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Trailers and News Discussion

This was a really good trailer. I really like all of the starters' middle forms. Dartrix looks pretty cool. I especially like the green feather around its eye and the white feathers look nice. Torracat does look pretty tough and intimidating. I love Brionne so much. It's beautiful. Be it male or female, my Brionne will dance until its heart is content. I already loved Popplio, so I'm glad that I like its evolved form so much too. It's still a bit tricky with choosing my Moon starter, but after seeing the middle stages, I'm leading towards Rowlet more than Litten, even though I like both of their evolved forms.

The Festival Plaza looks pretty fun. I was wondering how could get Festival Coins and it looks like little mini games. It's pretty cool that we can buy stuff besides the clothes with it as well. It looks like fun. The Poke Pelago looks really neat. I always liked to imagine that the PC boxes were something more like Professor Oak's place just to make it happier for the Pokemon I caught, so seeing something like this is really great. It's a fun way to get more items, train other Pokemon and basically have some of your other Pokemon doing stuff while focusing on your team.

It was nice that they confirmed that Mega Evolution does exist in Sun/Moon. I thought it was obvious that they wouldn't eliminate the feature completely. We may not get new Mega Pokemon, but at least we can still use that feature and I'm kind of glad that the Mega Stones are available through Battle Points. While finding them in game allows you to explore more of the region, it can also be a bit too tedious, especially when X/Y narrowed down the search time for the Mega Stone. At least this does calm down the fans who were thinking that they were going to ignore Mega Evolution completely.

Ash-Greninja being confirmed for the Special Demo was certainly a surprise. It does make sense when the Zygarde forms turned out to be in Sun/Moon as well, but it was still a surprise, especially when it's still called Ash-Greninja. Being the result of an ability works though. I'm fine with the transformation being the result of winning one battle in the game as well. The way Greninja transforms in the anime wouldn't really work for a video game. I'm hoping that the Sun/Moon Demo will be better than the OR/AS Demo and that people won't be able to find the Pokedex information by hacking the demo. Still, really great news all around and I'm excited to see what the October 14th trailer will bring. We'll have CoroCoro leaks before that trailer as well, so we should be getting more news sooner rather than later.
 
So the return of join avenue? Well I guess it's cool. Never really cared for it and it became boring quickly, but neat to have it in the game.

-Gen 6 keeps on digging its "I was a mistake hole even fucking deeper." I like megas but god damn it, their post game relegation, each major feature of XY being paltry shadows of their SM incarnations, and everything and anything that made gen 5 so good is spiritually returning to the series, from the music to the gameplay, its like GF doesn't care or appreciate what they did over the last 3 years. And I am glad for that, so far this is gen 6 the way it should have been done, the gen 6 I was waiting for after the god tier, greatest experience ever that was B2W2. I NEED IT NOW.

Many said it way back in early 2013 that XY is gonna be the best pokemon games ever after all the features it announced. SM isn't any different so why do you believe SM to be another BW2, especially if it is a gen starter pair where they only really care about estabilishing a region?

DP did the same things like copying contests from RS and you even titled DP to be similiar to XY in a later post. You have to explain that situation.

Also can't see those things that made gen 5 good when everything to the features, the music (stolen tracks from HG/SS), the amount of places, route design etc. was less than DP and RS and subjectively to me more bland and generic
 
i don't really think it's all that fair to right everything else when it's not really....everything else.

the pacing may have been tight and focused, but it was also formulaic. every badge played out like a chapter that followed this generic structure: 1) an encounter with Cheren; 2) an encounter with Bianca; 3) an encounter with Plasma; and 4) an encounter with the gym leader. there may have been some overlap, but the story played out relatively the same.

outright that's an exaggeration. it definitely wasn't a consistent pacing, but then again, BW aside, pacing has never been consistent in Pokemon. for what it's worth, Sinnoh also has a huge pacing problem but you're not gonna catch many people saying much about it cus DPPT love is in right now. that being said i personally enjoyed the less consistent pacing because it felt more of an adventure rather than the BW-esque "go to city, get badge, go to route to next city, get to city, get badge, etc."
Exactly my point. I am contesting that with Gen 5 in consideration, things like pacing were adressed and Pokemon finally had something going in that department. When looking at the past and isolating Gen 5 as an exception to defend gen 6 and its issues, I feel right. Yes its going city to city, badge to badge, but that's all the Pokemon games did. And gen 5 finally got it right. Yes you go on a line, but artificial non linearity has always hurt the series. If you are going to constraint yourself as a developer to such a formulaic world design and plot, play up its strengths, don't double down and hurt yourself. So yeah, looking at past generations and then at Gen 5, and then back at XY and then saying, oh that's how it always was, so what's the point, is a weak arguement. Gen 5 brought about change, gen 6 regression.

....such as? unless we're playing the "what happened to Lysandre," "ghost girl question mark," "power plant doors," etc game to which i'd just say that not everything is Chekhov's Gun.
Such as just what the hell is mega evolution, what the point is in introducing AZ and the Eternal Floette plot out of nowhere to only be brought up AFTER the champion, and just why the fuck the legendaries are needed for the weapon and machinations of humanity when they were not needed or present in the first place.

subjective ~ !
Go ichinose's music is as iconic to the franchise as much as Toriyama' artwork is to Dragon Quest. Even the later stuff. Its just not the same.

people reading this in 2010 would not believe you at all. (yes, BW2-Unova is a step up from BW-Unova at least.)
People in 2010 were on a witchhunt against linearity after Final Fantasy XIII and the state of RPGS during that era. I dunno if you remember it our were around, but it was a very strange time. Yes it was linear, but each route has a distinct area or PoI that you can associate with it, not many routes have that to its name, and as a region alone its pretty unique.

and Kalos, playing heavily on the themes of beauty and taking from standard French imagery....didn't?
....No? While Unova did not portray NY at the slightest, its Nature and Technology theme was on fucking point, with cozy quiant villages being interconnected by highways and bridges. Imagery was there, but as a whole it was too disjointed to be pleasing.

thought you were talking about Unova at first, but also just about every region anyways since they've all been pretty much city -- route --> city -- route --> city anyways.
I'm sorry which region has a swamp right next to an ice mountain, and a strip of snow right betwern two vast plains? And before you shout to the high heavens about the survival zone, need I remind you that the entire island is likely warmed by the volcanic acticity of mount stark.



but then on that note, when has Pokemon ever been good about encouraging backtracking and a sort of "second glance" at an area?
Unova. And such as Unova, so has this post come full circle. Its all about progression, not regression. Like I said at the start of this post, looking back at a previous gen to defend and oblige to the current standards when the one before it did things markedly different, and in a good way, then yes something is wrong. And when the product offered the next time around is markedly different in the same way, while evolving those traits that were ignored before, its certainly easy and fair to critisize the ignorant party in this whole case, which is gen 6. I am supposedly the only one who feels this way, which I find odd, because I know thwt in a couple of years, or hopefully months by the time SM really settles in, it will be obvious that no amount of groundwork excuses gen 6.
 
So the return of join avenue? Well I guess it's cool. Never really cared for it and it became boring quickly, but neat to have it in the game.



Many said it way back in early 2013 that XY is gonna be the best pokemon games ever after all the features it announced. SM isn't any different so why do you believe SM to be another BW2, especially if it is a gen starter pair where they only really care about estabilishing a region?

DP did the same things like copying contests from RS and you even titled DP to be similiar to XY in a later post. You have to explain that situation.

Also can't see those things that made gen 5 good when everything to the features, the music (stolen tracks from HG/SS), the amount of places, route design etc. was less than DP and RS and subjectively to me more bland and generic
Not another B2W2, the next step AFTER B2W2. Content and feature parity excluded, obviously, but what was there in B2W2 is being continued, obviously with what gen 6 also offered mixed in. And not just just B2W2, but gen 5 on a whole.
 
Hmm I don't like the middle evolution so much, but I think they are better than the most of the previous gens. This time they have something more than being only a stage of evolution. They have enchanced personalities, which is not common for middle starter evos. I also believe that the leaks are true after seeing them and read their descriptions on the official website. But they will have two final forms. For example, Brionne can easily evolve to both Water/Fairy (most likely) and Water/Psychic.
 
@TouyaShiro
Since when are mechanics and game characters considered "extra cotent"? Sure, they are all extra features that take time to be developed. But they are not extra content that makes your game longer. They are just QoL additions. Not extra gameplay content or postgame content Unlike Amie, or Pokmon Snap, or a Battle Faciity, etc, which are gameplay content.
 
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Since when are mechanics and game characters considered "extra cotent"?
Well, they're kinda the core of the gameplay so I'm sure that counts for something... It's not like it's a bag of spilling type of situation where you play a sequel to your favourite game and your character forgets all these key techniques or loses all their gear in some fashion (think: Metroid where Samus is stuck with her Power Suit inexplicably at the start of almost every game she's been in, or Bayonetta 2 where the title character forgets the majority of her techniques and loses all her weapons from the first game and not even using Scarborough Fair during the prologue, where you're given regular handguns instead), it's a game where a player builds a team to love and care for, and compete in battles with - giving them more choice in the form of variants and new moves is enough justification to call them new content IMO, especially if they shake up the very foundation of what we know from the series (see: Mega Evolution last Generation, and Z-Moves this Generation).
Sure, they are all extra features that take time to be developed. But they are not extra content that makes your game longer. They are just QoL additions. Not extra gameplay content or postgame content (Poke Ride) and new characters, Unlike Amie, or Pokmon Snap, or a Battle Faciity, etc, which gameplay content.
Should have specified what you meant by game content, because I'm fairly sure the bare definition is relatively broad - as I just explained above. But even then, I don't necessarily think all extra content needs to be for the express purpose of game longevity in that fashion - for some, the extra mons are game longevity in itself because it gives players new things to try out. Sure, not everyone's like this, but by definition alone I think this fits the criteria rather nicely.
 
Right but while adding things, everything else suffered, and it ended up in a muddled package.
Tight and focused pacing with a clear story start to finish(gen 5), Sloppy and disjointed pacing that offered unclear and mismatched endings to 3 plotlines that lead nowhere(gen 6)
Go Ichinose music VS whatever the hell was going on in Kalos
Unova was a well built region with a Cohesive theme VS the Super Mario Overworld that was Kalos, which had lpads of unfinished areas and didn't offer a whole lot of incentive to travel back to.

While some of these things aren't yet seen to be the case for Alola, the point still stands that somewhere between 2012 and 2013 something got lost, somewhere. No matter how much you add, if the overall package does not work, in the end it feels like the developer is just throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. GF took a lot of bets with gen 6, a bit too many if you ask me, and lost. Objectively speaking its obvious they wanted to do something more then continue from Gen 5, but this series just doesn't work like that. DP gets a lot of hate thrown torwards it, but in the end it still had the heart of Pokemon in it, that much was obvious, and at the end of the day it was just a poorly optimized game. XY had a lot on its plate, sure, but if its only issue was being poorly optimized or not going for the right scale for the overworld, then this discussion wouldn't be happening. Cause at the end of the day no matter what was added, there was definitely something missing, something that was there only a year before.

float stone. jp name is pumice stone which is what that name is in spanish.

Ahhh gotcha. The sprite looked really unfamiliar, but that makes sense because I don't think I've ever given the Float Stone a second glance.

Though normal Vulpix does evolve with a fire stone. With its alolan form it doesn't make sense to include the same evolution method as before.

Exactly my point. I am contesting that with Gen 5 in consideration, things like pacing were adressed and Pokemon finally had something going in that department. When looking at the past and isolating Gen 5 as an exception to defend gen 6 and its issues, I feel right. Yes its going city to city, badge to badge, but that's all the Pokemon games did. And gen 5 finally got it right. Yes you go on a line, but artificial non linearity has always hurt the series. If you are going to constraint yourself as a developer to such a formulaic world design and plot, play up its strengths, don't double down and hurt yourself. So yeah, looking at past generations and then at Gen 5, and then back at XY and then saying, oh that's how it always was, so what's the point, is a weak arguement. Gen 5 brought about change, gen 6 regression.

Such as just what the hell is mega evolution, what the point is in introducing AZ and the Eternal Floette plot out of nowhere to only be brought up AFTER the champion, and just why the fuck the legendaries are needed for the weapon and machinations of humanity when they were not needed or present in the first place.

People in 2010 were on a witchhunt against linearity after Final Fantasy XIII and the state of RPGS during that era. I dunno if you remember it our were around, but it was a very strange time. Yes it was linear, but each route has a distinct area or PoI that you can associate with it, not many routes have that to its name, and as a region alone its pretty unique.

....No? While Unova did not portray NY at the slightest, its Nature and Technology theme was on fucking point, with cozy quiant villages being interconnected by highways and bridges. Imagery was there, but as a whole it was too disjointed to be pleasing.

I'm sorry which region has a swamp right next to an ice mountain, and a strip of snow right betwern two vast plains? And before you shout to the high heavens about the survival zone, need I remind you that the entire island is likely warmed by the volcanic acticity of mount stark.

Unova. And such as Unova, so has this post come full circle. Its all about progression, not regression. Like I said at the start of this post, looking back at a previous gen to defend and oblige to the current standards when the one before it did things markedly different, and in a good way, then yes something is wrong. And when the product offered the next time around is markedly different in the same way, while evolving those traits that were ignored before, its certainly easy and fair to critisize the ignorant party in this whole case, which is gen 6. I am supposedly the only one who feels this way, which I find odd, because I know thwt in a couple of years, or hopefully months by the time SM really settles in, it will be obvious that no amount of groundwork excuses gen 6.

On plot being a regression...? I don't think so because in gen V the gym leaders wwere a bit too involved. Keeping some as special companions and the others as obstacles to pass is more important. With Korrina, especially, I think that having them separate from the plot was a nice separation. If anything Gen V was a bit too much with N's castle.

What the hell is mega evolution? It is a mystery, but people think it is a pokemon's true power revealed via the strength of the trainers bond to the pokemon! Obviously with the current game mechanics they should have had it only work with max friendship, but I guess its purpose gets diltuted in competitive use, e.g. smogon where you can slap the mega stone really on any compatible poke and change its happiness to your liking. In Gen VI with pokemon amie, for instance, you got to bond with your poke unlike any other gen. In Gen VII its getting even better.

ON AZ and Floette: they gotta had to have something in the post game? Why not?

The judgement music differences in the Gen V and VI are mostly subjective... I do like that in Gen VI we FINALLY have clear music.

Living in upstate NY IRL, I think Unova did a good job at picking up on NY's quirks and beauty. They obviously exaggerated the manhattan area (and places a desert ) but otherwise looks like a bustling melting pot of america. Yeah it makes sense to put a marsh next to the mountains. Have you not been to the Catskill mountains! There are swamps lining the river at the base of mountains! In winter that stuff freezes over, as illustrated in the game!

Gen VI might've not had zazz of Unova and I was upset at the few amounts of pokes that were introduced, but at the same time, the graphics have transformed the series into what only was available via console gaming systems. Now handhelds can support immersive worlds. The gen V graphics were a step up from Gen IV but gen VII blew them out of the water.
 
Even in terms of gameplay content SM so far is ahead of ORAS, its just miasing the equivalent of contests. And to be honest, with everything going on I don't need a sidequest thjs gen, despite advocating that every region needs one, and a more online, 24/7 WiFi Plaza-Join Avenue is right up my alley.
 
....No? While Unova did not portray NY at the slightest, its Nature and Technology theme was on fucking point, with cozy quiant villages being interconnected by highways and bridges. Imagery was there, but as a whole it was too disjointed to be pleasing.

Gen V's Nature & Technology "theme" didn't really amount to much, though. You had Black City/White Forest (and Route 4 in the sequels), and a couple of other aesthetic differences. Minor stuff like Drayden-or-Iris. None of which was really connected to the main plot with Team Plasma, either. To the point where I don't think I'd even call it a "theme" so much as an ideological quirk.

You wanna' talk themes, then Gen VI's games are the ones to go to. XY and ORAS both live and breathe their respective themes, through the features rather than just being on the sides to inform a few differences. For example, XY's focus was on multiple things - not just beauty, but they also mentioned bonds, and evolving past previously-assumed limits. These ideas manifest via the features in the games. Amie being an entire feature that revolves around bonding with your Pokémon, but that extends to Mega Evolution as well, which is simultaneously a manifestation of the evolution theme. An evolution beyond what was thought to be the furthest that a Pokémon could go - much like XY themselves, which brought the series into a huge 3D environment unlike any previous game. Lumiose City is another microcosm of this: filled with flourish, and people who obsess about it by way of "style" - these represent the beauty theme, but also tap into the idea of evolution - Lumiose is the biggest city ever in a Pokémon game, by far. There's Team Flare, with their own unhealthy obsession with beauty, juxtaposed with Lysandre's concern that the world itself has come to its limit. But the games show through all these other aspects that previously-assumed limits can be exceeded when people come together, and bond (that is, after all, what a Mega Evolution is), which is what Lysandre refuses to do. Which folds the main storyline into these themes, unlike Team Plasma having little to do with Nature & Technology.
 
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Even in terms of gameplay content SM so far is ahead of ORAS, its just miasing the equivalent of contests. And to be honest, with everything going on I don't need a sidequest thjs gen, despite advocating that every region needs one, and a more online, 24/7 WiFi Plaza-Join Avenue is right up my alley.
False.







ORAS:

1. Battle Maison
2. Contest Spectaculars
3. DexNav chaining/ranking up
4. Pokemon Amie minigames
5. Super Secret Bases battles/Flag Hunting/customization/Join Avenue functionality
6. Super Training minigames
7. Pokemon League rematches
8. Trainer´s Eye
9. Battle Intitute
10. Battle Court
11. Mirage Spots

(not counting one- off things like the Delta Episode because those things can only be done once)

SM (sofar)
1. Amie
2. Poke Finder
3. PokePelago
4. We can assume there will be a Battle Maison replacement

----------

*** The Battle Royal, Join Avenue, Festival missions, etc, are NOT confirmed to be in game, they are only confirmed as a multiplayer online feature, sofar. And those features disappear once the internet support of the SM is gone in a few years lol

SM is a lot behind ORAS in terms of the amount of single player content at the moment. SM is more XY tier than ORAS tier sofar in that department, if we are being objective.

I hope they reveal new fetures but it´s not the case, currently. Don´t just assume things. We will have to wait and see.

Edit: if you wanna count Poke Ride or RotomDex as gameplay content for SM, (which they aren´t), then we would also have to count Soaring, BuzzNav and AreaNav as gameplay content for ORAS. So it would still be the same (big) difference in favor of ORAS (content wise).
 
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Not counting the Festival Plaza and the Battle Royal for SM but putting in Secret Base features that require online to even be useful or the Maison is biased as far as I am concerned, and not counting PokeRide cause your not counting Soaring, while adding Mirage Spots in your list which is only available THROUGH soaring, not to mention it being just a mechanic to find legendaries, is the most hilarious hypocrisy I have ever seen on this board.

Not even going to start questioning the Amie minigames as content that gives the games longevity, just gonna agree to disagree with you and your bubble world in which ORAS is some kind of gold standard.
 
Wow, that video had a lot.

Torracat-My favorite of the three. Looks awesome and thankfully still quadruped. Hoping the evolution remains the same, but if not, I'll be fine leaving it in this form if I go with Litten.

Dartrix-Meh,not much to say. I didn't care much for Rowlet and I don't really like this thing either.

Brionne-Really disappointed with this one. Popplio was my favorite of the three and Brionne is not what I would have hoped for as an evolution. As a Pokemon on its own, its fine it guess, but not as Popplio's second stage. I hate how the frilled collar turned into a dress and the overly girly in game model animations. It just looks like such a weird transition. Hoping that final evolution will look better. Otherwise I'll just leave Popplio unevolved if I choose it.

Really kind of hoping for split final evolution forms now.

Festival Plaza-Looks really fun. And it's nice to see where we earn Festival Coins now.

Poke Pelago- Looks interesting. It's nice to think of Pokemon in the PC going into their own little world.

Demo and Ash Greninja- Nice to have a confirmed demo. I'm just surprised that Ash-Greninja kept the name from the anime.
 
I'm just surprised that Ash-Greninja kept the name from the anime.

I simultaneously am and am not surprise by this. On the one hand, I wasn't sure as to just how much they wanted to emphasize Ash's existence in the game universe, but I guess it isn't the craziest thing after ORAS's Alain reference. But then, it would be very strange to have marketed this thing as "Ash-Greninja" for a whole year, only to turn around and start calling it something else as soon as it hits their biggest platform. I can imagine that many people would end up calling it "Ash-Greninja" anyway out of habit. :p
 
Not counting the Festival Plaza and the Battle Royal for SM but putting in Secret Base features that require online to even be useful or the Maison is biased as far as I am concerned
Not counting Festival Plaza and Battle Royal YET*. Counting Super Secret Bases because you can download new ones from the internet via QR codes at any time, so Bases are NOT gonna disappear after nintendo stops online support for the game.
Besides, you CAN make a Secret Base ingame.
and not counting PokeRide cause your not counting Soaring, while adding Mirage Spots in your list which is only available THROUGH soaring, not to mention it being just a mechanic to find legendaries, is the most hilarious hypocrisy I have ever seen on this board.
Poke Ride is basically HMs. Do you consider HMs as "content"? Wow, you are biased. Mirage Islands offer Pokemon non native to Hoenn, much like a Safari Zone does, so where is the hypocrisy, dude?
Not even going to start questioning the Amie minigames
All minigames count. But if you don´t wanna count it, its your problem. I counted it for SM as well, so calm down.
just gonna agree to disagree with you and your bubble world in which ORAS is some kind of gold standard.
I don´t think ORAS is the "gold standard". I think BW2 is the gold standard. However, ORAS is a very high standard that SM needs to reach, in terms of content, before it can try to compare to BW2.

Basically, I am not comparing ORAS to SM because it´s my "gold standard", but because ORAS is the last game before SM. So my point was "Wow, SM hasn´t even reached the previous game in terms of content, and Mitch is already trying to compare it to the gold standard (BW2)!"

But yes, agree to not agree.
 
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For the record, the Battle Royale IS in Sun and Moon. The big, purplish building on Akala is the Battle Royale. I pointed this out a few weeks ago.
 
Torracat is probably my favorite evolution out of three, and Dartrix is a close second. I sort of like Brionne but it still kind of has to grow on me. I also really like the new features like Poke pelago and Festival Plaza, i'll probably spend a lot of time with those.

And i know that people don't like the leaked final evolution of Litten that much (i personally really like it), but keep in mind that there is a possibility that the final evolutions of the starters have two seperate forms like Lycanroc.
 
It already has though. Making your own base is fine, but without visiting others through streetpass or chaining friends through forums is never going to make it worthwhile.
HM's are content, yes. When they offer a means for either further progression in the region, or a means to reach new areas for either otherwise unobtainable items or new Pokemon, yes. Pokemon Ride especially so as it so far snowballs old HM features(surf, rock smash, fly)with stuff like item finding, fast travel on land, and fishing. Its new gameplay content especially so if they expand it to having onoy certain Pokemon illuminate your path, and so on so forth. So yeah so far:
SM
1. Battle Royal
2. Pokemon Ride
3. Pokemon Amie
4. Poke Pelago
5. Rotom Dex(as PokeFinder is actually a feature of it, much like Mirage Spots of Soaring)
6. Festival Plaza

ORAS
1. Soaring&HMs
2. PokeNav+
3. Contests
4. Battle Maison
5. Secret Bases
6. Battle Institute
7. Battle Court

More or less on the same page, as the PokeNav has a lot of inbuilt stuff that is separated in , and league rematches are in every game, lets not get silly with what counts as a feature for longevity. And we still are a good month away, with features still likely being withhels
 
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For the record, the Battle Royale IS in Sun and Moon. The big, purplish building on Akala is the Battle Royale. I pointed this out a few weeks ago.
Which doesn´t mean it is an ingame feature. It would be an ingame feature if you can face AI rivals there. Which could happen, and I hope it does!
 
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