Yeah, RSE was the last game fighting a legendary wasn't mandatory, but even then they're still heavily mentioned
Post game self discoveries are rarer these days...
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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
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Post game self discoveries are rarer these days...
You don’t need to fight Zygarde in XY, Kyurem in BW, Mewtwo in LGPE, Heatran in DPPt AND B2W2, or 3 of the Tapus in SM.
The hidden postgame legendary is a series staple lmao. SwSh is the first to break this afaik.
Not exactly. Kyurem couldn’t be caught in BW2 until the Post game, and Rayquaza was a not a required fight in Emerald at all. SwSh also gives you Eternatus instead of the mascot, so it still has a Legendary part of its plot that is required.
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Rayquaza was a post-game only legendary in RS, and even in Emerald you're not forced to catch it, only to meet up with it once to ask for its help, whether you caught it or not later was entirely up to you.
Also worth noting that Giratina was also a post-game exclusive optional legendary in DP originally. Regigigas, Cresselia, and the Lake Guardians were also optional.
The third legendaries in particular were post-game exclusive bonus legendaries in their debut games until the third version/sequel gave them a more important role.
Also worth noting that Giratina was also a post-game exclusive optional legendary in DP originally. Regigigas, Cresselia, and the Lake Guardians were also optional.
The third legendaries in particular were post-game exclusive bonus legendaries in their debut games until the third version/sequel gave them a more important role.
Yup. Example:
Also me using my Salamence with Aerial Ace instead of HP Flying because
Maybe the best way to describe the appeal of the Battle Frontier would be the contrivance themselves. I personally have played only the Sinnoh/Johto Battle Frontier ( which I think has the more interesting challenges ) but one reason why it’s exciting is because it allows people to have a different form of challenge than PVP can offer, specifically the challenge of retaining the streak. It’s very different from PVP stand point, for example, unless you have no other options, it is strongly ill advised to use moves that have less than 100% accuracy, since a miss can result in a loss, and a single loss ruins your 1000 streak and you have to restart from 0 all over again. As you can see, it requires a very differently mindset from traditional PVP. In addition to that, the tricks provide an additional layer of thinking. The Battle Hall, one of my favorites, is a perfect example. In the Battle Hall, you get a Chart featuring all the types, and each at 1 and go up to 10. The higher the number, the stronger the Pokémon- For example, 1 for Dragon might be Dratini, while for 10, it might be Salamence. The more you rely on the same type, the stronger the Pokémon becomes. In addition, you are only choosing one of the types of the Pokémon- For example you have Raikou and then choose Water expecting an easy win, you might get Gastrodon, a Water/Ground, and thus immune to Electric. It’s really cool way to make the think about the type chart in a dynamic way that PVP couldn’t replicate.
And lastly, I disagree with the idea that just because a feature is underused, doesn’t mean that it should be removed from the game. Let’s just imagine for a moment that Pokémon Showdown for whatever reason can no longer support all the formats. As a result, some formats need to be culled. Is it alright for the staff to decide to eliminating STABmons, AlmostAnyAbility, 1V1, Anything Goes, Camomons, etc. just because they don’t have enough players compared to the likes of OU and VGC? Is that a fair thing to do? Just because a feature or mechanic is unpopular does not mean that the feature or mechanic is bad and useless. It just means it’s not as popular as some other features that are just as good.
You skipped over the part where Juan has Kingdra sets up 6 Double Teams and you see Chugga struggle to do any damage to it afterwards with his Tentacruel and he skips over who knows how many turns until Kingdra knocks it out. I think you need to see that to understand how frustrating the Double Team was being and how satisfying was for Absol to 1HKO it with a Critical Hit Aerial Ace (after having done two Sword Dances so was at +4 and off a 130 base Attack stat; practically vivisected that Kingdra).
Adding onto that, even if a feature may not get enough attention to let itself be a feature on it's own, if the mechanic has merit and doesn't require that much of its own graphics it could be added onto something else, notable the Battle Tower (or its expy). Would it really be that much of a hassle to make Rental Battles, Inverse Battles, & Little Cup modes we can select (maybe even multiple at the same time)? And I don't think it would require much effort to reuse Battle Pike, Battle Arcade, Battle Hall, Waterfall Colosseum, Neon Colosseum, Magma Colosseum, & Sunset Colosseum (and that's not mentioning Wonder Launcher, Battle Royal, and Restricted Sparring). And even if they don't want to have all these modes, I still think Rental, Inverse, and even Little Cup should be standard.
Alternatively, if they do make a new Battle Frontier or at least multiple locations which offer different battling styles, they can also easily add on old styles of battle as "alt modes", thus allowing them to create and experiment with new ideas while keeping some old as a bonus to players who liked the old mode but there wasn't enough justification to keep it.
...yes? That seems entirely fair? Like, it sucks for the people who really enjoy the feature, but from a developer's standpoint if a feature requires a relatively substantial amount of effort to implement/maintain but only a small portion of the playerbase is going to use it, it is entirely reasonable to direct that effort elsewhere. (Where Gamefreak directs said effort is a separate question).
Moreover, it's not like frontier-esque features have been entirely eliminated, just scaled back to a much smaller number. The regular battle tower is always there, and USUM had the battle agency, IoA has restricted sparring, and CT has dynamax adventures (regular with legendary capturing and also an endless mode). (Did gen 6 have anything?) So it seems like, at least recently, GF is still trying to include a similar feature at some point in the generation to appeal to the players that like it. It's just not at the scale of the frontiers in gen 3 & 4, reflecting the number of players expected to engage with the feature.
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No it isn't.
Gen V had no Frontier. Doesn't it strike you as odd that it isn't bashed as hard as the 3D Gens because of it?
That's because of how solid they are in their own right. BW1 is a good game with substantial post-game exploration, and a memorable story which was unprecedented in the franchise up to that point.
BW2 builds up on BW1, even though story takes a minor hit, by fixing the most common complaint of no old gen mons being available in-game and adds the PWT.
So the question of where the effort "saved" goes makes a huge difference.
Besides, nothing is stopping Game Freak from adding it as DLC in the next games. It understandably takes a fair amount of effort, so put a price tag on that payoff.
The whole "vocal minority" argument doesn't make a lot of sense without real numbers and polls backing it up anyway.
This is what bothers me about this line of argument too. I feel like there have been so many features over the years that the "normie" fanbase doesn't really engage with and where this kind of harsh scrutiny isn't applied. Like all the people shocked by the shiny new animations in Camp that clearly never played around in Amie. What percentage of players do you think actually meaningfully engaged with stuff like contests, the pokeathlon, complex shiny hunting methods using the pokeradar or dexnav, the underground, super training, or, like, the entirety of competitive pokemon breeding and battling? This absurd devil's advocate position of "game freak should only ever put in effort for the lowest common denominator fans who only play through the campaign once because it makes the most financial sense lolol" is one that game freak themselves, for all their faults, clearly do not share. It's not unreasonable to expect them to cater to us, especially at 90$ per game cycle. Restricted battling (and following pokemon :p) basically salvaged SWSH for me, but I do expect a frontier in the sinnoh remakes.
If the frontier does happen, I could see it using dmax mechanics like the dmax adventures does. In fact, dmax adventures reminds me of those small stations in emerald (that replaced contest areas) where you'd play by picking pokemon from a selection and swapping from the opposite team's (I think this one was in slateport).
Yes, this is a battle facility. The one in Slateport was a little taster for the Battle Frontier, only allowing you to play 3 battles (imo a very bad design choice) and then once you beat the game you unlock the Battle Frontier with the same mechanic but you can go for a proper win streak!
It's pretty much necessary for every Battle Frontier to have it, so casuals who don't want to train battle ready Pokémon can still use the Battle Frontier.
On the topic of important facilities for a frontier from the perspective of bringing in new players, I'd probably add something like the Pike or Pyramid in addition to the Tower (for obvious reasons) and the Factory (for the reason you mentioned). Dungeon crawling with some HP management matches the style of the ingame more than the other facilities, and is something the PvP scene can't provide. Castle in gen 4 comes close with the resource management, but doesn't have much in the way of actual dungeon crawling.
Sadly this philosophy mostly is how Nintendo themselves roll
Actual fans will get shafted, while they cater heavily to the casual audience
This means more in depth or niche franchises will die. Look at Star Fox, FZero, Metroid
Incidentally, this is why Wii U failed. Wii started a nasty focus on casuals only in the middle of its life. And since the casuals actually weren't invested, the next console suffered a large drop due to still not bothering on expanding franchises
Switch is lucky that it had early success with BoTW and Odyssey, but similarly the lack of 1st party is really starting to sting. I have no doubt if this continues, the next console will suffer
It makes a difference as to whether a person ultimately concludes the developers' choices were worth it, it has no bearing on whether the criteria they used to make those choices are fair.
If the developers used data about player engagement with the battle frontier to decide whether to include one in gen 5 or go a different direction and invest effort elsewhere, the decision to consider player engagement isn't made retroactively fair by the fact that gen 5's features may be considered an acceptable alternative, nor would it have been retroactively unfair if the playerbase concluded that gen 5's features were not good enough to justify forgoing a new battle frontier.
Now, perhaps DreamPrince only meant to say that the lack of popularity of/player engagement with the battle frontier doesn't make them inherently not worth the effort of being included in future games, and their analogy of smogon hypothetically having to scrap certain formats and whether it is fair to do so based on popularity inadvertently introduced fairness--which is what my reply focused on--when they only meant to discuss worth. If that's the case, then I agree popularity is not a measure of worthiness of a feature, it's just a valid factor for the developers to consider when deciding which older features they are going upgrade and implement in the next game (given that they cannot implement all the features they might want to).
I agree, though I anticipate that if GF go this route we will be seeing a lot of posts throughout the internet complaining about it being cut content being sold back to us.
Oh absolutely. I can see the DistantKingdom video about it.
On the other hand, people gotta put their money where their mouth is.
Also, let's be real, a fandom this big will always find some reason to bitch about.
The Frontier does take a substantial amount of time and effort to do with several sets of Pokémon, Trainers, the actual facilities and their rulesets, all of which needing thorough testing, and it offers a lot of replayability and long-term engagement.
It makes perfect sense for it to be DLC, especially on a robust main game.
A lot of the issues people have with SwSh and its price tag is that the base game is bad.
This is why I made the case about Gen 5 not having a Frontier and people being mostly ok about it.
It makes sense that GF would cut it if they were focusing their efforts somewhere else and producing solid results. People are mad because they aren't producing solid results.
If I remember correctly, most people weren't really bothered with the lack of a Battle Frontier until they did that (kind of mean) tease in ORAS by showing that they could make it, but weren't interested in doing so.
It was only after that that people suddenly started complaining at the lack of a Frontier. Until then it was more of "oh, well, it's unfortunate".
It was only after that that people suddenly started complaining at the lack of a Frontier. Until then it was more of "oh, well, it's unfortunate".
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Maybe this is unpopular, but I feel like the oras frontier tease was less of a "fuck you" and more of a "we didn't forget, we just couldn't make it"
Any big battle station like gen 3/4 will take exponentially more time than their 2d counterparts for around the same result. Hell I'll even argue that the small battle areas we've had since gen 6 took as much time as the big old ones. For the poor workers being crammed on a "basically making two games at the same time 90% of the time" routine, its just not cost effective to remake the frontier. Especially now that we have a mode (dmax adventures) that probably took less time, with at least the same engagement, or more, than any battle area.
It is much more likely for it to be dlc like volt suggests
Any big battle station like gen 3/4 will take exponentially more time than their 2d counterparts for around the same result. Hell I'll even argue that the small battle areas we've had since gen 6 took as much time as the big old ones. For the poor workers being crammed on a "basically making two games at the same time 90% of the time" routine, its just not cost effective to remake the frontier. Especially now that we have a mode (dmax adventures) that probably took less time, with at least the same engagement, or more, than any battle area.
It is much more likely for it to be dlc like volt suggests
Funnily enough, many interpreted that frontier model as "upcoming ORAS dlc soon guys" (but wait a minute, main game Pokemon never do DLC, they would never....oh)
I saw it as "within this timeline, the battle frontier isn't build yet". But whatever, the lack of a frontier in ORAS didn't bother me. It's the replacement: an Ctrl+C of the Battle Maison. W-Why? What does the Kalos Maison has to do with...Hoenn? Nothing! Granted, they also did the same with HGSS when they reused the same frontier from Platinum but I don't think no one will complain about that since Crystal had just the tower lul
Maybe. I mean, the frontier facilities use a different set of rules that we haven't seen applied for years. XY only had Sky Battles and Inverse Battles, so I think the ideal replacement would've been challenges involving those.
This quote is the reality with the Game Corner, though. Because of the new rules applied by Europe, the Game Corner cannot be a thing anymore. Still, expect plenty of people mad with Game Freak when they see the GC is closed in the inevitable Sinnoh remake.
I saw it as "within this timeline, the battle frontier isn't build yet". But whatever, the lack of a frontier in ORAS didn't bother me. It's the replacement: an Ctrl+C of the Battle Maison. W-Why? What does the Kalos Maison has to do with...Hoenn? Nothing! Granted, they also did the same with HGSS when they reused the same frontier from Platinum but I don't think no one will complain about that since Crystal had just the tower lul
Maybe. I mean, the frontier facilities use a different set of rules that we haven't seen applied for years. XY only had Sky Battles and Inverse Battles, so I think the ideal replacement would've been challenges involving those.
This quote is the reality with the Game Corner, though. Because of the new rules applied by Europe, the Game Corner cannot be a thing anymore. Still, expect plenty of people mad with Game Freak when they see the GC is closed in the inevitable Sinnoh remake.
I was thinking about it... And I think it's a mix of both.
GF really didn't need to rub it in, for crying out loud.
But thinking about it, it makes a lot of sense that it wasn't added.
Think about all the games that featured the Frontier.
Emerald had the bulk of the game already done because of Ruby and Sapphire. Sure, it had several significant changes, but hardly stuff that would require the full power and ambition of Prime Game Freak.
Platinum also had the foundations set with Diamond and Pearl. A lot of its changes were tied to optimization and fixing oversights like the Dex roster.
HGSS, the one game that had to be made mostly from the ground up (it's not like they reused a lot of GSC's assets)... Just ported Sinnoh's Frontier.
ORAS, the other remake that were made from the ground up... Got the Kalos thing ported too. Exactly the same situation as HGSS, except the thing available to port was much worse.
This allows us to conclude that if they remake Sinnoh... They will have to make the game from the ground up. That makes the Frontier much less likely to be at the base game.
So basically... DLC or bust.
I feel like it was an attempt to prove they didn't just scrap it because they wanted to by acknowledging it existed... that didn't really go as well as they expected it to.
Then again, having the dex nav also be the same "cute reference that didn't actually get implemented" probably tipped people off enough to make it a bigger deal. I never cared for the dexnav though since I never used it lol
Dexnav is beautifully broken.
Nothing like almost getting swept by a Lv. 14 Brave Bird Taillow for chaining too much.
Or, alternatively, making it an app. GF doesn't even need to be the one who makes it. Fans can't be the only ones who would not just the Battle Frontier (and other various Battle Facility-like features or alternate way of battlign) but also Pokemon Contests (+ Musicals) & Pokeathlon (and other competitive minigames they've had over the years). Heck, a more expansive Pokemon Camp app would probably make gangbusters (which, thinking about it, was sort of what the RS Box and Pokemon Ranch was except not as interactive...). I'm sure there are plenty of developers who would bite at the opportunity to make apps like those.
Not only do they not have to put it into the game, but also they can simply update the app when a new gen comes along to just allow those new Pokemon, Moves, Abilities, etc.. While they may eventually need a new version of the apps, I can see these apps lasting for several generations if supported the entire time.
Maybe, though probably not. Dynamax Adventure is a very different thing from what Battle Facilites do. Dynamax certainly would have been included, though I don't think in any special way as it is used in the Battle Tower (or Mega Evo & Z-Moves was used in the previous gens), just yet another tool for the player to use. Also Dynamax likely isn't going to be carried over to the next gen so...
Also you're thinking of the Battle Tents.
Except for the Gen IV Battle Frontier. Battle Tents pretty much existed to introduce the concept to the franchise in addition to those playing the game. By the time of Platinum players knew what the Battle Frontier was so no need for the tents, which is a bit sad as they were a neat idea to give players a "taste" of the Battle Frontier before it fully opened up post game.
Don't forgot the Black Tower & White Treehollow from BW2. Not Battle Facilities sure, but certainly a resource managing dungeon crawler.
Money I don't think is a scenario in this case. Emerald, Platinum, and HGSS made plenty of money, but GF still ultimately decided to cut the Battle Frontier as the post game location.
Now their reasoning in Gen V could have simply been wanting to do something different + being they were purposely going different directions (yet by the time of BW2 decided to also mixing in paying homages to the past) they did the Pokemon World Tournament bringing back all the Gym Leaders & Champions. Sure they were normal Pokemon battles, but they were able to create different tournaments like going by region & Type. Heck, the Battle Subway itself averted certain Battle Tower conventions like being available during the main game & have one of it's line take you to a location you couldn't otherwise (though I wished they did more of that, like had the different lines actually take you to different cities once you unlocked them).
For the Gens after that? Well Gen VI had no third version, ORAS they were oddly hyperfocused on making it just Ruby & Sapphire remakes they excluded the additions Emerald added to the games (including Gym Leader rematches), by the time they made USUM the post game story concept had taken hold and GF found those more interesting to do, and now Gen VIII had the DLC where they focus was on making more interesting Wild Areas cause that what they were more interested in doing (and likely weren't able to do what they wanted to do with it cause of time constraints).
By the time of Gen IV I think GF had their fill of the Battle Frontier so moved onto wherever their next whimsey took them.
And who was asking them to push out the games before they could put in a Battle Frontier or it wasn't worth delaying it to add it in? It has nothing to do with money, it has nothing to do with time, it's not even about what their target playerbase considers wanted content (and remember we're not the target playerbase). This has always been about what GF were interested in doing and wanting to do it within a certain amount of time.
Or they'll just make it into an arcade like in Let's Go (maybe even add in some mini arcade games we could play this time...).
This is really what they should be doing with Game Corners imo. Arcades help keep the rating desirable in all countries and it also doesn't promote the gambling that so many parents were upset about with previous generation Game Corners. An arcade with mini games would be a lot of fun (especially since I love love LOVE minigames), but this would bring back the concept of something you can get prizes for from playing Games and earning coins while keeping it friendly for everyone (and also not involving money gambling that is exclusively for ages 21+ in the real world, the big upset from many parents back then was that they accused GF of promoting gambling which is why Game Corners were cut/reduced to Voltorb Flip in HGSS).
Reduced to Voltorb Flip? Voltorb Flip is amazing and I legitimately still occasionally get my copy of SoulSilver out just to play it. Honestly, if they turned it into a free mobile game it’d do really well since to my knowledge it’s a unique mashup of a couple different classic puzzles with a surprising amount of mastery and risk involved.
*ahem* but uh yes you’re right Voltorb Flip should ideally be featured in the Game Corner with other minigames, probably new ones. Though I always thought the roulette wheel in Hoenn was fun but I’m not expecting to see that one back!