Unpopular opinions

[pika pal]

I like Origins when it started. It gave me what I was looking for, an adaption of the game. Yes I understand things change between adaptions and I'm okay with that, it's just when they start going too off track I start having a bit of a problem. For example I have no problem with Brock giving Red advice before arriving to Pewter City. It feels like something a Gym Leader would do; like Brock was on a stroll when he noticed two trainers battling, saw mistakes Red did resulting him losing, so after the battle Brock goes up to Red and gives him some advice. It not only provides Red with a lesson to help understand why he lost but also sets up Brock as an experienced trainer so when its revealed he's a Gym Leader he just doesn't feel like a guy just created to be a boss. Heck I have no problem with the "over" focus on Charizard because its Red's Starter. I don't know about all of you but my main Pokemon is usually my Starter.

So at the start I was liking it... then those straying away from the story started to happen. First off Red not needing to go to Silph Co. to get the Silph Scopes to go through Pokemon Tower. Now I understood why they did it and for the Pokemo Tower story it works... problem is they still needed Red to get involved with Silph Co.. So if Red wasn't going to Silph Co. to get the Silph Scopes how was he going to get involved? Well they have a secretary escape Silph Co. with Red and Blue's help who explains Team Rocket took over. Okay, I guess that works but this sounds more like a situation for the police. Like with Pokemon Tower people were too afraid to go in due to the ghosts, but here this is a hostile takeover which is something the police can handle.
But wait! We gotta have Blue act like a jerk and not want to help which I felt was taking his character trait way too far. Blue is a jerk, yes, and he does see Team Rocket as a more of a nuisance than a real threat. But still I don't think he would just walk away going "not my problem", I'd more imagine it would be "Red, this isn't our responsibility. I'm getting the police". You can then have Red argue there won't be here in time so he's going in but still it would actually make Blue look better and honestly more reasonable.
But yeah, felt that getting Red into Silph Co. felt a bit sloppy since they changed the original reason he went there.

I also had no problem with Mr. Fuji giving Red the Mega Stone (though its a bit too coincidental how he just so happened to have a Charizardite X and Red's Starter was luckily a Charizard. Actually if anything wouldn't Mr. Fuji have a Mewtwonite?). It was meant to advertise the new games so whatever, and now if they did ever remake Gen I again we now know when we'll be getting the ability to Mega Evolve in those games. :P

Then we come to Viridian Gym. Oh boy, Viridian Gym. So first off Giovanni using one Pokemon and it being a RhyHORN is BS. Not a Rhydon, but its pre-evolution. And it then goes to knock out five of Red's Pokemon despite them using moves that have a type advantage and it using moves that aren't (the above mentioned Thunderbolting Jolteon. Jolteon knew Double Kick but that didn't do anything to it). What was wrong with a "full" battle? Just montage it and make sure to show Giovanni getting into the battle and remembering when he became a trainer. Also I'm not so sure how I feel about Giovanni's "redemption". On one hand it makes more sense why Giovanni would dissolve Team Rocket and want to start over as he was reminded of his passion for being a trainer. But on the other hand now the storyline for GS doesn't make quite as much sense (it could still work I suppose, but they would need to rewrite it as Origin's Giovanni has no reason to return to Team Rocket so it wouldn't make much sense for them to beg him to come back). Also once again Giovanni started out with a Charmander, really? What was wrong with giving him like a Nidoran male (I personally always say Nidoking being his signature Pokemon because NidoKING).

I really had no problem with the Mewtwo fight, maybe Red could have used all the Legendaries Birds and have them put up a decent fight but hey they have to advertise Mega Evolution so whatever; still resulted in a cool fight (and I liked Origin's Mewtwo Theme). Also they confirmed Mr. Fuji was responsible for Mewtwo's creation which was neat.

Minor thing, but in Gen 1 you got the Silph Scope from the Rocket Hideout in Celadon. Aside from gameplay requiring you to do it before Sabrina, there wasn't any compulsion to go to Silph Co. in the games.

As far as the Giovanni battle, my one issue is that its progression is kind of contradictory to what Giovanni's arc seems like it should be. Giovanni became complacent using Pokemon as tools because no one could stop him, as shown when he curbstomped Red at Silph Co. That's sensible. So why does Giovanni's whole perspective on Pokemon change over the course of a battle that he's still dominating? Have Red legitimately give him a run for his money, and Giovanni remember what a thrill it was to have a good battle. It'd also coincide a bit with meshing his two motivations to end Team Rocket: Besides remembering why he loved Pokemon, it also shows he can better himself as a trainer, and Team Rocket isn't the way to do it. It stays in line with the Gen 2 plot since the Grunts might understand the latter, but not the former.

 

[JES]

Not sure if it counts as unpopular or not, but I think I want to post it here. I had a brief discussion on Bulba about Pokemon Showcases, and I think there's important things that people should know.

1. Pokemon Showcases are popular in Japan and East Asia, and is the thing that keeps grown men to watch the anime. It corresponds with the popularity of Idol performance animes in which are currently way more popular than magical girl animes.

2. Serena is the most popular female in Japan and East Asia ever. She is said to have the best personality, will become a good waifu, and has the best fashion sense.

3. Misty is actually not only unpopular in Asia, but also very hated. I know she is insanely popular in English places due to her personality, but her personality is exactly what that causes Asians to hate her -- tomboy, rude, bitchy, unwilling to cook, these are all undesirable features on females, and not how well taught girls should behave.
When May first came out, everyone was so glad that Misty was gone.
I know a lot of English speaking fans love Misty and get puzzled as to why the writers won't bring her back, but I guess the answer is obvious-- she's the least popular female in East Asia, worse than Iris.

4. Iris is perceived as annoying in the West, but this is not the reason why she isn't popular in Asia.
She received no ctiticism to her personality, but the main issue is her skin colour. Her hair and voice also received minor criticism. I don't think there will ever be another dark skinned heroine again.
( I love Iris though, and I thought she would be popular globally. Can someone explain why she's annoying?)

Which is too bad, because I really liked Misty's quirks. I loved it when she would run after Ash, Brock, or whoever set her off with a mallet, Looney Tunes style, or that gag in that episode with the zodiac-like Pokémon book where she was compared to a Gyarados, and got all pissed off!
I thought it was cute and/or funny that she had so much character.

 

[precita]

Which is too bad, because I really liked Misty's quirks. I loved it when she would run after Ash, Brock, or whoever set her off with a mallet, Looney Tunes style, or that gag in that episode with the zodiac-like Pokémon book where she was compared to a Gyarados, and got all pissed off!
I thought it was cute and/or funny that she had so much character.

Misty's mallet never appeared in more than about 4 very early Kanto episodes, and it was never used again. Its not Misty, its that Kanto itself was written like a slapstick comedy. Team Rocket would slap each other all the time, Brock slams his fist down on Misty's head in Bulbasaur's first episode, etc. None of these traits were exclusive to Misty at all.

All that early humor pretty much vanished once Orange Islands rolled along, likely because that's when the anime started to be written for an international audience rather than just Japan. If you notice that's also when Misty's temper is toned down considerably, and then in Johto she just has a motherly calm personality and she rarely got angry outside the odd episode.

One of the main reasons the writers gave Misty such an early permanent departure from the anime is because once Johto rolled along they had nothing to do with her. The slapstick humor was more or less gone, and the show had to focus more on the game related aspects. It doesn't surprise me that the very first gen that had a playable female lead from the start (Ruby/Sapphire games), the writers axed Misty in a heartbeat and never looked back.

 

[Pikachu315111]

Hey look someone turned this thread into a Youtube video:

You might get offended

Number 33 never stops hurting me hearing it... :(

 

[jordanthejq12]

Hey look someone turned this thread into a Youtube video:

You might get offended

Number 33 never stops hurting me hearing it... :(

Some discussion points, because I feel that video could make for some excellent talk:
3: No, I don't like Gen I. I've said this before, and I'll say it again: who cares how it sounds if it doesn't play correctly? RBY are very buggy games. I make the distinction between glitches, which require you to go out of your way to some extent, and bugs, which occur in the course of normal gameplay (Psychic being immune to Ghost, Focus Energy not working properly, etc.).
4: I love the jump to 3D. Doesn't stop the pacing issues and hurried storyline of XY, or ORAS not giving a crap about battle facilities.
8: They just need to fix Ash, not replace him. And that is all I will say on that subject.
10: I think we all have acceptable mispronunciations. "Pokeyman" is not one of them. Ever.
12: To be honest, I'm just not that big with card games. You can wipe the floor at TCG? Great, you do you. Cause I never can.
13: I first heard this from Tamashi. Considering she holds equal disdain for Diggersby promoting the brutish male stereotype, I can certainly roll with it.
15: Either it's perfect the way it is, it's only a marketing device so there's no need for any story (*cough* Digimon *cough*), or it's irredeemable.
19: Seriously, though, accept being corrected. We do take these things seriously.
20: #LoveWins #PokemonBreedingIsntAboutLove
22: I don't know kind of Pokemon fan you are if you haven't said that ironically at least once. Gen V didn't address everything, but suffice it to say they want to what beat the crap out of each other. Why? That's one for the mysteries thread.
25: So what? THEY PRINT MONEY! (In 3D!)
27: Well, they did have Mega Evolution before we did...
29: Did anybody play the first Mystery Dungeon? Gardevoir is awesome without being sexy. There.
30: I'm personally a fan of Spell of the Unown and Lucario and the Mystery of Mew. Those succeed at being not only Pokemon movies but movies, period.
34: Delelele-WHOOP! Top that. I dare you.
37: He used Johto as his visual, and it kind of falls flat because most people I know agree Chikorita fucking sucks. (Cute, though.)
40: You think the anime's bad? Go read The Electric Tale of Pikachu and get back to me.
45: Don't give the fanfic writers ideas, damnit!

Just some of my thoughts.

 

[Cresselia~~]

Some discussion points, because I feel that video could make for some excellent talk:
3: No, I don't like Gen I. I've said this before, and I'll say it again: who cares how it sounds if it doesn't play correctly? RBY are very buggy games. I make the distinction between glitches, which require you to go out of your way to some extent, and bugs, which occur in the course of normal gameplay (Psychic being immune to Ghost, Focus Energy not working properly, etc.).
4: I love the jump to 3D. Doesn't stop the pacing issues and hurried storyline of XY, or ORAS not giving a crap about battle facilities.
8: They just need to fix Ash, not replace him. And that is all I will say on that subject.
10: I think we all have acceptable mispronunciations. "Pokeyman" is not one of them. Ever.
12: To be honest, I'm just not that big with card games. You can wipe the floor at TCG? Great, you do you. Cause I never can.
13: I first heard this from Tamashi. Considering she holds equal disdain for Diggersby promoting the brutish male stereotype, I can certainly roll with it.
15: Either it's perfect the way it is, it's only a marketing device so there's no need for any story (*cough* Digimon *cough*), or it's irredeemable.
19: Seriously, though, accept being corrected. We do take these things seriously.
20: #LoveWins #PokemonBreedingIsntAboutLove
22: I don't know kind of Pokemon fan you are if you haven't said that ironically at least once. Gen V didn't address everything, but suffice it to say they want to what beat the crap out of each other. Why? That's one for the mysteries thread.
25: So what? THEY PRINT MONEY! (In 3D!)
27: Well, they did have Mega Evolution before we did...
29: Did anybody play the first Mystery Dungeon? Gardevoir is awesome without being sexy. There.
30: I'm personally a fan of Spell of the Unown and Lucario and the Mystery of Mew. Those succeed at being not only Pokemon movies but movies, period.
34: Delelele-WHOOP! Top that. I dare you.
37: He used Johto as his visual, and it kind of falls flat because most people I know agree Chikorita fucking sucks. (Cute, though.)
40: You think the anime's bad? Go read The Electric Tale of Pikachu and get back to me.
45: Don't give the fanfic writers ideas, damnit!

Just some of my thoughts.

Actually, after how Pokemon progressed and improved thoughout all these generations, makes me feel that Gen 1 was crap.
Not only they are very buggy, there aren't much Pokemon to choose from to make a good team.
You can't have team variants like baton pass/ rain/ sand/ trick room back in Gen 1, so lack in variety.
You can't set up calm mind substitute variants neither.
Gen 1 competitive was a joke-- pretty much every lead is for an unreliable sleep move, and your battle is basically decided on whether the sleep move misses.

Gardevoir is awesome in Gen 6! I love Gardevoir and I'm female, I've always imagined Gardevoir as a strong female figure, intelligent and all. (their brains surpasses human brains, as pokedex says) I love strong and intelligent females.

Tamashii's point of view on Diggersby was so ridiculous. She's just someone who chooses to believe the propaganda of modern feminism, which is totally not needed. Look, I'm female, but I think modern feminism is ridiculous.
(I personally think she's so popular because she looks cute and behaves shy. Her videos are hardly accurate, and worse still, recently, she's starting to put in strange feminism views into Pokemon.)

I hate it when English speakers keep inventing all sorts of ways to pronounce Pokemon. I don't understand why they have to do that. It's annoying as fuck.

 

[Hyper Cutter]

Even objectively, Red and Blue weren't all that great as games, moreso once you learn they're held together with the digital equivalent of duct tape and string. And they're based on the Japanese Blue version that was the improved rerelease of the original Red and Green, so I can only imagine what a dumpster fire their coding must have been.

 

[Cresselia~~]

Even objectively, Red and Blue weren't all that great as games, moreso once you learn they're held together with the digital equivalent of duct tape and string. And they're based on the Japanese Blue version that was the improved rerelease of the original Red and Green, so I can only imagine what a dumpster fire their coding must have been.

I think creativity was the only thing that makes Pokemon good back in Gen 1.
The buggy game was due to Mew being added AFTER debugging, and they didn't debug after adding Mew.

Nevertheless, it was very creative.

 

[LightningLord2]

I don't like Pokémon parodies because all of it is done to death. Given how all the fanfics, spinoffs and such go, I want to praise the anime for doing what no other adaptation of the Pokémon series does, which is a light-hearted and humourous take on the setting.

Pokémon Adventures is neat at some points - I liked the differing goals and intents of the trainers, as well as some of the side humor - but it quickly became too much like generic shonen to me. I was pretty hype when Red was facing a freaking Rhydon in Mt. Moon of all places (especially since Koga showed up), but most of the later fights became dull because the villians were too samey for me.

Let's move onto a fangame trying to be edgy. There, it turns from dull to flat-out embarrasing (I know Adventures isn't that dark, but it was notably more serious than the main games). Pokémon Reborn starts off with egdiness in an exaggerated way by blowing up the train you arrive in. While it is a somewhat drab place you arrive in, you have this massively shiny lab in a green area where you're provided one of eighteen starters. There's also a boatload of species to be found in the area, despite claims of Pokémon being incredibly rare in the region. The worst part is the OST, though - the town area around has a suitable but mediocre theme, but the rest is terrible, earbleeding techno remixes of Pokémon songs, without even trying to make them fit in (such as a Frontier Brain remix for wild Pokémon). Also, after getting my starter and doing a rival battle (yes, we're travelling to a supposedly dark region like it's an amusement park), there was this interrogation scene where the investigator strapped the person to a metal chair and threatened him with boiling him via a Fire-Type Pokémon (don't remember which one). Not only is the dialogue in this scene corny, you don't even know any of these people at this point, making it just a gratitious torture scene.

The game does present some interesting mechanics with an emphasis on field effects, but the story and atmosphere were so terrible I couldn't stand playing it any further.

 

[Fluke]

My unpopular opinion is: I like to lose Pokemon battles. Yes, you read that correctly. Not because I 'learn' more when I lose. It's not like I prefer losing over winning. It's just that I get satisfaction when my opponent wins against me.

 

[Oriolous]

My unpopular opinion is: I like to lose Pokemon battles. Yes, you read that correctly. Not because I 'learn' more when I lose. It's not like I prefer losing over winning. It's just that I get satisfaction when my opponent wins against me.

You psychopath. Nah, jk, I enjoy a good loss if I feel the loss was actually earned. If it was something like uber hax lulz, I tend to hate the loss, but if I was legit outplayed, then I feel satisfaction.

 

[Fluke]

You psychopath. Nah, jk, I enjoy a good loss if I feel the loss was actually earned. If it was something like uber hax lulz, I tend to hate the loss, but if I was legit outplayed, then I feel satisfaction.

I honestly don't even care about what happens in that match. I just get satisfaction from losing a Pokemon battle.

 

[Codraroll]

I honestly don't even care about what happens in that match. I just get satisfaction from losing a Pokemon battle.

So do Audino, probably. At least, that would explain lots of things about its availability and movepool.

 

[precita]

I don't get why some people like Brock so much in the anime at least post-Johto. I thought he wore out his welcome in the anime towards the end of Hoenn, but the writers made the mistake of continually bringing him back where his character just got worse and worse.

I'm rewatching through the DP series now and Brock has virtually no personality or character in any of the episodes. He does his flirting routine, explains battles, but that's it. He and Dawn also barely had any type of friendship or chemistry. He felt like nothing more than a third wheel. I sort of liked Brock up to the end of the Hoenn era but after that he really should have left.

What the writers are doing now with Cilan and Clemont is what they should have done from the start, bring in a new male Gym leader every series instead of rehashing Brock for 4 generations.

 

[Raravian]

My unpopular opinion is: I like to lose Pokemon battles. Yes, you read that correctly. Not because I 'learn' more when I lose. It's not like I prefer losing over winning. It's just that I get satisfaction when my opponent wins against me.

Could you perhaps explain this? I'm genuinely curious about what makes you feel satisfaction from losing. Right now the only reason I can think of is masochism. Or an insane amount of preference for the opponent instead of yourself, regardless of who that opponent is...

 

[Pikachu315111]

Hey look someone turned this thread into a Youtube video:

You might get offended

Number 33 never stops hurting me hearing it... :(

I guess I'll add my own thoughts on some of the things brought up:

To Be Offended Or Not

1. Genwunner. In my opinion there's two ways of using that phrase. The proper "Gen Oner" is someone who honestly likes Gen I the best despite its flaws but still can agree the other Gens have good things to them. The popular coined "Genwunner" should be only used as an insult to those who blindly thinks Gen I is the best and refuses to give the other Gens any credit.
7. Gen I Sprites. Well to be fair the original Red & Green's graphics did leave a lot to be desired with Japanese Blue/International Red & Blue graphics being only a bit better. But for those looking for sprites that look like the actual Pokemon's stock art I can imagine them being disappointed, at least until Yellow Version finally made the sprites look like their official artwork.
8. Ash's End. While I like many others have complained about Ash and how we should have moved onto a new protagonist a long time ago, I do just want to note that doesn't mean I don't want Ash to end up successful in some way. After having followed Ash for this long I do want him to have a happy ending, the problem is it would kind of feel strange for him to win a Pokemon League in a foreign region. Like had Ash won the Johto whatever, that's just a region over. But Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova, and Kalos? It would just feel odd for him to win any of those Pokemon Leagues. Honestly I think after Ash beat the Battle Frontier he should have taken the offer to become a Battle Brain. It's in Kanto (sure its based on Emerald's but in the anime it was in Kanto) and he's the first one to beat the challenge.
Off yet on topic while I generally liked the Sinnoh saga Ash not going through that regions Battle Frontier despite hinting at it was one of them most disappointing thing about the Sinnoh saga. The Frontiers seemed like the perfect chance to have Ash shine and show off his battling skills.
10. Pokemon Pronunciations. A hot debatable topic, personally as long as I can sort of see how you got that Pokemon's pronunciation from looking at its name I'm fine with it. Like for Misdreavus, I can see how one can get "miss-dree-vuss" or "miss-druh-vuss". However there are some pronunciations where I would say is just wrong, even if its official. For Kyogre I can see "kee-o-ger"/"kyi-o-ger"/"kee-o-grey"/"kyi-o-grey" but I cannot see how someone would get "kee-org" since the "r" is after the "g"! And do I even need to mention Arceus? And yeah, Pokemon is "poe-keh-mon", I don't see the "y" that would be needed to make it pronounced liked "poe-key-mon".
14. Worst Pokemon. Pfft, just telling someone what Pokemon you think is the best or is just your favorite would start arguments somewhere. :P
15. Anime Improvements. Who would complain about suggesting something that would improve the anime?
16. Mawile For A While. While the translators/writers should be more careful with something like spelling a Pokemon's name right, still I can't blame one writer who heard Mawile's name and wrote it as Mawhile if out of pure instincts if anything else.
17. Pokemon Is Evil. No only in Japan is its 1/18th Evil, in English its 1/18th Dark.
18. Theory Turndown. This sounds more like a criticism toward the "Mysteries and Conspiracies" thread than something that would make a Pokemon fan angry. :P
20. Pokemon Sex. Yeah, my Pokemon usually breed with an amorphous blob that has no gender so I'm not quite sure what that says about my Pokemon.
22. Ugh, PETA's Black & Blue. Why? Wasn't Team Plasma enough? Actually a funny thing about PETA's Black & Blue is that at the end they sort of support Team Plasma... except it was released after BW2 where Team Plasma pretty much became a black ops type syndicate. Like sure one of the bosses is Ghetsis but that still doesn't change their supporting the criminal syndicate that was formed under false pretense and in the game ultimately were proven to be wrong. It's like they never played the games... or rather they're maybe revealing something about themselves...
As for why does a Pokemon want to battle? Because to them battling is how they get stronger and to a Pokemon that's one of the most important things to them. Also all a Pokemon needs after a battle is a rest, at most an entire night's rest. Human and Pokemon biology is different; where a human would need to spend a few days/weeks recuperating a Pokemon is made to handle such things that they're up and out again in a few hours.
23. Fossil God. I actually kind of prefer Kabutops over Omastar myself.
29. Poor Gardevoir.

Keep Safe Search On

33. :(
36. Dragon Goomy. To be fair even the games make fun of Goomy. Also just because its popular doesn't mean its good, just means people like it (in Goomy's case its cute).
37. Picked Grass. Only applies for Gen II, BW2, and somewhat Gen VI. Grass Starter is a pretty good choice for Gen I, III, and IV for at least the beginning due to their first Gym Leaders being Rock-type. And to be fair to Chespin it does get Rollout to handle Viola's Bug-types (in addition to Gen VI having a wide variety of Pokemon you can get before battling her including Flying-types and a Pansear).
39. Starter Choice. Out of all the starters to make that joke with you picked the Gen V? Like I'd understand with the Gen IV or even Gen VI but Gen V has a pretty popular pick with Snivy.
40. Pokemon Innuendo. What? You must be imagining things.

Harden And Clamp

41. Gonna need Burn Heal for that one.
45. Caught Them All. GTS pretty much resolved that problem. :P
50. Anything You Say. Well if this thread isn't a testimony to that...

12: To be honest, I'm just not that big with card games. You can wipe the floor at TCG? Great, you do you. Cause I never can.
13: I first heard this from Tamashi. Considering she holds equal disdain for Diggersby promoting the brutish male stereotype, I can certainly roll with it.
19: Seriously, though, accept being corrected. We do take these things seriously.
27: Well, they did have Mega Evolution before we did...
34: Delelele-WHOOP! Top that. I dare you.
45: Don't give the fanfic writers ideas, damnit!

Just some of my thoughts.

This is gonna be a long post

12. I collected the cards but never played them besides against friends. I still have a lot of my cards sitting around, of course all of them probably are no longer allowed in tournaments so they're probably completely worthless. I still like them for the artwork though.
13. What? Diggersby promotes male stereotypes? Well I guess? It's more based on a construction worker/hiker stereotype instead of typical masculine stereotype. If anything its actually making fun of it with its big ol' belt and 5 o' clock shadow.
19. Depends on what's being corrected. While some information is worth correcting I imagine there's just as much which would just be nitpicking.
27. They also had fusions before Pokemon did. Though it does sometimes feel Digimon rides tagalong behind Pokemon like when a new gen is released so it's not a complete one way street of someone taking one thing from another. Its sort of like how Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance's Dream Eater system is kind of inspired by monster collecting franchises like Pokemon and Digimon but Pokemon then got the idea how to do the Pokemon-Amie mechanic.
34. Alright.

DJ Kricketune

45. Oh like the fanfic writers needed this guy to bring that up.

I'll address some other stuff later.

 

[noobcubed]

Okay, on some gen 1 stuff (puts on nostalgia glasses):

- Some Pokemon were clearly better than others, but compared with every other RPG at the time Pokemon Red/Blue had a lot more possible options because you picked six Pokemon from a possible 150, compared to other RPGs where you had a party of six characters that were forced upon you. Even if some of those Pokemon were terrible, you still had a lot more options to choose from. And it's not like in other RPGs every option laid out in front of you was equally strong.
- Type imbalance really wasn't that bad with the exception of Psychic being OP. Everything else was kind of okay, although some types like Fighting and Poison could really have done with more powerful moves.
- Competitive Pokemon wasn't a thing in gen 1, so criticising the retroactively-created gen 1 metagame is plain silly.
- Glitches - honestly I'm in two minds over this. Missingno, trainer-fly and all that stuff is fine, because most games, particularly old ones where people have spent years looking for glitches, have a ton of those and you won't stumble upon them by accident. Is Super Mario Bros a worse game because the Minus World exists? Does the fact that it's possible to glitch to the end of the game in under twenty minutes ruin Ocarina of Time?
Stuff liken the gen 1 miss chance (1/256 on every move in the game, bar Swift), or even the X Accuracy trick (ie every move has 100% accuracy after one X Acc, even OHKO moves) are more deserving of criticism, and here I'll admit that the games lack polish, though it doesn't single-handedly ruin them. Also a lot can be forgiven considering that no other game on the GameBoy had anything like this much content - the programmers really had to cram in almost more than the cartridge could handle, in doing so they took short-cuts, which meant removing some of the sanity checks in the code, which led to glitches...
- Story - I've heard a few people (but not that many really) complain about the almost complete lack of story in Pokemon R/B. Personally, I feel like that's criticising The Passion of the Christ for not having enough jokes in it. Pokemon is a gameplay-first RPG, and its USP has always been the Pokemon themselves. And Pokemon are not characters, or at least they don't have personality projected onto them*. Your Bulbasaur isn't suddenly going to have a nervous breakdown because it killed a Rattata. Your Pidgey isn't going to struggle to control its unrequited feelings for your Jigglypuff. It's just not that sort of game.

*By the game anyway, of course the player can project personality onto them via nicknames etc, and that's part of the fun.

 

[Millky95]

- Story - I've heard a few people (but not that many really) complain about the almost complete lack of story in Pokemon R/B. Personally, I feel like that's criticising The Passion of the Christ for not having enough jokes in it. Pokemon is a gameplay-first RPG, and its USP has always been the Pokemon themselves. And Pokemon are not characters, or at least they don't have personality projected onto them*. Your Bulbasaur isn't suddenly going to have a nervous breakdown because it killed a Rattata. Your Pidgey isn't going to struggle to control its unrequited feelings for your Jigglypuff. It's just not that sort of game.

*By the game anyway, of course the player can project personality onto them via nicknames etc, and that's part of the fun.

The story of gen 1 is much better when you think your vs your rival is the A story, Beating the Gyms is he B story and Team Rocket is the C story.

You are a young boy who wants to be a Pokemon Champion. Your neighbour also has the same dream and is constantly one step in front of you. Has always beaten the Gym Leader before you even enter the town, appearing when you least expect and even want and managing to capture more Pokemon than you no matter how much you try. You beat him in battles but it still isn't enough. He is always one step in front of you. So you continue to battle the Gym Leaders and train your team but you run into Team Rocket. A team your own Rival thinks is beneath him. You fight him twice in Team Rocket locations (if you count Pokemon Tower as a Rocket area, 3 if you count nugget bridge). Team Rocket turn out to be the last hurdle before you can face the Elite 4, but your rival already has that badge too. Then going through Victory Road only for Trainers in there to tell you that your Rival has already beaten them. You expect a fight after Victory Road to see who can face the Elite 4 but he isn't there. he is busy becoming champion before you. But you finally beat the Elite 4 and have to face 1 final opponent to reach your dreams. Your rival. The man who was always one step in front of you. The man you never got respect from despite you managing to beat him. The man "too good" to help stop Team Rocket.

But yeah, the Rival story in Gen 1 is the main story

 

[Norne]

I miss the times where the villain team wasn't forced into the story that much, but still worked as a road bump, gen 1 and 2 for all their shortcomings did that right.

In contrast to gen 4 that has a terrible experience gain decrease after the villain climax before the gauntlet challenge.

Gen 3 suffered from it but had a smaller level spike and suffered more from game design retardation than from act 2 climax exhaustion.

Gen 5 patched this well and to some extent gen 6 kalos with its last stretch level design before the gauntlet.

But still the aim of selling us a legend Pokémon by villain team has started to wear off in excitement after gen 4 and was bearable due to story telling implementation in gen5, we could use the legends as optional side quests(regi trio, swords of justice b2w2) rather than story implementation as roadblocks on ingame challenge, that would at least allow a different approach to story telling while avoiding the designers cornering themselves in a experience exhaustion scenario that often plagues RPG before the final battle.

 

[stage7_4]

We really need to get off the story horse, it won't work well with pokemon. Well the main series anyway (I love you mystery dungeon explorers of time/darkness/sky).

The main cause is that most stories are character driven, which is hard to implement when your game stars are pokemon. Even harder since there's no game mandate on what pokemon the player could have on his team, so as a writer you're tasked with making a story that can seemlessly star over 700 silent monsters. And you wonder why they get shallow.

You could just beef up all the human characters personalities (like Black and White did) but go too far down that road and the catch 22 of "isn't this a pokemon game? Why is it all about people?" comes back to bite you. Again, the very premise limits how much can be done with traditional storytelling (3 act plot, character development, pacing, etc.)

Not that we can't have a good story, but I just feel that when pokemon games are supposed to encapture the thrill of bug collecting, the story is best when its atmospheric and discovery based. Like they told more with Sea Mauville or N's Room than anything an NPC told me. And we can have a good story starring pokemon, but it just means a lot of the premise has to change (the aforementioned mystery dungeon games. Well, game I guess, gates to infinity was so-so. How's super looking?)

For a new unpopular opinion: Lavender Town and it's music aren't that creepy. At all.

 

[Norne]

It's not an unpopular opinion, it's just a sad meme that refuses to die, it's just a bunch of cute high notes bundled together for a rather peaceful experience.

If anything the sense of persecution and claustrophobia that comes with Silph Co is the true star on first runs with the whole warp panel thing becoming confusing.

Rocket hideout deserves a special mention as the big first wham, but since Viridian forest uses a similar tune it isn't as impactful, FR/LG version is an underappreciated gem.

 

[pika pal]

I personally blame the availability of uber mascot legendaries for the lategame difficulty spikes the game saw in Gens 3-5, while compounding the already easy lategame in Gen 6. The game designers obviously expected you to have these Olympus Mons if they offer them to you before the game's beaten, so they had to design lategame fights that were reasonably difficult even if you used those. Cynthia's signature Garchomp is weak to the mascot Legendary's STAB, so how do they keep it the strongest mon without just swapping it to a Steel Type resistor instead? Jack it's level up so fucking high no singular mon in the game will beat it without ridiculous amounts of grinding.

I give Gen V a pass on that since BW made the last fights thematic and ensured the fights weren't ridiculous, but also that while helpful, the Dragon alone wouldn't win you the fight. B2W2 also had the sense to make the Legendaries story elements without letting you use them yourself. The Olympus mons should be bonus quests, your reward for playing more after you clear the main game.

 

[jordanthejq12]

And then Gen VI comes and you don't even need the cover legend. Hello, EXP Share and Amie.

 

[Lady Vader]

B2W2 also had the sense to make the Legendaries story elements without letting you use them yourself. The Olympus mons should be bonus quests, your reward for playing more after you clear the main game.

This is how they should do it. Especially since they kinda throw powerful 'mons at us nowadays instead of letting us find them, such as Mega Lucario and the Latis.

 

[Pikachu315111]

LightningLord2: With Pokemon fan games the problem I often see with them is that the creator goes overboard and doesn't really have anyone check what they did and say "maybe you shouldn't". Like they do an edgy story though it feels like they do so because they just can/want to instead of having something to actually say. They also jam pack everything in and I just don't mean with Pokemon. Often important characters from other games would suddenly pop-up out of nowhere and get involved with the plot even though they have no reason to. Pokemon distribution is also all over the place because they want as much variety available at the start though never stopping to consider does this Pokemon belong in this environment or consider that Pokemon's power compared to others. Official Pokemon games have years of balancing done deciding what Pokemon goes where trying to provide the player with just enough Pokemon but not too many.

precita: I'm guessing after the fan backlash with Tracey they decided to stick with Brock since the male companion sadly serves little purpose compared to Ash and the female companion. You're right at the very least they should have started changing things up like they did with the female companion starting Gen III. Actually I could have sworn remembering seeing anime art of Ash, May, and the archaeologist guy CotD from AG002 posing as if they were the main group. But anyway I wouldn't mind if the male companion would be the male playable character (heck, if they're going to give Ash a unique rival maybe have the male companion be the game's rival). But anyway, they're switching out the male companion now so it's sort of a moot point.

noobcubed: On story: Well Pokemon always had a story but the thing is, barring Gen V, the story was actually secondary. I think at the time Pokemon was a unique RPG since the main focus wasn't the story but the monster catching, training, and battling to become the Champion. In most RPGs they reason for the game is the story you're following in them, but in Pokemon that take a backseat and is only there to add flavor to the game. Gen V had the most story out of any Pokemon game and even it had to do so by mixing the story with the focus of the game. Also, outside of Gen V, the reason the story probably feels lacking is because you're not chasing after the villain team, you just so happened stumble across them or here where they're going to strike next and go there. So if anything it more feels like there's a story there its just the game isn't interested in it as you got monsters to catch, train, and use to become the Pokemon Champion.

stage7_4: Actually I think putting more thought into the Pokemon World would be a good compromise to less story (especially if you can connect it back to the main mechanics somehow). Like take Sea Mauville, its fill with SO MUCH atmosphere and story yet doesn't really have to do much with Pokemon. Yet it doesn't feel out of place, probably because there's trainers around who battle you and you got to use your Pokemon to navigate around.

pika pal: I liked how they handled the cover Legendaries in Gen V. In BW there's a story reason why you needed to catch the Legendary since N had the other dragon while in BW2 they kept the Legendary as a boss which you could catch later (though they did make the Musketeer Trio required encounters). If written with them in mind I'd like the cover Legendaries to be involved with the story but for gameplay purposes I would rather have them be a tough boss battle rather than the difficulty being trying to catch them.

New Unpopular Opinion: Not sure how unpopular it is, but I do think some Pokemon that got a Mega Evolution still deserve a normal evolution. So I don't think Mega Evolutions should be the be-all-end-all for certain Pokemon and if said Pokemon do get a new evolution they should retire the Mega Evolution and give the new evolution a Mega. Not going to name any specific examples but I don't think a Pokemon having a Mega Evolution should restrict them to getting a new evolution if decided they could use one.