Unpopular opinions

ScraftyIsTheBest said:
Now imo, I feel like a best of both worlds would be the most ideal type of postgame content to have. I think Sword and Shield has managed to do that with the DLC...except....IT'S DLC. Crown Tundra was a pretty damn good post-game content with an incredible Wild Area to explore plus Dynamax Adventures being sooo much fun to do. But in any case, I feel like the 3DS era focused on building post-game story arcs, but it did so too much to the point where they focused less on having places to explore and thus the scope feels smaller as a result. If perhaps they gave some good post-game story episodes as well as more places to explore, that could make for a thoroughly engaging post-game.
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And that is why DLC is a good step forward.

Would you rather buy the exact same game + bells and whistles, or buy just the bells and whistles to add to your copy?

Crown Tundra was nice, IoA was excellent, and if SwSh didn't have serious technical issues, they'd be much more appreciated. The fact that they *had* to make them sell by themselves was also good for the customers because they need to have a level of quality that entice people to buy them.

The trade-off is obvious. We pay less, get potentially better content but are more reliant on GF sticking the base game. And that was SwSh's biggest problem.

Game Freak needs to sit down, look at that engine and start coming up with a new one. The current one just won't do the trick. The performance issues are a result of rushed shoddy coding.


These potential Sinnoh Remakes or even the next ones, we don't know for sure what GF is coming up with are crucial to the future of the franchise. quality-wise.
 
Sorry that I’ve been gone for like a few weeks. Got Xenoblade Chronicles 2, fun game. Thinking about getting the first one as well.

Anyway, an unpopular opinion as far as I’ve seen is that right now, the type chart is fine. I’ll definitely pour one out for ice types being nonexistent defensively and bug types being absolutely shit without another typing, but as I see it right now, even the most dominant types, Fairy, Steel, and Water (Fairy at top, water at bottom) I feel aren’t actually overpowered. I can see why people do think Fairy is busted as having its two types that are nonexistent offensively is pretty damn good, but imo, it gave them more of a niche instead of Poison being banished to the Distortion World for only being super effective on grass and Steel being budget fighting offensively (Though admittedly the steel type’s whole schtick is just being a blanket defensive check to most things, it shouldn’t really be an offensive typing but thankfully it’s still bad offensively). I’ve just never seen the type chart to be all that messed up even with how good the traits are of the top 3 types, but it’s something that people tend to complain about a lot, especially about the aforementioned ice and bug types, but eh, it’s unpopular for a reason.
 
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ZB7 said:
Anyway, an unpopular opinion as far as I’ve seen is that right now, the type chart is fine. I’ll definitely pour one out for ice types being nonexistent defensively and bug types being absolutely shit without another typing, but as I see it right now, even the most dominant types, Fairy, Steel, and Water (Fairy at top, water at bottom) I feel aren’t actually overpowered. I can see why people do think Fairy is busted as having its two types that are nonexistent offensively is pretty damn good, but imo, it gave them more of a niche instead of Poison being banished to the Distortion World for only being super effective on grass despite and Steel being budget fighting offensively (Though admittedly the steel type’s whole schtick is just being a blanket defensive check to most things, it shouldn’t really be an offensive typing but thankfully it’s still bad offensively). I’ve just never seen the type chart to be all that messed up even with how good the traits are of the top 3 types, but it’s something that people tend to complain about a lot, especially about the aforementioned ice and bug types, but eh, it’s unpopular for a reason.
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I disagree, and propose an even more broken type chart that sparked heavy convos a couple pages ago
types-1.png

But yeah, Fairy isn't too bad, even if I dislike it cuz it became the new Dragon. Dragon's issue was moreso the stats and buffed Outrage than type really
 
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Honestly, the problem with the type chart is less of the types themselves but rather the Pokémon in each type.

For example, Fairy seems defensively busted because Poison and Steel, now perfectly serviceable offensive types, are lacking in offensively good STAB users or access to strong moves, and Ice feels bad because most Pokémon in the type are of the "Mighty Glacier" category, even though the type itself is a Glass Cannon.

Then you have something like the Grass-type, with SEVEN resists and only three super-effectives, but it's seen on a much better light than Poison or Steel because it has plenty of ways to hit hard.
 
Siggu said:
Then you have something like the Grass-type, with SEVEN resists and only three super-effectives, but it's seen on a much better light than Poison or Steel because it has plenty of ways to hit hard
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Grass is usually seen as a liability with the silver lining of good status utility tho.
 
ZB7 said:
Sorry that I’ve been gone for like a few weeks. Got Xenoblade Chronicles 2, fun game. Thinking about getting the first one as well.

Anyway, an unpopular opinion as far as I’ve seen is that right now, the type chart is fine. I’ll definitely pour one out for ice types being nonexistent defensively and bug types being absolutely shit without another typing, but as I see it right now, even the most dominant types, Fairy, Steel, and Water (Fairy at top, water at bottom) I feel aren’t actually overpowered. I can see why people do think Fairy is busted as having its two types that are nonexistent offensively is pretty damn good, but imo, it gave them more of a niche instead of Poison being banished to the Distortion World for only being super effective on grass despite and Steel being budget fighting offensively (Though admittedly the steel type’s whole schtick is just being a blanket defensive check to most things, it shouldn’t really be an offensive typing but thankfully it’s still bad offensively). I’ve just never seen the type chart to be all that messed up even with how good the traits are of the top 3 types, but it’s something that people tend to complain about a lot, especially about the aforementioned ice and bug types, but eh, it’s unpopular for a reason.
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I would add another Ghost Resistance. It’s tied for Dragon being the least resisted type. The problem is that Ghost only has one type that can effectively switch in and threaten it back, Dark. While Normal is immune to Ghost, it cannot due anything back. Not to mention that the Handpool of Pokémon Normal Pokémon that could switch into Ghost is severely limited: Blissey/Chansey, Porygon2, and Snorlax are pretty much the only normal types that can wall Ghost types consistently, and they need to run a coverage move to actually a threaten Ghost types back, like Shadow Ball on Blissey, which is not considered optimal in other scenarios. This makes Dark Types the only type in the game that can take Ghost moves consistently and place offensive pressure on them. As a result, certain combinations of Ghost/Fairy and Ghost/Fighting are near perfect combinations, with the latter being unresisted coverage with no types resisting it in game. This means Pokémon like Gengar and Marshadow have perfect coverage with Ghost type moves and fighting coverage, the latter getting STAB on those moves.

People bring up the argument that Ghost is balanced because the low BP of its moves, but I don’t believe that’s completely a counter arguement. Look at Spectrier. It has an incredibly Shallow movepool, yet it was still banned from National Dex and being suspect tested in OU thanks to limited defensive checks and Spectrier’s ability to play around them. The defensive answers for National Dex were Tyranitar, Hydreigon, Blissey, and some more niche picks like Mandibuzz and Alolan Muk, and Spectrier could play around each so they weren’t even 100%. Just because Shadow Ball is low BP does not make it any less spammable. A similar case can be seen with Gengar. With Focus Blast and Thundebolt, it can destroy all those answers. Even a more niche pick like Mismagius can use Shadow Ball + Dazzling Gleam for near perfect coverage, why Mimikyu has STAB for both attacks.

I would personally add a type that resists both Ghost and Fairy and is not weak to fighting to keep Ghost in check.
 
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Sonikku A said:
I disagree, and propose an even more broken type chart that sparked heavy convos a couple pages ago
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But yeah, Fairy isn't too bad, even if I dislike it cuz it became the new Dragon. Dragon's issue was moreso the stats and buffed Outrage than type really
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I still stand by my opinion that bug should be neutral to fire and weak to ice. They’re friggin’ cold blooded, man! Why are they weak to fire? Did they just want to make bug a grass clone?
Also, I know I’m a couple days late, but I’ve got to get in on this glaceon drama. First of all, glaceon is probably one of the better designed eeveelutons. It’s simple and to the point, but it still has plenty of reference to its type. I mean, it has those dangly ears and a blue crest thing on its head, which makes it look like it has a little winter hat. The head thing even looks like little ice crystals. And that’s just the head. If there’s one eeveelution we should be trashing on, it’s umbreon. I mean, it’s eevee, but black. They even gave it red eyes! oooOOOOoooh! How edgy! Compared to the other eeveelutions (except sylveon, which is a whole different rant) umbreon has got to be the least interesting. Also, it has Ursaring’s random-lines-and-shapes-all-over-my-body disorder
 
Don't want to miss the game ranking discussion!

Here's mine:
  1. Top Tier: RSE, GSC - All of my nostalgia is in these two. I appreciate the simplicity of them and how innovative they tried to be despite the hardware limitations.
  2. High Tier: HGSS, BW2, Platinum - Two definitive versions, and the other that, in my mind still is, the pinnacle of what Pokemon design should be (but not when I'm blinded by nostalgia for Gens 2/3)
  3. Mid Tier: BW, FRLG - Simple but effective. FRLG is still bland, but I've never really liked the Gen 1 Pokemon or games. I appreciate how BW tried to be innovative, but it's difficult to say it's better than BW2 when BW2 added so much to the game (other than bringing back old Pokemon)
  4. Low Tier: ORAS, RBY - Literally the 'indifferent to' tier. ORAS feels like a slap in the face to my nostalgia and RBY isn't as enjoyable as GSC.
  5. Bottom: XY, LGPE, SM, USUM, SwSh - If I never play these again, I'm okay with that.
 
Now here's a statement to crank our minds
which Gen had the best balanced comp
Personally I think RSE, but lets here your guy's though. If that's heavily hated or disliked, good. Unpopular is what this is after all
 
Ema Skye said:
Don't want to miss the game ranking discussion!

Here's mine:
  1. Top Tier: RSE, GSC - All of my nostalgia is in these two. I appreciate the simplicity of them and how innovative they tried to be despite the hardware limitations.
  2. High Tier: HGSS, BW2, Platinum - Two definitive versions, and the other that, in my mind still is, the pinnacle of what Pokemon design should be (but not when I'm blinded by nostalgia for Gens 2/3)
  3. Mid Tier: BW, FRLG - Simple but effective. FRLG is still bland, but I've never really liked the Gen 1 Pokemon or games. I appreciate how BW tried to be innovative, but it's difficult to say it's better than BW2 when BW2 added so much to the game (other than bringing back old Pokemon)
  4. Low Tier: ORAS, RBY - Literally the 'indifferent to' tier. ORAS feels like a slap in the face to my nostalgia and RBY isn't as enjoyable as GSC.
  5. Bottom: XY, LGPE, SM, USUM, SwSh - If I never play these again, I'm okay with that.
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Not sure if I’m breaking some kind of hidden smogon code by posting so many times, but what’s your beef with the gen 7 games? Lgpe & xy were definitely far from masterpieces, and swsh is swsh, but I personally felt like sm/usum were a high point in the series. I know there’s the common criticisms of hand-holdiness and unnessecary cutscenes, but outside of that, they felt like solid games to me. Maybe even some of my favorites. I’m not trying to tear down your opinion here, but I would love some more elaboration on this
 
DreamPrince said:
People bring up the argument that Ghost is balanced because the low BP of its moves, but I don’t believe that’s completely a counter arguement. Look at Spectrier. It has an incredibly Shallow movepool, yet it was still banned from National Dex and being suspect tested in OU thanks to limited defensive checks and Spectrier’s ability to play around them. The defensive answers for National Dex were Tyranitar, Hydreigon, Blissey, and some more niche picks like Mandibuzz and Alolan Muk, and Spectrier could play around each so they weren’t even 100%. Just because Shadow Ball is low BP does not make it any less spammable. A similar case can be seen with Gengar. With Focus Blast and Thundebolt, it can destroy all those answers. Even a more niche pick like Mismagius can use Shadow Ball + Dazzling Gleam for near perfect coverage, why Mimikyu has STAB for both attacks.
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Spectrier is also obscenely fast, obscenely strong, decently bulky, has an incredible ability, and has just enough versatility in its shallow movepool to get around almost anything. One Pokemon being stupid overpowered does not a stupid overpowered type make.
 
Which is kind of why I have that idea that it's not the type chart that is skewed (okay, it might be, but it's not the main problem) but the type representation.

You have the Ice-type that can't reach its potential because properly-made Ice-types are the exception, not the norm. You have Electric-types that are properly represented offensively, but defensive Electric-types taking advantage of having only one weakness are extremely rare (the best example of a "defensive" Electric-type is actually one with an offensive stat distribution - Zapdos).

And we could keep going.
 
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DrPumpkinz said:
Spectrier is also obscenely fast, obscenely strong, decently bulky, has an incredible ability, and has just enough versatility in its shallow movepool to get around almost anything. One Pokemon being stupid overpowered does not a stupid overpowered type make.
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Ok, here’s a list of top tier Ghost types, or historically speaking: Gengar and Mega, Lunala, Calyrex-Shadow, Mimikyu, Rotom, Dragapault, Giratina ( Both Forms ), Aegislah, Spectrier, Marshadow, and Blacephalon to name a few. That’s probably on par for Dragon types Gen 5. Oh BTW, if we are going by the logic that one Pokémon is OP does not make the type OP, that means Dragon was never a broken type. There far too many “good” Dragon types.
 
Sonikku A said:
Now here's a statement to crank our minds
which Gen had the best balanced comp
Personally I think RSE, but lets here your guy's though. If that's heavily hated or disliked, good. Unpopular is what this is after all
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Ohhhhhh boy, that's gonna be a crazy one.

I like that.

I wanna say GSC.

Power creep wasn't crazy yet, there wasn't a bunch of nukes running around (Megas, Z-Moves) and every playstyle had something to do without being super good. No EV min-maxing also made mixed sets good and offensive mons bulky enough for things to not devolve into Hyper Offense bumrushing.
 
Volt-Ikazuchi said:
Grass is usually seen as a liability with the silver lining of good status utility tho.
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Grass has pretty good defensive niches when paired with certain other types (all of its resistances save itself are very nice to have). See especially: Ferrothorn. Offensively it's mainly good because it hits Water and Ground super effectively (particularly when they're on the same Pokémon :bloblul:). Kinda the opposite of Dragon: a mediocre/bad STAB but very critical coverage for some Pokémon.

I don't really want to make a tier list of games RN but I'll post my thoughts on each of them:

These games just don't hold up well from a QoL standpoint at all. You can play them for/with the glitches, sure, but when status menus are bare and irritating to navigate, HMs require you to go into your party to use, an on-person bag of 20 and only 50 additional slots available in the PC, and, AI aside, in-game trainers only have their level up movesets 99% of the time, they just don't do a lot to spice up battles. If they had the QoL improvements Gen 2 had they'd be better--still probably the worst to play through casually of all the games, but much more playable. I do love Cerulean Cave as a postgame dungeon, though; its wild Pokémon tables are extremely varied and fun to experience. I also respect being able to buy most evolution stones freely; it's frustrating that they've either been hair-pullingly scarce or an annoying grind to obtain in almost every game since.

Not going to lie, I'm on the nostalgia train for these games, but I also admit that they have some pretty big flaws. The level curve (though I consider this a slightly bigger issue in the remakes, more on that later), limited access to the Johto Pokémon (especially the ones locked to Kanto, most notably every Dark type except Umbreon and Sneasel in Crystal), the choice to have most of the Johto Gym Leaders use Gen 1 Pokémon as aces, an unrewarding (and not really challenging) evil team encounter... they have problems. But, as I mentioned earlier, the QoL additions they got over RBY make a world of difference, and theyve been things that have stuck with the series since. The games also have some of the best dungeon designs in the series, IMO. Kanto is fairly barren, but that's the natural result of having to cram two regions into an already stretched GB cart. Oh, and they introduced shinies. That's pretty cool! Some of the additions like gender have clear implementation problems that more or less get fixed in Gen 3.

I'm including Crystal in with Gold and Silver because I don't think its differences cause it to stand out. It introduced the Battle Tower, which is probably one of the most important postgame additions in the series, and its implementation is even unique! They also added move tutors, something that I think is good mostly because it allowed for certain moves to be taught infinitely before TMs were made unbreakable. It was also the first game with mobile connectivity (back in 2000-2001). I appreciate the added lore for Johto; not having to chase Suicune down is an improvement, but you still have to catch Raikou and Entei if you want to catch Ho-oh, which is... bad (IMO). The Pokégear calls for items, especially evolutionary stones, is nice, but it also adds more strain on the already limited memory space in the Pokégear.

These games had the original Dexit, and I wasn't really on the internet to know what the level of outrage was with it. Of course, it was only from accessibility, as all Pokémon were still in the code, and it was gradually undone across the course of Gen 3. With that out of the way Ruby and Sapphire are kinda bare by themselves. Nothing of a postgame to speak of except the basic Battle Tower, and they went a little ham with the version exclusives. For all the crap Hoenn gets, it's a big region with a fairly diverse group of Pokémon to find. Pretty good biome diversity too! Unfortunately the Pokémon diversity doesn't extend to the water routes (at least by just Surfing). Oh, I almost forgot. Running Shoes. Thank you.

The first remakes of the series, FireRed and LeafGreen are, for the most part, faithful to Red and GreenBlue, for better or worse. They carry with them Kanto's lack of distinct biomes and occasionally corrected encounter tables (you don't find wild fire horses in Pokémon Mansion anymore, and Cerulean Cave's encounters feel more like a relatively generic cave level). Being restricted to Kanto Pokémon, and the game reminding you of that by showing your Pokémon trying to evolve (but can't) is kinda stupid. However, they DID add a good number of new areas in the Sevii Islands (which also fixes the biome problem a little bit, and gives Moltres an actually good location), and these games notably introduced the VS Seeker and stronger Elite Four rematches to the series, so I give them points for that. They do what they set out to do, with a little bit of an expanded world for the veteran player to explore. The move tutors that use some of the old TMs from RBY are a nice touch.

Oh, one more thing: I very much enjoy Kanto's map layout (this is true for both RBY and FRLG).

Emerald was a little bit ambitious with trying to cram the plots of Ruby and Sapphire into one game, and for the most part it succeeds. It causes both teams to be presented as an actual threat (as opposed to the originals where the team you were NOT actively fighting against was little more than a setpiece), and gave Groudon a reasonable location to be woken up from (instead of, you know, the bottom of the ocean. Maybe if it was its corpse). Hoenn itself is largely identical to Ruby and Sapphire, but where Emerald really shines is in its postgame. The Battle Frontier is, perhaps, an acknowledgement of players who know more about the series' inner workings than Game Freak is willing to openly expose, and a place for them to really test what they can do. Emerald also added Gym Leader rematches, something I feel is worth noting.

These games are just lacking in the oddest areas. Introduce ~25 new evolutions for older Pokémon but only have a handful of them obtainable in the main game? Surf speed matching walking speed? A painfully limited regional dex as a crappy call-back to RBY, and one that forces alleged type "specialists" to have teams that aren't even half of their designated type? Diamond and Pearl manage all of these. Yet, for all of their flaws, Diamond and Pearl are (for the most part) challenging, with said challenge being fairly well-distributed along the game, and have a pretty good-sized postgame to explore (aided by the numerous daily events and swarms to have you check back to see what new Pokémon you can catch). I also want to go on record and say that I LOVE that the mythicals that aren't Manaphy have actual locations in Sinnoh for you to catch them (though I don't think these were legally used or distributed). The DS integration was decent with the Poketch (it was the first time I felt like I could actually use the Itemfinder), and while it has problems for players who pick the games up beyond their release date, I liked how inserting the GBA games into your DS caused Pokémon from those games to appear. A neat way to expand the available Pokémon to catch.

It's hard to say whether Game Freak deliberately held content back from Diamond and Pearl to make Platinum stand out more (mostly thinking of the Pokédex here), but there's no denying that by fixing some of the QoL issues that DP had, drastically improving the Sinnoh Dex (it's almost certainly the most robust regional dex in the series that is still relatively limited), and tightening the story that Game Freak created something close to a masterpiece. And that's before you add in the Battle Frontier! Platinum is loaded with content, both during the main story and after, and it's unarguably a good game. The new move tutors seem geared to expand both strong options for STAB, as well as strong options for coverage, in addition to more tactical move choices. I guess it does lose a little charm when all of its specialists' teams are actually structured as they should be, but hey, that's a very minor (and arbitrary) flaw.

HeartGold and SoulSilver are, inarguably, meant to be nostalgia bait. But with that nostalgia bait, Game Freak also added content to the games to improve the general experience. The touch screen usage is excellent, and, unlike FRLG, they allowed for the evolutions added in Gen 4 to be used pre-national Dex, as long as they were something that just happened organically (mostly the "learn-move-evolution" types). With the expanded memory, Kanto is actually more than just a framework again (most apparent in its dungeons, especially the ones cut from GSC). Gym Leader and Elite Four rematches are implemented (with the Gym Leader ones being a real guide dang it experience, sadly). Unfortunately HGSS do little to fix the originals' level curve (Kanto is stronger, but then so is Red), and only a handful of Pokémon that were Kanto-exclusive are available before the postgame. Adding Platinum's Battle Frontier is a nice bonus to give the games more life, but it's not what the games are designed for and it should only really be what you're playing for if you don't have Platinum. If you liked GSC, you'll like HGSS, but if you didn't like the originals they won't do much for you since they don't have the balance issues that were generally fixed from RBY to FRLG.

I'll do the rest tomorrow, this took too long.
 
Dragon was a good type tho.

On defense. Look at how many solid resists it got! Sure, on offense it was really easy to click Dragon STAB and switch to Fire if Ice or Steel mons showed up, but I always liked Dragon's defensive value.

Similarly, Fairy is also another great defensive type with "Just click Moonblast" on offense, so no surprises with how it rose to top tier.

Interestingly enough, Normal, the ancient "It just works" type, fell off despite Return being even more spammable than EQ because of Steel being super common as a defensive type and lack of defensive value on Normal-types themselves.

(No, it wasn't stats, sic GSC Tauros on a team with Skarm down and you'll see just how good Normal-types can be on offense.)

Ghost is on a similar boat. Sure, clicking Shadow Ball will hit something fairly hard, but lack of defensive value + most Ghost mons having bad defensive stats make them tend more towards glass cannons like Gengar.
 
Solemn6 said:
Not sure if I’m breaking some kind of hidden smogon code by posting so many times, but what’s your beef with the gen 7 games? Lgpe & xy were definitely far from masterpieces, and swsh is swsh, but I personally felt like sm/usum were a high point in the series. I know there’s the common criticisms of hand-holdiness and unnessecary cutscenes, but outside of that, they felt like solid games to me. Maybe even some of my favorites. I’m not trying to tear down your opinion here, but I would love some more elaboration on this
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To me, Gen 7 games are basically Gen 6 games but with a different landscapes. The games aren't that different, it's just that one is in France and the other is in Hawaii.

They tried to change up the formula, but, to me, it didn't really do anything meaningful to change the game. Totems are functionally gym leaders, with the auras replacing item access.
 
Can't really say with fact which gen had the best comp, considering i literally only started playing comp at the tails end of xy, before sm got released, but I always thought gen 3 meta looked very cool.
Maybe its actually a horrible broken mess, but from what i've seen it was quite a balance from gen 2s stall and gen 4 power creep
 
My ranking of generations:

S-Rank: Top Tier (great as a game, can't stop playing again)
A-Rank: High Tier (good as a game, would love to play again)
B-Rank: Mid-High Tier (above average as a game, would play again)
C-Rank: Mid-Low Tier (below average as a game, wouldn't want to play again)

S-Rank: Gen 2 (fight me, Crystal is the very best like no game ever was, GS aren't as good in terms of quality-of-life improvements but have the Mareep line and easy Magmar at least among other things so they're technically only slightly less awesome and still awesome enough for S)

A-Rank: Gen 3 (FR/LG and Emerald were really good games with excellent replayability, good soundtracks, and overall great journeys as well as quality-of-life improvements over the originals, R/S a fair bit behind Emerald due to having fewer features but still good enough for low A)

B-Rank: Gen 4 (DPP would be Cs in my book but HGSS is A material so that balances out to be B - Sinnoh was kinda bleh as a region in many ways and the characters sucked honestly, an annoyance, but Johto was amazing and in some ways better than GSC although it kinda lost some of the magical feeling it had in those games and while the post-game is much better it didn't fix many issues in spite of being a remake, so...)

Gen 6 (XY have crazy Pokemon selection but very forgettable otherwise in terms of region and characters and C tier on its own - ORAS wasn't nearly ambitious enough as a remake and a lot more limited but a lot of great quality-of-life and other changes and Hoenn is more beautiful than ever as well as the badass post-game to go with it and would be A tier on its own so they average at B) :ps

Gen 7 (haven't played SM but USUM, in spite of the AWFUL slog at the beginning, are really good later on and deserve props for amazing Pokemon selection, great soundtracks, and very memorable characters as well as story while staying relatively light-hearted unlike edgy B1W1)

C-Rank: Gen 5 (haven't played B2W2 so rating it off solely B1W1 which I...did not like, having only new Pokemon and a super limited selection in the beginning at that are not positives and I honestly lost interest in completing the game, a first when it comes to Pokemon, expect B2W2 to be better; B1W1 also came off as somewhat edgy, which I don't really care for in a Pokemon game)

D-Rank: N/A (haven't played Gen 8 yet, not sure if it's worth the money)

Untiered: Gen 1 (the originals, not fair to rank them given when they came out and their position, although I'd say no more than B at best)

I must be the one person who's critical of DPP and BW both. :psysly:
 
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I think SM/USUM (never played USUM so I don't know the differences too well) were really what many people are calling for the games to be now. They attempted to change up the formula with the whole Kahuna business, and tried to have a present and engaging storyline. Although gamefreak has openly admitted that they don't listen to customer feedback, I can't help but feel as if one of the developers on the inside was underwhelmed with the previous generations and tried to have a more present story and change things up a bit. Of course, gamefreak's developers goofed up and ended up making the whole game too handholdy, but I could feel as though the effort was there in the story department to try to improve. Then gamefreak adopted the motto of "you sometimes have to take 1 step back to go 2 steps forward" but someone typoed or something and all of a sudden gamefreak took one step forward first and then took like 20 steps back. Then, in USUM, they went over the pendulum to the other way, trying to make the gameplay feel as engaging as they could, but since they were reusing many of the structures from SM they couldn't really hold up the present storyline and engaging gameplay at the same time (at least this is what I am guessing from what I've heard about USUM).

Plus, I've also heard rumors that Sword and Shield were developed for the 3ds, since the gamefreak head or whoever thought that the switch wouldn't sell well, but then realized how absurdly wrong he was and tried to port it over to the switch. OOPS! Looks like those 3ds models that looked pretty good for the console before now look like poop.

To be quite frank, I have pretty high hopes for the series going forward (this is where the unpopular opinion comes in). There's no way that the air of improvement that gamefreak felt during the production of SM went away so darn fast, and there's no way gamefreak actually believes that "kids these days have shortened attention spans so we cut content." That was probably the best the marketing team came up with as an excuse to why their games weren't as complete as past ones. SM is evidence that there are people with good intentions for the series, and although they may not always be able to deliver, I believe in the saying that "where there's a will, there's a way." At some point in the near future there will be a point where there are no shenanigans, no planning/marketing failures and the development team will have full rein on creating the product that they imagined SM to be.

Here's to hoping that that renaissance point comes in the near future.
 
USUM (and SM by extension to a degree) deserve a lot of praise for the amount of things they did and tried to do differently. A lot of good Pokemon you can obtain ingame, some of the best soundtracks in the series, multiple surprisingly good and even complex characters, one of the scariest bosses in any game, beautiful graphics all in all, the ability to fight extremely powerful boss Pokemon that summon minions that complement them, and the new Pokemon look great. Z-Crystals also deserve points for creativity and potentially uplifting the viability of a lot of otherwise forgettable Pokemon like Lopunny, Mantine Surfing, and the points you get for it (muuuuch better than and easier than the Game Corner in any game). The UBs rocked too and so did the post-game with battling Rainbow Rocket and Red/Blue - it's clear this was a very ambitious game, although the initial slog honestly sucks.

I love you can get Pikachu so early too, being a fan of the Pokemon.
 
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