Unpopular opinions

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

Seeing a lot of discussion going on lately, but I might as well chime in my two cents. Not gonna comment on everyone's individual opinions on the topics ongoing right now, but I do have something general I think is worth saying. I think a lot of this really points to what Pokémon kinda is right now. The thing with Pokémon is that this franchise is absolutely massive, has existed for over 25 years now, and has attracted a large number of people from all kinds of circles of life, and thus the series over the course of its time has appealed to a variety of different people over the years. This means that with so many different crowds of people, with a variety of different demographics having played and enjoyed this series, there are going to be a variety of different opinions on this franchise, which games were the "best", and whatnot. Even moreso when different people came into the series at different times in the series' existence, and also, it's a matter of taste as the games have taken a variety of different directions over the years. What one person may consider the "best" games in the series may be very different from what another person considers to be the "best games in the series, and a lot of this is because everyone has different reasons they play Pokémon. If I were to ask you what your reasons for playing Pokémon are, there's a pretty good chance those reasons aren't the same as mine. I see some people here saying they don't like the direction PLA and supposedly SV seem to be heading down in terms of gameplay, and that's okay, but it's also important to remember that odds are, there are plenty of people who love the direction PLA and SV are heading down for Pokémon because they see that as something they want out of Pokémon. That's not to say that you are obligated to like it, but do keep in mind that others may not feel the same way you do on the series or on specific entries in the Pokémon series as a whole.

In a sense, Pokémon becoming as big as it is now and being a worldwide media hit is in some ways a double-edged sword. With so many people from all walks of life having played this series at some point, there are bound to be different people who value different things from the franchise. For instance, I for one consider Gen 7 to be one of my favorite generations (even though my personal *favorite* generation is Gen 5) thus far because I loved the adventure it offered and the characters that made it an incredibly memorable experience for me, and I loved the story of SM while USUM delivered in terms of challenge and the Island Challenge being great. I know there are some people who probably consider Gen 6-7 to be their favorite generations of Pokémon, because what the 3DS games did and delivered and what they did best (such as the characters, or the story driven adventure and whatnot, or how great Gen 6's online play was) were the things they value most out of a Pokémon game. Or vice versa. Some people may consider Gen 2 to be their favorite generation of Pokémon. It's a matter of what you value most from a Pokémon game that really decides which games you consider to have delivered the best experiences for you.

One thing I will say, though: it is true that Pokémon is a pretty damn slow and inefficient franchise when it comes to generational improvement. Part of it is how incompetent Game Freak is at optimization. Part of it how they bend over development time to merchandise schedules and how they have to churn out games every year, which means they don't really get a chance to be properly innovative with the series with each entry. Part of it how small Game Freak's team is relative to other developers who develop larger scale games. So generational improvements tend to be incremental changes more often than not, and the series' progress is slow as hell as a result. That is definitely a factor as to why we have the "attitude in cycles" where every Pokémon game is considered by the community to "suck" until those kids who grew up with said game become old enough to join the Pokémon internet and the discourse. Like how at one point Gen 3 was considered horrible until later on it was heralded as a pinnacle of the series. Then the same happened with Gen 4. And recently it's been happening with Gen 5. Soon Gen 6 will reach that point and we'll be seeing more and more people talking about how much they loved XY and ORAS and what those games delivered. And so on.

I've been seeing posts here talking about how exhausted they are with Gen 8 discourse, and whatnot, but the truth is this kind of stuff has gone on for nearly 20 years and Gen 8 is really no different. As I mentioned, the whole attitude in cycles situation has happened for a long, long time. Especially back in the Gen 3 days. It is simply far more visible because we now have social media like Twitter, as well as YouTube where this kind of discourse is far more visible. Gen 8 is notably the time where we're living in the Internet era and public discourse is on more public and widely used platforms, not just on dedicated internet forums like in the 2000s. On the whole, as I said, I do think that yes: Pokémon is an exhaustingly slow and inefficient franchise in terms of generational improvement, and I do think it's okay to get tired of all this, to be tired of this infinite loop of the series largely only making incremental changes at best and whatnot. That said, I do think it's common for people to try to project the blame on certain games or generations as scapegoats in this series because to them that's just easier.

I suppose that's a lot of rambling but that really sums up a lot of my thoughts on the current discourse. If I had to chime in my personal two cents, I'd like to say that I actually find this current point in time to be the most invested I've been in Pokémon in a good while. Maybe it's because I was gradually getting tired of the infinite loop of the series remaining similar with its games over the years, but Sword and Shield's DLC brought me into the game in a way that I haven't been before, and I'm loving the direction the series is going with this and now Legends: Arceus. I'm not instantly hyped for SV right now because we know so little about it, but I'm looking forward to it because I'm glad to see Pokémon is finally doing something different, and it happens to be a direction that I really like, and I hope Pokémon can refine the direction they took with the SwSh DLC and PLA to make an even better experience for SV and Gen 9 as a whole. I'm definitely more hooked into Pokémon right now than I was some years ago, and it's an odd feeling, but I have more interest in Pokémon now more than ever.

-----

Just one more side note btw

See the pattern here? We're going to see this until the end of time, and that's why Pokémon fans will always buy remakes even if they turn out like ILCA-inspired garbage along the lines of BDSP.

I believe this to serve as surefire evidence that Unova is the most popular "old region" at the current moment and should be the next region in line to receive a remake as a response to this consumer demand.

Of course, this is assuming that remakes even happen again. If what I've heard in a few Discord servers I'm in (from some people who are in leak groups) is true, then there's a good chance that we'll probably never see the traditional remake in the vein of FRLG, HGSS, and ORAS ever again.

PLA is the beginning of a new direction for past generational revisits. It seems like they would rather take different directions when revisiting previous regions from here on out, and PLA being a "pre-make" is the first example of that. So when we see Unova, Kalos, and Alola revisits, and maybe a Johto one too, odds are we'll be something fresh and different like a prequel/sequel rather than a remake, because apparently GF feels that doing prequel/sequel experiences gives them more creative freedom to do more than to exist within the confines of a mere remake.

Even if you were to take what I've heard aside, I think this sentiment is pretty evident. It's very clear that PLA was the game they actually wanted to make and that BDSP was a secondary concern and a necessity measure that they felt obligated to do, especially when you consider which game is considered better by the general playerbase (PLA is almost universally considered better by most Pokémon players).

*ends long rambling*

 

[Hugin]

Ok so in contrast to what Wukong said, honest to god I think it's a crying shame that villains in Pokemon don't flat-out cheat more often. You are not convincing me for a nanosecond that Ghetsis or Lysandre would play fair, and in a series that already struggles to make cool villains as is it would really do miles to help them stand out.

I think there's space for both. The Sun/Moon Totem Battles were generally very well-regarded from what I can tell(and I personally loved them), and those are 2-on-1 with a stat boost. You don't get more Unfair Superboss than that.

But a good Elite Four, player versus 26-30 high level, high power mons? That's a beast, and conquering it feels like you've really done something special.

If it were up to me, the evil team would cheat. Lots of double battles, the horde battles from ORAS, the final admin battles being three to four 6-vs-6 with no breaks between them, built-in field effects, etc. And then the E4 and gym leaders would be scrupulously fair, just built to be tough.

 

[Ironmage]

Where I run into issues on the direction of the series is that it doesn't seem to be good at branching towards different interest groups. Even when there is a more divergent game like Let's Go or Arceus, major aspects will still be ported to the next main game. I get the feeling that the higher-ups view those decisions as progress rather than the trade-offs they are compared to maintaining previously existing mechanics. It means that if you don't like those divergences, it affects the entire series going forwards instead of just one game or spin-off. And, since for me we've been in a string of divergences I am not a fan of, it means I have little hope for the immediate future.

On the bosses argument, my main point is that I want to be able to use status as a primary strategy. A lot of other RPGs are really bad at this, making many bosses immune to debuffs because otherwise they can't handle them. Pokemon has very powerful status effects, but they aren't balanced against a single health bar. So the single mon bosses need to include extra ways to beat status specifically, because otherwise Toxic auto-wins against U-Necrozma. Maybe it can be done right, but given how SwSh and Arceus handle it (the former giving DMax excessive status immunities, the later by seriously nerfing status effects across the board), I doubt that it is going to be done right.

 

[Sonikku A]

Considering Game Freak has never been particularly good at actually constructing their games, I can absolutely believe it. Game Freak spent 20 years refining their route layouts, their cutscene direction, etc, all these things that you do in the overworld. They gotta relearn all that (especially the cutscene direction) in 3D.

No
There isn't much to "relearn"

Routes already were 3D by Gen 4. And Gen 6 especially still featured tile based design for routes, only difference now is you can move diagonally for once. Gen 7 and 8 progressively are less limited, but the poor design is less inexperience, more they just got worse in controlling progression by over relying on barriers instead of sidequests. An "issue" Gen 5 brought

Cutscene direction has archaically remained the same, along with OW movement until LA. The only diff in the "3D" era is the camera can be more interact- oh BW did that already? Even HGSS for intro? Yeesh

And in terms of what you the player can do in the overworld, until LA it has always been "walking" and "talk to npc" or HM move. No primitive platforming outside forced cliff hops, they rigidly are almost the same as an 8 bit RPG. Already by Gen 3 GFs overworld was pitifully outdated compared to other GBA titles or older 16 bit era games, we just didn't care at the time

And this all ignores that GF isn't revolutionizing anything when they "became" 3D. There was a lot of external refs they can use, and Creatures Inc did the brunt work for mon assets already, so that was a massive load off their back

GF's priority Gen 6 was nostalgia cashing, and being basic still for the rising mobile crowd. And they served that purpose well, as much as we all hate it

It's not the medium, it's just stubborn tradition and realizing they barely needed to do much, until Gen 8's PR disaster slammed them rightfully

 

[doipy hooves]

Some way to increase your own health similar to how you get more hearts in Zelda or more energy in Metroid would have been cool as well, but I'm not sure here either.

The survival charms you can buy give you 20 health each. They are a bit out of the way so they can be easy to miss if you aren't looking all around.

That is definitely a factor as to why we have the "attitude in cycles" where every Pokémon game is considered by the community to "suck" until those kids who grew up with said game become old enough to join the Pokémon internet and the discourse. Like how at one point Gen 3 was considered horrible until later on it was heralded as a pinnacle of the series. Then the same happened with Gen 4. And recently it's been happening with Gen 5. Soon Gen 6 will reach that point and we'll be seeing more and more people talking about how much they loved XY and ORAS and what those games delivered. And so on.

I feel like some of the Gen 5 appreciation is also because of how the games changed after Gen 6 in hindsight, but this has also led to going back to criticisms of the older games as well. There are things that get memed on like Gen 4's speed and Gen 1's glitches, but I have also noticed some more general Johto negativity, generally because of how it plays as a game to be completed compared to modern standards. Personally I like that Gen 2 was really ambitious with the scope of the world it was trying to cover originally as seen from the leaks, and even though the final product is relatively more compact, you can still feel the heart and soul put into it as an experience and it's interesting how its concepts are still returned to in later generations. Gen 2 made the region feel alive with trainers having names and calling you, real time passing by, more optional dungeons, legendary lore, places opening up routes and making the region feel connected, and I feel like it successfully established a future direction for the series after Gen 1's success, with innovative mechanics and QOL improvements like the original special split, held items, breeding, and shinies that are taken for granted today. Regardless, I agree with the point that there is a little something for everyone in the series.

I hope SV will be pretty good as a Gen 9 that builds on Gen 8 like when Gen 7/5/2 were more polished games on the same console as the last generation.

 

[pika pal]

Contextually I think the issue with Cheater-Boss fights is that the story usually isn't written in a way that allows them to do so in a particularly meaningful way in the early games, while some later games go for Asymmetry but not in a way that is the boss having agency over that taking place.

- Gen 1: Giovanni doesn't really expect you to show up either time as Team Rocket, and in Viridian he's battling you in the Gym Leader Role rather than as Team Rocket, based on his dialogue. This point seems like it matters to me since remakes where Team Rocket isn't gone until post-game could retool his dialogue, plus other depictions show Giovanni playing unfairly when he is expecting a challenge or otherwise fighting on such grounds (fighting with Mewtwo in the anime, and setting up an ambush to attack Red specifically in Adventures).

- Gen 2: New Rocket just seems disorganized to the point of being comic relief, but whatever advantage they could pull at the Hideout is nullified by Lance being present to even up the fight, and at the Radio Tower they seem to just bank really hard on locking you out of the broadcast room rather than anticipating a fight with someone. It's flimsy here but I similarly go with the "caught off-guard" explanation for this.

- Gen 3: In terms of awakening the Legendary, Aqua and Magma tend to be one-step ahead of the player's efforts to stop them (whether singular, or both at once in Emerald). Most times where you battle them for a major operation there's either another confounding factor (the opposing team for Mt. Chimney, Steven at the Mossdeep Space Center), or the fight is to buy time while they are working on the main goal (stalled by an Admin at the Hideout, or fighting Maxie/Archie right next to Kyogre/Groudon). A big element for the Gen 3 villain plot is that they're constantly trying something or other that you're running into, but reasonably one kid can't be present everywhere to stop everything simultaneously, so part of the plot is playing catch up with them. They're constantly rushing to get things done and you probably don't register as a higher priority than any other nuisance they're dealing with, certainly not so much that they'd prepare specialized cheating for one particular battle when they could instead just try to finish their plan before you get there.

- Gen 4: Galactic arguably comes the closest so far to meeting this idea for me when I look at Spear Pillar. Cyrus has the Admins all acting at once to capture the Lake Trio for the Red Chain(s), and they succeed swimmingly despite your interference here and your track record, with the PC being the only trainer of the 3 who's presented as handling the Galactics they encounter on their own (Dawn/Lucas need back-up and Mesprit is still taken, while Barry is utterly beaten and Uxie long gone). The competent trainer storms Galactic HQ and Cyrus still gets away with the Chain. When you do reach Spear Pillar, Cyrus is already summoning Palkia/Dialga while Mars and Jupiter attempt to 2v1 you, only averted by Barry showing up. Even then, by the time you finish that battle, Cyrus is in control of the Legendary Pokemon, and the only thing that stops him from resetting reality (or turning it on you at least) is the Lake Trio/Giratina depending on the game. So Cyrus has you outnumbered and ganged up on while also controlling a deity that is forcibly taken from him before battling him at Spear Pillar.

- Gen 5: Ghetsis in BW I agree probably could have played dirtier given his nature and that it was one of the few times where battle between the PC and the Villains was expected/planned for. He does have the Sages attempt to bar your route to N, but otherwise doesn't step in until N's been defeated; depending on interpretation you could argue this was important to his plan with N as a puppet king (needing to command respect amongst the populous by becoming Champion would be undercut by fighting dirty), but if that's the case there was still more that he could probably do to prevent you from reaching N, considering no one besides the Sages even attempt to impede your challenge. B2W2 has the 7 v 6 battle thanks to the initial fight with Black/White Kyurem, which, execution from AI aside, is pulling a legendary on top of a full team in story when the player does not have one themselves as compared to BW. On top of that, before even attempting to battle the player, Ghetsis jumps immediately to directly attacking the player character without a challenge . Ghetsis probably plays the dirtiest in terms of his choice, though given his character I do think he could have been more underhanded when just looking at the vacuum of that character.

- Gen 6: Lysandre is diet N. I don't have much to say because his character in the games is so transparently the villain before the reveal that I can't even tell what my read on his behavior is supposed to be: was I supposed to think he was a good-philosophical man and the reveal is a twist; was I supposed to think Lysandre was a bit off his rocker but ultimately could be reasoned with; or was I supposed to see him as a loon from the start for a dramatic irony effect until the characters caught up? I bring this up because my inability to read the game character makes it hard to determine if he's even the type I would take to cheat against sudden resistance from a group of kids. Despite confronting him at the entrance to Team Flare's bunker, he doesn't fight you until you capture the Mascot Legendary to use against him even if he knows you are there and intend to stop him. He actively allows the player to steal a major asset for his plan than can be used against him by not acting sooner, and unless he's supposed to seem lazy/incompetent/arrogant, I can't think of a reason to do this in story, and all 3 of the former would explain not taking a cheat measure.

- Gen 7: Lusamine just flat out doesn't care about you or Lillie in SM, with the battle being about going to bring her back (whether out of concern, to answer for her wrongs, or both), since her goal of finding UB's/reaching Ultra Space with Nebby has already been accomplished. In spite of this, her Pokemon do have the UB-style power boosts in battle which give them a significant leg up on your party on paper. Most of what I say applies to Ultra Necrozma, albeit that is more for animalistic/outside-human-thinking reasons rather than insanity-based apathy towards the player's presence.

- Gen 8: This depends on what we're calling the main villain here. If we mean Rose, I think he has the excuse of most of the main conflict issues focusing on Leon rather than the Player as the solution to them (which is a different point of discussion). Since his plan is for Leon to capture Eternatus, him battling so you can't go interfere effectively is him playing dirty to help his plan succeed. If we count Eternatus in a similar vein to Ultra Necrozma, it's OP as hell on base stats, and at least has (natural or otherwise) abilities that inhibit the idea of battling it: It's technically a forme instead of Dynamaxed, so it has no time limit on Max Moves or the other benefits of said mechanic; it prevents/inhibits the ability of the player to Dynamax against it; it fights you in what would have otherwise been a 2v1 with Hop instead of the standard 4v1 Raid set up (since I assume Leon was too exhausted to fight further after the failed capture attempt) if not for the Hero Dogs showing up and winning the fight for you essentially. I also feel like Eternatus is depicted with a bit more malice or situational awareness than even Ultra Necrozma was, so there's the matter of whether or not its powers simply are or if it has to think to impose these advantages.

I guess my ramble amounts to the fact that it would take plans from the outset to make a villain who feels like they meaningfully cheat the system against the player, since it has to come from a combination of being in character, being within the means they're written with (Aether has a lot more resources than Gen 2 Rocket or Aqua/Magma by all appearances), and something set up as achievable by the game's systems to reflect. All of this makes for something I think GF would have to decide on from when they start writing the villain team rather than halfway through that writing process when deciding "what will the story climax be like?"

 

[Suspicious Derivative]

The survival charms you can buy give you 20 health each. They are a bit out of the way so they can be easy to miss if you aren't looking all around.

I forgot about the Charms. Though that's partly because I wasn't really sure how some of them worked. I blame the game for giving me unclear information.

The in-game description for the Survival Charm is "A mysterious charm that holds the power to protect a person from fainting while out in the field. This type of charm comes in five different colors." Not very clear. I thought it worked like this: when you were about to faint, the Charm would kick in and save you, like the reserve tanks in Super Metroid. This would come at the cost of losing the Charm. I also recall reading somewhere that the charm only has "a chance of" working, but I might be remembering incorrectly.

The reason I thought the Survival Charm would work this way was because that is how the Warding Charm works, it protects you from Status at the cost of the Charm disappearing. Because the Survival Charm didn't work that way, and because the game has a quite unclear description of its effects, I thought that it just didn't work at all (or just had a "chance" of working). Since it didn't stop me from fainting the few times I actually fainted in the field (notably against Tornadus, one of the worst boss designs I have ever seen, but that's for a different discussion), or when I fainted against a Noble, it led me to think that it just didn't work at all. But now I know. Thanks for telling me.

I wish I had known about this earlier as it would have been very helpful if I had still been playing the game. If I were to replay the game (which I never will) or if I were to continue playing it (which I doubt, haven't played it in over a month and I see no reason to go back to it), then I would definitely make sure to always have all five survival Charms in my bag at all times just to have as much health as possible.

Anyway, now that I know that the game actually has a way to increase the health for the player, I consider it a plus.

I hope SV will be pretty good as a Gen 9 that builds on Gen 8 like when Gen 7/5/2 were more polished games on the same console as the last generation.

I partly agree. I think Gen 5 was basically a straight upgrade over Gen 4, but I don't really feel that way about Gen 2 and 7. While they improved upon some things from Gen 1 and 6, there were some things that the previous generation did right that Gen 2/7 screwed up on. The most notable IMO is the level curve in Gen 2 (it wasn't perfect in Gen 1, but it was at least functional) and the lack of good training spots in Gen 7 (I can't understand how we went from the epic levels of Gen 6 to the almost as bad as HG/SS levels in Gen 7). Anyway, I believe Gen 9 will improve on Gen 8 in at least some aspects, similar to how Gen 2/7 did, but I'm definitely not expecting it to be a straight upgrade like Gen 5 was.

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

Been reading some anime discussion and I realised that my single most unpopular Pokemon opinion is probably that I didn't mind Tobias as a character/dreamcrusher lol. I've never followed the anime too closely, but aside from the original run I was most into it during the DP arc (mostly because of Contests, which were fun in Hoenn but kinda underwhelming for the first 70% of May's character arc ...but that's a whole other Unpopular Opinions post lmao). I understand that a lot of people felt like it was unfair how Tobias showed up out of nowhere and obliterated Ash after his win over Paul, and I don't really have a counterargument or anything, but I guess I just like it when we get a reminder that Ash might be a pretty big fish, but he's in a massive pond. It's a nice contrast to the games, at least.

Of course, now Ash is in the Top 8 of a global battle tournament, so things have definitely changed lmao

 

[Wukong]

Been reading some anime discussion and I realised that my single most unpopular Pokemon opinion is probably that I didn't mind Tobias as a character/dreamcrusher lol. I've never followed the anime too closely, but aside from the original run I was most into it during the DP arc (mostly because of Contests, which were fun in Hoenn but kinda underwhelming for the first 70% of May's character arc ...but that's a whole other Unpopular Opinions post lmao). I understand that a lot of people felt like it was unfair how Tobias showed up out of nowhere and obliterated Ash after his win over Paul, and I don't really have a counterargument or anything, but I guess I just like it when we get a reminder that Ash might be a pretty big fish, but he's in a massive pond. It's a nice contrast to the games, at least.

Of course, now Ash is in the Top 8 of a global battle tournament, so things have definitely changed lmao

I just never got their insistence with sticking with one protagonist (Ash) throughout the entire series. Which is why the Tobias battle was so frustrating since the end of the DP arc, with Ash defeating Paul in the final of the Lily of the Valley Conference, would've been the perfect way to send off that character. Considering BW was considered a soft reboot of the franchise, they could have just cast a new protagonist (even better, a female protagonist) to carry the torch for the next few seasons, another 10-15 years.

Inserting Tobias just to roflstomp Ash and rebooting his brain along with the rest of the series in BW was just not the way to go in my opinion.

 

[Bakugames]

I just never got their insistence with sticking with one protagonist (Ash) throughout the entire series. Which is why the Tobias battle was so frustrating since the end of the DP arc, with Ash defeating Paul in the final of the Lily of the Valley Conference, would've been the perfect way to send off that character. Considering BW was considered a soft reboot of the franchise, they could have just cast a new protagonist (even better, a female protagonist) to carry the torch for the next few seasons, another 10-15 years.

Inserting Tobias just to roflstomp Ash and rebooting his brain along with the rest of the series in BW was just not the way to go in my opinion.

I think the issue is its just not worth it. Ash is already a pretty popular character, taking a gamble by replacing him and seeing if the new character sticks when youre sitting on a safe goldmine its not a smart thing to do. Plus, it's a move that only benefits a small portion of the audience, usually teens and adults, who aren't the main target audience.

Of course, when it comes to adding stuff, the anime will try to pander to everyone because theres no risk, but removals and changes are much more thought out for kids, because those are the major watchers of the anime

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Been reading some anime discussion and I realised that my single most unpopular Pokemon opinion is probably that I didn't mind Tobias as a character/dreamcrusher lol. I've never followed the anime too closely, but aside from the original run I was most into it during the DP arc (mostly because of Contests, which were fun in Hoenn but kinda underwhelming for the first 70% of May's character arc ...but that's a whole other Unpopular Opinions post lmao). I understand that a lot of people felt like it was unfair how Tobias showed up out of nowhere and obliterated Ash after his win over Paul, and I don't really have a counterargument or anything, but I guess I just like it when we get a reminder that Ash might be a pretty big fish, but he's in a massive pond. It's a nice contrast to the games, at least.

Of course, now Ash is in the Top 8 of a global battle tournament, so things have definitely changed lmao

This. I don't follow the anime particularly closely either, I hate that we've already met all of the Top 8 (and that Ash has reached the top 8 so quickly - if there were ever a time to retire the character, it's now). I know it probably wouldn't work otherwise, but it just makes the world feel so ridiculously small. A trainer's journey is without end - unless you're like Ash and become one of the most powerful trainers in the world at the age of 11.

And if they have to be named characters who already exist, why not some of the Galarian trainers Ash hasn't met yet like Mustard or Peony? That's at least a bit more interesting.

 

[Ironmage]

Looking at it from outside the context of being a fan of the anime, I end up thinking of Tobias as more representative of a player than Ash is. He shows up, blitzes through the entire challenge with one or two mons, then moves on to another challenge. A pattern we've probably all done at least once. It's almost certainly unintentional, but I end up liking the idea that even the most basic way of actually playing pokemon is better than whatever thing Ash pulls out of his **** this time.

 

[Bella]

Bug type doesn't need a buff.

 

[Samtendo09]

Bug type doesn't need a buff.

Could you at least elaborate why is that the case?

I’m one of those people who believed that Bug could use a buff, especially after the near-nonsensical fact that Fairy resist it despite Bug already having a poor offensive matchup.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

It feels like Fairy only resists Bug because they wanted to give Fairy more than two resistances.

 

[DrPumpkinz]

Bug's my favorite type, and part of that is how much of an underdog it is. It makes the strong Bug Pokemon like Scizor and Volcarona stand out even more.

 

[pika pal]

Been reading some anime discussion and I realised that my single most unpopular Pokemon opinion is probably that I didn't mind Tobias as a character/dreamcrusher lol. I've never followed the anime too closely, but aside from the original run I was most into it during the DP arc (mostly because of Contests, which were fun in Hoenn but kinda underwhelming for the first 70% of May's character arc ...but that's a whole other Unpopular Opinions post lmao). I understand that a lot of people felt like it was unfair how Tobias showed up out of nowhere and obliterated Ash after his win over Paul, and I don't really have a counterargument or anything, but I guess I just like it when we get a reminder that Ash might be a pretty big fish, but he's in a massive pond. It's a nice contrast to the games, at least.

Of course, now Ash is in the Top 8 of a global battle tournament, so things have definitely changed lmao

My issue with Tobias isn't his defeating Ash, but that his win over Ash felt very half-assed as a writing implementation, execution being the problem more than the concept.

Like, back in the Johto League, Ash got eliminated after his win over Gary by Harris, the guy showing off a couple of Hoenn Pokemon, including Blaziken taking down Ash's big Ace-in-the-hole Charizard in the end. The thing is, that was a full Battle between the two that managed to have an ebb and flow to who was winning throughout (not just the final match up, but all 6 mons): Ash and Harris kind of trade 1-for-1 for the first half, then after a reckless play costs Ash an advantage (his Snorlax getting KO'd by Hyper Beam being Countered), he goes for a strategic play with Bayleef rather that works on Houndoom but gets outplayed by Blaziken once the unorthodox tactics are out of the box. And a big thing in the aftermath is that Blaziken was so exhausted from the battle with Charizard that it wasn't ready for the next day's match and thus cost Harrison the tournament, emphasizing how hard the fight was on the winning side as well as Ash on the losing one.

What I'm trying to say for all this is that Harris felt like a trainer who could have had his own story with his team, a guy who exists in the world and had similar challenges to get over before reaching the point where we see him for the story. Tobias meanwhile just rolls up with Darkrai and then a surprise Latios and goes on to win the Tournament. They try to pay lip-service to Ash's performance by saying his Darkrai's never lost to another trainer, but this gets undercut when he just pulls another Legendary out, and a pretty random one all things considered (Latios being half of a duo that's not even native to Sinnoh AND had a major anime role before that suggested it was a very unique/rare species compared to other Legendaries we've implicitly seen multiples of). The idea of a sort of "giant tower boss" battle can be interesting to watch or fight, and I'd argue it was the entire basis behind Totem Pokemon and Max Raid battles being made major game features as well, but if that's the case I would not have had Tobias's remaining team include any other behemoths like that, especially because if right after his "I swept everything with this guy" Pokemon goes down he just pulls out another Uber, it undercuts even that victory because it makes his entire team a bunch of mountains to bulldoze through opposition rather than at least a squad with a headliner.

Heck I think there could have been something neat to having Darkrai go down and then the rest of Tobias's team is normal-level Pokemon who struggle to finish the exhausted team Ash has left. It'd be a sort of look/deconstruction at the trainer/player types who just throw Legendaries or funnel all their EXP into one big Mon on the team and then hit trouble if that mon can't solo the fight, the way some people interpret Paul as a look at harsher competitive/"stop-having-fun" players. Tobias could take away that he needs to train the rest of his team and support Darkrai rather than putting the entire burden of winning on it.

tl;dr Tobias beating Ash isn't a problem, but how Tobias beats Ash is lazy writing.

Could you at least elaborate why is that the case?

I’m one of those people who believed that Bug could use a buff, especially after the near-nonsensical fact that Fairy resist it despite Bug already having a poor offensive matchup.

The bigger issue I have is that compared to something like Ice, I can't think of any good thematic buffs off-hand to give to the Bug typing. Compared to a lot of the others which encompass elements or broad concepts (Fighting, Fire/Water/Grass, Electric), Bug feels a lot more specific as an idea to make an entire class of Pokemon. I point to a large number of Pokemon who look like they could be bugs based on visual design but are not so in practice (Flygon based on an Antlion, Falinks takes after a Caterpillar or Centipede motif when its Segments are joined).

That said Bug could simply have done without a lot of the nerfs and additional negatives it has garnered, not being resisted by a few types such as Fairy for a start (frankly I'd have given Fairies a Normal resist since a lot of old depictions made them as abducting or messing with common folk using Magic just for the heck of it). Bug-at-large feels like the type-chart equivalent of a Dump Stat, the one the designers use when they need to improve something by virtue of match ups but don't want to nerf something more marketable like the cool Fire or Ghost types etc., or put a balancing act on a Mon they're trying something new with (Volcarona having a legitimate endgame statline with Quiver Dance, two of the Ultra Beasts having Beast Boost and hyper-specialized stat lines).

 

[Ironmage]

I personally feel that Bug's poor type advantages is balanced out by having very good effects attached to their moves. Sticky Web, Quiver Dance, and U-turn are all amazing, while moves like First Impression, Pollen Puff, and Leech Life also have strong use cases. Knock off and Scald are already overbearing for having good effects on good types, we really don't need to add an entire type of them.

 

[Nokocchi]

(Latios being half of a duo that's not even native to Sinnoh AND had a major anime role before that suggested it was a very unique/rare species compared to other Legendaries we've implicitly seen multiples of).

To be fair about Lati@s, the Japanese version of the movie starring them outright shows there are multiples of both, the ending shows 2 Latias and 1 Latios in the sky, but 4kids airbrushed out the 2nd Latias to imply that the Latios that was part of the plot of the movie was still alive and everything is all happy in the end with no deaths whatsoever.

 

[Yung Dramps]

As someone who doesn't really keep up with or care for the anime, Tobias is such a fascinating character. I really can't think of another series that pulled put a deus ex machina against the main protagonist, at least not this explicitly and brazenly. Add in pika pal's dissection of how Tobias doesn't feel like an actual trainer who could exist and the fact he was never seen again and you got a downright surreal footnote in the history of the Pokemon franchise.

In fact, going back to my inexperience, I remember hearing the horror stories from anime watchers through Pokefandom cultural osmosis. This asspull monster trainer who mauled Ash's team with a Darkrai before cleaning up with Latios. Y'know what I thought from this description? Do you really wanna know?

"Well, that's pretty stupid, but I don't get why people were caught so off-guard. Obviously this had to have been set up in Rise of Darkrai!"

Yup. I took for granted that either Tobias was a major character in that movie (his outfit does look pretty "anime movie secondary protagonist-y" in the vein of Sir Aaron) or that there was some scene near the end where after his arc Darkrai expressed a desire to get with a strong enough trainer. Oh how naive I evidently was.

Thankfully they learned their lesson and did the set-up work for XY's resident cool strongman in Alain. Unfortunately the Kalos League finale is still a narrative abomination, but hey silver linings are silver linings!

 

[Wukong]

I think the issue is its just not worth it. Ash is already a pretty popular character, taking a gamble by replacing him and seeing if the new character sticks when youre sitting on a safe goldmine its not a smart thing to do. Plus, it's a move that only benefits a small portion of the audience, usually teens and adults, who aren't the main target audience.

I don't know is Ash really all that popular a character who's difficult to move on from? I don't know but others, but I never watched the Pokémon anime because of him. I just rooted for him because he was the protagonist. But he's equal parts hype at his best and maddeningly frustrating at his worst.

I don't see wiping the slate clean for a new protagonist to take up the mantle, as all that difficult a task to execute. Ash to me was never such a beloved figure in the community that it would be, like, difficult to move on without him.

 

[DrPumpkinz]

I don't know is Ash really all that popular a character who's difficult to move on from? I don't know but others, but I never watched the Pokémon anime because of him. I just rooted for him because he was the protagonist. But he's equal parts hype at his best and maddeningly frustrating at his worst.

I don't see wiping the slate clean for a new protagonist to take up the mantle, as all that difficult a task to execute. Ash to me was never such a beloved figure in the community that it would be, like, difficult to move on without him.

Most people who are only passingly aware of Pokemon think Ash is the main character of the whole franchise, so he's probably too popular to drop.

Though I think even more than Ash, it's Pikachu that's preventing them from starting fresh. Sure, they could theoretically give their new human protagonist another Pikachu that just happens to have the same charismatic spunk of Ash's Pikachu, but that seems like it'd be even more contrived than BW's reboot.

 

[Hematite]

I personally feel that Bug's poor type advantages is balanced out by having very good effects attached to their moves. Sticky Web, Quiver Dance, and U-turn are all amazing, while moves like First Impression, Pollen Puff, and Leech Life also have strong use cases. Knock off and Scald are already overbearing for having good effects on good types, we really don't need to add an entire type of them.

I would like to second this so strongly
People act like Bug needs to be buffed offensively, but that implies Pokémon don't use Bug moves by choice all the time

The best example is the case of U-turn vs Volt Switch - even though Electric is superficially a better attacking type and Volt Switch comes pretty close to being available to every single Electric-type (it's not fully universal, but there were very few exceptions before the last two Generations), U-turn is such a vastly superior move that it's even preferred by many of the Electric-types that have both, even though Bug ought to be a "bad" type and Electric is what they have STAB on
In a particularly extreme example, Tapu Koko's sample set in current-Gen OU recommends U-turn over Volt Switch despite having Electric STAB, the boost from Electric Surge, maximum Special Attack EVs and a Timid nature, factors that mean that exact set using Volt Switch instead would do just over 2.35 times as much raw damage on a neutral target
This is not an accident - U-turn is still a better move than Volt Switch
When a Pokémon uses Volt Switch, it commits to doing damage and switching out if the opponent doesn't send in a Ground-type but staying in and doing nothing if the opponent sends in a Ground-type (one of the type's expected losing matchups), which is the exact opposite of what most Pokémon want out of a pivoting move
Conversely, U-turn can't be blocked by anything, and it takes a lot for a Pokémon to give that up if it has the option at all

That's the thing: U-turn isn't used primarily for damage or good matchups - it borders on being one of the "safest" moves in the entire game, and it's appreciated and readily utilized by nearly everything that has it, Bug-type or not (and physically offensive or not!)
This matters so much more than people seem to realize - being weak to U-turn is rare, but it also borders on crippling, because Pokémon are afraid to invite U-turn or to be threatened and forced out by the possibility of U-turn
Conversely, being resistant to U-turn may be common, but it is also coveted
People often complain in particular about Fairy being given a resistance to Bug (even in this same thread, people have suggested it was some kind of stock resistance to "pad out" its defensive profile without hurting a more popular type or one that was meant to have minimal implication), but that's another thing that needs to be looked at more closely: Fairy's resistances were openly designed from the ground up to make it "the anti-meta type," with particular focus on the types that were most prominent in Gen V VGC and probably with Gen VI's Dark buff in mind as well
It resists Bug because Bug-type moves are meta, and it's actually considered one of the most relevant and useful resistances Fairy has to offer: it means they don't take excessive damage from it every time something they intend to counter tries to pivot out of them, and they can also switch in safely to resist stray U-turns aimed at other Pokémon

Essentially, Bug is the type that's "allowed" a crazy-strong tool like this only because it is one of the worst in offensive matchups alone - these are not unrelated!
The thing is that Pokémon care about their defensive Bug matchup because of the universal utility of the most relevant Bug move
and you can't simply give a tool like this to just any attacking type without a harsh drawback (like making Volt Switch fail on the Pokémon its users would most want to escape)
Even the more recent Flip Turn on the more "powerful" Water type had extremely careful distribution compared to past pivoting moves and a power decrease to match + also Water Absorb and Storm Drain may be relevant depending on the format (I think Storm Drain is quite common in the official competitive format, VGC, and it also happens to block Flip Turn from anywhere on the field!); conversely, no Bug immunity exists even with any Ability, because it's a major part of the the identity of the type to be "offensively weak but perfectly reliable"

The type chart is a lot more carefully considered than people give it credit for, and it's incredibly rare that I see someone ask to "fix" it and actually agree with their suggestion
The "problem" is when people look at matchups like they exist in a vacuum and every type needs to be perfectly balanced before any moves or Pokémon are made, when moves and Pokémon belong to specific types because of what those types can do for them and what part of those types they represent
"Weak" types on paper are usually the ones with the strongest assets or the strongest Pokémon - moves and Pokémon that rely on having constraining matchups to be kept in check - and there are Pokémon of every type that see in-game and competitive success when they work with the type correctly instead of trying to shape it into something it's not, so obviously this is working!

If you want to buff Bug-types, you should absolutely not do it offensively, because Bug's most defining move and its entire mechanical identity leans heavily on the offensive matchups that it already has and it would be very easy to bring about some pretty stupid consequences if you make it better
On the other hand, Bug is a pretty fine defensive type anyway - when specific weaknesses are patched up by the right secondary type, held item or partner, it is usually more than workable and you can really see the type's distinctive toolkit shine through
A lot of Bug-types' identities come from their moves most of all, many of the best of which are rarely distributed to other types
None of this is stuff you could get just by looking at their matchups on a chart - you need to look at the Pokémon that have the Bug type and what they do, as well as the Pokémon that run Bug-type moves and the Pokémon that match up well against Bug-type moves and how much that is valued, before you can write off the type as flawed or in need of saving
Basically, I don't think you need to "fix" the type; I think a lot of people just look at the type chart in an incomplete way that doesn't reflect how well it's really designed (my unpopular opinion: the type chart, in its current state, is one of the coolest things about the series and is the underlying factor between almost all of the other mechanics and design choices I like the most; I wouldn't change a thing about it), and I wish more people would focus on understanding it before they try to correct it, because uuusually the latter means making it worse

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

Heck I think there could have been something neat to having Darkrai go down and then the rest of Tobias's team is normal-level Pokemon who struggle to finish the exhausted team Ash has left. It'd be a sort of look/deconstruction at the trainer/player types who just throw Legendaries or funnel all their EXP into one big Mon on the team and then hit trouble if that mon can't solo the fight, the way some people interpret Paul as a look at harsher competitive/"stop-having-fun" players. Tobias could take away that he needs to train the rest of his team and support Darkrai rather than putting the entire burden of winning on it.

ooooooh I don't really have strong feelings about my post (as I said I don't really have any counterarguments to people who felt it was an unsatisfying narrative beat) but I strongly dislike this hypothetical haha. The idea that the rest of Tobias' team is secretly weak is a fun thing to meme about, but I think it creates more problems and raises more questions than if his whole team is stacked.

For one, I think it'd do more to validate the solo mon strategy, the same way the games do, than to deconstruct it. After all, making it to the semi-finals of a regional league conference is a very impressive result whichever way you slice it. Plus, it'd be a little weird to imply that people irl who focus all their attention on a single mon are Playing The Game Wrong.

Also, how did Tobias even catch a legendary Pokemon if he's not otherwise a strong and competent trainer? Presumably he didn't defeat it or receive it as a gift in this version of the story, so I assume they'd do the classic 'he found it injured and nursed it back to health and in exchange it agreed to join his team' thing, which 1) L A M E and 2) would require a distracting amount of flashback backstory to satisfactorily explain how it all went down and how he then went from being a nurturing trainer to a neglectful one.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

ooooooh I don't really have strong feelings about my post (as I said I don't really have any counterarguments to people who felt it was an unsatisfying narrative beat) but I strongly dislike this hypothetical haha. The idea that the rest of Tobias' team is secretly weak is a fun thing to meme about, but I think it creates more problems and raises more questions than if his whole team is stacked.

For one, I think it'd do more to validate the solo mon strategy, the same way the games do, than to deconstruct it. After all, making it to the semi-finals of a regional league conference is a very impressive result whichever way you slice it. Plus, it'd be a little weird to imply that people irl who focus all their attention on a single mon are Playing The Game Wrong.

Also, how did Tobias even catch a legendary Pokemon if he's not otherwise a strong and competent trainer? Presumably he didn't defeat it or receive it as a gift in this version of the story, so I assume they'd do the classic 'he found it injured and nursed it back to health and in exchange it agreed to join his team' thing, which 1) L A M E and 2) would require a distracting amount of flashback backstory to satisfactorily explain how it all went down and how he then went from being a nurturing trainer to a neglectful one.

This. It's like how all those trainers in the Battle Frontier/Maison/Subway/Tree/whatever have Latis, legendary beasts, and Heatran/Cresselia on their team. I know a lot of people see that and think "well it can't be canon, the player character is the only one skilled enough to meet/capture legendaries." But I think of it as... just the opposite. It might seem otherwise, but the player character really is a small fish in a massive pond. These Ace Trainers and Experts and all the rest really are powerful and skilled enough to meet (multiple) legendaries and capture them, just like you.

I've been playing the Battle Subway a lot recently and I really love that you actually get to meet the NPCs on the platform, who talk about how tough it is to make it 40+ battles in. Most of them have the sprites of Veterans and Ace Trainers, who are the type of trainers that use legendaries most often. So I absolutely believe that these are the sorts of people who've been catching legendaries all over the world. There's one, at the 28th battle, who dismissively calls you weak (even though you literally have to be the Champion to make it to that point) and says that she'd just get bored if she battled you. I love that. There's even an NPC at the World Tournament in B2W2 who mentions that one of her favourite moves to use is Lunar Dance, basically confirming that she has a Cresselia on her team (yes, I know she could use it via other means but I think it's pretty clear in context what's intended).

So in that sense it wasn't at all surprising that Tobias had another legendary on his team (and probably several more); he's simply that good. In the anime those types of trainers seem fewer, but that's probably due to the way the story is told in that canon. Yes he's a deus ex machina, but his existence isn't that incongruous.