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Unpopular opinions

An unpopular opinion, maybe? But I don't mind having slow pokemon walk slow in the walking animations. I feel like having all pokémon walk the same pace only worked in the grid structure of the 2d games. Having something like a metapod or a slakoth caught up to me would be kinda weird lol.

I don't mind it either... as long as it makes sense. I've been using it in front of my party ever since the Isle of Armor dropped, but I still find baffling how slow Marshadow is, even when taking its size into account. 125 Base Speed where?
 
I don't mind it either... as long as it makes sense. I've been using it in front of my party ever since the Isle of Armor dropped, but it's baffling how slow Marshadow is, even when taking its size into account. 125 Base Speed where?
Honestly I just interpret speed as reaction time to commands + the quickness to execute them, because if you think of it as just go fast, you end up with a lot of those "this pokemon can run 1000 gazillion km/h" on a base 2 speed pokemon
 
To put it another way, imagine that you had a class where they taught you the areas where GF messed up in various games and how their mistakes could be fixed. You could have DK as a teacher, and have him be perpetually unsympathetic to any opinions you have that don't match with what he teaches, and get marked down because you don't agree with him.

I had to deal with some teachers like that so I really get that feeling (even when I checked my notes and I was actually right lol). So this kind of attitude frustrates me. Not saying I don't like caustic critics, since I am subbed to plenty of them, just saying there's a difference between constructive criticism and destructive criticism. DK tries and claims to do the former, but it comes off as the latter (seriously, just look at the title of the vid), despite of his points that plenty of people can share and agree, and is quite unfortunate because destructive criticism paints criticism as a whole in a bad light imo: it's not going to help improve the product nor create a space for proper discussion, it just creates another echo chamber.
 
Idk how unpopular of an opinion this is but the only games with really well-designed legendaries since 2010 have been X and Y. Reshiram looked decent in BW but the transition to 3D makes it look insubstantial and awkward (the way its arms just permanently stay raised at head height) and Kyurem's stubby little arms are horrible. The Muskedeer trio all look bizarre and clunky, and I feel like Genesect should look way more threatening than it does.

I'm neutral on most of Alola's legends: Tapu Lele is my personal favourite, but Tapu Koko looks incredibly ugly. Solgaleo, Magearna, Tapu Bulu, and Tapu Fini are... fine, but nothing special. As discussed earlier, I'm not big on Necrozma's design and Lunala just doesn't do it for me: it looks bulky and too heavy to fly. I go back and forth on Zeraora: the in-game models in Gen VII make it look rubbish, but every so often I see some artwork where there's a certain appeal. The shiny definitely looks better than the normal version. The Ultra Beasts I can give a pass because they're meant to be unsettling and weird.

SwSh's bunch are the worst offenders: Zacian looks ridiculous while Zamazenta almost works in its official art but looks bizarre in-game. Regieleki and Regidrago look awful (terrible names, too), while Spectrier and Glastrier just look unfinished and under-designed; none of them look as powerful or impressive as they're built up to be. Calyrex's design doesn't work for me (though I can see why some people like it). The only legendary I like from SwSh is Eternatus, and even that I'm somewhat iffy on.

I'm all for quirky designs, but most of them just haven't hit properly for me.
 
I don't mind it either... as long as it makes sense. I've been using it in front of my party ever since the Isle of Armor dropped, but I still find baffling how slow Marshadow is, even when taking its size into account. 125 Base Speed where?

Have you played with Marshadow in camp? Its little feets make a sticky/plungery sound when it walks around, it's clearly getting stuck to the ground all the time, slowing the poor thing down. The stadium floors are all coated in teflon so Marshadow doesn't get stuck and can achieve its full speedy potential. :P
 
Its hard for me to care about legendaries because I see most as a dexfiller nightmare, especially the gen 4 ones. Too many legendaries either look really boring, really ugly or a bit of both. I think the only legendaries I actually care for are the tapus, ubs and the regis (no regigigas tho i hate that dude).

Honestly im just legendary fatigued. At this point either make pokemon a forces of nature story with the legendaries as the main forces, removing evil teams or dont include legendaries at all
 
Its hard for me to care about legendaries because I see most as a dexfiller nightmare, especially the gen 4 ones. Too many legendaries either look really boring, really ugly or a bit of both. I think the only legendaries I actually care for are the tapus, ubs and the regis (no regigigas tho i hate that dude).

Honestly im just legendary fatigued. At this point either make pokemon a forces of nature story with the legendaries as the main forces, removing evil teams or dont include legendaries at all
Now I'm curious to see ratios for each generation. Lumping mythical and legendary together for this purpose, excluding forms. Also including Phione.

Gen 1: 5/151, 3.31%
Gen 2: 6/100, 6% (overall 4.38%)
Gen 3: 10/135, 7.41% (overall 5.44%)
Gen 4: 14/107, 13.08% (overall 7.1%)
Gen 5: 13/156, 8.33% (overall 7.4%)
Gen 6: 6/72, 8.33% (overall 7.49%)
Gen 7: 14/89, 15.73% (overall 8.41%)

Okay, quick note, that number is including Cosmog, Cosmoem, Necrozma, Meltan, and Melmetal, but excluding the UBs. If you include them (including Poipole), you get:

Gen 7: 25/89, 28.09% (overall 9.77%)
Gen 8: 11/79, 13.92% (overall 10.02%) [overall 8.8% without UBs]

I love the UBs but they are really bad for the legendary bloat. If you include them we actually have reached the point of 1/10 of all Pokémon being legendary/mythical, that's pretty insane. It's getting sillier and sillier to try and cram all of them in one game without making a separate minigame for them, and even then, I don't know how long that will last.
 
I love the UBs but they are really bad for the legendary bloat. If you include them we actually have reached the point of 1/10 of all Pokémon being legendary/mythical, that's pretty insane. It's getting sillier and sillier to try and cram all of them in one game without making a separate minigame for them, and even then, I don't know how long that will last.

Tbh need a real dexit that cuts the legendaries. Theyre probably the most useless category of pokemon since theyre used in one or two games for the plot and then thrown into some minigame to rot. When has ho-oh and lugia ever been relevant after hgss? How long until xerneas and yveltal, necrozma and the cosmog become relevant again?

If legendaries are only going to matter in the region theyre introduced, and then just made some mode to be catchable with no lore or care of why theyre there, might as well just turn them from pokemon to characters, uncatchable but important to the games plot. Like calyrex, whos catch battle was probably the worst part of the plot because it felt forced on "well we have to let the trainer catch it!"
 
Tbh need a real dexit that cuts the legendaries.

Legendary bloat is not only a real problem, but also very troublesome when you realize they're a huge part of Pokémon's power creep problem.

And honestly, cramming them in random minigames is just ridiculous. GF wants to bring them back? Fine. Shove them in transfer-only.

Am I really supposed that all these legendary and plot-relevant mons (many of them being rivals btw) are just chilling in a dank cave roiding up on Galar Particles?

Correction, not all of them. Mew, Celebi, Victini, Genesect and a couple others are in-fact, transfer-only.
 
Legendary bloat is not only a real problem, but also very troublesome when you realize they're a huge part of Pokémon's power creep problem.
Honestly removing them from catchable pool would kill two birds with one stone. Makes legendaries feel more powerful and removes the dex bloat while also removing quite a bit of power creep. No more zygardes and pheromosas in ou, no more suicunes and keldeos in uu, and no more landorus and power herb geomancy xerneas in vgc
 
Honestly removing them from catchable pool would kill two birds with one stone. Makes legendaries feel more powerful and removes the dex bloat while also removing quite a bit of power creep. No more zygardes and pheromosas in ou, no more suicunes and keldeos in uu, and no more landorus and power herb geomancy xerneas in vgc
Legendary bloat is not only a real problem, but also very troublesome when you realize they're a huge part of Pokémon's power creep problem.

And honestly, cramming them in random minigames is just ridiculous. GF wants to bring them back? Fine. Shove them in transfer-only.

Am I really supposed that all these legendary and plot-relevant mons (many of them being rivals btw) are just chilling in a dank cave roiding up on Galar Particles?

Correction, not all of them. Mew, Celebi, Victini, Genesect and a couple others are in-fact, transfer-only.
But you wanna know part of why they play a huge part in the Power Creep problem? We never stop getting some Legendary Pokémon that are obscenely overpowered even as "Legendary", like was the case of Xerneas (largely thanks to Geomancy), Yveltal (although likely in the case of a Dynamax metagame), Mega Rayquaza, Crowned Zacian, and (from the look of it) Shadow Rider Calyrex, with Arceus (as expected though), the more powerful forms of Kyurem, and to an extent Primal Groudon. Mega Rayquaza and Primal Groudon rely on Mega Evolution or Primal Reversion respectively, which means not all Generation starting with Gen 8 would see their appearance, but still.

It doesn't help that the stat distribution of the Crowned Zacian and Shadow Rider Calyrex is outright uninspiring. I mean Crowned Zacian is another Physical Fairy-type with far lower Special Attack, but still uninspiring overall.
 
Correction, not all of them. Mew, Celebi, Victini, Genesect and a couple others are in-fact, transfer-only.

None of those are legendaries though, they are mythicals. While the localization didn't regularly differentiate between the two groups until partway through Gen IV, in the original Japanese they have always been a separate category from legendary Pokemon, even back when Mew was the only one.
 
If legendaries are only going to matter in the region theyre introduced, and then just made some mode to be catchable with no lore or care of why theyre there, might as well just turn them from pokemon to characters, uncatchable but important to the games plot. Like calyrex, whos catch battle was probably the worst part of the plot because it felt forced on "well we have to let the trainer catch it!"

The problem with doing that is people want to use their favorite Legendary.

However I do agree we've reached a point where so many Legendaries are beginning to feel like a problem. This has only been enhanced by the "Legendary Hunts" in past gens (which I'm including Dynamax Adventures as one) where they haphazardly come up with a reason to have all Legendaries catchable... and they get worst each time they do it. ORAS Hoopa's Ring made enough sense (well, not why they were appearing all over Hoenn, but its explained it was taking the Legendaries from their place in time & space). USUM's Ultra Space Ride made sense on paper but in execution, since they used the same generic locations, it felt odd these Legendaries were just existing in Ultra Space. But they make no attempt to explain why SwSh's Dynamax Adventure has Legendaries not only in it but we also don't really get much lore about the Regi Ruins in Galar, the Galarian Birds, or the Swords of Justice including the random appearance of Keldeo (ORAS created a whole post game episode to explain why Deoxys was available in the game).

Honestly they could skip the Legendary Hunt every two generations, putting in a few handful of Legendaries (and maybe Mythicals) they feel they want to have a story for. That way when they do the Legendary Hunt next generation they wouldn't need to include those Pokemon. As for the Legendary Hunt themselves, well I can list a whole page worth of ideas for all the good that'll do. Also, while Dynamax Adventure makes no sense why Legendaries are there, at the same time I do like the idea of using Legendaries are these bosses for this multiplayer mode. I wish they could just combine adding in lore with this using them as bosses in a new side mode.
 
The problem with doing that is people want to use their favorite Legendary.

of course, removing any pokemon from the catching pool would upset people. every pokemon is someones favorites.
but i think like a lot of people who like legendaries dont really like them because of using them in game, but because of their legendary status, lore, battle and battling music etc etc. I like solgaleo and lunaala, but i never really used them in battle, and catching them didnt really give me anything special, but their lore and origins is what makes me really enjoy them.

By not focusing on them being catchable, but increasing their lore, flavor and character, you could get a lot more content for people who like that legendary. Imagine if moltres fans got more than just a random battle in the victory road/sevii islands, a roamer/minigame legendary status and one regional form, but moltres had lore and myths about it, maybe it had a character and stuff. That sort of thing yknow.
We even have proof it works. Calyrex was given a little bit more personality and lore, and a lot of people went from hating it to coming around to enjoy it, even if the design didnt change. Imagine if we had that on a larger scale
 
I get that people would wanna use their favorite legendary, but to have a child capture and use a legendary pokémon just seems to... make-believe. I don't know if I'm alone here but I've never actually caught any legendary Pokémon, instead usually opting to run away from it. I've never even caught Suicune which is my favourite pokémon.

I find that I agree with this idea more, as most legendaries serve some sort of importance to the region they're from. For example, its hard to understand why the Lake Guardians are in Galar, when they should be guarding their respective lakes.

Well some ideas I had sort of explain this away:
  • Dream Recreations: The Legendary aren't actually there but what you have is an "avatar" of the Legendary pulled from the Dream World; it doesn't actually exist in-canon. You get them by entering the dream of said Legendaries, asking & answering the question "what does a Legendary Pokemon dream of?".
  • Synthetic Replica: Instead of catching the Legendary, you help a group of scientists study the Legendary and they create a replica of the Legendary. It acts like the Legendary and as powerful as a Legendary is in battle, but it's not actually alive and doesn't have a Legendary's godly powers.
  • Illusion Form: Instead of catching the Legendary, you can choose one of your Pokemon to create an illusion around themselves which essentially transforms them into the Legendary.
  • Realistic Hologram: The Legendary is a hologram but the Poke Ball it's kept in has been modified so that it makes it solid & capable of interacting with the world (thus compete in battles).
  • Summons: We can go the Final Fantasy route and, instead of catching the Legendary, you just are able to summon them in that moment in time.
 
  • Dream Recreations: The Legendary aren't actually there but what you have is an "avatar" of the Legendary pulled from the Dream World; it doesn't actually exist in-canon. You get them by entering the dream of said Legendaries, asking & answering the question "what does a Legendary Pokemon dream of?".
  • Synthetic Replica: Instead of catching the Legendary, you help a group of scientists study the Legendary and they create a replica of the Legendary. It acts like the Legendary and as powerful as a Legendary is in battle, but it's not actually alive and doesn't have a Legendary's godly powers.
  • Illusion Form: Instead of catching the Legendary, you can choose one of your Pokemon to create an illusion around themselves which essentially transforms them into the Legendary.
  • Realistic Hologram: The Legendary is a hologram but the Poke Ball it's kept in has been modified so that it makes it solid & capable of interacting with the world (thus compete in battles).
  • Summons: We can go the Final Fantasy route and, instead of catching the Legendary, you just are able to summon them in that moment in time.
I really like the Dream Recreation and Synthetic Replica ideas. That way people could still use legendary pokémon in competitive without wondering who in the world is guarding the lakes.
 
My main custom Pokemon villains don't even really deal with Legendaries much, preferring to do things with normal Pokemon. Among their reasons for doing so, well, they want to rule the world. Hard to do that if the world is destroyed. More to it than this, but yeah. This is getting off topic.

I guess a point being, I don't really really focus on Legendaries in my works. Even more so with "non standard" Legnendaries (like box ones). I de-emphasized their usage in my Ultra Moon hack (by coming in at lower levels below the curve, nerfing their catch set, making their catch rate 3 like the others, making them rather hard to find, and/or etc.) and I think at times I might find them overused. As people have said, Gamefreak has just been cramming them into the final pair of games/final expansion for Generations. Gosh knows it gets awkward. And gosh knows it was a pain in the ass to dump even more Legendaries, Mythicals, and UBs into my hack...
 
Ok i've just started to read this thread since page 1 (only on page 18) but i felt like giving my unpopular opinions :

-I am honestly sick of seeing the same video titles on youtube : "modern pokemon games are bad" "pokemon is disapointing" "pokemon is getting worse" etc.. We get it, you don't like the games despite you playing it them all the time. It has been a year... I got sick of it when i was watching Jaiden's pokemon rangers video, and she randomly went on a tangent saying gen 7 and 8 were garbage in the intro. I didn't come here for this. Of course, i understand that people might not like these games, but it's annoying when they try to shove it down your throat.

-I guess it's clear from my previous point, but SwSh were my favorite pokemon games along with USUM and HGSS. I admit i was in the "boycott" crowd after dexit, but i picked it up after several months and it was really fun for me ! I loved the wild area especially, and dexit... didn't actually bother me that much. I didn't start playing competitive again until isle of armor came out, so i guess that's why. What i do agree on though, as a singles player, is that dynamax is GARBAGE. At least for singles. It was the entire reason why i didn't get immediatly back in competitive.

-I hate when ROMhacks try to emulate competitive or make the game super hard. Nearly every hack like this i've played turned into a grindfest, for EVs or EXP. It was mostly just "grind until you get the stats to beat the next big battle" and not really "difficult and requires strategy to beat". Bonus points if it's on CFRU, you see all those pokemon available... and then the hack says "no you can't use this one, it's just not strong enough". It doesn't bother me when i play on showdown, since it's really easy to form a team (minus thinking about the playstyle you're gonna adopt with it etc), but when a hack gives me a new way to experience FireRed, i wish i could use the pokemons i want.

-I... really don't understand when people say Smogon is "a bunch of toxic elitists that just add fanmade rules to pokemon". I haven't seen an elitist on these forums so far, and i haven't encountered toxicity on showdown (although i know it exists). On the contrary, it seems you guys are pretty civil about these unpopular opinions, and it's really cool to see people share their POV without getting attacked for it.
In fact, i think this is one of the least toxic places in this community !
 
I hate when ROMhacks try to emulate competitive or make the game super hard. Nearly every hack like this i've played turned into a grindfest, for EVs or EXP.
This is a very common pitfall, especially for people just starting out.

Sadly, as I can personally attest, making sure the game is actually balanced, the player has fun options and that bosses aren't too strong compared to the players takes a LOT of time, and this might lead to development hell.

I personally believe that romhacks should strive to reach Platinum levels of difficulty, mainly by giving players fun and strong options while also giving the bosses strategic and strong options.

Edit:
Though it'll implement future game items and movepools, comp stuff is post game

There's no need to dissociate comp stuff from the main game. What you should focus on is making sure that major battles aren't overwhelming.

For example, if you give Roxanne an Aerodactyl, things might turn out bad, because players probably won't have enough options to beat that.

Also, one option is not enough, because this restricts team composition and that's very bad for a Pokémon game.
 
Hard mode hack lamentations.
Further hard mode hack lamentations.
Well, my hack is a hard mode hack. While I personally prefer those to the generally very lackluster base games, yeah.... And the more important question is if I avoided some of the problems of other hard mode hacks. To this I say, probably not as a whole? I wanted you to earn things more and sometimes me and Gira said "fuck the player" when making it. I made a support net to make grinding, getting EVs, getting better held items, etc. easier, but it still takes time.
 
This is a very common pitfall, especially for people just starting out.

Sadly, as I can personally attest, making sure the game is actually balanced, the player has fun options and that bosses aren't too strong compared to the players takes a LOT of time, and this might lead to development hell.

I personally believe that romhacks should strive to reach Platinum levels of difficulty, mainly by giving players fun and strong options while also giving the bosses strategic and strong options.

Edit:


There's no need to dissociate comp stuff from the main game. What you should focus on is making sure that major battles aren't overwhelming.

For example, if you give Roxanne an Aerodactyl, things might turn out bad, because players probably won't have enough options to beat that.

Also, one option is not enough, because this restricts team composition and that's very bad for a Pokémon game.
The hacks only really a QoL update for Emerald, with the ability to catch all mons on one cart (including self trading). Additions for some Gen 4 cross evos and Gen 2 97 betamons are there as well, along with tweaking mon stats and movesets
Cuz boy does Onix need it
So it'll mostly feel like normal Emerald besides battle upgrades, changed trainer mons and >not finding a Tentacool/Cruel/Wingull every 5 seconds
 
Well, my hack is a hard mode hack. While I personally prefer those to the generally very lackluster base games, yeah.... And the more important question is if I avoided some of the problems of other hard mode hacks. To this I say, probably not as a whole? I wanted you to earn things more and sometimes me and Gira said "fuck the player" when making it. I made a support net to make grinding, getting EVs, getting better held items, etc. easier, but it still takes time.
Oh i wasn't talking about your hack in particular, just some i experienced. I usually play GBA hacks, especially since CFRU started to get used.
I don't mind grinding for some battles, after all i said HGSS was one of my favorite pokemon games despite the ridiculous level curve, it's just when it takes like 50% or more of my playtime on the hack, it starts to get annoying. I'm playing through "The Last Fire Red" and the beginning was HELL, i was 9/10 HOURS IN before beating Misty. After that, it was smooth sailing though. Probably because i just activated the exp share.
A difficulty hack that manages to balance "not too much grinding" with "still a good challenge" sounds good to me.
 
I got sick of it when i was watching Jaiden's pokemon rangers video, and she randomly went on a tangent saying gen 7 and 8 were garbage in the intro. I didn't come here for this. Of course, i understand that people might not like these games, but it's annoying when they try to shove it down your throat.
Tangent? Shoved down throats? Dude, it was like two sentences. And it wasn't even emphasized, just a side comment.
 
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