You kinda lost me here (you actually lost me once you said gamefreak is lazy because any argument that relies on calling developers and artists who are trying to make ends meet as lazy is weak and deattached from real life, but alas). How can gamefreak be lazy for a game they're not even in charge of?
You're right GF can't be "lazy" on the DP remakes, so going to slide the criticism over to Sword & Shield for the point of this post.
While lazy may not be the right word, it gets the point across. Cut corners, lack of content, questionable animations & graphics, cookie cutter story, strongly suggested rushed development... while certainly not lazy, also isn't top quality work. Not quite sure what the term to use here, "rushed"? "Shoddy" maybe?
And granted not all departments deserve any blame like the art department. However there are people within the development team who is responsible for the game direction, the game directors, who you can totally blame for the game's failures. Once again, maybe not the art director, but at the very least the executive director all had to "okay" when content & story had to be cut as they started to rush things (which, BTW, they were also responsible for not happening either by planning better or asking the powers that be for more time; I have a feeling neither of those two things happened). Heck, if the art director was also in charge or graphics, even they can be blamed for the PS2 textures we see all over the Wild Area and other locations instead of requesting for higher resolution environment textures. So, while not everyone in the development team deserves blame, notably the "grunt" workers, there are still people like the directors who you can.
And while we can't really address any of the above to the DP remakes, we also don't know if GF forced any restrictions on the 3rd party developers. Also, remember Masuda is the executive director of the remakes, so still someone in GF is in charge of making "final" decisions, many which led to the failures we've seen with Sword & Shield.
There's nothing wrong with not liking the direction a series is heading into, but you have to realize that you can, alternatively, take that as a chance to develop other interests, which is a far healthier thing to do?
But what's wrong with voicing your concerns? Sure, GF probably would never read these exact messages, but other fans will and many would likely agree the direction the Pokemon games have been going isn't that great and would like to see their favorite game series do better. And we all have lives & additional interests outside of Pokemon, any of us could drop Pokemon and move on. But that's not exactly going to make things better, now is it? GF may be deaf to a single individual, but maybe if enough fans start banging on the same problems that gets bigger media outlets to take notice and report on then maybe it would push GF to go "hmm, a lot of fans didn't seem to like this. It's not that big of a deal to change it so maybe let's take a look into it and see what didn't quite go right with the playerbase". Yes, I know, a pipedream as GF are very steadfast in their decisions; but gotta at least try.
Agreed. While Dynamax as a mechanic concept is too powerful on paper and proved it on practice in at least Singles, Megas did just as bad on practice despite nowhere as impactful in theory.
It’s more to do with giving Megas for too many Pokémon that are both strong / viable and popular to the point it did worsen power creep on its own, through it’s also having to do with being way too rigid at the same time (100 BST, no exception except Mega Alakazam’s erronous 90 BST back in Gen 6) meaning Megas given for weak Pokémon have to min-max base stats get a broke-powerful Ability to justify usage.
Both are cases of style over substance, one thing for certain.
And the biggest crime here: instead of working on them trying to make them better, GF is now tossed these "super" mechanics to the side for a new toy. Oh, sure, they may bring them back every so often... but since they haven't worked on them it's likely being brought back as the broken/style over substance mechanic it was left as. Mega Pokemon require stat scaling & wider distribution to unpopular Pokemon, Dynamax/Gigantamax at the very least needs to toss the the "growing big" gimmick; and Mega & Z-Moves need to find a way to maybe allow multiple & adaptable uses of their gimmick so you're not just tied to one Pokemon assigned before the battle. In the past I've suggested a "power gauge" you need to build-up which then lets you activate a certain effect (either using the whole bar on a Z-Move or going Mega/Gigantamax for a few turns until the bar runs out).
Here's the kicker: I don't care that megas took more effort or whatever. I think they're really ugly digimon rip off designs and I don't like playing with them and getting rid of them is pretty much impossible. There's nothing redeeming to them for me. I don't care about dmax as a theme but they're fun in vgc so I think they're better
What's your thoughts on Gigantamax? It uses the Dyanamax mechanic but also has the super design changes which, now that you mention, makes the Pokemon even look more like Digimon ripoffs because the Pokemon are now literally being merged with other objects which is something Digimon likes to do (Gigantamax Blastoise looks like its competing with the Gundramon who can have the most guns crafted to their body).
"No, no Indeedee. We serve Berry Juice not hot water."
"
Botwatus?"
"Ber-ry juice"
"
Burijoos?"
"There ya go! Here's a customer, now what do we offer?
"
Hotwataaa!" ~
"*HEAVY SIGH* ..."
I like the encounter themes for certain trainer classes. It's probably too hard to code unique battle themes for each trainer class like they do for major boss battles. But in lieu of that GF put a good deal of effort into the encounter themes to add some character and style. Even though I inevitably skip these in 1 or 2 seconds lol, the effort is noted. Below are some of my favorites.
You forgot the best one.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I think this is only for the models you battle on Elesa’s runway show in b2w2? (Or maybe there just aren’t any beauties outside of her gym?)
There are only four Beauties in B2W2 three of whom are in Nimbasa Gym. The fourth is still in Nimbasa City but can only be battled in winter. I'm not sure if she shares the same theme as the other three or not. I do know there aren't any Beauties in BW so this theme is exclusive to B2W2.
Wukong is referring to Beauty December which is the winter "date" for the boy protag for the Rondez-View Ferris Wheel. AND looking up a video of a battle with her...
it's just the normal trainer theme. So, yeah, it's indeed just a Nimbasa Gym thing and not for the B2W2 Beauty class.
Which is pretty notable, as Gen V is the only game without a common "Beauty" as a trainer outside of this. BW doesn't have them at all while B2W2 they return as only Nimbasa Gym trainers. Which is pretty strange as, while in English this makes sense as they return as fashion models, in the Japanese games it kind of doesn't as the Trainer Class is originally just called "Grown-Up Woman". Since Gen V was based on New York, makes me wonder if this decision was solely based on the English version of the name.
