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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
- Start date
Of all the internet things to relate the Nacli line to, NFTs? My mind immediately went to Minecraft after seeing Naclstack. They look like a rock variant of a Creeper.
nah nah nah, just garganacl. Nacli looks like a super Mario mushroom, and naclstack looks like a golem or like you said rock creeper variant.
This is more related to comp, but imma say it
TTar is beyond overrated
If it wasn't for Sand, it'd die immediately to Close Combatters (or see my fav mon's ability Cloud Nine). Its slow speed means it will always lose a chunk, or be setup on. And while 134 ATK is dang nice, it's role has been even more generic than Lando T
It's a shame. I like the mon, but the playstyle is barely innovative, either VGC or Singles
TTar is beyond overrated
If it wasn't for Sand, it'd die immediately to Close Combatters (or see my fav mon's ability Cloud Nine). Its slow speed means it will always lose a chunk, or be setup on. And while 134 ATK is dang nice, it's role has been even more generic than Lando T
It's a shame. I like the mon, but the playstyle is barely innovative, either VGC or Singles
Eh, I wouldn't say it was ever really "overrated". I've said it before, but Tyranitar is more a Pokemon who has started to age rather badly rather than a Pokemon who was never that great, as you seem to be insinuating. Like yeah, in Gen 8 it was not all that good and right now in Gen 9 it's also...not great...but that's more an issue of power creep and whatnot continuing to seep in over the generations and Tyranitar has started to fall behind and show its age, not that Tyranitar itself was never great.
Back in the early generations Tyranitar was an amazing and versatile Pokemon, as it had the perfect stat build with the divine combination of excellent firepower, great bulk, wide movepool, and the hefty number of resistances it had to serve a variety of functions and allow it to fulfill any role on any team, with its severe Fighting weakness and low Speed being its Achilles heel that kept it manageable every time. It has many key resistances to Normal, Flying, Fire, Ghost, and a Psychic immunity combined with access to Pursuit in earlier gens to be an effective trapper, as well as great coverage options and offensive STAB in Rock Slide and later Stone Edge to hit hard. Sand giving a Special Defense boost in Gens 4 and beyond helped Tyranitar become an even more effective check to Ghosts and Psychics like Gengar, Alakazam, and the Latis. Tyranitar was a meta defining threat in Gen 2, 3, 4, and 5, and later a staple of Gen 6 and 7 OU thanks to these qualities. Its stat build and movepool meant it could do anything: bulky tank that can Pursuit trap, set up with Dragon Dance to be a lethal sweeper, using its sheer firepower and immense bulk to its advantage, be a powerful Choice user, and later it could be a great Stealth Rock setter and tank with utility. Its good 95 Special Attack meant it could use its special coverage options to main physical walls like Skarmory as well.
Worth noting is that Close Combat wasn't a thing in Gens 2 and 3 and so Fighting coverage wasn't that big of an issue for Tyranitar to deal with in its earliest days since good Fighting moves were borderline nonexistent in Gen 2 and the best one in Gen 3 was Brock Break.
Gen 6 and Gen 7 were a bit harsher on it but Tyranitar getting a Mega helped with its Dragon Dance sets to stay effective while its Choice and utility sets were still great. Tyranitar's Sand Stream was great not only for passive chip damage and its own Special Defense boost but also gave Tyranitar the ability to be an excellent teammate for Excadrill who could use the sandstorm to activate Sand Rush and be a deadly sweeper.
Of course it's started to fall off in Gens 8 and 9 where it lost Pursuit and its Mega and its age is starting to show with power creep being nastier than ever, but it was great for a very, very long time. Even in Gen 8 VGC and historically across many VGC metas it's been strong as a Sand setter and its STAB Rock Slide has been a force. It's not all that great nowadays in Smogon metas, but it used to be great for a long time. It's just a Pokemon who is starting to show its age. Took longer for it to start falling to power creep than Salamence or Metagross did, but yeah, it's starting to fall apart. But that doesn't mean it was never all that great to begin with, it was an amazing OU staple for many, many years for good reason.
Worth noting there are currently no effective sand abusers in regular gen 9 singles. There are only two mons with sand rush, one is Lycanroc-midday and the other is in Ubers for unrelated reasons.
Tyranitar even in Gen 8 had decent performance thanks to his extremely strong Choice Band Wallbreaking sets and Sand remaining one of the few reliable sources of Chip Damage with Boots on everything.
I think one thing that helped Ttar's age was that he was always kind of a strong-mon with an Achilles' Heel, as compared to Metagross or Salamence who were designed to be strong but not heavily oriented to one specific aspect in the same manner. Ttar is more resistant to generic Power Creep as a result because those weak points were already known and something you had to cover for, so he mostly gets hurt by those aspects becoming more common as opposed to the game in general getting stronger: He was already a slow juggaurnaut so the game speeding up isn't his issue for one example.
And honestly Ttar lasting as long as it did is impressive after Gen 3 where Sand Stream made it arguably the most relevant factor in the game due to permanently undoing Leftovers recovery for a gen where healing was much less widespread for OU. Flygon got by on performance simply because it could net-gain health under Sandstorm and with Spikes laid out, that mattered quite a bit for it.
I think one thing that helped Ttar's age was that he was always kind of a strong-mon with an Achilles' Heel, as compared to Metagross or Salamence who were designed to be strong but not heavily oriented to one specific aspect in the same manner. Ttar is more resistant to generic Power Creep as a result because those weak points were already known and something you had to cover for, so he mostly gets hurt by those aspects becoming more common as opposed to the game in general getting stronger: He was already a slow juggaurnaut so the game speeding up isn't his issue for one example.
And honestly Ttar lasting as long as it did is impressive after Gen 3 where Sand Stream made it arguably the most relevant factor in the game due to permanently undoing Leftovers recovery for a gen where healing was much less widespread for OU. Flygon got by on performance simply because it could net-gain health under Sandstorm and with Spikes laid out, that mattered quite a bit for it.
I am not going to play Gen 9 just like I didn't play the Gen 8 games. But I do love the idea and concept of Paradox Pokemon. They have some really neat designs especially the past versions. Not the Magneton with 101 base speed. Not sure what they were thinking with that design.
From what I read, it's a throwback to gen 1 when Magneton wasn't a steel type. That's why it's ground/elec.
Personally, the past paradoxes are much better because there is a Magneton at all. I really like mons like the Magnemite line, so I think of putting
one in a group defined by a prehistoric theme as showing that yes, bolt-adorned orb has been significant part of the world and isn't a new invention that's been tacked on.
one in a group defined by a prehistoric theme as showing that yes, bolt-adorned orb has been significant part of the world and isn't a new invention that's been tacked on.
I'm probably the only person who prefers the way Zygarde was handed in SM/USUM over the idea of it being needlessly forced into the story or slapped in a major cutscene just for the sake of it. (Giratina was a great example of this. Sure Distortion World and Giratina look cool, but its involvement seemed very forced and unnecessary, like it was for the sake of having something done for its own game. Nothing stopped that ending from being resolved the same way it was in DP without Giratina.)
I love how Gamefreak took Zygarde's concept, and incorporated it into quest to allow you to build the legendary from scratch in another region. While I also prefer this happens in Kalos at some point, by having this legendary take part in another region, it uniquely emphasizes that Zygarde's role in the world is just... that! The world. Legendaries should never be strictly tied to their region unless they're more minor, like the Swords of Justice. So many legendaries are just represented in their own region and left behind.
There was also a good reason for it to be in said region.
Zygarde is said to monitor the balance between life and death in ecosystems. Ultra Beasts inherently defy the natural order by just existing in the regular Pokémon universe. They are heavily known to disrupt ecosystems to large extents (hence being major invasive species)
Zygarde's role in Pokémon clashes with the presence of Ultra Beasts. It has done so more than it did with anything Lysandre has ever done, including in the anime, where Zygarde reluctantly makes a last second approach to join in and help. This Pokémon detects when the ecosystem is imbalanced and strikes when this happens to an extreme extent. In the games, Lysandre never fired the weapon at full force, so he never did anything to effectively trigger Zygarde. Anime Lysandre's case was exceptional for this, but the Ultra Beasts were actively pushing Zygarde's buttons by sporadically trying to live in the wild with regular Pokémon and creating ecological disaster. Ecological diaster that could have easily spread worldwide. Were they handled by the Tapus and player? Sure, but Zygarde still did much of its job by being present in this particular moment. In Sun and Moon the player also had a choice in whether or not they wanted Zygarde to be involved. In those games, you were able to build a Zygarde right before Ultra Beast climax. Dexio and Sina hinted that Zygarde's arrival could have had something to do with this. This wasn't its own game so I guess it made sense that it was never forced in.
Additionally, there were waves of Ultra Beasts and signs that some of them could have even arrived before the events of the game. Hapu also mentioned that facing one UB alone almost beat her and Tapu Fini. The Tapus and Alolan people wouldn't have been able to deal with all of them.
It's theoretically possible that Zygarde could have been around to deal with some of the UBs, without anyone in the region noticing at the time. This could have been further shown in USUM where the Zygarde are in 50% forme and 10% forme before you and Dexio caught one. Lastly, Zygarde in the anime and the manga has shown to be a very last resort Pokémon. I speculate that if the stakes of SM and USUM were never handled by the player, it would have been handled by Zygarde instead.
Idk I just love how unique and cool of a case this was. Zygarde wasn't just another box art slapped into a cover of its own game and doing the same thing previous box arts were doing. It was uniquely implemented in an area where its role was considered.
I love how Gamefreak took Zygarde's concept, and incorporated it into quest to allow you to build the legendary from scratch in another region. While I also prefer this happens in Kalos at some point, by having this legendary take part in another region, it uniquely emphasizes that Zygarde's role in the world is just... that! The world. Legendaries should never be strictly tied to their region unless they're more minor, like the Swords of Justice. So many legendaries are just represented in their own region and left behind.
There was also a good reason for it to be in said region.
Zygarde is said to monitor the balance between life and death in ecosystems. Ultra Beasts inherently defy the natural order by just existing in the regular Pokémon universe. They are heavily known to disrupt ecosystems to large extents (hence being major invasive species)
Zygarde's role in Pokémon clashes with the presence of Ultra Beasts. It has done so more than it did with anything Lysandre has ever done, including in the anime, where Zygarde reluctantly makes a last second approach to join in and help. This Pokémon detects when the ecosystem is imbalanced and strikes when this happens to an extreme extent. In the games, Lysandre never fired the weapon at full force, so he never did anything to effectively trigger Zygarde. Anime Lysandre's case was exceptional for this, but the Ultra Beasts were actively pushing Zygarde's buttons by sporadically trying to live in the wild with regular Pokémon and creating ecological disaster. Ecological diaster that could have easily spread worldwide. Were they handled by the Tapus and player? Sure, but Zygarde still did much of its job by being present in this particular moment. In Sun and Moon the player also had a choice in whether or not they wanted Zygarde to be involved. In those games, you were able to build a Zygarde right before Ultra Beast climax. Dexio and Sina hinted that Zygarde's arrival could have had something to do with this. This wasn't its own game so I guess it made sense that it was never forced in.
Additionally, there were waves of Ultra Beasts and signs that some of them could have even arrived before the events of the game. Hapu also mentioned that facing one UB alone almost beat her and Tapu Fini. The Tapus and Alolan people wouldn't have been able to deal with all of them.
It's theoretically possible that Zygarde could have been around to deal with some of the UBs, without anyone in the region noticing at the time. This could have been further shown in USUM where the Zygarde are in 50% forme and 10% forme before you and Dexio caught one. Lastly, Zygarde in the anime and the manga has shown to be a very last resort Pokémon. I speculate that if the stakes of SM and USUM were never handled by the player, it would have been handled by Zygarde instead.
Idk I just love how unique and cool of a case this was. Zygarde wasn't just another box art slapped into a cover of its own game and doing the same thing previous box arts were doing. It was uniquely implemented in an area where its role was considered.
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This is one thing I never understood. The dex mentions the destruction caused by UBs, but it doesn't feel extreme compared to what regular mons are said to do (Gyarados is a prime example). One of the defining traits of invasive species is that they can thrive in the new environment to be able to displace natives, while UBs appear unable to reproduce outside their home dimensions. Heck, Alola has an actual invasive species problem, right down to the same reasons real life has a lot of them (deliberate introduction for supposed pest control), and that invasive species is literally enshrined.
I guess the difference is that by nature of being totally-not-legendaries, the Ultra Beasts aren't introduced to you in very large quantity. On top of this the Pokedex entries for the SM Ultra Beasts describe a lot of them more as feats or incidents than consistent habits (like Kartana cut a steel tower it's so sharp, but no mention that it regularly cuts things down). This is only for half of them, with Nihilego, Guzzlord, and the USUM Beasts being more habitually dangerous (though Poipole is more mischevious than vicious since one entry makes it sound like a Starter in its home world).
Can't determine if this is just gameplay story segregation because they want limited UB access for the player, or if the idea is they're popping out in much greater quantity with you just being one of several parties dealing with the fallout. It might be that they're simply destructive agents appearing in scattered incidents, but not with regularity or quantity that constitutes an invasive species problem. It'd be kind of like the difference between your area being filled with a non-native Snake population vs one pet Snake getting dumped and eating the wildlife for a couple months.
I also think in the case of the regular Wild Pokemon, there's this acceptance that they're native to whatever habitat so the Ecosystem and human settlements build/position around it naturally. The UB descriptions comparatively have them just dropped into a spot and introducing a destructive element it's clearly not poised to handle, or just monsters in human settlements like Blacephalon blowing people up.
Count me in this too.
I think, as you said, I would have ultimately preferred for this stuff to have been done in Kalos, but other than that, I’ve always really liked how they tried to do something different and less formulaic with Zygarde. I used one in one of my Sun & Moon playthroughs, and it felt rewarding to gradually work my way up to restoring Zygarde’s full power. Once I got to Route 16 (side-note: I feel like they should’ve placed the Zygarde lab on Akala rather than Ula’ula, because you’re gonna find 10 cells pretty quick, but can’t do anything with them until you’ve probably got like 30 or so*), I was able to build a 10% Zygarde and add it to my team, and then sometime around Vast Poni Canyon I think I had enough to push it to 50%, so it was kind of like a more manual form of evolution to get what’s essentially a 600 BST pseudo-legendary to bring to the League. And then the postgame naturally leads you to the point where you obtain the final cell, capping off your long journey across the whole region.
Zygarde just being Rayquaza 2.0 would’ve been much less memorable, I feel. Ironically that role ended up being better fulfilled by… Rayquaza itself, lol.
* (Maybe they could have also created like a 25% forme or something to bridge the gap.)
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Because, as you might remember, the trees took off as a meme when they tried to justify Dexit as something that would help them improve the game.
See also: "High-Quality Animations".
A mainline game that had to be done in UNITY because GF didn't give ILCA (A first-time dev company) their engine? GF had to hear about the Orre games for years, especially after their own jump to 3D. Don't forget they're nothing without Pokémon. Do you know what this means?
We're never getting another main series/remake/actual RPG spinoff from a 3rd party. Ever.
> and surgical buffs in the form Megas provided are the only way to avoid this problem
I'm sorry, this is laughable. First, because Megas were straight up not balanced. Second, there were clear winners and losers when it comes to the actual Megas. Third, and most important, there are mons that will never be even remotely viable again because Megas robbed them of the possibility of an evolution. Mawile is the biggest example of this.
And to make things worse, there are other ways to surgically buff mons. Maybe they'll never be OU because power creep is a thing, but they'll definitely get better.
For example, Aggron getting Head Smash. Or, for a more recent example that I'm not quite sure I can mention... Gallade's new ability.
As it should.
And frankly, I don't even mind most of the glitches, for the most part, they're kinda funny. The battle-hook glitch is amazing. The FPS drops are unfortunate, but them's the breaks.
The game itself is great and oozes effort. I'd rather have a game marred by technical issues because GF bit off more than it could chew than the endless sea of mid that was ORAS -> SwSh.
I wouldn't say *all* of them, but Paldean Tauros just doesn't look complete compared to the other two variants. They really could've been side-grade evos to it like how Scizor and Kleavor were to Scyther.Except it didn't get a Regional Variant.
It got three.
But you're right, they could have made them all a split evolution.
Now THAT is a dumbass issue that GF absolutely screwed up for no reason.Oh, BTW, minor Scarlet & Violet spoilers, challenges don't level scale. They don't stop you from going anywhere but they certainly make sure you don't feel welcome in what they decided was late game locations (and aside from higher Level Pokemon and possibly path roadblocks, don't outright tell you).
There was really no need to mess with the whole game's scaling, but if the Major Battles did, the game would be a LOT better. What's the point of an open-world game if it essentially works like RBY scaling-wise? (I did abuse it to heck and back tho. Breeding is fun.)
To be honest, there was a relatively straightforward detour that you could take... which I only found after over an hour battle-hooking my way through the caves.
Bro, the nurse was straight-up sending people on suicide missions out there.
Actually, they'd need 18. 18 major objectives. Otherwise, they'd fall on the same issue on a smaller scale.
This reminds me of SwSh's IoA teams, where every trainer had separate trainer entries depending on whether or not the Darkest Day had happened...
Except they used the same bleeping mons with the same bleeping attacks on both of them.
Klara pulling up with an Lv. 10 Venipede is fine, a Lv. 62 one is just...
Honestly, in regards to Scarlet and Violet's lack of quality, I think people focused way too much on the performance issues. Yes, that needed criticism, but that was being done while ignoring the much more forefront severe gameplay change issues.
I really wish they had worked on improving what was already there instead of trying something new.
I really wish they had worked on improving what was already there instead of trying something new.
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Honestly, I feel that the FPS drops and odd visual glitches were basically the "Tree" of this gen.
Echoing what others said... Honestly, SV is a good game.
There's no denying that the performance issues happen. However from what I know, they are mostly due to memory leaks. (I say most, cause certain areas like the big lake with the sushi duo is uuuh unsalvageable I'm afraid).
Which is incidentally why the amount of glitches people seem to differ so much from person to person. If you're not doing very long sessions, the glitches don't actually show up. I've myself stopped experiencing glitches as soon as I started actually closing the game every 3 or 4 hours.
I will actually echo what Volt-Ikazuchi said.
I respect GF for actually putting effort in trying new things. Performance aside, SV was one of the better executed open worlds I've seen in... quite a while honestly.
Ofc there's still a long way to go until actually making a game "really" worth of the 60€ price but... I suppose they are kinda getting there? Slowly?
If only they actually hired more people so the time constraint, or straight up ineptitude to work with 3d, would not be such a huge problem...
I dunno how much this is really a Pokemon thing and much of it is just a my personal tastes independent of Pokemon thing, but it's something I thought of while watching a few SV and Legends playthroughs: I feel like these games would look better if they performed worse.
What I mean by that is like, the games look good when they run smoothly, but whenever objects run at a lower framerate, they look super choppy and bad. However, once the framerate gets low enough, it stops looking like "trying to make smooth motion and failing" and starts looking like a stylistic choice, like Mr. Game & Watch in Smash. Some super-distant Pokemon in Legends had framerate that low, and I wish they would just cap the framerate that low unless the object was capable of running smoothly.
What I mean by that is like, the games look good when they run smoothly, but whenever objects run at a lower framerate, they look super choppy and bad. However, once the framerate gets low enough, it stops looking like "trying to make smooth motion and failing" and starts looking like a stylistic choice, like Mr. Game & Watch in Smash. Some super-distant Pokemon in Legends had framerate that low, and I wish they would just cap the framerate that low unless the object was capable of running smoothly.
I more meant as opposed to buffs that equally apply to every Pokemon, like every other mechanic. Things like G-Max and specialist Z-moves might work, but in practice GF doesn't seem greatly inclined to do much with that.
I'd definitely agree that not tying such buffs to mechanics at all is the best solution, because that way they have more longevity. On the whole I wish they'd do away with generational gimmicks entirely. It's just that if we do get mechanics like this, tying them to specific mons is a more interesting implementation, and is also better for Smogon tiering reasons (e.g. banning Mega Salamence doesn't necessarily imply banning Mega Audino, but banning Terastal Roaring Moon does necessarily imply banning Terastal... whatever low tier mon).
I'd argue that Gallade is an excellent example, in fact, of the fact that a mon getting a Mega *hasn't* permanently foreclosed on it getting a buff later. Nor did it stop Slowbro getting a regional form.
I would also mention a few things added in Gen 9 (when is the spoiler bar on the Pokemon at least considered done?) as more evidence of old Pokemon with Megas not being done with exploration, or the opposite direction where being the last mon in a line doesn't mean it must be the subject of new attention.
I'm in the camp of "SV's performance issues don't bother me they're just really really funny". I wish this game would finally force the issue that we don't need Gamefreak to bite off more than they could chew and make these big 3D titles. The pokemon formula is good, adding to it with other pokemon related activities like Titans, Star Base assaults, Raids, Contests, Battle Facilities etc is also good. How much could the series be liberated if we just went back to sprite art? We're not competing with the big Switch titles from a graphics perspective, we're barely putting out a functional product, we don't even have voice acting! A lot of digital ink has been spilled about how dexit is so great because it lets them do all this cool stuff now, and that's just nothing compared to what could be accomplished if they stopped pretending they're a AAA company and made good 2D games that they're capable of completing in their yearly timetable.
I've wanted the core Pokémon games to remain 2D essentially since the release of XY, and have posted about it many times. My argument for this hasn't been because I'm nostalgic or anything, I love seeing Pokémon in 3D, but because the only way to satisfactorily get 3D Pokémon is for it to be left to spinoffs.
The Pokémon formula is wonderful, as you said, and so if Game Freak sticks to making gameplay as good as they can make it (and games like SV demonstrate it is still completely possible to innovate the formula in a positive way) while having charming 2D artwork in the vein of B2W2, then a team that is more attuned to 3D modelling and animating can then bring those Pokémon to life in 3D. Battle Revolution is still, easily, the best looking 3D Pokémon game, because the only priority during the development of the game was making it look good. Colosseum and XD look better than anything Game Freak has outputted even still, especially as far as the Gen III mons are concerned (since the first 2 gens were ported from Stadium and up-ressed lol). And the whole stream of XY -> SwSh could have been ported into 2D and the gameplay would have been absolutely identical, so playing through them in 3D that looks worse than the good spritework that Game Freak is capable of felt almost performative and empty.
Buuuuuut SV might have changed my tune on that a little bit. SV has finally made use of one of the main advantages of 3D, that being new movement opportunities. While not every 2D game has to be tile-based, every 2D game is restricted to (obviously) a 2-dimensional plane. Having verticality, or more specifically being able to scale vertical surfaces, has made exploring SV and to a lesser extent Legends: Arceus an absolute treat. Using verticality intelligently in order to incorporate it into the power curve of the game has also finally been achieved in SV, which wasn't the case at all in Legends: Arceus really. SV is an example of using 3D in a way to bolster gameplay, and I think it has been completely successful in that aim.
At its core, as a Nintendo gamer, gameplay will always trump graphics for me. Now that the advantages of 3D gameplay have finally actually been utilised, the need for a graphically impressive spinoff has been lessened for me. Do I still wish Game Freak outsourced their Pokémon modelling and animation to Genius Sonority? Yeah, absolutely, IDK how many of the same employees that worked on Orre and Battle Revolution will even still be there, but Genius has proven itself to be particularly skilled at that part of game development. And while I still yearn for a spinoff with better graphics than the main series in terms of Pokémon personality, that doesn't have to come with the core series being stuck in 2D any more, because SV have shown that GF can now utilise 3D effectively, and so a spinoff that animates with more personality and precision might as well be one that has more distinctive gameplay than Orre or Battle Revolution did.
A buff, yes. Not an Evo though.
Mawile is definitely due to getting Huge Power by now though, don't ask me how.
If only people knew just how impractical sprites truly are...
If you think the games are horrendously rushed now, you don't want to imagine how they'll be when they gotta waste a truly enormous amount of time and money making sprites for damn near everything. Did people forget how sprite frames work or something?
There's a reason why 3D is the industry-standard folks. Actually, there are several.
Oh well, maybe one of these days I'll get to change my profile pic.
Scarlet and Violet did amazing work with the materials on all the Pokémon, which are basically textures with added effects such as reflectiveness or bumpiness. Miraidon's model is probably my favourite.