Research Do you believe pokemon games are on a downward spiral?

Do you believe pokemon games are on a downward spiral?

  • Yes

    Votes: 41 43.2%
  • No

    Votes: 54 56.8%

  • Total voters
    95
Yes. After XY specifically. ShSw can attest to that.

Still enjoyable, tho, but I'd never expect another Pokémon game with the same polish or content than gold era NDS.

This is also a good point. From what I have seen in the online Pokémon fandom, many fans seem to prefer the generation(s) they played first or grew up with, but dislike or not care as much for the generations after, as well as the current generation. However, there are exceptions. For instance, I am an older fan as I started playing during Gen 1, it and Gen 2 (as well as the beginning of Gen 3) were Pokémon for me during my childhood. But nowadays, I prefer the newer generations. While I think Gen 1 and 2 were good for their time and I had lots of fun with them back in the day, I don’t care much for them anymore. I prefer the newer generations, my favorites being Gen 5, 6 and 7. On the whole, I would say that I have enjoyed Pokémon more as a teenager and an adult compared to as a kid.
I started playing Pokémon in first gen and I opine that Plat, HGSS and BW2 are the greatest, more content and most ambitous entries ever made. That's not even an opinion when it comes to quality, it's a fact.
 

bdt2002

Pokémon Ranger: Guardian Signs superfan
is a Pre-Contributor
In Game Freak’s defense, Pokémon Sun & Moon were meant to be the 20th anniversary games, and if that Chinese Zodiac theory is true, the official halfway point of the franchise. Gen 1 material being promoted in Pokémon is also no different than, say, every 2D Mario platformer containing SMB references like the 1-up trick and the World 1-2 secret exits for example. My point is, a franchise will always embrace its origins to an extent regardless of the game it’s in.

Now onto the development teams caring or not. I think the reason they care is because deep down, Pokémon’s developers understand what it means to run a business. They know that not everything they do will be popular, but they continue their efforts not because they have to, but because it’s thanks to us, the consumers, that Pokémon is where it’s been for the better part of 25 years now.
 
For me, the biggest annoyance is in the framework of the game itself.

It needs a UI / dialog text box engine overhaul to revamp it and make it seem like a gen 7 or 8 game.

Instead of bland ingame and inbattle text that takes two clicks to wade through, how about speeding it up into a single line of text, or even more interesting icons or dynamic text.

Example, say your confuse your opponents Magikarp, instead of a standard dialog box along the bottom of the screen telling you, "Magikarp is confused", how about the word "Confused" pops up above the pokemons head and disappears after a second or so, followed by the usual "Confused" animation.

Basic changes I've this could effectively speed up wasted battle time significantly, add new effects, add excitement with no loss. It could be used for things like 'Super effective', 'Critical hit' etc.

In addition speeding up in game text, 1 click instead of 2, where possible, hold down B to fast forward dialogue etc. Let players decide how they want to interact with the in-game text.

Make the game feel slick and less of a button pressing chore to navigate through, 'this is how to use a Poke Center' for those who have played the preceding 6 generations of games mutiple times...
 

Codraroll

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For me, the biggest annoyance is in the framework of the game itself.

It needs a UI / dialog text box engine overhaul to revamp it and make it seem like a gen 7 or 8 game.

Instead of bland ingame and inbattle text that takes two clicks to wade through, how about speeding it up into a single line of text, or even more interesting icons or dynamic text.

Example, say your confuse your opponents Magikarp, instead of a standard dialog box along the bottom of the screen telling you, "Magikarp is confused", how about the word "Confused" pops up above the pokemons head and disappears after a second or so, followed by the usual "Confused" animation.

Basic changes I've this could effectively speed up wasted battle time significantly, add new effects, add excitement with no loss. It could be used for things like 'Super effective', 'Critical hit' etc.

In addition speeding up in game text, 1 click instead of 2, where possible, hold down B to fast forward dialogue etc. Let players decide how they want to interact with the in-game text.

Make the game feel slick and less of a button pressing chore to navigate through, 'this is how to use a Poke Center' for those who have played the preceding 6 generations of games mutiple times...
Yeah, this is a good example of a feature where the games haven't gone on a downward spiral, per se ... it's just that it has been the same since Gen I, while the rest of the game industry has made huge improvements by taking advantage of technological advances or through better knowledge of user experience design. It's not that Pokémon is getting worse, but everything else is getting better, and the gap is widening.

It's the same with sound effects, for instance. Many of the menu sounds and jingles in the games are unironically made to sound like GameBoy chip tunes, which doesn't really fit the otherwise modern-looking (-ish) graphics. Same with Pokémon cries. A low-fi chip tune screech might have been the state-of-the-art way to introduce a monster on a handheld console in 1996, but on a home console nowadays it's really old-fashioned - and the fact they are seemingly playing the same sounds in many instances is getting a bit embarrassing.

"This is the way we've always done it" may be a solid principle to stick to sometimes, but in a medium that evolves as quickly as video games, this principle makes things feel really dated really quickly. Game Freak likes to stick to the conventions of 1996, maybe making incremental improvements, but generally not adjusting very well to the newer industry conventions. Hopefully a lot of those things will be sorted out with the next games, which seem to shake things up a fair bit.
 
In answering this question, I'll be blunt - yes. To me, Pokémon's golden age was Gens 3 -5 producing the six best games in the series in my opinion (Platinum, Emerald, HGSS, B2W2, BW and FRLG). Ever since then Pokémon has taken certain steps backwards. First, visually I believe Pokémon was its best when revolving around sprite work. I found sprites to be far more endearing and full of character than 3D renditions. Sprites had vibrant colors and dynamic poses that I find sorely missing in the 3D era.

Second, improved battle mechanics have taken a backseat to battle gimmicks. After the physical special split in Gen 4, I believe Pokémon reached its apex as far as refined mechanics were concerned. And that carried through Gen 5. I never saw the need for Mega evo's, Z-moves, and D-max/G-max to try to fix something that wasn't broken. The Gen 5 metagame in particular was my favorite and I still miss it to this day.

Third, post game content has taken a severe toll since Gen 5. Gens 3 - 5 placed heavy and solid emphasis on the post game in the form of their elaborate battle facilities. Those have obviously fallen by the way side since to the detriment of the audience in my opinion.

And lastly, well paced difficulty has been eroded post Gen 5. Gens 3 - 5 had well paced difficult games for the most part, even if trending in the direction of being too difficult at times. But the edges of that sword have been dulled significantly since. Small things like gaining EXP from just catching Pokémon, to larger things like struggling to design a game around Exp. All (whether it's turned on or not) have hurt the games' difficulty drastically.

I think at this point, I'm pretty much out of hope with regards to the main series of games. But I do think Arceus Legends has the potential to pave the path forward towards a brighter future for Pokémon games. There will be bumps along the road for sure, but GF deserves high marks for attempting the pivot in this direction. It's not easy to turn down surefire big money with their tried and true formula and try something different, as much as many in the audience might think it's easy. So in conclusion, I believe the games have been in steady decline since Gen 5 unfortunately but there's some reason to be cautiously optimistic about the future.
 
BW2, HGSS, and Platinum are, almost objectively speaking, the absolute best games in the series. XY was kind of weak but the ambitiously large number of 3d models added to the game made it excusable. We all waited for Pokémon Z to bridge the gap and "finish" the game... but it never happened. Then S/M came out. Then USUM... finally the awful Sword and Shield. There hasn't been a competent Pokémon game released in nearly ten years. The games are getting shorter, easier, lazier, and just worse all around. Much of this could be excused at Gamefreak at least had the excuse that they had to build the games around several hundred Pokémon but now they aren't even doing that.

I'm kind of at a point where I'm not sure if I even want either of the new Sinnoh games. One is a remake that I can effectively play on my phone for free via Roms, and the other is a bad breath of the wild but with Pikachu.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem like the series is going to get better any time soon as each Pokémon game has been a phenomenal financial success.
 

ScraftyIsTheBest

On to new Horizons!
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Stumbled across a Twitter thread by chance but I think this person brought up some really good points.


For the record, this is a really long thread (24 tweets long) but the points are all very good regardless and give a pretty good picture of the grand scheme of things and I felt that I agree with several of this person's points. Bringing it up here because I feel it ties into this topic pretty nicely.
 
Stumbled across a Twitter thread by chance but I think this person brought up some really good points.


For the record, this is a really long thread (24 tweets long) but the points are all very good regardless and give a pretty good picture of the grand scheme of things and I felt that I agree with several of this person's points. Bringing it up here because I feel it ties into this topic pretty nicely.
I disagree with that tweet thread.

I mean, Sword and Shield might lack the things that are mentioned there, but to treat it as if Pokémon always lacked that is a mistake.

To bring a very recent example, Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon have quite a lot of "tiny details" of the kind this person thinks a lack of them is the problem in the series. Sidequests, comedy, easter eggs... it has that "production value" so it's not like Pokémon never had it.

(And I personally find voice acting to be irrelevant in a game like Pokémon. Heck, I'd roll back the changes to Pikachu and Eevee's cries.)

a bad breath of the wild
Isn't that a redundant phrase?
 
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Stumbled across a Twitter thread by chance but I think this person brought up some really good points.


For the record, this is a really long thread (24 tweets long) but the points are all very good regardless and give a pretty good picture of the grand scheme of things and I felt that I agree with several of this person's points. Bringing it up here because I feel it ties into this topic pretty nicely.
I partially agree. Though I don't think lack of production value is the only thing that plagues modern Pokémon games. I think the best game to crystallize this point is HGSS. HGSS is a game rife with execution issues but it ranks high on my list for the simple fact that I can tell that game was made with a ton of love and care. Small things like the location previews, following Pokémon, and the top tier sprite work seem inconsequential in the grand scheme of things but go a long way in showcasing the quality of a game. They all kind of tie into the "production value" that this person is referencing; a game doesn't have to be cinematic for it to show high production value in my book. But it has to create an immersive atmosphere and environment which I found the golden age Pokémon games did a much better job of as compared to the modern era ones.
 

Samtendo09

Ability: Light Power
is a Pre-Contributor
Stumbled across a Twitter thread by chance but I think this person brought up some really good points.


For the record, this is a really long thread (24 tweets long) but the points are all very good regardless and give a pretty good picture of the grand scheme of things and I felt that I agree with several of this person's points. Bringing it up here because I feel it ties into this topic pretty nicely.
While I don’t completely agreed with the thread, one thing I do agree by a lot is the fact that the fandom is so tunnel-visioned nowadays.

While the “animation” part is a debated part in Sword and Shield, there is no denying that implementing over 800 Pokémon, now approaching to 900, all the times in base games can proved too cumbersome for production especially with balance issues so rampant, more so if giving them several unique animations for many moves.

There’s also the fact that the fandom tend to be afraid of nerfing most “obnoxiously overpowered” Pokémon, those that can be so unfun to fight against. I understand not to nerf anything to the ground, and most Legendary should be left as-is due to their lategame values.

But when you have things like Zacian, Spectrier, Mega Rayquaza, Primal Groudon + Primal Kyogre (moreso Primal Groudon), Landorus-T, Spectrier + Shadow Rider Calyrex (I might also add Ice Rider Calyrex in Doubles) and for non-Legendary, Toxapex, Clefable, Dracovish, Cinderace in Singles, Mega Salamence + Mega Metagross, Mega Gengar, Incineroar in Doubles, this needs a serious time-out.

Making perfect balance is impossible task, sure, but while tightening the power creep to a much more reasonable gap is no easy task, that one isn’t impossible. Buffing awfully useless Pokémon and make the mediocre Pokémon more useful will be the good first step.

Don’t say that the fangames did a better job at balancing, either. Radical Red may buffed several Pokémon, but didn’t do anything to keep the currently most overpowered one in check. And it gave us outright insane combination like Magic Guard + Mind Blown Delphox, too. I’m not making this up!
 
For the record, this is a really long thread (24 tweets long) but the points are all very good regardless and give a pretty good picture of the grand scheme of things and I felt that I agree with several of this person's points. Bringing it up here because I feel it ties into this topic pretty nicely.
I think are they are partly right. Game Freak is struggling to produce the sheer number of 3d models and labour intensive animations. Even though one or two nice cinematics can really sell a campaign. They need to re-prioritise, not just throw overtime at their problems.

But also the thread is just focused on the graphics, when gameplay is the real issue that I have with pokemon at the moment.

I think that I could still have just as good an experience with 500 mons rather than a thousand if they improved things elsewhere. A more interactive story, an AI that isn't a complete moron etc.

So many features of pokemon unrelated to presentation would probably get harsh criticism from a brand new triple-A RPG released today.
The straightforward maps and lack of minigames. The repetitive battles against moronic AI. The need for hours of grinding. A 100% railroaded storyline with a painfully obvious twist and no player agency etc.

No way would a brand new RPG hit 80% on metacritic with those problems.

Animating so many mons in such a bare-bones game would probably be considered misappropriated time. Especially since the mons don't look much better than they did in XY.

I'm sympathetic with Game Freak's staff. But that doesn't change the fact that the games are still in many ways stuck in the early 2000s.
 
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Codraroll

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I think are they are partly right. Game Freak is struggling to produce the sheer number of 3d models and labour intensive animations. Even though one or two nice cinematics can really sell a campaign. They need to re-prioritise, not just throw overtime at their problems.
I think the issue ... well, one issue, is that the fidelity of models and animations don't quite match the style of the environment. It's the uncanny valley problem, in a way. When the game is just based on static sprites, a man on the street can stand stiffly in one pose and look straight ahead, and it doesn't register as weird. If he needs to turn around, the sprite can just be flipped over in an instant, and it still looks appropriate to the setting. The sprite is just a representation of the character, after all. Kind of abstract.

But in a full 3D environment, with semi-realistic graphics, if a man on the street needs to turn around, he better have a good turning animation or it will immediately register as very janky in the eyes of players. And if he's otherwise just standing around, his pose needs to be made in such a way that he looks natural. Preferably, his body should be moving as he's breathing, or maybe adjusting his pose to stand more comfortably. And if the interaction with him is done without sound, it will also feel weird and unnatural.

Taking the leap to 3D requires a lot more attention than just doing 2D stuff with models instead of sprites. You don't just need animations, you need transitions between animations to make realistic movements. And you need realistic movements if the environment is realistic, otherwise there will be a jarring clash between what happens on screen and what people "expect" to happen.

I think it's fair to say that the 3D games are lacking a bit here. The overworld is so detailed and realistic that characters look out of place without the same level of realism. That's the issue of presentation - it's not coherent, and that is really noticeable, because humans are innately good at spotting things that look a little off among their environment. We all cringed at the guy in Hulbury Stadium who walked towards you while adhering painfully obviously to a grid. In a cutscene.

And unfortunately, this extends into the battle screen as well. Previously, you could get away with displaying the battle in the form of a static sprite facing another static sprite. That was coherent with the general presentation of the game. But now that the environments are so detailed, you notice how stiff and unnatural the scene is when two monsters stand opposite each other repeating the same animations over and over again, and trainers stand behind them in an idle pose too. Again, this is appropriate when the background is static and you consider the sprites to be abstract representations of the characters, but that way of doing things clashes with a more lively and realistic environment.

Thankfully, Legends Arceus seems to advance Pokémon by leaps and bounds in this regard. BDSP takes the opposite approach and makes its environment less realistic so the detractions from realism aren't as immediately obvious anymore. I think both approaches are valid. Either make a proper effort on realism, or don't pretend to have realism in the first place. The result can be great in either case, but a poor effort at realism just looks awful most of the time.
 
I partially agree. Though I don't think lack of production value is the only thing that plagues modern Pokémon games. I think the best game to crystallize this point is HGSS. HGSS is a game rife with execution issues but it ranks high on my list for the simple fact that I can tell that game was made with a ton of love and care. Small things like the location previews, following Pokémon, and the top tier sprite work seem inconsequential in the grand scheme of things but go a long way in showcasing the quality of a game. They all kind of tie into the "production value" that this person is referencing; a game doesn't have to be cinematic for it to show high production value in my book. But it has to create an immersive atmosphere and environment which I found the golden age Pokémon games did a much better job of as compared to the modern era ones.
This.

It's true that SwSh has faltered when it comes to polish, but that's really not the only issue here, mainly because HGSS is nothing but polish. The problem is that there are unaddressed issues on the gameplay foundation.

Now I wanna address the whole "Muh animations!" issue.

Let's take a look at the gold standard for Pokémon when it comes to battle animations, PBR.

PBR has the same "Generic animation for contact moves, generic animation for ranged moves." as the 3D games. I'd even go as far as saying that most of the attack animations from the 3D games are good.

What's the difference then? The run animation (Yes, I know detractors will say it was slow, but that's honestly an easy fix.) and a dynamic camera.

While watching a mon actually run up and whack another is good and makes perfect sense in the context of a battle, the biggest thing here is the camera.

The GB-style camera just doesn't cut it anymore and severely holds back the franchise visually. (Scaling mons is a good example of this, you can't really have a scaled Wailord on your side of the field without making everything else impossible to see.)

You wanna know how much of a difference it makes? Look at the Gamecube games and even Stadium.

The only animations that I feel are objectively bad across the board in the 3D era when it comes to battles are the idle animations. A lot of mons are but a step away from T-Posing.

Pokémon, presentation-wise, does not need a lot to be great again. As for the overworld...

I think the issue ... well, one issue, is that the fidelity of models and animations don't quite match the style of the environment. It's the uncanny valley problem, in a way. When the game is just based on static sprites, a man on the street can stand stiffly in one pose and look straight ahead, and it doesn't register as weird. If he needs to turn around, the sprite can just be flipped over in an instant, and it still looks appropriate to the setting. The sprite is just a representation of the character, after all. Kind of abstract.

But in a full 3D environment, with semi-realistic graphics, if a man on the street needs to turn around, he better have a good turning animation or it will immediately register as very janky in the eyes of players. And if he's otherwise just standing around, his pose needs to be made in such a way that he looks natural. Preferably, his body should be moving as he's breathing, or maybe adjusting his pose to stand more comfortably. And if the interaction with him is done without sound, it will also feel weird and unnatural.

Taking the leap to 3D requires a lot more attention than just doing 2D stuff with models instead of sprites. You don't just need animations, you need transitions between animations to make realistic movements. And you need realistic movements if the environment is realistic, otherwise there will be a jarring clash between what happens on screen and what people "expect" to happen.

I think it's fair to say that the 3D games are lacking a bit here. The overworld is so detailed and realistic that characters look out of place without the same level of realism. That's the issue of presentation - it's not coherent, and that is really noticeable, because humans are innately good at spotting things that look a little off among their environment. We all cringed at the guy in Hulbury Stadium who walked towards you while adhering painfully obviously to a grid. In a cutscene.

And unfortunately, this extends into the battle screen as well. Previously, you could get away with displaying the battle in the form of a static sprite facing another static sprite. That was coherent with the general presentation of the game. But now that the environments are so detailed, you notice how stiff and unnatural the scene is when two monsters stand opposite each other repeating the same animations over and over again, and trainers stand behind them in an idle pose too. Again, this is appropriate when the background is static and you consider the sprites to be abstract representations of the characters, but that way of doing things clashes with a more lively and realistic environment.

Thankfully, Legends Arceus seems to advance Pokémon by leaps and bounds in this regard. BDSP takes the opposite approach and makes its environment less realistic so the detractions from realism aren't as immediately obvious anymore. I think both approaches are valid. Either make a proper effort on realism, or don't pretend to have realism in the first place. The result can be great in either case, but a poor effort at realism just looks awful most of the time.
This.

You can't half-ass 3D. You either make things look good, especially when it comes to animations, or you do what BDSP did and go back to representations.

Several games have made the jump to 3D and learned this one way or another, and the main lesson is that you don't really need a powerful console for that, but you need to be precise with what you do.

The Switch is not a console that stands out for its graphical power, but BotW looks pretty good. Why? They made sure the artstyle was good and the presentation was on point.

SwSh's artstyle is just a boring mess. And not just SwSh tbh. Gen 7 wasn't great on that either. It's bland. I can't even describe it properly, nothing really stands out. If Gen 7 didn't have the tropical/Hawaiian thing going on, you'd have nothing to point out when it comes to style.

The core gameplay is still good, SwSh did manage to give the Gyms the shine they deserve and has an impressively robust post-game with DLC, but honestly?

These games feel like they never truly evolve. Now we're in a weird situation.

SwSh's DLC and Wild Area seem to have been designed to pave the way for Legends. We currently know very little about that game.

BDSP is a much safer bet, to the point I call it a safety net, but we know some of the issues I mentioned here aren't going to be addressed at all.

So all the pressure is on Legends since it's the game sold as the evolution of the franchise and the game that finally is going to break the mold.

I'm really not sure what exactly Game Freak wants for the future, because they've been shuffling steps and rotating gimmicks, and honestly, I don't think even they know how to improve this franchise.

Especially with the horrible feedback a fandom of this size provides. Wayyyy too much noise, bad ideas, and dissonance.
 
I think pokemon hit the status of too big to fail, where for the higher-ups unless something big shakes up, they will literally never change the way games are produced and the general budget given (other than expected raises in software costs). All improvement is driven by the gamefreak employees and what they're able to apply that doesn't completely bite their ass in time management, which is why the progress of the franchise is slow as hell.

Anything you could tell them on how to improve could easily me reply with "why?", and unless you can prove it'll increase profits beyond the cost, it's dead on the water.

TL;DR I think pokémon's current situation is just a consequence of late-stage capitalism and there is no turning back
 
TL;DR I think pokémon's current situation is just a consequence of late-stage capitalism and there is no turning back
SwSh JUST sold like hotcakes and they threw caution to the wind (for the most part) and broke the formula to make Legends.

We did reach the point of them figuring it was better to take a step back and reconsider things.
 
SwSh JUST sold like hotcakes and they threw caution to the wind (for the most part) and broke the formula to make Legends.

We did reach the point of them figuring it was better to take a step back and reconsider things.
I do like the idea of legends and I believe it'll improve the main games quite a bit, but also I don't feel is very much throwing caution to the wind. They want to expand the franchise and are trying to hit the hot corners of gaming rn, hence why we got masters a while back (and just a lot of mobile gaming in general). Legends just feels like execs wanted to cash in on the open world market, and game freak is taking their chance to make something new and refreshing with the opportunity they were given.

Legends feels calculated to me, but maybe I'm very negative about companies and don't believe they are making a new game to change things up just because the franchise needed it, otherwise, I think it would have been done a long time ago.

Whatever the motive was, I think legends still stands as an opportunity to break tradition and show what pokémon's potential is, it's up to gamefreak to show what they can do now, and hopefully, it'll be good. I'm optimistic about this game.
 
I think stuff like this gets to be circular where one side can say that Sword and Shield is still better than the average contemporary video game or better than RBY in terms of having better graphics/more Pokemon/more complexity with items and abilities/fewer glitches, and the other side can say that Pokemon used to be console-selling games that pushed the limits of their hardware (e.g. putting Kanto in the 2nd generation because there was just enough memory space for it) and have now settled into being decent games that are largely vehicles to sell merchandise/cards. It's largely just an issue of whether you're a compulsive video game player or have a higher standard and only think the very best games are worth playing; either way, Pokemon is still going to rake in money.

Something like post-game facilities are a lost cause at this point as they were meant to be a soft on-boarding process into competitive play, and now that they have an online matchmaking system that can serve a similar purpose while also charging you for the privilege of playing online (plus however much for entry fees to their events), they're not going to put forth any sort of effort that might dissuade new players from that pipeline. As far as when exactly the downward spiral began, that's pretty subjective, but I'd say the final nail in the coffin was how massive Pokemon Go turned out to be for such a low-effort game. Before then, it could be said that B2W2 were still pretty good games if not quite at the level of HGSS or Platinum and then X and Y seemed incomplete (but at least somewhat justifiably so given the new console plus 3D models) but still intriguing enough that one could be excited for Z or whatever sequel version(s).
 
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It is hard to say really to me, all I know is I found B/W to be complete shit. While X/Y in game was trash, the comp was at least good. OR/AS are flat downgrades of the games they are based on. S/M were okay, and SW/SH are complete horse shit for dexit. So yeah..I guess as far as in game goes I miss 4th gen and back but for Comp stuff I will take 6th pre OR/AS style.
 
Something like post-game facilities are a lost cause at this point as they were meant to be a soft on-boarding process into competitive play, and now that they have an online matchmaking system that can serve a similar purpose while also charging you for the privilege of playing online
TBH I think that the Battle Facilities were never exactly meant to teach competitive play. Gimmicks like those of the Battle Pyramid and Arena were very different.

The Battle Tower and Battle Salon still ran mostly on VGC Rules and the NPCs roughly use mons with VGC movesets (bad ones used poorly, but still). It would be kinda close to VGC if you picked which mons from your team of 6 you want to bring to each battle. And if NPCs could use legendaries depending on the format.


Battle Facilities were more of a gimmick to make single-player more challenging.
If they want a better on-boarding for competitive play, they need a smarter AI, and/or to change the main game's battles to match the ruleset. Either changing the battles to all doubles, or have some official battles in-game follow "pick three out of six in single battles" or "pick four out of six in double battles" for things like gym battles.
 
No. I don't believe Pokemon games are trending downwards overall. I view Gen 2 as the worst generation and Gen 6 as my favorite. Not best, favorite. I don't think there is a best generation.

I do think the franchise is trying to figure how to support nearly 900 mons while moving forward. It tried the soft reboot in BW and got panned for leaving out old favorites. Game Freak also needs to accept it is no longer the small indie programmer and embrace its role as the owner of a powerhouse franchise.
 
TBH I think that the Battle Facilities were never exactly meant to teach competitive play. Gimmicks like those of the Battle Pyramid and Arena were very different.

The Battle Tower and Battle Salon still ran mostly on VGC Rules and the NPCs roughly use mons with VGC movesets (bad ones used poorly, but still). It would be kinda close to VGC if you picked which mons from your team of 6 you want to bring to each battle. And if NPCs could use legendaries depending on the format.


Battle Facilities were more of a gimmick to make single-player more challenging.
If they want a better on-boarding for competitive play, they need a smarter AI, and/or to change the main game's battles to match the ruleset. Either changing the battles to all doubles, or have some official battles in-game follow "pick three out of six in single battles" or "pick four out of six in double battles" for things like gym battles.
No, I meant what I said. You took it to be all about VGC doubles for some reason while I'm talking about introducing more basic things (this is why I said soft on-boarding, words have meaning) like the importance of IVs/EVs/nature or Pokemon getting moves that are only accessible through breeding or elementary combinations like Chesto+Rest, White Herb+stat-lowering move, or Power Herb+two-turn move that you don't come across in-game. Now that they've decided to make the breeding stuff easier and the PvP stuff pay-to-play, devoting resources to something most players won't engage in (worse players will give up on it and better players will either play Showdown or do VGC) just doesn't make sense when they have to crank out a game every year.
 

Mario60866iPod13

Banned deucer.
I never used to. I liked every generation up to generation VIII.

Pokemon RBY: excellent
GSC: Excellent
RSEFRLG: perfect
DPPHGSS: perfect
BWB2W2: excellent
XYORAS: somewhat good
SMUSUM: sun and moon were lackluster but ultra sun and ultra moon were semiperfect
LGPESWSH: FUCKING BULLSHIT!!! Dexit Brexit, on the switch, overpriced, not worth it, makes me want to throw up
 

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