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Your controversial opinions

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Puddle said:
Even as a child, it used to annoy me that Claydol's category was simply "Clay Doll"!

And it's weird how so many Pokemon, even the new ones, have Categories that refer to real animals that supposedly don't exist in the Pokemon world. How can Corviknight be the "Raven Pokemon" if there are no ravens in the Pokemon world? Why would the word "raven" exist in Galar's language?
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My headcanon answer has always been that words like "mouse" and "raven" are basically the Pokémon world's equivalent of our taxonomical system, so, "raven" is probably their version of "corvus," likely derived from an older language. I realize that that's overly simplistic, but hey, it's Pokémon, and specifically a facet of the series that I don't think even has a point anymore, so I'm not going to aim for supreme stringency with my lazy handwave.

But yeah, fan-answers aside, it really does feel like an aspect of the design process that remains weirdly and stubbornly at odds with the way they try to portray the Pokémon world these days. I mean, in Gen 6, they bothered to alter Delibird's Pokédex entry so as to no longer refer to Mt. Everest, and iirc the Let's Go games dropped most of the original RBY's real-world location references like the Tiksi branch of Silph, and Lt. Surge now being the "Lightning Lieutenant," because we know now that that's not really how the Pokémon world works (anymore); they have their own versions of our familiar locations, with their own unique, fictional names and properties. So why keep the real-world animal references around, especially when they don't really serve any intuitive purpose?
 
I’m guessing this kind of stuff is a formality now-a-days and they just kept it around as one, a relic of the past and two, a real world point of reference for children as to what a Pokémon is. I don’t think it’s meant to represent anything in-universe now, but @Esserise’s explanation above certainly makes for a good headcanon!
 
Esserise said:
My headcanon answer has always been that words like "mouse" and "raven" are basically the Pokémon world's equivalent of our taxonomical system, so, "raven" is probably their version of "corvus," likely derived from an older language. I realize that that's overly simplistic, but hey, it's Pokémon, and specifically a facet of the series that I don't think even has a point anymore, so I'm not going to aim for supreme stringency with my lazy handwave.

But yeah, fan-answers aside, it really does feel like an aspect of the design process that remains weirdly and stubbornly at odds with the way they try to portray the Pokémon world these days. I mean, in Gen 6, they bothered to alter Delibird's Pokédex entry so as to no longer refer to Mt. Everest, and iirc the Let's Go games dropped most of the original RBY's real-world location references like the Tiksi branch of Silph, and Lt. Surge now being the "Lightning Lieutenant," because we know now that that's not really how the Pokémon world works (anymore); they have their own versions of our familiar locations, with their own unique, fictional names and properties. So why keep the real-world animal references around, especially when they don't really serve any intuitive purpose?
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I like that theory. I reckon "raven" could be their version of "corvid" rather than "Corvus". (Although I wonder what the genus would be then? "Ravus"?)

It seems there are also some less formal words that people use to describe different kinds of Pokemon on an everyday basis, such as "bird" and "fish" (hence the Birdkeeper and Fisherman/Fisher trainer classes).

I was interested in the categories as a child, and always wanted to know what they were. I remember being excited when I found a screenshot of Treecko's Pokedex entry in my Ruby and Sapphire manual, revealing it to be the Wood Gecko Pokemon (I chose Mudkip in the game, so didn't have Treecko's full entry). I haven't been paying quite as much attention to the categories in recent years, but I still think they add a nice bit of flavour to each Pokemon, particularly in the anime when Ash uses his Pokedex.

Maybe if some of the more dull categories were retconned into more interesting ones, and every Pokemon had a completely unique category, they'd seem more worthwhile.

Claydol and a few others aside, they got more creative with the categories in Gen III. We started seeing more categories that describe the Pokemon's behaviour and temperament rather than what they look like.
 
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I'm really starting to love Jynx. I just beat Crystal a few minutes ago and my shiny Jynx was one of my two aces (with Typhlosion) and single-handedly took out most of Lance's team.
 
MadisonSteel said:
I'm really starting to love Jynx. I just beat Crystal a few minutes ago and my shiny Jynx was one of my two aces (with Typhlosion) and single-handedly took out most of Lance's team.
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Jynx is actually an awesome Pokémon battle-wise. 115 special Attack and 95 is not bad, actually. Not the best, but can do a dent on a team if they don't know how to stop it. Let a Jynx set up a Nasty Plot or have a Timid Choice Scarf one and have nothing faster or with priority to see what happens.

The only problems it has battle-wise is cuz other mons that do what Jynx does and better, a bad type combo, paper-thin physical defenses and well, the biggest of them: what it represents for the public and even for TPCi itself.
 
I think the most controversial opinion I have about Pokemon right now is that Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl really do look brilliant. It appears that they're keeping everything that made Diamond and Pearl great while fixing all (or at least most) of the things that prevented them from being perfect. Plus the new graphics are really cute and colourful (I was worried about the battle graphics, but the improvements we saw in the Switch OLED trailer reassured me). They may end up being less innovative than other recent Pokemon titles, but oftentimes a simple, non-taxing nostalgia fix is just what I'm in the mood for.
 
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I feel like this would get a lot of resistance: I've become kind of fascinated with how the TCG consolidates types and spend a fair amount of time imagining what a main series game using those types would be like, as well as charting out what I think a better distribution of those type consolidations would look like.

For example, combining Dark and Poison into one type makes so much sense given how they're both the more common "evil team" types in the games, and it serves as a bonus reference to Umbreon's beta typing (and Dex description), but then there's no type difference between Kanto and Alola Muk.

Combining Water and Ice makes a lot of sense except that Water doesn't need more monsters and I feel weird about having two Eevees of the same type.

Combining Rock/Ground makes all the sense in the world, though the TCG's addition of Fighting feels so strange.

Combining Grass and Bug doesn't really make any sense except that they both "feel" green.

They use Colorless instead of Normal, which makes me think that losing Normal in favor of "Typeless" (like a post-Burn Up fire-type) would be interesting.


It's nothing that I ever expect to happen in the games, Game Freak and the fans both being as resistant to change as they are, and I'm not well-versed enough in game design or type mechanics to know if it would work any better but it is at least a very interesting and fun thought experiment I've been doing lately.
 
Closest thing I have seen to that was a romhack known as PokéSweets that reduced the types from 18 to 12 (one more than the TCG). It was based on flavors (like grape, chocolate), although I felt it kinda unpolished. Maybe another take would make it more interesting.

On the other hand, I'd rather keep Water and Ice apart because Pokémon is one of the few RPG franchises where Water is more common than Ice or is a glorified Ice element.

Bug and Grass being in the same element doesn't look that weird to me, but I guess that is because Digimon also did that in some games. I think the DS outright called it Plant/Insect IIRC.
 
Jimothy said:
For example, combining Dark and Poison into one type makes so much sense given how they're both the more common "evil team" types in the games, and it serves as a bonus reference to Umbreon's beta typing (and Dex description), but then there's no type difference between Kanto and Alola Muk.
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Well, the TCG doesn't actually do this one- Poison, Ghost, and Psychic are all combined into one, and Dark is still its own thing.

I don't know that I agree that it really makes that much sense- even though they get used for evil teams often, it seems to me like that's mostly due to circumstance than actually trying to give the evil team a specific type. For example, the only Dark-type used by any Team Skull member is Alolan Rattata/Raticate (and A-Muk for Plumeria, although she and Guzma are type specialists, so it's a bit different), and the only one used by Team Galactic is Stunky/Skuntank. (except for Cyrus and his Honchkrow) In fact, they just as often use Normal-types- Galactic Grunts often have Glameow, Rocket Grunts often have Rattata, etc. It seems to me like it's more about using common Pokemon than making sure they're mostly a specific set of types. (Although obviously the typing and design makes Poison and Dark types fit more than picking say, Caterpie or Bidoof)

Between that and other characters that use these types completely separate from evil teams, I don't think story alone is quite enough to merge the two together, because Poison often overlaps with natural defenses- bugs, plants, pufferfish, skunks- whereas Dark leans more into general trickery/villainy. I think a merge earlier on might have worked well for the series- poisoning could just be another of many tricks Dark is known to pull, and then just give former Poison-types some Dark moves to inflict it, but now, putting an insect that uses its stinger to poison in the same elemental group as a thieving fox because both get used by villains seems odd to me.
Jimothy said:
Combining Water and Ice makes a lot of sense except that Water doesn't need more monsters and I feel weird about having two Eevees of the same type.
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IMO, the biggest issue here is that Water and Ice have completely opposite effects on Fire and Grass, which are both pretty iconic elemental types. Removing/adding some of the more abstract properties could probably pass without much notice- it's not like Rock being weak to a former Ice move or an Ice-type no longer being weak to Steel would be all that weird for anyone other than returning players- but if my Fire-type is weak to Powder Snow, or my Grass-type is somehow resisting a Blizzard, or if we go even further and change up the starter type triangle, things are going to feel pretty strange.

Jimothy said:
They use Colorless instead of Normal, which makes me think that losing Normal in favor of "Typeless" (like a post-Burn Up fire-type) would be interesting.
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It does seem really odd to me that they bothered giving Normal the minimal type matchups that they did- like, why bother giving it a Fighting weakness at all? Nothing's weak to Normal, so why can't Normal also be the exception for having weaknesses? (I mean, Wonder Guard now, I guess, but that wasn't a thing then)

Something interesting I want to throw out with your thought experiment is that the TCG also does some weird stuff with weakness and resistances, where Pokemon of the same type can have different weaknesses or resistances, even as their attacks are considered the same type. (For example, Vaporeon cards will have a Grass/Electric weakness while Glaceon cards have a Steel/Fire weakness, even though both count as Water-types for the purposes of attacking and Trainer Cards) Of course, that's easier to do for a game with fewer dual-types, only one weakness/resistance for Pokemon, and usually only one type of attack, plus the fact that they show the weaknesses on their card.

prog rocker said:
Closest thing I have seen to that was a romhack known as PokéSweets that reduced the types from 18 to 12 (one more than the TCG). It was based on flavors (like grape, chocolate), although I felt it kinda unpolished. Maybe another take would make it more interesting.
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That's funny, I was literally just ripping some sprites for that game's wiki lol. No offense to the hack's creator, but that type chart is super weird- there's no rhyme or reason to any kind of type matchup (Why is Blueberry weak to Lime? Why is Orange weak to Apple?), and focuses so much on coming up with fruit-themed types (the only two that aren't are Chocolate and Vanilla) that they often have to squeeze in other concepts, seemingly just based on color. (For example, Mintanyte and Razor Mint are Lime-type because mint is green) And that's not even getting into how many PokeSweets don't learn STAB moves.
 
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TechSkylander1518 said:
Well, the TCG doesn't actually do this one- Poison, Ghost, and Psychic are all combined into one, and Dark is still its own thing.
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Actually, as of the SwSh base set, Poison has indeed been folded under the Darkness umbrella. (Additionally, Fairy as its own thing was (semi-)abolished, and is now folded under Psychic instead.)

(On that note, while I agree overall that it wouldn’t make sense for the core games to implement this kind of simplified type chart, speaking within the context of the TCG, where they’ve long since committed to such a chart, I think Darkness probably is the most logical spot for Poison. It was originally under Grass which really didn’t feel right, and then spent forever under Psychic, presumably just because “it’s purple.” Dark on the other hand has a sinister connotation that Poison resonates with as a devious/dishonorable method of inflicting harm.)
 
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I said every game in this series was immensely satisfying, and I meant it. But if I'm not gonna be totally honest on my way out, I don't know when I am: just because the games that came out were satisfying doesn't mean that I don't wish there had been more.

(disclaimer: I know the "Version" designator isn't actually part of the game titles as of Generation VI, but single-letter version titles feel small as part of a greater sentence so I'm taking artistic license)

Generation VI feels like... it's in a hurry. There was #ProductionForeshadowing for Alola from the release of X and Y Versions. The anime developed an "XY&Z" branding and introduced things like Battle Bond and Power Construct that revolved around Kalosian concepts - "transformation to better oneself" was the theme of Generation VI. And it would have made so much sense if the region that made the full leap to 3D gave its mainstay region three games versioned "X, Y, Z" because those are the three axes of a three-dimensional plane - and the Z axis is the one that isn't there in a two-dimensional plane. Writer's block is a sound reason for something not happening, but writer's block tends to disperse or be overcome given time; if there had been an upper version in Kalos, then maybe unfortunate Pokémon like Flygon and Milotic might have gotten the Mega Evolutions that they were intended to, but couldn't, have in X and Y Versions. It almost feels like they were in a hurry to progress to Alola, and in so doing, failed to give Kalos a proper send-off.

That said, I do understand the reasoning for not capping off the Generation with Pokémon Z Version. As I've mentioned elsewhere, the entire purpose of the core series' versioning is that it encourages player socialization. You trade for what you don't have, you battle other players for a greater challenge, you compete to see who can achieve a given goal faster. But ORAS did experience technical difficulty in communications for XY: the introduction of Mega Stones and moves in Hoenn which did not exist in Kalos meant that Pokémon who possessed them could not be traded to Kalos, or use them in battle with Kalos. I get that - update files for SwSh, which (re)introduced whole Pokémon that weren't in the base game, are a lot bigger than update files for the 3DS games which were just bugfixes, (at least, they're bigger going by download times; I recently transferred to a new3DS and ran updates for the Pokémon games on my old one so a friend of mine could use it). And the 3DS didn't have a Switch Online cloud to let you min-max your data storage. A standalone upper version for Kalos, with things like Battle Bond and Power Construct and possibly new Mega Stones, would only be able to communicate with other copies of the same game, which slashes that socialization value. And not everyone would be willing to get the upper version just for the new transformatives, either; one of my friends straight-up skipped Generation V entirely because he judged it by the prerelease, and that was an entirely new region and transferrability. Further, Zygarde's Formes are designed to be progressively stronger than one another, and don't exactly lend themselves to paired upper versions like Necrozma does, which really means there's no way to have paired games released to cap off the Generation.

Now, the real question is: what is the controversial opinion? Wanting for a Kalosian upper version to have happened, or being willing to understand why it didn't?
 
Esserise said:
Actually, as of the SwSh base set, Poison has indeed been folded under the Darkness umbrella. (Additionally, Fairy as its own thing was (semi-)abolished, and is now folded under Psychic instead.)

(On that note, while I agree overall that it wouldn’t make sense for the core games to implement this kind of simplified type chart, speaking within the context of the TCG, where they’ve long since committed to such a chart, I think Darkness probably is the most logical spot for Poison. It was originally under Grass which really didn’t feel right, and then spent forever under Psychic, presumably just because “it’s purple.” Dark on the other hand has a sinister connotation that Poison resonates with as a tacit/dishonorable method of inflicting harm.)
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Oh, huh, I didn't know I missed that! (I had thought they just smushed four types together under Psychic as the new most-crowded type, lol) Yeah, I definitely agree on the TCG rework there!

(I'm so upset about Fairy it was my signature type...)
 
Pokemon Sword and Shield were great games. Though I'll say the DLC should have probably been in game as post game stuff from the get go... I still had a lot of fun with Shield. I still haven't managed to go through a single play through of Platinum, Black (and by extension, the sequel), and X version. So in my eyes SWSH are at least better than those games in the regard of being able to hold my attention long enough for me to beat the game. For whatever reason I just can't stick with Platinum or Black even though I've restarted them many times. Even Nuzlockes haven't kept my attention fully. The overworld exploration is so much nicer in SWSH because of the 3D. Oh, speaking of that. THE GAMES ARE BEAUTIFUL AND THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT TREE STRUCTURE WISE.

Leave that tree alone she did nothing to you she's wonderful. Ocarina of Time's trees were square tubes. Stop comparing them. They just need a nicer texture that's all.

I am extremely salty this morning jeeze I think I'll go back to bed in a bit.
 
prog rocker said:
To this day, I still wonder why people got so obsessed with that tree. I wouldn't have noticed anything if people didn't point it out to me.
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After Dexit people were going over everything with a fine-toothed comb looking for problems.
Why the tree in particular became a focal point I cannot say, but I'm Really Really Old and stopped caring about graphical improvements sometime around the PS2/Gamecube era.
 
prog rocker said:
To this day, I still wonder why people got so obsessed with that tree. I wouldn't have noticed anything if people didn't point it out to me.
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Because the tree was a conveniently-placed excuse to take out their anger about the Dexit. Simple as that.

Everyone grabbed a magnifying glass to pin-point any sort of imperfection and use it as a revenge against GF. I do agree it could've looked better at the end product, but that seemed so petty to me. And I took one look at the videos and posts of those people making angry rants about those trees and I immediatly went ''This is not about the tree texture right?"
 
32658.png

I mean, it's not exactly pretty. But even a masterpiece like BOTW has a few ugly textures here and there. SwSh just needed a model that would suffice, and this tree gets the job done. Like @Daren and @Enzo said, the tree was really just an overly-fixated-on scapegoat, or... maybe a shorthand, let's say, for peoples' Dexit grievances. The line of thought being, "If they're cutting Pokémon in order to improve [insert aspect of the game here], then why does this still look bad?" Which I think is a fair question to ask of a product you're being courted to purchase, but at the same time, I think people can't help but make a lot of wild and possibly erroneous presumptions about the matter, because, unless it's a very transparent company, it's hard to assess from an outside perspective just how much work is required of the developers by the task at hand. For example, I think it's been pretty firmly proven by now that the notion quite a few people held, that "all they had to do" was copy and paste the models/anims from the 3DS, was simply not accurate. So any complaints approaching the matter from that angle were fundamentally situated atop a flawed assumption, but the average layman consumer doesn't necessarily know which assumptions are flawed and which aren't. Of course, there were also some people who just figured everything Game Freak was saying was in bad faith, a lie, an excuse, etc. which I think is a pretty cynical position to jump to and doesn't really lead to any constructive input.
 
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