Unpopular opinions

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

I have a more general opinion that longer development time has been put on a pedestal as something that magically makes every video game better. (It's not.)

But back to Pokémon, why do people never ever talk about trees in other video games? We get it, SwSh's Wild Area has trees that would be at home on a Nintendo 64 game, but why does nobody talk about the trees and grass of other games?

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".

I really didn't want to bring up BDSP because I'm fairly certain GameFreak sabotaged that game, but that's a topic more for the mystery/conspiracy thread.

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.

It's actually not a good thing that every mechanic since Z-moves has been usable with every mon. Every single one since has been problematic in competitive -- Dynamax got banned immediately, and Terastal looks like it's going to get banned pretty quickly (at this point probably just on the backs of people who made up their minds the moment it was announced). Realistically the same is true of any future mechanic they will ever release. Z-moves probably would have been banned if there hadn't been such a strong aversion to banning generational mechanics at the time; they're a major reason why late gen 7 OU was such a matchup meta because there were too many threats to feasibly have two checks to all of them.

This is less a problem with the specific mechanics than with the fact so many Pokemon are close enough to being broken that any conceivable mechanic would either be total garbage or would buff them to the point of being banworthy, and surgical buffs in the form Megas provided are the only way to avoid this problem while also allowing surgical bans instead of requiring the mechanic to be taken as a whole.

> 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.

Since SV is being gunned right now, I also want to add this unpopular opinion,

Gen 9 is the best pokemon game bar none... If only it didn't have performance issue.
Good Pokemon, good gameplay, good characters, great story.
Any critique like the pokemon design, or open world gameplay are non-issue, because its subjective.

I only understand a bit about developing a game. But I understand it need MUCH more polish. As long as this game is stable, this is the best pokemon game.

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.

Except it didn't get a Regional Variant.

That would be silly

It got three.

But you're right, they could have made them all a split evolution.

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.

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).

Now THAT is a dumbass issue that GF absolutely screwed up for no reason.

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.)

F*** the convoluted path you needed to take to get their without the Double Jump/Climb power-up.

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.

Yeah that’s another thing I don’t quite like. At one point the Pokémon Center direction feature told me to go to the False Dragon Trial which rocks mid-50s when I was mid-30s. It initially sounded like a great way to mitigate this partial guide dang it. It’s not, so you have to rely on online guides with the intended order.

It frustrates me because aside from this the game is so enjoyable, but giving you the illusion of an open world yet still kinda more or less forcing you down a set path if you don’t go off and grind is a little bothersome.

Bro, the nurse was straight-up sending people on suicide missions out there.

Conclusion: GF should stop being lazy and given each boss multiple teams/versions depending on how many of their respective Badges you had. That would be 8 teams for Gym Leaders, 5 teams for Star Leaders, and 5 versions of the Titans.

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...

 

[Siggu]

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.

 

[Worldie]

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.

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.

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 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...

 

[Specs]

Performance issues dont just happen because they are literally always there. I’ve praised this game but theres no getting around the performance problems

 

[DrPumpkinz]

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.

 

[Rarycaris]

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.

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.

 

[pika pal]

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.

 

[Blazade]

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.

 

[Celever]

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.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

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.

A buff, yes. Not an Evo though.

Mawile is definitely due to getting Huge Power by now though, don't ask me how.

How much could the series be liberated if we just went back to sprite art?

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.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

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.

 

[KalosianPorygon]

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?

I feel like people can be a little hypocritical when it comes to sprites.
Recycle a 3D model, and folks will call you lazy. Reuse some sprites, and people won't bat an eye.

After that, there's the question of taste and whether or not newer graphics fall into the Uncanny Valley, which IMO is a valid reason not to like modern graphics.
...except for the fact people tend to focus on the best artwork of the industry (E.g., Street Fighter III) or modern sprites that very vaguely reminds folks of the 8-bit and 16-bit eras despite not fitting that well with the sprites or consoles like the NES or the Super Nintendo. And besides, sprites are also a taste, you are no less valid for preferring 3D models over pixel art.
And besides, just because a sprite is newer doesn't mean I should like it better.
I said it several pages ago, I don't mind the overworld sprites for the first few generations overall. Generations I and II? Really simple and cute.
Generation III has some bad cases of inconsistent coloring, also the Regis' overworld sprites were comically inaccurate. But other than that, Brendan's and May's might be my favorite overworld sprites for any playable character, alongside FRLG Red and Leaf.
Meanwhile, Black and White might be more recent games than Emerald, and yet I hate the overworld sprites here. They are taller I guess, but also about as wide as the Gen IV ones. As a result, they went from stubby to noodly and stretched, which may work for, say, Elesa, but not Hilbert.
And looking back, I think I know why Gen III has my favorite overworld people: no mouths. I don't know why, but putting mouths on every chibi map sprite just doesn't work for me.
And this is my expanded opinion on overworld sprites.

Also, please keep your current profile picture.

 

[Ironmage]

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.

I would argue that SV does not use verticality enough to require being 3D. Most 2D games have walls, and Gen 4 had specific ways to climb walls as an unlocked exploration tool. SV doesn't really put anything on top of anything else, so there isn't anywhere that is uniquely defined by height and the map can be projected onto a 2D surface without difficulty. I think Kalos Route 8 is the only overworld location in the series that comes close to requiring a 3D setup, and even then the upper and lower parts are on disconnected flat layers.

 

[BlizzardHero]

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.

Impractical at scale and for mutability. At the low or indie end, sprites are excellent beacuse the barrier to entry is far lower and they're a lot less complex to work with.

However, when it comes to reusing, fixing, or retooling art assets, 3D modeling is just a lot easier to work with. It's a lot easier, for example, to change an animation of a model, add more vertices, or swap textures than it is with a 2D sprite which will generally require a significant or complete rework. That was part of the argument for the big XY jump to 3D - the hardware was there, and while it would result in reduced content for a while it would be made up for with the ability to make more and faster content in the future. The original Gen 6 Creatures Inc. models were so futureproofed that they had to be significantly downscaled to work with the 3DS's resolution.

Of course, that extra/saved time should allow you to improve aspects of your work, not rollback features and produce sub-standard Garbodor *cough* *cough*

 

[Turtlek]

SS OU is the tier the most funny to play in my opinion. It’s so grateful slowly knocking everything and trapping Pexes.

 

[Coronis]

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.

Yeah idgaf about graphics in my games. Sure, its a nice bonus, but the story/gameplay are whats gonna keep me coming back to it, not pretty pictures.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Impractical at scale and for mutability. At the low or indie end, sprites are excellent beacuse the barrier to entry is far lower and they're a lot less complex to work with.

However, when it comes to reusing, fixing, or retooling art assets, 3D modeling is just a lot easier to work with. It's a lot easier, for example, to change an animation of a model, add more vertices, or swap textures than it is with a 2D sprite which will generally require a significant or complete rework. That was part of the argument for the big XY jump to 3D - the hardware was there, and while it would result in reduced content for a while it would be made up for with the ability to make more and faster content in the future. The original Gen 6 Creatures Inc. models were so futureproofed that they had to be significantly downscaled to work with the 3DS's resolution.

Of course, that extra/saved time should allow you to improve aspects of your work, not rollback features and produce sub-standard Garbodor *cough* *cough*

Correct. I was just too lazy to type all that stuff.

Also, don't forget the sheer cost of high-quality spritework. KoF 13 pretty much drove SNK to bankruptcy. Again.


Edit: I got a spicy one today.

These new games having humongous dexes and raid mons are killing me. It was reasonable to pick a team before, now?

Area 1 has 632146 mons, plus raids, the game is wide open, breeding is easy af, gotta catch em all.

Like dang, how am I supposed to pick a team like this?

 

[Worldie]

Like dang, how am I supposed to pick a team like this?

May I suggest you to join the club of "i'll decide on a whim while i run around"?

Which actually means i'll be changing pokemon every 5 minutes because godforsake I can stick to a team more than 5 minutes

 

[Jungle cruiser]

Or u could be a hybrid like me, planning out the team beforehand but only ending up using one or two of em because the others are much harder to obtain than anticipated and thus end up improvising the rest of the team.

 

[BlizzardHero]

Edit: I got a spicy one today.

These new games having humongous dexes and raid mons are killing me. It was reasonable to pick a team before, now?

Area 1 has 632146 mons, plus raids, the game is wide open, breeding is easy af, gotta catch em all.

Like dang, how am I supposed to pick a team like this?

Honestly, being boring is just a lot more fun. I choose like two, maybe three mons and roll with that.

I used to plan out elaborate teams for every game, 6 mons that cover every weakness and synergize well. Planned where/when to get them, if they'd be shiny, nicknames, etc.

For SwSh, I just used 4 mons: Rillaboom, Danger Tape, Mienshao, and Lunatone. And, honestly, Lunatone basically solo'd everyone. For my first SP playthrough I just used Toxicroak and Crawdaunt, and subsequent saves for ribbon grinding using just Infernape worked fine. USUM? Only Passimian. Emerald? I used Swellow and Swamp. Colo? I used Espeon and Quag. Just finished going through Legends, and I only used Decidueye.

Having lots of mons is interesting, but keeping them all leveled takes too much effort. Having a One Punch Man (or woman, or genderless blob) just solo their way through the entire game is more efficient. And, the big important bonus is that you bond much more closely when you're using just one or two mons and can gain a new appreciation for them. Passimian used to be a meh tier mon for me, but now they're high tier beacuse of the journey Oralech (available on my trade thread!) and I went on together.

Definitely an unpopular opinion, but I think narrowing one's team scope is much healthier for game enjoyment. If you have the time and opportunity to do so, I'd definitely recommend trying it at least once. And, make sure to choose mons that are outside of your normal comfort zone (but can still do the work of course, sorry Ledian ain't cutting it lol). You might be pleasantly surprised with how it goes.

 

[Ironmage]

Honestly, being boring is just a lot more fun. I choose like two, maybe three mons and roll with that.

I used to plan out elaborate teams for every game, 6 mons that cover every weakness and synergize well. Planned where/when to get them, if they'd be shiny, nicknames, etc.

For SwSh, I just used 4 mons: Rillaboom, Danger Tape, Mienshao, and Lunatone. And, honestly, Lunatone basically solo'd everyone. For my first SP playthrough I just used Toxicroak and Crawdaunt, and subsequent saves for ribbon grinding using just Infernape worked fine. USUM? Only Passimian. Emerald? I used Swellow and Swamp. Colo? I used Espeon and Quag. Just finished going through Legends, and I only used Decidueye.

Having lots of mons is interesting, but keeping them all leveled takes too much effort. Having a One Punch Man (or woman, or genderless blob) just solo their way through the entire game is more efficient. And, the big important bonus is that you bond much more closely when you're using just one or two mons and can gain a new appreciation for them. Passimian used to be a meh tier mon for me, but now they're high tier beacuse of the journey Oralech (available on my trade thread!) and I went on together.

Definitely an unpopular opinion, but I think narrowing one's team scope is much healthier for game enjoyment. If you have the time and opportunity to do so, I'd definitely recommend trying it at least once. And, make sure to choose mons that are outside of your normal comfort zone (but can still do the work of course, sorry Ledian ain't cutting it lol). You might be pleasantly surprised with how it goes.

Listen, Screens lead Ledian was an important part of my Mono-Bug ingame team for Moon. It routinely let Ariados Swords Dance up to +6.

 

[probablytaken]

The gen 5 elemental monkeys, especially Simipour, look cool.

 

[probablytaken]

I'm sorry, I don't speak French, what are you trying to say? Sorry if this comes off as rude.

 

[SpiritGuy]

I'm sorry, I don't speak French, what are you trying to say? Sorry if this comes off as rude.

He's talking about a moment in tournament when the 3 Simis performed well.

 

[probablytaken]

He's talking about a moment in tournament when the 3 Simis performed well.

Oh, cool, and he also has Mawile! That's my seventh favorite pokemon!