Your controversial opinions

[Jammy2A]

#1:
I think later Pokémon designs (in particular in Gen IV, V, and VI) were on average better than in Gen I and II. I did start 20 years ago with Red, and my favourite Pokémon is Nidoking (and a bunch of my favourites are from Gen I). But, I gotta say, the designs became a lot cooler in later generations, and Gen I was not nearly as creative as some people want to pretend: a straight up rhinoceros, a rhino standing up (although Rhydon is one of my faves, lets be honest, his design is ultra simplistic), a bunch of eggs, a coconut tree with eyes, a big egg with an egg pouch, a regular butterfly, a regular bat, and the list goes on.

Like I said, I love tons of Gen I mons: Nidoking, Blastoise, Venusaur, Rhydon, Gengar, Arcanine, Poliwrath, Machamp, Magmar, Lapras, Dragonite, Snorlax, are some of my all-time favourites. But on average, I still think Gen I was a bit bland. A few good mons don't make up for a whole lot of boring ones.

I feel that a lot of the time, people end up criticising later designs to somehow appear as "Gen I original fans", which is fine to be one, it brought us all here the last 25 years, but later things are sometimes better than the original, or at least as good. Remember Aliens and Terminator 2?

#2:
Also, why do people attack trailers? Im not talking about people having discussions about what may or may not come up in a game, thats fine. But people flat out announcing "facts" from a few mins of early release footage.

And since when do graphics hold such high importance to us? We're playing Pokémon, not Monster Hunter or the Batman games. Let us chill together. Love the games, but there's a reason the main story is easy and simple and none of the puzzles are hard. We invented Nuzlockes for a reason too. These games are intended primarily for kids, not just for us people in our 30s still playing.

Sorry, that last one was more of a rant, but considering what I've been reading on some of these forums and on Twitter, it seems like this is a controversial opinion these days to be ok with Pokémon just being Pokémon and not a mind-blowing, 4K experience, all 898 Pokémon available at the ready, and a million features.

 

[Circus]

#2:
Also, why do people attack trailers? Im not talking about people having discussions about what may or may not come up in a game, thats fine. But people flat out announcing "facts" from a few mins of early release footage.

It's more or less the natural way things go - people only have one source of information, so that source will be thoroughly dissected until something new comes along.

It could be worse - we could be having conversations about how Masuda's lunch is code for a remake or Sakurai's furniture is code for Waluigi being in Smash.

And since when do graphics hold such high importance to us? We're playing Pokémon, not Monster Hunter or the Batman games. Let us chill together. Love the games, but there's a reason the main story is easy and simple and none of the puzzles are hard. We invented Nuzlockes for a reason too. These games are intended primarily for kids, not just for us people in our 30s still playing.

Even as a person that overwhelmingly agrees with the concept that top of the line graphics aren't everything, I must concede that there is a point (or at least part of it) there.

In the particular case of BDSP, the last two games (SwSh and LGPE) had "better" graphics and even in the chibi style, a lot of people seem to think that the XY / ORAS style was "better". Not to mention that most of the games in ILCA's library are "realistic 3D" and the more cartoony entries are at least SwSh level.

So I can absolutely understand why fans would look at the trailer and feel disappointed with this art style - we've simply seen "better" from all the companies involved.

I do agree that the focus on graphics seems somewhat disproportionate though, and that a lot of people seem to forget that they aren't Pokémon target audience anymore.

So, here's a reminder to anyone reading that it's okay to age out of entertainment, and that not liking the new entries doesn't make the older entries or your experiences with the media any less special.

Honestly I can't tell if there's toxic positivity where everyone is excited and shaming you for hating things or toxic negativity where everyone is angry and shaming you for liking things.

Are we worse than the Steven Universe fandom now?

Ehh, I could be out of the loop but I still haven't seen or heard of death threats, name calling, slur usage, doxxing or things of the like. As far as fandoms go this is just petty fandom drama being petty. It happens.

Also, I don't think you realize how bad you have to go to be worse than the Steven Universe fandom - or the other egregious fandoms like say, Sonic - like, a quick search shows two high profile cases of targeted harassment and one case of an unforgivable crime associated with the Steven Universe fandom.

I'm pretty sure Lily Orchard is getting hate to this day due to her criticism of the series and there was a whole incident where people were bullying artists over fanart that got so bad the show staff had to step in and say "Hey, bullying is not cool" and people turned on the show staff for trying to stop them.

Like, the Pokémon communities - I'm involved at least - are positively civil.

 

[BackSet]

Okay. So in that case... I think we’re below Bronies. There’s a decently big gap but there’s nothing in that gap.

 

[Welkamo]

Ehh, I could be out of the loop but I still haven't seen or heard of death threats, name calling, slur usage, doxxing or things of the like. As far as fandoms go this is just petty fandom drama being petty. It happens.

Spoiler: CW/Really Gross Hashtag that may constitute as a death threat. Either way, it's unpleasant.

Sadly, there were a lot of death threats sent to Game Freak staff before the release of SwSh, and some worse things happened that I don't even want to mention. I don't know if it counts as a death threat, but there was a #hangmasuda tag, which is pretty not okay. I've also seen people do pretty disgusting things when criticizing SwSh.

Like, the Pokémon communities - I'm involved at least - are positively civil.

Fortunately, I've managed to stay away from the more toxic parts of the fandoms. I stay in the lane of "write fanfiction, draw fanart, make headcanons, fangirl over characters", and my experience in that lane is almost always positive.

 

[Daenerys]

Ehh, I could be out of the loop but I still haven't seen or heard of death threats, name calling, slur usage, doxxing or things of the like. As far as fandoms go this is just petty fandom drama being petty. It happens.

Yeah I'm not sure where these 'death threat' claims are coming from. Only Nintendo and/or Game Freak employees are likely to even have proof of those instances anyway, so I don't see how any of us common folk can say that a quantifiable number of angry fans send threatening letters to the staff of those companies.

I mean I'm sure there's been some cases because of the law of averages, but still how can anyone claim that our fandom is any more extreme than other anime/game fandoms?

 

[Welkamo]

I mean I'm sure there's been some cases because of the law of averages, but still how can anyone claim that our fandom is any more extreme than other anime/game fandoms?

I like to think that no fandom is "toxic", there's just toxic parts of every fandom. It's not inherently toxic to like or dislike something, but it is toxic to express those opinions in a way that hurts others.

 

[Welkamo]

On a more positive note, another controversial opinion I have is that Eiscue is babey. People either love 'em or hate 'em. I'm inclined to love 'em. I just love birds and penguins.

 

[Sheep40]

Spoiler: CW/Really Gross Hashtag that may constitute as a death threat. Either way, it's unpleasant.

Sadly, there were a lot of death threats sent to Game Freak staff before the release of SwSh, and some worse things happened that I don't even want to mention. I don't know if it counts as a death threat, but there was a #hangmasuda tag, which is pretty not okay. I've also seen people do pretty disgusting things when criticizing SwSh.

Fortunately, I've managed to stay away from the more toxic parts of the fandoms. I stay in the lane of "write fanfiction, draw fanart, make headcanons, fangirl over characters", and my experience in that lane is almost always positive.

Has any of that occurred since the reveal of the DP remakes and LA?

 

[Welkamo]

Has any of that occurred since the reveal of the DP remakes and LA?

I haven't seen anything yet, but that's probably because I'm actively trying to avoid it. I can only take so much depressing news at once.

 

[BackSet]

I've never understood people's obsession with the "worldbuilding" and "lore" in the games. Like, I enjoy those things more than the next guy but... what worldbuilding? What lore? You mean the Pokedex entries that tell you your Flareon is so hot you shouldn't be able to touch it or even be near it? Or the other one that tells you that people think Absol brings disaster despite the fact that the Pokedex explicitly says it doesn't.

What are you people looking for! There's like, nothing there and what is there is contradicted in the next game.

And yes, I realize that as a guy who spends hours reading up on different animals and pokedex entries to write comprehensive articles on Pokemon biology for TV Tropes' fanon Pokedex this is hypocritical but my point stands.

 

[Esserise]

I've never understood people's obsession with the "worldbuilding" and "lore" in the games.

Well, I suppose I'm not sure what you mean by "obsession." I'd definitely consider myself fixated on Pokémon lore and setting detail to an extreme degree, but I am conscious of the fact that there's going to be a mess of contradictions inherent to it - for me, the fun is in futilely trying to achieve the impossible task of making it connect anyway. I'm not really the type to cry foul because the games go, "Heyyy so yeah Mega Evolution is in Hoenn now too, ignore what we said last games." Instead, I see that as an entertaining challenge: "Oh yeah? You just watch me try to make sense of it!"

 

[BackSet]

Oh yeah, I just remembered a controversial opinion that I have stated numerous times and yet somehow have never said in this thread about controversial opinions:

I don't give a shit about the Battle Frontier nor do I care about its removal.

 

[Emmy]

Yeah, I totally ignore Dex entries that say anything too ridiculous. But in regards to world-building, I'll throw my two cents in and say it's all about the execution and some writers do indeed focus way too much on it at the expense of the actual story they're trying to tell - sometimes it's better to be simple and strong rather than complicated yet shallow.

In regards to Pokémon, that actually was something that bugged me about the early Gens. It felt too much like the real world but with Pokémon stapled onto it post-hoc. Then as time passed GF started to think more about how the world would work if these magical creatures were always there and how humans would solve problems with them - from little details like R/S/E starting off with the Machoke Delivery Service making so much sense from a logistics standpoint since Fighting Types are supposed to be super strong, and also larger stuff like Rose wanting to harness Eternatus for infinite energy.

I don't need Legends to go absolutely crazy with establishing new Lore, just have a well executed story with exciting new stuff we haven't seen before since this time period is completely alien to us in the Pokémon world.

 

[BackSet]

I mean, in the Gen I games that's literally what it was. The real world but with Pokemon tacked on. Kanto was named after the actual Kanto region as opposed to having a fictional name.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

From what I know about the Gen 1 games, Pokémon weren't integrated to the setting as much as they were in adaptations. There's a YouTuber who did videos talking about the Pokémon designs of every generation, and he said that a lot of Gen 1 Pokémon were made to look like typical JRPG enemies, like bats and rats. It made me wonder if Game Freak's original intent was for Pokémon to be the future of a stock JRPG world where people tamed the monsters.

 

[Welkamo]

I've never understood people's obsession with the "worldbuilding" and "lore" in the games. Like, I enjoy those things more than the next guy but... what worldbuilding? What lore? You mean the Pokedex entries that tell you your Flareon is so hot you shouldn't be able to touch it or even be near it? Or the other one that tells you that people think Absol brings disaster despite the fact that the Pokedex explicitly says it doesn't.

What are you people looking for! There's like, nothing there and what is there is contradicted in the next game.

And yes, I realize that as a guy who spends hours reading up on different animals and pokedex entries to write comprehensive articles on Pokemon biology for TV Tropes' fanon Pokedex this is hypocritical but my point stands.

I kind of like thinking of dumb questions like "what's the economy/history of X region?" or "what's the culture of X city?" or "what the heck is the Foreign Building in Hearthome City?" "what are the implications of X?" or "would it make sense for there to be a brand of cereal with X Pokémon as a mascot", you get the idea. So maybe not specifically Pokédex stuff, but what people would consider "worldbuilding". It's not for everyone, but I find it interesting.

Also I think I've seen your TV Tropes fanon Pokédex! I think it's pretty cool!

 

[BackSet]

Also I think I've seen your TV Tropes fanon Pokédex! I think it's pretty cool!

You mean my articles or the Pokedex in general? Because if you mean the latter its... not mine. Its not anyone's really.

 

[Welkamo]

You mean my articles or the Pokedex in general? Because if you mean the latter its... not mine. Its not anyone's really.

The articles on TV Tropes.

 

[BackSet]

The articles on TV Tropes.

Yeah but I'm not the only person who writes articles so I don't know if you mean the fanon dex as a whole or the articles I specifically wrote. Either way they are both very cool. In my opinion.

 

[Welkamo]

Well, I suppose I'm not sure what you mean by "obsession." I'd definitely consider myself fixated on Pokémon lore and setting detail to an extreme degree, but I am conscious of the fact that there's going to be a mess of contradictions inherent to it - for me, the fun is in futilely trying to achieve the impossible task of making it connect anyway. I'm not really the type to cry foul because the games go, "Heyyy so yeah Mega Evolution is in Hoenn now too, ignore what we said last games." Instead, I see that as an entertaining challenge: "Oh yeah? You just watch me try to make sense of it!"

The way I see the Mega Evolution contradiction is that different areas of the world/different people have different interpretations and viewpoints on certain subjects and events.

Maybe the first Pokémon to Mega Evolve in Kalos was Lucario, but way off in the Hoenn region before globalization was a thing, Rayquaza Mega Evolved first, and due to distance/lack of knowledge on Mega Evolution, we got contradicting stories.