I liked SWSH.
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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
- Start date
The next game could be pivotal for the franchise or the confirmation that it's a sinking ship quality wise. (Pokémon sells so well that you can literally make chocolate-filled cupcakes shaped after Pikachu's butt and legit sell them by the dozens.)
I wish I was joking about the cupcakes, look it up.
For those wondering, Kotaku has a few helpful articles.
- First, the cupcakes I couldn't find, only fanmade ones, but there was a "Pikachu Cafe" for a short while (a promotion for the first XY movie) that sold Pikachu-based food and at least one of these products was a curry bun that, you guessed it, was shaped as Pikachu's b...ackside. I mean, we can make a joke about them having bun shaped liked Pikachu's buns, but it's more Pikachu's back than its butt. Now wouldn't be surprised if the cafe sold a food item more shaped as Pikachu's butt, but note that just as often as people say "Pikachu's butt" they sort of are also including merch depicting Pikachu's backside or lower body.
- Second, for why there is food shaped like Pikachu's butt, it's actually a general fasciation with Pikachu's butt. For you see, Pikachu could be argued to be based on a hamster (or have a body shape similar enough to one), and apparently Japan has considered the shape a how a hamster's lower backside forms "cute" (so still technically not just the butt, but just say it's the butt is more catchy than "lower backside"). Thus, Pikachu Butt merch cause if Pokemon has a way to shove their mascot in people's face they'll do it even if it's behind first.
(Why, yes, this is a wallet plush of Pikachu's butt)
But remember games go through several stages of development and each stage generally has its own department working on it until it gets approval to move onto the next stage where the staff then starts working on the next game down the pipeline. So I imagine the above four games were in the following phases during Sun & Moon's release:
- Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon either skipped ahead or spent very little time in the conceptual departments that it would not have taken much of any development time away from the other games mentioned. Unlike BW2 it went back to be a glorified expansion of a game you already played but a few additional features (and, for the first time, Pokemon species via the Ultra Beasts) here and there.
- Let's Go was likely the next biggest game in the development oven. Now they decided not to really revamp the maps so that saved them time, but there was quite a number of changes it had to Yellow version so would need time for create the new models, script the new story elements, and work in the GO mechanics. So I can see it having a normal development time as a traditional core series game.
- Sword & Shield were likely still in the conceptual stage. Galar and its characters existed in concept art only and the story was likely just a list of ideas & events. Let's Go also skipped the concept stage that probably takes a long time to do, creating new Pokemon, which Sword & Shield would have spent many months in.
- Little Town Hero, if I understand things right, essentially started out as a side project that those interested in the project would work on when they had done their likely Pokemon duty (aka waiting for approvals). I could see this giving it a long conceptual stage as it worked bits at a time. It just so happened to have finished the concept stage during Sword & Shield's development... and yeah I imagine people who would have worked on Sword & Shield normally may have wanted to work on Little Town Hero instead so they were sharing resources. Now not saying had those people worked on Sword & Shield may have given us a better game, though I could see us maybe having a more polished experience with things like graphics textures and animations (or at least have better animated cutscenes). Not to mention the GF higher-ups felt like they were more excited to do Little Town Hero than Pokemon, which is fine and understandable... but Little Town Hero also had some rather notable flaws (re-used NPC models, a story that goes nowhere; the battle system is fine once you get used to it and feels like GF just threw together a game to use it) that shows GF probably should have done one game at a time (I say work on Little Town Hero first which gives Sword & Shield some more time in the oven).
Yeah... BUT there may be hope now. Masuda and GF higher-ups are gonna need to learn to work with bigger groups (or, being they were more interested in Little Town Hero, maybe focus on GF's side games and leave Pokemon alone) as they're now right next to daddy Nintendo to both give them easier access to resources and I imagine keep an eye on them to make sure they're making games worthy of Nintendo's seal of approval which Sword & Shield merely got from just having the franchise name.
Guys, this is nothing new, Keldeo's butt has been a hot topic for ages now
dpp suck and gsc > hgss. i honestly think hgss is just blatant fanservice and not the right kind. hgss doesn't fix a lot of the issues with johto - the terrible level curve being the main one - and even arguably creates new problems like kanto now outleveling you instead of being underlevel like in the original games while doing nothing to fix the super-low levels of wild pokemon there. hgss aren't bad, don't get me wrong, they just ain't great.
gen 5 was kind of meh. the near total lack of new mechanics in competitive battling is not something i appreciated. basically a glorified gen 4 really. black and white themselves weren't very fun games (loved castelia and nimbasa but that's it) - b2w2 might be different but i never played them.
i actually think more generations need to be like gen 2, which i feel was more about strategy - the tms having stuff like mud-slap, fury cutter, and rollout that needed you to actually know what you're doing and not just mindlessly button-spam as you would for stuff like flamethrower - had a really cool region with its own mythos. johto felt real in a way no region ever did, except maybe hoenn (my second favorite region). i do think people who rave about gen 2 do need to take the nostalgia glasses off a bit too, given that gen 2 has a horrible level curve to the point you need a 4 mon team or fewer to make sure the levels don't kick your ass. considering most people i expect prefer using 6 mons, myself included, that's not great. i'm getting used to 4 mons though, so don't hold me to my preferences. i will still say that the lack of johto pokemon within johto proper is a flaw too.
colosseum and xd were great games in their own right, the only problem is they were on the gamecube (lol). nintendo needs games like that for the switch and possibly even more ''different'' games that are close to trainer battles but not exactly the same as the traditional pokemon game (think conquest), it would be a great refresher from more stuff like sword and shield that weren't bad but quite underwhelming as i agree with most there.
i also think people should give ash more heat for not even thinking of using butterfree against brock in the anime, even though butterfree's confusion was a tried and true strategy to defeat brock around the time rby was out for people who chose charmander or pikachu.
gen 5 was kind of meh. the near total lack of new mechanics in competitive battling is not something i appreciated. basically a glorified gen 4 really. black and white themselves weren't very fun games (loved castelia and nimbasa but that's it) - b2w2 might be different but i never played them.
i actually think more generations need to be like gen 2, which i feel was more about strategy - the tms having stuff like mud-slap, fury cutter, and rollout that needed you to actually know what you're doing and not just mindlessly button-spam as you would for stuff like flamethrower - had a really cool region with its own mythos. johto felt real in a way no region ever did, except maybe hoenn (my second favorite region). i do think people who rave about gen 2 do need to take the nostalgia glasses off a bit too, given that gen 2 has a horrible level curve to the point you need a 4 mon team or fewer to make sure the levels don't kick your ass. considering most people i expect prefer using 6 mons, myself included, that's not great. i'm getting used to 4 mons though, so don't hold me to my preferences. i will still say that the lack of johto pokemon within johto proper is a flaw too.
colosseum and xd were great games in their own right, the only problem is they were on the gamecube (lol). nintendo needs games like that for the switch and possibly even more ''different'' games that are close to trainer battles but not exactly the same as the traditional pokemon game (think conquest), it would be a great refresher from more stuff like sword and shield that weren't bad but quite underwhelming as i agree with most there.
i also think people should give ash more heat for not even thinking of using butterfree against brock in the anime, even though butterfree's confusion was a tried and true strategy to defeat brock around the time rby was out for people who chose charmander or pikachu.
Team preview?
not sure if i like it (or the dream world, which apparently doesn't even work any more) tbh.
i'm neutral to it for the most part, i like seeing my opponents' teams but i think having the element of surprise feels more authentic.
and i did say ''almost no new features'' lol. there were no new types (unlike gen 6), nothing like mega evolutions or z-items or dynamax/gigantamax (as poorly implemented as the last thing was), nothing like the physical/special split (unlike gen 4), or nothing like abilities (unlike gen 3).
those were all revolutionary changes.
Remember when I said in the GSC thread we didn't have any beef?
Now we do. It's on sight now. See me in Showdown!!!
Anyone that wants to diss GOAT Main Series Game Platinum (Bolded for the people in the back, let everyone know that ain't even close!
) can get the same deal.I'm obviously joking about the beef, but Plat is pound for pound the best game in the franchise. The rest get stomped like an unprepared trainer vs Fantina.
Johto's level curve is flawed, but it's not totally unmanageable from my experience. I did use a team of 4 from my experience, but in recent run-throughts I've also actually taken the time to explore, namely going to dungeons like the Union Cave, Mt. Mortar, the Dark Cave, and a few places that are only Surf-accessible. I found quite a few Trainers in those dungeons, and found myself getting plenty of EXP off the peeps you can find after getting Surf. These places also have Level 20+ Wild Pokemon despite the main path not having that until after Mahogany. Given the specific structure of Johto, I feel like the region was specifically designed to be explored off the beaten path. Aside from the fact that there are routes that let you easily backtrack to earlier locations, the Level curve seems to suggest this, given that the Trainers in all the side dungeons are closer in level to where you will likely be after beating Morty.
Yes, you ideally need to only use a team of 4 to not fall severely behind in GSC and HGSS, but I feel like that's not all there is to it. I feel like they designed it specifically to be that way so that people don't necessarily finish their full team of 6 until the Kanto segment of the game. The Kanto portion of GSC/HGSS imo isn't really "post-game" in the traditional sense, but is more like the second half of the game imo, where you pick up 2 more Pokemon to build to a full team of 6. In HGSS in particular if you use a team of 4 beforehand you'll be fine in terms of levels and you explored everything including the side dungeons in Johto and a solid Fire/Water/Electric core will pull through most of the game, especially if you use coverage moves on all of them. Typhlosion, Ampharos, and Gyarados together make a rock-solid combo to roll through Johto. So by some point during the Kanto segment you will have a full team of six ready, especially in time for Red and future Silver/League rematches if you're playing HGSS. Granted I'd actually say this works better in HGSS where you can use the Safari Zone after the first League match to get Pokemon on par with where you will be level-wise unlike in GSC (where everything is really low level) to finish up your team once you're going into the Kanto half.
I'd also argue that HGSS having higher leveled Pokemon is something I kinda liked better than GSC with the Kanto Trainers having stronger Pokemon meaning it's easier to get EXP and levels off of the Kanto trainers, plus the Gym Leaders rematches/League rematches making it easier to level up your team to prepare for the huge level jump that is Red at the very end of the game (whereas in GSC I had to grind in Mt. Silver for hours on end to be at a manageable level for him).
It's a pretty heavily flawed execution for sure, but this is what I feel was the likely intended structure they may have been going for. It was a bit of an unconventional structure that explored the idea of non-linear exploration of a region (the dungeons help a lot imo) and dealing with exploring two regions, which ties into GSC/HGSS being a sequel to RBY/FRLG, which I liked a la BW2 Unova in that it was fun seeing how Kanto had changed in the three years since the days of RBY, which made it a pretty fun sequel adventure to the OGs. The specific structure of the game I feel actually doesn't consider you done after the first league challenge, and even though you use a team of 4 for a while once you're in the Kanto half you should find two more mons to build to a full team of 6 (ideally something like Houndoom, Rhydon, or Snorlax).
I honestly am inclined to disagree since I loved DPP, but if you don't mind, I would like to hear why you feel that way. Care to elaborate, maybe? I can give you DP maybe but Platinum is honestly a really great game imo, but I am interested in hearing why you didn't like DPP and what made you think it's not great. After all, this is the unpopular opinions thread so I'm all ears for this.
man. is it normal for people to respond to people's unpopular opinions? what a drag...
agree to disagree lol. tbf i'm not saying dpp themselves are horrible games, i just think they don't hit many of the right notes for me as a game, although i won't lie that a lot of the pokemon in the games are genuinely awesome (empoleon, garchomp, and lucario) and some of the towns were pretty well designed. they have a region that honestly comes off as super meh and forgettable to me apart from a handful of cities, some of the most unmemorable characters in any game (cyrus is not worth his hype, the gym leaders are unmemorable, team galactic is garbage, the professor and the other gender character you don't pick are meh, and even barry is more annoying than anything), and the osts aren't anything great.
1. the problem with that argument is kanto itself has its own level problems - the vast majority of wild pokemon outside mt. silver are super underleveled and you don't even get to go to mt. silver without all 16 badges. even the game corner mons are largely way below the average level of your team, larvitar aside, and the trainers (not gym leaders) aren't remotely strong enough to make up for that either. let's say you have 4 mons from johto and then go to kanto - who else can you possibly add to your team? apart from snorlax, l40 larvitar, and some l40 super rod pokemon, that is? kanto doesn't even have any legendary pokemon of its own to fill that gap and blue as well as red will outlevel you no matter what.
2. hgss also screwed up by making the kanto trainers too strong but keeping the wild pokemon weak. the best route imho would've been to keep the trainers weaker (though not as weak as in gsc) and power up the wild pokemon to the point they can join your team with minimal grinding at best. considering that the credits roll after beating lance, it's pretty clear though that lance is the story mode final boss. kanto is just the post-game.
3. read my answer to volt lol.
Remember when I said in the GSC thread we didn't have any beef?
Now we do. It's on sight now. See me in Showdown!!!
Anyone that wants to diss GOAT Main Series Game Platinum (Bolded for the people in the back, let everyone know that ain't even close!
I'm obviously joking about the beef, but Plat is pound for pound the best game in the franchise. The rest get stomped like an unprepared trainer vs Fantina.
agree to disagree lol. tbf i'm not saying dpp themselves are horrible games, i just think they don't hit many of the right notes for me as a game, although i won't lie that a lot of the pokemon in the games are genuinely awesome (empoleon, garchomp, and lucario) and some of the towns were pretty well designed. they have a region that honestly comes off as super meh and forgettable to me apart from a handful of cities, some of the most unmemorable characters in any game (cyrus is not worth his hype, the gym leaders are unmemorable, team galactic is garbage, the professor and the other gender character you don't pick are meh, and even barry is more annoying than anything), and the osts aren't anything great.
1. the problem with that argument is kanto itself has its own level problems - the vast majority of wild pokemon outside mt. silver are super underleveled and you don't even get to go to mt. silver without all 16 badges. even the game corner mons are largely way below the average level of your team, larvitar aside, and the trainers (not gym leaders) aren't remotely strong enough to make up for that either. let's say you have 4 mons from johto and then go to kanto - who else can you possibly add to your team? apart from snorlax, l40 larvitar, and some l40 super rod pokemon, that is? kanto doesn't even have any legendary pokemon of its own to fill that gap and blue as well as red will outlevel you no matter what.
2. hgss also screwed up by making the kanto trainers too strong but keeping the wild pokemon weak. the best route imho would've been to keep the trainers weaker (though not as weak as in gsc) and power up the wild pokemon to the point they can join your team with minimal grinding at best. considering that the credits roll after beating lance, it's pretty clear though that lance is the story mode final boss. kanto is just the post-game.
3. read my answer to volt lol.
They were trying to go for "you're back at Kanto again, here's the mons like kanto was"
Like it would be kinda dumb if route 1 had level 50 pokemon
Having "correct" levels toward a kanto adventure was logical (story wise) and more immersive if you've played actual kanot tgames
Game design yeah its pretty bad (but taking your time, leveling up, and enjoying kanto was what they were expecting?)
I guess the thing is that, in my opinion, the levels aren't really a story mechanic, they're purely a gameplay one.
I mean, why would some routes only havel lv 5 pokemon while others have lv 50s? are the route 20 dudes just that buff and the route 1 dudes super lazy or something? Hell, how would anyone starting their journey from somewhere like saffron travel? Do they just get mon in their level 20s to compensate how strong the wild encounters are? It makes no sense, and has no in game explanation (or even mention).
If we're going by immersion, you should be able to find a big variety of levels, strong and weak pokemon alike, in an ecosystem. Like that magikarp pond in platinum with magikarp going from lv 1-100 (though less extreme I guess)
But that would kinda suck for obvious reasons, so gameplay is prioritized and an artificial level curve is implemented on the wild pokémon. Does it make sense, naturally? Nope. Does it make for a playable game? Yes.
So the decision to keep the levels like the old games is just a bad one for me. The levels were arbitrary in the first place, tailored to the player and the player alone, focused purely on the rbgy gameplay and nothing else. There's no reason you can't change them for the same abritrary reasons: to tailor to the gsc player and nothing else
doesn't have to be route 1? just put them in other routes, it's not that hard. fix up the routes that were near fucshia city (town?).
thank. you.
Yeah, that's kinda the point of having a discussion thread.
Edit: Also, please try to write with proper capitalization. Following the general rules of language is actually one of Smogon's forum rules, as that makes posts a lot less tiresome to read.
I will say that after learning that Gold/Silver were developed as direct sequels to Gen 1, more like Black 2/White 2, more of Johto's flaws like overabundance of Kanto Pokemon, Lance being essential halfway through the Adventure, and the low level curve, make more sense. Still don't like Gen 2 though.
Johto failed as a sequel because of how badly it promoted its own Pokémon.
Gen 2 mons are low key struggle mons for the most part with most of them being straight up trash, but the worst part is that their availability is just awful, especially compared to Kanto mons.
Which is why I liked how Black and White made older generation Pokémon completely absent before the post-game.
That it causes less variety during the main story? Yeah, so what? It's the debut game of a new generation so they deserve as much attention as possible.
i wouldn't go that far, given that johto and its success is what convinced game freak to keep going with pokemon games.
i'd argue johto succeeded in spite of not marketing its own pokemon better. it's even more amazing in hindsight that gsc didn't try to use the good ol' kanto mascots like pikachu, charizard, and maybe clefairy more either, given how kanto reliant it surprisingly was otherwise.
ah, i didn't realize it was that, thought it was merely a sounding board for our opinions.
sorry, my caps lock is broken.
Then you can make a letter capital by holding shift while you press it. It's actually much faster and I do it myself!
Yeah, that's true lol. Never did that before, will have to get used to it.
Personally, I'm partial to how RSE did it. New Pokémon only, until after the first Gym. This serves to showcase a dozen-odd new evolution families to players at the start of the game, making things feel new and fresh while also letting players build all-new-Pokémon teams early on, but also doesn't make the old Pokémon conspicuously absent from the game. Plus, it forces the designers to create "complementary" early-game Pokémon that aren't either the tired old archetypes of birds, bugs, and rodents, or made-to-be-discarded crapmons like Wooloo or Nickit in SwSh.
When you get used to using Shift, you'll be happy your Caps Lock key is broken. For every one time I intentionally hit that key, I hit it around a hundred times by accident. Caps Lock is a useless, annoying key, and it's stupidly large and located right next to the A key you use all the time. I've been seriously looking into getting a keyboard with the Caps Lock key behind a panel on the backside.
I agree, though I think RSE too could've kept a few more of the old faves around. For instance, Pidgey in Route 101...
Not on Route 101, that would defeat the whole purpose. By all means, it could be in the game, but not before the first Gym, as that part of the game would be reserved for showcasing the new Pokémon. Unless Pidgey was there specifically to perform the role of regional bird, of course, then I'd be all for it if no regional alternative existed. Since Gen IV, we've had five sets of birds that all explicitly seek to emulate Pidgey by playing exactly the same role in-game (plus two that do so in a slightly different manner), and I think that's enough. They should reuse one of those eight birds rather than making a ninth, near-identical one.
5 sets of birds that do nothing but get dunked on by the one route away Spearow?
How sad...
But yeah, Hoenn's mon distribution was pretty awesome when you think about it.
We really forgetting my homeboy marill.........
