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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
- Start date
yeah, a friend of mine talked about it having a similar system.
The games transition to 3D on the 3DS is also notable in one sense, that the games can not always maintain consistent performance in-battle. The game is not doing anything visually taxing, at most needing to handle like 6 models on screen at a time in a mostly empty 3d space, and they ran like hell in the 3DS games. In my most current playthrough of X/Y the game slows down noticeably on a New 3DS XL as soon as you turn on the 3D slider, even in single battles. There's like 2 models on screen, what's so difficult about that? Now, I have not played through the Alola games on the New 3DS XL, only on the original 3DS (lol @ the Alola games performance on the OG 3DS though, its a joke and a half), but from what I tell from videos, say from the VGC Championships, when there is a lot going on it still chugs.
Aside from the issues from the shift to 3D in terms of graphics, style, and movement, the fact that the battles run poorly is a massive problem. It's the most glaring issues in these games in my eyes and honestly more important to me than the other issues with the games that people bring up. Smash 4 was able to reach 60fps in 3d on a standard 3DS, but Pokemon Y struggles to maintain something stable in battle in 3D. Sometimes I feel like i'm going insane looking at these games. Battling is the main part of the games and Game Freak did not get it to always run smoothly during the 3DS era, and it still crops up on the Switch games. Everything I may like about them is brought down by the realization that those games can't always stably run. It's honestly hard for me to fathom that this was not a larger issue with the 3DS games, and difficult to explain. If the game starts slowing down and dropping frames in a simple battle there's something larger that's wrong.
The main takeaway from me here is that I think Pokemon's 3D shift (on the 3DS games) is pretty poor (not withstanding the design issues that
ScraftyIsTheBest noted before) Battles, the main component of the game, experience massive slowdowns and poor performance while not doing anything that interesting. While writing this I had to check how Smash 4 ran on the original 3DS to make sure I'm not insane. Smash 4 runs and looks great, no slowdowns even with the 3D enabled. However in Pokemon Y my Farfetch'd squaring off against Korrina's Machoke causes the game to noticeably choke when the 3D is enabled, and experience random slowdowns when 3D is not enabled, even on a New 3DS XL. There should not be these framerate issues, and its inexcusable how the Alola games perform so poorly as they do on the original 3DS hardware.
After a brief check, Alpha Sapphire and Sun (the other 3DS pokemon games I have) have less framerate issues in battle on a New 3DS XL. There are still some slowdowns, in AS when the 3d slider is turned on (but less than Y), and in Sun in double battles (less noticable, more apparent with weather / terrain). However, this does not make up for the poor performance of Sun on a original 3DS, the battles are not doing anything complicated, but the instant more than two pokemon are on screen or a totem pokemon activates their aura boost the game slows down hard.
The mainland Galar region I find does not frequently take advantage of any verticality that the 3D space gives except for some tricks and spots that the fixed camera can hide. In the Crown Tundra, I feel like: "wow, there's a hill I can climb and an old dead tree at the top, gonna check it out," while in the mainland, its "wow, the Stomping Tantrum TM is "hidden" because of the camera. great." All the Galarian routes are something you see once and never think twice about because you have essentially explored all there is to explore. There's no use of the space to make it seem like I'm traveling a long journey to the next town with my closest pokemon pals, its more like I'm taking a short walk. Or the games could be capturing the true experience of traveling around the United Kingdom. Probably a short walk is all it takes right?
(note: i've never been to the UK, any comments made here are in jest).
Ehh
RSEs water mon distribution is pretty terrible. Tentacool and Wingull are overrepped
Same with Poochyena, but at least Grass is avoidable and only a 20% spawn rate, unlike Waters 65%
I do agree about interesting early route mons though. Not rodents, Dark and Normal, Wurmple being a split evo line, and Guts Swellow later
Too bad Lotad line suffers movepool wise in-game. Same with Seedot
Not only the same mentality, but in many cases the same code as well. There's a reason why battles are so sluggish: the "order of events" in a Pokémon turn hasn't been changed since the GBA days.
Okay so it's time to talk about the EXP Share and overall talk about level curves in general. I've more or less spent the past several months playing most of the Pokemon games and marathoning them, but here's what I think about the EXP Share mechanic, and how it's related to overall difficulty of the games.
But the main unpopular opinion I have here is that the EXP Share isn't making the games easier. What it really does is that it makes the games less tedious. EXP Share by itself makes spreading the EXP across the party much easier so now everyone gradually levels up in strength more quickly. And as a result, it's easier to keep up with the level curve of the game and keep your whole team up to par with the levels of the Trainers you face across the game. Especially if you're using a full team of six. In that sense, it reduces the need for extensive grinding and allows you to not need to put in the tedium to make sure your team is up to par with where the game wants you to be level-wise at each point.
The Pokemon games in general are not that hard. Build a good team, understand type matchups, and be on part or just a little underleveled with your opponents, and you're all set: you can just beat them easy peasy because none of them have EVs or competitive movesets. Sun and Moon were so far one of the few examples of a legitimately challenging game because the Totem Pokemon had genuinely good movesets and teammates to create truly compelling battles.
Gen 3 and Gen 4's level curves created artificial difficulty by being steep to the point where you need to grind extensively to catch up at various points if you want to keep up with the level curve. And there was a way to do that: they had Trainer rematches. The amount of experience you can gain without Trainer Eyes/Match Call/Vs. Seeker in those games is pretty thin, so if you use a full team of six, you're gonna be underleveled without relying on the Trainer rematches. As an example, look no further than Lueroi's very well known Sapphire and LeafGreen walkthroughs, where his teams were clearly horribly underleveled. So you need to grind, especially in RSE, FRLG, and DP and HGSS, and basically the game wants you to backtrack on a regular basis and find all those rematch-upgraded Trainers and rebattle them at every conceivable point. If you do that, your Pokemon will be fine in terms of levels and will be up to snuff with the level curve, and the games aren't too hard if you do that to catch up. But that's not actually challenge. That's tedium. That's putting in extra time and effort to raise your team so that they catch up, including the extra backtracking you have to do throughout the region to go find all those rematchable Trainers all over again and battle them.
As an example of how much time this adds, in my latest Diamond playthrough where I constantly backtracked and found every possible Trainer at every opportunity and rematched, including Trainers in hidden places via Surf/Rock Climb, once I was at the League my playthrough was around 30 hours long. After the post game I had spent around 50 hours. Meanwhile, in my Y playthrough, after doing practically everything including the post-game, I had spent around 25 hours. That's half the time I spent on Diamond.
My BW1 playthrough after doing everything up to Alder was also around 25 hours long. But in this case, the games may not be that hard, but the key thing is that Gen 5, despite not having the EXP Share, had a genuinely good level curve and combined with the EXP system of that generation, made sure that you were more or less up to snuff with a good team level wise. BW2 arguably was even better and had a very smooth level curve including the post game (whereas BW1's post game levels spike immediately from the low 50's to 62-65). There were also very easy training spots.
Which leads to the other problem, which is that Game Freak clearly optimized XY and SM's level curves in such a way that the EXP Share should be toggled. In other words, constantly turn it on and off at various points. XY's level curve is very strange in that it flatlines at certain points then becomes incredibly steep at other points. There are quite a few notable level jumps in both XY and SM where you absolutely need to use EXP Share to catch up. I found myself actually toggling the EXP Share on and off at various points, as from my experience with XY, if you keep EXP Share off the entire time, you will end up sorely underleveled for the League. Keep in on the entire game, however, and you will be severely overleveled and curbstomp everything in sight. There are clear points in the game where you are expected to turn it on, namely around the Reflection Cave point, and then are expected to turn it back off at other points. Same with SM, where it's ideal to keep it off for most of Ula'Ula and Akala but turn it on towards the end of Akala and the whole Aether and Poni segments as around Poni the level curve gets really steep.
There's a problem there where for the most optimal experience, you basically have to turn EXP Share on at different points to catch up to a steep level jump. But that requires you to keep track of whether you have EXP Share on or off and keep up with the curve. Granted, however, this still does reduce tedium, as while Gen 3 and Gen 4 run off a similar level curve style as Gens 6 and 7, the older gens made you use Trainer rematches to grind your team which adds tedium, while the Gens 6 and 7 had a togglable EXP Share mechanic, which while less tedious, requires you to go into the bag and turn it on and off several times.
That being said, the use of EXP Share in newer gens does in fact, reduce tedium. As I said, it's not the challenge that's going down in recent games, it's the amount of time and effort you have to spend on training your team that's getting shorter. But even then, however, Game Freak's level curves still make it so that EXP Share should be on only at certain points, so it's still not perfect in that regard. Pokemon isn't, and never really has been, a challenging experience. The older games were just a lot slower, and necessitated significantly more grinding and time to keep a team of 6 on par with the level curve of those games. In other words, a lot grindier. So in other words, the newer games are about as difficult, per se, in terms of the actual challenge of the battles, as the previous games. But they require less actual grinding to keep up in terms of experience, and the EXP Share ensures that that tedium is reduced. Which is why playing the newer games feels "easier", per se, it's that the games require less time to catch up with the level curve and thus can be completed efficiently more quickly. Thankfully, Sword and Shield, despite having permanent EXP Share, had a pretty well designed level curve overall, albeit still a little flawed on that front and the gyms were still on the easy end (Leon on the other hand though is legit a great Champion and had a really good team).
Now granted, there is perhaps a charm to that old tedium that people find likable and why they would prefer having the EXP Share off. Investing that sheer level of time and effort to raise a team by backtracking and grinding, and putting in the effort to raise each and every one of your Pokemon, can feel incredibly rewarding. So while the older games are still easy, per se, they were more grind-heavy, but because of there was a lot of grinding, raising your team to such a high level by the end of the game feels rewarding and extremely satisfying as a result: all of your Pokemon are where they are now because you worked so hard with each and every one of them. Even though the EXP Share reduces tedium and grinding, there's a psychological downside to that: it means that getting your team to become high level and strong doesn't feel as rewarding anymore because you basically just did the bare minimum to make your team strong. Like, wait, that's it? So while tedium is pretty old school, older fans probably liked that because the grinding through Trainer rematches can still have that psychological satisfaction when you do finally beat the Champion and the League and complete your adventure.
Now perhaps, a best of both worlds would likely be ideal. BW2, and Gen 5 overall, had the best designed level curve of all the games and ensured a very smooth experience without an extensive need for grinding. And that was where the current EXP Share mechanics didn't exist. Gen 6 and Gen 7 had the EXP Share as an optional thing, and perhaps that's for the best maybe. Or they could make that EXP Share permanent but better optimize the level curve.
But the main thing is, as far as actual challenge and difficulty goes, the level curve alone isn't what will constitute genuine challenge. Good teams, good Pokemon with good movesets, and IVs or maybe even a bit of EVs will go a long way in creating a genuinely challenging Pokemon experience. The Totem Pokemon, while taking it a step too far, are a pretty good example of what real challenge is. But granted, challenge should likely be an option and going back to Gen 5, having a Challenge mode like BW2 did, except now with Pokemon that had legitimately good movesets, items, EVs maybe, and vice versa, will go a long way in creating a good experience for veteran players. After all, Pokemon is a franchise meant to be kid-friendly, and so the current overall difficulty of the games is fine as a default, but there should be options as well for the more veteran/established people who would prefer something challenging. BW2 at least constitutes the best designed examples of a well designed level curve and having good challenge.
I'm rambling at this point, but this is basically my main point about EXP Share: it alone does not make the games easier as much as it does reduce tedium. It reduces the need for grinding that older games absolutely mandated to keep up with the level curve, but even then Game Freak hasn't totally nailed making a level curve that works perfectly with it always on, which is also another issue that needs to be approached. That being said, the current EXP Share in and of itself is a fine concept and it's not an issue when it comes to the issue of difficulty of the games.
But the main unpopular opinion I have here is that the EXP Share isn't making the games easier. What it really does is that it makes the games less tedious. EXP Share by itself makes spreading the EXP across the party much easier so now everyone gradually levels up in strength more quickly. And as a result, it's easier to keep up with the level curve of the game and keep your whole team up to par with the levels of the Trainers you face across the game. Especially if you're using a full team of six. In that sense, it reduces the need for extensive grinding and allows you to not need to put in the tedium to make sure your team is up to par with where the game wants you to be level-wise at each point.
The Pokemon games in general are not that hard. Build a good team, understand type matchups, and be on part or just a little underleveled with your opponents, and you're all set: you can just beat them easy peasy because none of them have EVs or competitive movesets. Sun and Moon were so far one of the few examples of a legitimately challenging game because the Totem Pokemon had genuinely good movesets and teammates to create truly compelling battles.
Gen 3 and Gen 4's level curves created artificial difficulty by being steep to the point where you need to grind extensively to catch up at various points if you want to keep up with the level curve. And there was a way to do that: they had Trainer rematches. The amount of experience you can gain without Trainer Eyes/Match Call/Vs. Seeker in those games is pretty thin, so if you use a full team of six, you're gonna be underleveled without relying on the Trainer rematches. As an example, look no further than Lueroi's very well known Sapphire and LeafGreen walkthroughs, where his teams were clearly horribly underleveled. So you need to grind, especially in RSE, FRLG, and DP and HGSS, and basically the game wants you to backtrack on a regular basis and find all those rematch-upgraded Trainers and rebattle them at every conceivable point. If you do that, your Pokemon will be fine in terms of levels and will be up to snuff with the level curve, and the games aren't too hard if you do that to catch up. But that's not actually challenge. That's tedium. That's putting in extra time and effort to raise your team so that they catch up, including the extra backtracking you have to do throughout the region to go find all those rematchable Trainers all over again and battle them.
As an example of how much time this adds, in my latest Diamond playthrough where I constantly backtracked and found every possible Trainer at every opportunity and rematched, including Trainers in hidden places via Surf/Rock Climb, once I was at the League my playthrough was around 30 hours long. After the post game I had spent around 50 hours. Meanwhile, in my Y playthrough, after doing practically everything including the post-game, I had spent around 25 hours. That's half the time I spent on Diamond.
My BW1 playthrough after doing everything up to Alder was also around 25 hours long. But in this case, the games may not be that hard, but the key thing is that Gen 5, despite not having the EXP Share, had a genuinely good level curve and combined with the EXP system of that generation, made sure that you were more or less up to snuff with a good team level wise. BW2 arguably was even better and had a very smooth level curve including the post game (whereas BW1's post game levels spike immediately from the low 50's to 62-65). There were also very easy training spots.
Which leads to the other problem, which is that Game Freak clearly optimized XY and SM's level curves in such a way that the EXP Share should be toggled. In other words, constantly turn it on and off at various points. XY's level curve is very strange in that it flatlines at certain points then becomes incredibly steep at other points. There are quite a few notable level jumps in both XY and SM where you absolutely need to use EXP Share to catch up. I found myself actually toggling the EXP Share on and off at various points, as from my experience with XY, if you keep EXP Share off the entire time, you will end up sorely underleveled for the League. Keep in on the entire game, however, and you will be severely overleveled and curbstomp everything in sight. There are clear points in the game where you are expected to turn it on, namely around the Reflection Cave point, and then are expected to turn it back off at other points. Same with SM, where it's ideal to keep it off for most of Ula'Ula and Akala but turn it on towards the end of Akala and the whole Aether and Poni segments as around Poni the level curve gets really steep.
There's a problem there where for the most optimal experience, you basically have to turn EXP Share on at different points to catch up to a steep level jump. But that requires you to keep track of whether you have EXP Share on or off and keep up with the curve. Granted, however, this still does reduce tedium, as while Gen 3 and Gen 4 run off a similar level curve style as Gens 6 and 7, the older gens made you use Trainer rematches to grind your team which adds tedium, while the Gens 6 and 7 had a togglable EXP Share mechanic, which while less tedious, requires you to go into the bag and turn it on and off several times.
That being said, the use of EXP Share in newer gens does in fact, reduce tedium. As I said, it's not the challenge that's going down in recent games, it's the amount of time and effort you have to spend on training your team that's getting shorter. But even then, however, Game Freak's level curves still make it so that EXP Share should be on only at certain points, so it's still not perfect in that regard. Pokemon isn't, and never really has been, a challenging experience. The older games were just a lot slower, and necessitated significantly more grinding and time to keep a team of 6 on par with the level curve of those games. In other words, a lot grindier. So in other words, the newer games are about as difficult, per se, in terms of the actual challenge of the battles, as the previous games. But they require less actual grinding to keep up in terms of experience, and the EXP Share ensures that that tedium is reduced. Which is why playing the newer games feels "easier", per se, it's that the games require less time to catch up with the level curve and thus can be completed efficiently more quickly. Thankfully, Sword and Shield, despite having permanent EXP Share, had a pretty well designed level curve overall, albeit still a little flawed on that front and the gyms were still on the easy end (Leon on the other hand though is legit a great Champion and had a really good team).
Now granted, there is perhaps a charm to that old tedium that people find likable and why they would prefer having the EXP Share off. Investing that sheer level of time and effort to raise a team by backtracking and grinding, and putting in the effort to raise each and every one of your Pokemon, can feel incredibly rewarding. So while the older games are still easy, per se, they were more grind-heavy, but because of there was a lot of grinding, raising your team to such a high level by the end of the game feels rewarding and extremely satisfying as a result: all of your Pokemon are where they are now because you worked so hard with each and every one of them. Even though the EXP Share reduces tedium and grinding, there's a psychological downside to that: it means that getting your team to become high level and strong doesn't feel as rewarding anymore because you basically just did the bare minimum to make your team strong. Like, wait, that's it? So while tedium is pretty old school, older fans probably liked that because the grinding through Trainer rematches can still have that psychological satisfaction when you do finally beat the Champion and the League and complete your adventure.
Now perhaps, a best of both worlds would likely be ideal. BW2, and Gen 5 overall, had the best designed level curve of all the games and ensured a very smooth experience without an extensive need for grinding. And that was where the current EXP Share mechanics didn't exist. Gen 6 and Gen 7 had the EXP Share as an optional thing, and perhaps that's for the best maybe. Or they could make that EXP Share permanent but better optimize the level curve.
But the main thing is, as far as actual challenge and difficulty goes, the level curve alone isn't what will constitute genuine challenge. Good teams, good Pokemon with good movesets, and IVs or maybe even a bit of EVs will go a long way in creating a genuinely challenging Pokemon experience. The Totem Pokemon, while taking it a step too far, are a pretty good example of what real challenge is. But granted, challenge should likely be an option and going back to Gen 5, having a Challenge mode like BW2 did, except now with Pokemon that had legitimately good movesets, items, EVs maybe, and vice versa, will go a long way in creating a good experience for veteran players. After all, Pokemon is a franchise meant to be kid-friendly, and so the current overall difficulty of the games is fine as a default, but there should be options as well for the more veteran/established people who would prefer something challenging. BW2 at least constitutes the best designed examples of a well designed level curve and having good challenge.
I'm rambling at this point, but this is basically my main point about EXP Share: it alone does not make the games easier as much as it does reduce tedium. It reduces the need for grinding that older games absolutely mandated to keep up with the level curve, but even then Game Freak hasn't totally nailed making a level curve that works perfectly with it always on, which is also another issue that needs to be approached. That being said, the current EXP Share in and of itself is a fine concept and it's not an issue when it comes to the issue of difficulty of the games.
A good example of this is Platinum's Elite Four. Their teams are around 10 levels lower than in Diamond and Pearl, but the difficulty is practically the same.
I agree though I still think they need to dial back the Exp. Share (especially if they want to always keep it on).
Giving it some thought (and not suggesting my "Level Cap" idea), I think I have an idea how they could lessen the intrusiveness of the Exp. Share but keep it as an anti-tedium tool: Have it so the Exp. Share only gives experience to Pokemon who Levels are lower than the highest level member of your party. Unless you keep using the same Pokemon for every battle, you'll likely keep switching around Pokemon and if you do that than I think this change would keep your Pokemon's levels at a decent curve as the Pokemon(s) with the highest levels won't be getting experience unless they participated in the battle thus giving all your other Pokemon a chance to catch-up.
I wrote shorter essays in college, geez!
Now, I ain't going to demonize the new Exp. All. But there are some serious, serious issues with it.
The worst, and most overlooked is that it doesn't play nice with the Exp. Groups, which have been straight-up mistakes from day 1, but it gets ugly here.
If you got a Slow Group mon, and you try to keep your team evenly leveled, you'll definitely wind up having to use that mon more than the rest.
Speaking of which, this bothered me when I played USUM with the Exp. All on the whole time. I had to run 12 mons to break even with the level curve. That meant I barely got to actually use them.
Now, there is a positive thing about it. It definitely makes grinding quicker or straight-up unnecessary.
On the other hand, it utterly fails at the Exp. Share's original purpose of helping a lower-leveled teammate catch up with the rest of the party.
The fact that if I boot up USUM, catch a Cutiefly 4 levels below my party, turn on the Exp. All and the whole party will get experience instead of just the one mon that actually needs it is a disaster and nothing but poor design. The scaling Exp. isn't enough to offset that issue.
Lol it ended up longer than I thought it would be haha (Many of my posts on the internet in general end up pretty long). But it only took me a few minutes really. Once I get going, it just keeps flowing. I remember back in high school I had to give a speech for an assignment and managed to pull it straight out of improv with very minimal preparation and did well on it.
I think Codraroll can probably testify to the first (he talked about the misery of having to use a Pupitar and the struggles of raising it). I can also relate having attempted to raise a Goomy and Beldum/Metang throughout USUM.
But yeah, it's a flawed execution. It basically means Pokemon in different EXP Groups will either get ahead or fall behind, which means certain Pokemon will end up overused or underused on a playthrough regardless of how good they are.
As for the second issue...yeah, I think the only way you can really get to do that is to use the bait-and-switch technique even with the EXP Share on.
Yeah, as I said, the execution is far from perfect. In Gen 6 it's especially egregious because the level curve wasn't perfectly optimized to have it on except at a few distinct points where the levels spike immensely (especially around Victory Road, where there's a huge level jump). Turn it on all the time, and you'll be too strong with a team in the 70's. Turn it off all the time, and your team will be sorely underleveled for the Elite Four and Champion at the low-mid 50's at most. I found that the best way to use EXP Share in Gens 6 and 7 was to actually switch it on and off at various points: turn it on when the level curve gets steeper, then turn it off for other points to ensure I don't go too over the level curve. It's a flawed execution and they haven't really nailed the level curves to utilize the EXP Share all mechanic (especially since Sword and Shield's IoA also has permanent EXP Charm which is even worse!). They should either better optimize the level curves or let the EXP Share be turned off.
And you can't turn that off either!!!
Seriously Game Freak! What happened to the whole talk of "letting players choose how hard they want to make the game?"
Very well said, and I agree totally. We need to distinguish between tedium and genuine difficulty, something I think tier lists could even use to drive a new way of tier listing that allows players to enjoy the game and challenge themselves if they wish - without falling prey to the level curve.
Gen 7 was legitimately tough as you said in a way few or none were with excellent strategies on the opponents' part, Gen 4 and Gen 3 included for sure. I'd add that the Johto games have the worst level curves I've ever seen in any game, by far - to the point that even a 4-mon team that regularly fights trainers, uses rare candies, etc. in some cases may still have an unevolved starter (my Quilava) after the seventh badge.
Just add a toggle to what party slots you want to get extra Exp. Can't remember who gave this idea here but it's brilliant.
Considering you can access the PC everywhere, it's as simple as sending the Pokémon to the box.
Think that was me (among other suggestions).
Yeah, but what if you want to use that Pokemon but it's gotten to the point where it's a bit overleveled?
After juggling a party of 16 through Sword, I don't mind benching a Pokémon for a while.
a party of 16?! wow. how would you describe that experience?
was it difficult? was it challenging? was it easy?
It was really fun, being able to use every Gen VIII Pokémon I liked (and didn't require trading - sorry, Eiscue and Appletun). Finally, no more having to do extensive planning to pick only six options for the entire game.
And I wouldn't say it was challenging (it's Pokémon, so it's going to be easy unless you go through massive restrictions), but I ended up being underleveled for most of the second half of the story.
that's great to hear! organic playstyles rock.
well, not untrue, though it can get tedious due to level differences imo...how underleveled were you? 2 levels? 5? 10?
Generally no more than 2 or 3 levels, not counting the sudden level spike that Leon is.
ah, that's not bad at all then.
Adding to the roast of the modern exp share, anyone remember how tedious was to get an early game Gyarados? You have to sit through grinding of the slow-exp rate weak af Magikarp (who usually begins at lv 5-10), but at lv 20 you get rewarded with a very powerful mon stat wise whose movepool gets better overtime. The modern exp share makes this grindfest a non issue so now there's pretty much no drawback at getting an early Gyarados to easily break through the game (or any other Magikarp variant like Wimpod).
SwSh makes it even more absurd, WATERFALL AT LEVEL 21 AND CRUNCH AT LEVEL 24.
SwSh makes it even more absurd, WATERFALL AT LEVEL 21 AND CRUNCH AT LEVEL 24.
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True, Dragonite is also a very friendly Pokemon. Dragonite is definitely one of my favorite pseudo-legendaries, and I think its pretty cute. I guess I never thought of it on the same level of cute as Goodra because of that Johto episode where it goes on an outrage and destroys a forest, and how Iris's Dragonite was portrayed. And there was also Moon's Pokedex Entry: "Incur the wrath of this normally calm Pokémon at your peril, because it will smash everything to smithereens before it's satisfied."
As for battle performance, its true Goodra has never been at the top of the crop in Singles. It has, however, had pretty good results in VGC 14, 17, and early 20, specifically as a special wall that can take on the likes of Sun, Rain, and plethora Special Attackers like Gengar, Greninja, Mega Charizard Y, Thundurus, Ludicolo, Nihilego, Zapdos, Porygon-Z etc. There very few Pokemon who can blanket check all those. Sap Sipper is also incredibly useful against Amoonguss, and access to Sludge Bomb gave it a better than average matchup against Fairy types than the Kommo-o and Hydreigon.
On the topic if the game's transitions to 3D.
Interesting point, though I wouldn't call it unique to Rayquaza. Kyogre and Groudon have been respected throughout Hoenn, and Rayquaza itself was deemed the protector of Hoenn in ORAS so it definitely wasn't " forgotten " by the people of Hoenn. I'd argue that Giratina is also a " forgotten " Pokemon in a similar manner to Rayquaza.
"No...! I'm so sorry I took so long. I think I finally found the answer from studying the myths. When this world was made, Dialga and Palkia appeared. Apparently, there was one more Pokémon that appeared at the same time. A Pokémon with as much power as Dialga and Palkia... But also one whose name was never to be spoken--Giratina! - Cynthia
Its not a quote, but a man Eterna City in Platinum states that there was a third plate was torn off, which is heavily implied to be Giratina.
Its not a quote, but a man Eterna City in Platinum states that there was a third plate was torn off, which is heavily implied to be Giratina.
Its definitely safe to say that Giratina is also a forgotten- and forbidden- Pokemon in Sinnoh. Even its Platinum's Pokedex entry suggests a Dark History: It was banished for its violence. It silently gazed upon the old world from the Distortion World. Which suggests that Giratina is a violent Pokemon with a dark history. I guess that's why Giratina is the most popular of all the Sinnoh Dragons.
Anyway, I wonder if the reason why Rayquaza is so popular because it happened to be the very first Legendary Dragon- a trend that would continue to this day, with each gen introducing at least one Legendary Dragon each gen.
On the topic of 2D to 3D, I agree with mostly with what is said, and I like to add my own experiences. I agree that games definitely still feel like 2D games to a degree, especially when it comes to battle animations. Its not all bad though, they did ditch the limited movement and bird's eye view in Gen 7, and the super mechanics would either not be visually appealing or simply not possible 2D. Imagine the Z-move poses and animations being done in 2D very hard, if not impossible. Dynamax would be impossible on handhelds simply because of the small screen and low resolution.
I've already praised SM for being some of the best looking games of the franchise ( way better than SwSh ), but it took me a long time to realize that. Why? Well, because I played SM on an original 3DS and, OH MY LORD, its very clear they wanted you play these games on the New 3DS. When ever I first started my Moon cartridge on my 3DS, I got the message, " The SD card is corrupted", it took me like 30 minutes to get my copy running. Every time when I opened by Moon game, it always felt like it took 30-40 seconds for the title screen to load. And that's before things like Double Battles, where the trainers the stand motionless for 10 seconds. If you quit the game from the home screen on the original 3DS, you had to restart the whole system. And that's before considering the performance issues. I guess the best way to describe it for New 3DS players is this: Playing Gen 7 on an original 3DS was like playing DP.
I more minor qualm with the performance was that that they were partially why Triple and Rotation Battles were removed in Gen 7, which was unfortunate because I did a lot of triple battles in XY.
And lastly, I'm also disappointed that Pokemon are not scaled properly in SwSh despite being scaled in Let's Go. One of the reasons why a console game was popular in thought because you can get Pokemon scaled to actual size. This was excusable on handheld due to the small screen due to the low resolution, and aforementioned screen issue. There's no reason why this error happens on console. But it does, and looks really bad in SwSh , with the stadiums being huge and The Pokemon is so tiny. You know things look bad when Eternatus, the largest Pokemon is the same size as the trainer. DK speculates a reason why Pokemon are not scaled properly is to emulate a style from the 2D games in which the Pokemon are facing the back, and that would not be possible if the Pokemon were scaled properly. Another example of how 2D style is used in the 3D games and it does not work well.
Anyway, a big reason why the 3DS games lag so much is because the models have extremely high polygon amounts in order to future proof them for stronger hardware on the Switch. To prove how flexible they are, the same models are used on SmartPhones like Go and Masters. DistantKingdom provides a breakdown while also criticizing a controversial YouTuber for his false claims.
I agree this sentiment. I've played DragonQuest 11 and Xenoblade Chronicles and they both use experience share, and yet I found the games challenging. If anything, Pokemon's easiness comes from the lack good AI and IVs and bad movesets. For example, every generic trainer that isn't part of the gym challenge have their IVs set to 0 in SwSh. Or the lack of proper movesets, for example, Allister's Mimikyu doesn't have a single Fairy type move despite being an excellent way to prevent you from steamrolling with Dark types. It doesn't even have 4 moves. If you know basics of The Pokemon, I highly doubt SwSh would prove challenging even if you did not have the experience share.
Funny, if this game never existed, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE would have been proposed as a Pokemon x Fire Emblem crossover.