(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

My guess is that the lack of wild starters stems from their need to make players "socialize", even though you can just Wonder Trade without ever talking to anyone and still get all the exclusives from another version nowadays.



Instead of, you know, making the GS Ball relevant again in the movie, or something like that.
The implication to the interview as they just handed it off to Kurt in the hope viewers would forget about it
What’s the deal with the GS Ball? As I said “GS Ball,” he shook his head and started to laugh, embarrassed. He stated “You’re very sharp (for us remembering that, I guess)” and began to explain it contained a Gold and Silver monster. I asked him if Celebi was in the Ball (since you use it to summon Celebi in the Japanese games), and at first he paused, as if he shouldn’t say, but then said “Yes.” He explained that the writers were originally going to have a whole story about Celebi in the show with Ash and crew, and he made it sound as if the story was more important than the Ball’s function of getting Ash to move around (in fact, he only briefly mentioned the latter part; he was emphasizing the existence of the story more than anything). But, they decided to save Celebi for the movie instead, which is why that plot hole was just left there. He said the writers didn’t know what to do with the Ball after they made their decision, so they were hoping fans would just forget about it all together when Ash and crew left it with Kurt. My impression of what he was saying was that it was all just poor planning. I asked if we would ever see the GS Ball again, and he said no. I think we can safely say the GS Ball case is closed now.
https://www.pokebeach.com/2008/07/s...with-masamitsu-hidaka-many-interesting-points
 
A thing that annoyed me the most in the anime was that they didn’t give any closure to the GS Ball. As a child, I remember being fascinated by that special Pokéball and would always wonder which Pokémon was captured inside such a mysterious ball. As a lover of the legandary bird, Ho-Oh, I had a deep interest in learning about it once upon a time, I guess. I want to open the discussion regarding this topic if anyone wishes to share their point-of-views.
It must be irritating for anime watchers (I'm not, though I do broadly keep up with it) because the GS Ball got closure everywhere else. The story was told properly in the manga and in the games. Crystal was my first game, and I absolutely fell in love with all the mysteries of the Johto region: the Ruins of Alph, the Tin Tower (sorry, but that's what I'll always think of it of, it won't ever be the Bell Tower to me). I always felt there was more to be uncovered. It took me months and probably years to catch all three legendary beasts and then finally get Ho-oh. I still remember the pulse-pounding excitement I felt when I finally went to Celadon City to speak to Eusine.

I'm still bummed they left the GS Ball out of HGSS entirely (probably the biggest failing of those games, tbh) but years later, we got Crystal on the VC with an actual working GS Ball event. Finally, I had a Celebi in Gen II.

But in the anime? Nothing. What, you wanted a story arc with an actual conclusion? LOL well you're not getting one.

They didn't even return to Johto when HGSS came out. So lame. I completely get why so many people are pissed about it.
 
the Tin Tower (sorry, but that's what I'll always think of it of, it won't ever be the Bell Tower to me)
Fun fact: This is a pun in Japanese! Its name is intended to mean both at the same time.

The tower's name is Suzu Tower in Japanese:
錫 is pronounced suzu and means "tin".
鈴 is pronounced suzu and refers to a type of ceremonial bell.

Similarly, Brass Tower is named Kane Tower in Japanese:
金 is pronounced kane and means "metal".
鉦 is pronounced kane and refers to another type of ceremonial bell.

I can only imagine the script writers were laughing their heads off as they handed the script over to the translation team.
 

Pikachu315111

Ranting & Raving!
is a Community Contributoris a Top Smogon Media Contributor
Now here's something that may steer the conversation for a little while. We all know Chuggaaconroy, right? And Marriland too, right? Normally both do positive Let's Plays, but recently I discovered they did a Let's Play on a game they weren't so positive about. They made it a hidden playlist/video because they didn't want anyone who liked the game feel bad, but it certainly is filled with all sorts of little annoyances they have with the game. What game you ask:

Chugga & Marriland in: DisastORAS!!
Sorry to wrench this conversation back to my older post, but just watched through the DisastORAS "playthrough" (they don't finish the game (it's only 5 parts afterall), they stop after Brawley, but I think they got most of their points across) and while it's not filled with as many of their grievances it may have sounded they had they still presented plenty of them. So here are the major ones (at least to me):

From Part 1:
Brendan's Redesign:
Chuggaa didn't like it and when he pointed it out to Marriland he agreed. At the start they mentioned the proportions were off and then much later, I think Part 4, they also added his feet look strangely elongated and curved, comparing them to Sora's feet from Kingdom Hearts (which were stylistically made bigger as a reflection of the Disney character style).

My Thoughts: I included May also as, though it's not as extreme as I think they made it out to be, when I did see the redesigns I also at first noticed there was something a bit off about them. It wasn't just they new designs, but if you compare their designs to Calem and Serena there is this slightly different style used to draw them that separates them. I don't think it's the proportions either or the size of their arms and legs (though those do look rather thin now looking at it, but Serena's arms are no better). I think it's the shading/lighting that is throwing their design off for me. Like, while their bare skin is drawn in the light or shaded as normal, their clothes on the other hand looks to be made of this rubbery material with the way they have this glare lighting streaked on them. Gives them a plastic figurine-like appearance. Going back to the thinness of their design, there's also really not baggy part of their clothes, it looks all but skintight where as with Calem and Serena you see creases and folds of their clothes.

PokeMarts Are Separate Buildings: A more obvious one, Marriland shared annoyance how he liked the convenience of the Marts being a part of the Pokemon Centers starting Gen V and found it backwards they separated them again just because Gen III had them separate. Chuggaa even chimed in saying if they wanted to keep the music they always had the big department stores like the one in Lilycove.

My Thoughts: A complaint they'll later on have is how tile-y ORAS looks and I feel it's a prominent complaint here too as it addresses a big issue I had with ORAS: for many towns & cities the map is essentially a one-for-one recreation from the GBA games. And it only stands out more when you compare them to the places they did re-design like Mauville City and Sea Mauville. This was their chance to modernize these locations, maybe add a bit more to them to at least look more visually interesting as they did the town and cities in Kalos. But no, for the most part they stuck strictly to the old maps recreating it tile-by-tile. It gives the game a really artificial look which is a major criticism as Hoenn's whole thing is about being nature heavy region! Sorry to go off in a tangent like that, I do agree with them I also think they should have kept the Marts combined in the Pokemon Centers, but felt this was also a good opportunity to go into detail not only how it was backwards to make them separate but in general the design of the region was a step backwards from XY.

US Got Bogus Bonus: Preordering the game in Japan got you neat figurines of Primal Groudon & Primal Kyogre. Preordering the game in Europe also got you the figurine AND a steelbook case of the game. Preordering the games in the US got us... 200 Potions. One of things is not like the other...

My Thoughts: Oh, and this is just the tip of the iceberg, Chuggaa had this famous moment during his Yoshi's Woolly World going into how sucky Nintendo of America sometimes is with some games & related products like preorder bonuses and soundtracks. Now just before the video ends he knows Europe has a ton of its own problems... though seriously, why? Why be like this Nintendo? Why didn't us in the US get if not the figurines but the steelbook cases? And why did you think an appropriate would be of all things 200 Potions? I don't think I ever use more thank 20 Potion before I then gain access to Super Potions (and overall I don't think I use over 50 healing items during my entire playthrough). And even if they gave us a ton of Master Balls it would still be a pale comparison to actual physical bonuses. At the very least sell the darn figurines and steelbook in the US Pokemon Store and give us a code we can use to redeem one for free!

DexNav Takes Away Excitement: Now as much as they praise the DexNav, Chuggaa had one big complaint about it: since you can search for any Pokemon you've encountered and that Pokemon you manually searched for will have better IVs, Hidden Ability, and possibly an Egg Move, after the initial encounter there is no reason why you should ever do a normal random encounter again. It even increases the chance of the Pokemon being a Shiny! What's the benefit when searching for a Pokemon after building up its Search Level to max gives you a better Pokemon? Chuggaa argues this takes away the excitement of walking into the grass and possibly encountering a rare Pokemon as now you can just force it to be a rare Pokemon. Now he's not saying it shouldn't be in the game, but rather maybe the search feature should have either been toned down and/or its full feature be kept until post game.

My Thoughts: I can see where Chuggaa is coming from. Chuggaa would also add that Pokemon speedrunners he talked to don't bother doing ORAS because the optimal strategy involves getting lucky with the DexNav and catching a Boomburst Taillow to sweep most of the game with. I'll add an experience I had with it where I grinded Skarmory encounters until I got one with Drill Peck. Instead of dealing what the game gave me and progressing at my usual casual pace, I purposely stopped to abuse a system to get a good Pokemon I'd normally have to work harder to get. Now that's probably not a good example as that Skarmory became a core member of my team, but still that shows overpowered this feature kind of was and I can see a player doing that on every route to get the best Pokemon they could on each route and just waltz through the game (though Chuggaa mentions even when not doing that it's easy to do... and with Exp. Share off). I'll agree with maybe the feature should have been toned down during main game, like maybe not let you search for a specific species but rather call for a random species (and maybe add in a recharge time between each use). At least that'll keep a bit of the surprise excitement if its a rare Pokemon and between recharges force you into the grass (maybe have a way to keep the effect of the Search Level still active so you can still run into a Pokemon with good IVs, an Egg Move, or Hidden Ability); and then post game unlock the search feature as we know it fully (or make that an incentive for getting a number of Pokemon's area list filled or their Search Level to 100).

Would Rather Play Emerald: Mentioned Chuggaa's complaints mostly but Marriland had his own including this one: between ORAS and Emerald he's rather played Emerald.

My Thoughts: And I don't think that's a point we've actually discussed. Yes, we pointed out all the features Emerald had that were missing in ORAS and that what it all boils down to was the Battle Frontier being missing was what most people cared about... but we never explored this angle. Would you rather play Emerald over ORAS? Despite all the features and modern day improvements ORAS has, does the third "enhanced" version of the original Hoenn games sound more intriguing to play? As far as I can tell this isn't an argument we have with FRLG or HGSS. It's with little opposition that FRLG is superior to the original Gen I games and HGSS is superior to the original Gen II games; if you want to play Kanto or Johto play the remakes instead of the originals (... I say when they most recent release of these games is the virtual console version of the original Gen I and II games; not counting Let's Go). But with ORAS, I can actually see someone deciding to play Emerald instead because of the combined plotline and additional stuff here and there culminating with the Battle Frontier. And yes, I suppose the answer "both" can also be used, but now with the 3DS going the way of game consoles passed and you only have the money to buy a GBA & Emerald or 3DS & copy or ORAS, which would you take (ignore GBA & Emerald would be much cheaper... and that you could probably just download a ROM...).

I started this late so going to end it here. But this was just from part 1 of their playthrough. Here's a sneak peak at the points raised in the other parts:

Part 2: Berry Farming, Norman's Involvement
Part 3: ... didn't really have any major annoyances.
Part 4: Event Torchic
Part 5: Trendy Sayings, Art Direction

Hopefully I can get to all of these tomorrow!
 

Celever

i am town
is a Community Contributor
Sorry to wrench this conversation back to my older post, but just watched through the DisastORAS "playthrough" (they don't finish the game (it's only 5 parts afterall), they stop after Brawley, but I think they got most of their points across) and while it's not filled with as many of their grievances it may have sounded they had they still presented plenty of them. So here are the major ones (at least to me):

From Part 1:
Brendan's Redesign:
Chuggaa didn't like it and when he pointed it out to Marriland he agreed. At the start they mentioned the proportions were off and then much later, I think Part 4, they also added his feet look strangely elongated and curved, comparing them to Sora's feet from Kingdom Hearts (which were stylistically made bigger as a reflection of the Disney character style).

My Thoughts: I included May also as, though it's not as extreme as I think they made it out to be, when I did see the redesigns I also at first noticed there was something a bit off about them. It wasn't just they new designs, but if you compare their designs to Calem and Serena there is this slightly different style used to draw them that separates them. I don't think it's the proportions either or the size of their arms and legs (though those do look rather thin now looking at it, but Serena's arms are no better). I think it's the shading/lighting that is throwing their design off for me. Like, while their bare skin is drawn in the light or shaded as normal, their clothes on the other hand looks to be made of this rubbery material with the way they have this glare lighting streaked on them. Gives them a plastic figurine-like appearance. Going back to the thinness of their design, there's also really not baggy part of their clothes, it looks all but skintight where as with Calem and Serena you see creases and folds of their clothes.

PokeMarts Are Separate Buildings: A more obvious one, Marriland shared annoyance how he liked the convenience of the Marts being a part of the Pokemon Centers starting Gen V and found it backwards they separated them again just because Gen III had them separate. Chuggaa even chimed in saying if they wanted to keep the music they always had the big department stores like the one in Lilycove.

My Thoughts: A complaint they'll later on have is how tile-y ORAS looks and I feel it's a prominent complaint here too as it addresses a big issue I had with ORAS: for many towns & cities the map is essentially a one-for-one recreation from the GBA games. And it only stands out more when you compare them to the places they did re-design like Mauville City and Sea Mauville. This was their chance to modernize these locations, maybe add a bit more to them to at least look more visually interesting as they did the town and cities in Kalos. But no, for the most part they stuck strictly to the old maps recreating it tile-by-tile. It gives the game a really artificial look which is a major criticism as Hoenn's whole thing is about being nature heavy region! Sorry to go off in a tangent like that, I do agree with them I also think they should have kept the Marts combined in the Pokemon Centers, but felt this was also a good opportunity to go into detail not only how it was backwards to make them separate but in general the design of the region was a step backwards from XY.

US Got Bogus Bonus: Preordering the game in Japan got you neat figurines of Primal Groudon & Primal Kyogre. Preordering the game in Europe also got you the figurine AND a steelbook case of the game. Preordering the games in the US got us... 200 Potions. One of things is not like the other...

My Thoughts: Oh, and this is just the tip of the iceberg, Chuggaa had this famous moment during his Yoshi's Woolly World going into how sucky Nintendo of America sometimes is with some games & related products like preorder bonuses and soundtracks. Now just before the video ends he knows Europe has a ton of its own problems... though seriously, why? Why be like this Nintendo? Why didn't us in the US get if not the figurines but the steelbook cases? And why did you think an appropriate would be of all things 200 Potions? I don't think I ever use more thank 20 Potion before I then gain access to Super Potions (and overall I don't think I use over 50 healing items during my entire playthrough). And even if they gave us a ton of Master Balls it would still be a pale comparison to actual physical bonuses. At the very least sell the darn figurines and steelbook in the US Pokemon Store and give us a code we can use to redeem one for free!

DexNav Takes Away Excitement: Now as much as they praise the DexNav, Chuggaa had one big complaint about it: since you can search for any Pokemon you've encountered and that Pokemon you manually searched for will have better IVs, Hidden Ability, and possibly an Egg Move, after the initial encounter there is no reason why you should ever do a normal random encounter again. It even increases the chance of the Pokemon being a Shiny! What's the benefit when searching for a Pokemon after building up its Search Level to max gives you a better Pokemon? Chuggaa argues this takes away the excitement of walking into the grass and possibly encountering a rare Pokemon as now you can just force it to be a rare Pokemon. Now he's not saying it shouldn't be in the game, but rather maybe the search feature should have either been toned down and/or its full feature be kept until post game.

My Thoughts: I can see where Chuggaa is coming from. Chuggaa would also add that Pokemon speedrunners he talked to don't bother doing ORAS because the optimal strategy involves getting lucky with the DexNav and catching a Boomburst Taillow to sweep most of the game with. I'll add an experience I had with it where I grinded Skarmory encounters until I got one with Drill Peck. Instead of dealing what the game gave me and progressing at my usual casual pace, I purposely stopped to abuse a system to get a good Pokemon I'd normally have to work harder to get. Now that's probably not a good example as that Skarmory became a core member of my team, but still that shows overpowered this feature kind of was and I can see a player doing that on every route to get the best Pokemon they could on each route and just waltz through the game (though Chuggaa mentions even when not doing that it's easy to do... and with Exp. Share off). I'll agree with maybe the feature should have been toned down during main game, like maybe not let you search for a specific species but rather call for a random species (and maybe add in a recharge time between each use). At least that'll keep a bit of the surprise excitement if its a rare Pokemon and between recharges force you into the grass (maybe have a way to keep the effect of the Search Level still active so you can still run into a Pokemon with good IVs, an Egg Move, or Hidden Ability); and then post game unlock the search feature as we know it fully (or make that an incentive for getting a number of Pokemon's area list filled or their Search Level to 100).

Would Rather Play Emerald: Mentioned Chuggaa's complaints mostly but Marriland had his own including this one: between ORAS and Emerald he's rather played Emerald.

My Thoughts: And I don't think that's a point we've actually discussed. Yes, we pointed out all the features Emerald had that were missing in ORAS and that what it all boils down to was the Battle Frontier being missing was what most people cared about... but we never explored this angle. Would you rather play Emerald over ORAS? Despite all the features and modern day improvements ORAS has, does the third "enhanced" version of the original Hoenn games sound more intriguing to play? As far as I can tell this isn't an argument we have with FRLG or HGSS. It's with little opposition that FRLG is superior to the original Gen I games and HGSS is superior to the original Gen II games; if you want to play Kanto or Johto play the remakes instead of the originals (... I say when they most recent release of these games is the virtual console version of the original Gen I and II games; not counting Let's Go). But with ORAS, I can actually see someone deciding to play Emerald instead because of the combined plotline and additional stuff here and there culminating with the Battle Frontier. And yes, I suppose the answer "both" can also be used, but now with the 3DS going the way of game consoles passed and you only have the money to buy a GBA & Emerald or 3DS & copy or ORAS, which would you take (ignore GBA & Emerald would be much cheaper... and that you could probably just download a ROM...).

I started this late so going to end it here. But this was just from part 1 of their playthrough. Here's a sneak peak at the points raised in the other parts:

Part 2: Berry Farming, Norman's Involvement
Part 3: ... didn't really have any major annoyances.
Part 4: Event Torchic
Part 5: Trendy Sayings, Art Direction

Hopefully I can get to all of these tomorrow!
Huh, this is really interesting. I actually remember watching a couple of Twitch streams on Marriland's channel a couple of years ago where he did a Wonderlocke race of ORAS with Chugga, and many of the same issues were brought up. I think it was 2018 and they still both hated how ORAS looks, and frequently talked about how a lot of the charm and magic of the originals had been systematically purged from the remakes.

FWIW I think that the crux of the entire debate is as you said: with or without the Battle Frontier in the post-game, Emerald is more appealing to play for the core fanbase. Speedrunners is an example that Chugga brought up that I've also heard elsewhere, but nuzlockers also usually opt for Emerald over ORAS because it's harder and they're looking for a challenge. Emerald is more satisfying to complete the dex in because there are actual rare Pokémon whereas ORAS changed encounter tables and included DexNav to remove a lot of challenge. The core Pokémon fanbase has a lot of variance in playstyles, these 3 being the overarching categories (speedrunning/racing/competitions, self-imposed challenges, completionism). And Emerald caters to the interests of all of these better than ORAS does.

Of course, there are some changes that make ORAS superior in certain respects. Wonderlockes obviously have to be done in ORAS because Wonder Trade is only in Gen VI and later. The lower difficulty can be nice for casual players who aren't looking for a challenging experience. And mechanical changes that ORAS has simply by being released later in the series than Emerald such as the physical/special split, new moves, and Fairy-Type mean that certain Pokémon are better in ORAS than Emerald, so perhaps if you really want to use a specific Pokémon who's had a glow up since Gen III then playing through ORAS is worthwhile. But these are fringe cases as opposed to the more common reasons why people replay Pokémon games.

So in short? Yes, there's more motivation to replay Emerald than there is ORAS. And while replayability isn't a fair measure to judge every game by, it's definitely a big part of the Pokémon series and is an important consideration here in measuring the overall quality of a given game.

However in the name of fairness, I think it's important to point out that there are situations where players would be better off playing Crystal than HGSS, the main one being that the encounter tables were improved a lot in Crystal compared with GS, and HGSS unfortunately uses the GS encounter tables rather than Crystal's in most circumstances. A few Pokémon, such as Phanpy and Teddiursa, are available significantly earlier in Crystal (before the 1st badge compared with around the 8th bade in HGSS!), and some rare Pokémon, particularly rare fishing encounters such as Corsola and Qwilfish, are easier to find in Crystal too. The Mystery Egg is also a fairly glaring omission from HGSS and is a highlight of Crystal. If players want to use certain Pokémon, Crystal is the superior version thanks to this additional availability. Of course, it also works the other way around and if you want to use a Heracross in Crystal, good luck have fun play HGSS instead. I just thought it was worth pointing out that there are valid reasons to return back to Crystal too, and that HGSS didn't overshadow the game entirely.

But HGSS is definitely the superior version of Johto in the vast majority of circumstances while Emerald is the superior version of Hoenn in the same, so your point still works.
 
Throwback to my Pachirisu rant.

"I am Karen of the Elite Four. You're <player>? How amusing. I love dark-type Pokémon. I find their wild, tough image to be so appealing. And they're so strong. Think you can take them? Just try to entertain me. Let's go."

"Strong Pokémon. Weak Pokémon. That is only the selfish perception of people. Truly skilled trainers should try to win with their favorites. I like your style. You understand what's important. Go on — — the Champion is waiting."


Fuck you, Karen.
 
I've generally held off on talking about ORAS because I know full well my nostalgia is for Hoenn. But, since we're here:

Character designs: I usually don't look too much into the human characters, so I can't take too much issue (though in my heart, Brendan will always have white hair and a headband)

Town layout: I usually try to avoid items enough that keeping them separate from the pokecenter isn't a major issue, but I want to bring up the point of ORAS being clearly tile-based. I like it. It allows for the D-pad to be effectively used for movement while a layout like gen 7 wouldn't, and somewhere between having hands too large to use a control stick with any precision and playing SM64 DS as a kid, I vastly prefer using the D-pad for movement. Since I'm not really here to take in the sights, I will absolutely take a tiled setup if it means I can use my preferred control scheme.

Dexnav is OP: I generally don't catch everything I encounter, so I'll usually only be able to make full use of Dexnav when I have put effort (catching a 'demo' mon) into setting up for catching one specific thing, in which case I don't want to be surprised in the grass (I generally avoid the random dexnav spawns, massive Dpad preference and all that). So I basically see this as a way to make item grinding way easier and get Hidden abilities wholly within one cart for the first time.

Preorder: Don't care, I never pick versions until they're fully out and I can see every difference.

Vs emerald: Currently, much of my replays of older games have been partially to reset them into a state ready for the Battle Frontier (limited tms for gens 3 &4 especially), so Emerald kind of wins by default. Though if I was to do a run-through for its own sake, I would probably take ORAS since it provides more options, which can be used for both silly theme teams and non-grinding solutions for challenge runs.
 

Pikachu315111

Ranting & Raving!
is a Community Contributoris a Top Smogon Media Contributor
From Part 2:
Berry Picking Location:
Marriland starts with preferring how Berry growing was handled in XY. Instead of there being berry patches throughout the region like it is in Hoenn, XY had the Berry Fields that gave you 36 spaces all in on location.

My Thoughts: While I can understand Marriland's complaints, the way its done in Hoenn does come with its own advantages. For one thing, there's 90 spaces to grow Berries all throughout Hoenn, including 24 spaces in the Berry Master's garden. Also the PokeNav Plus has a very useful Berry tracking feature as shown above: while doesn't tell you the exact location of the Berries does tell you if somewhere on the route there's Berries planted and at what stage they are. Berry Field is certainly convenient (and does have some additional neat features like Berry mutations though also annoyances like Ledyba damaging berries), if you're strictly into growing as many Berries as possible than you can't complain ORAS gives the best option (ORAS also gets rid of mulches and now growth of the Berry is strictly on you making sure to water it every stage). If I had one complaint is that the Berry Master's Garden is bigger than it should be, I don't get why they did that when they actually could have had the same layout as Berry Fields. For me, as long as there's one place where you can plant a lot of Berries close to each other I don't have that much of a complaint. Of course that doesn't seem to be an issue anymore as they've now decided Berries grow on all-purpose trees you just need to shake the Berries out of with small threat from a Pokemon attack.

Norman, Father Of The Year: Another from Marriland and it's actually a complain which also existed in the original games. You're a child of a Gym Leader, yet instead of your father giving you a Pokemon he sends you to the Professor to get your Starter. Then, when you see your father the first time in the game, suddenly this kid comes in asking your father to help him catch a Pokemon. Not only does you father agree and lend the boy one of his Pokemon, he also asks you, his child, to help this random kid catch a Pokemon with the Pokemon he lent them. Then he tells you that you can't challenge him until you get 3 other Badges and that's it from him until his Gym Battle.

My Thoughts: Okay, obviously there's important context here that Marriland skipped over. First, Norman and Birch are close friends. While Birch's and Norman's dialogue doesn't indicate it, I think there is a slight implication that Norman asked Birch to give you a Pokemon so you could help him with his research. Sure, Norman could have just given you a Pokemon, but I at least like the idea Norman knew you'd be able to offer a lot to Birch's research and Birch has rarer Pokemon than any Norman could have given you.
As for the kid who asks Norman for help, well that kid is Wally. Wally at this point is sickly so he can't very well travel to Birch's Lab to get a Pokemon from him. So Norman decides to help the sick kid, but he just doesn't give Wally a Pokemon but gives him a Zigzagoon so he could use it to catch one on his own, a Pokemon Wally can truly call his own. And since Wally is a sick kid you're sent along with him to make sure he doesn't collapse of something and is all by himself. So there's several context information which doesn't make Norman as bad as a father as Marriland makes him out to be.
... OF course ORAS still doesn't present Norman in the greatest of regards when it comes to him being a husband. After work, instead of just flying home he jogs from Petalburg to Littleroot to stay in shape but leaves him exhausted. He's too tired to do anything your mother would like him to do and instead plops down on the coach and watches TV. Then during the post game its revealed Norman forgot he made plans with your mother to go Mossdeep to watch the Litleonids meteor shower, having also made plans to be at the Gym, so your mother passively aggressively says its "fine" and instead gives the tickets to you and Birch's kid. Yeah, you kind of get the feeling that, at least for your mother, she's in an unhappy marriage as Norman does not really want to do the things she wants and seemingly oblivious to her feelings. It feels like if Norman continues this behavior they're going to get a divorce. And if you don't think they'll bring that certain topic into the games may I remind you of the new backstory they gave to Professor Cozmo?

From Part 4:
Event Torchic:
Forgot who brought it up, but it was mentioned how they thought Torchic sort of got the short end of the stick. Since it was given away as the now seemingly standard "Release Day" Event Pokemon for XY, those who played XY would now have a Torchic (or can easily breed another one) and possibly used it in XY. So when ORAS was released, if you played XY and got it, there's no incentive for you to pick Torchic as your Starter.

My Thoughts: This is looking at the situation in a very specific scenario. This is also ignoring the ONLY way to get the Blazikenite in XY was via this Event, otherwise the only way to get one was in ORAS. They're also acting as if it would be hard to get a Treecko or Mudkip when, yeah, no, at the time GTS made getting all the Starters a non-issue in all game the GTS was in. And, going back to my first statement, if you're replaying these games now this is a complete non-factor as the Event is no longer active. I also have a feeling Torchic was chosen because, and this might sound odd, at the time Pokken was in development and one of the first glimpses of Pokken was a Lucario fighting a Blaziken. It feels like those two sort of were the unofficial mascots of Pokken, at least for a time, and what better way to emphasize this then having both have a Mega Evolution? I know its a stretch, a more likely reason was they knew they were going to make ORAS so had Torchic and its Mega Evolution in XY as a special event as an early hint. Like, what other Pokemon could they have used? Mareep? Gible?

From Part 5:
Trendy Sayings Was A Fad:
Chuggaa comes back with a small nitpick in scope but a major gripe personally. In the original GBA games, On Dewford you meet a kid who'll tell you what the "Trendy Saying" is. The Trendy Saying in those games were two words from a large list of keywords that you could change into whatever you want (and could be shared via the mixing files feature with other players) but for the first time it generates a random one. Some of the keywords were interesting on their own or when combined so for some players what their first "trendy saying" is might leave a bit of an impact. And even if it wasn't you can bet players found all sorts of ways to have the trendy saying be something more naughty. BUT I guess GF didn't like that so in ORAS it was changed to the kid always having "Potion Festival" as the trendy saying and to make a new trendy saying you pick an item from your Bag and then a second word from a small list of plain words.

My Thoughts: Going to once again hijack this topic to discuss another more major issue which this is a small part of: lack of Customization. I think Chuggaa and Marriland also point this out, but its SO disappointing that after giving us the option in XY they completely removed it for ORAS. For what? Because it weren't in the original games? Because though you redesigned Brendan and May you wanted to keep close to their original designs (aka white skin with brown hair)? Serena and Calem shows them being white in their starting out clothes yet have no problem letting us change their skin tone and clothes. An artist on Reddit drew May with different skin tones and hair color and she looks fine no matter what so what's GF's issue? If they at least allowed clothing (which they did in the case of the Super Pokemon Contests) they could have thrown in Brendan's and May's original and Emerald clothes as a bonus surprise. *Sigh*
Back to the topic at hand, while normally I wouldn't care it is an example of GF seemingly trying to sterilize the game so there's no way the player can misbehave. Which I guess is fine, kid's game and all, though I would then ask if that's the case why isn't the trendy kid's phrase random anymore? If you made sure it was childproof, let it be a random phrase so at the very least gives a bit or individuality from one game file to another.

Repeating Tiles: Finally, we end on a last major issue Chuggaa had that Marriland easily agreed with: the game's art direction at times can be bad with the repeating textures. The two examples given were with the water and the walls/ceilings of caves, their pattern repeats way too soon it creates an inorganic looking tile effect. This wasn't something XY had, Chuggaa praised how the water looked in XY.


My Thoughts: Honestly what I said about tiles in my first post can go here again. It does feel like GF worked more on making the textures in XY feel like they're less repetitive but with ORAS they fell back to a tile mindset creating a stark visual contrast between the two games. Hoenn using XY's graphics could have looked much more beautiful. Infact, if I didn't know and were to guess which of the games released first, I'd probably would have guessed ORAS as its the first game of a gen with simple textures which then the next game can improve upon and make to look better and more natural. I makes me wonder how much of an interest GF had in making the Gen III remakes.

And that's it. Funny enough, while Chuggaa and Marriland started the quick "let's play" in order to share their complaints of ORAS, throughout it you can hear them having fun; they even noted that themselves. Now that doesn't invalidate these complaints, not a single bit, but I think does go to show that even with these problems the Pokemon games are fun and especially so when played with others. Now, imagine had GF actually put more work into ORAS... or XY... or Gen VII... or SwSh... Not only would these be fun games but they would look great, give players plenty of options they would like, and be given a challenge & customization to play the game they want to play it as. I'm hoping this odd few years of the "yearly Pokemon game release" is just a "dark" period in the franchise history and now that GF are on main console and embraced the idea of an expansion we could start having stretches of time between games again so that they can be more developed instead of GF having to cut corners every step along the way.
 
Do you know what's fun?
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Opponents with Gen-Transfer only moves. The first 5 are from the Masters set from Pokemon Battle Revolution while the Gyarados is Lysandere's (same move set in every fight.) Special shout-out to the Togekiss for having a move exclusive to Shadow Togepi from Pokemon XD. Tri Attack is a TR now and is already part of Togekiss's level-up move set. Too bad it's not STAB anymore.
 
Do you know what's fun?
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Opponents with Gen-Transfer only moves. The first 5 are from the Masters set from Pokemon Battle Revolution while the Gyarados is Lysandere's (same move set in every fight.) Special shout-out to the Togekiss for having a move exclusive to Shadow Togepi from Pokemon XD. Tri Attack is a TR now and is already part of Togekiss's level-up move set. Too bad it's not STAB anymore.
At least that's better than outright illegal moves:





(Even though its movepool was improved, I still wish Kommo-o could learn Shell Smash)
 
It always has bothered me that the Pokedex always refers to Xerneas, Stantler, and Sawsbuck's antlers as horns.

They migrate according to the seasons. People can tell the season by looking at Sawsbuck's horns.

When the horns on its head shine in seven different colors, it is said to be sharing everlasting life.

Okay, to be fair Stantler Pokedex entries refer its, antlers as antlers but its still called the " Big Horn " Pokemon.

For those what's the difference between horns and antlers, there are two major ones. The first one is that horns do not shed, they instead grow continuously through out the animal's lifespan. Deer shed their antlers annually. The second is that horns always have a curved shape as they grow. On the contrary, antlers can be pointy, straight, curved or even branch out as they grow.

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So its anatomically incorrect to call antlers horns, because they are very different physically. Its not even that hard to change, its only a few words. Is it a Japanese thing where they call antlers "horns" or is it an error on localization?
 
Especially given the Ability Capsule's existence, I really don't like that you can't transfer Hidden Abilities. It's especially relevant to me right now given that IVs can be changed, Natures can be changed, and Egg Moves can be transferred -- there's even a new DLC item that lets you make any Pokémon a gigantamax. Everything is being streamlined to some degree so that any Pokémon of a species you get can potentially be used.

... eeeeexcept that that Cinderace you've used since the start of the game that you've managed to Hyper Train to max IVs; get its best Egg Moves through leaving it in the daycare; given it a Jolly Mint so it gets those stat buffs, made it drink that Gmax soup so it can become Gmax Cinderace... cannot ever get Libero, so you're still forced to breed a new Cinderace using the newly-released HA Scorbunny.

Like. C'mon.
 
Especially given the Ability Capsule's existence, I really don't like that you can't transfer Hidden Abilities. It's especially relevant to me right now given that IVs can be changed, Natures can be changed, and Egg Moves can be transferred -- there's even a new DLC item that lets you make any Pokémon a gigantamax. Everything is being streamlined to some degree so that any Pokémon of a species you get can potentially be used.

... eeeeexcept that that Cinderace you've used since the start of the game that you've managed to Hyper Train to max IVs; get its best Egg Moves through leaving it in the daycare; given it a Jolly Mint so it gets those stat buffs, made it drink that Gmax soup so it can become Gmax Cinderace... cannot ever get Libero, so you're still forced to breed a new Cinderace using the newly-released HA Scorbunny.

Like. C'mon.
To be honest, seeing the announced G-max item, I am actually thinking we might (at some point) get a item that forces a HA or non-HA on a pokemon.

Right now, the only 2 QoL changes "missing" for limiting the reset/breeding scenarios are the possibility to swap between HA and non-HA, and a 0IV version of Hypertrain
 
The whole core problem is that they still want to keep Hidden Abilities as "special" even though they have been increasingly common to get through generations.
The thing is there'd still be a way to make a compromise. Without getting too much into wishlisting, you could certainly have some sort of system where, say... there's a scientist character studying HAs, and she gets you to go out and hunt them. And then whatever HA Pokémon you catch and show to her, she can then use a machine or something to transfer them to HA-less Pokémon.

It's kind of similar to how Egg Moves were streamlined in this game -- you still have to get the Egg Moves; you still have to go through that process of breeding them down, or getting them from a raid or a special aura Pokémon... or trading and transferring from someone else. But once you've gotten ahold of that Pokémon with the egg move you want, it can be transferred to every other one of its species with ease. And I think that would be a good way to keep the rarity of HAs while removing their issue.
 
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One little issue that has made me think recently - and I think Pokémon has been kind of bad with this since day one - is a lack of motivation to catch and use Pokémon in the post-game. There just doesn't seem to be anything to use them for, beyond collection, PVP, or the Battle Whatever.

What triggered this post is possibly the new trailer for the Sword and Shield DLC, which showcased a handful of new legendaries. And all it had me thinking was "sure, they are cool, but what am I going to do with them?" I'm not particularly into PvP, for one, and if I were I'd probably use the legendary with the most competitive merit and disregard most of the others. I'm not even sure if they will be eligible in the official formats either, so that's another option off the table. Raids could be another option, but Raids are inherently terrible in this game, and I doubt bringing a new legendary to them would increase my enjoyment of them much. Especially if they don't have the option for new strategies that make the raids easier to overcome. Most Pokémon don't.

I guess that leaves the Battle Tower, which has its own set of problems. Success depends on a few factors, not the least of which is the battle prowess of the Pokémon you bring. Should you choose to have your postgame adventure with, say, Venomoth, you'd probably run straight into the proverbial wall before long. Even if you do win a lot, you'll still just gain a streak number, which isn't stored anywhere unless you beat your previous record - hardly likely if you choose to use "bad" Pokémon. There are tasks not all Pokémon are cut out for. Besides, even those that are, have to be trained to a high level and given a good moveset before you can even start out. Meanwhile, the growth of a Pokémon and watching it become stronger and learn better moves is one of the most crucial parts of the whole franchise. It's not so much about the end result as how you get there.

I think the greatest strength of the Pokémon games is the journey you make, and there's fun to be had in varying your team between different playthroughs. But restarting your game is extremely punishing: you lose your Pokédex progress, your collected items, eventual sidequest progress or facility streaks, and all Pokémon you haven't transferred to another save. A total wipe of the game (or at best, starting from zero if you play SwSh on another profile on your Switch) is required to take a new set of Pokémon out on an adventure.

And even so, there are some Pokémon that really aren't cut out for that style of play either. Most legendaries, Tynamo, Beldum, or Dreepy are examples of Pokémon you really wouldn't want to start with at level 5. They don't make fun partners on an adventure, but are best used in the postgame when they can be easily trained and fit for battle.

... but battle against whom? The Elite Four? That gets boring really fast, as it's the same handful of battles against fixed teams over and over again. And in Raids, the Battle Whatever, or PvP, most Pokémon are at best inferior to better options, at worst they are completely incapable of succeeding. Even the latest conversation in this thread just had me think "Why would I even want a HA Cinderace?" OK, that one is good enough to be used for most of the aforementioned activities, but plenty of other Pokémon available only in the postgame don't enjoy that luxury. You catch them, think "this is cool to have", and then box them as there's just not anything meaningful to actually do with most of them.


I don't think this needs to be a problem. Within the confines of the game, there here could be some enjoyable and non-repetitive activity to take a freshly caught and trained team through. Something like White Treehollow, the stadiums in the Orre games, or the esoteric Frontier facilities. A challenge to overcome, which isn't either overly repetitive or an endless grind for a streak (randomised opponents might be required here).

Pokémon Contests provided some of that feeling. There were four tiers to overcome, each more challenging than the last. You could catch a Pokémon specifically for using it in a Contest, train it, and win with it. You even got something tangible in return, in Ribbons. Master Rank even had that elusive Museum to fill with pictures, not a bad motivation for doing it again and again. Pokéstar Studios also gave Pokémon a few extra sparkle effects upon entering battle, as evidence of your success.

However, these side features operated outside the regular battle mechanics of the game, so they weren't perfect. You trained your Pokémon to be a Contest performer or an actor, not primarily a battler. But there's no reason why a similar style of challenge couldn't utilise the conventional battle format. A feature like the Hall of Fame could be interesting here as well, to store the teams you used to overcome the challenge. That way, you can show your friends that you beat the challenge, and you did it with a Pidgey. People do those kinds of things with challenge runs all the time, but again this requires you to wipe the game which might not be up everyone's alley. A comparable challenge to take on within the postgame, with tangible rewards and opportunities to show off which Pokémon you did it with, would be very welcome. "I beat Orre Colosseum with a bug-type team!" or "I went through the Battle Pyramid using only Wobbuffet" or stuff like that.


It shouldn't be that impossible. But for the time being, there is no such thing. New legendaries are released, new G-Max forms are made available in raids, Pokémon are released with new Hidden Abilities, and I sit here underwhelmed, not really seeing why I should be excited for any of it. I like playing through a new game, but I dislike overwriting my old saves, pointless re-battles against the never-changing Elite Four, the competitiveness of PvP, or the Sisyphean grind against the facilities, and find myself without anything to use the new and exciting Pokémon for. Anybody else feel the same?
 
While having more incentives would never be a bad thing, especially for weaker pokmon only available after the fact, to be honest...that sounds more like a "you" problem?

I mean right now they incentivize collectors & pro battlers. That's what they consider the post-game's domain. If you're not into it, well, you're not into the post-game.

It's like, say, a normal RPG that has a post-game dungeon that's designed around people who minmax and get everything. Those are typically overtuned but its just that Extra Challenge for those that did so.



That said shoutout to BW2 who had an achievement system which included medals for beating the elite 4 with mono-type teams and the previously mentioned white treehollow and black tower for more low-stakes hard battling.
 
While having more incentives would never be a bad thing, especially for weaker pokmon only available after the fact, to be honest...that sounds more like a "you" problem?

I mean right now they incentivize collectors & pro battlers. That's what they consider the post-game's domain. If you're not into it, well, you're not into the post-game.

It's like, say, a normal RPG that has a post-game dungeon that's designed around people who minmax and get everything. Those are typically overtuned but its just that Extra Challenge for those that did so.



That said shoutout to BW2 who had an achievement system which included medals for beating the elite 4 with mono-type teams and the previously mentioned white treehollow and black tower for more low-stakes hard battling.
I'm with Cod on this. Sure, collectors and competitive battlers are what they cater to, but to say "well you don't like those things so tough shit" is shortsighted. There absolutely should be some repeatable activity that you can do with weak postgame Pokemon.
 

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