Unpopular opinions

[Ransei]

Diantha is overhated. Not because she's remarkable as a Champion, but because the Champion title in mainline games is regarded way too highly by fans and Pokémon can easily make better final bosses than any of them by how they currently are.

In the grand scheme of the video game series, for what trainers have really been shown to be capable of, all non-player Champions in mainline games suck on some level. Cynthia happens to suck the least battle-wise, but is a watered-down Steven character-wise and does not have anything worth being notable outside her battle being rough mostly for newcomers. The fact its too much to ask for Gamefreak to have Champion trainers build up teams consisting of legendary and/or mythical Pokémon and have then be level 100 somewhere in the postgame proves my point especially when side series and spinoff games give us:
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Supertrainer_(Trainer_class)
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Mysterial
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Giovanni_(GO) (battles are 3v3)
https://www.serebii.net/stadium2/rival.shtml
and many battles against Masters EX Sync Pairs where mainline characters are given Pokémon that far exceed anything they ever had in mainline games, such as Sygna Suit Leon + Eternatus.

You're also able to set up battles like these in Pokémon Conquest, where notable NPC characters have legendary Pokémon that they've shown to earn in the game and all of them are at the equivalent of level 100:

In the main series department, players can battle the likes of Pokémon such as Level 100 Latios, Zapdos, Suicune, and many more of this caliber in gens 3-4 battle facilities. They're all Level 50 in Gens 5-7 but you are also capped at Level 50, still making it an even and fair fight. Arceus itself spits over dozens of random level 100 Pokémon at you in the Eternal Battle Reverie, including legendaries such as all 3 creation trio members simultaneously, with the Arceus itself being the final boss, at maximum level. The player themselves have access to encountering many wild Pokémon and many trainers with Pokémon far beyond anything an official NPC Champion has ever shown to have in main series games. It has gotten to the point where something seemed terribly off, and in Generation 6, Pokémon became more realistic with explaining their hierarchy of trainers.

In the image below, a trainer in Pokémon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire realizes there are many random trainers who are stronger than Champions, as being stronger than the Champion is the requirement for trying out the Battle Institute and many trainers from all over the World of Pokémon have access to it.

In these same games, there's a trainer class known as Secret Base Trainers. Players can make NPC versions of themselves by creating Secret Bases and sharing them with others to end up in other people's games. Their NPC selves can be given three of any Pokémon, ranging from Bulbasaur to Mega Diancie on the National Dex. All Pokémon found in Super Secret Bases are registered as seen on the Pokédex, the trainer battle gives you money, depending on the level of Pokémon you fought ranging from 1-100, and Secret Base Trainers are an official trainer class in these Pokémon games. If you really wanted to you can go out and actually battle some NPC in ORAS with a Level 100 Arceus every day. I've done that for nearly a month at one point.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Secret_Base_Trainer_(Trainer_class)

There's plenty of more examples to pick from for where regular trainers and what players are able to encounter exceed anything an official NPC Pokémon Champion has ever shown in mainline games, but the point I'm trying to express is that no Champion was truly ever great, aside from the player. Diantha shouldn't be slandered as hard as she is nor should Cynthia be praised as much as she is.


That being said, Geeta single-handedly makes the whole title of Champion look like a joke with how she runs the league. She claims is "utterly incapable of holding back" while simultaneously using the most subpar organization of Pokémon we've ever seen from a Champion and focusing her emotions on whether or not her challengers follow by basics such as not letting their Pokémon get hit by super effective moves. She literally babies her challengers into being "good enough" to be considered Champion of the region while giving them battles where she is blatantly not trying her best despite making a victory against her be the main qualifier of the Champion position. It feels as if she's trying to hand out Champion positions like candy rather than making it a truly meaningful position with a lot of responsibility. In older gens, we not only know for sure that a Champion is giving their all, but know they can expect their challengers to not have to be babied for a title designed to portray what's on paper, one of the strongest positions that can be held in a Pokémon region, as even making it past the Elite Four in the first place shows how much experience the challenger has had.

Ok that was all. I just felt like rambling about this.

 

[Basedwell]

View attachment 710294

Literally no Typhlosion sprite has ever come close to its Gold sprite where it's daintily hopping around like it knows it's gonna fuck you up but it's decided to have some fun while it does it

now here's a sprite where it looks like it can throw a punch unlike certain future iterations where it looks like a t-rex doing that sort of activity

 

[pokemon4eva]

There's plenty of more examples to pick from for where regular trainers and what players are able to encounter exceed anything an official NPC Pokémon Champion has ever shown in mainline games, but the point I'm trying to express is that no Champion was truly ever great, aside from the player. Diantha shouldn't be slandered as hard as she is nor should Cynthia be praised as much as she is.

Diantha's most notable flaw imo is how little of a presence she makes in her game, despite being a superstar level celebrity in Kalos. You only meet her twice in the whole game before the champion battle, very few times ppl talk about her (I don't think anyone brings up her trainer skill at all) and she's not even present at all during the Flare crisis, sth that was televised to everyone. To not bring up his predecessors, Leon feels like a better executed character. He's also a celebrity in his region, but his public reputation makes the 'superstar' aspect of him feel more believable. So I don't think it's entirely a teambuilding issue.

That being said, Geeta single-handedly makes the whole title of Champion look like a joke with how she runs the league. She claims is "utterly incapable of holding back" while simultaneously using the most subpar organization of Pokémon we've ever seen from a Champion and focusing her emotions on whether or not her challengers follow by basics such as not letting their Pokémon get hit by super effective moves. She literally babies her challengers into being "good enough" to be considered Champion of the region while giving them battles where she is blatantly not trying her best despite making a victory against her be the main qualifier of the Champion position. It feels as if she's trying to hand out Champion positions like candy rather than making it a truly meaningful position with a lot of responsibility. In older gens, we not only know for sure that a Champion is giving their all, but know they can expect their challengers to not have to be babied for a title designed to portray what's on paper, one of the strongest positions that can be held in a Pokémon region, as even making it past the Elite Four in the first place shows how much experience the challenger has had.

Ok that was all. I just felt like rambling about this.

I understand Paldea manages the Champion title differently from other regions, being ranks that more than one trainer can carry, but man, that Top Champion moniker isn't doing her any favors. I've seen arguments that "actually going easy" is how she's supposed to play against challengers, but at this point, they have beaten 8 gym leaders and the E4. If she's really not going all out then that's pretty darn condescending...

Speaking of which where tf are the other champion rank trainers? Paldea had sth unique with this, but the only regular champion rank we see is Nemona, who feels so lonely that there's no trainer that can match her...in a region where there's multiple champion rank trainers that share her title??? Again, the game does a poor job in executing an otherwise interesting idea.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Diantha's most notable flaw imo is how little of a presence she makes in her game, despite being a superstar level celebrity in Kalos. You only meet her twice in the whole game before the champion battle, very few times ppl talk about her (I don't think anyone brings up her trainer skill at all) and she's not even present at all during the Flare crisis, sth that was televised to everyone. To not bring up his predecessors, Leon feels like a better executed character. He's also a celebrity in his region, but his public reputation makes the 'superstar' aspect of him feel more believable. So I don't think it's entirely a teambuilding issue.

Diantha is a mid champion character-wise, with a fairly weak team.

The real hate towards her is that she's coming off Gen 4 and 5's more developed champions, so she is quite a downgrade compared to the likes of Lance, Cynthia, N, and Iris.

 

[Basedwell]

I'm still adamant that monotype champions are better, to me Lance, Iris, and Steven are the hardest champs, because with a more diverse team, I'm more likely to have a counter I can trade down. And all I have to do is to have 1 Pokemon remaining after all the trades

With a monotype team (relatively speaking here) even if I have 1-2 counters for the specific type, it's likely to be insufficient to beat 6 strong Pokemon, which will cause me to think of a plan. For example, in HGSS, my Lapras could easily 1 v 1 a Dragonite, but even with Shell Bell, it couldn't do all 3.

 

[Esserise]

Diantha is a mid champion character-wise, with a fairly weak team.

The real hate towards her is that she's coming off Gen 4 and 5's more developed champions, so she is quite a downgrade compared to the likes of Lance, Cynthia, N, and Iris.

I don’t think “developed” is the word I’d use to describe anyone on that list besides N. Cynthia and Lance are more involved than Diantha, but as far as the depth of character goes, they’re all pretty flat. (Actually, I think Alder warrants a mention in the character depth department. It’s not extensive, because ultimately he exists to be usurped by N, but we do get more backstory on him and why he has the outlook that he does than we do with Lance, Steven, Wallace, Cynthia, or Diantha, who are all just good and wise people by default.)

And Iris is probably even less involved than Diantha… she shows up, what… once during the story of B2W2? And that’s just to hold your hand to the sewers.

 

[Basedwell]

I don’t think “developed” is the word I’d use to describe anyone on that list besides N. Cynthia and Lance are more involved than Diantha, but as far as the depth of character goes, they’re all pretty flat.

And Iris is probably even less involved than Diantha… she shows up, what… once during the story of B2W2? And that’s just to hold your hand to the sewers.

I feel like there's something maternalistic aesthetically about Cynthia. i don't remember exactly what gave me that impression, it may have been how she interacted with Cyrus

 

[AztecCroc]

I'm still adamant that monotype champions are better, to me Lance, Iris, and Steven are the hardest champs, because with a more diverse team, I'm more likely to have a counter I can trade down. And all I have to do is to have 1 Pokemon remaining after all the trades

With a monotype team (relatively speaking here) even if I have 1-2 counters for the specific type, it's likely to be insufficient to beat 6 strong Pokemon, which will cause me to think of a plan. For example, in HGSS, my Lapras could easily 1 v 1 a Dragonite, but even with Shell Bell, it couldn't do all 3.

Steven isn't monotype though? Rock/Bug, Rock/Grass, Steel/Flying, Steel/Rock, Ground/Psychic, Steel/Psychic.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

I'm still adamant that monotype champions are better, to me Lance, Iris, and Steven are the hardest champs, because with a more diverse team, I'm more likely to have a counter I can trade down. And all I have to do is to have 1 Pokemon remaining after all the trades

With a monotype team (relatively speaking here) even if I have 1-2 counters for the specific type, it's likely to be insufficient to beat 6 strong Pokemon, which will cause me to think of a plan. For example, in HGSS, my Lapras could easily 1 v 1 a Dragonite, but even with Shell Bell, it couldn't do all 3.

That's... an interesting point of view.

I guess it depends a lot on the type and team composition. For example, Wallace can put some pressure on people because Water is such a great type, but can you really say you don't have at least 2 mons with TBolt to beat him?

My biggest problem with Cynthia's team is that Spiritomb, besides the "Holy shit, it has no weaknesses" factor, is not threatening enough. If it could effectively handle one mon on its own somehow, it'd be a lot better and she'd be even stronger.

As is, you're kind of right, you usually have to go band for band until you can Ice Beam that Garchomp and pack her up. Even then, it's impressive how Cynthia usually can have answers to what mons you got. Usually, a major in-game trainer boils down to "Pick a lead with a type advantage, press A on the SE move as needed, win." Outside of Switch mode (And that's mostly because it tells you her switch-in), you're not in a great spot after KOing something against her.

To me, it boils down to strong mons and a coherent strategy. A Champion shouldn't be like... Well, this:

Now that was a bad champion, good lord.

 

[pika pal]

Diantha is overhated. Not because she's remarkable as a Champion, but because the Champion title in mainline games is regarded way too highly by fans and Pokémon can easily make better final bosses than any of them by how they currently are.

In the grand scheme of the video game series, for what trainers have really been shown to be capable of, all non-player Champions in mainline games suck on some level. Cynthia happens to suck the least battle-wise, but is a watered-down Steven character-wise and does not have anything worth being notable outside her battle being rough mostly for newcomers. The fact its too much to ask for Gamefreak to have Champion trainers build up teams consisting of legendary and/or mythical Pokémon and have then be level 100 somewhere in the postgame proves my point especially when side series and spinoff games give us:
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Supertrainer_(Trainer_class)
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Mysterial
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Giovanni_(GO) (battles are 3v3)
https://www.serebii.net/stadium2/rival.shtml
and many battles against Masters EX Sync Pairs where mainline characters are given Pokémon that far exceed anything they ever had in mainline games, such as Sygna Suit Leon + Eternatus.

You're also able to set up battles like these in Pokémon Conquest, where notable NPC characters have legendary Pokémon that they've shown to earn in the game and all of them are at the equivalent of level 100:
View attachment 710478View attachment 710477

In the main series department, players can battle the likes of Pokémon such as Level 100 Latios, Zapdos, Suicune, and many more of this caliber in gens 3-4 battle facilities. They're all Level 50 in Gens 5-7 but you are also capped at Level 50, still making it an even and fair fight. Arceus itself spits over dozens of random level 100 Pokémon at you in the Eternal Battle Reverie, including legendaries such as all 3 creation trio members simultaneously, with the Arceus itself being the final boss, at maximum level. The player themselves have access to encountering many wild Pokémon and many trainers with Pokémon far beyond anything an official NPC Champion has ever shown to have in main series games. It has gotten to the point where something seemed terribly off, and in Generation 6, Pokémon became more realistic with explaining their hierarchy of trainers.

In the image below, a trainer in Pokémon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire realizes there are many random trainers who are stronger than Champions, as being stronger than the Champion is the requirement for trying out the Battle Institute and many trainers from all over the World of Pokémon have access to it.
View attachment 710487

In these same games, there's a trainer class known as Secret Base Trainers. Players can make NPC versions of themselves by creating Secret Bases and sharing them with others to end up in other people's games. Their NPC selves can be given three of any Pokémon, ranging from Bulbasaur to Mega Diancie on the National Dex. All Pokémon found in Super Secret Bases are registered as seen on the Pokédex, the trainer battle gives you money, depending on the level of Pokémon you fought ranging from 1-100, and Secret Base Trainers are an official trainer class in these Pokémon games. If you really wanted to you can go out and actually battle some NPC in ORAS with a Level 100 Arceus every day. I've done that for nearly a month at one point.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Secret_Base_Trainer_(Trainer_class)

There's plenty of more examples to pick from for where regular trainers and what players are able to encounter exceed anything an official NPC Pokémon Champion has ever shown in mainline games, but the point I'm trying to express is that no Champion was truly ever great, aside from the player. Diantha shouldn't be slandered as hard as she is nor should Cynthia be praised as much as she is.


That being said, Geeta single-handedly makes the whole title of Champion look like a joke with how she runs the league. She claims is "utterly incapable of holding back" while simultaneously using the most subpar organization of Pokémon we've ever seen from a Champion and focusing her emotions on whether or not her challengers follow by basics such as not letting their Pokémon get hit by super effective moves. She literally babies her challengers into being "good enough" to be considered Champion of the region while giving them battles where she is blatantly not trying her best despite making a victory against her be the main qualifier of the Champion position. It feels as if she's trying to hand out Champion positions like candy rather than making it a truly meaningful position with a lot of responsibility. In older gens, we not only know for sure that a Champion is giving their all, but know they can expect their challengers to not have to be babied for a title designed to portray what's on paper, one of the strongest positions that can be held in a Pokémon region, as even making it past the Elite Four in the first place shows how much experience the challenger has had.

Ok that was all. I just felt like rambling about this.

Here's my unpopular opinion: The Battle Facilities are overvalued when discussing Trainer Scaling like this, and I hate that Ace Trainer for reinforcing that idea. They make for very fun gameplay additions, but their post-game status is conflated with their lore value. At large this is putting way too much stock on concessions made for gameplay as opposed to something the world designers thought about putting stock in for what little consistency the series has. I want to briefly dress down some of the other examples before I dig into the facilities.

• First, Rivals, Supertrainers, and Mysterial appear strictly in Battle-only games like Stadium or specifically the story-agnostic Battle-Sim modes of the Orre games. They don't mean a damn thing for what the series is saying about trainer power narratively
• Giovanni in Pokemon Go, aside from clearly playing by different Gameplay rules (Go's Shield system and Charge Moves vs Turn-based main series) is also in-lore using Shadow Pokemon that have been pumped to high hell with a non-standard power level (as are most Rocket Shadows) breaking 5 Digit Combat Power (for reference, Mega Rayquaza, the literal strongest thing you can get Numerically, caps out below 6500) that isn't retained when you rescue-capture the Pokemon yourself (as compared to the Orre Games' Narrative Shadows). You're essentially saying Giovanni proves the Champions can be stronger when the world building is that these Pokemon are artificially enhanced into fighting machines, literally a shortcut to power that the villains take because they're not good but want shortcuts to power.
• Arceus in the Eternal Battle Reverie is a setting that has minimal Pokemon Battling compared to other Pokemon settings (even including a lot of spin-offs), and is hosted by the Capital-G God of the setting in what is either a dream or other-worldly scape. This is the equivalent of calling a Professional Boxer mid because they're not as strong as God summoning Angels or Beerus throwing Goku at you. Narratively these aren't comparable circumstances or rosters.
• Also if we're going to bring post-game into this, do we just ignore the level jumps given to the E4 and Champions in most games which put their levels on top of the majority of in-game trainers that aren't player-plants (no, that dude in a Secret Base with 3 Level 100 Arceus is not canon, you numbskull)?

The Facilities specifically implement a Level set to equalize power between trainers: the guy using a Level 100 Latios isn't rocking Level 100 Pokemon he trained, he's running it because you max leveled your stuff and the Powers that be for the Game systems need to make sure you don't number stomp the Super Bosses the way you can the main game. Most of the Frontier Brains, the "best of the best" for their facilities, also have pretty unimpressive teams if not for the handicap of their facility's mechanics (Dusknoir with Fling when it's a slot machine to get a Berry, much less a thing to throw), and the anime/other depictions make a pretty consistent show that they're in line more with the stronger Gym Leaders than the Elite Four or Champions (Ash taking down the entire Hoenn frontier, meanwhile he can't even touch a Champion opponent until either the Runner-Up Kalos match or the Masters 8).

Diantha gets dunked on because she's in the gassed up Champion position and yet she has jack to do with the story until she's revealed as such: Gen 1 is nebulous because I was never clear if Lance was top dog before Blue or Blue replaced a prior champion, but Gens 2-5 all depict the Champion making multiple plot-important appearances before they take the spot of the endgame (which in BW still applies to N taking the title from Alder with his Dragon), while Diantha has 2 conversations amounting to "what are you talking about?" and then disappears during the impending WMD Apocalypse that was broadcast over the airwaves (Compare Steven/Wallace during the Weather Crisis or Cynthia following to the Distortion World) without any excuse or even handwave (like imagine if the Champ was Malva or a Team Flare Plant to manipulate the masses). Diantha is a terrible Champion not because her team is weak, but because the story almost seems to forget she plays the part until the last minute.

I've always found bringing game mechanics into Power Scaling (as opposed to events and feats acknowledged by the story) idiotic since games are by nature designed for the player rather than a 1-to-1 reflection of a story they're watching vs interacting with (notice how you losing a climactic battle never canonically causes the actual end of the world, vs everyone just waiting around to do a retake). This is the equivalent of arguing that because I can pit AI Krillin with a bunch of Super-Perks against AI Super Saiyan 4 Gogeta in a DBZ game and have the former win, that Super Vegito isn't the strongest character in the roster due to the game making it possible for someone else to hit harder than him. If the Champions weren't truly great, neither were the arguments against them when we look at THIS as a standard.

 

[Esserise]

I feel like there's something maternalistic aesthetically about Cynthia. i don't remember exactly what gave me that impression, it may have been how she interacted with Cyrus

She gives me maternalistic vibes too, what with all the chores she assigns me

“Be a dear and take this medicine to those sick Psyduck on the other side of the region, if you’d please?”

“Be a dear and run this necklace up to my grandma in the next town over, would you?”

“Be a dear and stop that genocidal lunatic and the rampaging antimatter demon from destroying the world, if you wouldn’t mind?”

 

[Ironmage]

I'm still adamant that monotype champions are better, to me Lance, Iris, and Steven are the hardest champs, because with a more diverse team, I'm more likely to have a counter I can trade down. And all I have to do is to have 1 Pokemon remaining after all the trades

With a monotype team (relatively speaking here) even if I have 1-2 counters for the specific type, it's likely to be insufficient to beat 6 strong Pokemon, which will cause me to think of a plan. For example, in HGSS, my Lapras could easily 1 v 1 a Dragonite, but even with Shell Bell, it couldn't do all 3.

By default, I'd probably assume that the player has a single stronger ace than a balanced team because that's where casual players seem to start with. So I think of monotype gyms more under the logic of stacking checks to a massive threat than exhausting a regular-strength answer (with multiple gyms splitting the duties since the typing of the player's ace isn't knowable). The champion needs to be consistently intense by itself, so it's more awkward in general. If you were running a faster Ice like Froslass, would multiple Dragonites still be a problem? Interestingly, I think of Diantha as not having a great team because I felt that I could threaten a sweep with one mon (aegislash) with her only answer being shared with another E4's primary type (so I would already be prepared for it).

 

[Basedwell]

That's... an interesting point of view.

I guess it depends a lot on the type and team composition. For example, Wallace can put some pressure on people because Water is such a great type, but can you really say you don't have at least 2 mons with TBolt to beat him?

That's fair. I haven't played through each game that many times

My biggest problem with Cynthia's team is that Spiritomb, besides the "Holy shit, it has no weaknesses" factor, is not threatening enough. If it could effectively handle one mon on its own somehow, it'd be a lot better and she'd be even stronger.

As is, you're kind of right, you usually have to go band for band until you can Ice Beam that Garchomp and pack her up. Even then, it's impressive how Cynthia usually can have answers to what mons you got. Usually, a major in-game trainer boils down to "Pick a lead with a type advantage, press A on the SE move as needed, win." Outside of Switch mode (And that's mostly because it tells you her switch-in), you're not in a great spot after KOing something against her.

To me, it boils down to strong mons and a coherent strategy.

Against Cynthia, my team was Houndoom, Azumarill, (naked) Rotom with specs, Staraptor, Garchomp, and Bronzong

My general strategy was to start Houndoom, take out Spiritomb, then Cynthia brings in Milotic. I let Houndoom go down, and then bring in Choice Specs Rotom who one shots. Cynthia brings in Garchomp, who one shots Rotom. I intim spam with Staraptor and switch in Bronzong. When safe, bring in Azumarill who can KO Garchomp with Ice Punch.

Then, Cynthia brings out Roserade, and I can bring in Bronzong who walls it. Then there's Lucario who Garchomp can deal with, and Togekiss can be handled between wtv remains of Garchomp and Azumarill and Staraptor.

I beat Cynthia the first time my team was between 52-56 in levels i think, or wtv is reasonable.


With Lance in HGSS, I went in there with Typhlosion, Scyther, Quagsire, Lapras, Heracross, and a slightly underleveled Ursaring, and I had trouble with him at a similar level disparity. Half the team couldn't do jack. Ofc part of that is the lack of good tms in Johto and hiding Thunderbolt behind a fucking minigame but...

By default, I'd probably assume that the player has a single stronger ace than a balanced team because that's where casual players seem to start with. So I think of monotype gyms more under the logic of stacking checks to a massive threat than exhausting a regular-strength answer (with multiple gyms splitting the duties since the typing of the player's ace isn't knowable). The champion needs to be consistently intense by itself, so it's more awkward in general. If you were running a faster Ice like Froslass, would multiple Dragonites still be a problem? Interestingly, I think of Diantha as not having a great team because I felt that I could threaten a sweep with one mon (aegislash) with her only answer being shared with another E4's primary type (so I would already be prepared for it).

that's fair and an interesting assessment I hadn't considered.

With HGSS Lance, he's def a bit lower down in terms of champions I like bc I'd say the difficulty comes in part from your limitations as to movesets/tms and lack of available counters in the region. Iris does it better, although you're right, if you have a great counter it trivializes the fight.

 

[ant4456]

You're missing the forest for the trees.

No one is directly comparing OoT to Platinum as games. The comparison made was their impact on their franchises as gold standards and how, in certain ways, despite their impact, they're showing their age.

Also, that second bit is objectively incorrect. The Zelda franchise did not start at OoT. A Link to the Past had a fairly similar structure to it in many ways. The biggest difference is that Ocarina of Time did it in 3D and on an unprecedented scale at the time. Building upon the old games, as Platinum itself did, is one of the reasons Ocarina wound up so iconic.


Perfectly said.

There's another layer to this. Pokémon games nowadays have major gimmicks attached to them since XY introduced Megas. SV went a step beyond and made the game open-world. Regardless of how one feels towards it, SV is very different from a traditional Pokémon game. That only reinforces the comparison between OoT and Platinum's impacts on their franchises.

I'm gonna make it entirely blunt: I do not think Pokemon Platinum is a good videogame, I think Ocarina of Time is a good videogame, even though I am not personally a fan of Ocarina of Time either.

Pokemon Platinum does not have a steep legacy that brought what Pokemon is today. Generation 5 itself denied 80% of what Sinnoh did and brought along new things, and despite what people may say, the games afterwards are actually fairly direct follow ups on Unova's game design trends.

What Generation 4 brings in legacy is Physical/Special Split and Wi-Fi Battles, features that likely would have come anyways, and just happen to be in the generation of Sinnoh.

Sinnoh's game design cannot be an Ocarina of Time because it's just Kanto Game Design but 10 years later, and unlike the jump from A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time, Platinum is actually fucking uglier and less technically impressive than its predecessors, Gen 3. I've said it before several times, I think Generation 4, especially DP, is the most behind Game Freak has ever been with its technical prowess: Including the Switch generation. At best, it slides slightly ahead of one of the Switch games.

There is no leap. Generation 4 was a very linear "upgrade" from its predecessors. Most of its new shit has been ignored since. Its legacy is happenstance additions and characters like Cynthia, and Pokemon; things that move on from every generation.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Generation 5 itself denied 80% of what Sinnoh did and brought along new things, and despite what people may say, the games afterwards are actually fairly direct follow ups on Unova's game design trends.

I fail to see how. Could you elaborate?

 

[Sonikku A]

Pokemon and Bomberman kind of have the issue of core gameplay barely innovating outside addons for a lobg while. Bomberman suffered from it being immediately noticeable late 90s, so for "Bombermsn Hero" Hudson Soft tried a conventional 3D platformer, then a region locked arena fighter on Sega Saturn, then a mixed gameplay N64 "platformer", then GC/PS2 they experiment with arena based movement alongside a pet rpg system

Unfortunately they suddenly stopped doing mainline Bomberman titles on home console afterwards (hard to tell if it's cuz of Act Zero or not), along with most spinoffs that were either overly done party games for Land, or handheld/digital download standard Bomberman games. Then Konami bought them and...repeated the same issues for not innovating but with scummier DLC practice

Pokemon...yeah by Gen 3 we should've ditched 4 directional movement and gotten better OW story focus, but it took till Gen 6 to break the former, Gen 7 to actually model environments none rigidly, and Gen 5 attempting the latter is mixed given map design mainly

So I agree with ant that Plat isn't really worth comparing to OoT in terms of tech or gameplay progression. A lot of what made Plat way better than DP is...bringing back shit from previous Gens (Better surf speed, Mons, Battle Frontier). Distortion World while cool as a setpiece is gameplay wise not that different, and Cyrus' undercooked antisocialness is only mildly improved. Cynthia incidentally is nerfed for first fight, and doesn't actually do much when joining the player to the Distortion World. So she's still a bootleg Steven story wise :V

This is also why BDSP didn't piss me off despite being mid. It fixed DPs mon distribution issue with the Grand Underground mechanics, and general QoL improvements Gen 5 on eases a lot of things (especially the HM slave issue). It's just aesthetically mixed, and Gym/E4 teams from DP being memeably bad. The affection mechanics do hurt the game difficulty immensely, though rematch teams aren't fucking around

 

[Yung Dramps]

Another day, another post that I can't neatly fit into any thread so I'm picking this one off vibes

I've been replaying XY for obvious reasons and one thing that came to mind upon ruminating on this game is that in some ways it might've actually served as a better 20th anniversary celebration than SM
-Despite sticking closer to the grid-based map design of old, Kalos is undeniably a higher scope region than Alola with a huge number of routes, the biggest regional Pokedex and several hefty manmade landmarks including the biggest city up to that point. This would've made sense if their release order had hypothetically been reversed - Start small(er) to adjust to 3D, then go all-out for the 20th with more experience on the hardware
-Mega Evolution's celebratory applications, especially with several being for perennial mascots like the Kanto starters, Mewtwo and Lucario, are self-explanatory
-While there aren't any old character cameos, Kalos has plenty of pronounced callbacks to old regions (Santalune Forest being based on Viridian, Sycamore studying under Rowan, the Reshiram & Zekrom statues at Parfum Palace, etc.)
-Even the mascot legendary duo being based around the cycle of life and death could've plausibly been used for some kind of meta commentary on the franchise's longevity

 

[ant4456]

I fail to see how. Could you elaborate?

Generation 5 started the linear story Pokemon game.

While there are some side routes, the region has significantly more in common with a region like Galar than it does Sinnoh, Hoenn, Kanto or Johto. It's essentially a circle with a line underneath that is used as the tutorial, and you walk around that circle until hitting the top.

This reflects in how the locations are not very interconnected, as became the case with almost every Pokemon game since this region.

In a game like Hoenn or Sinnoh, most towns will have several routes. An example is Mauville, you can go West and it connects to Rustboro, East which is where you go when you get Surf. South is Lilycove, and North is the main story progression.

While some towns aren't this dense, most of them are, with several ways to get in and out from many directions. Unova and future regions instead take a very linear structure of Town -> Route -> Town with them not connecting very much. Where Unova does do this, is usually reserved for connections to the post-game areas.

This is because, before the Unova games, the regions had a Metroidvania-esque progression where they gave more paths to backtrack as you got more exploration tools, and because they *wanted* you to see obstacles and go back, open up new paths.

While a lot of these are optional, the fact is that Unova and most subsequent games have few connections because the towns are less meant to be hub stops between routes, and more window dressing with core necessary parts on the way to the next story event, or places just to have a Gym Badge.

Because Unova is a story-game first where they want high pacing and to push you down further with repeated boss battles and constantly seeing new places. From Unova and onward, there's an increased focus on having several Rivals because they want to give players many boss battles as a finger snap to pay attention.

Let's compare Unova's first Gym and Melemele Island versus the beginning moments (up to the first gym) of Sinnoh games.

Unova: You start off with the two rival fights, standard fair, of course. But then you get to Accumula Town and have a Rival fight against N. Then you get to the end of the second route and you fight Bianca again. Now you fight Cheren again. Then you fight the Gym.

That's 6 total Major Story Battles.

Melemele Island has your opening fight with Hau of course, then you fight him again, then you fight Trial Captain as a fairly tough fight, then you fight the Trial Captain. That's 5 total Major Story Battles.

In Sinnoh, you fight Barry, then you get to do an entire route. Then you fight Barry one more time, then you take another route and after exploring the cave you fight the Gym.

3 Total Major Story Battles.

But that's not all. Because what's also extremely noticeable is how this pacing continues throughout the games. Alola and Unova are especially guilty of constant boss battles or Team Encounters. In Unova, I've talked several times before about how every single time you leave a town in this game you get stopped for a Team Plasma / Rival encounter, and that should be very clear from just memory. Striation City -> Nimbasa City is an obvious one.

First, you fight Bug Man. Then you get stopped by Bianca at the gate for a battle. Then you get stopped by Cheren in the Desert. Then you have to fight N at Nimbasa City. Then you fight the Gym leader.

Alola and Galar have similar parallels.

I didn't mention it before, but here's Galar's First Gym Run:

Fight Hop.
Fight Hop again.
Fight Hop a Third Time.
Fight Bede in the Cave.
Fight the first Gym Leader.

5

Now, I will say that Galar is not nearly as guilty as Alola/Unova for spamming bossfights, but that's also honestly probably because the game is unfinished lol. The game in general is devoid of many moments At All and we have clear evidence in datamines of cut content. That being said, the game is not really devoid of this practice, as they made three rivals for a reason.

Between the second and third gyms, for instance, you fight Bede and Marnie, then afterwards you fight Hop again. These games are constantly cycling encounters.

Just on a numerical count, I'm lazy so I'm using Nuzlocke Tracker but let's graph out the boss fight total number count by game:

I used Firered/Heartgold as the remakes because I thought that just made sense.

Asterisks:

Heartgold* I removed the Kanto Gym Leaders, Red and the encounter with your rival at Mt. Moon. I consider this post-game material, but if you do count that as the main game, it's 38.

Ultra Sun* The original number was 54 including the Team Rainbow Rocket storyline, which has like 8 boss fights on its own. I don't consider that the main storyline.

As you can see, on average there is a massive jump from Sinnoh to Unova that stays strong, and even increases from there. Scarlet and Sword are at a decline, but still above Sinnoh by a decent amount. Except Black 2 and White 2. Now, let me talk about that real quick:

EDIT: I fucked up the graph. See, Idk why but when I made the first iteration of it I didn't include B2W2, and then when editing it back in I messed up the order. Swap Pokemon X and Black 2 on the graph for it to be accurate, and that is why I talk about how B2W2 is a low point directly after.

Black 2 and White 2 could be seen as a counter-argument to this graph and my point about bossfights I'm about to get into, but I don't think it goes against my overall point.

Now, why do I focus on bossfights so hard? Because IMO this is a great representation of the shift between Gen 1-4 and Gen 5-8: Gens 1-4 are primarily routes with bossfights as little treats, towns as rewards for making it through a long bit of gameplay without heals. Gen 5 and onward, bossfights are very frequent and the focus on routes is much smaller. The game is mostly about getting through story moments and the routes are just ways to get between Point A and B.

Black 2 and White 2 is still like this, which is really the overall point- I just like how bossfights *generally* show this shift in trend for plot and focus in the games' designs, but I am not going to argue it is a cause-and-effect necessarily. I believe it to be generally true, but I do understand it's not simply cause and effect in of itself.

Anywho, the point on map design. Here is how you move through B2W2:

Now this is, like Kalos, still basically just a loop where sometimes you go to a side dungeon and then go back to the town there. The only thing that really is a connector in the main storyline is Undella Town, where you back track through, with several towns it actually connects to, which is rare from here on out.

But overall I still think this is 100% a loop. It's also just a very linear map in general. It's something you can't get around in a Unova game- because literally it's a oval.

I touched on BW1's map design earlier, and I wanna note that Galar is very similar it's kinda just two smaller Unovas stacked onto each other. A few side routes not there, sure, but also the Wild Area frankly evens it out in my opinion:

View attachment 711592

Alola is similar in that you're mainly going in circles around Islands before finishing a loop and that's the end of the island. Poni Poni is the only one that isn't really like this.

A common critique of a lot of this era of games is that these games feel like Disney parks rather than open adventures, and that started with Unova, frankly.

Kalos may look a bit more complicated, but it's really just still a loop around the region with little interconnectivity outside of Lumiose City; like, the bare minimum.

It's a more windy loop where sometimes you go to a side area before going back to the main route, but like the only interconnectivity is really Santalune (which doesn't matter until you beat the game) and Lumiose, where you go back several times to fight Lysandre/Get the badge and go to Route 14.

You can use Route 16 to Dendemille but wow, like one option? Crazy. I guess my point is dismantled.

The only map you can argue is semi-similar to this sort of trend is the Johto map because it's small and has a loop in the middle with two outside lines.

But what it lacks for in map connectivity it makes up for how the second half of the region is essentially a neat CYOA as we all know, where you can do gyms out of order to an extent.

This is another point in this argument where you can use this one example where my point isn't extremely obviously true and go "well guess I'm throwing the entire thing out", but I think we can all implicitly understand that Kanto, Hoenn and Sinnoh have extremely similar map design sensibilities and Unova, Kalos, Alola and Galar all pretty much do as well.

Johto itself is a weird case because of how it's a Kanto DLC and I still think it has more freedom than any game past Sinnoh. Shit, even the fact that the loop connects back so nicely without it taking the *full region* is part of why Crystal Clear works so well.

Now let's look at some other points of Sinnoh's design and specifically presentation:

Pokemon Black and White already essentially had the essentials of how 3D Pokemon would work, compared to Sinnoh which is still basically PNGs with a song in the background.

Here's some things that both Pokemon Black and Pokemon X's battle scenes have in common:

-The camera moves. It tries to be more dynamic by moving about while waiting to select your move.
-The Pokemon are constantly animated, giving more energy to the scene.
-The camera zooms in on certain attacks, giving more depth to the animation.
Notice how none of that shit is in common with Platinum? Because Platinum was very behind its time and basically felt like a ported up GBA battle system graphically.

Now, I know this may seem "petty" kind of, but this is the kind of thing that to me makes Gen 5 such a 3D Pokemon coded game: Because frankly it basically is one, it's just on the DS.

The Era of Shitting Out Battle Gimmicks:

Pokemon Black and White started a trend in the series where games kept adding random whacky ways to battle, which hadn't been the case since Emerald, essentially.

Here's the new Battle Formats by game. I am not counting Contests, I consider those minigames. Bulbapedia Source:

Full Battle: Gen 1
Double Battle: Gen 3
Multi Battle: Gen 3
Triple Battle: Gen 5
Rotation Battle: Gen 5
Launcher Battle: Gen 5
Horde Battle: Gen 6
Sky Battle: Gen 6
Inverse Battle: Gen 6
Battle Royale: Gen 7
SOS Battle: Gen 7
Max Raid Battle: Gen 8
Tera Raid Battle: Gen 9

Outside of Double Battles and basically just that with 1 player per Pokemon on the field in Gen 3, almost every single new type of battle in the series comes from Gen 5+.

Now I want to get into like, actually Sinnoh and its design philosophy.

Sinnoh is, in my opinion, actually a pretty unintuitive region to navigate, especially as a kid. I know this because when I was a kid I was one of those people that accidentally went out of order in gyms, and spent a lot longer going through side routes because I didn't know what I was doing. We also know the developers between DP and Plat took this into heart because they changed the official Badge order lol.

It doesn't help that, another minor change between games, remember that after Generation 1 all of Johto, Hoenn and Sinnoh get funky with the Route numbers while Unova and beyond restart with Route 1 or have other names.

Sinnoh is a region that has towns connecting into each other and routes splitting off a decent amount. It's very much a part of the game that you are going to be going back to places and going off new splintered areas, backtracking through the region with new tools or just newly available parts of the storyline.

There's only really two times during a Unova playthrough where using Fly is your only way out of a big backtracking segment, which is the way to Relic Castle and back. (btw just realized I forgor to put this on the map thing, apologies! That isn't me trying to be dishonest, I just forgot!)

Meanwhile Sinnoh is gonna take you for a ride all over the fucking place.

Now, I want to be clear, this is not me necessarily criticizing Sinnoh's region being like this, my issues aren't interconnectivity. But that I think it's very immediately clear that this is absolutely not how Unova+ games are designed.

And it's not just a Sinnoh thing, Hoenn and Kanto similarly take you for a ride:

For the sake of example, I'm gonna have this Kanto route go in dev-order of badges. I'm also gonna use Bulbapedia's guide of getting to Fuschia but you can do whatevs you like ofc. Personally I am Cycling Road pilled:

And Hoenn:

Less complex than Kanto and Sinnoh IMO, but overall much more interconnectivity and backtracking through the plot. There's also a lot of optional routes that head back to other places that you can take, but I'm mapping out the main story route. evil tea

In terms of pacing, Gens 1-4 generally focus on having many side routes and core routes that are relatively calm, and usually demanding to get through without expending a lot of heals or backtracking to a Pokemon Center. There's usually less encounters with story relevant characters, but usually with Evil Teams they're much larger segments.

In Gens 5-8, the side characters, plot and evil team is much more directly interwoven to the plot and core design of the region, the region feeling more like straight lines in order to make good setpieces to feed all of this to you. Routes tend to be shorter with more rest stops and HMs are de-emphasized, until they're streamlined as hell.

Most things Unova introduces are true for Gens 5-8, big or small. Hidden Abilities. Permanent TMs. Even stuff like the quick select that was reused in Gen 6, there's way more cohesion. Gen 4 and 5 are not actually very similar of games, anymore than Alola and Sinnoh are!

People group them together because they're both on the same system and we're in the nostalgia cycle where both of these games are supposed to share the crowned spot as "the peak", but in truth Unova starts so much of modern series design philosophy. I feel like the only things people really have is "they both have a lot of post game content" which like, sure I guess? I think the main campaigns matter a lot more to the game design of the series, though. There's just so much that Unova does that is more in line with modern games: B2W2 really is the start of The Giant Fucking Regional Dex.

Stolen from R_N 's old ass post:

Emerald: 202
DP: 151
Platinum: 210
BW: 156
B2W2: 301!!!
Kalos: 457
SM: 302
USUM: 403
Galar: 400

B2W2 really started the Expansion of the dex, adding around 100 before XY crushed that record (becoming the largest). Clearly that was too much so since then we've settled from 300 -> 400, which in my opinion is honestly a pretty good number.

Overall, I think that Unova sparks a change in priority in the design of the series, how the series will go aesthetically (even musically, but I don't have the music brain to dissect that, IMO music Gen 5 and up sounds pretty different than Gen 1 to 4) and that it feels like the devs in this soft-reboot. I dunno. Soft-rebooted the series.

Which means that a lot of the design of old, of which Sinnoh was a part of, was kinda pushed aside. A lot of Sinnoh's legacy is as I said initially, nostalgia, Cynthia memes and some of the Pokemon designs, many of the most popular being evolutions of old Pokemon. It's not that Sinnoh has nothing going for it, but it is not a game that set the stage for what the series would become. It is not an Ocarina of Time at all.

Anywho I could talk a lot about how Generation 5 was the actual spark of shift in the series design, but like I've already spent way too fucking long on this. I'm tired lol

 

[Yung Dramps]

Generation 5 started the linear story Pokemon game.

While there are some side routes, the region has significantly more in common with a region like Galar than it does Sinnoh, Hoenn, Kanto or Johto. It's essentially a circle with a line underneath that is used as the tutorial, and you walk around that circle until hitting the top.

This reflects in how the locations are not very interconnected, as became the case with almost every Pokemon game since this region.

In a game lie Hoenn or Sinnoh, most towns will have several routes. An example is Mauville, you can go West and it connects to Rustboro, East which is where you go when you get Surf. South is Lilycove, and North is the main story progression.

While some towns aren't this dense, most of them are, with several ways to get in and out from many directions. Unova and future regions instead take a very linear structure of Town -> Route -> Town with them not connecting very much. Where Unova does do this, is usually reserved for connections to the post-game areas.

View attachment 711586

View attachment 711587
This is because, before the Unova games, the regions had a Metroidvania-esque progression where they gave more paths to backtrack as you got more exploration tools, and because they *wanted* you to see obstacles and go back, open up new paths.

While a lot of these are optional, the fact is that Unova and most subsequent games have few connections because the towns are less meant to be hub stops between routes, and more window dressing with core necessary parts on the way to the next story event, or places just to have a Gym Badge.

Because Unova is a story-game first where they want high pacing and to push you down further with repeated boss battles and constantly seeing new places. From Unova and onward, there's an increased focus on having several Rivals because they want to give players many boss battles as a finger snap to pay attention.

Let's compare Unova's first Gym and Melemele Island versus the beginning moments (up to the first gym) of Sinnoh games.

Unova: You start off with the two rival fights, standard fair, of course. But then you get to Accumula Town and have a Rival fight against N. Then you get to the end of the second route and you fight Bianca again. Now you fight Cheren again. Then you fight the Gym.

That's 6 total Major Story Battles.

Melemele Island has your opening fight with Hau of course, then you fight him again, then you fight Trial Captain as a fairly tough fight, then you fight the Trial Captain. That's 5 total Major Story Battles.

In Sinnoh, you fight Barry, then you get to do an entire route. Then you fight Barry one more time, then you take another route and after exploring the cave you fight the Gym.

3 Total Major Story Battles.

But that's not all. Because what's also extremely noticeable is how this pacing continues throughout the games. Alola and Unova are especially guilty of constant boss battles or Team Encounters. In Unova, I've talked several times before about how every single time you leave a town in this game you get stopped for a Team Plasma / Rival encounter, and that should be very clear from just memory. Striation City -> Nimbasa City is an obvious one.

First, you fight Bug Man. Then you get stopped by Bianca at the gate for a battle. Then you get stopped by Cheren in the Desert. Then you have to fight N at Nimbasa City. Then you fight the Gym leader.

Alola and Galar have similar parallels.

I didn't mention it before, but here's Galar's First Gym Run:

Fight Hop.
Fight Hop again.
Fight Hop a Third Time.
Fight Bede in the Cave.
Fight the first Gym Leader.

5

Now, I will say that Galar is not nearly as guilty as Alola/Unova for spamming bossfights, but that's also honestly probably because the game is unfinished lol. The game in general is devoid of many moments At All and we have clear evidence in datamines of cut content. That being said, the game is not really devoid of this practice, as they made three rivals for a reason.

Between the second and third gyms, for instance, you fight Bede and Marnie, then afterwards you fight Hop again. These games are constantly cycling encounters.

Just on a numerical count, I'm lazy so I'm using Nuzlocke Tracker but let's graph out the boss fight total number count by game:

View attachment 711594

I used Firered/Heartgold as the remakes because I thought that just made sense.

Asterisks:

Heartgold* I removed the Kanto Gym Leaders, Red and the encounter with your rival at Mt. Moon. I consider this post-game material, but if you do count that as the main game, it's 38.

Ultra Sun* The original number was 54 including the Team Rainbow Rocket storyline, which has like 8 boss fights on its own. I don't consider that the main storyline.

As you can see, on average there is a massive jump from Sinnoh to Unova that stays strong, and even increases from there. Scarlet and Sword are at a decline, but still above Sinnoh by a decent amount. Except Black 2 and White 2. Now, let me talk about that real quick:

Black 2 and White 2 could be seen as a counter-argument to this graph and my point about bossfights I'm about to get into, but I don't think it goes against my overall point.

Now, why do I focus on bossfights so hard? Because IMO this is a great representation of the shift between Gen 1-4 and Gen 5-8: Gens 1-4 are primarily routes with bossfights as little treats, towns as rewards for making it through a long bit of gameplay without heals. Gen 5 and onward, bossfights are very frequent and the focus on routes is much smaller. The game is mostly about getting through story moments and the routes are just ways to get between Point A and B.

Black 2 and White 2 is still like this, which is really the overall point- I just like how bossfights *generally* show this shift in trend for plot and focus in the games' designs, but I am not going to argue it is a cause-and-effect necessarily. I believe it to be generally true, but I do understand it's not simply cause and effect in of itself.

Anywho, the point on map design. Here is how you move through B2W2:

View attachment 711596

Now this is, like Kalos, still basically just a loop where sometimes you go to a side dungeon and then go back to the town there. The only thing that really is a connector in the main storyline is Undella Town, where you back track through, with several towns it actually connects to, which is rare from here on out.

But overall I still think this is 100% a loop. It's also just a very linear map in general. It's something you can't get around in a Unova game- because literally it's a oval.

I touched on BW1's map design earlier, and I wanna note that Galar is very similar it's kinda just two smaller Unovas stacked onto each other. A few side routes not there, sure, but also the Wild Area frankly evens it out in my opinion:

View attachment 711592

Alola is similar in that you're mainly going in circles around Islands before finishing a loop and that's the end of the island. Poni Poni is the only one that isn't really like this.

A common critique of a lot of this era of games is that these games feel like Disney parks rather than open adventures, and that started with Unova, frankly.

Kalos may look a bit more complicated, but it's really just still a loop around the region with little interconnectivity outside of Lumiose City; like, the bare minimum.

View attachment 711593

It's a more windy loop where sometimes you go to a side area before going back to the main route, but like the only interconnectivity is really Santalune (which doesn't matter until you beat the game) and Lumiose, where you go back several times to fight Lysandre/Get the badge and go to Route 14.

You can use Route 16 to Dendemille but wow, like one option? Crazy. I guess my point is dismantled.

The only map you can argue is semi-similar to this sort of trend is the Johto map because it's small and has a loop in the middle with two outside lines.

But what it lacks for in map connectivity it makes up for how the second half of the region is essentially a neat CYOA as we all know, where you can do gyms out of order to an extent.

View attachment 711597

This is another point in this argument where you can use this one example where my point isn't extremely obviously true and go "well guess I'm throwing the entire thing out", but I think we can all implicitly understand that Kanto, Hoenn and Sinnoh have extremely similar map design sensibilities and Unova, Kalos, Alola and Galar all pretty much do as well.

Johto itself is a weird case because of how it's a Kanto DLC and I still think it has more freedom than any game past Sinnoh. Shit, even the fact that the loop connects back so nicely without it taking the *full region* is part of why Crystal Clear works so well.

Now let's look at some other points of Sinnoh's design and specifically presentation:

Pokemon Black and White already essentially had the essentials of how 3D Pokemon would work, compared to Sinnoh which is still basically PNGs with a song in the background.


View attachment 711601

View attachment 711602

Here's some things that both Pokemon Black and Pokemon X's battle scenes have in common:

-The camera moves. It tries to be more dynamic by moving about while waiting to select your move.
-The Pokemon are constantly animated, giving more energy to the scene.
-The camera zooms in on certain attacks, giving more depth to the animation.
Notice how none of that shit is in common with Platinum? Because Platinum was very behind its time and basically felt like a ported up GBA battle system graphically.

Now, I know this may seem "petty" kind of, but this is the kind of thing that to me makes Gen 5 such a 3D Pokemon coded game: Because frankly it basically is one, it's just on the DS.

The Era of Shitting Out Battle Gimmicks:

Pokemon Black and White started a trend in the series where games kept adding random whacky ways to battle, which hadn't been the case since Emerald, essentially.

Here's the new Battle Formats by game. I am not counting Contests, I consider those minigames. Bulbapedia Source:

Full Battle: Gen 1
Double Battle: Gen 3
Multi Battle: Gen 3
Triple Battle: Gen 5
Rotation Battle: Gen 5
Launcher Battle: Gen 5
Horde Battle: Gen 6
Sky Battle: Gen 6
Inverse Battle: Gen 6
Battle Royale: Gen 7
SOS Battle: Gen 7
Max Raid Battle: Gen 8
Tera Raid Battle: Gen 9

Outside of Double Battles and basically just that with 1 player per Pokemon on the field in Gen 3, almost every single new type of battle in the series comes from Gen 5+.

Now I want to get into like, actually Sinnoh and its design philosophy.

Sinnoh is, in my opinion, actually a pretty unintuitive region to navigate, especially as a kid. I know this because when I was a kid I was one of those people that accidentally went out of order in gyms, and spent a lot longer going through side routes because I didn't know what I was doing. We also know the developers between DP and Plat took this into heart because they changed the official Badge order lol.

It doesn't help that, another minor change between games, remember that after Generation 1 all of Johto, Hoenn and Sinnoh get funky with the Route numbers while Unova and beyond restart with Route 1 or have other names.

Sinnoh is a region that has towns connecting into each other and routes splitting off a decent amount. It's very much a part of the game that you are going to be going back to places and going off new splintered areas, backtracking through the region with new tools or just newly available parts of the storyline.

There's only really two times during a Unova playthrough where using Fly is your only way out of a big backtracking segment, which is the way to Relic Castle and back. (btw just realized I forgor to put this on the map thing, apologies! That isn't me trying to be dishonest, I just forgot!)

Meanwhile Sinnoh is gonna take you for a ride all over the fucking place.

View attachment 711610

Now, I want to be clear, this is not me necessarily criticizing Sinnoh's region being like this, my issues aren't interconnectivity. But that I think it's very immediately clear that this is absolutely not how Unova+ games are designed.

And it's not just a Sinnoh thing, Hoenn and Kanto similarly take you for a ride:

For the sake of example, I'm gonna have this Kanto route go in dev-order of badges. I'm also gonna use Bulbapedia's guide of getting to Fuschia but you can do whatevs you like ofc. Personally I am Cycling Road pilled:

View attachment 711611

And Hoenn:

View attachment 711612

Less complex than Kanto and Sinnoh IMO, but overall much more interconnectivity and backtracking through the plot. There's also a lot of optional routes that head back to other places that you can take, but I'm mapping out the main story route. evil tea

In terms of pacing, Gens 1-4 generally focus on having many side routes and core routes that are relatively calm, and usually demanding to get through without expending a lot of heals or backtracking to a Pokemon Center. There's usually less encounters with story relevant characters, but usually with Evil Teams they're much larger segments.

In Gens 5-8, the side characters, plot and evil team is much more directly interwoven to the plot and core design of the region, the region feeling more like straight lines in order to make good setpieces to feed all of this to you. Routes tend to be shorter with more rest stops and HMs are de-emphasized, until they're streamlined as hell.

Most things Unova introduces are true for Gens 5-8, big or small. Hidden Abilities. Permanent TMs. Even stuff like the quick select that was reused in Gen 6, there's way more cohesion. Gen 4 and 5 are not actually very similar of games, anymore than Alola and Sinnoh are!

People group them together because they're both on the same system and we're in the nostalgia cycle where both of these games are supposed to share the crowned spot as "the peak", but in truth Unova starts so much of modern series design philosophy. I feel like the only things people really have is "they both have a lot of post game content" which like, sure I guess? I think the main campaigns matter a lot more to the game design of the series, though. There's just so much that Unova does that is more in line with modern games: B2W2 really is the start of The Giant Fucking Regional Dex.

Stolen from R_N 's old ass post:

Emerald: 202
DP: 151
Platinum: 210
BW: 156
B2W2: 301!!!
Kalos: 457
SM: 302
USUM: 403
Galar: 400

B2W2 really started the Expansion of the dex, adding around 100 before XY crushed that record (becoming the largest). Clearly that was too much so since then we've settled from 300 -> 400, which in my opinion is honestly a pretty good number.

Overall, I think that Unova sparks a change in priority in the design of the series, how the series will go aesthetically (even musically, but I don't have the music brain to dissect that, IMO music Gen 5 and up sounds pretty different than Gen 1 to 4) and that it feels like the devs in this soft-reboot. I dunno. Soft-rebooted the series.

Which means that a lot of the design of old, of which Sinnoh was a part of, was kinda pushed aside. A lot of Sinnoh's legacy is as I said initially, nostalgia, Cynthia memes and some of the Pokemon designs, many of the most popular being evolutions of old Pokemon. It's not that Sinnoh has nothing going for it, but it is not a game that set the stage for what the series would become. It is not an Ocarina of Time at all.

Anywho I could talk a lot about how Generation 5 was the actual spark of shift in the series design, but like I've already spent way too fucking long on this. I'm tired lol

All of this is why I firmly consider HGSS the end of "The Classic Era". Similarly SWSH feels like the end of the era you're describing with Legends Arceus and SV marking yet another design shift towards big open areas where you're encouraged to tackle things at your pace, even if not completely open world like in SV's case.

I've tried on-and-off to come up with my own fancy name for Gens 5-8 but haven't had much luck. I dunno, The Storybook Era? Something like that?

 

[Basedwell]

that's a really great post Ant, when I saw your first one, I was able to predict the direction, but the evidence you provided to paint a picture and the thought you put into it is impressive and shows in its quality!!

One comparison that's been bubbling for me, is that if I were to think of Pokemon generations as Kanye albums, I'd say Gens 1/2 are College Dropout, Gen 3 late Registration, and Gen 4 Graduation. In Gen 4, there's a polish to the games that didn't exist beforehand, and a lot of the dialogue has this knowing chuckle that acknowledges this isn't your first rodeo. The roadblocks get increasingly sillier, the ceremonial giving of items and important progressions include a wink, and parts of the game become more streamlined.

Gen 5 is MBDTF, the magnum opus, filled to the brim with content, that subtly introduces the shift in kanye's creative style that would exist in the second half of his career. Then Yeezus, or in Pokemon's case Gen 6, is where there is a more direct and obvious shift in style and artistic direction. And I think both shifts are important.

Another comparison that comes to mind for me, is that of Bionicle. I grew up with Bionicle, and one cool thing about it, the part that made me gravitate to it, was the worldbuilding. There were monthly comic books, and short chapter books that went into extra detail and had many little stories that developed the characters and helped me form an emotional bond with them. Then the line ended, and the one that replaced it, was dumbed down and lost my interest around the time playing with toys started to feel like a social liability. They tried bringing it back in 2015, but the story lacked it's charm and felt every bit as dumbed down as its first replacement.

To me, both the shift to Gen 6 and Bionicle's cancellation represented a larger change in thought in the Entertainment industry, that was mirrored in hollywood and tv in its own way. There's no point in going above and beyond, appealing to serious fans. The lowest common denominator dictates whether or not the product sells, so they are who we should appeal to.

Then you don't get a postgame, and postgame facilities begin to be cut and you are told Well of course, 95% of people stop playing after the story ends, so why would you ever expect GameFreak to go above and beyond? I'm sure most ppl didn't care about the Bionicle lore, but without that, it would have been just another toy line for me. And so with Pokemon, they gradually began cutting the edges, til in Galar there were very little in the way of optional content, because the casual fan will not have curiousity, so what's the point. Who cares if the battle facilities aren't there, when the ppl who care will buy the game anyways? And in S/V, the world feels hollow because they didn't bother to put things in it.

I think some of the lack of success of B/W is slightly overexagerated by Pokemon fans, but I think there were some board meetings where some contractors came in and told them based on market research, making Pokemon fans be able to pet Pikachu meant more to them than an interesting or challenging fight in the Elite 4. Having a Pokedex that introduces too many new faces or carefully curates the old isn't as important as making sure everyone can use Gyarados and Eevee every single game.

I also think they got attached to this idea of making the Pokemon World feel real, like some sort of virtual reality, and Pokemon Go and Legends: Arceus have been the closest they've come to achieving that vision. I like the latter and would probably like the former, but the idea in the abstract repulses me, I don't care about being able to pet Pikachu because Pikachu isn't real, and I'd rather spend time developing real emotional relationships with real animals at that point. I was perfectly fine developing a small attachment to a Pokemon because it looked cool and was fun to fight against other Pokemon in a game, I don't need a magical pet simulator.

 

[pokemon4eva]

One comparison that's been bubbling for me, is that if I were to think of Pokemon generations as Kanye albums, I'd say Gens 1/2 are College Dropout, Gen 3 late Registration, and Gen 4 Graduation.

*ORAS Frontier cut*
"They made Gen 4!"

*Dexcut announced*
"They made Gen 4!"

*SV being SV*
"They made Gen 4. They made Gen 4. They made Gen 4-"

 

[Wukong]

Generation 5 itself denied 80% of what Sinnoh did and brought along new things, and despite what people may say, the games afterwards are actually fairly direct follow ups on Unova's game design trends.

We can agree to disagree on the OoT vs. Platinum thing because it's just circling the drain at this point. But this point I actually agree with and is supported well by your subsequent post (assuming the 80% is an exaggeration obviously).

I made a similar point years ago that Gen 5 seemed to "bridge" the gap between Gen's 1-4 and what we even still see today as far as what I consider "post-modern era" Pokemon. For better or for worse, Gen 5 deserves credit for ushering in that era and kind of still stands on its own to me as a unique generation in the broader context of the franchise.

In some ways, a game like BW2 might have the broadest appeal as a game that appeased the "purists" of the franchise, while still having enough modern flair to not feel outdated or age quicker than games that preceded it. Even as someone who ranks Platinum above it, it's hard to really deny this point and is something I've even come to appreciate about the game quite a bit.

 

[Blue glass]

One comparison that's been bubbling for me, is that if I were to think of Pokemon generations as Kanye albums, I'd say Gens 1/2 are College Dropout, Gen 3 late Registration, and Gen 4 Graduation.[...]

Gen 5 is MBDTF, the magnum opus, filled to the brim with content, that subtly introduces the shift in kanye's creative style that would exist in the second half of his career. Then Yeezus, or in Pokemon's case Gen 6, is where there is a more direct and obvious shift in style and artistic direction. And I think both shifts are important.

That's it. Gen 10 region will be based on Germany and the plot will mirror the Third Reich history and it will conclude that Pokémon Hitler did nothing wrong.

 

[DrPumpkinz]

That's it. Gen 10 region will be based on Germany and the plot will mirror the Third Reich history and it will conclude that Pokémon Hitler did nothing wrong.

They already did that in Gen 6

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Spent some time browsing r/PokeLeaks recently and, according to one post on there, apparently both Zeraora and Zarude were at one stage planned as anime-only Pokemon.

This was famously also the case with Lugia back in the day, but we are more than two decades on from that and I'm honestly amazed that (if true) anyone at Nintendo still thinks that this would be a viable idea, or that Game Freak would - for lack of a better phrase - get away with it. The concept of a Pokemon you can't actually use at all in the games is without precedent and with good reason - people would hate it. Sure, it explains why Zeraora and Zarude basically don't exist in game canon, but if they weren't in the games at all every Pokemon forum on the Internet would be filled with countless posts from irate fans: "They should let us get [anime mythical] in the games!!!" "Where can you get [anime mythical]??" "How do I catch [anime mythical]??"

I'm not saying that people bitching on here and on Reddit is something TPC gives much worry to (if that were the case, they'd long be out of business) but an anime-only Pokemon just seems so counterintuitive. I mean, even Ash-Greninja didn't stay anime-only for very long, and that right there is a cast-iron example of a Pokemon which has no business being available in the games.