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Your controversial opinions

Honestly, I think the main problem with Dynamax is simply that it's probably the most broken and overpowered gimmick that has been introduced so far, however, the remedy to this is actually pretty simple: just make it so that only Pokémon that aren't holding any items can Dynamax. That way players have to really think about their teambuilding and strategy since with this hypothetical handicap, you wouldn't be able to just Dynamax whatever Pokémon was convenient to Dynamax at any given moment unless you just decided to use an entire team without items, and doing that would be a pretty big handicap.
 
Don't know if it's popular or controversial, but Gym Leaders being made around a single type has been a terrible idea since Gen 1 and it should have never been implemented in the first place. The main reason is that it causes most, if not all, Gym Leaders to be a joke that get swept by a single pokemon.

Gym Leaders should have been made around themes that can encompass two or more types, this way they could have a good team and not be swept by a single pokemon.

Of course it would make the games harder and if there had to be a compromise, i would have been fine with the first maybe three gyms being single type, and then the remaining gym leaders be made around a theme.
 
Don't know if it's popular or controversial, but Gym Leaders being made around a single type has been a terrible idea since Gen 1 and it should have never been implemented in the first place. The main reason is that it causes most, if not all, Gym Leaders to be a joke that get swept by a single pokemon.

Gym Leaders should have been made around themes that can encompass two or more types, this way they could have a good team and not be swept by a single pokemon.

Of course it would make the games harder and if there had to be a compromise, i would have been fine with the first maybe three gyms being single type, and then the remaining gym leaders be made around a theme.
What sort of themes? Something like weather?
 
Hm, not sure how many of these are actually controversial and how many are just taking sides on an issue, but:

Blue is hugely overrated as a "mean" rival. Everyone that praises him always talks about how "Oh, you want your rival to be someone you feel good about beating!", and while I definitely agree there, victories against Blue just feel annoying. Look at his dialogue when you beat him:
  • After being defeated
"Awww! You just lucked out!"
  • After being defeated
"What!? I was just careless!"
  • Being defeated
"What? You stinker!" I took it easy on you too!"
And in conversations after that, he just continues to act like he's won every match.
My rival should be strong to keep me sharp.

Oh yeah, right. I feel sorry for you. No, really. You're always plodding behind me.

Then I'll whip you, <player>, as a warm-up for the Pokémon League!
I get that it's supposed to be unintentionally funny- Blue thinks so highly of himself, even though he's always behind you- but it's just annoying to me. If the fun of having a mean rival is that you get to feel satisfied shutting him up, then Blue completely fails on that front because he never admits to any loss. Blue's just this guy who makes you battle him and won't acknowledge the results, like receiving a bunch of texts from someone who won't read your replies. And people put that over rivals like Wally, Hau, Bianca, Cheren, etc. just because he insulted you?

(To be clear, though, that's just Blue as a rival, Blue as a character is lots of fun because of his development after that stage)


RSE's encounter puzzles are dumb. I love the attempt at making it more of an adventure/accomplishment to find Pokemon, but are you freaking kidding me? Randomly generate six tiles to encounter one Pokemon? The tiles change every time you change this one phrase in a town not even connected to that route, but they don't change depending on the phrase, just to something random? Use a personality value the player has no way of checking to run a lottery that spawns an island? (At least that one has an egg you can get for Wynaut elsewhere) Require the player to read Braille without giving any way to look up Braille in-game? Meaning that your players have to go online to look it up, and at that point might as well just look up a walkthrough? I know these games came out in 2003, but surely there was already discussions about how to design fair/engaging puzzles in games by then rather than just throwing numbers at the wall and seeing what stuck, right?


Johto was not an example of how an open world Pokemon game could be fun, it was just awkward. It was definitely intentional to let players have the option- Pryce's team is in the range of Jasmine/Chuck, and Jasmine's Steelix is several level above his team- but the result of that is either that your sixth gym leader is five levels higher than your seventh, or you fight Chuck and then Pryce for some reason and then Jasmine?, or you fight Pryce and do the Ampharos quest while Team Rocket controls the airwaves, or you do the Ampharos quest after all that, which feels a little subdued considering you just beat all of Team Rocket. Choosing your gym order would be fun, but this just made the level curve and story awkward.


PikaClones are fun Pokemon designs if you realize that they're not meant to be "knockoff Pikachu that Game Freak wants to share the spotlight with it," but "a reference to Pikachu that tries to use 'Electric-type rodent' in a unique way."
 
Hm, not sure how many of these are actually controversial and how many are just taking sides on an issue, but:

Blue is hugely overrated as a "mean" rival. Everyone that praises him always talks about how "Oh, you want your rival to be someone you feel good about beating!", and while I definitely agree there, victories against Blue just feel annoying. Look at his dialogue when you beat him:
  • After being defeated
"Awww! You just lucked out!"
  • After being defeated
"What!? I was just careless!"
  • Being defeated
"What? You stinker!" I took it easy on you too!"
And in conversations after that, he just continues to act like he's won every match.
My rival should be strong to keep me sharp.

Oh yeah, right. I feel sorry for you. No, really. You're always plodding behind me.

Then I'll whip you, <player>, as a warm-up for the Pokémon League!
I get that it's supposed to be unintentionally funny- Blue thinks so highly of himself, even though he's always behind you- but it's just annoying to me. If the fun of having a mean rival is that you get to feel satisfied shutting him up, then Blue completely fails on that front because he never admits to any loss. Blue's just this guy who makes you battle him and won't acknowledge the results, like receiving a bunch of texts from someone who won't read your replies. And people put that over rivals like Wally, Hau, Bianca, Cheren, etc. just because he insulted you?
This. This is why I find him so frustrating. And the worse thing is, due to Pokémon being Pokémon, it doesn't give any satisfaction beating him. It's why I can't tolerate him but can stand guys like Adon or Hwoarang.
 
Require the player to read Braille without giving any way to look up Braille in-game? Meaning that your players have to go online to look it up, and at that point might as well just look up a walkthrough?
Funny thing is that the manual of the Sapphire copy i got came with a Braille section in it and that's how i did the puzzle (it was before i even had internet). It doesn't excuse not having it in the game, but i still find it very cool that they did add it to the manual.
 
Funny thing is that the manual of the Sapphire copy i got came with a Braille section in it and that's how i did the puzzle (it was before i even had internet). It doesn't excuse not having it in the game, but i still find it very cool that they did add it to the manual.
May I ask you where did you get that copy? The US version didn't have that, and I only managed to understand the puzzle because by chance I had a book with the braille alphabet.

EDIT: Okay, I admit that my tone might sounded bad here, but I worded it this way out of envy. Having that in the manual would have helped 8-year old me greatly.
 
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May I ask you where did you get that copy? The US version didn't have that, and I only managed to understand the puzzle because by chance I had with the braille alphabet.
European version's manual came with a braille section. The game did come out in the US four months prior to their release on Europe, so i guess they realized they messed up by not having braille explained in the game but it was too late to change the game, so they just added it to the European version's manual to make up for the fact they didn't add it to the US version, possibly after US players complained about it.
 
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Funny thing is that the manual of the Sapphire copy i got came with a Braille section in it and that's how i did the puzzle (it was before i even had internet). It doesn't excuse not having it in the game, but i still find it very cool that they did add it to the manual.
Okay, that's legitimately epic. I retract that criticism, then, that's almost exactly how I would have wanted a secret like that played out. (Only better thing would be something in the game, so players who buy secondhand can get it, too)
 
Okay, that's legitimately epic. I retract that criticism, then, that's almost exactly how I would have wanted a secret like that played out. (Only better thing would be something in the game, so players who buy secondhand can get it, too)
Technically, it is there. They just don't tell you what it means (check the stones around the Wailord/Relicanth part). In other words, it's borderline useless.
 
Sure. I think there's a lot of angles you can take to compare the situations and ultimately it's going to come down to the customer.
This. I’m the first one to admit it isn’t an easy comparison. There are legitimate points for “both sides” (if there even can be two sides, I think there’d be more). I was fairly confused while writing that post myself because enjoyment and value is subjective. What people’s priorities are matters. And even little stuff like how people afford to get those games (saving up, getting money from parents, doing a job and using your hard earned money) matters in shaping an opinion.

  • Kanto Starter are the best(not talking about Pikachu and Eevee)
  • Unova starter are the worst
  • I prefer simple desing than pokemon with a too complicated design
No offence but those are hardly controversial opinions among a lot of fan circles...

It was better in gen 1 and 2 for the battle system , now it's just too complicated for nothing. I was better when it was simple and when you could take your actual pokemon that you use during your adventure and being force to bread and lost hours and hours just for being at least a bt competitive.
Actually Gen 2 onwards began modifying the battle system to make it “complicated”. Gen 1 and 2 are still guilty of that. The stuff which makes Pokémon useless for competitive (EV and IV) were introduced in the first Gen itself. And Gen 1 didn’t even have breeding so good luck trying to catch a good Pokémon randomly. And compared to latest generations, the older ones are less streamlined. With each new generation the effort to get into competitive is drastically less. As of Gen 8 you can train any Pokémon to be the “best version of itself” with no breeding. So I find this opinion factually incorrect to be honest.

Gen one have the best roster of pokemon
Again... it’s such a popular opinion that it gets obnoxious sometimes.
 
Me for instance, I'm a massive fan and I've been consistently pleased with the last several entries in the series, so there's an extent to which I'm a sure-buy no matter what. From that perspective, it makes sense that I would prefer DLC over enhanced versions, because like I said, I'm paying about the same for less redundancy.

I get this view but I’m also one who will likely insta buy any traditional core games but I still prefer third versions to DLC, even with the Switch set up of multiple files per game now available.

I appreciate for some people that they feel too much like replaying the same game but for me even the small changes like what Pokémon are available on each route changes the flavour of the game enough to make it worth the replay, especially with the third version typically releasing around a year after its predecessor- for me that’s a good point to replay the game.

The DLC has made replaying feel messy and more confused to me - I started a new file when IoA dropped and it throws off the level scaling a lot, which was already a bit of an issue with this gen. Trying to roughly match the IoA story to the main story made it all feel even more disjointed but feels like it was intended - why the hell else does a trainee gym leader not know who the current champion is?

Also I really prefer to have physical media so prefer the cartridge bundle but even though I thought they’d wind up doing that I didn’t want to wait and potentially have all the DLC content spoilered for me. So now I’m in the position of trying to decide if I should buy the Sword DLC bundle to go with my Shield base game and digital DLC despite the fact my wife already owns Sword but not the DLC.

I’m not absolutely against DLC, and if it’s the way forward I’m obviously just going to grin and bear it but I never had an issue with third versions.
 
I appreciate for some people that they feel too much like replaying the same game but for me even the small changes like what Pokémon are available on each route changes the flavour of the game enough to make it worth the replay, especially with the third version typically releasing around a year after its predecessor- for me that’s a good point to replay the game.

I mean, truthfully it's not like I despised third versions or anything. As a child, my disappointment toward Yellow stemmed more from what I perceived as false promises, and on the other hand, Crystal was simply more of a game that I already really liked playing, but this time with a cool Suicune plot and a lot of nice touch-ups, so kid-me was hardly going to complain about that.

I wasn't around for Emerald's release, so my opinions of it only exist in retrospect, and similarly, I wasn't around for Diamond & Pearl, so my first experience with Sinnoh was Platinum, and that was good. And I like USUM well enough, even if there's a lot that I criticise. Like I said, I've been pretty consistently satisfied with everything they've released since Black & White.

Instead, I think my preference for non-third version solutions is rooted largely in a sense that third versions don't strike me as a very fertile ground creatively. Fundamentally, they are just tweaking and adding onto a game that already basically proved itself. Back in 2012, even though my experiences with third versions were limited yet still generally positive, B2W2 were nevertheless immediately more fascinating to me upon reveal because Pokémon hadn't tried something like a direct sequel* before, so I was sure we could expect a lot of new ideas. And I think that once again applies to the SwSh DLC. Instead of focusing on touching up the game that I already had, they used the DLC to experiment more with the open-world concept as a whole by creating entirely new subregions. There is a degree to which I do wish they could make some improvements to the base game, especially with regard to the Gym Leader battles and maybe some aspects of the story presentation, but I don't value those ideas anywhere near as much as I do all the new stuff we got with the Isle and the Tundra.

* to a game with a plot that was actually worth following up on, anyway.

The DLC has made replaying feel messy and more confused to me - I started a new file when IoA dropped and it throws off the level scaling a lot, which was already a bit of an issue with this gen.

I will agree that it took me a while to really get this worked out in a way I was satisfied with. First and foremost is playing on Switch mode. I find that Set mode throws things off a lot faster since it inherently increases the amount of experience that a given Pokémon will be receiving. Training my Pokémon in pairs has also helped to alleviate any experience over-gain.

Structurally, I have had the most success with interleaving the IOA story with the progression through the first three Gyms. Very roughly speaking, I typically go Opening Ceremony > Catch Slowpoke at Wedgehurst and complete Isle Trial #1 > Turffield Gym > travel to Hulbury > Isle Trial #2 > Hulbury Gym > stay the night in Motostoke > Isle Trial #3 > Motostoke Gym > Towers of Two Fists.

Trying to roughly match the IoA story to the main story made it all feel even more disjointed but feels like it was intended - why the hell else does a trainee gym leader not know who the current champion is?

Well, at some point there's an NPC who mentions that news tends to reach the Isle more slowly because they're relatively isolated and usually focused more on their training, though I could just as easily wonder - in the event that you travel to the Isle early on in the game - why Klara doesn't really seem to recognize me upon my arrival even though we might've just met at the train station five minutes ago where she watched me catch a Slowpoke and spoke directly to me.

It's Pokémon; there's flimsy excuses all around. You're really not supposed to think about it too closely.

Also I really prefer to have physical media so prefer the cartridge bundle but even though I thought they’d wind up doing that I didn’t want to wait and potentially have all the DLC content spoilered for me. So now I’m in the position of trying to decide if I should buy the Sword DLC bundle to go with my Shield base game and digital DLC despite the fact my wife already owns Sword but not the DLC.

I'm a physical copy guy too, so I do sympathize with this. There definitely is an itch in my brain that wants to buy the complete edition even though I have no justifiable reason for doing so. I own Sword with the digital DLC, my wife owns Shield with the digital DLC - it would be far more redundant to buy the bundle pack than it would ever be to buy any third version, yet here I am, with my collector's impulse.
 
it would be far more redundant to buy the bundle pack than it would ever be to buy any third version, yet here I am, with my collector's impulse

Let me “help” you out - having a physical bundle version helps you future proof your collection in case the Switch eshop gets shut down and you lose your DLC data for some reason! :p

there you go, I’ve given you a perfect excuse
 
Let me “help” you out - having a physical bundle version helps you future proof your collection in case the Switch eshop gets shut down and you lose your DLC data for some reason! :p

there you go, I’ve given you a perfect excuse
Well, there are other methods, but that's the legal (and possibly virus-free) alternative...
 
I have physical copies of both Sword and Shield, and I bought the digital Expansion Pass for Sword shortly after The Isle of Armor came out. But I'm seriously considering buying the physical bundle, at least for Sword, if not both games eventually. I'm going to either sell my original copies, or wait until the bundles are available more cheaply from second-hand shops, because I can't really justify the cost otherwise.

I don't like having only a digital copy of the Expansion Pass, because like @Shib said, I could lose access to it one day, and these are games I'm going to want to be playing for many years to come. In some ways I feel like I was conned into buying the digital version, because if we'd have been told in the beginning that physical bundles were coming later, I would have waited. But if I were to put a more positive spin on it, I'd say that it's not really much different to spending £20 on a night out at the cinema, then buying the DVD of the same film a few months later.
 
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I'm kind of relieved that I'm not the only one who thought of buying the physical bundle. I've bought all of the other main series titles, so my collector impulse is going strong for those games despite how I would have virtually no reason to do so. I'd probably have an easier time leveling up any new teams with everything already unlocked instead of starting a new save file too. I didn't think of how the Switch's eshop could potentially affect the digital Expansion Pass though. I just figured that they released a physical copy for people who haven't already bought the game and so that they don't have to rely on the eshop for everyone to get the Expansion Pass. I'd be absolutely heartbroken if I lost my digital Expansion Pass.
 
I'm kind of relieved that I'm not the only one who thought of buying the physical bundle. I've bought all of the other main series titles, so my collector impulse is going strong for those games despite how I would have virtually no reason to do so. I'd probably have an easier time leveling up any new teams with everything already unlocked instead of starting a new save file too. I didn't think of how the Switch's eshop could potentially affect the digital Expansion Pass though. I just figured that they released a physical copy for people who haven't already bought the game and so that they don't have to rely on the eshop for everyone to get the Expansion Pass. I'd be absolutely heartbroken if I lost my digital Expansion Pass.
The digital download that people got would disappear one day?
 
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