Mandatory events that are just patronizing and/or "forced."

[TheCableGuy]

Like, Anyone else hate being "Given" a Pokemon?
Not just given Pokemon but a Pokemon you feel like you haven't earned.
First, being given a Charmander/Squrtle/Bulbasaur before you even reached your first Gym in X/Y...

Then Being Given Lucario in Tower of Mastery is kind of like an ultimate insult in a game where half of your Pokemon are given to you.
There are so many aspects about the "demonstration" atop Tower of Mastery that I find so distasteful
but then be handed a Pokemon Like Lucario, for the sole purpose of a game Mechanic that I don't like,
and then, to add insult on top of insult, to be given the Option to turn down that Pokemon
(yet still have to face that Same Mechanic throughout the game)
Only to be GUILT-TRIPPED for refusing the Pokemon...

Man..... I don't know why but this has really gotten me perturbed.
I can't even bring myself to pick the game back up now....

This was the same way back in B/W2 being forced to do that Stupid Movie Shoot,
That I wanted NOTHING to do with but that game wanted me to waste 20 mins of my life
Doing something of no benefit to me, the game, or society itself,
Yet it portrayed itself as though IT was doing ME some kind of Blessed Favor that I should drop to my knees and Praise Arceus for such a "Gift."
I just wanted to continue the game but the game FORCED me to participate in a Game Mechanic that I hated,
and it almost made me quit then and there.

It's just obscene and frankly, I find it offensive to me in so many ways....

 

[Almonds]

I do have a few stuff that I dislike, especially having to go through tutorials that I want to skip. But I don't really find it an insult since I can just smash the A button my way through.

 

[Cute Charm]

Yeah...if anything there should be a "tutorial free" option at start up for people who know the basics. But other than that I don't see anything being on an insulting level either.

Other games have unskipable events and cut scenes and pokemon post B/W isn't really an exception to that rule. Pokemon has grown up since forcing you into long winded speeches for a bike voucher or a one use boat ticket to actually weaving stories. And sadly, that also requires unskipable and "undeserved" things in video games. That's just formula.

Besides, it's not like you have to use the Kanto starters or the Lucario. You can just box them after you get them and pretend like you never got them. You do the movie thing once, you can just ignore it for the rest of the game. And as far as something being tied to the plot such as mega evolution goes goes, you can just ignore that too and make up your own story. You can just make all those characters think you have mastered the art of mega evolution when in reality it was just unwillingly forced upon you. But you don't care at least you got a cool DNA opal bracelet out of it!

Long story short, it's not like the game is forcing anyone into anything against their will after the initial event.

 

[Soki]

Then Being Given Lucario in Tower of Mastery is kind of like an ultimate insult in a game where half of your Pokemon are given to you.
There are so many aspects about the "demonstration" atop Tower of Mastery that I find so distasteful
but then be handed a Pokemon Like Lucario, for the sole purpose of a game Mechanic that I don't like,
and then, to add insult on top of insult, to be given the Option to turn down that Pokemon
(yet still have to face that Same Mechanic throughout the game)
Only to be GUILT-TRIPPED for refusing the Pokemon...

THIS

I already owned my own Lucario and did feel quite insulted when they forced me to use Korrina's instead! And as far as I can remember you can't use any of your own Pokémon at all during that battle. Ridiculous.

And then she offers you to keep her Lucario and again: I already had one with me during almost my whole journey. And then they're telling me I should replace that one with one I don't even know? Hell, I already felt guilty enough that it seemed to like me more than it's own master. And then I felt guilty for rejecting it but I also would've felt guilty for accepting it cause it would just rot away in a pc box, so the whole thing did nothing but make me feel terrible. They could've just given you the mega stone, you can catch a Riolu before you even face the first gym so there's really no reason to get a Lucario as a gift.

And I very much disliked getting the Kanto starters so early, too. I mean it's a gift, so I automatically feel like I should use it, even if I rather just use a different Pokémon which I catch myself (which I would rather do).

I dunno, all those gifts just felt like they thought I can't catch a Pokémon on my own or something. Same goes for the new exp. share: as if I can't train my Pokémon by myself. This whole game was an insult to me haha.

And please make the 'Let me show you how to catch a Pokémon!' tutorial optional, because almost every time I get to it I've already caught multiple Pokémon so it's just silly.

 

[henrymidfields]

You know you can just box the gifts, right?

 

[Soki]

You know you can just box the gifts, right?

Korrina: "Hey this Lucario really likes you and wants to travel the world with you!"

You: *puts it in a box to never see you or the world again*

I like to actually roleplay in the game, so that just doesn't seem right lol

 

[Envoy]

I already owned my own Lucario and did feel quite insulted when they forced me to use Korrina's instead! And as far as I can remember you can't use any of your own Pokémon at all during that battle. Ridiculous.

And then she offers you to keep her Lucario and again: I already had one with me during almost my whole journey. And then they're telling me I should replace that one with one I don't even know? Hell, I already felt guilty enough that it seemed to like me more than it's own master. And then I felt guilty for rejecting it but I also would've felt guilty for accepting it cause it would just rot away in a pc box, so the whole thing did nothing but make me feel terrible. They could've just given you the mega stone, you can catch a Riolu before you even face the first gym so there's really no reason to get a Lucario as a gift.

The point of the scene was to show off Mega Evolution, so they needed to make sure you had a Pokemon that could Mega Evolve. Sure, Riolu and the Kanto trio are options, but since the game doesn't force you to actually use any of them, it has to come up with a scenario where Mega Evolution will be used. Hence the forced Lucario. I didn't bother training a Riolu in my game. What the hell would I have done during that event?

And I very much disliked getting the Kanto starters so early, too. I mean it's a gift, so I automatically feel like I should use it, even if I rather just use a different Pokémon which I catch myself (which I would rather do).

Well, that's your problem. The game doesn't force you to use them. If you feel obligated, then that's something you have to deal with. I, for one, loved getting my Kanto Starter from Professor Sycamore and I'm sure other people did, too.

 

[smalllady]

Yeah, the Lucario event was terrible and awkward, as was the forced mega evolution tutorial. I already had a Lucario on my team, as well. They could've removed Riolu from the early routes in order to avoid said awkwardness. But I think the problem stems from making the plot revolve around a game mechanic, which is something I hope Gamefreak does not repeat.

 

[SuperFamicorn]

Yeah, I hope that the story isn't too Mega-based now in ORAS (though I've never played Gen III). It's like if Gen IV's story revolved around double battles.

 

[ocelotlrama jaguar]

Yeah, I don't care for being forced to accept all that stuff, but I would hardly find it insulting. What I did with my Lucario as soon as I got it was place it in the storage box and was just done with it. Same thing for every other Pokemon I am given and just don't care to have. That's the wonderful thing about data; these bits of data don't care what you do with said gift. Of course, if they programmed the characters to actually care about what you did with their gifts, that I would find kind of a dick move.

While I did find the Mega Evolution tutorial helpful, the fact that they forced it instead of making it optional just made it seem like it was such an intregal part of the plot that, yeah, it was really blech. I guess I can understand why people are sick to death of the concept of Mega Evolution and I can't say I blame them, either.

 

[Robo-Floatzel]

I will agree with that X/Y has attempted to force Mega Evolutions on us in ways we don't want. I mean, I like Lucario, but do I NEED a Mega Lucario on my team? No, I already had a fighting type at that point in the game (a Mienfoo, currently a Mienshao) and I usually don't like having two Pokemon of the same type on my team (with the exception of Chesnaught), so I just did that forced battle with Korinna, and then stuffed the Lucario in my PC, right next to the Riolu I caught on Route 22 before I battled Viola.

The same goes for getting the Kanto starters just to force Mega Evolutions down our throats. A friend of mine wasn't happy when he found out it was unskippable, and while I kept my Charmander in my team until the league (because I needed a flying type with Charizard), the only reason they even gave you the Kanto starters was to force Mega Evolution down your throat in the name of Gen 1 Nostalgia. I mean, why couldn't they just give the Kalos starters Mega Evolutions and get it over with? I mean, I would be willing to use Mega Chesnaught but not Mega Charizard X. Then you think of the fact that Professor Sycamore gives you the starter's Mega Stone... only for you to have a forced tutorial with Lucario later in the game.

In BW2 we had forced tutorials for Pokestar Studios and Join Avenue, which are both optional features that contribute nothing to the main story, it's like "We interrupt your gameplay to give you a forced tutorial for a game feature you're probably not going to use!", and they wouldn't let you skip these. I mean, it's more understandable with Mega Evolutions, but not here, and I wouldn't be surprised if in OR/AS you're forced to participate in a Contest whether you like it or not, or you get the Cosplay Pikachu whether you want it or not.

Why do we need these forced tutorials? Whatever happened to having the player find out about how gameplay aspects work for themselves? I remember once watching Egoraptor's "Sequelitis" video about Mega Man X, and how he was saying how the intro level in the game put you into situations that allowed the player to find out how to progress themselves without the use of constant exposition like many games do today, and honestly I feel this is causing games to be dumbed down because younger players need to be told how to play the game by exposition fairies (one of the main reasons everyone hated Navi in Ocarina of Time) rather than reading the manual or having the player figure out how to play the game themselves.

This a problem that persists with many video games in more recent years, not just recent Pokemon games. I mean, we could have found out about how to do Mega Evolution ourselves rather than have the game explicitly TELL us how to do it and won't let us do anything else until we go though the tutorial.

 

[Beth Pavell]

I don't much like them either, though I'm certainly not about to get angry over it. The Korrina battle was the worst in the franchise that I can think of - can't lose or even play past one turn, and it's not like you can't easily get a Lucario well before then if you want one badly enough. Still, having said that, I'd rather an attempt was made to integrate the story with game mechanics. I just feel it could have been done better, battling a Mega Evolution in a proper battle that you could actually lose

 

[CynthiaLover]

It's nothing to get all worked up about. While the "show how to catch a Pokemon" tutorial I could so do without, I generally just take what's given to me and leave it at that. The only thing I don't like about those kind of events is (other than the usually long-winded dialog) is that the Pokemon are all in standard Poke Balls. I hate the standard model, and since all these Pokemon are supposed to be "special", it seems like a waste to put them all in regular Poke Balls. While XY was particularly generous with the freebies, they, more or less, had something to do with the plot. While, yes, they did tend to shove down our throats Pokemon with respective Mega Stones, and the Kanto starters were particularly irksome due to the endless promotional "love" for Gen I, I just took the stuff and was done with it. While I do feel somewhat bad about just boxing them, it's just something that has to be done, so you just deal with it.

But it's nothing to blow a gasket about. They're just games, after all, not Nobel Prizes or anything. Even if you feel sorta bad, it's just something that they do. While I agree that a lot of older games just let you figure out what to do yourself, which is better for the player (like Breath of Fire, which pretty much forces you to learn on the go), it's not the end of the world if you get a freebie in a game. It's just part of the games, whether you like it or not, so just deal with it. It's not going to cause an apocalyptic future if you don't "accept" the freebie, so don't get your tail in a ringer. They're just games, they're supposed to be fun, that's the bottom line.

 

[Lysson]

I don't actually care. The whole storyline is forced so it makes no difference.
Maybe I don't want to beat gyms or save the world? Maybe I just want to eat all the berries there are? I can't even eat them

 

[skyradiant]

I don't have a problem with Mega Evolution being integrated into the plot, I just wish XY explained it better and did more stuff with it. I do, however, agree that GameFreak has been promoting Gen 1 a bit too much.

 

[DraconicBandGeek]

Every time in the beginning of the game where you have to sit through that stupid cutscene where some guy teaches you how to catch a Pokemon.

 

[homer.homs]

What's wrong with a free Pokemon???? Best thing in life is free. Lol!

But seriously, there is nothing wrong with a Pokemon giving it to you. It is like a Lapras that has been given away to you to be use a surfing Pokemon. Besides, it is so hard to find a wild Lapras, and thankfully, someone is giving you a free Lapras. Also, it is not just a Lucario, it is a Lucario with a Mega Stone, and you cannot find a Lucarionite anywhere else. So I guess, it is just worth it.

But yeah, that Movie Shoot in B/W B2/W2 version is wasted time. I am just happy that there is no such thing in XY version. But the worst part in XY version is the fireworks watching scene. I almost throw my 3DS while doing it. I mean, yuh, I got the point, friendship, but while watching fireworks? No way!!!! There is much better way of showing friendship than watching a firework display. Let's say, rescuing a friend in group of Pokemon thru battling. Or maybe, helping a your rival/friend in beating Team Flare. But not the fireworks display watching. Lol!

 

[TheCableGuy]

What's wrong with a free Pokemon???? Best thing in life is free. Lol!

But seriously, there is nothing wrong with a Pokemon giving it to you. It is like a Lapras that has been given away to you to be use a surfing Pokemon. Besides, it is so hard to find a wild Lapras, and thankfully, someone is giving you a free Lapras. Also, it is not just a Lucario, it is a Lucario with a Mega Stone, and you cannot find a Lucarionite anywhere else. So I guess, it is just worth it.

No, no, no.. Don't get me wrong. It's not that I disliked getting a free Pokemon... Far from it.
But there were just all kinds of wrong here.....
Being given a Pokemon in-game that you have no other way to get it....
Getting a Earlier Gen Pokemon (sometime later) as a fun reward after hard work of regular game-play....
These I can understand and APPRECIATE!

But Getting a Lucario, of all Pokemon, just seamed lazy and forced...
I mean, why not a Kalos Pokemon? One that was rare or found later in game.

In fact, the Prevalence of Earlier Gen Pokemon THROUGHOUT the game was so frustrating
Because I was wanting to play, at least mostly, with This Gen Pokemon...
But when every other Pokemon I run into was last Gen Pokemon
(a Pokemon I've already used.... Sometimes Twice)
I'm feeling a little Bored and Jaded straight from the gates.

I was wanting to start exploring a new region with all new Pokemon...
Not see the exact same Pokemon as the previous 5 Gens all crowded in one map...
I swear, I've seen more Previous Gen Pokemon before the Second Gym then I've seen of Gen 6 Pokemon.
At least Gen 4 and 5 did that right and only had earlier Gen show up later in game.

But yeah, that Movie Shoot in B/W B2/W2 version is wasted time. I am just happy that there is no such thing in XY version. But the worst part in XY version is the fireworks watching scene. I almost throw my 3DS while doing it. I mean, yuh, I got the point, friendship, but while watching fireworks? No way!!!! There is much better way of showing friendship than watching a firework display. Let's say, rescuing a friend in group of Pokemon thru battling. Or maybe, helping a your rival/friend in beating Team Flare. But not the fireworks display watching. Lol!

Oh god, yes... As somebody who HATES, HATES, HATES! Fireworks with Passion that borders on Mania... That felt like utter Torture.
I had to put the game aside, out of sight with no volume as soon as I realized where that was going...
Even the thought of what was happening on screen made me Queezy..

They're just games, they're supposed to be fun, that's the bottom line.

But, you see, that's the kicker... It's not all that much fun.
When you're playing a game that is based solely on being forced into every situation,
Every Fight, Conversion, Direction you take..... It slowly erodes something inside of you...

And then to be thrown these Mock Choices (that aren't really a choice because they don't actually change the game in any way)
you get the impression that the game designers are just Patronizing and Mocking you;
That you aren't actually playing a game as much as just buying into another an Illusion that you're enjoying a game on your terms
but in reality, you've just wasted your time and money on another cheap product that someone slapped together with no Creator's Pride.


Maybe this is just my issue. But it's something that means a lot to to me and I do take very seriously.
The Disappointment in the game is just overwhelming and I had to Vent.

 

[homer.homs]

No, no, no.. Don't get me wrong. It's not that I disliked getting a free Pokemon... Far from it.
But there were just all kinds of wrong here.....
Being given a Pokemon in-game that you have no other way to get it....
Getting a Earlier Gen Pokemon (sometime later) as a fun reward after hard work of regular game-play....
These I can understand and APPRECIATE!

But Getting a Lucario, of all Pokemon, just seamed lazy and forced...
I mean, why not a Kalos Pokemon? One that was rare or found later in game.

In fact, the Prevalence of Earlier Gen Pokemon THROUGHOUT the game was so frustrating
Because I was wanting to play, at least mostly, with This Gen Pokemon...
But when every other Pokemon I run into was last Gen Pokemon
(a Pokemon I've already used.... Sometimes Twice)
I'm feeling a little Bored and Jaded straight from the gates.

I was wanting to start exploring a new region with all new Pokemon...
Not see the exact same Pokemon as the previous 5 Gens all crowded in one map...
I swear, I've seen more Previous Gen Pokemon before the Second Gym then I've seen of Gen 6 Pokemon.
At least Gen 4 and 5 did that right and only had earlier Gen show up later in game.

Hmm..maybe because there is no Kalos Pokemon that can Mega Evolve during the launch of XY.

Spoiler

As you can remember, in the story line of Kalos, Lucario is the first Pokemon to Mega Evolve.

Maybe because, thru Lucario, that is their way to introduce the Mega Evolution.

 

[TheCableGuy]

Hmm..maybe because there is no Kalos Pokemon that can Mega Evolve during the launch of XY.

Spoiler

As you can remember, in the story line of Kalos, Lucario is the first Pokemon to Mega Evolve.

Maybe because, thru Lucario, that is their way to introduce the Mega Evolution.

Again, there is so much wrong there... I can't even begin.
Lore is no excuse for bad planning any more then bad game design is any excuse for shoddy Storytelling.


Oh, and top off another Insult at the Tower of Mastery...
They don't just give you Lucario but they make you send one of YOUR Pokemon to your box to receive him.
One of Your Pokemon. Your Pokemon, who you've trained and leveled.
Who you probably just beat this Gym with moments earlier...
But no.... They want you to take THIS Lucario instead.

I swear, it's like they're trying to make me hate them...