I definitely agree that it’s lazy game development and the fact that newer games are kind of rushed sometimes. But... is it lazy sometimes? Honestly, I don’t even know. This thread’s starting to confuse me lol
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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
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Perhaps this part of the interview will explain what I mean
Q:We noticed ORAS had a lower difficulty level compared to previous Pokemon games. What bought you to this decision? Any chance that future games will have the possibility to adjust difficulty level as seen in Black and White 2?
A:What? How come you've already played the games? hearty laughter [the games were supposed to come out in Italy the day after the interview] We created a "balanced" game that was suited for our time and age, where everyone is very busy and young people have various means of entertainment. Using smartphones and other devices they can access a great number of games, so the time they dedicate to a single game is less than in the past. The player can choose to keep on playing after the main story and continue to the post-game, where the difficulty rises and there are much more difficult Trainers and challenges to overcome.
Q:Why wasn't the Battle Frontier in the remakes?
A:This question is connected with my previous answer. We didn't put the BF in ORAS for this very reason.
A:What? How come you've already played the games? hearty laughter [the games were supposed to come out in Italy the day after the interview] We created a "balanced" game that was suited for our time and age, where everyone is very busy and young people have various means of entertainment. Using smartphones and other devices they can access a great number of games, so the time they dedicate to a single game is less than in the past. The player can choose to keep on playing after the main story and continue to the post-game, where the difficulty rises and there are much more difficult Trainers and challenges to overcome.
Q:Why wasn't the Battle Frontier in the remakes?
A:This question is connected with my previous answer. We didn't put the BF in ORAS for this very reason.
Yes, there will be always people that will be upset. But far less people were disappointed prior to this interview reveal in which Masuda sacrifices difficulty and content in favor to make the games more accessible for the modern generation. AND because nobody got the time to play their games apparently, basically insulting the efford they put into the games, because people can just play games on smartphones.
Makes you wonder why they even bother making games on an actual console when they won't put the time and dedication for people that actually put time and dedication to learn these things.
Personally I don't mind adapting difficulty and the Battle Frontier is pretty hard. But they could still have both. Making a fair challenge for the fans that were looking for the games and an experience for newcomers.
And it is not like they can't balance out the difficulty in the Battle Frontier. We got so many means to get Pokemon with good stats now, but it's basically wasted for online experience and copypasted Battle Maison.
Lastly, I don't know how many will disagree with me, but I will still be bold and claim that more people would like seeing the Battle Frontier back, rather than seeing contests being added into ORAS.
They did remove the Pokeblock Minigame too. Hardly anyone cares.
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I think this is a big part of why gaming seems like it gets worse over the years. They’re always trying to make games more accessible for newer generations. This isn’t a bad practice in theory, but it just makes me question something...
Making games more accessible for newer generations is inherently a good idea. Games as a medium and an industry haven't (apparently, also extremely subjectively) gotten worse over the years because of greater attention toward accessibility. If a game falters in this area, it's due to poor execution.
I still stand in my opinion on how most pokemon games were hard as a mix of shit accessibility + bad game design
We can have (and tbh at this point we are kinda due having) hard pokemon games, but we can also have them without jank level curves and shit movepools/options for the player. Better ai, smart item choice (held and used), evs/ivs, movepool, pokemon choice. Making a harder pokemon games that arent just bullshit is possible, but I'm unsure gamefreak cares about that
We can have (and tbh at this point we are kinda due having) hard pokemon games, but we can also have them without jank level curves and shit movepools/options for the player. Better ai, smart item choice (held and used), evs/ivs, movepool, pokemon choice. Making a harder pokemon games that arent just bullshit is possible, but I'm unsure gamefreak cares about that
I would say the games that fail in this aspect (Pokemon unfortunately being one of those) is that they tend to focus solely on making them more accessible, without actually taking in consideration also the older fans.
A bit supported by the fact that
I am somewhat confident noone would trash on Pokemon ""sword/shield"" (but you can use any of the recent entries) if they were kept easy/accessible as they are, but also included postgame challenges that are actually interesting for older players (yup, facilities being one of them) as well as... you know... difficulty settings. I like for example DQ11's design of having Draconig Trials, aka a range of optional difficulties that make your gameplay harder (like, can't craft gear, can't use certain skills, etc), but are indeed completely optional and you don't have to opt into them, or the omnipresent harsh postgame superbosses that Final Fantasy series historically included.
SwSh had a bit of attention toward QoL changes for competitive players, which is nice, but definitely doesnt really count as "postgame" nor "challenges". If anything (as welcome as those were), it just made any challenge of preparation for PvP even shorter, further reducing the time you spend playing.
...which again... is kinda GF's philosophy in last entries: "We see players are turning more and more toward gachas and pick-and-drop games, so we'll make the game easy to pick-and-drop". And due to winner's curse, they will keep doing this I'm afraid.
The other problem has to do with Pokemon's niche and competition compared to other RPGs/JRPGs out there in general. Pokemon doesn't have the monopoly on people's minds like it used to, even if it's still well known and iconic as a franchise. RPGs like Persona, Fire Emblem, SMT, and vice versa have started to grow in popularity over the past few years and also have a lot of attention nowadays, and those franchises inherently occupy the niche of a more serious RPG on the market, so Pokemon trying to be difficult means it has to have something to differentiate itself from other more serious RPGs like Persona or Final Fantasy which are pretty big on the market nowadays, and it being "accessible" is probably its biggest draw on the market.
Another thing is that likely makes Game Freak aversive to making the games more difficult is that one of the things about Pokemon that makes it stand out compared to other RPG franchises on the market is not only its accessibility, but since day one even in the Gen 1 days the charm of Pokemon is that you can play it however you want, and I think GF probably realizes this. You want to do a monotype run? You can do that, and probably succeed. Are you a kid at heart and you want to brute force the entire game with just your awesome starter? Go ahead and try, and you can probably succeed with that too. This is a kind of flexibility that not a lot of other RPGs offer, and this is why you often see people doing self-imposed challenge runs of Pokemon games even back in the Gen 3/4 days. Stuff like Nuzlockes, egg lockes, Scramble runs, etc. I think Game Freak knows that a lot of people genuinely enjoy doing self-imposed runs like this and trying to make the games more difficult would go against that. The draw to Pokemon over other RPGs is that yes, you can do less tham optimal challenge runs, and sure, these playstyles may not be the most optimal way of playing the games, but if you wanna try? That's on you.
I've seen people around here propose the idea of level capping the games per gym or whatnot, and other things to try to explicitly make the game more difficult, and while that would be great for more serious players (like myself), a problem especially with the idea of Level Capping in regards to EXP Share is that it would explicitly murder playstyle flexibility. Monotype runs would be dead in the water because they can't rely on a level advantage to compensate for a type disadvantage. Brute forcing with your starter would become impossible to do for those who wanna try that. Now ideally, a difficulty setting would probably be the best way to implement more challenge-conducive ideas like Level Cap, smarter AI, better movesets, and use of items and whatnot for more serious gamers, ie a "Challenge" Mode and then a "Norma/Easy" mode for newer players: problem is I don't know if GF thinks the "serious" playerbase is big enough to warrant that idea, if such idea even crossed their mind to begin with, and Pokemon's niche is that you can play it however you want in the first place, which has always been its niche from the start.
There are a few more stuff they have in common aside from new evolutions and pre-evo baby Pokemon.
Namely the return of the Day/Night cycle in Gen 4, and the fact that it also reinstates changing Pokemon availability based on what time of day it is just like Gen 2 had. The regions of Sinnoh and Johto are also heavily mythology driven with their legendaries and their lore being deeply integrated into their respective regions. That's kind of the bulk of what I can remember.
Another thing is that likely makes Game Freak aversive to making the games more difficult is that one of the things about Pokemon that makes it stand out compared to other RPG franchises on the market is not only its accessibility, but since day one even in the Gen 1 days the charm of Pokemon is that you can play it however you want, and I think GF probably realizes this. You want to do a monotype run? You can do that, and probably succeed. Are you a kid at heart and you want to brute force the entire game with just your awesome starter? Go ahead and try, and you can probably succeed with that too. This is a kind of flexibility that not a lot of other RPGs offer, and this is why you often see people doing self-imposed challenge runs of Pokemon games even back in the Gen 3/4 days. Stuff like Nuzlockes, egg lockes, Scramble runs, etc. I think Game Freak knows that a lot of people genuinely enjoy doing self-imposed runs like this and trying to make the games more difficult would go against that. The draw to Pokemon over other RPGs is that yes, you can do less tham optimal challenge runs, and sure, these playstyles may not be the most optimal way of playing the games, but if you wanna try? That's on you.
I've seen people around here propose the idea of level capping the games per gym or whatnot, and other things to try to explicitly make the game more difficult, and while that would be great for more serious players (like myself), a problem especially with the idea of Level Capping in regards to EXP Share is that it would explicitly murder playstyle flexibility. Monotype runs would be dead in the water because they can't rely on a level advantage to compensate for a type disadvantage. Brute forcing with your starter would become impossible to do for those who wanna try that. Now ideally, a difficulty setting would probably be the best way to implement more challenge-conducive ideas like Level Cap, smarter AI, better movesets, and use of items and whatnot for more serious gamers, ie a "Challenge" Mode and then a "Norma/Easy" mode for newer players: problem is I don't know if GF thinks the "serious" playerbase is big enough to warrant that idea, if such idea even crossed their mind to begin with, and Pokemon's niche is that you can play it however you want in the first place, which has always been its niche from the start.
There are a few more stuff they have in common aside from new evolutions and pre-evo baby Pokemon.
Namely the return of the Day/Night cycle in Gen 4, and the fact that it also reinstates changing Pokemon availability based on what time of day it is just like Gen 2 had. The regions of Sinnoh and Johto are also heavily mythology driven with their legendaries and their lore being deeply integrated into their respective regions. That's kind of the bulk of what I can remember.
They said something in the lines of this in one of the interviews before the release of Sword and Shield. That they want us to make the difficulty with our gameplay choices.
Yeah, level caps are utter BS. These are in Pokemon Radical Red, a ROM hack I've been playing recently, and they suck since they severely limit the options you can use to beat the current boss. This isn't a knock against Radical Red, since this is a ROM Hack aimed at the more hardcore players and clearly took a ton of effort to make, but I wouldn't want this in an official Pokemon game unless its a setting in the menu or something. Optimally EV'd Pokemon are also a pain to fight since its difficult to properly EV your own Pokemon during a normal playthrough of the game. That being said, I'm less opposed to these and think that they are a good way to make mono-type bosses like Nanu and route-specific Ace Trainers with 2 Pokemon more challenging.
I think the best way to increase the challenge of the game while keeping it fair is just changing the way bosses work. Make the first 4 gyms about type match-ups to ease new players to the mechanic, then make the last 4 gyms more about strategy or a gym specific gimmick. Sword and Shield kinda did this with Raihan and Klara / Avery, but frankly, they came a bit too late in the game. I like Dynamaxing as a way to make the bosses harder, but the fact that you can use it as well is kind of a turnoff.
While I overall agree with your points, this gets a hard no from me. I really like how strong debuffing and damage-over-time effects are in pokemon, especially as a way to get through tough enemies rather than just brute-forcing them with or without type matchups. Dynamax heavily reducing DoT effectiveness and being immune to standard ways of stalling turns just seems like bad design: you have no reason to use those techniques against basic opponents, so they should actually be useful in boss fights. Otherwise there's an even larger chunk of content than usual that is effectively PvP-only.
Excuse you, sir, I'll have you know that there's only one Pokémon girl for me, and it's not Cynthia.
In all seriousness, I can see where you're coming from with this one. Cynthia definitely toes the line between fun challenge and too hard to be enjoyable, and she probably also got a significant popularity boost among pubescents by being hot, but I don't think it's fair to attribute all of her popularity in the wider fandom to teenage boys who desperately need to find girlfriends. If nothing else, the Garchomp definitely made an impression on people, and the rest of her team is pretty balanced. My only major complaint with the fight itself is that I think the Garchomp is too much of the difficulty, and the rest of her team feels kinda free in comparison even though they're some of the strongest Pokémon in Sinnoh. I also think her character is more complicated than most people realize.
I guess there’s also her character, aka a direct steven stone carbon copy. but really, she's a horrendous character story-wise. She gives you, what, an egg? Puts you on a fetch quest? Stands there while you fight Cyrus? All there is in there is a shallow hard mode “waifu” but really is it so hard that you cant just deal with her garchomp by bringing a Weavile or a bulky water like Vaporeon to freeze its fins off?
I think i should probably say something about the other champs, preferably one that i dont think people give as much love to.
leon is one of, if not the only champion with the distinction that he actually does something in the games. he doesnt just stand there and wait around for some 10 year old to do his job, and thats great, because this is something that people have been meming on for months now, maybe even years. Oh, this dynamax Perrserker going feral? Nothing that a Charizard can’t fix. Uh, oh, Eternatus is released? Better be an adult and fight it! He actually lives up to his title and isn’t some smoothbrained buttermonkey chud sitting on their ass in the back of the pokemon league. Truly worthy of the term “champion”.
Excuse you, sir, I'll have you know that there's only one Pokémon girl for me, and it's not Cynthia.
Would you believe me if I told you that, only RIGHT NOW, I realized that Shauntal is not a midget and that she's actually kneeling down?
Leon notes it too if you score a Super Effective hit (as well when he scores one).
Funny you mention this because in the beta, they literally used Steven's Emerald Sprite as a placeholder for her.
And apparently for the rest of the Elite Four, lol.
On the flipside, it's fairly common to see people complain about the player character being kept out of the action in base SWSH. It adds to Leon's character, but from a gameplay perspective it's not very fun to be told "oh yeah, and then Leon solved this problem without your help". When it comes to balancing gameplay and story, I'll always choose having the climactic fight with the big baddie in the distortion world over "and then Cynthia's Garchomp wiped the floor with Cyrus". Especially since what saves Leon (imo) is that he's actually a good challenge when you do fight him, not the endless fanwank throughout the game. Show not tell, etc
I said this earlier in a Discord but yeah, Cynthia is pretty flat as a character Team Alder and Leon all the way.
I like that other adaptation give her more traits aside from being cool and a fan of myths. She's comically indecisive in the anime when buying ice cream, giving you a false sense of security for the monster of a trainer she is. In Adventures she's also more lax apparently (she actually laughs at Dia and Pearl comedy routine o_o), but also shows a pretty brash and impulsive side when handling Cyrus. She fails to stop him with Draco Meteor, a move with a nasty drawback, but later gets the chance to save the day with a fully mastered Draco. I like this, she ain't perfect and still got things to improve throughout the series.
Also, her beta battle theme sounds a lot like its remix in Smash Bros...
I like that other adaptation give her more traits aside from being cool and a fan of myths. She's comically indecisive in the anime when buying ice cream, giving you a false sense of security for the monster of a trainer she is. In Adventures she's also more lax apparently (she actually laughs at Dia and Pearl comedy routine o_o), but also shows a pretty brash and impulsive side when handling Cyrus. She fails to stop him with Draco Meteor, a move with a nasty drawback, but later gets the chance to save the day with a fully mastered Draco. I like this, she ain't perfect and still got things to improve throughout the series.
Also, her beta battle theme sounds a lot like its remix in Smash Bros...
I guess I'm going to bat for Cynthia. As I arrange my thoughts in my head to type out, I'm noticing that this is mostly just my personal theory/interpretation and not really something the game directly supports, but whatever. Should hopefully be an interesting read regardless.
It's always seemed to me like Cynthia's actions throughout the story are all motivated by a desire to see the player character grow strong and mature. She sees the PC going on a journey similar to hers with the Pokédex, and decides to help the PC grow on that journey in small ways, like giving them an egg that can potentially become a pretty strong Pokémon and helping with roadblocks like the Psyduck wall. When the player starts getting into some serious shit with Team Galactic, Cynthia can easily flatten the entire organization, but she doesn't. Is this just because GF wants the player to have their epic showdown with Cyrus? Possibly, but given the ways Cynthia helps the player out throughout the story, it seems likely to me that she wants the player to stop the threat themselves as a way to get stronger/braver. In Platinum, she shows up at Spear Pillar and goes through the Distortion World with the player so she can intervene should the battle with Cyrus go wrong, but she lets the player take a shot first as a test of growth. Because of all these pushes Cynthia gives the player, the player ends up beating Cynthia and becoming champion, and she seems like she wanted that to happen the entire time. Not having an obligation to the League certainly gives her more time to focus on her interest in mythology, although I guess she could have just quit if she wanted out for that reason.
None of this is explicitly stated or confirmed, but it's how I look at it, and it addresses some of the problems that people seem to have with Cynthia as a character. I haven't fully played a Hoenn game yet, so for all I know this could literally all be lifted from Steven's character which would be pretty lame, but if it isn't and all the stuff I just talked about was intentional then I think it's neat.
Colo, Stadium/2/PBR for rental runs makes this worse
Especially Stadium 2. The nerfed rentals + incredibly hard AI makes rental runs take many many many tries
Just wanted to post some opinions from the more "complex" discussions:
Smartphones Excuse:
First, major UGH with the smartphone excuse again. Hey, GF, Masuda, if you're THAT worried about making a game that can't keep younger players interests that they want to play on their smartphone instead, have you ever thought that maybe the problem isn't with the game difficulty but rather it's WITH YOU and your design philosophy? Like, seriously, if you think Smartphones are that big of competition then why aren't YOU making a Smartphone games? Leave developing the main Pokemon games for the Nintendo Consoles to another team and/or developer (like Nintendo, Monolith Soft has been suggested on Smogon before, or another major developing studio) and lead a new team within GF that's focus is on Smartphone games. Not only is there PLENTY of ideas you can do with the Pokemon series, but you also wouldn't be tied down to the Pokemon series (heck, I think Little Town Hero wouldn't make for a bad Smartphone game series). Also, at this moment in time, people aren't really expecting that high end graphics on their phones so that's another one of your weaknesses you don't got to worry about.
Balance & Difficulty:
Would like to know what testing GF does to figure out at least levels of opponents. Actually, we'd also need to know what they considered "balance", cause I have a feeling it means "the player's Pokemon levels would be slightly higher than the opponents 99% of the time, maybe making the Champion battle more difficult with a sudden Level jump".
While we're on that, what do they also consider "increasing difficulty" means? Because it means more than just increasing Levels; you can keep the opponents at the same Level but make them more difficult by giving them better Movesets, better IVs/EVs, their Ability is useful/can be used, given a Held Item, and just in general making the AI smarter (possibly even have them switching if they figured they're at a disadvantage or have a Pokemon that would get an advantage). Oh, and it could also mean just giving the NPCs, who usually never have a full party, an extra Pokemon (and/or swapping their Pokemon for stronger species). Infact, I'd dare say, if the only thing you did was increase the Levels by a few, you didn't make things any more difficult.
Also, if you're worried about a player locking themselves into a difficulty that's "too hard" for them (or maybe "too easy"), here's a wild idea: in the Option menu let them switch difficulty levels. Like if you're going to make the games easy you obviously don't care how they beat the game.
Level Caps:
First, as ScraftyIsTheBest suggested, having Level Caps being it's own additional Mode or Option would resolved some if not most of these issues. If a specialize run like Mono-Type or One Pokemon only isn't working out with Level Caps don't play it in that Mode (or, better yet, have it be something in the Option menu that can be turned on & off).
Second, the way I think Pokemon can do Level Caps is actually using mechanics they already have and use! Not sure how it's done in Radical Red, but putting a "hard limit" on Levels (whereas the Pokemon stops gaining Levels & possibly experience upon reaching the Level Cap) is a bad idea. Not only could it mean valuable Experience goes to waste but also completely stops the Pokemon from anyway of becoming stronger. No, in my opinion, Level Caps would use the Battle Facilities' Set Level mechanic. Upon reaching the Level Cap, the Pokemon's stats will be set as if it's always at that Level until Level Cap is increased (likely with getting the next Badge or whatever progress marker they're using). However, the Pokemon will still gain Levels. This is an important detail because this allows the Pokemon not only able to learn new & stronger Moves but also adds & adjusts EVs. Sometimes a Pokemon just needs a better Move and/or its EVs in the right stats to get the edge it needs to win. Heck, they could also allow a Pokemon's HP to keep on increasing (meaning only Atk, Def, SpA, SpD & Spe would be affected for Level Caps) if they really want to make sure the player won't get stuck with on a Level Cap run.
Also, balancing would be important. If a Pokemon for some reason needs overleveled stats to win just make sure then that no opponent has a Pokemon that goes above the Level Cap and is a few levels below it. If they have different game difficulties then maybe for the harder ones they can have important NPCs Pokemon go up to the Level Cap and maybe even go above it; but once again those difficulty modes would probably not be ones you'd play on for a Mono-Type or One Pokemon run.
Battle Frontier (& Expanded Battle Tower Expy):
~Hello Battle Frontier discussion my old friend. I've come to talk about you once again.~
Fine, making an ENTIRE Battle Frontier is decided to no longer be a viable use of resources. But that doesn't mean you can't do any unique battling modes, just add them to the Battle Tower Expy! You could even still create unique trainers for each one, they'd all just share the same location and only appear as the final boss when going through their specialized style. With a little bit of work even the previous non-explorative Battle Facilities could be fitted into the Battle Tower expy:
Smartphones Excuse:
First, major UGH with the smartphone excuse again. Hey, GF, Masuda, if you're THAT worried about making a game that can't keep younger players interests that they want to play on their smartphone instead, have you ever thought that maybe the problem isn't with the game difficulty but rather it's WITH YOU and your design philosophy? Like, seriously, if you think Smartphones are that big of competition then why aren't YOU making a Smartphone games? Leave developing the main Pokemon games for the Nintendo Consoles to another team and/or developer (like Nintendo, Monolith Soft has been suggested on Smogon before, or another major developing studio) and lead a new team within GF that's focus is on Smartphone games. Not only is there PLENTY of ideas you can do with the Pokemon series, but you also wouldn't be tied down to the Pokemon series (heck, I think Little Town Hero wouldn't make for a bad Smartphone game series). Also, at this moment in time, people aren't really expecting that high end graphics on their phones so that's another one of your weaknesses you don't got to worry about.
Balance & Difficulty:
Would like to know what testing GF does to figure out at least levels of opponents. Actually, we'd also need to know what they considered "balance", cause I have a feeling it means "the player's Pokemon levels would be slightly higher than the opponents 99% of the time, maybe making the Champion battle more difficult with a sudden Level jump".
While we're on that, what do they also consider "increasing difficulty" means? Because it means more than just increasing Levels; you can keep the opponents at the same Level but make them more difficult by giving them better Movesets, better IVs/EVs, their Ability is useful/can be used, given a Held Item, and just in general making the AI smarter (possibly even have them switching if they figured they're at a disadvantage or have a Pokemon that would get an advantage). Oh, and it could also mean just giving the NPCs, who usually never have a full party, an extra Pokemon (and/or swapping their Pokemon for stronger species). Infact, I'd dare say, if the only thing you did was increase the Levels by a few, you didn't make things any more difficult.
Also, if you're worried about a player locking themselves into a difficulty that's "too hard" for them (or maybe "too easy"), here's a wild idea: in the Option menu let them switch difficulty levels. Like if you're going to make the games easy you obviously don't care how they beat the game.
Level Caps:
I still think Level Caps are a good idea if implemented correctly. Indeed, the issues both of you stated are problems that should be considered, but they're not issues which can't be worked around.
First, as ScraftyIsTheBest suggested, having Level Caps being it's own additional Mode or Option would resolved some if not most of these issues. If a specialize run like Mono-Type or One Pokemon only isn't working out with Level Caps don't play it in that Mode (or, better yet, have it be something in the Option menu that can be turned on & off).
Second, the way I think Pokemon can do Level Caps is actually using mechanics they already have and use! Not sure how it's done in Radical Red, but putting a "hard limit" on Levels (whereas the Pokemon stops gaining Levels & possibly experience upon reaching the Level Cap) is a bad idea. Not only could it mean valuable Experience goes to waste but also completely stops the Pokemon from anyway of becoming stronger. No, in my opinion, Level Caps would use the Battle Facilities' Set Level mechanic. Upon reaching the Level Cap, the Pokemon's stats will be set as if it's always at that Level until Level Cap is increased (likely with getting the next Badge or whatever progress marker they're using). However, the Pokemon will still gain Levels. This is an important detail because this allows the Pokemon not only able to learn new & stronger Moves but also adds & adjusts EVs. Sometimes a Pokemon just needs a better Move and/or its EVs in the right stats to get the edge it needs to win. Heck, they could also allow a Pokemon's HP to keep on increasing (meaning only Atk, Def, SpA, SpD & Spe would be affected for Level Caps) if they really want to make sure the player won't get stuck with on a Level Cap run.
Also, balancing would be important. If a Pokemon for some reason needs overleveled stats to win just make sure then that no opponent has a Pokemon that goes above the Level Cap and is a few levels below it. If they have different game difficulties then maybe for the harder ones they can have important NPCs Pokemon go up to the Level Cap and maybe even go above it; but once again those difficulty modes would probably not be ones you'd play on for a Mono-Type or One Pokemon run.
Battle Frontier (& Expanded Battle Tower Expy):
~Hello Battle Frontier discussion my old friend. I've come to talk about you once again.~
Fine, making an ENTIRE Battle Frontier is decided to no longer be a viable use of resources. But that doesn't mean you can't do any unique battling modes, just add them to the Battle Tower Expy! You could even still create unique trainers for each one, they'd all just share the same location and only appear as the final boss when going through their specialized style. With a little bit of work even the previous non-explorative Battle Facilities could be fitted into the Battle Tower expy:
- Factory/Gateway/Rentals: Well, they've actually now included rental teams, but for how the Battle Factories did it all they would need to do would just let the player swap one of their Pokemon with the opponent they just defeated.
- Arena: After 3 turns the battle is judged, don't even need to put up a special graphic though a simple one would give it some visual flair.
- Dome: Only thing you gotta show is the tourney match-up results graphic.
- Pike: This is technically an explorative one BUT I think can simply be recreated. Breaking it down to its VERY basics, it's just providing a player with a choice of 3 options, the Pikes presented it as 3 doors each leading down a hallway, but it could just be as easy as a Trainer asking to pick either A, B, & C and telling them the result of their choice (then either letting them pass to the next opponent or having a battle). Obviously would hope it would be more interesting then that, but that is the basics of it and can be recycled to something which wouldn't involve picking doors each leading to a different hallway.
- Palace: This is just about the Pokemon's Nature deciding on what moves it uses on its own. Regardless how you feel about it, you can't argue it's a simple one that can be includede.
- Arcade: The only graphic you'll need is the spinner.
- Castle: No graphic needed, but rather a "Point" counter and having an NPC that you can trade in these points with for Items and other advantages before you start the next streak.
- Hall: The only graphic you'll need is the Type Board.
- The way Battle Revolution did their gimmicks with minimal graphics when needed is a good example as well.
please no... I can't do this again.... I'm not strong enough
I'd take Stadium 2 rentals over whatever garbage PBR gives you any day.
I recently replayed PBR all the way through and it's a funny one in that one gender is demonstrably far better than the other. While neither is stellar, the girl's rental pass is much, much better than the boy's:
-All the Kanto team have better item choices; the starters have items which actually power up their STAB moves, whereas all the Sinnoh mons have items which boost their unSTABed, weaker moves. Grotle's Rock Smash is still hitting for nothing even with that Fist Plate
-Kanto gets the fully-evolved Pidgeot with a Muscle Band that actually beefs up its attacks (and Tailwind for some team support), Sinnoh gets Staravia which is weaker and slower and doesn't even get a good item to compensate
-The Kanto team have better moves and abilities in general. Dragonair's Shed Skin and Sitrus Berry pair well and Charmeleon's Sunny Day+Charcoal+Blaze makes Fire Fang a potential nuke. Rhyhorn's Protect and Dig have utility in Doubles and Lightningrod synergises well with Pidgeot and Wartortle. By comparison Luxio has Rivalry which stinks in comparison to Intimidate and Gabite's moves are garbage
I personally always thought they should do a similar thing to how wild battles level up in Final Fantasy 8, where the level of the wild Pokemon and your foes, are all linked to an extent into the highest level of your main six. You'd still have a cap as to the highest a wild Pokemon could be at, so no Route One Level 99 Pidgeys, but it'd be reasonable to see them perhaps grow to a maximum of Level 30 whilst later routes would still have a higher cap to emulate the current set up.
Problem I suppose you have is that there is so much more choice in Pokemon, as opposed to FF8 where you have literally six main characters to choose from. Then again, if you did want to catch and use a wild Pokemon it'd come at a high enough level so it wouldn't limit you too much on that front.
Perhaps it'd need to be an average of your upper quartile to really work.