(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

[R_N]

For the record, I seriously doubt that a hypothetical ILCA Johto/Unova would be as dismal as BDSP. If nothing else they now have experience in making a classic-style top-down Pokemon game and, uh.... well let's just diplomatically say a lot of feedback to learn from

That said, come on. Why are we seriously considering the idea of the second remake of a Game Boy Color game,

Because we got a second Kanto remake so that's not off the table. Nostalgia is eternal regardless.

or a remake of a DS game famous for its sprite art and general presentation using that system's constraints?

Because Unova is "next" barring a return to an older region and even if it doesnt happen with ILCA and doesn't happen this gen, it's likely to happen eventually and the "thing its known for" is irrelevant. Also people want these remakes anyway, because they like the game and want to see them again spruced up with updated mechanics. BDSP had many many many faults, but it did hit a nostaligic itc hfor me regardless. The same will apply to any future remakes.
MOving forward they also probably like having a more standard remake in the back wings alongside a more experimental title in the same/similar setting. A strange "BW3" to pair with a BW1 remake, a Johto-focused original game to go with a GS remake, etc. BDSP sold quite well despite everything so it's not like there's no incentive to do both if they're still able.

Maybe things change once we hit the 3DS era. Perhaps they'll shift to just spiffed up-ports or something. But we'll see.

Are our imaginations so hollowed out? Are we so resigned to this crap? We always say that the Pokemon machine is heavily flawed and behind the curve in many ways and that we need to demand better, so can we actually start doing that?

Well, I mean

1. It won't necessarily be crap
2. It's not "resigned to it" as it is expecting it based on past trends.
3. For as much as there are people wanting it there are people who do demand stopping remakes and just focusing on more experimental stuff like Legends. People are yelling at gamefreak at all times for everything
4. Likewise a remake existing doesn't stop more experimental "new" titles from occurring so it's super not that big a deal to entertain the concept.
5. Yes we here are going to take it "seriously" when you're the one that brought the idea to the forefront! Reap what you sow!

 

[Yung Dramps]

Actually funnily enough I did finally think of a reason for a Johto/Unova remake to exist just today, and it was thanks to the reveal of Sonic X Shadow Generations: Add a playable 3-5 hour side story that ties into the main game. This is veering off into wishlisting but imagine an "Episode Plasma" prequel story for a BW DX where you control a new recruit with Patrat as your "starter", do some odd jobs and steadily discover Ghetsis is not as he seems, ending with this character being tragically dispatched for knowing too much adding a new emotional core to the story while providing an opportunity to expand on underutilized characters like Anthea & Concordia and the Seven Sages. Something to this effect would be a fun, interesting expansion that could only work for a remake of the original source material. I dunno, I got kinda ranty and wanted to add a positive spin on this discussion even if it's kind of against the spirit of the thread lol

 

[R_N]

Dramps do you ever read your posts back to back

 

[Yung Dramps]

Dramps do you ever read your posts back to back

Haha yeah I know it comes off contradictory and weird cuz it is. I just didn't mention it originally because I doubt they'd ever do something like what I'm describing. I'll stop here before I dig the hole further (having one of my takes called r/pokemon-tier is a stain on my honor that will not be washed away unless i exile myself to the alps for 15 years)

 

[Ironmage]

Are our imaginations so hollowed out? Are we so resigned to this crap?

Unfortunately, yes. It's been too long since the random walk of changes has been in a direction that I found agreeable. I have no reason to believe a new game will be enjoyable, while an old game at least has the possibility of not overwriting why it was good in the first place. Even if I were to believe I as a generic fan could influence the series, I would still be drowned out by all the other fans that want something else. What hope should I be having?

 

[Hugin]

I mean, if Johto were going to show up again, the obvious option would be Legends: Ho-oh. I don't know if any Legends game is the cards or not, but I don't see GF going to a Gen VI or later region for the next Legends game, so the options are fairly limited. At the least, I'd expect it's more likely than another remake.

 

[Just A Shroom God]

Then the fact the game's day 1 update had to add things, like. The background for the start screen and the entire proper sound track and the ability to access the Battle Zone (especially odd since the whole thing was there??) and Ramanas Park (& then took many months to add the GWS) really makes it seem like the a lot of the development was rocky.

I watched a video on that, apparently that was an intentional choice by the people in charge to try and export some of the cost of storage for physical units onto the user. Like, without all the extra stuff they added on day 1 the game was able to fit in 8 gbs, which was like a tipping point where if it had been any larger they would've had to add more space to the physical copies just to be able to hold the game. Then they release all the missing content disguised as a day-one patch (which are usually just to fix gamebreaking bugs and other oversights), and they don't have to pay for space and the onus is on the player to provide it.

I don't FULLY understand that part since they used words longer than 5 letters brain hurty :( I'm not a tech nerd and haven't played a modern pokemon game because of cost restrictions, but it makes sense to me. Why else would you need to add stuff in a d1 patch? Do they really have enough time in 1 day to add all that stuff, especially with the inevitable bugfixing of a the process? Seems kinda scummy to me, but unfortunately those games sold really well despite it, which means there's no incentive for them to change anything

that vid was really informative and I highly recommend watching it

(A long critique of Pokémon Bugged Diamond and Shipped-Early Pearl)

 

[R_N]

I watched a video on that, apparently that was an intentional choice by the people in charge to try and export some of the cost of storage for physical units onto the user. Like, without all the extra stuff they added on day 1 the game was able to fit in 8 gbs, which was like a tipping point where if it had been any larger they would've had to add more space to the physical copies just to be able to hold the game. Then they release all the missing content disguised as a day-one patch (which are usually just to fix gamebreaking bugs and other oversights), and they don't have to pay for space and the onus is on the player to provide it.

I don't FULLY understand that part since they used words longer than 5 letters brain hurty :( I'm not a tech nerd and haven't played a modern pokemon game because of cost restrictions, but it makes sense to me. Why else would you need to add stuff in a d1 patch? Do they really have enough time in 1 day to add all that stuff, especially with the inevitable bugfixing of a the process? Seems kinda scummy to me, but unfortunately those games sold really well despite it, which means there's no incentive for them to change anything

that vid was really informative and I highly recommend watching it

(A long critique of Pokémon Bugged Diamond and Shipped-Early Pearl)

I'm not sure that theory fully pans out (& forgive me for not wanting to watch a 2 hour critique so if they have sources, well....); any future prints of that game should have the update built into the cart anyway...and if it goes above 10 GB anyway then they'd need the bigger cart


But whether that's true or not, the reason to add all that in a day 1 patch (& this would apply to most games with a day 1 patch that has more than some bug fixes or turning on the online) would be because the game went Gold before everything was ready for that update. So the print goes out and then they just aim for the remainder for release day.




Actually while we're here, especially if it's true then man ILCA's real bad at data compression. I already kind of thought that when we were seeing the initial file sizes compared to Legends and the other Switch titles, and it only got stronger when we saw how big the update was meant to be.
Gamefreak's got a bunch of wasteful nonsense going on, but in terms of filesizes they got compression down pretty ok!

 

[AztecCroc]

I'm not sure that theory fully pans out (& forgive me for not wanting to watch a 2 hour critique so if they have sources, well....); any future prints of that game should have the update built into the cart anyway...and if it goes above 10 GB anyway then they'd need the bigger cart


But whether that's true or not, the reason to add all that in a day 1 patch (& this would apply to most games with a day 1 patch that has more than some bug fixes or turning on the online) would be because the game went Gold before everything was ready for that update. So the print goes out and then they just aim for the remainder for release day.




Actually while we're here, especially if it's true then man ILCA's real bad at data compression. I already kind of thought that when we were seeing the initial file sizes compared to Legends and the other Switch titles, and it only got stronger when we saw how big the update was meant to be.
Gamefreak's got a bunch of wasteful nonsense going on, but in terms of filesizes they got compression down pretty ok!

The main games are an in-house custom library, BDSP is Unity. Unity doesn't do compression well without significant compiler customizations and optimizations, which a lot of modern devs don't give a shit about.

 

[Sultan]

Some of the repeated excuses the fandom makes when aspects of the games are criticized.

"But capitalism, you can't expect Pokémon to stop doing what is profitable!"
"But the games are balanced around doubles, stop expecting singles to be balanced!"
"But this is justified because twenty year old RPG tropes!"

These all feel like thought-terminating clichés at this point, not to mention incredibly overused.

 

[ant4456]

Some of the repeated excuses the fandom makes when aspects of the games are criticized.

"But capitalism, you can't expect Pokémon to stop doing what is profitable!"
"But the games are balanced around doubles, stop expecting singles to be balanced!"
"But this is justified because twenty year old RPG tropes!"

These all feel like thought-terminating clichés at this point, not to mention incredibly overused.

I think companies will not stop doing a capitalism because literally capitalism owns companies, not the other way around. There are no "good apples" in companies.

It's not really about making an excuse, it's about pointing out that realistically they are not going to change how they develop games until they literally have to. And they don't. Pokemon doesn't have to polish because they sold three games in 365 days: 16m sales, 15m sales, 23m+ sales. Why slow down production?

For almost any other game series, it'd be that each game would be fighting with each other and thus capitalize on the sales of each. Or that the quality of the series is a big part of why it's popular. That's not the case here, a lot of people bought all three.

 

[pokemon4eva]

Some of the repeated excuses the fandom makes when aspects of the games are criticized.

"But capitalism, you can't expect Pokémon to stop doing what is profitable!"
"But the games are balanced around doubles, stop expecting singles to be balanced!"
"But this is justified because twenty year old RPG tropes!"

These all feel like thought-terminating clichés at this point, not to mention incredibly overused.

I remember one tweet like this tilted me, it was in response of the criticism about Pecharunt's lore being relegated to a separate video instead of being in the game. I think OP said sth like "Pokemon fans hate dialogue" and brought up the Alola games, except what ppl tend to dislike about those games is the unskippable cutscenes during the main story, while mythical lore is usually optional, the player has to look for it somewhere in game (most of the time in the form on a NPC). Even freaking X and Y does this...

Changing topic, sth about the Pecharunt video itself tho that annoys me is how SV doesn't want to commit to any antagonist being evil or acting out of malice. Team Star were just protecting each other from (never seen again) bullies, Sada/Turo was just "too visionary" to see they're causing potential trouble, Briar is just "too absorbed" in her work to not see Terapagos would cause trouble, Kieran is either a neglected kid lashing out or victim of Pecharunt's control (you decide!), and even freaking Pecharunt is just another one acting out of fear of neglection (reminder his gang killed a man). I'm not saying all of these characters are bad bc they aren't full on villains, but it's kinda annoying how the game had to justify every single possible scenario, for me it's most notably Briar and Pecharunt.

 

[Esserise]

Changing topic, sth about the Pecharunt video itself tho that annoys me is how SV doesn't want to commit to any antagonist being evil or acting out of malice.

Barring a very select few, though, I would say this is just the case for Pokémon villains in general. The games just haven’t ever really been interested in foregrounding villainous characters who delight in being evil. Almost every one of Pokémon’s major antagonists has some kind of sympathetic ideology or psychological complex or tragic backstory as the impetus for their behavior.

 

[pika pal]

Changing topic, sth about the Pecharunt video itself tho that annoys me is how SV doesn't want to commit to any antagonist being evil or acting out of malice. Team Star were just protecting each other from (never seen again) bullies, Sada/Turo was just "too visionary" to see they're causing potential trouble, Briar is just "too absorbed" in her work to not see Terapagos would cause trouble, Kieran is either a neglected kid lashing out or victim of Pecharunt's control (you decide!), and even freaking Pecharunt is just another one acting out of fear of neglection (reminder his gang killed a man). I'm not saying all of these characters are bad bc they aren't full on villains, but it's kinda annoying how the game had to justify every single possible scenario, for me it's most notably Briar and Pecharunt.

As pointed out in a preceding reply, Pokemon in general has very few of those.

(Note for the following I'm excluding Giovanni on the basis that whether he reforms, turns good, or simply gives up seems to vary with depictions, but if I have to pick one, "definitely evil" seems to be the most consistent/recent one they go with)

I think the villains who are 100% unambiguously evil/immoral in their motivation are Cyrus, Ghetsis, and Volo for main game and then certain Spin-off characters like Evice in Colosseum and Darkrai in PMD Explorers, while extending it to "evil actions they have no repentance for" regardless of motive only adds Lysandre and depending on your read Chairman Rose (he turns himself in but his plan achieved the ends he was after and didn't really fight once it resolved).

On the matter of interpretation, I'm willing to put Sada/Turo into villain territory because they are flat out selfish in their goal to build a "Paradise" with the time machine, Paldea Ecology be damned, and put in countermeasures so paranoid and dedicated to this point that they outlive them. I certainly would put them closer to it than a party like Lysandre who thought it was extremist means to a necessary end rather than "who cares it's what I want," though admittedly this is muddied by not interacting with the Professor much after the point where their work was in motion.

Admittedly I also give Leeway with Team Star because while they're not evil as the Antagonists, we have definitively immoral people to serve as the villains/wrongdoers in their story in the form of the Deputy Director and potentially the former staff at large who threw them under the bus to keep the school looking clean on the record for the bullying incidents rather than address things before or after Operation Star happened. It's not on a Criminal Syndicate or Gang level but those are still unambiguously selfish actions that are an abuse of their power and authority.

 

[R_N]

Even Volo has implied family baggage he refuses to unpack, and Cyrus has a distinct worldview that probably has its own implications. Giovanni & Ghetsis don't seem to have any real sympathetic backstory that, while it doesn't excuse them, explains them.


I will say that just because there's a vague aspect of sympathy doesn't mean the actions aren't still malicious. The Loyal 3 did not have to kill Ogerpon's trainer. That was a pretty malicious act! The video vaguely going "well i mean obviously they HAD to defend themselves" honestly read as a joke since its meant to be from the perspective of Pecharunt (see also: Ogerpon's attack on them is presented as an "oh no!!" thing).

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Cyrus is in no way unambiguously evil. The game goes out of its way (well, there's an NPC in a house you don't have to visit at any rate) who explains his tragic backstory. Which frankly felt like the writers not being able to just let him be evil without some caveat.

At least they didn't succumb to the same urge with Ghetsis. He's just a monster through and through.

 

[Sonikku A]

Ironically I feel this applies to fandom* as well for mentality in thinking sympathy = depth. When depth really is ultimately up to execution and identity. Really, it feels like a way to never have any char take full responsibility for actions...even though they should. Same for randomly acting like all villains should be redeemable IF they appear human/sentient and not immiediately intimidating. No one cares for giant monsters rampaging, or edgy mc edge his cloak is knives being evil

(Inversely this is why people act like Wes is hot shit despite having the personality and motivation of a piece of cardboard. He's hard carried by design and the intro)

*Not just Pokemon, most online game fandoms

 

[R_N]

Cyrus is in no way unambiguously evil. The game goes out of its way (well, there's an NPC in a house you don't have to visit at any rate) who explains his tragic backstory. Which frankly felt like the writers not being able to just let him be evil without some caveat.

At least they didn't succumb to the same urge with Ghetsis. He's just a monster through and through.

iirc Platinum going out of its way to have Cyrus explain himself more was direct response to people not fully getting what he was about in DP. This lines up with a lot of how Platinum's additions went.

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

Lysandre and Cyrus are similar to each other but more than anything those two in particular strike as two things: the mindset of "the world did me wrong, now I'm gonna get back at the world for wronging me", and the other is less that their actions are excusable but more that there's a certain sadness to the fact that they turned out the way they did and that maybe if someone had been there for them in their worst times to save them, then maybe they wouldn't have ever turned out the way they did.

That archetype of villain is actually pretty common in a lot of media, an immediate example that comes to mind being Adachi and Akechi in the Persona games. Like with Lysandre and Cyrus, what they ended up doing was wrong but when you see how they ended up and why, it makes the audience wonder if there was some way they could've been saved from who they became, and in-universe someone out there ultimately views them as their greatest failure.

 

[pika pal]

Cyrus is in no way unambiguously evil. The game goes out of its way (well, there's an NPC in a house you don't have to visit at any rate) who explains his tragic backstory. Which frankly felt like the writers not being able to just let him be evil without some caveat.

At least they didn't succumb to the same urge with Ghetsis. He's just a monster through and through.

I am of the position that the backstory informs a character's motivation but having a Freudian or History explanation doesn't preclude them from being classified as evil when they still commit to actions that only align with their warped world view and refuse to engage with or accept other perspectives. I also just don't get the sense the game wants you to see him as particularly tragic compared to some other depictions where he's affected by the protagonist confrontations like the DP Adventure manga (not to be confused with the DPPt chapter of Adventures). He gives a motive rant and parts on clearly bad terms without giving up on his ambitions, which aren't even to fix or save anything but to bend reality to his own ideal vision.

I guess I'd ask in a similar vein: does explaining what trauma Lusamine has experienced with Mohn disappearing make her any less evil with how she emotionally and verbally abuses her children in SM? Nihilego Toxin or not, a lot of her worse behaviors still stem from her own character amplified at most (hell in USUM she still disowns her kids over stealing Type: Null and Cosmog over a plan she didn't divulge and that threatened to kill the latter). To me Cyrus is in a category where his actions are explained rather than justified by the story, especially given he ends on a very negative note compared to how SM Lusamine does with Lillie (the person her actions most directly hurt given that game's smaller scale/localized conflict).

 

[QuentinQuonce]

I am of the position that the backstory informs a character's motivation but having a Freudian or History explanation doesn't preclude them from being classified as evil when they still commit to actions that only align with their warped world view and refuse to engage with or accept other perspectives. I also just don't get the sense the game wants you to see him as particularly tragic compared to some other depictions where he's affected by the protagonist confrontations like the DP Adventure manga (not to be confused with the DPPt chapter of Adventures). He gives a motive rant and parts on clearly bad terms without giving up on his ambitions, which aren't even to fix or save anything but to bend reality to his own ideal vision.

I guess I'd ask in a similar vein: does explaining what trauma Lusamine has experienced with Mohn disappearing make her any less evil with how she emotionally and verbally abuses her children in SM? Nihilego Toxin or not, a lot of her worse behaviors still stem from her own character amplified at most (hell in USUM she still disowns her kids over stealing Type: Null and Cosmog over a plan she didn't divulge and that threatened to kill the latter). To me Cyrus is in a category where his actions are explained rather than justified by the story, especially given he ends on a very negative note compared to how SM Lusamine does with Lillie (the person her actions most directly hurt given that game's smaller scale/localized conflict).

Just for the avoidance of doubt, I was not defending Cyrus

He's one of my least favourite villains if only because he's so tediously dry and never exhibits anything approaching a redeeming feature, and his token backstory does not in any way make me feel any warmer towards him. It has no effect on the plot and no stakes, especially since it's post-hoc.

Moreover, unlike Archie, Maxie, and Ghetsis (specifically because they're the closest parallels in terms of the story structure and overall objectives) Cyrus never really experiences any sort of meaningful choice or conflict. Archie and Maxie are introduced by stating their virtuous-sounding goals, which they subsequently pursue by increasingly dangerous methods. Cyrus, however, walks onstage a villain and exits a villain. And hey, so does Ghetsis. But the difference is that Ghetsis actually loses something in his defeat: first soundly defeated and imprisoned (in BW) and then suffering a mental breakdown (in B2W2), while Archie and Maxie see the fallout of their actions and acknowledge their mistake.

For Cyrus, however, his actions gain him nothing and lose him nothing. He's still the same person he was before; were he to be given the chance, odds are he'd repeat his actions tomorrow. It's an incredibly unsatisfying character arc (if you can even call it that).

Ironically I feel this applies to fandom* as well for mentality in thinking sympathy = depth. When depth really is ultimately up to execution and identity. Really, it feels like a way to never have any char take full responsibility for actions...even though they should. Same for randomly acting like all villains should be redeemable IF they appear human/sentient and not immiediately intimidating. No one cares for giant monsters rampaging, or edgy mc edge his cloak is knives being evil

(Inversely this is why people act like Wes is hot shit despite having the personality and motivation of a piece of cardboard. He's hard carried by design and the intro)

*Not just Pokemon, most online game fandoms

Fully agree with this, especially the point about Wes. I remember saying not that long ago that none of Colosseum's story would manifestly change if Wes wasn't a former Team Snagem grunt, because he just does what all other game protags do... fights the evil team. His backstory is generally alluded to rather than explicitly spelled out and as such mostly left to the imagination of eager fans

 

[Yung Dramps]

I'm far from the only one with this take I'm sure but I've always felt there were bigger plans for Wes that either ran into time constraints or the devs simply wimping or getting executive mandated out of doing something more interesting with a Pokemon protag. His intro and design feel way too considered and intrigue-filled for what ends up being the same old

 

[R_N]

I can believe what we saw was what we were always going to get
They wanted a Grittier game where the excuse was you stole Pokemon to rescue them, so they made Wes to fit the aesthetic and reasoning without much else to it.
See also: Rui also probably wasn't going to have a lot more planned, as she's ultimately just an excuse to see shadow Pokemon while providing visual contrast to Wes and also a mouthpiece

 

[Celever]

I can believe what we saw was what we were always going to get
They wanted a Grittier game where the excuse was you stole Pokemon to rescue them, so they made Wes to fit the aesthetic and reasoning without much else to it.
See also: Rui also probably wasn't going to have a lot more planned, as she's ultimately just an excuse to see shadow Pokemon while providing visual contrast to Wes and also a mouthpiece

I think Rui was probably designed solely as a way to maintain the tradition of silent protagonists. I don't think creating an entirely additional companion character just so that you can see Shadow Pokémon would ever have been deemed necessary. During Pokémon Colosseum you don't actually encounter a Shadow Pokémon until Rui is already with you, since you free her from being kidnapped really early. Wes could have just had the ability to see Shadow Pokémon from the start and nothing would have changed; hell, it might make his backstory of working in Team Snagem make more sense if he could check for any particularly strong (Shadow) Pokémon for them to potentially steal.

I think that Colosseum's story is really really basic, and I expect that the characters were probably designed early into development with grand plans for them which eventually got simplified as the development cycle took longer and longer to get to completion. The tonal shift in the game is real and I think it's probable that that was as a result of a great deal of inspiration that didn't pay off.

 

[Sonikku A]

Rui is funny cuz she was definitely added late in dev. Barely any prerelease ads have her. She deadass just serves as a detector

As for Wes, I sincerely think not much was planned outside "former x team".

edit, false(The fact in XD dev they considered having him evil as a boss feels incredibly off with what you do in Colo. They didn't know what to do with him really).

At least Mirror B got style

I find it mediocre overall

Unrelated: His internal name is Ken. Japan final he's Leo, Eng Wes