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Unpopular opinions

Dire Dire Docks said:
Excuse you, sir, I'll have you know that there's only one Pokémon girl for me, and it's not Cynthia.
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Would you believe me if I told you that, only RIGHT NOW, I realized that Shauntal is not a midget and that she's actually kneeling down?
 
Fusion Flare said:
leon is one of, if not the only champion with the distinction that he actually does something in the games. he doesnt just stand there and wait around for some 10 year old to do his job, and thats great, because this is something that people have been meming on for months now, maybe even years. Oh, this dynamax Perrserker going feral? Nothing that a Charizard can’t fix. Uh, oh, Eternatus is released? Better be an adult and fight it! He actually lives up to his title and isn’t some smoothbrained buttermonkey chud sitting on their ass in the back of the pokemon league. Truly worthy of the term “champion”.
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On the flipside, it's fairly common to see people complain about the player character being kept out of the action in base SWSH. It adds to Leon's character, but from a gameplay perspective it's not very fun to be told "oh yeah, and then Leon solved this problem without your help". When it comes to balancing gameplay and story, I'll always choose having the climactic fight with the big baddie in the distortion world over "and then Cynthia's Garchomp wiped the floor with Cyrus". Especially since what saves Leon (imo) is that he's actually a good challenge when you do fight him, not the endless fanwank throughout the game. Show not tell, etc
 
I said this earlier in a Discord but yeah, Cynthia is pretty flat as a character Team Alder and Leon all the way.

I like that other adaptation give her more traits aside from being cool and a fan of myths. She's comically indecisive in the anime when buying ice cream, giving you a false sense of security for the monster of a trainer she is. In Adventures she's also more lax apparently (she actually laughs at Dia and Pearl comedy routine o_o), but also shows a pretty brash and impulsive side when handling Cyrus. She fails to stop him with Draco Meteor, a move with a nasty drawback, but later gets the chance to save the day with a fully mastered Draco. I like this, she ain't perfect and still got things to improve throughout the series.

Also, her beta battle theme sounds a lot like its remix in Smash Bros...
 
Fusion Flare said:
I guess there’s also her character, aka a direct steven stone carbon copy. but really, she's a horrendous character story-wise. She gives you, what, an egg? Puts you on a fetch quest? Stands there while you fight Cyrus? All there is in there is a shallow hard mode “waifu” but really is it so hard that you cant just deal with her garchomp by bringing a Weavile or a bulky water like Vaporeon to freeze its fins off?
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I guess I'm going to bat for Cynthia. As I arrange my thoughts in my head to type out, I'm noticing that this is mostly just my personal theory/interpretation and not really something the game directly supports, but whatever. Should hopefully be an interesting read regardless.

It's always seemed to me like Cynthia's actions throughout the story are all motivated by a desire to see the player character grow strong and mature. She sees the PC going on a journey similar to hers with the Pokédex, and decides to help the PC grow on that journey in small ways, like giving them an egg that can potentially become a pretty strong Pokémon and helping with roadblocks like the Psyduck wall. When the player starts getting into some serious shit with Team Galactic, Cynthia can easily flatten the entire organization, but she doesn't. Is this just because GF wants the player to have their epic showdown with Cyrus? Possibly, but given the ways Cynthia helps the player out throughout the story, it seems likely to me that she wants the player to stop the threat themselves as a way to get stronger/braver. In Platinum, she shows up at Spear Pillar and goes through the Distortion World with the player so she can intervene should the battle with Cyrus go wrong, but she lets the player take a shot first as a test of growth. Because of all these pushes Cynthia gives the player, the player ends up beating Cynthia and becoming champion, and she seems like she wanted that to happen the entire time. Not having an obligation to the League certainly gives her more time to focus on her interest in mythology, although I guess she could have just quit if she wanted out for that reason.

None of this is explicitly stated or confirmed, but it's how I look at it, and it addresses some of the problems that people seem to have with Cynthia as a character. I haven't fully played a Hoenn game yet, so for all I know this could literally all be lifted from Steven's character which would be pretty lame, but if it isn't and all the stuff I just talked about was intentional then I think it's neat.
 
Lemingue said:
I still stand in my opinion on how most pokemon games were hard as a mix of shit accessibility + bad game design

We can have (and tbh at this point we are kinda due having) hard pokemon games, but we can also have them without jank level curves and shit movepools/options for the player
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Colo, Stadium/2/PBR for rental runs makes this worse
Especially Stadium 2. The nerfed rentals + incredibly hard AI makes rental runs take many many many tries
 
Just wanted to post some opinions from the more "complex" discussions:

Smartphones Excuse:
First, major UGH with the smartphone excuse again. Hey, GF, Masuda, if you're THAT worried about making a game that can't keep younger players interests that they want to play on their smartphone instead, have you ever thought that maybe the problem isn't with the game difficulty but rather it's WITH YOU and your design philosophy? Like, seriously, if you think Smartphones are that big of competition then why aren't YOU making a Smartphone games? Leave developing the main Pokemon games for the Nintendo Consoles to another team and/or developer (like Nintendo, Monolith Soft has been suggested on Smogon before, or another major developing studio) and lead a new team within GF that's focus is on Smartphone games. Not only is there PLENTY of ideas you can do with the Pokemon series, but you also wouldn't be tied down to the Pokemon series (heck, I think Little Town Hero wouldn't make for a bad Smartphone game series). Also, at this moment in time, people aren't really expecting that high end graphics on their phones so that's another one of your weaknesses you don't got to worry about.

Balance & Difficulty:
Would like to know what testing GF does to figure out at least levels of opponents. Actually, we'd also need to know what they considered "balance", cause I have a feeling it means "the player's Pokemon levels would be slightly higher than the opponents 99% of the time, maybe making the Champion battle more difficult with a sudden Level jump".

While we're on that, what do they also consider "increasing difficulty" means? Because it means more than just increasing Levels; you can keep the opponents at the same Level but make them more difficult by giving them better Movesets, better IVs/EVs, their Ability is useful/can be used, given a Held Item, and just in general making the AI smarter (possibly even have them switching if they figured they're at a disadvantage or have a Pokemon that would get an advantage). Oh, and it could also mean just giving the NPCs, who usually never have a full party, an extra Pokemon (and/or swapping their Pokemon for stronger species). Infact, I'd dare say, if the only thing you did was increase the Levels by a few, you didn't make things any more difficult.

Also, if you're worried about a player locking themselves into a difficulty that's "too hard" for them (or maybe "too easy"), here's a wild idea: in the Option menu let them switch difficulty levels. Like if you're going to make the games easy you obviously don't care how they beat the game.

Level Caps:
ScraftyIsTheBest said:
a problem especially with the idea of Level Capping in regards to EXP Share is that it would explicitly murder playstyle flexibility. Monotype runs would be dead in the water because they can't rely on a level advantage to compensate for a type disadvantage. Brute forcing with your starter would become impossible to do for those who wanna try that.
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Magcargo said:
Yeah, level caps are utter BS. These are in Pokemon Radical Red, a ROM hack I've been playing recently, and they suck since they severely limit the options you can use to beat the current boss.
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I still think Level Caps are a good idea if implemented correctly. Indeed, the issues both of you stated are problems that should be considered, but they're not issues which can't be worked around.

First, as ScraftyIsTheBest suggested, having Level Caps being it's own additional Mode or Option would resolved some if not most of these issues. If a specialize run like Mono-Type or One Pokemon only isn't working out with Level Caps don't play it in that Mode (or, better yet, have it be something in the Option menu that can be turned on & off).

Second, the way I think Pokemon can do Level Caps is actually using mechanics they already have and use! Not sure how it's done in Radical Red, but putting a "hard limit" on Levels (whereas the Pokemon stops gaining Levels & possibly experience upon reaching the Level Cap) is a bad idea. Not only could it mean valuable Experience goes to waste but also completely stops the Pokemon from anyway of becoming stronger. No, in my opinion, Level Caps would use the Battle Facilities' Set Level mechanic. Upon reaching the Level Cap, the Pokemon's stats will be set as if it's always at that Level until Level Cap is increased (likely with getting the next Badge or whatever progress marker they're using). However, the Pokemon will still gain Levels. This is an important detail because this allows the Pokemon not only able to learn new & stronger Moves but also adds & adjusts EVs. Sometimes a Pokemon just needs a better Move and/or its EVs in the right stats to get the edge it needs to win. Heck, they could also allow a Pokemon's HP to keep on increasing (meaning only Atk, Def, SpA, SpD & Spe would be affected for Level Caps) if they really want to make sure the player won't get stuck with on a Level Cap run.

Also, balancing would be important. If a Pokemon for some reason needs overleveled stats to win just make sure then that no opponent has a Pokemon that goes above the Level Cap and is a few levels below it. If they have different game difficulties then maybe for the harder ones they can have important NPCs Pokemon go up to the Level Cap and maybe even go above it; but once again those difficulty modes would probably not be ones you'd play on for a Mono-Type or One Pokemon run.

Battle Frontier (& Expanded Battle Tower Expy):
~Hello Battle Frontier discussion my old friend. I've come to talk about you once again.~
Fine, making an ENTIRE Battle Frontier is decided to no longer be a viable use of resources. But that doesn't mean you can't do any unique battling modes, just add them to the Battle Tower Expy! You could even still create unique trainers for each one, they'd all just share the same location and only appear as the final boss when going through their specialized style. With a little bit of work even the previous non-explorative Battle Facilities could be fitted into the Battle Tower expy:
  • Factory/Gateway/Rentals: Well, they've actually now included rental teams, but for how the Battle Factories did it all they would need to do would just let the player swap one of their Pokemon with the opponent they just defeated.
  • Arena: After 3 turns the battle is judged, don't even need to put up a special graphic though a simple one would give it some visual flair.
  • Dome: Only thing you gotta show is the tourney match-up results graphic.
  • Pike: This is technically an explorative one BUT I think can simply be recreated. Breaking it down to its VERY basics, it's just providing a player with a choice of 3 options, the Pikes presented it as 3 doors each leading down a hallway, but it could just be as easy as a Trainer asking to pick either A, B, & C and telling them the result of their choice (then either letting them pass to the next opponent or having a battle). Obviously would hope it would be more interesting then that, but that is the basics of it and can be recycled to something which wouldn't involve picking doors each leading to a different hallway.
  • Palace: This is just about the Pokemon's Nature deciding on what moves it uses on its own. Regardless how you feel about it, you can't argue it's a simple one that can be includede.
  • Arcade: The only graphic you'll need is the spinner.
  • Castle: No graphic needed, but rather a "Point" counter and having an NPC that you can trade in these points with for Items and other advantages before you start the next streak.
  • Hall: The only graphic you'll need is the Type Board.
  • The way Battle Revolution did their gimmicks with minimal graphics when needed is a good example as well.
 
CPU said:
That's why they added the continue glitch, so you could try as many times as you wanted

I'd take Stadium 2 rentals over whatever garbage PBR gives you any day.
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What was wrong with the rentals in PBR? I understand there was only one set for each gender, but I managed to progress to the game fine with that set.
 
DreamPrince said:
What was wrong with the rentals in PBR? I understand there was only one set for each gender, but I managed to progress to the game fine with that set.
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I recently replayed PBR all the way through and it's a funny one in that one gender is demonstrably far better than the other. While neither is stellar, the girl's rental pass is much, much better than the boy's:

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-All the Kanto team have better item choices; the starters have items which actually power up their STAB moves, whereas all the Sinnoh mons have items which boost their unSTABed, weaker moves. Grotle's Rock Smash is still hitting for nothing even with that Fist Plate
-Kanto gets the fully-evolved Pidgeot with a Muscle Band that actually beefs up its attacks (and Tailwind for some team support), Sinnoh gets Staravia which is weaker and slower and doesn't even get a good item to compensate
-The Kanto team have better moves and abilities in general. Dragonair's Shed Skin and Sitrus Berry pair well and Charmeleon's Sunny Day+Charcoal+Blaze makes Fire Fang a potential nuke. Rhyhorn's Protect and Dig have utility in Doubles and Lightningrod synergises well with Pidgeot and Wartortle. By comparison Luxio has Rivalry which stinks in comparison to Intimidate and Gabite's moves are garbage
 
Pikachu315111 said:
Level Caps:


I still think Level Caps are a good idea if implemented correctly. Indeed, the issues both of you stated are problems that should be considered, but they're not issues which can't be worked around.

First, as ScraftyIsTheBest suggested, having Level Caps being it's own additional Mode or Option would resolved some if not most of these issues. If a specialize run like Mono-Type or One Pokemon only isn't working out with Level Caps don't play it in that Mode (or, better yet, have it be something in the Option menu that can be turned on & off).

Second, the way I think Pokemon can do Level Caps is actually using mechanics they already have and use! Not sure how it's done in Radical Red, but putting a "hard limit" on Levels (whereas the Pokemon stops gaining Levels & possibly experience upon reaching the Level Cap) is a bad idea. Not only could it mean valuable Experience goes to waste but also completely stops the Pokemon from anyway of becoming stronger. No, in my opinion, Level Caps would use the Battle Facilities' Set Level mechanic. Upon reaching the Level Cap, the Pokemon's stats will be set as if it's always at that Level until Level Cap is increased (likely with getting the next Badge or whatever progress marker they're using). However, the Pokemon will still gain Levels. This is an important detail because this allows the Pokemon not only able to learn new & stronger Moves but also adds & adjusts EVs. Sometimes a Pokemon just needs a better Move and/or its EVs in the right stats to get the edge it needs to win. Heck, they could also allow a Pokemon's HP to keep on increasing (meaning only Atk, Def, SpA, SpD & Spe would be affected for Level Caps) if they really want to make sure the player won't get stuck with on a Level Cap run.

Also, balancing would be important. If a Pokemon for some reason needs overleveled stats to win just make sure then that no opponent has a Pokemon that goes above the Level Cap and is a few levels below it. If they have different game difficulties then maybe for the harder ones they can have important NPCs Pokemon go up to the Level Cap and maybe even go above it; but once again those difficulty modes would probably not be ones you'd play on for a Mono-Type or One Pokemon run.
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I personally always thought they should do a similar thing to how wild battles level up in Final Fantasy 8, where the level of the wild Pokemon and your foes, are all linked to an extent into the highest level of your main six. You'd still have a cap as to the highest a wild Pokemon could be at, so no Route One Level 99 Pidgeys, but it'd be reasonable to see them perhaps grow to a maximum of Level 30 whilst later routes would still have a higher cap to emulate the current set up.

Problem I suppose you have is that there is so much more choice in Pokemon, as opposed to FF8 where you have literally six main characters to choose from. Then again, if you did want to catch and use a wild Pokemon it'd come at a high enough level so it wouldn't limit you too much on that front.

Perhaps it'd need to be an average of your upper quartile to really work.
 
Robcore said:
I personally always thought they should do a similar thing to how wild battles level up in Final Fantasy 8, where the level of the wild Pokemon and your foes, are all linked to an extent into the highest level of your main six. You'd still have a cap as to the highest a wild Pokemon could be at, so no Route One Level 99 Pidgeys, but it'd be reasonable to see them perhaps grow to a maximum of Level 30 whilst later routes would still have a higher cap to emulate the current set up.
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A problem with this I see is more with training, especially if other members on your team isn't up to the level of your highest (so switching them in would put them in an automatic disadvantage) but you don't want to focus directly on training them. Even for your strongest member now the battles put them on even footing with the opponent, meaning they won't be knocking out the opponent in a couple of hits (unless they're on a Route or location with a lower cap to their Level) which means they'll be hit multiple times which means more healing meaning more money spent on potions or running back to the Pokemon Center. It'll likely mean players will ignore the wild encounter more than ever if it's essentially going to be a mini-boss fight each time (because if they're also at equal levels the chance of running away isn't guaranteed, and each fail run away attempt is a free hit for the wild Pokemon). Also, it may take away the feeling that NPC Trainers are a greater challenge as they too would probably follow the leveling-with-you rule so be on even par with the Wild Pokemon.
 
Pikachu315111 said:
A problem with this I see is more with training, especially if other members on your team isn't up to the level of your highest (so switching them in would put them in an automatic disadvantage) but you don't want to focus directly on training them. Even for your strongest member now the battles put them on even footing with the opponent, meaning they won't be knocking out the opponent in a couple of hits (unless they're on a Route or location with a lower cap to their Level) which means they'll be hit multiple times which means more healing meaning more money spent on potions or running back to the Pokemon Center. It'll likely mean players will ignore the wild encounter more than ever if it's essentially going to be a mini-boss fight each time (because if they're also at equal levels the chance of running away isn't guaranteed, and each fail run away attempt is a free hit for the wild Pokemon). Also, it may take away the feeling that NPC Trainers are a greater challenge as they too would probably follow the leveling-with-you rule so be on even par with the Wild Pokemon.
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Not quite, but the basic concept you've got.

As mentioned, you'd have a cap per each area and an individual one for each Pokémon within that area, so some Pokémon on a particular route will be more difficult to defeat than others (like it currently is). But those caps would only be hit when say, X amount of Pokémon you own reach a particular level. It wouldn't be like for like, i.e. your starter hits Level 30, all the wild Pokémon are now at Level 30, as you'd need to compensate for the actual training element. It could be along the lines of if your average Pokémon level is 1-10 for Route 1, then the wild Pokémon there are between Levels 2 to 5; if your average is 11-20 then wild Levels are between 8 - 13; average between 21 and 30 then between 18 and 23.

It is a lot easier on a game like FF8 where you have a set amount of characters that you can use as opposed to Pokémon, admittedly, which is why I'm not saying it's a perfect fit-for-fit, but something along the lines of this would prevent over-grinding. Rather, the difficulty stays at a similar level.

NPC Trainers would have to be influenced by it too, perhaps a bit closer to your party average to demonstrate the improved training that they'll have given their Pokémon.
 
PokePoindexter said:
I'd also add "too much water" from gen 3 to that list. I really don't think it's that bad, especially since you can surf at twice the normal speed on a Sharpedo in ORAS and grab up a few Max Repels to not have to worry about the Tentacools.
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For OR/AS specifically, I think that "No Battle Frontier" is their negative tagline (or what it should be called).

Regarding "too much water", I haven't seen it a lot recently and I remember that in the past, it was mostly used to mock IGN rather than OR/AS. Though things might have changed since then, I don't know.
 
"Too much water" is 100% correct and mocking it was just because it was phrased in a funny way. The water routes of the game are monotonous, boring1 or just straight up annoying. Diving is a cool mechanic but you use it 1% of the game and the rest is just water routes everywhere until you reach the league
 
PokePoindexter said:
Not to mention the Mystery Dungeon games' cutscenes, especially in Gates to Infinity.

I'd also add "too much water" from gen 3 to that list. I really don't think it's that bad, especially since you can surf at twice the normal speed on a Sharpedo in ORAS and grab up a few Max Repels to not have to worry about the Tentacools.
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Gates to Infinity is REALLY insufferable when it comes to cutscenes and dialogue yet I hardly see anyone mocking the game like SM. Characters tend to repeat stuff we already know several times, everyone has Mojo Jojo syndrome.
 
Yung Dramps said:
"Le cutscenes" has become to SM what "Le ice cream/le garbage" was to BW. It's literally not a shred less petty or annoying or overused
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The problem with this is that "Le ice cream/le garbage" are perfectly easy to avoid in game. Don't want to use a Vanillite? Don't catch one, simple as that. Don't want a Trubbish? Same thing, don't catch it. Don't want to watch the cutscenes? Sorry, but there's no skip button and the text only goes so fast. Its compulsory, and it's damned annoying. The SM cutscene thing has be done to death, sure, but it really cannot be understated how much they drag when you don't care about the story and just want to play the game. I enjoy SM and USUM a lot, but I've never been able to finish them because by the time I get to Ultra Space/Ultra Necrozma I'm just too tired of the cutscenes to keep playing
 
pokemon4eva said:
Characters tend to repeat stuff we already know several times, everyone has Mojo Jojo syndrome.
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That's more of a problem common to all the PMD entries. Even sacred crow Explorers can feel like Apollo Justice in terms of parroting information you've just read minutes ago.

But the insufferably slow text of Gates to Infinity's cutscenes is certainly noticeable. It doesn't get much attention because most criticism is towards the game's very existence.
 
Some hot takes based on recent topics:

1. Gates to Infinity is my favorite MD game by a long shot (this is a hot take on its own, but the player’s “death” is handled the best in this version since they don’t immediately return)

2. Hoenn having too much water is a good thing since it helps set the region apart (I’d say other regions don’t have enough)

3. Cutscenes are not a bad thing in Pokémon games, and the Alola games in particular are helped by them more than they’re hurt
 
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