Yeah, weird both IDW Sonic and later Pokemon Spe fail so hard for adapting
Admittedly for Spe it was admitted frustration with playing Gen 7, so there's some honest admittance. Rotomdex being immediately shat on gets me
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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
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Admittedly for Spe it was admitted frustration with playing Gen 7, so there's some honest admittance. Rotomdex being immediately shat on gets me
Rotom dex slander? KILL THIS MANGA IMMEDIATELY!!!!!
kusaka has a contempt for sumo while also forcing himself to adapt everything in the games as main parts of the story. he brought his misery upon himself tbh, while older games werent nearly as complex as sumo + usum, he had the sense that some parts of the world would just appear once and that's ok. he got caught up trying to make a grandiose plot that gets completely shat on by the games themselves lmfao
also why did he try to give the pikachu clothes relevance
also why did he try to give the pikachu clothes relevance
So basically exactly the same as the Archie Sonic comics then.
I said before in another thread that the main problem about the SM Special Arc is that it flows so quickly to register anything. I was about to say Kusaka had trouble adapting this one because of how story heavy the game is compared to the ones before it, but then I remember that the BW arc was adapting a game that focused on plot more than its predecessors and it did a pretty good job overall! So in that case, considering the games were getting released yearly consistently in the 2010s, I think it's safe to say he wasn't doing his best having to handle many arcs at the same time. BW2 had multiple hiatuses and its period extended throughout three generations, and it really shows with how that arc went...
Also I need some evidence that states Kusaka hates sumo bc of the new trend of some SM fans being so "oh, NO ONE gets these games like I do! It's not that they have pacing issues, everyone else is the problem!". They quickly became more annoying than the BW crowd that blames pokefans for getting the low sales number of 15.64 million units.
Maybe that's because people actually don't get these games like we do lol, also yeah that's the cycle it's our turn at the wheel. It's been like 5 years of Gen 5 dickriding, and before that it was years of Gen 4 dickriding, Gen 6 is probably getting skipped at this point so it's Gen 7's turn for people to start appreciating it.
Give it 7-10 years for Gen 9 to be the game getting appreciated, and then Gen 10, and then etc.
Yeah I don’t get this trend at all. My favourites don’t really change from when I initially play them. I still prefer 2, 4, 7 and will continue riding them as I always have (now 9 too).
Allow me to introduce you to the concept of "rose tinted glasses"
Oh I’m pretty sure my Gen 2 love is a lot of rose tinted glasses and nostalgia.
But I stick to my guns.
Gen2forlyf
The Weird Tree doesn’t like the Squirtbottle!
The Weird Tree attacked!
Great moment in videogame history imo.
It's not that people change their favorites, it's more about the cycle of age groups.
If you were 10 when you played Pokemon Red, you were 22 when Pokemon Black came out. You are the primary age demographic of something like Reddit.
Genwunners.
Now you just repeat the cycle for each gen, people who played Gen 4 when they were 10 were around 20 in 2016, Gen 5 around 2019, Gen 6 got skipped and now Gen 7 continues the cycle.
I'm not even a big xy defender but I wonder why it was skipped. I don't think those games are that egregious and you'd think people would hype shit up like megas again, and the story is not even the worst when it comes to pokemon plots. its a bit barren and unfinished but completely harmless.
I think a lot of the people from that era are more of ORAS enjoyers nowadays, BDSP sparked the "reappreciation era" where ORAS started being recognized as a great remake. I remember I used to get clowned on for thinking ORAS was better than Emerald, but I see more and more people recognize it as a worthy and lovable entry in the series.
A lot of the 3DS era media has hit its era beyond XY too, Gates to Infinity is ostensibly a Gen 5 spinoff but being on the 3DS has a lot of people loop it into that era (came out in 2013 for most of the world), that game used to be a laughing stock of the PMD community and in the last few years it's become a lot more defended and enjoyed.
I think PLZA has like the last opportunity to kick off XY's "reappreciation era", I know several people who have decided to replay the game in preparation for ZA and I do find the fandom's growing opinions interesting to look at.
I have no objective, scientific data points for this other than this one Japanese poll from 2020 which could easily be an outlier but I've always had this hunch for a while that Kalos is super popular among normies and ultra casual fans who don't participate in online fandom spaces, not unlike Kanto. Whereas our hardcore bubble sees it as this highly controversial franchise turning point, everyone else sees it as "the game with Greninja, Mega Evolution, those awesome bottom screen features and the really good anime".
Again, nothing to go off of besides scattered anecdotes I've collected over the years, but it feels like I'm onto something. I'm sure there were plenty of legitimate artistic considerations behind making Legends Z-A but in the end this is still a business which has access to all kinds of market research we don't and so the choice to go back to Kalos next over the hardcore bubble pick of Unova stands out
For the record there are 100% hardcore XY truthers in the bubble they just aren't super vocal for some reason
Again, nothing to go off of besides scattered anecdotes I've collected over the years, but it feels like I'm onto something. I'm sure there were plenty of legitimate artistic considerations behind making Legends Z-A but in the end this is still a business which has access to all kinds of market research we don't and so the choice to go back to Kalos next over the hardcore bubble pick of Unova stands out
For the record there are 100% hardcore XY truthers in the bubble they just aren't super vocal for some reason
The reason is I’ve learned to pick my battles
My honest guess is that it's a combination of XY being popular with "casual" (i.e. less deep-into-fandom-sites) players of the series, and also ostensibly feeling the most underdeveloped of the main-series titles, in that it clearly was aiming to accomplish things it didn't reach when compared to most other entries. Unova by comparison has people wanting more, but its elements don't feel lacking for "meat" on their bones if it's never revisited: compare XY's lackluster rivals, glossing over the resource shortage conflict after Lysandre go boom, or just the existence of AZ as a physical entity rather than just a backstory/myth of the region, all of which feel like elements the story throws in but doesn't use to much effect.
XY is the entry where completing it raised a reaction of "that's it?" moreso than "more please!" with enthusiasm, so revisiting it years later like this makes sense to me under the perspective of "all that stuff we said should be here could be here!" for a hype machine. Comparatively, Unova feels like there's one unexplored thread with it atm in the Original Dragon Myth (since Kyurem already confirmed theories as the shell with the Black/White forms in the sequels) and the rest would be "now you can DO that thing we described in side quests/dialogue for Gen 5" with the Musketeers, Genesect, Mythicals, etc (Genies got moved to PLA so I admittedly wouldn't rule-out expanding other regions' legendaries too).
XY is the entry where completing it raised a reaction of "that's it?" moreso than "more please!" with enthusiasm, so revisiting it years later like this makes sense to me under the perspective of "all that stuff we said should be here could be here!" for a hype machine. Comparatively, Unova feels like there's one unexplored thread with it atm in the Original Dragon Myth (since Kyurem already confirmed theories as the shell with the Black/White forms in the sequels) and the rest would be "now you can DO that thing we described in side quests/dialogue for Gen 5" with the Musketeers, Genesect, Mythicals, etc (Genies got moved to PLA so I admittedly wouldn't rule-out expanding other regions' legendaries too).
Undeniably true, but I also suspect there's a casual vs hardcore divide here too. For the former, "Pokemon Z" was essentially shorthand for "The Zygarde Game", a request which has already been satisfied from the title, hence all the memes of Zygarde rising from the dead on release day. On the other hand, stuff like the locked Power Plant door and Southern Kalos (the Teraleak gave us the full scope of it but it had been theorized for many years already) are more esoteric affairs you'd have to be really invested in the franchise to know about. We'll find out once we start getting real information on the game, but if Game Freak's outlook on these elements when designing the game leans closer to the casual perspective (i.e. they're more interested in brand new sequel concepts than offering these bits of "closure") there could be some friction.
Honestly Legends Z-A could potentially be a really interesting art philosophy case study for these reasons.
Rambling
There's also the fact that the first two Gens and 4 have the golden opinion lock due to age + circumstances of old internet and public culture
See if something is well recieved regardless of flaws and the person doesn't explore other media, the opinion of "X old gen is best" will solidify and become fandom mandated. Differing from this opinion will be harshly refuted. This opinion surpasses the fandom to where casual and none fans just blindly accept it. Being "the first" also shields it from criticism cuz "well they just started", even though a GB game having 5-6 years dev is ridiculous
It's why people didn't actually acknowledge Gen 2's attrocious level curve and mon rep till 2021. Gen 1 was a buggy mess, but the bugs are favorably accepted as a fun quirk (meanwhile the core bad game balance and world building is rarely ever mentioned). Gen 4 we have Plat memes nowadays, but opinion of DP sucking until Plat didn't come out as the norm until shortly before BDSP. Even then Plat is still a lot slower than RSE
Internet rumors and dev interviews being loosely telephone rumored also further rose tints things as more intentionally vague. The leaks prove the Unown ruins in GSC were awkwardly unfinished and meant to connect to HoOh, not "intentionally mysterious". Same for killing the Ditto Mew theory, Noting that Moltres in Victory Road is a sloppy error due to replacing it with Mewtwo for Cerulian Cave, and Red being treated as a mute pre Gen 7 when the games' flavor text and alt media (Adventure's, Ash) show otherwise. And the fact Grimer/Koffing ARE meant to be impacts of urbanization as stated in the 1996 dev pokedex book, but are awkwardly in abandoned old areas away from pollution is silly
Of course one has to be aware of gaming standards at the time, and Pokemon being a first for actually having a unique monster roster over 50 is nuts. But I feel it gets a bye for too many things that straight up was no longer an industry issue (Gen 1's overworld straight up lagging)
It's an issue that plagues many longtime fandoms, and early Gen elitism definitely shaped aspects of romhacking and fanfics. I've seen it firsthand for the former, not just for Pokemon...
You'll notice I skipped Gen 3, Pokemania dying mid Gen 2 + being unable to transfer mons + aging demographic leaving + Team Rocket no longer mattering heavily impacted the Gen's perception. Gen 3 wasn't really golden standard till around ORAS hype, and then it deflates to neutrality after. Gen 4's anime shift to Cartoon Network actually helped massively to reintroduce casual audiences, and a true new gen of fans came, with Gen 2 remakes attracting Genwunners/Twoers. Even FRLG, as hyped up back then, was a small note with most not caring until LGPE cutified Gen 1, and forced many to realize the sparse postgame. Only romhackers really cared to use it as a template, purposefully ignoring RS cuz Kanto nostalgia was priority, and later Emerald cuz one was stupid to not update Romtool compatibility for addresses, which everyone blindly accepted given bias
Nowadays, you have people still salty over BW. It is the end of "Golden protecting", despite devout Gen 5 fans now. Casually many will still remember the hate of back then, and none fans only care for 90s Pokemania (Kantooo). XY is skipped largely cuz of Gen 5's failure, over relying on Kanto and other Gen Megas rep over its own mons, so people come back and are more disappointed compared to ORAS despite nice online features. But more importantly, Gen 5 marked when Pokemon was no longer as splashable "can interpret anything" for chars. The game's plot and intro was marketed heavily, unlike earlier Gens
Which I feel is the root of this. Early Gens not being as hard defined for certain aspects meant that one can headcanon anything, without consequence due to how vague the source is. Later Gens are less and less vague even for mon personalities, so this might encroach on personal freedom. Similarly it means issues if something contradicts said characterization (USUM's rewrites)
But above all, Gen 8 shook up people from being in denial that GF is seriously behind the times for tech. They don't acknowledge that it applies to earlier Gens as well (Gen 1's absurdly long dev, Gen 2 severely relying on HAL/Iwata so the game didn't lag, Gen 3 just being super basic compared to 16bit RPGs, Gen 4 refusing none tiled design). They dismiss the sprite oddities/mistakes and warp it as "soul" to hurt later perceptions of 3D models (which when Gen 6 came out no one cared besides color). It's very forced thinking to ensure older gens aren't percieved poorly, as the internet since Gen 3 mandated the "old gens better" opinion
It's toxic, and unfortunately likely won't stop
TLDR: Gen 6 came out right after controversy + poorly repped its own mons in favor of Early Gen promos (Kanto starters gift, Megas, ORAS), so you won't see much defend it compared to 5/7
There's also the fact that the first two Gens and 4 have the golden opinion lock due to age + circumstances of old internet and public culture
See if something is well recieved regardless of flaws and the person doesn't explore other media, the opinion of "X old gen is best" will solidify and become fandom mandated. Differing from this opinion will be harshly refuted. This opinion surpasses the fandom to where casual and none fans just blindly accept it. Being "the first" also shields it from criticism cuz "well they just started", even though a GB game having 5-6 years dev is ridiculous
It's why people didn't actually acknowledge Gen 2's attrocious level curve and mon rep till 2021. Gen 1 was a buggy mess, but the bugs are favorably accepted as a fun quirk (meanwhile the core bad game balance and world building is rarely ever mentioned). Gen 4 we have Plat memes nowadays, but opinion of DP sucking until Plat didn't come out as the norm until shortly before BDSP. Even then Plat is still a lot slower than RSE
Internet rumors and dev interviews being loosely telephone rumored also further rose tints things as more intentionally vague. The leaks prove the Unown ruins in GSC were awkwardly unfinished and meant to connect to HoOh, not "intentionally mysterious". Same for killing the Ditto Mew theory, Noting that Moltres in Victory Road is a sloppy error due to replacing it with Mewtwo for Cerulian Cave, and Red being treated as a mute pre Gen 7 when the games' flavor text and alt media (Adventure's, Ash) show otherwise. And the fact Grimer/Koffing ARE meant to be impacts of urbanization as stated in the 1996 dev pokedex book, but are awkwardly in abandoned old areas away from pollution is silly
Of course one has to be aware of gaming standards at the time, and Pokemon being a first for actually having a unique monster roster over 50 is nuts. But I feel it gets a bye for too many things that straight up was no longer an industry issue (Gen 1's overworld straight up lagging)
It's an issue that plagues many longtime fandoms, and early Gen elitism definitely shaped aspects of romhacking and fanfics. I've seen it firsthand for the former, not just for Pokemon...
You'll notice I skipped Gen 3, Pokemania dying mid Gen 2 + being unable to transfer mons + aging demographic leaving + Team Rocket no longer mattering heavily impacted the Gen's perception. Gen 3 wasn't really golden standard till around ORAS hype, and then it deflates to neutrality after. Gen 4's anime shift to Cartoon Network actually helped massively to reintroduce casual audiences, and a true new gen of fans came, with Gen 2 remakes attracting Genwunners/Twoers. Even FRLG, as hyped up back then, was a small note with most not caring until LGPE cutified Gen 1, and forced many to realize the sparse postgame. Only romhackers really cared to use it as a template, purposefully ignoring RS cuz Kanto nostalgia was priority, and later Emerald cuz one was stupid to not update Romtool compatibility for addresses, which everyone blindly accepted given bias
Nowadays, you have people still salty over BW. It is the end of "Golden protecting", despite devout Gen 5 fans now. Casually many will still remember the hate of back then, and none fans only care for 90s Pokemania (Kantooo). XY is skipped largely cuz of Gen 5's failure, over relying on Kanto and other Gen Megas rep over its own mons, so people come back and are more disappointed compared to ORAS despite nice online features. But more importantly, Gen 5 marked when Pokemon was no longer as splashable "can interpret anything" for chars. The game's plot and intro was marketed heavily, unlike earlier Gens
Which I feel is the root of this. Early Gens not being as hard defined for certain aspects meant that one can headcanon anything, without consequence due to how vague the source is. Later Gens are less and less vague even for mon personalities, so this might encroach on personal freedom. Similarly it means issues if something contradicts said characterization (USUM's rewrites)
But above all, Gen 8 shook up people from being in denial that GF is seriously behind the times for tech. They don't acknowledge that it applies to earlier Gens as well (Gen 1's absurdly long dev, Gen 2 severely relying on HAL/Iwata so the game didn't lag, Gen 3 just being super basic compared to 16bit RPGs, Gen 4 refusing none tiled design). They dismiss the sprite oddities/mistakes and warp it as "soul" to hurt later perceptions of 3D models (which when Gen 6 came out no one cared besides color). It's very forced thinking to ensure older gens aren't percieved poorly, as the internet since Gen 3 mandated the "old gens better" opinion
It's toxic, and unfortunately likely won't stop
TLDR: Gen 6 came out right after controversy + poorly repped its own mons in favor of Early Gen promos (Kanto starters gift, Megas, ORAS), so you won't see much defend it compared to 5/7
I think it would also make sense for there to be that kind of a divide considering that the debut paired games of a generation always sold considerably more copies than the third versions, which were pretty much made for hardcore double-dippers
Like, a casual fan who routinely stops playing shortly after they beat the Champion anyway isn’t going to care much about XY’s “lack of postgame” or about Zygarde not getting to be on the cover of a re-release that they probably wouldn’t have bought
I wouldn't doubt that at least several people would intentionally or unintentionally do some toxic nostalgia protecting their favorite Generation (5 already happened, and now it's likely go overboard for 7-9) thus getting on the nerves on those who strictly preferred the older generations (1-4, if not 1-2 or even just 1).
And nostalgia can end up encouraging laziness instead of creativity, with what such an elitist attitude among certain Romhackers to the point of pushing away those who tries a Romhack that isn't FireRed or even Emerald. Thankfully it's nowhere as any bad for PokéCommunity, but I got a bad feeling this can happen in stuff like Xwitter or other hyper-popular social medias.
I find a similar case with the Mega Man Classic Fandom, with too many only caring for 8-bits and refused to venture beyond. Several are more reasonable, of course, but with so many 8-bit-styled Mega Man fangames that follows almost every formula, there is bound to cause a fatigue to fangames.
Fangames of subseries like X and Battle Network are hard to come by, but do try their best to stand out from each others; the 16-bit remake of Mega Man X8 in particular is beloved, partially due to how sparse SNES-styled fangames are rare to come by as far as Mega Man fangames in general... and it is made within two years by one single person, and being moddable helps a lot to add back Zero or Axl by any competant modder, so the creator may not be pressured to add them back.
Make a Good Mega Man Level contests are an exception regarding 8-bit since the judges deliberately allows anything that breaks 8-bit to encourage creativity for level designs, so long that the 8-bit Mega Man sprite-style is respected; having a sheer scale, especially the third major entry, is also a good excuse for sticking with 8-bit spriting, as anything SNES / Genesis style or higher and it would take far too much time to make it worth it.
Another exception is Mega Man 8-Bit Deathmatch, similarly due to sheer scale and having every mainline Mega Man Classic special weapons programmed up to Mega Man 6 (and then MM7 thereafter via updates) in a 3D environment as it's based on the DOOM engine, plus having an in-depth story that isn't like any Mega Man fangame before it through V3, V4 or thereafter only helps makes it stand out further.
One final exception is Mega Man Maker... it's a level designer game that improved a lot over time, of course it's well liked beyond nostalgic values, helps that it managed to surpass Super Mario Maker in terms of what can be done and whatnot.
I still think Gen 4 is the worst gen on a technical level, looking at other JRPGs on the system that had similar or even lesser budgets makes it look so primitive.
It's much worse for DP than Pt/HGSS though, though I can't exactly describe why. My first game was Black, second was Soulsilver, then I got Diamond from a Gamestop for cheap. I was going backwards, but Soulsilver didn't read to me as "old" despite literally being a year before; but Diamond felt old. It also felt bland, even cheap at times, with very primitive graphics from the reading of my brain at the time.
And years later I still feel this way, even SWSH at least actually can look pretty good at times and was doing new shit. DP was basically a GBA game in 2.5D, when we had JRPGs straight up going 3D on the system, or just using interesting artstyles + combining portraits.
We can argue about what has aged well and what has aged poorly, but I wouldn't be surprised if people at the time thought this was pretty disappointing for Pokemon.
It's much worse for DP than Pt/HGSS though, though I can't exactly describe why. My first game was Black, second was Soulsilver, then I got Diamond from a Gamestop for cheap. I was going backwards, but Soulsilver didn't read to me as "old" despite literally being a year before; but Diamond felt old. It also felt bland, even cheap at times, with very primitive graphics from the reading of my brain at the time.
And years later I still feel this way, even SWSH at least actually can look pretty good at times and was doing new shit. DP was basically a GBA game in 2.5D, when we had JRPGs straight up going 3D on the system, or just using interesting artstyles + combining portraits.
We can argue about what has aged well and what has aged poorly, but I wouldn't be surprised if people at the time thought this was pretty disappointing for Pokemon.
based kaloschads are sadly oppressed by the unovacel hivemind and cynthia fanclub... we will have our day in the sun... soon...
For the sake of fairness I might as well bring up the one big mitigating factor for all the jank in DP that me and countless others gripe about in the modern day: The introduction of online play. I wasn't old enough to witness its advent and the reactions to it in person but it really was a complete game changer for the Pokemon community and probably the last huge paradigm-shifting innovation this series saw before the 3D switch. Everything else was easily overlooked and/or forgivable compared to the magnitude of online Pokemon battling and all the communities and personalities it launched. Of course nearly 20 years on we now take it for granted, hence DP's reputation sundowning over time, but if we're talking contemporary reception this is impossible to overlook.
Not to mention handhelds generally are not percieved to really need to try unlike console contemporaries, so casually new fans won't care if DP is "Gen 3 ported but...off", compared to more impressive looking DS games
And again, the anime moving to Cartoon Network did a lot. Lucario itself was VERY heavily promoted, despite online complaints of dub change late Gen 3. This is something missed, but post Gen 7's shift to streaming seriously hurt the anime rep for promoting regions, along with not adapting Galar legitimately
I get you're meming, but this unironically is how 4channers operate on the vp board towards later Gens with the name calling
Same for """"soul"""" arguments
And again, the anime moving to Cartoon Network did a lot. Lucario itself was VERY heavily promoted, despite online complaints of dub change late Gen 3. This is something missed, but post Gen 7's shift to streaming seriously hurt the anime rep for promoting regions, along with not adapting Galar legitimately
I get you're meming, but this unironically is how 4channers operate on the vp board towards later Gens with the name calling
Same for """"soul"""" arguments
Actually it's because RS had a bunch of bugs and limitations that FRLG didn't that become much apparent when attempting to hack it.
It requires a lot more than just address updates to make Emerald work, also Emerald added the Deoxys/Mew disobedience thing.
In what way?
The 3D games shown have less than a hundred monsters total, most of them recolors. It wouldn't have been possible for Pokémon.
That was intentional.