Unpopular opinions

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Even with Bibarel, Sinnoh is atrocious in terms of HMs because you still have to waste a team slot just on something that only has HM moves.

The only region to do the HM model right is Unova. You only use Cut once (and in BW2, you never have to use it), Strength is super-useful for shortcuts but it's ultimately not mandatory, and Surf is only required for a small section in BW2 (and in BW, it's completely optional). Same for Waterfall and Dive.



How is this one unpopular?

Wasn't really sure if SR being too strong was an unpopular or a scrubquote-worthy opinion.

Back to the HM issue, let's be honest, did you never have a teamslot for an HM Slave? It's pretty much inevitable. (Heard SM got rid of HM's, but I can't say if it was a good or a bad fix. I didn't play any Pokémon Games after BW2.)

You can't tell me Hoenn wasn't the exact same stuff. (Those Rock Smash boulders right in the middle of the region were honestly a low blow.) Did you teach Waterfall and Whirlpool to your Feraligatr in GSC?

People act like Sinnoh was unbearable with its HM usage, but it was the same stuff as always.
Even if you didn't want to use Bibarel, (Why...) you could simply slap Rock Smash, Strength and Rock Climb to an Onix or Geodude (Common RBY/FRLG HM slaves, I should add) , have Surf or Waterfall on your Water-Type and only have issues around Victory Road with no one to blame but yourself for not doing the reasonable thing and picking a Bibarel.

And sure, Unova made sure HM's weren't needed, how awesome is that... "What do you mean you're dancing right in front of a gate for no reason and won't move?"

Yeah, between having a slot for a HM Specialist and lolNPC's, I'd rather pick the HM's, thank you.

 

[Antihaxxer]

Unova was the first step ! And Sun/Moon finally enables the end of HM .... with Poke Ride ... And they can change Poke Ride with Items ride !

 

[Detective Barricade]

Unova was the first step ! And Sun/Moon finally enables the end of HM .... with Poke Ride ... And they can change Poke Ride with Items ride !

Or they'll go back to HM's. It's been nice not having them, but they're bound to make a comeback in the gen 8 set(s) of games.

 

[Pikachu315111]

I... Did not expect that much discussion about the level caps tbh. Sorry about that.

In other rather unpopular opinions, R/S/E Hoenn does not have too much water. However, it does have too many Surf-based segments clumped together.

I'll explain: There is no balance. You explore the majority of Hoenn's landmass before getting Surf. Then you cross those 4, 5 tiles of water after getting Surf, (A bit more if you did New Mauville as soon as possible.) and get to Fortree.

Technically, you can do the abandoned ship stuff right after getting Surf. That will leave you overleveled for Winona in most cases, unless you were pretty underleveled against Norman. My point is, people tend to skip it. Especially if they don't need the Ice Beam TM to snipe Altaria.

Right after you go to Mt. Pyre, you will see a few hours of almost nothing but sea routes except for places like the Team "Dumb as Bricks" Base and a few gyms. Then you get more surfing and diving until you reach that obnoxious Victory road.

And that's what the review sort of said. People overblown the review as yet another "can't spell ignorant without IGN" but the reviewer had a fairly reasonable reason for saying "too much water", and it's pretty much what Volt-Ikazuchi said above. Doesn't help the reviewer played Alpha Sapphire version where the main villains used Water-types (at least later in the game) and the titled Legendary was a Water-type, however had she played Omega Ruby she'd still have the same complaint.

I think the problem all comes down with the move Surf. It's powerful, too powerful for early game thus why with the water routes you had to travel early game you needed a ferry. However, with the theme of the game being the balance between land and sea, this meant they couldn't really do an equal amount of land and water routes throughout the game. They had to shove all the water routes in the second half of the game. On paper it's not a bad idea, instead of a small stretch of water they'll give us an ocean to explore plus diving locations to double that (thinking about it, it's odd they don't have a Hoenn version of the Sinnoh Underground). But the problem is the water routes all looked the same, same with the diving locations. While in a sense realistic, they really needed to fill out the oceans a bit more.

Oceans have plenty of biodiversity both above and especially below waters and I don't anyone would complain if they were conveniently next to each other. Throw in a waterfall or two. You could have added random boats sailing by you could board. Added another shipwrecked boat or even sunken ship accessible only by diving. Maybe have another Sea Mauville drilling platform or multiple smaller ones or hydro/wind turbines. The key here was keeping things visually fresh just like when we were traveling on land... and they didn't do that. "Breaks" from ocean was usually just another land mass, the water had almost nothing interesting or happen on it. Yes, there's Pacifidlog Town and Route 132, 133, and 134, but those are side locations.

Even Mt. Coronet is reasonable with its HM use. Mainly because you need just a few HM's for each section you want to explore. I'll stick to the climactic climb to stop Cyrus since this is the one people get salty about. You need Surf, Rock Climb, Strength, maybe Rock Smash too?

Surf is something most people already have on their team. It's a strong move and a commonly used field move. You don't even have access to Waterfall at this point, so there really isn't a reason to complain about it.

Strength is a pretty strong and drawback-free normal move. And so is Rock Climb. If you don't want to use them in your main team, it's understandable, but having to teach them isn't going to cripple anyone or just waste a moveslot.

Rock Smash is the only really bad HM in that list. I can't remember if you need it though, but that's not the point.

You know who learns all of these moves? Bibarel! Optimized HM Slave Moveset. Awesome. (Golduck or something like that too, but nobody cares.)

I think the issue here was players just not wanting an HM Slave or just nerfing their team in a small way when they're about to have the climatic face off against the villain team. When playing the first time you don't know what they may be packing so going in nerfed somehow can feel unfair. How to fix this? The only way I could think is just before reaching the peak you'd come across a Team Galactic campsite where they'd have a bed to rest in, PC, and maybe a Move Deleter and Move Reminder.

Last Unpopular Opinion of this post: Stealth Rock is way too strong. Defog doesn't really help since most things that learn it are Flying-Types and get hit hard by it. The other hazards aren't nearly as strong as Sneaky Pebbles and it simply is a soft-ban for a ton of Pokémon.

If they keep the max amount of damage it could do at being just a quarter (even if the opponent is quadruple weak to rock) would really help some "soft banned" mons be able to get back into the game.

Or they'll go back to HM's. It's been nice not having them, but they're bound to make a comeback in the gen 8 set(s) of games.

Which I don't mind. I like the idea behind HMs, Poke Rides were a nice compromise but does take away the feeling you and your team is progressing on your adventure when you're using someone else's Pokemon (wouldn't mind HM items though since those would be an extension to the player's ability, it just doesn't feel quite right when it's a Pokemon you don't own).

However, if they bring HMs back and they make them a required feature, they do need to change some things. Some suggestions:

1. As long as we have two Pokemon in our party that can learn the HM, we can delete that HM and replace it with another move.
2. Instead of teaching it to our Pokemon, just let us be able to use it from the TM.
3. Give us extra slots for Pokemon and/or moves, having these extra slots lock during battle but outside of battle we can switch around Pokemon and Moves from these extra slots.
4. Have HMs Power and effects strengthen as we get more Badges. That way we can get certain HMs earlier than we would and would make normally weak HMs stronger.

This is beginning to sound like wishlisting so I'll stop there, but I think some basic changes would help make HMs more tolerable to use to progress. Granted, you may still need an HM Slave if your main party doesn't cover an HM you need, but as long as they give you an opportunity to swap that Pokemon out before the next major battle that shouldn't be too much of an issue.

 

[Hyper Cutter]

How is this one unpopular?

It's certainly an unpopular opinion here, given that Stealth Rock has somehow escaped being banned despite being more broken than a lot of what was banned.

 

[Oriolous]

It's certainly an unpopular opinion here, given that Stealth Rock has somehow escaped being banned despite being more broken than a lot of what was banned.

This isn't the board to discuss the competitive side of things, so I'll keep this short:

At least we can deal with Rocks via Defog Kartana or some Rapid Spinners.

...and it isn't banning a mon that doesn't need to be banned *Greninja in ORAS!*

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

And that's what the review sort of said. People overblown the review as yet another "can't spell ignorant without IGN" but the reviewer had a fairly reasonable reason for saying "too much water", and it's pretty much what Volt-Ikazuchi said above. Doesn't help the reviewer played Alpha Sapphire version where the main villains used Water-types (at least later in the game) and the titled Legendary was a Water-type, however had she played Omega Ruby she'd still have the same complaint.

I think the problem all comes down with the move Surf. It's powerful, too powerful for early game thus why with the water routes you had to travel early game you needed a ferry. However, with the theme of the game being the balance between land and sea, this meant they couldn't really do an equal amount of land and water routes throughout the game. They had to shove all the water routes in the second half of the game. On paper it's not a bad idea, instead of a small stretch of water they'll give us an ocean to explore plus diving locations to double that (thinking about it, it's odd they don't have a Hoenn version of the Sinnoh Underground). But the problem is the water routes all looked the same, same with the diving locations. While in a sense realistic, they really needed to fill out the oceans a bit more.

Oceans have plenty of biodiversity both above and especially below waters and I don't anyone would complain if they were conveniently next to each other. Throw in a waterfall or two. You could have added random boats sailing by you could board. Added another shipwrecked boat or even sunken ship accessible only by diving. Maybe have another Sea Mauville drilling platform or multiple smaller ones or hydro/wind turbines. The key here was keeping things visually fresh just like when we were traveling on land... and they didn't do that. "Breaks" from ocean was usually just another land mass, the water had almost nothing interesting or happen on it. Yes, there's Pacifidlog Town and Route 132, 133, and 134, but those are side locations.



I think the issue here was players just not wanting an HM Slave or just nerfing their team in a small way when they're about to have the climatic face off against the villain team. When playing the first time you don't know what they may be packing so going in nerfed somehow can feel unfair. How to fix this? The only way I could think is just before reaching the peak you'd come across a Team Galactic campsite where they'd have a bed to rest in, PC, and maybe a Move Deleter and Move Reminder.



If they keep the max amount of damage it could do at being just a quarter (even if the opponent is quadruple weak to rock) would really help some "soft banned" mons be able to get back into the game.



Which I don't mind. I like the idea behind HMs, Poke Rides were a nice compromise but does take away the feeling you and your team is progressing on your adventure when you're using someone else's Pokemon (wouldn't mind HM items though since those would be an extension to the player's ability, it just doesn't feel quite right when it's a Pokemon you don't own).

However, if they bring HMs back and they make them a required feature, they do need to change some things. Some suggestions:

1. As long as we have two Pokemon in our party that can learn the HM, we can delete that HM and replace it with another move.
2. Instead of teaching it to our Pokemon, just let us be able to use it from the TM.
3. Give us extra slots for Pokemon and/or moves, having these extra slots lock during battle but outside of battle we can switch around Pokemon and Moves from these extra slots.
4. Have HMs Power and effects strengthen as we get more Badges. That way we can get certain HMs earlier than we would and would make normally weak HMs stronger.

This is beginning to sound like wishlisting so I'll stop there, but I think some basic changes would help make HMs more tolerable to use to progress. Granted, you may still need an HM Slave if your main party doesn't cover an HM you need, but as long as they give you an opportunity to swap that Pokemon out before the next major battle that shouldn't be too much of an issue.

Or even better. Either make some items that function as HM's or make the Badges themselves work as them.
Which could be amazing if done properly, imagine early Surf and Water-Types but without the In-Game nuke of the actual move.

Regarding Stealth Rock, taking out the possibility of it hitting super-effectively would be good. It's still an easy entry hazard that breaks sashes and Multiscale while helping to nab key KO's, but on the other hand, it does not make Spikes almost irrelevant.

Spikes would whiff on non-grounded mons, but it can be stacked for more damage, making it a good option for Stall and SR would hit everything, but not as hard and without the possibility of stacking.

 

[yourDeadGrandad]

HM power strengthening as you progress sounds like a good idea. They would be powerful techniques that grow with your Pokemon. Either scaling with levels, as their power increases, or with badges as your ability as a trainer increases.

Another option could be that they are abilities innate to your Pokemon, like Scyther could use Cut in the field regardless of what it's moves are, but only once you've gotten the relevant badge/been taught how to execute the technique (like the battle style guy in SM)

 

[earl]

Or even better. Either make some items that function as HM's or make the Badges themselves work as them.
Which could be amazing if done properly, imagine early Surf and Water-Types but without the In-Game nuke of the actual move.

Regarding Stealth Rock, taking out the possibility of it hitting super-effectively would be good. It's still an easy entry hazard that breaks sashes and Multiscale while helping to nab key KO's, but on the other hand, it does not make Spikes almost irrelevant.

Spikes would whiff on non-grounded mons, but it can be stacked for more damage, making it a good option for Stall and SR would hit everything, but not as hard and without the possibility of stacking.

Spikes isn’t particularly outclassed by Stealth Rocks, pokemon such as Ash Greninja use it to pressure switch ins and the ability to stack them is still quite powerful.

 

[Siggu]

IMO there are only three right ways to make HMs bearable:
- Let them be overwritten the same way as TMs, instead of requiring the Move Deleter to do so. Or just make them TMs like in Alola, but with their field effects, unlike what happens in Alola.
- Make them completely optional, like in Unova (although even there you have a single moment in each game where you need an HM - Cut in BW and Surf in BW2). Make them needed only to discover shortcuts or secret rooms, but the player should always have a way to get past a mandatory path without HM moves. Like in early Hoenn, in which you use a ferry to compensate your lack of Surf.
- Replace them with items.

 

[LuchaBird]

I like the idea of registering your own Pokemon into the pager you have in Sun/Moon, or needing to catch one to fill a need.

Each HM would be replaced by a subset of Pokemon that could fill that task, like needing a large Water-type to ride for Surf. You would unlock slots in the pager as you process story, and each time there would be something local and easy to catch that will be useable. Or you'd have a side dungeon quest (go save the Lapras from in the cave or whatever) that would fill that slot. It puts a bit of emphasis on catching Pokemon that normally you'd pass up as you'd need to grab some essentially random ones to be your HMs during you journey.

Down the line you'd be able to switch out Pokemon others as you catch them so you could customise your pager roster. You could also do some funky stuff by using one Pokemon that could fill multiple tasks as part of some puzzles post-game (like Strength and Surf at the same time).

 

[Theorymon]

OK here's an opinion I've been forming for a while that's probably EXTREMELY unpopular!

I think gen 8 should wipe all moves transfered Pokemon have learned upon transfering, only leaving their ID, OT, and shinyness intact.

While I think it's admirable that Pokemon games have had such a long line of compatibility, I can't help but feel like gamefreak treats it ingame as more of a curse than anything. Fact is, gamefreak's movepool consistency sucks, there are a ton of obscure ass event moves such as Wish Chansey that have BIG implications in competitive play. And yet, these Pokemon pretty much don't exist anymore, meaning if you wanna use them on cart... it's probably hacked!

Gamefreak tried to solve this by making only Pokemon from at least gen 6 usable in most of their ladders and a lot of their tournaments, but even then there's stuff like Z-Celebrate Greninja, or again, the tournaments where THEY do allow transfers, and we get situations like "damn how am I gonna get V-create Rayquaza".

Now, I think the real ideal solution would be to just add the obscure moves as regular additions to the movepool, and get rid of this mess of Pokemon comparability and legality. However, I can't help but feel like gamefreak has shown little initiative on this, and I don't totally blame them: there's a TON of weird ass movepool legality to sift through for Pokemon.

So if gamefreak doesn't want to put in the effort: why not just kill this problem? It's better than the full extreme of "NO TRANSFERS!" since with this, people can still bring over Pokemon they're sentimental about, and hell, maybe actually use them competitively unlike most transfers! Plus, could give gamefreak a lot more leeway in rebalancing stuff by dramatically changing movepools if they so wish.

 

[Hugin]

Or just make HMs good and widely learned. Off the top of my head: Surf, Fly, and Strength are fine. Make Rock Smash have the in-battle effect/power of Power-up Punch, make Rock Climb a BP 70 Ground-type move that hits Levitators and Flyers, and have various bosses use Hazards/Screens so Defog has a purpose. That’s 6 HMs that would mostly fit on any in-game team with minimal affect on the team’s power and could be given to the player at various points in the story without being broken. It isn’t hard, which is why the fact that Cut was mandatory for as long as HMs existed is so dumb.

Edit: On-topic, GF needs to just trash all compatibility and start over with the next gen. I get why they don’t, but there’s a ton of balance issues, random omissions/inclusions, and legacy mistakes. Create a solid design for how the games and the power curve and the meta should work and build up from there, instead of all this after-the-fact sparkling they actually do.

 

[Pikachu315111]

I half agree they should wipe the plate clean. Why half? Because I do think they should go through as many event moves and decide whether they're keeping them or not and, if they are, add it to learnable movepools (be it by level-up, pre-evo level-up, TM, Egg Move, Move Tutor, whatever). GF, it's your own fault this happened for not planning ahead and now it's your job to clean it up. You have full control over the Pokemon Bank so you can fairly easy program it so it can delete and allow certain moves before transferring them. And if you don't have it written down there's fan sites like Bulbapedia and Serebii that have.

And add V-Create to the same Move Tutor who teaches Relic Song and Secret Sword.

 

[Theorymon]

I half agree they should wipe the plate clean. Why half? Because I do think they should go through as many event moves and decide whether they're keeping them or not and, if they are, add it to learnable movepools (be it by level-up, pre-evo level-up, TM, Egg Move, Move Tutor, whatever). GF, it's your own fault this happened for not planning ahead and now it's your job to clean it up. You have full control over the Pokemon Bank so you can fairly easy program it so it can delete and allow certain moves before transferring them. And if you don't have it written down there's fan sites like Bulbapedia and Serebii that have.

And add V-Create to the same Move Tutor who teaches Relic Song and Secret Sword.

Oh man I totally forgot that Gamefreak probably has record of most of this stuff via Pokebank. This means there's even less excuse for this movepool quagmire. You know how Pokebank's illegal moveset detection sucks? Why not just kill that problem by making that stuff actually possible to obtain! Hell, maybe add "move tutors" to Pokebank with the express purpose of getting those obscure moves onto Pokemon!

 

[Worldie]

Or just be consistent with the "only current gen mons usable" in every event.

 

[Sondero]

Now, I think the real ideal solution would be to just add the obscure moves as regular additions to the movepool, and get rid of this mess of Pokemon comparability and legality. However, I can't help but feel like gamefreak has shown little initiative on this, and I don't totally blame them: there's a TON of weird ass movepool legality to sift through for Pokemon.

They did make stuff like Extremespeed Zigzagoon just a regular egg move with US/UM now, as well as making Defog just a tutor move. So I'd like to think they'd rather slowly implement the old event moves as TM/HM/Tutor/Level-up/Egg moves to not instantly ruin the value of all old event Pokemon (I think they should've started with making Wish a Chansey/Happiny EM, but you can't win em all, I guess)

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

I agree. No need to pull the plug on the older gens compatibility, but having some special moves be Egg Moves or whatever would fix a lot of stuff.

Illegal combinations need to get axed though.

 

[WalkAway]

They did make stuff like Extremespeed Zigzagoon just a regular egg move with US/UM now, as well as making Defog just a tutor move. So I'd like to think they'd rather slowly implement the old event moves as TM/HM/Tutor/Level-up/Egg moves to not instantly ruin the value of all old event Pokemon (I think they should've started with making Wish a Chansey/Happiny EM, but you can't win em all, I guess)

Switch is a chance at a soft reboot but I can understand why they wouldn't want to destroy everyone's moves. However, GF always removed the tutors for the first new game of the gen which is kind of nice because it can help restrict the meta to what they plan for that year. However, they then add move tutors to the third version of the game / next year's meta which opens the gates of hell and forces people to buy another version of the game to keep up which is annoying. Plus, like some mentioned, things like Wish Chansey and V Create aren't included so it's pretty much hack / gen if you want to use those which is dumb to have to resort to.

 

[Norne]

I agree about Kanto really lacking in the post-game department but I think that had to do with the technology at the time. IIRC Satoru Iwata did some serious programming and compression to have what we got, fit onto the cartridge. I don't think were was much space left on it for anything else. Could the space have been used for something smaller but more engaging? Perhaps. But nothing beats finding Red for the first time. And there is something nice about getting stomped by him the first time you run into him.

Finding red the first time was kinda lame when I swept him with a lv 52 Donphan, it's moveset was atrocious and seeing it's mons fail to scratch a Pokémon several levels below them was nothing short of anticlimactic.

 

[Pikachu315111]

I find Single Pokemon Bosses to be anti-climatic.

Black Kyurem from White 2. Took it down with one or two Hammer Arms from Emboar.

Totem Pokemon from SM & USUM. Raticate and Wishiwashi gave me a bit of a problem since I couldn't 2HKO them but good ol' type advantage and Z-Crystals handled the others usually on the first turn (or second turn before their summoned had any chance to do anything).

Ultra Necrozma from USUM. Sure, it outsped and OHKOed my Salazzle, but my bulky Metagross with a Rotom Dex stat boost then took all that tension away as I then just punched Necrozma to sleep.

Like sure, you can argue the same could be said about Boss Trainers, especially ones with a Type preference like Gym Leaders and Elite Four, but at least they had more than one Pokemon which they could build a strategy around. And the more Pokemon they have the better, if they have a full team it's amazing as it shows me there's indeed another character in the game other than the one I'm controlling that realized they can hold six Poke Balls.

 

[Scorpio]

I actually agree with this for the most part. The plethora of Fighting-types make either Kyurem form trivial, especially Kyurem-B (tho I used Magnezone for that). And I found several Totem fights to be a matter of pumping up the poor sap you sent out with enough XDefs/XSpDs to take the opposing hits... in a few noteworthy cases this left them free to go and obliterate them (for example, my Pikipek's Rock Smash 2HKOd Totem Raticate unboosted, and I purposefully waffled the fight with Totem Salazzle since otherwise Mudbray OHKOd it. Said Mudbray would go on to OHKO the Nihilego encounter.)

Something that fights like these have demonstrated to me is that the challenge of Legendary fights isn't defeating them - it's capturing them. It's easy to steamroll a singular Pokémon with a team of six; but getting that same Pokemon down just low enough to be able to start throwing Poke balls, and keeping your Pokemon alive in the process while the Legendary keeps attacking, that takes actual skill.

 

[Sondero]

I agree that Single-Pokemon boss battles are quite a cakewalk if you know what you're doing. In Kyurem's case in B2/W2, Ghetsis is the real boss battle with his full team of 6. I think it would be better if he just added it to his team of 6, like how N used Zekrom/Reshiram in Black/White though. But then again, less experienced players would probably be discouraged by the fact that they were going up against a full team of 6 strong mons, where 1 of them is insanely strong, while they had no oppurtunity to use a Legend like it before that point.

 

[Siggu]

Only Kyurem-B was a disappointment as a single-Pokemon boss, because by that point you know how powerful Fighting and Steel-types are in the game, Dragon/Ice has a lot of weaknesses and there's, of course, its horrible physical movepool. Kyurem-W still left something to be desired but it at least posed some more of a challenge

The Totem bosses, bar Raticate/Gumshoos, were fine to me. It's like Gym Battles - they have glaring weaknesses, but they can be very annoying if you don't carry those weaknesses. My Ultra Sun team only had clear advantages over Lurantis and Ribombee (which was not intended, I admit - it was the team theme that got me with so few advantages) and most of the Totems, while not really threatening, took quite the amount of time to take out - especially Togedemaru. Against the vast majority of them, I was spamming Arbok's Intimidate to form a game plan.

I did not like Ultra Necrozma's boss battle much, though. There's a difference between "You cheese and you'll win with no effort" and "You cheese or you lose".

 

[Worldie]

I think USUM had a good design for Totem fights. Necrozma obviously is blatantly meant to be cheesed, definitely not the best way to encourage "thinking out of the box".

The others though for ingame caught teams can be quite though if you don't know what they will do and didn't happen to have the correct mons for them. Es if you got to Togedemaru without a strong fire or ground or electric type, that thing can run over the team, and several of them had Protect or equivalent (and togedemaru had also Bounce iirc) to discourage just "click Z move turn 1 and win"
Same for for example Ribombee if you went in without a strong steel or poison type: i was left in the scenario where i either crit Z-Iron Head on metagross turn 1 or i'd just have no way to blow through both ribombee and blissey at same time.