Unpopular opinions

I dislike humanoid Pokemon for the most part. But I feel it's most annoying when that applies to your starter where you are usually inserting your personality.
Each generation the starter final evolution feel like an actual character like Inciniroar will always be a wrestler and Cinderace will always be a soccer player.
It seems like the trend started with Gen 5, but there you can still argue if they are more humanoid or more the animal they are based on.
 

Pikachu315111

Ranting & Raving!
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Rowlet is one of the ugliest first form starters and you cannot change my mind on this
Not even after seeing this:

As my my choice of "ugliest" Starter, hmm, it's all subjective of course and generally I have no problem but if I gotta pick:

Base Stage: Grookey (it looks like it's wearing a green morph suit, the arms and feet should have been brown like its tail and ears)
Middle Stage: Combusken (the face could have been done better), Quilladin (it's just a really awkward design), Thwackey (the morph suit got worst!)
Final Stage: Delphox (it's fur robe just looks drab), Inteleon (way too slim)

I dislike humanoid Pokemon for the most part.
(really, the humanoid starter trend needs to end. 3 gens in a row...)
I agree, I don't mind humanoid designs but they've overdone it with the Starters. GF thinks it gives them relatable personalities but if that's the intention that if you're meant to pick them by which one you relate with more doesn't that limit your choice? Let me decide what I imagine my Starter's personality is, or at the very least don't make the personality trait part of the design.
 
Meanwhile I'm mad they made Chikorita green cuz the anime based colors off of the old SW SGB color, and the anime rep was too strong...
 

Fusion Flare

i have hired this cat to stare at you
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I think I said most I wanted in the respective threads. But I try to repeat what I said. I am not looking forward for the remakes:
- it's artstyle is kinda off putting and feels like a step back from ORAS
- Masuda is involved, so that's not good news for me
- "Faithful" sounds like we aren't going to get the Battle Frontier and a limited Dex. I miss you Platinum improvements. Also how faithful will they be? No megas? No Fairy Typing? That kind of "faithful"? I am afraid it may be too literally. Will that be Let's Go "faithful" without having Go mechanics? Not to mention, lack of fire and ice types. Flint and Candice will be screwed.

As someone who doesn't like Sinnoh but is interested about potential improvements, it seems rather disappointing. What I loved about remakes in Pokemon is that we are experiencing our childhood games with modern mechanics rather than just visual upgrades and HD enhancements.

Apparently there seem to be some stuff from Platinum that may be in the game like Porygon-Z who isn't obtainable even in the post game and an NPC that may give you the item to change Shaymin's form.

But I guess having Chibi artstyle is better than having DP run on SwSh engine as it is now. But that is just me trying to make it less disappointing to myself than it actually is. Tho I would not mind Dynamax of all mechanics to disappear.
Just pointin out, you CAN get Pory-Z before you challenge the champion, or even fight Cyrus in Spear Pillar. The Upgrade is found in Eterna City in the Galactic base, and the Dubious Disc is found in the Galactic base in Veilstone. Of course this does require not one but TWO trades, so there is a sort of limitation.
 

Pikachu315111

Ranting & Raving!
is a Community Contributoris a Top Smogon Media Contributor
Just pointin out, you CAN get Pory-Z before you challenge the champion, or even fight Cyrus in Spear Pillar. The Upgrade is found in Eterna City in the Galactic base, and the Dubious Disc is found in the Galactic base in Veilstone. Of course this does require not one but TWO trades, so there is a sort of limitation.
You also need to get lucky and have Backlot fill his Trophy Garden with Porygon.
 

Fusion Flare

i have hired this cat to stare at you
is a Community Contributoris a Tiering Contributor
Yes. But this was under the assumption that it was the Platinum Pokédex in the first place. I have HEAVY doubts that they’d show a Pokémon unusable until postgame. Of course, it could be likely that GF could pull a fast one on me, but I’m just gonna go with the mindset that it will be available as a gift pokemon in BD/SP
 
Yes. But this was under the assumption that it was the Platinum Pokédex in the first place. I have HEAVY doubts that they’d show a Pokémon unusable until postgame. Of course, it could be likely that GF could pull a fast one on me, but I’m just gonna go with the mindset that it will be available as a gift pokemon in BD/SP
Oh I was under the assumption that you were referring to the original DP for some reason

That's on me haha

Sorry about that :psynervous:
 

didls

formerly Besom
While most people would probably say they prefer Kabutops over Omastar, because it "looks cooler" or "bro, it literally has sword arms man" (this is how striaight people speak I assume), I actually prefer Omastar.

Kabutops "objectively" looks cool; it is bipedal, has gigantic scythe arms, is menacing, etc. As a result, most people would probaby prefer it over Omastar. But Omastar is a genuinely interesting take on the contemporary image of an ammonite. It's a much more nuanced design because while it follows basic ammonite anatomy to a T, its drawn in a style that is instantly recognizable as "Pokémon". When I think of Pokémon, Omastar is one of the first things that comes to my mind.

tenor.gif

It's also the more terrifying one of the two.
 
While most people would probably say they prefer Kabutops over Omastar, because it "looks cooler" or "bro, it literally has sword arms man" (this is how striaight people speak I assume), I actually prefer Omastar.

Kabutops "objectively" looks cool; it is bipedal, has gigantic scythe arms, is menacing, etc. As a result, most people would probaby prefer it over Omastar. But Omastar is a genuinely interesting take on the contemporary image of an ammonite. It's a much more nuanced design because while it follows basic ammonite anatomy to a T, its drawn in a style that is instantly recognizable as "Pokémon". When I think of Pokémon, Omastar is one of the first things that comes to my mind.

View attachment 319514
It's also the more terrifying one of the two.
Also it's a killer dancer, as shown
 
a unpopular shiny opinion. I like gen 2 purple shiny charizard more than later gen black shiny.
Current Shiny Charizard is IMO the better shiny for me because come on black is such a cool color, but Gen 2 Shiny Charizard is literally just Ridley from Metroid and I love it for that

While we're on the topic of unpopular Shiny opinions, I don't get why so many people dislike green and pink Shinies. Sure some of them ae actually downright vomit inducing (looking at you Ursaring), but there are a lot of green and pink Shinies that people hate that I love. Probably the biggest example of this for me is Espeon. It's such a nice, deep shade of emerald green, yet everybody compares it to snot. Same goes for Sharpedo; I love that shade of deep magenta, yet everybody hates on it for being pink.

Personally, the worst Shiny color for me is yellow. It's ironic because yellow is my favorite color, and there are some great yellow Shinies (Azumarill and Luxray come to mind). But there's this specific shade of yellow that looks like piss to me, and they slap it on some of my favorite Pokémon. Arcanine, Lucario, and Floatzel had so much potential for cool Shinies, and they literally made them look like they've been drenched in piss. If they had just given them the same deep gold color that they had given Azumarill and Luxray, I would love them. But no; they had to go for piss yellow.
 
Current Shiny Charizard is IMO the better shiny for me because come on black is such a cool color, but Gen 2 Shiny Charizard is literally just Ridley from Metroid and I love it for that

While we're on the topic of unpopular Shiny opinions, I don't get why so many people dislike green and pink Shinies. Sure some of them ae actually downright vomit inducing (looking at you Ursaring), but there are a lot of green and pink Shinies that people hate that I love. Probably the biggest example of this for me is Espeon. It's such a nice, deep shade of emerald green, yet everybody compares it to snot. Same goes for Sharpedo; I love that shade of deep magenta, yet everybody hates on it for being pink.

Personally, the worst Shiny color for me is yellow. It's ironic because yellow is my favorite color, and there are some great yellow Shinies (Azumarill and Luxray come to mind). But there's this specific shade of yellow that looks like piss to me, and they slap it on some of my favorite Pokémon. Arcanine, Lucario, and Floatzel had so much potential for cool Shinies, and they literally made them look like they've been drenched in piss. If they had just given them the same deep gold color that they had given Azumarill and Luxray, I would love them. But no; they had to go for piss yellow.
Yeah, when I was tweaking shiny colors, I noticed green was a good highlighter
Christmas tree Chansey and Clefable come to mind
Weird how dark brown is never used for shinies outside Chestnaught....who'd look better if the normal was the shiny
 
Weird how dark brown is never used for shinies outside Chestnaught....who'd look better if the normal was the shiny
There's also Alolan Raichu, which is also a great Shiny

But yeah, I don't think there are any other brown Shinies aside from those two. I think it's because they used to pick Shinies from computer-generated color palettes, and since dark brown is a mixture of all other colors, it very rarely shows up on computer-generated color palettes.

...Or they want to avoid having Shinies compared to poop :P
 

Pikachu315111

Ranting & Raving!
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I don't get why so many people dislike green and pink Shinies
Green: The problem with green isn't the color itself but the shade of green they choose. It can easily make the Pokemon look sickly than just it's color is green.

Pink: This is probably due to a lot of blue Pokemon for some reason turning pink during the early gens when they seemingly were using a pallet swapper program for a majority of the Pokemon.
 
Catching up. I'm kinda salty I missed the difficulty discussion, but I gotta address another post first.

...Which brings the question of why not try to rebalance mons?
Impossible. Matter of fact, it has been since at least Gen 2 and I can personally confirm this having attempted to do so hacking Stadium 2.

You can make a couple adjustments while trying to not step on another mon's niche, but even then you need to immediately recognize not all mons are going to be winners. At best you'll be able to give them an identity and hope they'll be fun in the lower tiers.

Apparently there seem to be some stuff from Platinum that may be in the game like Porygon-Z who isn't obtainable even in the post game and an NPC that may give you the item to change Shaymin's form.
Pory-Z can be obtainable in DP at the Trophy Garden, it's just post-game. (Unlike in Platinum, Mr. Backlot doesn't run his mouth until you get the Nat. Dex)

Obviously though, it's a potential clue that the Sinnoh Dex is in fact, expanded from the abysmal DP Dex.

I don't think people necessarily want high difficulty in Pokémon. I've seen many posts about how that isn't really feasible given the current battle mechanics (free +100% damage bonus if you can identify the typing of the opponent and have the right move for it being the greatest example), static enemy teams, and the symmetrical design philosophy (anything you can face, you can also use - which Pokémon recently seems to have distanced itself from). The player simply has too many advantages. High difficulty is hard to create, and it probably wouldn't be very fun all in all either.

But people want a step up from a "poke the enemy and it keels over" level of difficulty too. There is something about seeing late-game Gym Leaders with three Pokémon with several empty moveslots, a total lack of route Trainers carrying more than two Pokémon, held items almost never being used, or a conspicuous lack of anything resembling strategy from in-game opponents. As a player, you don't feel like you're being challenged on even terms, Instead, the game deliberately restrains itself from battling you on your level. The rival deliberately picking the starter weak to yours is a great example of this. It's as if the game bends over to facilitate your victory, and it's being really obvious about it. That's frustrating. It's the difference between being challenged and being led to victory. Of climbing a wall versus going up an escalator.

Arguably, the Challenge Mode in BW2 doesn't make the game that much harder. Only a few trainers are affected by the setting, and them having higher-leveled Pokémon even means you're getting more XP to fight the common route trainers with. But still it feels good to see the Gym Leader having an extra Pokémon, with moves to address the glaring weaknesses of their specialty type. Or Elite Four teams full of held Items. It's the game letting itself play a little smarter, letting you face a higher level of challenge. It's still not particularly difficult, but it's not "Oh no, here comes the player, better do everything we can to let them win!" And that makes a world of difference.

The games don't have to be hard to be fun. But I'd say they need to be less in-your-face easy.
There's actually a very simple way to make the battles at least more interesting.

Thematic team building. Game Freak is no stranger to the idea, even in modern times, Kabu is a perfect example of what I mean.

A huge problem with Rom Hacks is that they often fall into the obvious pitfalls of stupid optimized major battles, fully evolved mons when the player doesn't have access to good tools, or alternatively a bunch of pseudos everywhere late-game, level spikes everywhere, and crazy level inflation.

You'll notice that all of these usually promote mindless grinding so that the player can actually push through those. No strategic value whatsoever.


Now let's go back to Kabu. Kabu does have some interesting tricks up his sleeve. Instead of going with a basic hyper offense team, as expected of Fire trainers, his team is designed around spreading burns with Will-O-Wisp.

The result? His team becomes much more interesting because there's a strategic flavor involved. You can't just pull up with any old Rock-type and expect an easy sweep, matter of fact, even a mon like Drednaw, otherwise a hard counter, doesn't want to take a Will-O-Wisp.

Naturally, Game Freak pulled their punches too much and made him a wimp anyway, but there's still value in that approach because they gave Kabu an identity that other leaders, for example, Flannery, didn't have.

Flannery is the exact opposite, her identity is much more in line with the hyper offensive Fire specialist I mentioned earlier, but she still manages to stand out because of her tactic of combining Overheat (and at mid-game that thing is a serious concern) and a White Herb to remove Overheat's drawback.
 
While I'm here, I have a pretty split opinion (I think). A lot of pokemon are not lazily designed, even the Vanillite line and the Trubbish line. When people say they are kinda lazy, I tend to disagree. When you look at the rest of gen 5, a lot of pokemon have good designs, for example, the Timburr line and the Solosis line. People may say they are far more creative, but then think about how they wanted a literal trash-based pokemon. Notice how Trubbish is only found on Route 5, 16, and 4? The three routes surrounding Nimbasa City, which is a very large city. For Vanillite, they wanted an ice cream pokémon, so they made one. I would even say that the designs aren't lazy even still in Sword and Shield. In fact, I would go so far as to say gen 1 pokemon are generally more lazily designed.
 
There's actually a very simple way to make the battles at least more interesting.

Thematic team building. Game Freak is no stranger to the idea, even in modern times, Kabu is a perfect example of what I mean.

A huge problem with Rom Hacks is that they often fall into the obvious pitfalls of stupid optimized major battles, fully evolved mons when the player doesn't have access to good tools, or alternatively a bunch of pseudos everywhere late-game, level spikes everywhere, and crazy level inflation.

You'll notice that all of these usually promote mindless grinding so that the player can actually push through those. No strategic value whatsoever.


Now let's go back to Kabu. Kabu does have some interesting tricks up his sleeve. Instead of going with a basic hyper offense team, as expected of Fire trainers, his team is designed around spreading burns with Will-O-Wisp.

The result? His team becomes much more interesting because there's a strategic flavor involved. You can't just pull up with any old Rock-type and expect an easy sweep, matter of fact, even a mon like Drednaw, otherwise a hard counter, doesn't want to take a Will-O-Wisp.

Naturally, Game Freak pulled their punches too much and made him a wimp anyway, but there's still value in that approach because they gave Kabu an identity that other leaders, for example, Flannery, didn't have.

Flannery is the exact opposite, her identity is much more in line with the hyper offensive Fire specialist I mentioned earlier, but she still manages to stand out because of her tactic of combining Overheat (and at mid-game that thing is a serious concern) and a White Herb to remove Overheat's drawback.
A "simple" way to fix it is, just like the examples you mentioned, by introducing a mechanic. Rather than just taking three/four Pokémon of a type, giving it a TM move, and a higher level than the previous trainers, they should be themed about teaching the player how to deal with a certain mechanic, such as:
- Held items (like Flannery, or Tate & Liza in Emerald)
- Status conditions (like Kabu)
- Weather (like Raihan)
- Spread moves in which one of their Pokémon is immune to (like Tate & Liza in Emerald)
- Terrains
- Speed control
- Misdirection (e.g. Follow Me)
- Type coverage (like Ilima)

Gym Leaders are supposed to be tests for trainers, but most of the time it looks like they are only testing if you know the type chart.

Norman's gym in Emerald seemed to have this idea in mind, but with each trainer having only one mon, it didn't work.

(And the majority of gyms should be double battle oriented, as it's the official format)
 

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