Unpopular opinions

[Pikachu315111]

Alright, imma slap my opinions onto this

Muh opinions, can be crass

Bellossom: Hey, you missed this! Find the tidbit on it initially being darker skinned in dev interesting. Sadly final's safer green skin is meh, but the concept is decent.
PS: it has nothing underneath the skirt!

Steelix: Almost perfect...but the checker teeth are dumb. But that's a minor fault. Though it isn't winning beauty contests with that smile

Kleavor: Rock. Wait, steel beats rock in pokemon-
I like both, though Kleavor's face could be better

Togekiss: I LOST MY ARMS!!!

Honchkrow: Funny enough, Gen 2 dev Murkrow WAS meant to have witch influences. Interesting to see they instead turned it into a mafia boss. Though keep it away from tasteless trilby wearing "nice guys", it doesn't deserve that trash. Too boss for that

Mismagius: Built in shade. Perfect for hot- oh wait, it's nocturnal....It's still purty!

Dudunsparce: Meh. Imagine if this was its evo instead...

Weavile: Till this day, people debate whether it's a cat or weasel...
Sneasler: It's a cat. Same with Trubbish

Froslass: Why is it female exclusive? Glalie didn't even benefit from the Sp/Phy split. Ah well, it's nice

I skipped over branched evolutions as many would have to diverge from the design theme of the family it was added into.

Bellossom: Why are you looking up Bellossom's skirt.
Just kidding. Anyway, Pokedex says its a biped though Bulbapedia notes in the anime it seemingly uses the leaves which makes up its skirt as legs. I'm going to guess we're just not supposed to think about it. Either it does have legs (probably would look like Oddish's) or it just floats (if you want to throw some pseudo-science in how, can just say its skirt leaves pushes air through it giving it lift to move the direction it wants).

Steelix: "Though it isn't winning beauty contests with that smile"
So, in the Sinnoh games Jasmine uses her Steelix, Rusty, in Contests and one of the best Contests its set up for is Beauty. Infact, in BD/SP, her Steelix has the highest Visual Evaluation score for Beauty in the Master Ranks.

Kleavor: "Wait, steel beats rock in pokemon-"
We need a Rock version of Freeze-Dry which is SE against Steel, a Steel version which is SE against Grass, and a Grass version which is SE against Rock, um, forget that last one.

Togekiss: Oh no, it lost its dinky arms it could barely do anything with for bigger wings which it can do more with (btw it still learns punching moves, not that it would want to).

Honchkrow: "Though keep it away from tasteless trilby wearing "nice guys", it doesn't deserve that trash. Too boss for that"
Let's not lie, Honchkrow would probably have a side hustle as a pimp.

Mismagius: Hides it from moonlight?

Dudunsparce: I like Orthworm fine but it's definitely better as a one off.
As I said, most fanmade Dunsparce evos looked like this.

Weavile & Sneasler: It's both a cat & weasel. Haven't we learned our lesson from the Legendary Beasts?

Froslass: Its female exclusive because the Yuki-onna are all female.

 

[Sonikku A]

Honchkrow: "Though keep it away from tasteless trilby wearing "nice guys", it doesn't deserve that trash. Too boss for that"
Let's not lie, Honchkrow would probably have a side hustle as a pimp.

Suddenly realizes Honchkrow was introduced in the same Gen Lopunny was


Agree for Dunsparce, fan evos of it being a winged dragon is cooler. But like, give the thing an actual evo!

As for Bellossom, Smash Bros Melee's trophies model has it legless. Was looking at mon models that game cuz some are stupidly high poly (Heracross), or flat out CG (Lugia for Movie 2's ref model, Blastoise for a TCG card). It likely is Oddish legs for legit rep, but ghostly floating works too

 

[misterdarvus]

Bellossom: Why are you looking up Bellossom's skirt.
Just kidding. Anyway, Pokedex says its a biped though Bulbapedia notes in the anime it seemingly uses the leaves which makes up its skirt as legs. I'm going to guess we're just not supposed to think about it. Either it does have legs (probably would look like Oddish's) or it just floats (if you want to throw some pseudo-science in how, can just say its skirt leaves pushes air through it giving it lift to move the direction it wants).

As for Bellossom, Smash Bros Melee's trophies model has it legless. Was looking at mon models that game cuz some are stupidly high poly (Heracross), or flat out CG (Lugia for Movie 2's ref model, Blastoise for a TCG card). It likely is Oddish legs for legit rep, but ghostly floating works too

Its skirt leaves are legs, and walks like a spider.

 

[Pikachu315111]

Its skirt leaves are legs, and walks like a spider.

Walking.
Running.
Pokemon-Amie.

Not really, it looks to just be floating.

 

[Hiddenfreezer]

1. In what way do you mean that? I would say in general Dexit is a big deal, especially for long time players, BUT there are certainly aspects of Dexit people had issue with that in a bigger picture isn't, as you said, a big deal.

I will put it bluntly: I played since Gen 1, played Stadium, Colloseum and all other spin-offs in my youth. With so many Pokemon, I have never missed one of them. We have so much choice, why restrict ourselves to old Pokemon at all? Furthermore, it is always sweet when a favorite of yours returns (in my case Skarmory)

Although now that I think about it maybe Pokemon fans are to loyal and only have one favorite Mon or something. Obviously for them it is devistating.

2. While there are certainly Moves I would not have removed, there are also Moves I totally get them removing. However another aspect of this is them removing a Move due to the complexity of it but not then replacing it with a Move which fills the role most were using it for. Two examples that come to mind is Scald and Return.

Scald is a good example of how to replace a Move, Scald was too powerful with its Burn effect so instead essentially replaced it with Chilling Water that still did the main function Scald was so liked for (if not better): decreasing the Attack stat.
Return is a bad example as it was used as the go-to high powered Normal attack. They got rid of it as it was too gimmicky, dealing with a statistic which otherwise had nothing to do with battle, BUT they then never replaced it with a new high power Normal-type Move. Not all Pokemon get Slash, Body Slam or Strength, all which are generally weaker than Return. They needed something like a 100 Power, Physical Normal-type Move that most Pokemon get, and to balance it out just have it have like 5 PP; maybe as a callback to Return have it be a Move a Move Tutor will only teach to a Pokemon with high Friendship, therefore still requiring that stat being high in-game but still separate from battle mechanics.

For me personally the attacks mattered more than the mons. They are the soul of the mon, the showcase of progression and interesting gimmicks for the Pokemon itself. The mon throughout Level 1 to for example Level 36 stays the same, but what changes constantly? The moves. The stats. This is what gives Mons their feel, alongside obviously objectively seen the balance of the gameplay.

I remember being excited when Heracross learned Megahorn in Gen2. When we finally got decent bug moves with Silver Wind in Gen 3. How much better Fearow was with Drill Peck instead of Wing Attack and all stuff like that.

Now they removed things like Signal Beam. They gave each Mon unlimited coverage and all that snazz. This is what annoys me.

4. White 2 specifically? What about Black 2? Though I would agree, while I feel the story of those games is a stepdown from the original BW, for the content those games offer they're one of the best in the franchise. Excited that Chuggaaconroy has started his LP of it!

I meant speficially Black and White 2. Also the let's play is exciting thank you for sharing that. I STILL WANT TO KNOW IF HE MANAGES TO GET DROUGHT VULPIX!! Yes I know I used Capslock but that still drives me completly mad. Me and my bro wasted like 10 hours + for one.

5. Mind if I ask two things for this point?
One, what exactly about the designs of the Pokemon don't you like, point out a few examples if you don't mind (and why those aren't a problem on the ones you find decent)?
Two, you have not experienced this same feeling for other generations? Mind you, Gen V is the gen that had the most Pokemon introduced, Gens II through IV usually only brought in around a 100 new Pokemon, and Gens VI+ kept under 100 new species (not counting new forms). To put into perspective, if you disliked at least half of the Pokemon from Gen V and Gen VII, for Gen V that's about 75 Pokemon and for Gen VI that's about 35; this is because Gen VI only had 71 new species of Pokemon, meaning the amount of Pokemon you don't like from Gen V equals the amount of Pokemon that's been generally introduced each gen after V (and in comparison those gens are going to have a lower amount of Pokemon you don't like which could give the illusion you hate Gen V's design more when infact it's still a 50/50 split).

My family and me rated each Generation of Pokemon, with 5 and 4 being for favorites and 1 2 and 3 being for a "negative" feeling towards a design.

I admit taste is obviously subjective and we did this I think 3 years ago but here are the results for me personally:

Gen 5 had the worst average followed by Gen 8 for me personally. So I hated 77 of the Mons basically. That is A LOT. And the worst part is some of the Bad 1 were for final evolutions, which tainted my experience even further.

 

[DrPumpkinz]

Although now that I think about it maybe Pokemon fans are to loyal and only have one favorite Mon or something. Obviously for them it is devistating.

I've noticed Pokemon fans will often develop parasocial relationships with fictional species. See also people phrasing their balance opinions as "it's not fair that ______ (only physical attackers have a status that cripples them, physical Electric-types are stuck with Wild Charge while special ones get Thunderbolt, etc.)" as if these are real living beings that are being treated unjustly as opposed to tools that game developers use to craft a play experience for the players.

 

[Sonikku A]

I've noticed Pokemon fans will often develop parasocial relationships with fictional species. See also people phrasing their balance opinions as "it's not fair that ______ (only physical attackers have a status that cripples them, physical Electric-types are stuck with Wild Charge while special ones get Thunderbolt, etc.)" as if these are real living beings that are being treated unjustly as opposed to tools that game developers use to craft a play experience for the players.

Sorry, couldn't not meme
I mean I can understand frustration of a "tool" just sucking many gens. GF HAS been receptive to balance changes at times (See, Tauros, Talonflame and Aegislash)

 

[QuentinQuonce]

In parallel with my other post about GSC...

So, someone on Reddit created a "full" version of GSC Kanto that's as big as it was in RBY. If you're unaware, because of the constraints of the technology and the digital memory required to fit two regions into one game, GSC significantly cut corners with Kanto, shrinking and shortening a lot of routes and removing several areas like the Underground Path between routes 7 and 8.

Original GSC Kanto

But, comparing the two overworld maps, when it comes specifically to the shortening of routes, I'm forced to conclude that...

Seriously, I can't be alone in thinking that a lot of the shortened routes were overlong and a bit dull. Route 19, for example, is so boring in RBY - it's just a massive expanse of water full of trainers, without any sandbars or decks with Fishermen on them. I much prefer GSC's smaller, to-the-point version, especially since the barrier at Seafoam Islands is removed so that you can pass through in either direction.

Route 1 is virtually unchanged and Route 2 is the most starkly different since Viridian Forest is gone, but for literally all of the others - 3 through 22 - - the difference is so minimal that their essential "character" isn't lost. Their shrinking didn't prevent them from still being full of trainers, and it's not as if you're moving from city to city with nothing in between - they're not brief to navigate for the first time, and still provide things to do thanks to having hidden items and areas that need HMs to be accessed. Cycling Road in particular is pretty much exactly the same as it always was. And the cities themselves are largely unchanged, which to me seems a more important point.

Obviously, Route 23 was excised in its entirety, but you can't ruin what isn't there at all, and I'd say the addition of Route 26 and 27 basically serves the purpose that area did.

Let me make it clear I'm not including the removal of interior areas in this, even though I do think that the removal of the east-west Underground Path is a complete non-issue, and I appreciate Diglett's Cave being far shorter than the bland unending corridor it was in RBY. When I say nothing of importance was lost I'm specifically talking about the overworld.

 

[Sonikku A]

Too bad Johto's boring layout wise, so either way you're screwed

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Too bad Johto's boring layout wise

I highly disagree

 

[Ransei]

Zygarde's case in Gen 6 can at least somewhat relate to Kyogre and Groudon in Gen 3 and Palkia and Dialga in Gen 4, but mostly Reshiram, Zekrom, and Kyurem in Gen 5. They each have extended formes of themselves that aren't introduced in their generation, but don't get revealed until later generations.

Zygarde most closely relates to the Unova dragons as we were told during Generation 5 that Reshiram and Zekrom used to be one singular dragon. We know this variant of a Pokemon exists somewhere in the series but to this day have still never seen it. In Zygarde's case, two of Zygarde's dex entries in Gen 6 mention something about a secret power the Pokemon beholds when ecosystems fall in disarray (particularly regarding the interference of population, and the inability for Xerneas/Yveltal to manage it in the moment, not just something going off regarding the weather or a potential cataclysmic event). We end up seeing this secret power by late Gen 6 anime, when Zygarde reluctantly decides it wants to get up, transform, and help humanity, and in Pokemon Sun and Moon, where Ultra Beasts have been known to disrupt its populations for at least a decade, but this time they've done enough to grab Zygarde's attention and have it monitor the Alola region to ensure Ultra Beasts don't create a full-blown ecological disaster. It's also shown in Pokémon the Movie: Volcanion and the Mechanical Marvel, where Zygarde goes from Core to 100% in a quick second just to save Bonnie from getting hit by an attack, then return back to Core lol.

My point is that significant box art-level legendary Pokemon are often never complete by the end of their debut generation, and Zygarde was not the first instance of this. It probably won't be the last either. Some of these transformations may require incredibly rare circumstances to activate too.

Another thing I'd like to mention is just how little room Zygarde truly had for involvement. It seems like most of Zygarde's job is done when Xerneas and Yveltal are awake and active, but Zygarde appears whenever situations go off that are outside Xerneas and Yveltal's control, or something terribly wrong is happening with Xerneas or Yveltal. From my interpretation of Pokemon X and Y, Lysandre's case there was not enough to justify Zygarde's arrival. Xerneas/Yveltal were able to break out on their own, take back most of their energy, and immediately put a massive dent to all of his plans, while you just stood there and watched this until the battle triggered. I'll also point out that if Lysandre were to fire the weapon at full power and create mass genocide, that this may technically be Xerneas's job to reverse all of this, as it's capable of doing so and does hold the responsibility of balancing the natural order. Yveltal's case would've simply not worked after a dex entry read. "When its life comes to an end, it absorbs the life energy of every living thing and turns into a cocoon once more." This either meant Lysandre's plan was gonna get foiled or Lysandre's plan was gonna get foiled. Not only that, Xerneas and Yveltal have consistently proven across all of media, not just the games but the anime and the manga, to be more competent and level-headed than most other legendary box arts. They aren't like Kyogre and Groudon, who want to kill each other on sight every time, or like Palkia and Dialga, who have somehow proven to not be able to consistently rationalize themselves out of messy situations. They've always been able to escape from imprisonment without much help, and when Xerneas and Yveltal fight, they always make amends before Zygarde needs to interfere. Zygarde is bound to be a mysterious legendary Pokemon that lies dormant in caves until something warrants it scouting a region. Personally, I like that. Legendary box arts having their own game is overrated and I think Sun and Moon did more to show Zygarde being legendary than most legendary box arts did with their own game. It's even a lot more tedious to obtain, which is what legendaries have lost over the years.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

I was thinking the other day that when you consider what the mascot Pokemon of upper versions typically receive, it's funny that Rayquaza got... nothing in its own game. No new form, no new move, no new ability. It wasn't even available at a different level than it was in Ruby and Sapphire.

Obviously times have moved on, but you couldn't imagine Game Freak doing a hypothetical Pokemon Z where Zygarde was... just catchable a bit earlier, with no other additions.

I was always a bit bummed that Zygarde missed out on its own game, but looking back the anime and the manga did it better than I think the games ever could. When you compare it to the other "third points" of each trio, it can definitely stand alongside them as an equal.

 

[Samtendo09]

I was thinking the other day that when you consider what the mascot Pokemon of upper versions typically receive, it's funny that Rayquaza got... nothing in its own game. No new form, no new move, no new ability. It wasn't even available at a different level than it was in Ruby and Sapphire.

Obviously times have moved on, but you couldn't imagine Game Freak doing a hypothetical Pokemon Z where Zygarde was... just catchable a bit earlier, with no other additions.

I was always a bit bummed that Zygarde missed out on its own game, but looking back the anime and the manga did it better than I think the games ever could. When you compare it to the other "third points" of each trio, it can definitely stand alongside them as an equal.

ORAS more or less fixed this bit by giving Rayquaza it’s own Mega Evolution. That worked too well considering that it don’t need any Mega Stone and instead Dragon’s Ascent, but it still makes sense.

I do think the bigger irony is that Groudon and Kyogre are the one who get the more unique forms, being Primal Reversion. Even if all three of those more-powerful forms were gutted in mainline games since SwSh, their impact aren’t to overlook.

 

[Pikachu315111]

I was thinking the other day that when you consider what the mascot Pokemon of upper versions typically receive, it's funny that Rayquaza got... nothing in its own game. No new form, no new move, no new ability. It wasn't even available at a different level than it was in Ruby and Sapphire.

Ah, but remember that Rayquaza was technically the first extra version mascot that started the trend of their being an additional member to the initial versions duo (until said tradition was broken by SwSh as it took the games down the new DLC route). Previously we had Pikachu for Yellow (and Blastoise for Japanese Blue), both treated as Starters though Blastoise was a Starter Final Evo while Yellow is a special version made to reflect the anime hence Pikachu getting special treatment. Gen II's Crystal had Suicune which was a Legendary but not on equal terms with the initial versions' mascots, infact it was the servant to one of them.

Rayquaza was the first extra version mascot to be a Legendary on "even" level with the initial versions' (yes, yes, I know, Rayquaza has 10 more BST than Groudon & Kougra; as if at their high of BST that makes much of a difference). And while it did not get any new boons from being said mascot, what it did get was an extended role in the story. Whereas originally it was just this random dragon hanging out on top of a tower, in Emerald it become plot important as it was the only one that could stop both Groudon & Kyogre from fighting. Compared to Japanese Blue (which was just an update to Red & Green), Yellow (once again a special case, and it didn't really add lore but just gave you (normal stated) Pikachu as a Starter which had some additional interactions) and Crystal (Suicune got to run around a bit longer than it's fellow members but that's really it); that's a pretty significant addition even if it didn't affect gameplay.

Though, as Samtendo09 said, ORAS would fix this by giving it possibly the most powerful Mega Evolution (one that can hold an item and all it had to do was just know a very powerful STAB Move (and in addition to the stat increases also gets an Ability which nullified its Flying weaknesses); so no downside whatsoever).

Obviously times have moved on, but you couldn't imagine Game Freak doing a hypothetical Pokemon Z where Zygarde was... just catchable a bit earlier, with no other additions.

I was always a bit bummed that Zygarde missed out on its own game, but looking back the anime and the manga did it better than I think the games ever could. When you compare it to the other "third points" of each trio, it can definitely stand alongside them as an equal.

You know, while I do think GF were thinking of doing a Z Version (or something along those lines, Black 2 & White 2 I think really changed their perspective on extra versions until SwSh essentially retired the idea), I would believe they didn't have any plans on what they would actually do with it. It would be like Platinum? Would they do a BW2? Maybe try to think of something else. Oh, wait, this year is the 20th Anniversary! Um, you know what, scrap Z version, put full development time into the next gen. Just put the new Zygarde form in them as a bonus and pretend that was the plan all along...

I do think the bigger irony is that Groudon and Kyogre are the one who get the more unique forms, being Primal Reversion.

They got the unique forms, but I think they made it work from a story perspective. In on way Primal Reversion is sort of a downgrade from Mega Evolution as both immediately transform whereas Mega you get to decide when your Pokemon transforms (though granted this is a rare case and it's not like Groudon & Kyogre wouldn't want to transform first round anyway).

 

[Samtendo09]

After checking some responses from my Google Form regarding Pokémon’s power creep, I noticed that En Passant showed me their biggest issue regarding power creep called “Special Snowflake Syndrome”, and they make an excellent point on why it nearly singlehandedly made power creep into an issue lately.

They pointed out that the power creep prior to Generation 7 is more subtle due to mostly concerning stats and that each generation have their own overpowered Legendary Pokémon anyways. I’d say Gen 6 and by extension Gen 7 were a notable exception due to Mega Evolution, but that’s an issue that’s already talked about.

What they meant by Special Snowflake Syndrome is the fact that since Generation 7, Game Freak have a compulsion to give a powerful signature Move and / or Ability to the newer Pokémon in hope to make them stand out more. Although it could help them stand out for the casual crowd in theory, GF goes as far as intentionally making the newer Pokémon more powerful than they should be just so they are more inticing to use, making this attempt a lot more damaging in practice.

It’s not like there’s a lack of signature Moves and / or Abilities for older Pokémon, it is just that in most cases, those signatures alone doesn’t instantly make them a lot more viable or instantly broken. In fact, it fluctuates between “niche”, “good but not too much” and even “outright bad”, and serves more as flavor than anything else. It helps that the signatures are designed more sparsely, too, and the older generations already have a share of their own powerhouses in the first place.

It’s when that newer Pokémon’s signatures that are blatantly overpowered without restraint that the situation is becoming overboard, especially evident in the ninth Generation. That said, more optimized / minmaxed stat distribution also played a part, so it’s not like Garganacl would need a signature Move and a signature Ability that badly if it’s stat distribution is already impressive. Same goes for Spectrier not needing ”Special Moxie” (or Nasty Plot) since it’s stat distribution is already pretty powerful, but it does anyways and it, alongside Shadow Rider Calyrex, are ridiculously overpowered even by Legendary standards.

If the Gen 9’s Pokémon signatures aren’t so powerful, not many of the newcomers wouldn’t be OU for long, apart of Annihilape, Espathra and Palafin who would remained banned due to other factors, and Kingambit remaining in OU since Bisharp is already viable, and would Skeledirge and Meowscarada since the former is an offensive Pokémon with Unaware as an Ability which is a powerful role to have, and the latter still having optimized base stat distribution + Protean.

The reason why I felt it’s an unpopular opinion is due to the fact that not many people knows this problem, not until Gen 9 at least.

tl;dr Game Freak’s obsession for signatures (and minmaxing so constantly) is to blame for the power creep in later generations.

 

[Worldie]

Unfortunately, I see the above as a necessary evil to keep a given long-running series going.

Kinda like mobas release progressively more op characters, TCGs release progressively stronger and more busted archetypes (insert meme about yugioh card text lenght), new pokemon (expecially "special" ones like starters and legendaries) need progressively stronger tools to be interesting.

Ultimately, they make these games for money. If the newcomers aren't "strong", people are not likely to use them, which results in less merchandising sold, and potentially boring / stale metas.

 

[Samtendo09]

Unfortunately, I see the above as a necessary evil to keep a given long-running series going.

Kinda like mobas release progressively more op characters, TCGs release progressively stronger and more busted archetypes (insert meme about yugioh card text lenght), new pokemon (expecially "special" ones like starters and legendaries) need progressively stronger tools to be interesting.

Ultimately, they make these games for money. If the newcomers aren't "strong", people are not likely to use them, which results in less merchandising sold, and potentially boring / stale metas.

That’s more like an ugly lose-lose situation, the more think I about it.

Sure, not introducing strong newcomers can lead to a boring and stale meta, but introducing newcomers that are way too powerful can turn the game into one-sided fights or too fast paced, making it boring and stale, but for a different reason. Power creep will harm the metagame if not checked or balanced carefully, to the point even a rotational band-aid solution won’t help.

Plus, while MOBAs is primarily competitive, the TCG and Pokémon mainline games still have a far larger casual fanabse. And since power creep had gone real bad, even many longtime casual fans started to be very unhappy about it.

And once power creep reaches to the point where it’s all about hyper offense, even with GF’s admittedly good balancing effort for the most part, then the competitive scene might end up losing interest even more than if the metagame became stale due to a lack of viable newcomers.

What’s the harm of trying to make incomparable newcomers without making them overpowered? Oh wait, GF might not have enough time for that either, or to think being “incomparable” isn’t enough, and it shows.

And here to remind that Pokémon isn’t most known for it’s competitive values, but rather for it’s own cute critters, so of course a lot of people buy the merchandises and the games due to the titular cute critters, old and new. So if the competitive scene become less popular, no big deal in the end.

Even then, I feel like GF, or TPCi, or both, became obsessed with the competitive side to an unhealthy amount by making the newcomers “OP for competitive” and then nerf some of them if they really were overboard.

Is it really a necessary evil in the end? Your call, but I seriously doubt that it’s something that would really help a long-running franchise in the long run if they releases newcomers / packs / main games too frequently to the point where balancing is completely thrown out of the window.

One of the reasons why so-called capitalism is such a flawed concept to the point it’s depressing, I know.

 

[Worldie]

That’s more like an ugly lose-lose situation, the more think I about it.

Sure, not introducing strong newcomers can lead to a boring and stale meta, but introducing newcomers that are way too powerful can turn the game into one-sided fights or too fast paced, making it boring and stale, but for a different reason. Power creep will harm the metagame if not checked or balanced carefully, to the point even a rotational band-aid solution won’t help.

Plus, while MOBAs is primarily competitive, the TCG and Pokémon mainline games still have a far larger casual fanabse. And since power creep had gone real bad, even many longtime casual fans started to be very unhappy about it.

And once power creep reaches to the point where it’s all about hyper offense, even with GF’s admittedly good balancing effort for the most part, then the competitive scene might end up losing interest even more than if the metagame became stale due to a lack of viable newcomers.

Yup, you got it.

Personally, I think the problem is that just the series has overstayed their welcome. There's only so many elements you can make before you are just making copies of each other with a different skin (see, the 3 million bulky waters in that just all do the same job with different stats).

A roster of champions / pokemon / cards will only be able to grow so much until it starts to get in the power creep scenario where every new contestant has to take the place of a old one.
Which also unfortunately just exacerbates the fact that only the top 20-30 of a given entity will really be interesting competitively, and everything else gets kicked down. Smogon gives a great example of this with how nowadays even ZU is probably not enough to give some of the older, weaker mons any sort of viability, and I don't even think a entire new tier would suffice either.

Is it really a necessary evil in the end? Your call, but I seriously doubt that it’s something that would really help a long-running franchise in the long run if they releases newcomers / packs / main games too frequently to the point where balancing is completely thrown out of the window.

One of the reasons why so-called capitalism is such a flawed concept to the point it’s depressing, I know.

Would be much better if either they'd just let the series die, or actually hard-commit to dexit and REALLY reduce the amount of available mons in a given gen to a manageable number or straight up start allowing only current gen pokemon in a game, kinda like some card games do set rotations.
And even then, you will get the dexit conundrum of angering or not interesting the people who would rather have their favourites, because they never committed to it.

There's no correct solution to this problem, other than a full reboot every generation. Kinda like wha Digimon or SMT do, every entry is their own, not connected to the others.

 

[Samtendo09]

Yup, you got it.

Personally, I think the problem is that just the series has overstayed their welcome. There's only so many elements you can make before you are just making copies of each other with a different skin (see, the 3 million bulky waters in that just all do the same job with different stats).

A roster of champions / pokemon / cards will only be able to grow so much until it starts to get in the power creep scenario where every new contestant has to take the place of a old one.
Which also unfortunately just exacerbates the fact that only the top 20-30 of a given entity will really be interesting competitively, and everything else gets kicked down. Smogon gives a great example of this with how nowadays even ZU is probably not enough to give some of the older, weaker mons any sort of viability, and I don't even think a entire new tier would suffice either.

Would be much better if either they'd just let the series die, or actually hard-commit to dexit and REALLY reduce the amount of available mons in a given gen to a manageable number or straight up start allowing only current gen pokemon in a game, kinda like some card games do set rotations.
And even then, you will get the dexit conundrum of angering or not interesting the people who would rather have their favourites, because they never committed to it.

There's no correct solution to this problem, other than a full reboot every generation. Kinda like wha Digimon or SMT do, every entry is their own, not connected to the others.

More like no correct solution at all, I don’t trust the fanbase to agree that a full reboot will be a good thing. The fanbase is so diverse and divided that there’s too many of them complaining about even minor details, to the point that more and more people become alienated with the fandom as a whole.

Making the only Pokémon available on the Dex to appear in the games can also backfire if they don’t have at least some returning faces, as is the case Unova in BW since it means nearly completely abandon previous Pokémon without post-game or transferring, resulting Unova being too isolated for it’s own good.

Frankly, I more or less decided to not be really part of the larger fandom and focus on the smaller Pokémon communities.

 

[CPU]

I am not a fan of the amount of signature moves/abilities added in recent generations, but some of these in Gen 9 really bother me. Mostly new signature moves that are just better versions of old ones (Torch Song > Fiery Dance and Lumina Crash > Luster Purge come to mind). At least as far as Lumina Crash goes, it's not even what makes Espathra good, but I think it's crazy that it just completely beats out a legendary's signature move in literally every aspect (power, PP, effect chance, and efficacy). In this specific case I think both Lumina Crash is overpowered (in a vacuum) and Luster Purge ought to be buffed.

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

This influx of signature moves in recent generations discussion has been brought up quite a few times, but right now I feel I've actually come to a different conclusion on what the actual issue is.

Yes, signature moves are being handed to new mons a lot nowadays, but the issue nowadays in my opinion isn't the continual addition of new Pokemon strictly, and while that contributes to it, that's a smaller portion of the issue than the bigger part of it.

It's the continuous need to keep adding new moves in general with each new generation ad infinitum. Yes, the addition of new moves in the first place.

Because frankly, new Pokemon can be good and many of them don't necessarily need exclusive moves and abilities to stand out, but they likely need to keep adding new moves and abilities each generation because that was established as an appeal of new generation games each time from the very beginning.

And yet, the main issue I feel, and why so many signature moves are being introduced, is that they have now stretched the pool completely thin in terms of what kinds of "generic" moves and abilities they can add with each new game.

They've been adding new generic moves each generation from Gen 1 to Gen 6, but by the point of the latter we basically already had a completely established pool of "generic" moves for every type, for every category (physical, special, and status), and that group of moves is more or less established as the pool of moves that are "generic" and to be distributed to a general group of Pokemon.

The same goes for abilities. Gens 3 to 6 already created a very strong pool of "generic" abilities that are established and there's not much else they can add there.

Now, there are clearly fewer and fewer "generic" moves and abilities they can think of to add each generation, but I also imagine that they have a strict minimum quota as to how many moves and abilities at all they are required to add with each new generation.

So how should they fill that quota? By adding more and more moves that are "specific" to individual new Pokemon.

In my eyes, the signature moves and abilities aren't strictly to make the new Pokemon viable, but to make the new moves stand out by having them align with a new Pokemon in terms of flavor and style. Because they need to add new moves and new abilities each generation, but they aren't able to come up with as many new moves and abilities that they can conceive as explicitly generic and able to be distributed to a wide variety of Pokemon.

Gen 9 for instance, actually has a select few number of generic moves and abilities. The generic set of moves are Aqua Cutter (Water-type Slash), Trailblaze, Pounce, Chilling Water, Ice Spinner, and Tera Blast (the latter explicitly made to work with Terastal). The only "generic" ability they have added is Sharpness.

But they clearly needed to fill the minimum quota beyond that, because that's an awfully small pool of "generic" moves and abilities. So signature moves and abilities galore, so that they can make new abilities and moves that fit new Pokemon flavor wise to make new abilities and moves that stand out more: because these new abilities and moves wouldn't stand out if they were designed as generic.

With that said, even when a new move or ability is introduced as a signature move/ability, that doesn't mean it has to stay as such forever. Some signature moves will always be signature moves, namely those of the Galar and Paldea starters, the cover legendaries, and other particularly marketable Pokemon.

But in later generations, what was once a signature move can become a more widespread move for use after it had served its purpose in its original game. Mystical Fire for instance started out as Delphox's signature move, and while the move flavor wise is dominantly associated with Delphox, it is now learnable in later generations by a variety of Fairy-type Pokemon and is used as coverage against Steel-types. Throat Chop went from being exclusive to Incineroar to becoming a tutor/TR move that many Dark-types can use, and others can use as Dark coverage. First Impression was once exclusive to Golisopod, but is now used as Bug-type strong priority by other Pokemon, such as Sirfetch'd and Lokix. You get the drill.

So while new generation moves can in many cases start out as exclusive signature moves, they can be repurposed in the future to become more generic. That in itself is still something in spite of all this.

But yeah just wanted to throw in my two cents on the matter.

 

[Ironmage]

While the full list of moves feels pretty complete (though I would argue the current-gen list does not without replacements for Pursuit and a universal Damage-over-time like Toxic used to be), I feel that there's still a noticeable hole when it comes to Abilities: explicit terrain synergy. While the terrain setting abilities have been distributed around, Surge Surfer and Grass Pelt are still exclusive to single lines. Misty and Psychic terrains don't get anything at all.

 

[Worldie]

While the full list of moves feels pretty complete (though I would argue the current-gen list does not without replacements for Pursuit and a universal Damage-over-time like Toxic used to be), I feel that there's still a noticeable hole when it comes to Abilities: explicit terrain synergy. While the terrain setting abilities have been distributed around, Surge Surfer and Grass Pelt are still exclusive to single lines. Misty and Psychic terrains don't get anything at all.

Quark Drive is looking sad in the corner there, as well as Mimicry (I know everybody forgot G-Stunfisk exists, but it does exist).

That said, I do agree, more terrain synergy would be pretty interesting.

 

[pika pal]

The idea of a quota to fill makes me wonder if it's why they keep avoiding certain "gap" moves people keep asking for (like a big Electric Phys move or 90 BP Flying attacks), something to use for a new-move requirement if they can't come up with anything else special ("signature" or generic)

 

[Worldie]

The idea of a quota to fill makes me wonder if it's why they keep avoiding certain "gap" moves people keep asking for (like a big Electric Phys move or 90 BP Flying attacks), something to use for a new-move requirement if they can't come up with anything else special ("signature" or generic)

They are still trying to maintain some sort of "specificity" to types.
If they were to really fill all the voids, at that point it really becomes just a matter of stats and type chart with no flavour of any kind.

Homogeneization is ok, complete homogeneization isnt.