Unpopular opinions

[bdt2002]

On the subject of U-Turn, I think switching in general is extremely powerful in the meta right now and arguably the strongest it’s ever been since the original games. Most generations have introduced at least one thing to try and rebalance the game’s pivoting meta, so to speak, in the form of dedicated switch moves, entry hazards, trapping moves and Abilities, and other mechanics that revolve around switching.

It’s how those elements interact with each other that makes all the difference- Pursuit’s gone from the games at this point, and things like Heavy-Duty Boots, Regenerator, and the buffed Teleport have made it easier to get your Pokémon in and out of battle than it’s been in a very long time. That’s not taking into account all of the other pivoting moves, either. In fact, some Pokémon, like Incineroar for who knows why, get access to multiple of these meaning they can either run multiple on the same set or pick and choose depending on what’s needed the most. Seriously who thought it was a good idea to buff the Pokémon that already won Worlds in back to back years at this point

For comparison, Gen 1’s pivoting meta doesn’t include any of these moves. Unless you count partial trapping, Gen 1 doesn’t have any switch moves, like, all. Baton Pass would be the first one added in Gen 2. But to make up for this, Gen 1 also doesn’t have anything to counter switching either. Trapping, entry hazards, phazing, Taunt for the sake of stopping Baton Pass… none of that’s here, and neither is Hidden Power or Tera Blast to try and flip head-to-head matchups. This is why you’ll regularly see Rhydon switch into Zapdos so easily, because Zapdos can’t do anything to threaten it out. Back during Sword & Shield I remember seeing people make comparisons to Gen 1 about how strong pivots were becoming, and while I don’t disagree, I do think U-Turn specifically has a major advantage over all of the other switch moves.

I mentioned Taunt as a counterplay option to Baton Pass (specifically “Dry Pass” where there are no stat boosts involved) earlier, but Taunt shuts down Teleport as well as Parting Shot too, and all of the attacking switch moves have at least one way to block them, usually an Ability or a Ground-Type on the case of Volt Switch. To my knowledge, there is no way to block a Bug-Type attacking move unless you can pull off something like Imprison, and while it is resisted by seven Types, the damage from U-Turn often isn’t what players are looking for. To the pros, it’s all about maintaining momentum. It was fairly common during Gen 5’s tenure in particular for Pokémon with contact-punishing traits such as Rough Skin/Iron Barbs and/or holding a Rocky Helmet to try and “punish” the U-Turn users as efficiently as possible for this reason.

 

[Krockodile]

Here are some of my unpopular opinions:

1. The main reason Ghetsis is popular is largely due to his reputation as a bad father rather than for being a manipulative mastermind of Team Plasma. The reason is that it can be an IRL situation that people can relate to, as opposed to kidnapping Pokémon or world domination. Even now, the only bad parents I can think of in Pokémon are Lusamine, Giovanni (left Silver to hide in the shadows in the hopes of reviving Team Rocket), and Brock's Mom (which is kinda treated as a joke). That's not to say he's a bad villain; he demonstrates how intimidating and manipulative he can be to the player and even his allies, and even attempts to kill the player. However, without the child abuse, he might not have differentiated himself from other villains like Cyrus.
2. One thing that annoys me about Cynthia is that she doesn't contribute much to the main story, such as investigating the headquarters or even helping the player out, like stopping the Galactic Admins. Or, for some reason, doesn't arrest Cyrus when defeated in the Distortion World. She has similar problems to Diantha from XY; the only difference is that Cynthia is a much harder boss and therefore more respected. But even then, because of the lack of connection with her, the fight with her is not as impactful as I thought it would be. In contrast, I felt a greater impact fighting Lance, despite the fact that he is a much weaker boss. Because throughout the story, you know on who he is based on not on how powerful he is as a champion but also his willingness to help people, like investigating the angry shiny gyarados, raiding Team Rocket's base (which includes siding with his Dragonite in a double battle in HGSS) or helping Silver understand to be kind to his pokemon in order to be a stronger trainer. Throughout the journey with him, you know what kind of champion you would be facing.
3. HGSS and Platinum require too much grinding, which makes them unfun. Doesn't help in the former that the wild Pokémon can only be battled at a low level, so you can't gain much exp from defeating them. Do the older games also face a similar issue?
4. I don’t get why some of Ash’s mons aren’t fully evolved. I get some of his mons like his Bulbasaur or Dawn’s Piplup (which the episodes show that they don’t want to evolve), or maybe because it would be more comedic (like Ash’s Oshawott or Rowlet). But for most of them, I feel they don’t have a good excuse not to evolve. The list includes Ash’s Buizel, Pignite, Totodile (who Ash said he could grow up to be Feraligatr), Quilava, Bayleef, Boldore (although I guess having it evolve by trade limited that). And some of them evolved too late to make an significant impact in the anime.
5. This is something I’m trying to work on for myself, but sometimes it’s good to separate out casual from competitive Pokémon, and that not every Pokémon would be highly competitive or good in-game, because realistically, it would be impossible. Some mons are unfortunately meant to be inferior to others, like how Golduck with its low BST was always going to come up short of other water types like Gyarados or Vaporeon, or how Mightyena, being an early game mon was always going to be inferior to other dark types. However, as Pokémon games aren’t exactly difficult, you could bring in “weak” mons, and with the right planning, you can beat the game reasonably in theory (I have to test this in practice). I may have begun to realise that Pokémon is meant to help you explore its many species and lands, rather than rushing ahead and beating the game. This applies to competitive too, as unfortunately, due to inevitable power creep, some mons can drop down tiers quickly and may never regain their glory, but at least they remain viable in at least one tier you can play in.
   That’s not to say that it’s perfect. For example, there could have been instances where a Pokémon was fixed, such as correcting Aggron's bad defensive typing in Rock-Steel or some Pokémon's weird stat distributions like Camerupt and Cacturne (although I think this is a Gen 3 issue). Or how some mons should be buffed (like Charizard having a special boosting form of Dragon Dance and Roost, Goodra with a recovering move), or how some mons got buffs far too late to be irrelevant. However, I do think that in most cases, I now try to follow a rule: for casual play, stick to the Pokémon I like to use; for competitive play, stick to the Pokémon you like, and play in the tier where they can be viable.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Pursuit’s gone from the games at this point,

I'll never understand that. Hidden Power? Sure, I can see why that got cut. But Pursuit?

I'd even argue it should be brought back and trigger on pivot moves.

Heavy-Duty Boots, Regenerator,

Timbs were an overcorrection on Stealth Rock being omega-busted. They should've nerfed that first, especially now that hazard removal is easier than ever with Defog. Shut up, Gholdengo.

Regenerator is a ridiculous ability too, you know it's bad when it's a major issue in both VGC and Singles. 33% is just way too much for something that's pretty hard to block like switching out. Again, the lack of Pursuit makes this a bigger problem than it should. 25% would be enough.


But then again, they still haven't done a lot to properly balance things that have been problematic since Gen 1 like Freeze and Sleep. (Especially Freeze).
Sleep has more counterplay nowadays, but it's still conceptually messed up, as once your mon does get put to sleep, there's literally nothing you can do except roll the dice and hope for the best, or delay the inevitable by switching out and giving your opponent even more free turns and pressure.

The main reason Ghetsis is popular is largely due to his reputation as a bad father rather than for being a manipulative mastermind of Team Plasma. The reason is that it can be an IRL situation that people can relate to, as opposed to kidnapping Pokémon or world domination. Even now, the only bad parents I can think of in Pokémon are Lusamine, Giovanni (left Silver to hide in the shadows in the hopes of reviving Team Rocket), and Brock's Mom (which is kinda treated as a joke). That's not to say he's a bad villain; he demonstrates how intimidating and manipulative he can be to the player and even his allies, and even attempts to kill the player. However, without the child abuse, he might not have differentiated himself from other villains like Cyrus.

Agreed. BW1's story is extremely overrated imo, but that's a really good point. It's hard to take Cyrus seriously because his reasons are too vague to justify crashing out like that.

Ghetsis, on the other hand, was made to really drive the point that he was evil, evil. None of that "Strictly business" like Giovanni, or "Just dumb" like Maxie and Archie. Man is a classic comic book villain with the villain meter cranked up to the max. He wants world domination, and he'll sic a legendary on literal children for that. Did he need to freeze Opelucid? Probably not, but he did it anyway.

HGSS and Platinum require too much grinding, which makes them unfun. Doesn't help in the former that the wild Pokémon can only be battled at a low level, so you can't gain much exp from defeating them. Do the older games also face a similar issue?

Yes, and no.

All games at least before the 3D era require some grinding before the Elite 4 if you have a full team. The catch is, you don't need to grind before that.

In the case of the Johto games, you need to explore, if you beat all trainers, you will have enough levels. I do have an issue with the rewards for said exploration, but Johto has a lot of poor design choices.

Sinnoh's level curve did get fixed in Platinum. Straight up. There's just no need to grind in that game before the E4. Unless you picked Chimchar. Then you'll need a bit of work to evolve it for Mach Punch against Roark.

What both games ask players, ironically for completely opposite reasons, is for them to strategize a bit before leaders.

The Johto games make players strategize because the available mons are generally trash, and all leaders have some kind of cheese factor. (Hypnosis, flinching, accuracy...)
Since players don't have the raw power to muscle through their nonsense in most cases, you have to do something to even things out and force mistakes. For example, giving a Mint/Chesto Berry to whatever is supposed to take down Chuck's Poliwrath/Morty's Gengar.

In Platinum, it's the opposite. Everything is hella buff, especially in the early-game, so you have to strategize to not get flattened by the likes of Jupiter and Fantina. For example, Intimidate spam and Pluck to steal their berries so your mon can heal up and deny their healing.

HGSS Lance is the perfect example of a fight that you actually have to grind for. It's very straightforward. If you walk in at say, high-30's/Lv. 40, you'll simply not have the stats to hit damage benchmarks, and you'll probably not have them defensively either.

But then again, no good grinding spots. Moronic ahh game.

 

[Ironmage]

I'll never understand that. Hidden Power? Sure, I can see why that got cut. But Pursuit?

I'd even argue it should be brought back and trigger on pivot moves.

My understanding is that Pursuit does (I'm a Natdex player, I'm going to use present tense rather than past) work on pivot moves provided the pivot occurs before the Pursuit user normally acts. I could see having it delay for switching moves should it ever get updated since it otherwise can't trigger on Teleport's negative priority.

 

[bdt2002]

I feel like I might be the only one here who doesn’t mind Johto’s level curve. In fact, I actually find it quite generous and even pretty healthy. The first four Gyms I don’t have any problems with, and the remakes buffed Falkner’s levels a little bit for good measure, probably because the Sprout Tower became a mandatory visit in those games. The Route below Violet City, Union Cave, and the Team Rocket section all have enough “non-grinding” content to where I’ve never had issues with Bugsy level-wise, and while the gap between Azalea Town and Goldrenrod City is slightly shorter, I actually think Whitney feels a little bit underlevelled, though this was probably done on purpose because of Miltank’s high stats for that point in the game making up for this. That just leaves Ecruteak City. We can give Morty all the crap we want for not using a Misdreavus, but at the very least his levels are perfect where they are in my opinion.

The branching routes after Ecruteak tend to be where most fans start to dislike the level curve of this region. No matter what order you battle the next three Gyms in, at least one of them is going to be extremely easy no matter what you do. Let’s look at the numbers, though. The level gap between Morty’s Gengar and Clair’s Kingdra is 15-16 depending on the generation, and coming from someone who has personal beef with that particular Pokémon (Kingdra, not Gengar), Johto’s “split stretch” as I like to call it consists of a lot of gameplay that, especially with EVs and IVs taken into account, yeah, this isn’t the best level curve in Pokémon by any stretch of the imagination, but in practice I always felt like this could be a lot worse. None of the major fights during this stretch ever let too stressful to me, even without level grinding.

When the story merged back together after the Team Rocket stuff in Goldenrod, I can definitely see feeling underlevelled for Clair and the Pokémon League after that. On average I would say I get to Lance with my Pokémon around the early-to-mid-40s, maybe marginally higher depending on what’s actually on the team. At that number, the Dragonite trio in particular can seem threatening especially in the remakes with their better Dragon-Type attacks, but the Gyarados, Charizard, and even the Rock Slide Aerodactyl all feel manageable that late into the game.

Ultimately my opinion could be summarized like this. Johto’s one of the easiest regions to feel like you’re underlevelled in, sure, but it’s also in a weird spot where it’s one or the easiest to get overlevelled in too, at least before Lance and the Kanto “postgame that arguably isn’t actually a postgame”.

---

One of Sinnoh’s biggest problems with the PokéDex can be found pretty early on- no, literally, the problem exists in the earlygame. That is to say, Sinnoh’s earlygame is extremely top-heavy in my opinion, and while that does help against disproportionately difficult fights like Mars and Jupiter’s first fights and Fantina’s Platinum Gym battle, that doesn’t change the fact that almost all of Sinnoh’s best Pokémon to use on a team- the starters, Bidoof, Starly, Shinx, Budew, Buizel, Shellos, Abra, Geodude, Magikarp (Gyarados), Gible in Platinum… they’re all found early on and you can very easily have all of your team members picked out by the time you arrive at Hearthome City.

The problem here is that it discourages creative team building in the late game, where most other regions (albeit BW1 Unova went WAY too far in the opposite direction) try and still often fail and encourage you to pick up stronger Pokémon to replace your earlygame staples with. There’s virtually no incentive to try out dozens of Pokémon later in the region. Any incentive that is shown off is because you either found a full odds Shiny or you just really felt like using any number of underrated Pokémon most Sinnoh teams don’t commonly feature.

Admittedly Sinnoh isn’t the only region guilty of this (the Ultra games’ version of Melemele Island immediately comes to mind) and I don’t exactly know what the games could do to try and incentivize returning fans to try out lesser used Pokémon. The unlimited use TMs in Gens 5 through 8 is a good start, since you no longer have a reason to just slap all the best TMs onto your choice of an earlygame powerhouse and proceed to beat half the game with it. (Seriously, who thought putting the Earthquake TM in the same room as Gible was a good idea?) If you’re a newer fan or are playing Gen 4 Sinnoh for the first time, there’s nothing wrong with using stronger Pokémon that just happen to show up early. As a returning fan I just find myself bored with how strong Sinnoh’s earlygame is, that’s all.

 

[pokemon4eva]

Here are some of my unpopular opinions:

1. The main reason Ghetsis is popular is largely due to his reputation as a bad father rather than for being a manipulative mastermind of Team Plasma. The reason is that it can be an IRL situation that people can relate to, as opposed to kidnapping Pokémon or world domination. Even now, the only bad parents I can think of in Pokémon are Lusamine, Giovanni (left Silver to hide in the shadows in the hopes of reviving Team Rocket), and Brock's Mom (which is kinda treated as a joke). That's not to say he's a bad villain; he demonstrates how intimidating and manipulative he can be to the player and even his allies, and even attempts to kill the player. However, without the child abuse, he might not have differentiated himself from other villains like Cyrus.
2. One thing that annoys me about Cynthia is that she doesn't contribute much to the main story, such as investigating the headquarters or even helping the player out, like stopping the Galactic Admins. Or, for some reason, doesn't arrest Cyrus when defeated in the Distortion World. She has similar problems to Diantha from XY; the only difference is that Cynthia is a much harder boss and therefore more respected. But even then, because of the lack of connection with her, the fight with her is not as impactful as I thought it would be. In contrast, I felt a greater impact fighting Lance, despite the fact that he is a much weaker boss. Because throughout the story, you know on who he is based on not on how powerful he is as a champion but also his willingness to help people, like investigating the angry shiny gyarados, raiding Team Rocket's base (which includes siding with his Dragonite in a double battle in HGSS) or helping Silver understand to be kind to his pokemon in order to be a stronger trainer. Throughout the journey with him, you know what kind of champion you would be facing.
3. HGSS and Platinum require too much grinding, which makes them unfun. Doesn't help in the former that the wild Pokémon can only be battled at a low level, so you can't gain much exp from defeating them. Do the older games also face a similar issue?
4. I don’t get why some of Ash’s mons aren’t fully evolved. I get some of his mons like his Bulbasaur or Dawn’s Piplup (which the episodes show that they don’t want to evolve), or maybe because it would be more comedic (like Ash’s Oshawott or Rowlet). But for most of them, I feel they don’t have a good excuse not to evolve. The list includes Ash’s Buizel, Pignite, Totodile (who Ash said he could grow up to be Feraligatr), Quilava, Bayleef, Boldore (although I guess having it evolve by trade limited that). And some of them evolved too late to make an significant impact in the anime.
5. This is something I’m trying to work on for myself, but sometimes it’s good to separate out casual from competitive Pokémon, and that not every Pokémon would be highly competitive or good in-game, because realistically, it would be impossible. Some mons are unfortunately meant to be inferior to others, like how Golduck with its low BST was always going to come up short of other water types like Gyarados or Vaporeon, or how Mightyena, being an early game mon was always going to be inferior to other dark types. However, as Pokémon games aren’t exactly difficult, you could bring in “weak” mons, and with the right planning, you can beat the game reasonably in theory (I have to test this in practice). I may have begun to realise that Pokémon is meant to help you explore its many species and lands, rather than rushing ahead and beating the game. This applies to competitive too, as unfortunately, due to inevitable power creep, some mons can drop down tiers quickly and may never regain their glory, but at least they remain viable in at least one tier you can play in.
   That’s not to say that it’s perfect. For example, there could have been instances where a Pokémon was fixed, such as correcting Aggron's bad defensive typing in Rock-Steel or some Pokémon's weird stat distributions like Camerupt and Cacturne (although I think this is a Gen 3 issue). Or how some mons should be buffed (like Charizard having a special boosting form of Dragon Dance and Roost, Goodra with a recovering move), or how some mons got buffs far too late to be irrelevant. However, I do think that in most cases, I now try to follow a rule: for casual play, stick to the Pokémon I like to use; for competitive play, stick to the Pokémon you like, and play in the tier where they can be viable.

1. I can see that, although even before N's castle revealed him as worst father of all time, Team Plasma as a whole could qualify as extra hateable bc of how they believe they're doing the right thing, so they have this very self righteous opinion of themselves not seen in other games before. Yes, Magma and Aqua also believed to be doing good but their actions border so much on comically villanous that it's stupid they don't notice it (use a space rocket as a missile to blow up Mt Pyre???), while the worst thing BW1 Team Plasma does is stealing some trainer mons or robbing a museum or kicking a Munna, "small price for the greater good". Not to mention that there's some self aware hypocrites in that group who know exactly what and why are they doing, including Ghetsis.

2. I believe the anime and Adventures manga noticed this so they made her more proactive against Team Galactic there haha. I believe the intention for the games was to make Cynthia a mysterious figure so the champion reveal comes as a surprise, but like, who else is going to be lol. I prefer Lance too for the reasons you cited. Slight change of topic but I believe the only times a champion opponent reveal was legit surprising were Blue and SM Kukui.

 

[bdt2002]

2. I believe the anime and Adventures manga noticed this so they made her more proactive against Team Galactic there haha. I believe the intention for the games was to make Cynthia a mysterious figure so the champion reveal comes as a surprise, but like, who else is going to be lol. I prefer Lance too for the reasons you cited. Slight change of topic but I believe the only times a champion opponent reveal was legit surprising were Blue and SM Kukui.

Pokémon “Try and create a character that doesn’t just feel like a clone of something that came before it” Challenge (IMPOSSIBLE!!!)

See kids, the joke here is that everything that was about Cynthia can be applied to Steven and to a lesser extent Wallace. I want to like Cynthia as much as everyone else does, but I just can’t in good faith. Her in-game iteration lacks any of the emotional depth of Blue or the “Wow Factor” of Lance and his bird Pokémon, and the idea of an ally character that you meet around the location of Gym #2, uses the region’s psuedo-legendary, and doesn’t actually help out that much against the evil team was done literally last generation. Heck, at least Steven had that Multi Battle in Emerald.

Actually, you know what? Let’s take this one step further. I think all of Cynthia’s appeal comes specifically from people that are still wearing their nostalgia glasses. She wouldn’t be anywhere near as popular if she wasn’t the first female Champion, either, and I say that because we basically have Male Cynthia in all but name now in the form of Volo and his novelty wore off just as quickly, if not even faster.

 

[Esserise]

Here are some of my unpopular opinions:

1. The main reason Ghetsis is popular is largely due to his reputation as a bad father rather than for being a manipulative mastermind of Team Plasma. The reason is that it can be an IRL situation that people can relate to, as opposed to kidnapping Pokémon or world domination. Even now, the only bad parents I can think of in Pokémon are Lusamine, Giovanni (left Silver to hide in the shadows in the hopes of reviving Team Rocket), and Brock's Mom (which is kinda treated as a joke). That's not to say he's a bad villain; he demonstrates how intimidating and manipulative he can be to the player and even his allies, and even attempts to kill the player. However, without the child abuse, he might not have differentiated himself from other villains like Cyrus.

I think these points sort of go hand-in-hand, as his long-term indoctrination of N is itself yet another illustration of him being an evil mastermind. He knew he wouldn’t be able to awaken the dragons himself, so he spent over a decade molding someone for that purpose.

Though, within that, I think there probably is something that appeals to players who maybe started playing with RBY or GSC, who would’ve been teens or young adults by the time of BW, who might be intrigued by a Pokémon villain whose crimes are more “real” and less abstracted by fantasy.

However, I’ve always felt that what people tend to like about Ghetsis is that he is unrepentant and unsympathetic. At that point in the games’ history, we’d had Giovanni, Archie, Maxie, and Cyrus as the main villains, one of whom is completely one-dimensional due to being a character from a Game Boy game, and the other three are all misguided idealists. Then BW comes along with a dual-villain approach; we get N who is the misguided idealist (but with a much more acute degree of character focus than Archie, Maxie, and Cyrus), and Ghetsis who is not just one-dimensionally evil and cruel, but who actually revels in that, and whose cruelty directly impacts the idealist villain and makes him more sympathetic. There was simply a freshness to this approach that I think worked for people.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

Pokémon “Try and create a character that doesn’t just feel like a clone of something that came before it” Challenge (IMPOSSIBLE!!!)

See kids, the joke here is that everything that was about Cynthia can be applied to Steven and to a lesser extent Wallace. I want to like Cynthia as much as everyone else does, but I just can’t in good faith. Her in-game iteration lacks any of the emotional depth of Blue or the “Wow Factor” of Lance and his bird Pokémon, and the idea of an ally character that you meet around the location of Gym #2, uses the region’s psuedo-legendary, and doesn’t actually help out that much against the evil team was done literally last generation. Heck, at least Steven had that Multi Battle in Emerald.

Actually, you know what? Let’s take this one step further. I think all of Cynthia’s appeal comes specifically from people that are still wearing their nostalgia glasses. She wouldn’t be anywhere near as popular if she wasn’t the first female Champion, either, and I say that because we basically have Male Cynthia in all but name now in the form of Volo and his novelty wore off just as quickly, if not even faster.

I'll actually take this a bit further and say that I don't know if there's a single champion that I like as a "character."

Some are decently designed boss battles, but hardly any of them have an interesting impact on the story.

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

I would personally say Leon is arguably my favorite Champion of the lot. SwSh aren't my favorite games but I do like a lot of the characters and Leon is a Champion I do genuinely like.

His fight was actually pretty fun despite the EXP All being permanent and he actually did put up a good challenge when I played SwSh the first time around.

But most of all it felt impactful because his Champion status is very relevant and he's very actively present in the adventure as someone we regularly meet, as the guy who has never lost and who everyone is aiming to eventually beat and defeat once and for all. As an extension of the League Challenge being a much, much bigger deal in Galar than in any region that came before.

He's actually pretty fun as a character too with a lively personality. And he puts a spin on how he feels about being the guy who's never lost, because he's the real deal, but he's been waiting for someone to actually defeat and surpass him to prove that he himself can still aim for greater heights, and is glad to experience the frustration of losing for the first time when we finally beat him.

His decision to create the Battle Tower after he loses, creating a place where the Trainers of Galar can come together to reach even greater heights together, was a clever spin on the existence of post-game battle facilities from a storytelling standpoint too.

SwSh isn't a perfect game, but Leon as a Champion was genuinely pretty cool in my eyes.

 

[bdt2002]

I would personally say Leon is arguably my favorite Champion of the lot. SwSh aren't my favorite games but I do like a lot of the characters and Leon is a Champion I do genuinely like.

His fight was actually pretty fun despite the EXP All being permanent and he actually did put up a good challenge when I played SwSh the first time around.

But most of all it felt impactful because his Champion status is very relevant and he's very actively present in the adventure as someone we regularly meet, as the guy who has never lost and who everyone is aiming to eventually beat and defeat once and for all. As an extension of the League Challenge being a much, much bigger deal in Galar than in any region that came before.

He's actually pretty fun as a character too with a lively personality. And he puts a spin on how he feels about being the guy who's never lost, because he's the real deal, but he's been waiting for someone to actually defeat and surpass him to prove that he himself can still aim for greater heights, and is glad to experience the frustration of losing for the first time when we finally beat him.

His decision to create the Battle Tower after he loses, creating a place where the Trainers of Galar can come together to reach even greater heights together, was a clever spin on the existence of post-game battle facilities from a storytelling standpoint too.

SwSh isn't a perfect game, but Leon as a Champion was genuinely pretty cool in my eyes.

It’s hard for me to get invested in Leon because I have so much distaste for the game he appears in. He feels like he represents the famous publicity aspect of real-world sporting events, both in how he’s established right out of the gate as the current Champion and how he seems to find his way into drama that compromises the integrity of the league he plays for. Hop wanting to live up to the expectations of what he thinks people want from the brother of a Champion only to discover his own passion is a very nice of pace from what we’ve seen over and over again from this character role, I’ll give you that. As much as I avoid Galar like the plague, I wouldn’t have been opposed to seeing more moments between him and Leon in the main story. Just wholesome family bonding stuff, nothing too crazy.

Diving into what it means to be the Champion more than in other regions is one of Sword & Shield’s stronger writing decisions in a game that is desperate for as many of those as it can get. Ultimately though, I still think the player’s interactions with him fall flat. By “modern Pokémon standards”, whatever that phrase means to you, Leon can be more challenging to defeat especially compared to Kukui, Hau, and pre-DLC Geeta and Nemona by comparison. The buildup to the final battle is (perhaps intentionally) ruined by the obligatory twist villain reveal and horribly put together Macro Cosmos segment, however, and for someone with so much responsibility he’s trusted with and has seemingly earned, this is still Pokémon we’re talking about where the stakes are generally not that high, and when Leon tries to act like he understands how to get a situation under control, he just… doesn’t?

Granted, most of that segment’s problems come down to Rose as opposed to Leon. I could look at this both ways- on one hand, he is still the Champion, but he also seems pretty young for the role, especially compared to the DLC “former Champions” and other Champions from other regions, and it makes sense that there may still be some things that catch him by surprise.

Beyond the surface level charm of his quirks and personality traits, he’s overall just a character I feel super conflicted on. I like what we did get, but I don’t think we got enough. The whole thing with him being bad with directions gets old after a bit and the Charizard bias could not be any more blatantly in the player’s face if Game Freak tried. I mentioned wanting more Leon and Hop moments, but I also think they barely touch upon his friendship and former rivalry with Sonia, which could have been a much welcome character trope subversion as almost a grown-up version of Bianca and Cheren from Unova, if that makes sense. Their dynamic is very clearly meant to be a storytelling parallel to Hop and the player, and that parallel doesn’t work as well as it could when we do get to see Hop’s character arc but not Leon’s himself.

 

[pika pal]

Pokémon “Try and create a character that doesn’t just feel like a clone of something that came before it” Challenge (IMPOSSIBLE!!!)

See kids, the joke here is that everything that was about Cynthia can be applied to Steven and to a lesser extent Wallace. I want to like Cynthia as much as everyone else does, but I just can’t in good faith. Her in-game iteration lacks any of the emotional depth of Blue or the “Wow Factor” of Lance and his bird Pokémon, and the idea of an ally character that you meet around the location of Gym #2, uses the region’s psuedo-legendary, and doesn’t actually help out that much against the evil team was done literally last generation. Heck, at least Steven had that Multi Battle in Emerald.

Actually, you know what? Let’s take this one step further. I think all of Cynthia’s appeal comes specifically from people that are still wearing their nostalgia glasses. She wouldn’t be anywhere near as popular if she wasn’t the first female Champion, either, and I say that because we basically have Male Cynthia in all but name now in the form of Volo and his novelty wore off just as quickly, if not even faster.

I don't wholly disagree with your point, but Volo's a bad example to make your argument with because he was very clearly designed to play on peoples' image of Cynthia already, which automatically disqualifies him from trying to play a "mysterious stranger" role since the audience is expected to have eyes on him in an important part.

I'm also the cynical guy who rolls my eyes at the description of Blue as having "emotional depth" because of the massive disconnect between him boasting about being one-step ahead of you despite losing every battle after the first gym (Silver at least has the excuse of being presented as a thug trying to deny other peoples' points and a nuisance rather than a challenge). My genuine reaction at seeing him my first time playing as a kid was "you again?" especially since there was a battle with him BEFORE Victory Road and he's been up to the same thing as you all game. Gen 2 Lance, Gen 3 Steven/Wallace, and Gen 4 Cynthia at least have the surprise factor of never having fought them before, so you don't have a concept of how you stack up to them; Blue is an obstacle I just jumped over back with an extra bar vs something I have no point of comparison for like a "Final Exam" against Professor Oak.

I will say Alder feels like the games finally getting the Champion-in-story role "right" after 3 tries to me, since they don't try to keep the Champion's identity a secret, and simultaneously explain both his participation in the Antagonist plot as well as his inability to prevent it himself.

I feel like I might be the only one here who doesn’t mind Johto’s level curve. In fact, I actually find it quite generous and even pretty healthy. The first four Gyms I don’t have any problems with, and the remakes buffed Falkner’s levels a little bit for good measure, probably because the Sprout Tower became a mandatory visit in those games. The Route below Violet City, Union Cave, and the Team Rocket section all have enough “non-grinding” content to where I’ve never had issues with Bugsy level-wise, and while the gap between Azalea Town and Goldrenrod City is slightly shorter, I actually think Whitney feels a little bit underlevelled, though this was probably done on purpose because of Miltank’s high stats for that point in the game making up for this. That just leaves Ecruteak City. We can give Morty all the crap we want for not using a Misdreavus, but at the very least his levels are perfect where they are in my opinion.

The branching routes after Ecruteak tend to be where most fans start to dislike the level curve of this region. No matter what order you battle the next three Gyms in, at least one of them is going to be extremely easy no matter what you do. Let’s look at the numbers, though. The level gap between Morty’s Gengar and Clair’s Kingdra is 15-16 depending on the generation, and coming from someone who has personal beef with that particular Pokémon (Kingdra, not Gengar), Johto’s “split stretch” as I like to call it consists of a lot of gameplay that, especially with EVs and IVs taken into account, yeah, this isn’t the best level curve in Pokémon by any stretch of the imagination, but in practice I always felt like this could be a lot worse. None of the major fights during this stretch ever let too stressful to me, even without level grinding.

When the story merged back together after the Team Rocket stuff in Goldenrod, I can definitely see feeling underlevelled for Clair and the Pokémon League after that. On average I would say I get to Lance with my Pokémon around the early-to-mid-40s, maybe marginally higher depending on what’s actually on the team. At that number, the Dragonite trio in particular can seem threatening especially in the remakes with their better Dragon-Type attacks, but the Gyarados, Charizard, and even the Rock Slide Aerodactyl all feel manageable that late into the game.

Ultimately my opinion could be summarized like this. Johto’s one of the easiest regions to feel like you’re underlevelled in, sure, but it’s also in a weird spot where it’s one or the easiest to get overlevelled in too, at least before Lance and the Kanto “postgame that arguably isn’t actually a postgame”.

---

One of Sinnoh’s biggest problems with the PokéDex can be found pretty early on- no, literally, the problem exists in the earlygame. That is to say, Sinnoh’s earlygame is extremely top-heavy in my opinion, and while that does help against disproportionately difficult fights like Mars and Jupiter’s first fights and Fantina’s Platinum Gym battle, that doesn’t change the fact that almost all of Sinnoh’s best Pokémon to use on a team- the starters, Bidoof, Starly, Shinx, Budew, Buizel, Shellos, Abra, Geodude, Magikarp (Gyarados), Gible in Platinum… they’re all found early on and you can very easily have all of your team members picked out by the time you arrive at Hearthome City.

The problem here is that it discourages creative team building in the late game, where most other regions (albeit BW1 Unova went WAY too far in the opposite direction) try and still often fail and encourage you to pick up stronger Pokémon to replace your earlygame staples with. There’s virtually no incentive to try out dozens of Pokémon later in the region. Any incentive that is shown off is because you either found a full odds Shiny or you just really felt like using any number of underrated Pokémon most Sinnoh teams don’t commonly feature.

Admittedly Sinnoh isn’t the only region guilty of this (the Ultra games’ version of Melemele Island immediately comes to mind) and I don’t exactly know what the games could do to try and incentivize returning fans to try out lesser used Pokémon. The unlimited use TMs in Gens 5 through 8 is a good start, since you no longer have a reason to just slap all the best TMs onto your choice of an earlygame powerhouse and proceed to beat half the game with it. (Seriously, who thought putting the Earthquake TM in the same room as Gible was a good idea?) If you’re a newer fan or are playing Gen 4 Sinnoh for the first time, there’s nothing wrong with using stronger Pokémon that just happen to show up early. As a returning fan I just find myself bored with how strong Sinnoh’s earlygame is, that’s all.

I have 2 issues with Johto: besides the level curve, a lot of Pokemon have ATROCIOUS level up movepools that HG/SS didn't necessarily fix. Typhlosion for example is stuck with Flame Wheel off its weaker stat until Level 35 gives it Lava Plume, so despite often being 5-10 levels above a lot of things it fights, it doesn't hit hard enough to sweep through neutral targets and makes the mook rushes feel very sluggish. I think a lot of Pokemon choice complacency in this case is down to picking Pokemon that get access to moves they want to keep earlier (see all the Normals with Headbutt or the once-a-week Return TM), which gives them a headstart and then snowballs since they don't need to spread EXP around on bad type match-ups due to Normal's neutrality. I think this becomes a particular issue because Claire is the Gym 8 Leader, and since Dragons are short of SE options (you basically have Ice Punch in the Gen 2 version and a few miscellaneous Ice Beam users, and good luck finding Dragon moves for Kingdra), meaning it becomes a neutral shoving match with some utility options if you're carrying them.

Gen 2's progression in particular reminds me of some other "more traditional" Monster Collection games I have played and whose predecessors were out around a similar time and may have influenced the design, such as DQ Monsters or Shin Megami Tensei. In those games, the Monster Breeding/Fusing mechanic combines and turns your Monsters into the stronger ones you're meant to upgrade from (and removes the parents in doing so), such that their initial stats and growths/skills are improved by inheriting from the parents and your upgrades aren't just down to encountering new things. I feel like Johto's design would work a lot better with this kind of progression for a leveling curve since Egg Move inheritance would allow you to pass around TMs and try later Mons without "giving up" the work you did on the preceding members, while the stat growth inheritance would make sense of the low wild levels by encouraging this sort of "prestige reset" to gain stats by grinding back up to Level 20 instead of the much slower 20->40 for similar increases. For the record, I do not consider this a solution or applicable option to Pokemon because of its premise, but from a game design perspective it feels similar to Gen 1 being a lot more "traditional RPG but with Collectable Mons" in design vs what Pokemon game structure was like by Gen 3-4 when they got the more modern system designs.

As for Sinnoh, I personally much prefer it this way. It's always an easier endeavor to make a game more challenging than it is to make it less difficult/tedious when more viable options are available. If I'm dissatisfied with Johto, I'm just kind of stuck with it, while Sinnoh I always have the option to not use Staraptor or Roserade or Garchomp if I want a different experience from the "easy" power sweep. Most games I feel like if you're tagging in something late game, you either

• Already knew and planned to use it from the start (be it a replay or seeing it in marketing and deciding "I want that" when you get the game)
• Were not pleased with things you were already using and were trying to vary things up for the sake of it
• Didn't care about what was "good" as opposed to fun new stuff

This ignoring edge cases like Emerald Rayquaza where Speedrunners grab it to flat out bulldoze the endgame as a Unit rather than a character/team member. Going back to the other monster games I mentioned, this is another aspect they deal with differently since a central conceit is that your early game units will be fused into the later ones, so you inherently have to upgrade and change the "species" you're using since good earlygame monsters are still designed for later things to be objectively better. Given Pokemon's focus on the mons as partners and entities rather than gameplay units, introducing a lot of them early on that you can and likely will take to endgame feels more in-line with the philosophy rather than expecting you only partner up with some when the journey's half/75% over.

 

[Bakugames]

Lets not beat around the bush, many just care about cynthia because shes hot. shes a blonde woman the thickness of a stick whos got a slight goth touch without actually going fully in and keeping the more normie accepted aesthetics, all wrapped up and delivered in the late 2000s. And the other reason is that shes got a garchomp in a game with awful ice options. Which is why 90% of cynthia stuff is Look At How Hot She Is or Look At Her Cool Garchomp. The main exceptions being when they remember she had other pokémon or was supposed to be into mythology

 

[bdt2002]

Lets not beat around the bush, many just care about cynthia because shes hot. shes a blonde woman the thickness of a stick whos got a slight goth touch without actually going fully in and keeping the more normie accepted aesthetics, all wrapped up and delivered in the late 2000s. And the other reason is that shes got a garchomp in a game with awful ice options. Which is why 90% of cynthia stuff is Look At How Hot She Is or Look At Her Cool Garchomp. The main exceptions being when they remember she had other pokémon or was supposed to be into mythology

Absolutely based take right here. I personally don’t think she’s “all that” myself if you know what I mean, but… how can I say this… the generation of kids that grew up with Sinnoh is growing up now, and some of them can be a little…

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

My understanding is that Pursuit does (I'm a Natdex player, I'm going to use present tense rather than past) work on pivot moves provided the pivot occurs before the Pursuit user normally acts. I could see having it delay for switching moves should it ever get updated since it otherwise can't trigger on Teleport's negative priority.

No, no, I'm talking trigger as in trigger the double damage + priority if the target selects a pivot move.

That was never the case in older gens.

you just really felt like using any number of underrated Pokémon most Sinnoh teams don’t commonly feature

Which is perfectly valid.

Sinnoh's early game has a lot of strong mons, but it's not like the rest of it is a wash.

Nobody is stopping people from picking up Ralts, Porygon, Croagunk, Hippopotas, and Magnemite to fill up their team mid-game. Hell, that's probably a decent team itself.

The idea of Sinnoh's canon event team being the only option available is cap. There's nothing wrong with it.

Pokémon “Try and create a character that doesn’t just feel like a clone of something that came before it” Challenge (IMPOSSIBLE!!!)

See kids, the joke here is that everything that was about Cynthia can be applied to Steven and to a lesser extent Wallace. I want to like Cynthia as much as everyone else does, but I just can’t in good faith. Her in-game iteration lacks any of the emotional depth of Blue or the “Wow Factor” of Lance and his bird Pokémon, and the idea of an ally character that you meet around the location of Gym #2, uses the region’s psuedo-legendary, and doesn’t actually help out that much against the evil team was done literally last generation. Heck, at least Steven had that Multi Battle in Emerald.

Actually, you know what? Let’s take this one step further. I think all of Cynthia’s appeal comes specifically from people that are still wearing their nostalgia glasses. She wouldn’t be anywhere near as popular if she wasn’t the first female Champion, either, and I say that because we basically have Male Cynthia in all but name now in the form of Volo and his novelty wore off just as quickly, if not even faster.

Cynthia's allure has always been hands.

Namely the fact that she was the first champ since Blue to have more than one type, and we all knew Blue's team because of him being the main rival of RBY, Garchomp, and especially the wtf factor of Spiritomb having no weakness at all.

Of course, to us, that's nothing special now.

I'll actually take this a bit further and say that I don't know if there's a single champion that I like as a "character."

Some are decently designed boss battles, but hardly any of them have an interesting impact on the story.

Leon is probably the only champ I'd say is a good character. Emerald Steven would definitely count, but he got hoed.

Lets not beat around the bush, many just care about cynthia because shes hot. shes a blonde woman the thickness of a stick whos got a slight goth touch without actually going fully in and keeping the more normie accepted aesthetics, all wrapped up and delivered in the late 2000s. And the other reason is that shes got a garchomp in a game with awful ice options. Which is why 90% of cynthia stuff is Look At How Hot She Is or Look At Her Cool Garchomp. The main exceptions being when they remember she had other pokémon or was supposed to be into mythology

To be fair, Cynthia always had that presence, but she's not thicc enough.
That's why all of her art is off-model.

 

[AztecCroc]

I'd even argue it should be brought back and trigger on pivot moves.

It always did if the pivot user was faster than the Pursuit user.

I could see having it delay for switching moves should it ever get updated since it otherwise can't trigger on Teleport's negative priority.

I don't really think that would be necessary. Unless Pursuit's return is accompanied by a removal of the moveset wipe, Teleport is a very restricted move in terms of what learns it. Basically everything that gets it without needing Let's Go or Gen 1 VC is too frail to do what the Slowpoke and Chansey lines use it for in gen 8 and Natdex.

 

[Hugin]

The reason people still talk about Cynthia is that Cynthia, Leon, and Blue all have, not just multi-type champion teams, but multi-type teams specifically composed of mons that are reasonably considered broken. That's basically just the 3 of them. Any single-type champion just doesn't have the sauce. Even if they're technically difficult, they don't feel special. Nemona, Diantha, Alder, Geeta, Red...all have multi-type teams, but ones composed of flavorful, story-based mons. Again, they can be tough fights as a whole, but they aren't impressive.
Leon shows up with the Pseudo, Haxorus, Aegislash, G-Charizard, a starter, and one random mon. That's not a great team, but every mon is shocking when it comes out and you scramble to solve the problem.
Blue (except Pidgeot) uses a team entirely of stone evolutions, traded mons, complicated catch methods, etc. They all have high stats in some way for the era and are rare enough the player might not have seen some of them or know where to find them.
And Cynthia leads with something that has no weaknesses, adds in Lucario from the movie, Garchomp the beast, Milotic the unkillable, and 2 randos. That makes people sit up and take notice.

Note that I'm not talking about difficulty. Steven Stone and Red are endgame brutes(mostly due to level curve, but also legit good mons on their teams). Diantha(if you don't use XPAll) has some nightmare movesets on pretty good mons. But Hawlucha doesn't make a statement when it comes out, Aegislash does.

On the other topic, the entire switching meta needs a rebalance in singles. It's not that any one thing is too good or too bad, it's that switching is both the best decision you can make in many situations and a significant momentum loss, and that's already a balance nightmare. Anything that then either makes switching easier or harder is going to make things go out of control, and without significant care, it's always going to be an unbalanced part of the game in some way.
GF of course handles this by trying to make VGC so fast that switching is nearly impossible, but that has it's own problems(how many games are won or lost by a coinflip decision about leads?)

 

[Krockodile]

Here are some of my unpopular opinions:

1. Venusaur is the best Gen 1 starter. It's more powerful than the other Gen 1 starters (in-game and competitive), can be used in many roles (offensive, defensive, sun) and has the best animations in Pokemon Stadium.
2. Wallace in (Pokemon Emerald) is the hardest champion in the game. It took me 8 tries to actually beat him. There are only a few good pokemon that can counter Wallace's team (e.g Sceptile, Manetric and Ludicolo). Non-STAB moves can't 2HKO them.
3. Cynthia is one of the worst champions in the series, if not the worst. You think as someone who vents her disgust at Team Galactic would be able to help the player stop Cyrus from threatening the world. However, the only help she provides is that she gives us TM Cut and gives us a Togepi egg. She doesn't stop Team Galactic from kidnapping the Lake Trio and doesn't raid their base. Even Dawn was more helpful in stopping Team Galactic. Cynthia does go to the Distortion World to help the player out (would've been nice if she arrived earlier), but all she did is give Cyrus a drawn-out psychological lecture on the morals of reshaping the world, with her telling Cyrus to leave us alone (not great advice). Rather than have the champion take Cyrus out, we have to take him out, and then capture Giratina all by ourselves, whilst Cynthia doesn't help. She doesn't even apprehend Cyrus, just leaves him alone in the Distortion World. What kind of hero is she if three children and a professor is able to do a better job at stopping Team Galactic better than her (the strongest champion in Sinnoh)?
   Most champions at least try to stop the villains themselves before asking the player for help.
4. Knock Off and Scald shouldn't have been limited in distribution in Gen 9.
5. Swampert is clearly the best water starter.

More:
6. I think Nemona and Silver are fine characters, but I think they might be too overhyped.
7. Most of the villains in the pokemon franchise aren't interesting.

Ok, wow I've just taken a look at the last time I posted this, and I felt cringe looking at it. Probably the biggest cringe I have ever felt. Not only have they aged like milk, but the way I have conveyed them is really terrible. Like for Point 3, I know I didn't like Cynthia that much, but not that badly, I think I was too harsh on her back then. Also, I am glad that Scald was limited in distribution after hearing from everyone, it's such a busted move that has no drawbacks to it (fire is immune to burn, but also weak to water.
For Point 1, it could technically apply to Charizard, who has his own advantages in-game and is historically better in doubles. I think back then I might have been a bit too jealous of Charizard’s popularity, but now I understand its appeal and can't decide which of the two Gen 1 starters I like the most (sorry Blastoise).

I also really disagree with Point 7. Sure, the villains may not have the most complex motivations or might be the most intimidating, but sometimes you don't need to be complex to be interesting. They can just be villains that you can find interesting and fun to fight against. I think the only reason I mentioned that point was because I compared most of them to Ghetsis and Lusamine, which is not only a high bar to reach, but also my point can come across as just crapping on them for no reason when they can have their own merits. I also like Nemona and Silver now, and the latter should get therapy.

I plan to reflect on this and convey my opinions in a more respectful manner.

 

[Frostbiyt]

Lets not beat around the bush, many just care about cynthia because shes hot.

I was wondering when this would be brought up. Imo her popularity probably boils down to: 1. A difficult, memorable battle. 2. She looks cool. 3. She's attractive.

the generation of kids that grew up with Sinnoh is growing up now, and some of them can be a little…

They've been grown up for years now. D/P are themselves "grown up", released 18 years ago.

 

[Adeleine]

The Lousy Three are quickly becoming among my favorite legends.

(specifically when shen is being a theater kid)

 

[Yung Dramps]

broke: I like cynthia because all of the reasons already mentioned
woke: I like cynthia because cynthia x diantha is top tier yuri

https://twitter.com/x/status/1800379199435559200

 

[War Incarnate]

broke: I like cynthia because all of the reasons already mentioned
woke: I like cynthia because cynthia x diantha is top tier yuri

https://twitter.com/x/status/1800379199435559200

bespoke: all of the above

anyways, to not make this a one-liner, I will say that Knock Off should be nerfed, but in terms of how it should be nerfed, the easiest way to do it, imo, would be to remove the 1.5x damage boost on pokemon with items, and then to make it 60 BP to compensate

 

[Eeveeto]

bespoke: all of the above

anyways, to not make this a one-liner, I will say that Knock Off should be nerfed, but in terms of how it should be nerfed, the easiest way to do it, imo, would be to remove the 1.5x damage boost on pokemon with items, and then to make it 60 BP to compensate

Disagree. The effect of removing item competitively is so broken, that nowadays in older Gens is a very common move despite having 20 BP. Therefore, the best way to nerf it is reducing distribution A LOT. Preferably give it mostly just to otherwise bad mons. The beginning of SV was a good example of how it should have been done, unfortunately they brought back the TM in a DLC later.

 

[AztecCroc]

bespoke: all of the above

anyways, to not make this a one-liner, I will say that Knock Off should be nerfed, but in terms of how it should be nerfed, the easiest way to do it, imo, would be to remove the 1.5x damage boost on pokemon with items, and then to make it 60 BP to compensate

So you think they should remove the bonus damage and lower its power? Cause it's already 65 power.

 

[DrPumpkinz]

So you think they should remove the bonus damage and lower its power? Cause it's already 65 power.

I think he just wants it to be boosted by Technician.