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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
- Start date
This, so much!
As much as I like most of SM’s characters, I can’t help but feel that the pacing and how Hau is handled would be done better. There’s also the fact that the player tend to be railroaded by having an evil team, the Island Trials, and Aether Foundation + Ultra Beasts in one storyline, leaving little to no breather. Other than Lusamine’s peak moment and the Ultra Beast’s involvement, the adventure is just as lighthearted as your typical mainline Pokémon adventure.
Admittedly I never read Adventures DP, but I do legit like Hareta. It's a comedy manga that doesn't make me cringe every 5 min like err....
Also this is raw
Honestly while I use the term "okay" for it, I don't think it's very good even in the context of what Pokemon can pull off, and I cite it as unpopular because I remember outcry about how much worse USUM were written, when frankly the originals weren't particularly competent narratives to begin with. Most of the praise tends to center around Lusamine and Lillie, but the rest of the narrative doesn't really do a whole lot to maintain the bar people set based on a couple characters, and it's to the point the latter one is really let down by the Player character having to exist.
I say it stands out from the often-mediocre plots of most Pokemon games, but frankly that's more a condemnation of them than a praise of SM. BW and the Mystery Dungeon games all clearly demonstrate the series is capable of integrating the protagonist into the plot rather than simply having them watch it unfold... so why was that still what they had you doing with the entirety of Lillie's plot up until the point where someone has to battle?
This sound like a backhanded insult.
"I don't want to say the story is bad, but the story is bad."
I read Diamond and Pearl Adventure! too when I was kid.
Megas, in their current state and with the benefit of hindsight were a mistake. There's a world where they were actually properly utilized in boss fights and didn't get cut leading to several Pokemon that really did need them forever being crimped out of key buffs at the mercy of whenever the creators decide to bring them back. That world is not this one. Even if it was, they wouldn't have the immediacy and dependability of cross-gen evos, nor the worldbuilding contributions of regional forms. More Ursalunas and Wyrdeers, less Mega Garchomps por favor.
Dear lords, that’s the most negative rant about Mega Evolution I’ve ever seen in Smogon Forums!
Megas, in their current state and with the benefit of hindsight were a mistake. There's a world where they were actually properly utilized in boss fights and didn't get cut leading to several Pokemon that really did need them forever being crimped out of key buffs at the mercy of whenever the creators decide to bring them back. That world is not this one. Even if it was, they wouldn't have the immediacy and dependability of cross-gen evos, nor the worldbuilding contributions of regional forms. More Ursalunas and Wyrdeers, less Mega Garchomps por favor.
That said, I agree how much of net loss Mega Evolution caused in the long run; it doesn’t help that GF intended it to be one-timer either, making the concept feels more and more insincere, and I’ve seen too little fangames implementing them without significantly rebalancing them, either.
Ok so this may sound like partial backpedaling but I did play up how much I dislike Megas for comedy purposes. I don't outright despise the mechanic or any of the designs tied to it, I just think its in-game usage did literally everything wrong and that several Pokemon that could use new evos are now held hostage because of it. Still glad they're gone, but I'm not mad at them, just disappointed.
I've said this many times before. Mega Evolution was a terrible mechanic from Day 1, and any Mega that wasn't assigned to a fully evolved mon was straight-up malpractice.
Glalie, Mawile and Sableye desperately needed their Megas to be cross-gen evos instead.
Glalie, Mawile and Sableye desperately needed their Megas to be cross-gen evos instead.
I guess there's still hope for regional evolutions for some of the Pokemon that Mega Evolution shafted out of a proper evolution.
On a conceptual level, though, I still think Mega Evolution was far more interesting than Z-Moves or Dynamax, and probably Terastal at least by the sounds of it. Mega Evolution at least lifted some Pokemon out of obscurity, like Kangaskhan, Beedrill, Sableye, Mawile, etc., even if there were also some Pokemon who didn't really need a new form, like Garchomp, Tyranitar, and Gengar. Z-Moves and Dynamax mostly just made Pokemon who were already really good even better, they didn't really give any low tier Pokemon a new lease on competitive viability.
That being said, all of that could be accomplished by simply giving those Pokemon standard evolutions.
On a conceptual level, though, I still think Mega Evolution was far more interesting than Z-Moves or Dynamax, and probably Terastal at least by the sounds of it. Mega Evolution at least lifted some Pokemon out of obscurity, like Kangaskhan, Beedrill, Sableye, Mawile, etc., even if there were also some Pokemon who didn't really need a new form, like Garchomp, Tyranitar, and Gengar. Z-Moves and Dynamax mostly just made Pokemon who were already really good even better, they didn't really give any low tier Pokemon a new lease on competitive viability.
That being said, all of that could be accomplished by simply giving those Pokemon standard evolutions.
I can absolutely get on board with '[Pokemon] should've gotten a regular evolution instead of a Mega-evolution and it sucks that the gimmick might've locked out that possibility forever' but when the sentiment becomes '[Pokemon]'s Mega should've just been its regular evolution' I get a little confused. Imo virtually none of the Megas work as regular evolutions without a pretty thorough redesign, both in terms of appearance and battle capability.
If you asked me back in the day I wouldn't have told you that Regional forms would be more stable on a form by form basis than mega evolutions. It's very surprising to me.
Like we're now at the point where multiple games jump through hoops to include regional forms of a pokemon from OTHER regions through trades or whatnot, and they're annoying to breed properly because of the way they're implemented. It's like Magnezone and Moss Rocks all over again, games are burdened in some tangible way to make access to these forms possible. This is one reason why I hate regional forms, I don't particularly have an attachment to the "worldbuilding" aspect of them, they're very inconvenient from a mechanical standpoint, they take up slots for wholly new and original pokemon, and they often undermine a pokemon's place in their debut generation.
Megas were a mistake too, but megas were items, and implementing items was not difficult to do when you can just shove them into a battle facility. Hell, if they really ran with it I'll bet they would have just made a universal "mega stone" (or Mega Stone X and Mega Stone Y to account for Zard and Mewtwo) that just mega evolves whatever species legally can. But there wasn't really a reason back then to believe it was a gimmick. Up until now everything they added to the battle system was robust and interesting enough to stick around, and we'd have been better off if they continued to design with that philosophy instead of churning out one shot mechanics imo.
Like we're now at the point where multiple games jump through hoops to include regional forms of a pokemon from OTHER regions through trades or whatnot, and they're annoying to breed properly because of the way they're implemented. It's like Magnezone and Moss Rocks all over again, games are burdened in some tangible way to make access to these forms possible. This is one reason why I hate regional forms, I don't particularly have an attachment to the "worldbuilding" aspect of them, they're very inconvenient from a mechanical standpoint, they take up slots for wholly new and original pokemon, and they often undermine a pokemon's place in their debut generation.
Megas were a mistake too, but megas were items, and implementing items was not difficult to do when you can just shove them into a battle facility. Hell, if they really ran with it I'll bet they would have just made a universal "mega stone" (or Mega Stone X and Mega Stone Y to account for Zard and Mewtwo) that just mega evolves whatever species legally can. But there wasn't really a reason back then to believe it was a gimmick. Up until now everything they added to the battle system was robust and interesting enough to stick around, and we'd have been better off if they continued to design with that philosophy instead of churning out one shot mechanics imo.
Once again at risk of looking like I'm partially back-pedalling on my original stance, but I totally agree with you! All the stuff I put in the "should've been a cross-gen evo" tier would ideally use the base concepts of the Mega and modify/expand upon them to make them more of a proper evolution. More cross-gen-y and less mega-y, if you get what I'm saying. For instance, my ideal Lopunny evolution would still be a Normal/Fighting Scrappy abuser but with a less minmaxy but overall bulkier statline that makes it dive into the previous form's utility options more. Again though, didn't wanna bog down the somewhat comedic flow of my original post with this disclaimer, so you can have it now.
I know Samtendo09 is famously more critical about fangames than the average Internet person, but man, I agree with this individual. "Everyone is Here" is a bit less meaningful if the lesser critters of the kitchen sink are as unviable as ever.
When the official Megas are implemented, you can bet your butt they won't receive any change except one or two Abilities and typings. M-Beedrill is still as frail as ever, for example.
Basically, if the base form doesn't get a stat buff, neither does the Mega, which makes sense I guess, but this causes some Megas to be favored over others.
In Radical Red, it got one buff, namely the Mega getting the Regenerator Ability. While it's a great buff for a defensive Pokémon, it still suffers from mediocre offenses: still slow, still can't hit that hard.
Then there's Inclement Emerald, which changes Audino's and Mega Audino's stats. I didn't play this game so I can't tell you how good it is, but the Mega gained 40 points in Special Attack as well as Fairy Aura, so it's more offensively potent, but the game also has competition for offensive Fairy-type Megas such as Altaria Gardevoir, Mawile, and even Milotic. Audino has its uniques strengths, but I'm not sure if that's enough.
And this is the issue with balancing Mega Evolution: Are the stats good enough? Is the transformation worth giving up an item slot? Should I pick someone else with this option? You might think more choices is better, but in practice, less performant options are less likely to be picked, so diversity isn't that much of an upside.
In-game meta is different from Competitive meta. In-game Mega Audino with Regenerator is certainly better, especially in Nuzlockes, but most people (not me) value offensive power more in-game.
This changes in Competitive. Stall teams are way more popular than in-game and a wall with Regenerator, Wish, Knock Off, Heal Bell, high bulk and amazing typing would be very used if existing, since options for teammates are literally endless, allowing some very good synergies.
Won't enter into the rest of Mega topics, but Regenerator Mega Audino would have been one of the best Megas in existance.
This changes in Competitive. Stall teams are way more popular than in-game and a wall with Regenerator, Wish, Knock Off, Heal Bell, high bulk and amazing typing would be very used if existing, since options for teammates are literally endless, allowing some very good synergies.
Won't enter into the rest of Mega topics, but Regenerator Mega Audino would have been one of the best Megas in existance.
This tbh. But even though crossgen evos are superior, Megas would have worked perfectly fine if they hadn’t dumped them after 2 gens. But what’s strange is they continue to heavily display megas in spinoffs, anime, merch… are they keeping them in the series in general for them to make a triumphant return in gen 10? I hope so, because retconning, say, Sableye-Mega to a normal evo is an extremely huge canon change that feels very unadvised.
I don't think megas necessarily prohibit Pokemon like Banette and Audino from getting regular evolutions in the future. If Game Freak ever wants to do that, they can just... do that. And if they ever decide to bring megas back, Mega Banette and Mega Audino will just retroactively be in the same boat as Gmax Pikachu and Gmax Meowth. Or Catastropika and Extreme Evoboost. Or Light Ball and Lucky Punch. Pokemon getting special stuff that their evolutions can't access is nothing new. It'd be weird and pattern-breaking, but if it gets in the way, fuck it.
Eh, in lower tiers, maybe. But if just comparing to other megas... You're still giving up the item slot AND mega slot for it. No item slot means no Leftovers which is still a somewhat decent deal, and you're also using your mega slot on a defensive mega instead of a offensive powerhouse.
Not that defensive megas weren't a thing in OU, but Mega Venusaur, Sableye, Scizor, Slowbro etc also offered "something else" than just "i sit and take hits". And ofc, there's still the issue that Normal/Fairy isn't exactly as great as it sounds on paper as type, other than for switching into dragon types.
I doubt having Regenerator as mega would have changed much as viability for Mega Audino, other than making it stronger in lower tiers or at least an alternative worth considering to other megas. But at the top levels... there's still the same issue as always of using your mega slot on a passive wall instead of a high utility or high power one.
From a gameplay perspective, I think everyone agree it's bizarre since Garchomp's speed was one of its most famous attributes. In terms of the design, the change of its appendages from Fins to more blades/scythes does make sense that it would be slower, as on top of being bulkier, it's less aerodynamic.