanted both Gen 6 & 7 to become my new favorites, but it didn't happen, and by Gen 8, I had sort of given up on the whole idea.

I guess the above is also partly tied to why remakes are my least favorite type of Pokémon games. If there were to be new remakes of an older game pair (for example, D/P remakes for Gen 8) and those would turn out better than the main games of the generation, then I think that would be a bad sign for Pokémon on the whole. Because if the best game of a generation is a remake, what does that say about the quality of the new generation? To me, it would say that the quality of the new games are not very good and that an older generation is better, as the remakes have shown by being better than the new games. Fortunately, this has yet to happen as I do not personally think that any of the remakes we have gotten so far have been the best games of their respective generation.

 

[Eonatator]

Alola to me had the best story/characters, great Pokemon/Trainer designs, and really fun competitively. It also has the largest selection of Pokemon for any generation, had great wifi play options, and good systems for training up your team to what you want for online. The Sun/Moon anime is also probably the most fun the series has been in forever, they really went wild.

This definitely seems to be an unpopular opinion, especially judging from what I've seen online, but I concur. It's an opinion I wholeheartedly with. The generation seven games are severely underrated in my opinion for the reasons you've pointed out. Yes, the hand holding was annoying, but as you say, it arguably has the best story in the franchise, second to BW, a great selection of Pokemon, great online options, a very unique region design, they look fantastic given the limitations of the 3DS and it was made easier than ever to make a competitive team. I also appreciated the efforts they went to to do something other than the gym system. Although granted what we got were bascially gyms in disguise. But nevertheless, island trials did actually make you think and strategise somewhat. Although the wifi options were great, I'm sure I don't need to expand on this, but one gripe I do have is that festival plaza left much to be desired and was definitely a step down from the PSS system in my view.

I'm not sure if this one is an unpopular opinion so I'm kinda testing the waters here (pun intended), but I strongly believe that the peak of Pokemon design came in generation three. Like seriously, everytime I go back and look over the Hoenn Pokedex there's barely a single Pokemon that's a dud to me. Such a fantastic roster of well designed and thought out Pokemon. My personal favourite generation for example, gen 5, arguably has a LOT of, and if not more objectively, stellar designs, but equally it also has quite a number of truly horrendous ones. Hoenn for me on the other hand just has an extremely consistently well designed set of mons. Although as stated above, I'd be interested to see if this is actually an unpopular opinion.