(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

QuentinQuonce

formerly green_typhlosion
This definitely qualifies as a "little thing that annoys me" because it's hardly worth mentioning. And it's in my favorite game Platinum, which my criticisms of are quite minor anyway.

But I don't like how Cyrus switches aces in between his three battles. In his first two battles it's Murkrow/Honchkrow. Then suddenly it's Weavile in his battle in the Distortion World.

Both mons/evolution lines are cool, I just wish he'd pick one and stick to it throughout his three battles. Even DP/BDSP didn't do that, clearly sticking with Sneasel/Weavile throughout.
Nah man I'm with you on this because it bugs the hell out of me too when they're inconsistent with aces. It happens a surprising amount in Gym and E4 rematches, ones that come to mind are:
  • Roark's signature mon is Cranidos in his gym fights but in his Platinum rematches his highest-levelled mon is Tyranitar. Byron weirdly does the same, eschewing Bastiodon for Aggron
  • Candice's ace is Froslass at first in Platinum but then becomes Glaceon in her rematch
  • Karen's ace is Houndoom in her first fight in HGSS and then Umbreon in rematches (actually, strangely it's both Umbreon and Honchkrow)
  • Caitlin's ace is Gothitelle initially but Metagross is her highest-levelled mon in rematches. Weirdly, this is the case in both BW and B2W2
  • Marshal's ace is Mienshao the first time he's fought in BW but then Conkeldurr in rematches. Interestingly, Conkeldurr stays his signature in the sequels
  • Clair's ace is Kingdra in all instances except in her HGSS rematch where it's Dragonite. This one I can almost let slide since you can rationalise that she's desperately trying to imitate Lance
  • Misty for some reason has both Milotic and Starmie as her highest-levelled team member in her HGSS rematch, something none of the other Gym Leaders do
  • Blaine's ace has always been super inconsistent but it's Rapidash in his gym battle in HGSS and then Magmortar in rematches. You'd expect similar fuckery with Surge but nah, his ace is still Raichu
 
Nah man I'm with you on this because it bugs the hell out of me too when they're inconsistent with aces. It happens a surprising amount in Gym and E4 rematches, ones that come to mind are:
  • Roark's signature mon is Cranidos in his gym fights but in his Platinum rematches his highest-levelled mon is Tyranitar. Byron weirdly does the same, eschewing Bastiodon for Aggron
  • Candice's ace is Froslass at first in Platinum but then becomes Glaceon in her rematch
  • Karen's ace is Houndoom in her first fight in HGSS and then Umbreon in rematches (actually, strangely it's both Umbreon and Honchkrow)
  • Caitlin's ace is Gothitelle initially but Metagross is her highest-levelled mon in rematches. Weirdly, this is the case in both BW and B2W2
  • Marshal's ace is Mienshao the first time he's fought in BW but then Conkeldurr in rematches. Interestingly, Conkeldurr stays his signature in the sequels
  • Clair's ace is Kingdra in all instances except in her HGSS rematch where it's Dragonite. This one I can almost let slide since you can rationalise that she's desperately trying to imitate Lance
  • Misty for some reason has both Milotic and Starmie as her highest-levelled team member in her HGSS rematch, something none of the other Gym Leaders do
  • Blaine's ace has always been super inconsistent but it's Rapidash in his gym battle in HGSS and then Magmortar in rematches. You'd expect similar fuckery with Surge but nah, his ace is still Raichu
It's especially egregious when they replace their ace that's a mon from their own region with a mon that isn't even from their region. In addition to Roark and Byron, both Fantina and Wake do this in Platinum, replacing tremendous aces in Mismagius and Floatzel respectively, with Gengar and Ludicolo.

And I could be wrong, but I believe Surge also does this in HGSS, with Electabuzz as his ace in his first battle, then Raichu in his rematch. Aside from your list, I think Erika also does this replacing Bellossom with Tangrowth between her two matches.

This stands in contrast with the Emerald Battle Frontier, in which five of the seven Frontier Brains have a signature/ace Pokémon between their Silver and Gold symbol matches, which is a really nice touch. The only two that don't are Brandon and Noland, the latter for an obvious reason.

It adds a lot of character to a boss when I can immediately associate them with a singular mon, ala Cynthia's Garchomp, Steven's Metagross, etc.
 
This definitely qualifies as a "little thing that annoys me" because it's hardly worth mentioning. And it's in my favorite game Platinum, which my criticisms of are quite minor anyway.

But I don't like how Cyrus switches aces in between his three battles. In his first two battles it's Murkrow/Honchkrow. Then suddenly it's Weavile in his battle in the Distortion World.

Both mons/evolution lines are cool, I just wish he'd pick one and stick to it throughout his three battles. Even DP/BDSP didn't do that, clearly sticking with Sneasel/Weavile throughout.
I mean, you could rationalize it in that he doesn't care about his Pokemon at all, and his ace simply defaults to whichever is the most powerful. Did he have a Sneasel in his second battle?
 

ScraftyIsTheBest

On to new Horizons!
is a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
  • Caitlin's ace is Gothitelle initially but Metagross is her highest-levelled mon in rematches. Weirdly, this is the case in both BW and B2W2
  • Marshal's ace is Mienshao the first time he's fought in BW but then Conkeldurr in rematches. Interestingly, Conkeldurr stays his signature in the sequels
I wonder if Marshal's ace being Mienshao in his first BW1 rematch is mainly due to levels, particularly the evo levels. The E4 levels in BW1 are 48-50 and Mienfoo evolves at Level 50, which is the "ace" level of E4 in this game and Mienshao cannot legally be lower than Level 50. Conkeldurr definitely seems more fitting as Marshal's ace as a parallel to Bruno in Kanto having Machamp as his ace, especially since Conkeldurr is very bulky, physically strong, and vascular, befitting a strong and muscular man like him, but Mienshao had to be higher leveled because it cannot evolve below Level 50. Conkeldurr also fits the "ace" card better in that it's a three-stage Pokemon and you don't really see Conkeldurr at all pre-E4 as the vast majority of Trainers pre-League simply used Gurdurr at most. Then again, Grimsley also has a Bisharp two levels below its evo level and Ghetsis immediately after is infamous for having a severely underleveled Hydreigon who is far below the minimum level Hydreigon is usable at (64), so they were a bit inconsistent in that regard.

Caitlin having a Metagross is indeed bizarre, though I would say that Metagross is in a sense an honorary Unova Pokemon since this is the first region it's naturally available in the wild, and it's a pseudo-legendary, which makes it even more eligible as an ace Pokemon, thus making Caitlin a prime candidate to use it, but she doesn't the first time around since Metagross isn't available in Unova until the post-game in BW1. In BW2 Metagross is her ace in both the initial match and rematch in BW2 in the Challenge Mode, but for Easy/Normal Mode I suppose they felt it would be a bit too strong to face the first time around so they opted to keep it away, they probably felt Iris having a (yet again underleveled) Hydreigon would be harsh enough for players. I dunno, but that's probably the best explanation I can come up with here.
 

Yung Dramps

awesome gaming
I know I've ranted about this before but I just gotta hammer it home honestly

https://store.steampowered.com/search/?term=final+fantasy

>You can literally go on Steam right this second and buy the entirety of mainline Final Fantasy from 1 through 15 if you have the money, a nearly 35 year legacy is just a few keystrokes away
>As of typing this Halo's Master Chief Collection, a gigantic bundle of pretty much every notable entry in that franchise other than 5 and ofc Infinite is also just sitting there on sale for $20, but even outside of sales it's still $50 for a collection of half a dozen iconic games that actively receive content updates

I'm so tired.
 
Last edited:

Pikachu315111

Ranting & Raving!
is a Community Contributoris a Top Smogon Media Contributor
Poor Raichu needs some none Diabetic rep SOMEHOW
Funny, I just watched a video about how much GF loves to push (normal) Raichu to the side, notably recently to give Pikachu more special treatment:

Though the video didn't mention it, the biggest example for me is not giving Raichu a Mega in Gen VI. Nope, oh but as soon as they made mechanics where Pikachu was able to get one like Z-Moves and Gigantamax yeah Pikachu got those. Though that video did help me realize that even Alolan Raichu was played dirty in the anime (at least a few times normal Raichu showed up and battled, while eventually losing to Pikachu because of course, it would at the very least be written as a legitimate power threat Pikachu has to outsmart to beat).

I mean, you could rationalize it in that he doesn't care about his Pokemon at all, and his ace simply defaults to whichever is the most powerful. Did he have a Sneasel in his second battle?
He always has a Sneasel on his team as he always had a Murkrow.

But, being this had to be a deliberate choice on their part, maybe there is something to the intentional switch. In Platinum, first two battles has his Murkorw/Honchkrow highest level before switching to Weavile. During those two early battles Cyrus was directly leading Team Galactic, much like Honchkrow is the top boss of a flock of Murkrow. However, during his final battle, he's completely alone in the Distortion World and is going through a mental breakdown. While Weavile's dex entries mentions it working in a pack using coordination and cunning to hunt prey, it has also been portrayed as violently malicious; a cold-hearted slasher killer. Going from Honchkrow to Weavile shows Cyrus has dropped the mob boss act and is now showing his true insanity and viciousness.

This obviously wasn't planned in DP but likely something they thought up while thinking of ways the mixing up his team. But maybe we can find a way to sort of backtrack this. In DP his ace is always Sneasel/Weavile, in addition in those games we never really got a sense Cyrus thought little of Team Galactic. In the sense of that game, Cyrus had always been showing his "true" self. Platinum added the angle he was deceiving the members of Team Galactic, thus now showing he's wearing a mask thus likewise uses a Pokemon that would help further his boss appearance. It's not until he's alone and breaking down does he reveal his true self thus now reverts back to using Weavile.

Caitlin having a Metagross is indeed bizarre, though I would say that Metagross is in a sense an honorary Unova Pokemon since this is the first region it's naturally available in the wild, and it's a pseudo-legendary, which makes it even more eligible as an ace Pokemon, thus making Caitlin a prime candidate to use it, but she doesn't the first time around since Metagross isn't available in Unova until the post-game in BW1. In BW2 Metagross is her ace in both the initial match and rematch in BW2 in the Challenge Mode, but for Easy/Normal Mode I suppose they felt it would be a bit too strong to face the first time around so they opted to keep it away, they probably felt Iris having a (yet again underleveled) Hydreigon would be harsh enough for players. I dunno, but that's probably the best explanation I can come up with here.
My theory is more to show she's a foreigner. Instead of having one of the new Unovan Pokemon as her ace, something she would have to have caught upon coming to Unova, when she's really putting her all into things that's when she takes out her older Pokemon and her strongest is Metagross. It should be noted that Beldum were actually first made widely available via Swarms in Gen IV on Route 228. In addition some of Caitlin's other non-Unovan Pokemon are Bronzong, Gallade, and Alakazam all which are in the Sinnoh mon or at least in the regional dex. And remember, before she was an Elite Four member she was a Frontier Brain. However, due to her psychic powers going wild whenever she got super stressed she was prohibated from directly battling so Darach battled in her place. Elite Four is likely less stressful than than Frontier Brain as there are less challengers (and also the likelihood that anyone challenging the Elite Four either isn't strong enough to beat them or is, kind of imagine little middle ground there), thus also being a good position to help her master her powers.

Nintendo philosophy is really funny. "Our games are so good that there's never a reason for them to lower price and as such they'll be always worth the same". Idc if your game is a masterpiece im not paying 60$ for a game released 15 years ago
Nintendo, no one is saying the game has gone "bad" and that's why people want to pay less or want cheap collections. It's rather the fact it takes little effort on YOUR part to port these games thus the savings you make should ALSO be given to the customer as a courtesy. Right now you could just decide to make all NES, all SNES, and a majority of N64 games (and maybe even some Gamecube & Wii) that Nintendo owns for free when they purchase your online service. Doing that one simple thing (along with then trying to secure permission to get license games available & adding more N64/Gamecube/Wii games) would likely negate a lot of criticism of your online service. Or heck, just release bundles of your older games in a big collection for lower prices (like $40, $30, maybe even $20) cause, once again, you're just porting these titles so you're saving money of developing a full game thus customer courtesy should be also giving us a piece of those savings.

The only thing you get from keeping them at premium prices is the appearance that you're a shyster (if not full on scammer) trying to nickel & dime your customers whenever you can. You're not seeing your game as a "good game that deserves to be played thus deserves every penny", you're seeing the game as something that's quality is solely based on it being part of a known brand so you can "get away" jacking up the price, or rather get away overcharging any poor sap who buys the game from you. This is why people emulate your older games; not because they don't want to pay, but because they don't want to be overcharged (and also you just randomly decide to make some games unobtainable without owning an older system; remember there are older games on the Wii & Wii U virtual store that aren't on the Switch's virtual store even though there would be no problems porting it over).
 
Last edited:

ScraftyIsTheBest

On to new Horizons!
is a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
One thing that seriously annoyed me is that if you complete the Hearthome Gym Puzzle correctly you will never see Drifblim, so the only way to enounter it would be to wait until Friday at Valley Windworks.

The game is seriously penalizing us for solving a Gym Puzzle.
I know people are only bringing this up now because BDSP is in the public spotlight, but a long time ago when I played the original Diamond I learned this the hard way. When I realized the only Trainer battle with a Drifloon is in Hearthome and after you defeat Fantina the Gym Trainers become non-battleable I realized "Oops. Guess I better go see that one Drifloon on Friday in Valley Windworks". Considering the only wild Drifloon is a special encounter strictly on Friday even in OG DP that was a frustrating way to learn it.

Ever since then I intentionally went through every wrong door on purpose in that Gym on replays of OG Diamond so I could get that seen Dex entry for Drifloon. It was hella frustrating when I learned this the hard way a long time ago.

Seeing people bring this up with BDSP just has me sitting here going "Ah, I see that hasn't changed at all from DP" and "Well I'm not the only one who realized that the hard way". I haven't played BDSP yet but I already know full well what's going on with Drifloon since I learned it the hard way in one of my first playthroughs of the original Diamond.
 
I struggle to see why the Drifloon thing is such a big deal. Unless you're speedrunning (in which case you either don't care about dex completion or you'd do some strat to guarantee seeing Drifloon in whiechever way is faster) your playthrough will probably last at least a week (especially if it's your first time) so it's not like you'd end up just waiting for Friday with nothing to do.

I guess I could just be severely overestimating the time it takes to finish a Pokemon game. It has been many years.
 
I struggle to see why the Drifloon thing is such a big deal. Unless you're speedrunning (in which case you either don't care about dex completion or you'd do some strat to guarantee seeing Drifloon in whiechever way is faster) your playthrough will probably last at least a week (especially if it's your first time) so it's not like you'd end up just waiting for Friday with nothing to do.

I guess I could just be severely overestimating the time it takes to finish a Pokemon game. It has been many years.
It took me a week because i spread it out but even back in the day i believe beat it in under a week.

it's definitely one of those things that I think would trip people up of all types; even if it took you over a week (everyone plays at different rates) it's not necessarily memorable that the little girl npc goes "the pokemon will come back!!" nor that it would take an extra week for it to show up at all.


And it was clearly something the developers themselves realized, because they moved the drifloon holder to another trainer that you can hypotehtically reach at any point in the game in Platinum. By design they wanted everyone except Unown to be owned by a trainer to help make sure you could get everyone in the dex so long as you fought most trainers.
And unlike Unown if you miss the one day it show up you have to wait another entire week or actively seek out a trade for it.
 

Gangsta Spongebob

"Mama I'm a Criminal" - Badass Smoking Caterpillar
is a Site Content Manageris a Forum Moderatoris a Community Contributoris a Tiering Contributoris a Top Contributor
I struggle to see why the Drifloon thing is such a big deal. Unless you're speedrunning (in which case you either don't care about dex completion or you'd do some strat to guarantee seeing Drifloon in whiechever way is faster) your playthrough will probably last at least a week (especially if it's your first time) so it's not like you'd end up just waiting for Friday with nothing to do.

I guess I could just be severely overestimating the time it takes to finish a Pokemon game. It has been many years.
Yeah it's not a huge deal (hence the thread) but it's very annoying nonetheless. People do play at different speeds, I beat the game in like 4 days and I feel I could've easily gone faster if I chose to. Also people could easily miss Friday not knowing they need Drifloon to access the post-game, and then have to wait almost a week before getting the opportunity to see it.
 
I struggle to see why the Drifloon thing is such a big deal. Unless you're speedrunning (in which case you either don't care about dex completion or you'd do some strat to guarantee seeing Drifloon in whiechever way is faster) your playthrough will probably last at least a week (especially if it's your first time) so it's not like you'd end up just waiting for Friday with nothing to do.

I guess I could just be severely overestimating the time it takes to finish a Pokemon game. It has been many years.
I can see a situation where this can be very annoying: you picked up the game on vacation, starting, say, on Friday evening. With a lot of free time, you're very likely to beat Cynthia a few days before next Friday.
 
And as a reminder, BDSP released on a Friday. Anyone who bought it physical (as I did) is likely to be in that situation.
I don't think that's a valid point when discussing whether a piece of game design is a good idea or not. Context outside the vacuum of the game can have merit (the most recent notable example being Animal Crossing New Horizons and how it interacted with the hellish and prolonged context of the past two years) but in this case the outside context is like, launch day and the day after and that's it. And then past that date the context of "it was released on a Friday" becomes completely irrelevant.
 
Even if you beat Mars on launch day, Drifloon is not coded to appear until you after beat Mars, but is ALSO coded to NOT appear if you beat her on a Friday, meaning that everyone who got it on the official launch day HAD to at the very least wait a full week before they could get Drifloon.

This was far less of a problem in Gen IV because it was easy to spoof the(manually set) DS clock WITHOUT locking time-based events for 24 hours if you knew what you were doing,
 
Last edited:

Pikachu315111

Ranting & Raving!
is a Community Contributoris a Top Smogon Media Contributor
They could have very easily just made Drifloon available for normal capture in the Lost Tower on Route 209 (where the Hallowed Tower you put the Odd Keystone in to get Spiritomb); getting it at Valley Windworks would have just been an early game bonus if you happen upon it on Friday. They could have also tossed Drifblim inside Turnback Cave.
 
But why do you skip the trainer in Hearthome gym ? Even if the puzzle is very easy, you should fight everything to gain xp, money, EV etc ...
Game feel reasons mostly

Your "Reward" is moving on with the gym, you're decentivized from going back. It just feels natural to solve the math problem and move on. And a handful of trainers in the gym won't really matter long term if your're getting everything else. So it's easy to not even think twice
 

Samtendo09

Ability: Light Power
is a Pre-Contributor
It’s understood that Gigantamax being only Kanto and (understandably) Galar with only two exceptions is a sore point against it. But the distribution alone isn’t what annoys me the most.

It’s how unnatural and forced it feels. Gigantamax is similarly marketable like Mega Evolution, contrasting signature Z-Moves where it is given to only popular Pokémon. It allows for Pokémon through multiple generations to find new uses in Galar, at least in a way it could no perform as simply Dynamaxed.

Problem is that not only amongst Gen 1 Pokémon already gain a lot of popularity - the only exception is Kingler - and even did gave one to Charizard, Venusaur, Blastoise and Gengar - the latter way too similar to Mega Gengar functionality-wise - as well as Pikachu, Eevee and Meowth, the disappointment is surreal in hindsight.

Gameplay-wise, most Gigantamax forms are either barely better or flat-out worse than the standard Dynamaxed variant, with only G-Max Pikachu, G-Max Charizard, G-Max Venusaur and G-Max Lapras finding any real use in official competition. Gigantamax are supposed to be more powerful than Dynamax in a way, so this fact just feels worse.

I feel like Gigantamax is an even bigger case of style-over-substance than both Mega Evolution and Dynamax. Shame, as the concept definitely have potentials, and I’ll admit that I liked G-Max Charizard design-wise more than both of it’s Mega Evolution.
 
Gameplay-wise, most Gigantamax forms are either barely better or flat-out worse than the standard Dynamaxed variant, with only G-Max Pikachu, G-Max Charizard, G-Max Venusaur and G-Max Lapras finding any real use in official competition. Gigantamax are supposed to be more powerful than Dynamax in a way, so this fact just feels worse.
Honestly, I'd have made it so that Gigantamax had the same Max moves as regular Dynamax. No advantages, but no disadvantages either. Just a (supposed) cool-looking alternate Max Form.
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 3, Guests: 3)

Top