Legends Arceus is far from flawless, but I'd still take it over any other Pokemon game on the Switch, and especially over any other Sinnoh game any day of the week.
I'd personally take Platinum and Sword over L:A, but to each their own.
I will say that one thing I wasn't a huge fan of were noble battles. I like the idea of shaking up the typical battle formula or having a new type of battle, but I don't think this was the way to do it. Most of them basically amount to just dodging attacks or throwing balms. But the time it takes for you to dodge an attack and aim your next throw means you'll probably only get to throw about 3 balms at most in between attacks. And considering it takes somewhere around 50 or so to calm them (by rough estimate, at least), these battles ultimately just end up becoming a test of patience more than anything else.
I agree, I was not very fond of the noble battles either. More about that later in this post, there are other things to talk about first.
Welcome to the World of Capitalism! Seriously speaking, I'm definitely disappointed that SV were announced so soon after Legends. I really enjoyed Legends, to me its the game that got me interested in Pokémon games again after the disappointment that was SwSh and skipping over BDSP. This isn’t the first time they have done this, XY were announced three months after BW2 in the west, but that was only in the west. I guess the TPC's avarice ( Yes, I think it is safe to call TPC greedy after the abomination of siding with Tencent and creating Pokémon UNITE ) has led them to realize that not only do the games themselves are incredibly lucrative, but the merchandise itself is even more lucrative; and since People will buy Pokémon games regardless of quality, the games need to come out yearly to maximize profits, even if it comes at the cost of the employee's mental and physical health ( In case you did not notice, I'm anti-Capitalism and will stop myself before I go write an essay ) and the quality and innovation of the games.
From an economic point of view, I can understand that they release a new game every year. TPC is a company, and the goal for any company is to make money. Since the Pokémon games always sell very well, it is no mystery that they release a new game every year. But that does not change the fact that it can be annoying and stressful for us players to get a new game every year. I was not a big fan of when they did the same thing with X/Y being announced soon after B2/W2, it made me very disappointed back when it happened. Though it feels worse now with the short gap between L:A and S/V. There's more that can be said about this, but I'll stop here since I don't want this discussion to get too political.
I ask this as a legitimate question, not a rhetorical one - how do you explain the stretch from 2008-2012? There were four main series games produced during this four year period - Pt, HGSS, BW, B2W2. Those might be the four best games in the series (though I think Emerald deserves consideration).
Was the move to 3D that much of a chore for GF that quality was compromised so badly? The pressure that comes from a yearly release seems like more of an excuse than an explanation for a company of GF's size, given their resources. Once upon a time, yearly releases did nothing to stop the quality of games GF was churning out during the Golden Age of 2008-2012. I just have a hard time believing that that's the root cause of the problem now.
And I would imagine the pressure of 3D rendition would just be proportionate to the time in which such games are being produced. I don't see other game franchises like Dragon Quest struggling with the shift to 3D.
Not sure, but I have some ideas. First of all, the Golden Age for me personally is 2011-2014, back when B/W, B2/W2 and X/Y were the newest games (my three favorite entries in the series). There's also OR/AS, but I consider them to be the beginning of the Silver Age.
Now, to (try to) answer your question. I am not a game developer, but my impression is that it is a lot harder and more time-consuming to develop a game in 3D compared to a sprite-based game in 2D. On a similar note, graphics has never been Game Freak's strongest suit. Especially not 3D graphics. There has been a lot of complaints about the graphics in L:A, and while they don't bother me all that much personally (more about that later), there's no denying that the game could have been a lot better graphically. I believe that it takes a lot more time to develop games in 3D than in 2D, so developing a 3D game in the same time as it takes for a 2D game means that corners have to be cut somewhere, either in gameplay, content, graphics or something else. I think all of the 3D games so far have been lacking in some aspects, but which one(s) vary from game to game. Now, this might not necessarily be because of the games being in 3D, but it feels like that at least.
Another thing is that the DS games were built on already existing games more than the 3D games. Platinum was clearly made with D/P as a base, meaning that they already had 80-90% of the game done. HG/SS required them to make a different region on the DS, but they already had the map ready from G/S/C. B/W required a new map, but B2/W2 re-used a lot of it. So they only really had to make one completely "new" game from these four.
In comparison, it was different for the 3D era. X/Y, S/M, S/S and L:A all required new maps. OR/AS and BD/SP were recreations of old maps, while US/UM was just built upon S/M. Which means that the 3D era so far has required four completely new maps, compared to just two for the DS era (D/P and B/W).
And I think the quality of the games wasn't always super great during the DS era either (you already know what I think about HG/SS, the others were fine though). In comparison, I don't think the 3DS era had any game that was quite as bad as HG/SS. Can't really speak for the Switch era as I haven't played either LGP/E or BD/SP, but I think both S/S and L:A were fine if not the very best.
I'm not so sure about the size of GF either. A quick search gives me that they have 167 employees. Let's compare this to some other second-party developers for Nintendo:
Monolith Soft: 275
Intelligent Systems: 187
HAL Laboratory: 205
Compared to these three, Game Freak has fewer employees
and are forced to create a new game every year, which the others don't need to as far as I'm aware.
Not sure if that was the answer you were looking for, but those are my thoughts. I should mention that I do not claim that all of this correct, it is mostly just my own theories and thoughts about this subject.
Agree with this generally. One of the things I love about Pokémon (which I believe Ironmage made a comment about once upon a time) was the symmetry of boss battles compared to other JRPG series. I like the idea that it's Blue's six versus your six, or Cynthia's six versus your six which give the games a more immersive feel, rather than the typical "slay the dragon" OP boss versus a tiny little earthling like yourself in some bloated David vs. Goliath affair. As such, I wasn't a fan of the Volo fight for obvious reasons which broke the symmetry of a normal Pokémon boss fight.
Same here. In the past, I liked how the Pokémon games were always fair* to the player, something most other RPGs I have played aren't. More about this further down.
*not sure if this is the correct term, it might be more correct to say "balanced" or "approachable", but this is what I'm going with.
As for the gameplay itself, not the biggest fan of the heavy shift towards crafting and catching over battling, which I always thought highlighted the core, borderline addictive strength of Pokémon's signature gameplay. Removing that clear, battle-centric sense of progression removes to me what makes Pokémon's gameplay stand out amongst other JRPGs and allows it to maintain its niche.
Mostly agree. I had no issue with the focus on crafting or catching, but I really dislike the changes to the battle system. It was never broken, there was no need to "fix" it. I think most of the changes made it more based on luck than strategy, which I do not approve of. I always liked the traditional battle system since it offered a lot of room for strategy, which has always been one of the things I like the most about Pokémon. I don't understand why they had to change that in L:A, they could just have kept the traditional battle system while also focusing on the other things they introduced in the game.
Early 2010s: Hardcore Gen 5 fans may remember this as the "Hoenn Confirmed" era
Yes. I was very active in the fandom during the Gen 5 and early Gen 6 days, I remember seeing people demanding Hoenn remakes everywhere. Crazy to think that it has been 10 years already.
Ok so in contrast to what Wukong said, honest to god I think it's a crying shame that villains in Pokemon don't flat-out cheat more often. You are not convincing me for a nanosecond that Ghetsis or Lysandre would play fair, and in a series that already struggles to make cool villains as is it would really do miles to help them stand out.
Ghetsis uses an underleveled Hydreigon. That is on the border of cheating if you ask me.
On the topic of opponents cheating, I think Klara/Avery did this the very best. They cheat using
game mechanics, which is excellent. If they keep the concept of cheating characters, I hope we can see more of this in the future.
Even still, I prefer an even, symmetric fight against a champion like Blue, Steven, or Cynthia to an over the top fight against a villain. To me, Pokémon's core strength has always been its battle-centric gameplay. It's never been know for amazing stories. If it really wants to compete in that space there are plenty of JRPGs that do that way better.
I agree. While I think some Pokémon games have good stories, and while B/W are some of my favorite Pokémon games, story has never been the main thing I care about. The story has never been the main reason as for why I love B/W. And as you say, there are many other games out there with considerably better stories. When it comes to Pokémon, I will always take gameplay before story. That is why I like X/Y and US/UM better than S/M, for instance. S/M has a great story but some quite big issues when it comes to gameplay.
...
Now, to some more unpopular opinions. I mentioned some of them earlier in this post, now it is time for a longer explanation.
I wasn't very fond of the Noble battles in L:A. I think this is unpopular because it is an opinion I don't see very often, if ever (I don't think I have seen it anywhere before PokePoindexter posted it earlier in this thread). To me, it feels like Game Freak were trying to emulate the boss battles in other action games like Zelda and Metroid, but the overall execution for the Noble battles is much worse. The Nobles get more and better moves with every new one, but the player is stuck with dodge, throw and run throughout the entire game. Basically, the Nobles improve while you don't, making the battles against them feel very unfair. Even worse, you don't even have access to basic moves like jumping or shielding, nor can you throw many different items, only balms and Poké Balls.
I thought the three basic moves you have were okay for Kleavor and Lilligant, but it became frustrating for Arcanine and every Noble battle after it. In comparison, the Zelda and Metroid games give you access to more items and moves the further you get. I played through Metroid Dread and the Switch remake of Link's Awakening a few months ago, and I think they handled their boss battles so much better than the Noble battles in L:A, it is almost ridiculous how much worse L:A did in this aspect.
On a similar note, I think the health indicator for the player character is terrible. It reminded me of the one in Mirror's Edge, and that's cool, but L:A is an action RPG focused on exploration, not a fast-paced first person platformer with shooting elements. I don't understand why they just couldn't have a health bar for the player like for the Pokémon, or something like the hearts in Zelda or energy tanks in Metroid. I really can't forgive L:A for failing at this and many other things that it got wrong. It is one thing to do a mistake the first time, but when you screw up on something as simple as a good health bar (which other games got right back in the 80s), then it is just plain unacceptable.
I would kind of have liked to see some way to heal the player as well. You can't heal your Pokémon, why not yourself? Not sure about it though. Some way to increase your own health similar to how you get more hearts in Zelda or more energy in Metroid would have been cool as well, but I'm not sure here either. It felt to me like the health for the Nobles did not increase with each battle, so maybe it was a good thing that it wasn't possible to increase it for the player since that would make it unfair in the player's favor. Not sure though.
Overall, I wasn't a fan of the Noble battles. They were difficult and challenging but for all the wrong reasons. There is no way I am ever doing any post-game rematches against them (which I don't have to either, thankfully). If there are more Legends games in the future, they need to either improve upon the Noble fights and do them right, or not include them at all.
I might as well post my other unpopular opinions about L:A while I'm at it, just to get it all out of the way.
First, something positive. I have seen many complaints about the graphics of the game, but I disagree. I think the game actually looks pretty good, even beautiful in some instances. Many areas look great, and I love the Pokémon models. Granted, the game could have been a lot better graphically, I know from experience through playing other games that the Switch is capable of much better graphics. But still, I think the graphics were fine. For all the issues I have with the game, the graphics is not one of them. And as said earlier, graphics (and especially 3D graphics) is something Game Freak has never been particularly good at.
Another unpopular opinion I have about L:A is that I didn't find the world to be empty. It felt like there were always something to be found behind every new corner, be it a Pokémon, an item or something else. If anything, I often wished that the game was
emptier when I played it. Getting targeted by aggressive wild Pokémon almost everywhere was very annoying. Though that's more because there is no way to turn of their aggro (which is a very bad thing IMO), but that's for a different discussion.
Finally, on to something that isn't only about L:A. I dislike how Pokémon games have gotten unfair in recent generations. It started in Gen 7, then it continued in Gen 8. In Gen 1-6, you did for the most part always have the same opportunities as your opponent, no matter the situation. For the most part, you always had access to the same Pokémon, items, moves and abilities as the opponent. There are some exceptions to this, but most of them are minor IMO.
But starting with Gen 7, this changed. Suddenly, opponents could have unfair advantages over you. Some examples are the Totem fights and Ultra Necrozma in Gen 7, where the opponent gets a stat boost at the start of the battle and/or are able to call an ally for help, while you can only have one Pokémon out on the battlefield. The same goes for the SOS mechanics in Gen 7 which I strongly dislike, and how opponents can gang up on you in L:A while you can only ever have one Pokémon out to fight them. There's also the Max Raid battles in S/S and the Noble battles in L:A as I talked about above. The changed battle mechanics in L:A also allow opponents to get unfair advantages over you (or the other way around, though that felt like it happened considerably less often when I played the game). Overall, I am not a fan of how the Pokémon games have gotten unfair from Gen 7 and on, it is something I strongly disapprove of. I always liked the more fair battles in Gen 1-6 and I wish that had been kept, there was no need to change it. Thankfully most regular battles are still fair (except for in L:A), but I don't really like how many of the boss battles are unfair nowadays.
