Your controversial opinions

[Norzan]

-Also think HGSS are a bit overrated, and those are the games that got me back into Pokemon in the first place. Similar issues to the Sinnoh games, awful level curve, don't care for the story, and as much as people praise the Kanto post game I find it really boring after the first time playing it when I was a kid. As I've seen some people say, it feels empty.

I was gonna post this, but you already did. Never got the appeal of this remake and specially never got the claim it's the best remake. It hardly fixed any of the glaring flaws of Gen 2 has like Johto feeling too small and cramped, the level curve being atrocious, and Kanto still being a barren wasteland with hardly anything to do in it except beat Gym Leaders.

To elaborate further, It added what has become my most disliked cliche in this series, the "you need to face the cover legendary before the Elite Four". Gen 2 was the last generation to not do this and it's extremely disappointing that the remake decided to do it instead of just doing what the original games did, which was nothing. The whole mystique of the Bell Tower and Whirl Islands went kind out of the window where you were forced to go there instead of going on your own accord.

Pokeathlon was cool though.

 

[RK9]

Scrapping Hilda/Hilbert from the PWC roster was a good call. I feel it would be really anti-climactic that the trainer who are such a 'big deal' and that are just 'gone' to search for N would just suddenly walk into the tournament battle field as if nothing ever happened.

Instead they should have fought you in the Nature Reserve or something.

 

[prog rocker]

Scrapping Hilda/Hilbert from the PWC roster was a good call. I feel it would be really anti-climactic that the trainer who are such a 'big deal' and that are just 'gone' to search for N would just suddenly walk into the tournament battle field as if nothing ever happened.

I kinda feel they were planning to use your actual team for that, adding another reason why it ended up being scrapped.

 

[Esserise]

As for my controversial opinions, I don't think any of these will be a surprise given what I've said about these subjects in previous topics, but hey, I guess I may as well consolidate them all into one steamy hotpost.

I am genuinely baffled by the fandom's reception to USUM's version of Lusamine (Lusumine, as I like to call her). She is completely informed by and consistent with her characterization in SM, it's just that the USUM games utilize their altered situational circumstances in order to examine her from a different angle and, crucially, to provide her arc with actual growth and closure. Believe me, I am very fond of the SM portrayal myself, but I see the USUM interpretation as nothing short of a vital complement to it. The means used to get there (i.e., exploring it via a third version) were not elegant, and I do agree that USUM make some bizarre decisions in regards to Lillie, and I do think that USUM miss out on perhaps the biggest opportunity for comparing and contrasting Lusamine and Lusumine's parallel trajectories (that is to say, not involving a villainous, alternative Mother Beast version of Lusamine in the Rainbow Rocket Episode for Lusumine to confront and exorcise), but nevertheless, the decisions made for her character in the follow-ups are sound.

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I think that, in terms of the game design process, Game Freak have grown wiser and more thoughtful with every generation. Far from the "lazy developers" they are accused by some of the fandom of being, I am always quite astonished by the level of reflection and consideration that I see them putting into each successive game, and that I glean from their interviews. (This is especially true of SwSh and the design of the Galar region.) I sincerely believe that they really do want to make the best games they can make, but I think the heart of the issue is mostly that their vision of what the "best games" means is different from the vision of a difficult-to-quantify subset of the playerbase, who want the games to be more consistent with older entries. I imagine that this can be especially tricky when they as developers probably do not want to get stuck doing the same thing for too long in a series that is already heavily formulaic. I myself will grant that I do not like how they have drastically reduced the dungeon and puzzle elements over the last two generations, and yet, all the same, I don't think the series has ever been in a better place than it is now in terms of creativity and accessibility, and that's not something that happens by accident. That happens by looking back at what you've done before and striving to do even better.

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While I can understand the charm of sprites, when I personally look back at them, I do not find myself very enchanted. I have said before that I think they worked sufficiently at the time, but were never particularly amazing, except perhaps for those in Pokémon Crystal, many of which are tailored to that specific Pokémon's characterization, and which make clever use of the frame transitions. I think that the 3D models - while keeping in mind the reasonable criticism that them calmly standing in place during the move selection phase of battles is not exciting - bring such a wealth of life and personality to each individual Pokémon, especially as of SwSh, where they can not only roam around in plain view in the overworld, but can also interact with each other and move around freely in a physical space in Pokémon Camp. Just the other day, I was interacting with my Baltoy in Camp, and I told it to go play, at which point it bade me farewell by performing a cute, ballerina-like spin gesture. Similarly, I was immediately endeared to my Zacian when I finished cooking some curry and caught it taking a nap. This is a level of expression that the sprites could not have dreamed of.

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Going back to the subject of game design, I think the online fandom displays a strange fetishization of a philosophy of sheer addition. While I can understand being dissatisfied that a feature or element that you enjoy has been removed (certainly there are several that I have enjoyed which have not withstood the test of time), I feel like there is an extreme reluctance or refusal to consider the merits of subtraction, or in other words, the why behind the removal of certain elements. Consider, for example, the DexNav. The developers explained from the outset that the feature was conceived of as a response to how shallow the Hoenn Pokédex is in comparison to the Kalos Pokédex. Since you would not be encountering such a diverse range of Pokémon on every route, they sought a way to make repetitive encounters more rewarding. So it stands to reason that, upon moving on to a region like Alola or Galar which have a larger Pokédex, they would not retain that sort of feature (or at least, not in quite the same way, because of course, many of the merits of DexNav have been preserved in those regions, in the form of SOS Battles and Max Raid Battles, respectively - you can argue that neither of these implementations are as elegant as the DexNav itself, and that's fair, but it is not as if the developers don't recognize that there were aspects worth keeping). Similarly, think about the automatic Exp. Share in SwSh. It seems likely to me that this decision would have been made with consideration toward the now-omnipresent PC Box access (and I do wonder to what extent LGPE were a testbed for this combination). People lament the de-optionalization of the Exp. Share as the loss of an ability to manually control the difficulty, but I don't think Game Freak's developers ever viewed it as such a thing to begin with, so much as they looked at it as a training tool. Something intended to make your gameplay easier, not harder. This would be consistent with what Shigeru Ohmori has said about the reasoning behind the change in SwSh - that their observations concluded that most players seemed to leave the Exp. Share on, and therefore, if there were players who only wanted to focus on training a single Pokémon, they could simply deposit the rest of their team for some time. That is something that is quicker and more feasible to do now than ever, now that the PC is accessible at virtually all times. So, if your concern is with making the game more difficult, I can see how this decision would seem perplexing. But there is a logic behind it, it's just not one that's prioritizing the same concerns. It is not a removal that they executed just for the sake of cutting things, they did it because they thought it would be a better design choice for the majority of players. I also think it is important to consider that the developers are people, who are not perfect. So often I feel like toxic corners of the fandom take the developers' decisions as a personal attack, when it could very easily be (and I would say is probably more likely) something that they did think carefully about, but which didn't pan out in the best way.

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Lysandre and Team Flare are the series's best villains, with the possible exception of Lusamine. The difference there, for me, really comes down to whether we're looking for a more articulate villain with a believable worldview, or a more personal antagonist with an fascinating psychological profile. Anyway, as to Team Flare, it should be clear by now that the 1% really do think of the rest of us as bottom-feeders, and would gladly sacrifice any one of us on the altar of the stock market. And if you think you're getting a ride to Mars on Elon's rocket once this planet is polluted and scorched beyond repair, you should probably think again.

Aside from those two, I believe that N is a strong character (although @WyndonCalling makes a good point about the series perhaps biting off a little more than they were willing to chew, with him) who contrasts nicely with the baleful malice and classical villainy of Ghetsis (who is a Jafar or Fire Lord Ozai sort of villain - not so much interesting in of himself, but interesting for the warping effect he has on everyone around him); Guzma is cool and likeable, Rose is alright (his plan and perspective actually are pretty realistic if you ask me; billionaire tech moguls are bananas, but this position could do with some more fleshing out within the games), and Archie and Maxie are good for thematic value, while Giovanni and Cyrus are one-dimensional cartoons. I'm not sure how "controversial" this overall estimation is, but I didn't want to just post the incendiary headline and leave it at that.

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Combine what I have said about Game Freak's advances in game design with my preference for the 3D models, along with a pint of a gut-level aversion to nostalgia and two cups of burnout, and I have no desire to revisit a pre-Gen 6 game ever again. I am very seriously considering selling off that entire segment of my collection. I consider this to be controversial because of the worship that Gens 3, 4, and 5 (particularly the latter two) typically receive in the online fandom these days, and yet I am perfectly content to leave those games in the past and to nevermore engage with them except in terms of retrospective analysis. I appreciate the things about them that I do and am happy that they played a part in my life... but I'm over them, basically.

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Dynamax is cool and robust and fun to play with, and I think it adds a more interesting dimension to battles than either of its predecessors (neither of which I disliked, to be clear - I'll always have time for Megas and for Z-Moves). Its integration into its home region's lore is the best way they've handled that sort of thing by far, and I think the concept of it is a genuinely clever response to the series' move to the Switch and therefore to large, high-definition TV screens.

 

[Daenerys]

I don't keep up with our fandom's consensus on all things so I'm just going to say things that I assume are unpopular opinions:

• Gen 1 nostalgia isn't a bad thing per say. Gamefreak has kinda gone overboard with it lately sure but the 'genwunners' weren't really a problem back in the early 2010s imo despite how much flack they got for complaining about Gen 5.
• Hoenn's geography isn't a problem. People like to complain about 'too much water' but you only really have to travel through those sea routes a few times and then you can just fly to every town/city that's near the ocean afterward. Max Repels exist anyway so it's not that hard to avoid Tentacools.
• Gen 8 is the worst generation. I don't give a damn that the Shield/Sword games sold alot it doesn't change that there's not a single Gen 8 Pokemon that I genuinely like. I'm also sick of Gamefreak caring more about battle gimmicks than about the Pokemon themselves.

 

[Norzan]

Lysandre and Team Flare are the series's best villains

That is one hot take. I think the room's temperate rose by several hundred degrees because of how hot it was. lol

 

[FlashFire926]

- Generation 2 and it's remakes are not as good as people make them out to be. There is a massive amount of content sure, but the level curve of wild pokemon make the game an absolute grind in the second half of the campaign if you decide to use more than like 2-3 pokemon. The early pokemon variety is the worst in the series too, and some great gen 2 mons are locked till postgame. I feel like Kanto, at least G/S version, is really gutted and not worth including, and Johto itself feels cramped. It should've just been one region from the start, with them fully fleshing out the region to the best of their ability rather than shoehorning a second one in. Still good games, just not amazing as they're made out to be.

- Conversly, the generation 3 remakes, ORAS, do more to fix the Original's flaws and are brilliant games overall that exceed their originals.. Sure, no battle frontier. But how about the content it had that, that the originals didnt? You have the PSS, Dexnav, Megas, more fleshed out story and characters, better surfing, and changes carried over from past gens like physical/special split, Infinite TM's, etc, and also the improved secret bases + the soaring mechanic. It combines the superior region design of past games (imo) with the much needed QoL changes generation 6 brought, and it makes it makes it a strong pokemon game overall. My only real gripes are chibi art style and not using Emerald gym teams.

- Pokemon Emerald is worse than Ruby/Sapphire in some aspects. I think a focus on one evil team makes for a better pacing (highlighted by having to take out Magma/Aqua bases back to back at some point in Emerald), adding the annoying phone calls back was a mistake. And, making Wallace the champion.... yeah, no. Steven was infinitely cooler. While still the overall better game, I dont think the game had nearly enough enhancements to buy it at full price again.

- Pokemon Ultra Sun are better than Sun/Moon in every way EXCEPT story. The expanded regional dex, many QoL changes like letting Crawbrawler/Vikavolt evolve much earlier, making horde battles way less annoying. The expanded post game with Rainbow Rocket, Battle Agency and Warp Ride, combined with what SM already had makes a really underrated post game. I think the region of Alola generally feel much more alive as well, there's side quests, and way more pokemon you can spot in the overworld, as well as being able to play with other's pokemon. Despite having gripes with Alola's linear design, I think it feels the most "lived-in" region out of all of them in USUM. And, all of gen 7 is good as a whole (it's a shame about the story though)

- I think The Isle of Armor is better than the base Sword/Shield game itself. The wild area in the DLC is infinitely better designed then the barren wasteland in the base game, and while there's still some ways to go, they're really taking strides in that area.

- In a pokemon postgame, the thing I value most is new areas to explore, after that is story, then finally after that, is battle facilities. That's why I love the postgame island in Platinum, and the the unexplored areas in Unova in both Black and Black 2. Battle frontiers dont excite me nearly as much. Sure, I'd like to have it, and can get some fun out of it, but I'd take the Sevii Islands or Delta Episode over it in a heartbeat.

 

[Esserise]

- Pokemon Emerald is worse than Ruby/Sapphire in some aspects. I think a focus on one evil team makes for a better pacing (highlighted by having to take out Magma/Aqua bases back to back at some point in Emerald), adding the annoying phone calls back was a mistake. And, making Wallace the champion.... yeah, no. Steven was infinitely cooler. While still the overall better game, I dont think the game had nearly enough enhancements to buy it at full price again.

Ah yes, I too am not very fond of many of the changes in Emerald. I agree that having one evil team is better for the pacing (also, I find it strange that people will sometimes object to Team Magma's hideout being in Lilycove after Emerald gave them their own base at Mt. Chimney, saying that the Lilycove base "doesn't make sense," when Team Magma's whole schtick is about reducing the sea level to accommodate more infrastructural development), and I also think that having Rayquaza swoop in to solve the crisis by using Roar is such a boring anticlimax that pales in comparison to you having to stride deep into a primordial cave to confront a raging titan while that awesome drum arrangement plays in the background.

However, I personally think that neither Steven nor Wallace acquit themselves very well in Gen 3. Steven has a much more interesting team, but his role throughout the story leaves... a lot to be desired. ("I'm that guy who likes rocks!" - It was very savvy of ORAS to retcon this into an interest in Mega Stones.) Meanwhile, having a Water-type Champion after having a Water-type Gym Leader and a huge swath of the game set on the ocean feels incredibly repetitive, and Wallace himself really does feel shoehorned into the role just for the sake of having a twist, since it's still Steven that you have the sporadic encounters with.

Another thing that I dislike is the replacement of the Contest Halls with the Battle Tents. I always thought it was very cool how the Contest Halls were kind of like Gyms, in that they rose in rank in parallel with your adventure. This, to me, made them feel more like a real alternative path to the Gym Challenge. Shoving them all into Lilycove kind of hurt that.

- Pokemon Ultra Sun are better than Sun/Moon in every way EXCEPT story. The expanded regional dex, many QoL changes like letting Crawbrawler/Vikavolt evolve much earlier, making horde battles way less annoying. The expanded post game with Rainbow Rocket, Battle Agency and Warp Ride, combined with what SM already had makes a really underrated post game. I think the region of Alola generally feel much more alive as well, there's side quests, and way more pokemon you can spot in the overworld, as well as being able to play with other's pokemon. Despite having gripes with Alola's linear design, I think it feels the most "lived-in" region out of all of them in USUM. And, all of gen 7 is good as a whole (it's a shame about the story though)

- I think The Isle of Armor is better than the base Sword/Shield game itself. The wild area in the DLC is infinitely better designed then the barren wasteland in the base game, and while there's still some ways to go, they're really taking strides in that area.

I don't think these two opinions are very controversial at all. People tend to really like USUM's gameplay additions, they mostly just don't like the storyline edits or the fact that they were third versions instead of DLC or sequels. And I remember the improvements over the base game's Wild Area being a common part of praise for the Isle of Armor when that update rolled out. (Personally, I think the design progression from the Wild Area to the Expansion Pass's areas are pretty par for the course for Game Freak - their first take on a concept is always a bit basic, and then they find a deeper level of expression when they get to making a second edition of the game.)

 

[Nicolas721]

• Rivals and the evil team are just a very small part of the game experience.
• More legendaries isn't bad if they make for cool postgame sidequests.
• The PWC wasn't that good. You had to do some extra planning because the game kept throwing you the types you had the least coverage against, and the prizes were laughable.
• Ghetsis ordering Kyurem to attack the player is not a dark moment at all. First because there's no animation for that moment to even be called impactful, second because in the anime Team Rocket does similar things all the time and third because we obviously know the PC is not going to die.
• Lumiose City is the pinnacle of city design and I'm sad that we haven't gotten anything similar ever since.
• Alola has really bad Pokemon distribution, even in USUM. The only decent island is Melemele. It's really hard to believe USUM has the same number of Pokemon in the regional dex as SWSH.
• Galarian forms >> Alolan forms.
• LGPE not existing would have solved some of SWSH's problems as they'd have had more time to work on it. If it had to exist then it should have done so as a freemium Switch app and published by another studio.
• I wouldn't mind a game with less customization options if that means the player feels less like a blank-state Mary Sue.
• Home is a total scam and it's far for being the central hub they promised. I still don't get the mobile exclusivity and it says a lot of where they think the future of the franchise is. GF shouldn't punish players for not wanting to use it.
• The next 2 generations shouldn't be inspired in neither Europe or a part of the USA.

 

[Esserise]

LGPE not existing would have solved some of SWSH's problems as they'd have had more time to work on it. If it had to exist then it should have done so as a freemium Switch app and published by another studio.

I’m not sure this is necessarily true. We don’t know how their labors were organized across the two projects - throwing more people at a task isn’t necessarily going to make it go faster if it’s a task that doesn’t require more than one or a few people who know what they’re doing. Secondly, they have said in interviews that the development they did on LGPE was experientially quite useful in establishing a familiarity with coding for the Switch and figuring out how to do certain things. We also know that the reception to LGPE influenced some of the design choices for SwSh - according to Junichi Masuda, they decided to have Pokémon walking around in the overworld in SwSh because people responded positively to that feature in LGPE. In that sense, I would say that is an example of LGPE actually helping to make SwSh a better game.

 

[Greninjaman]

-They should have gotten rid of the Elite Four earlier.

What do you mean they should have gotten rid of the Elite 4 earlier?

 

[SpinyShell]

What do you mean they should have gotten rid of the Elite 4 earlier?

He means they should have gotten rid of the Elite 4 earlier. /joking

Jokes aside, I'm curious as to his reasoning as I've always been kind of indifferent regarding the Elite 4 other than wishing the box legendary plotpoint was pushed after fighting them. I'm uncertain how controversial this is, but I've always felt that it was odd to essentially have two climaxes one after the other. In my opinion, fighting the Elite 4 and Champion after the beating the evil team and capturing the legendary is unsatisfying because you just went through this big, climatic event and yet you have another hill to surpass afterwards. I feel that becoming the Champion is diminished a little because of its proximity to the other major climax--it's sort of part of the falling action when it shouldn't be in my opinion. I'd rather see the Champion event build up to the evil team/legendary event rather than it be awkwardly pushed afterwards.

 

[prog rocker]

Jokes aside, I'm curious as to his reasoning as I've always been kind of indifferent regarding the Elite 4 other than wishing the box legendary plotpoint was pushed after fighting them.

In my case, I prefer the randomized or tournament style with no fixed opponents over the old boss rush mode. You could say it's more boredom over defeating the same four guys in the same order.

 

[Greninjaman]

In my case, I prefer the randomized or tournament style with no fixed opponents over the old boss rush mode. You could say it's more boredom over defeating the same four guys in the same order.

Like how the anime does it?

 

[prog rocker]

Like how the anime does it?

Yes, or like the arcade mode of most fighting games.

 

[Esserise]

In my case, I prefer the randomized or tournament style with no fixed opponents over the old boss rush mode. You could say it's more boredom over defeating the same four guys in the same order.

But we still have this, it’s just slightly obscured by the optics of the “tournament.” You’re still always going to face Bede, Nessa, Bea/Allister, and Raihan in the same order. It’s an Elite Four in all but name, even reverting to the pre-BW linear progression style, it just uses characters that we have already battled before instead of introducing new ones (which I do think is an improvement).

 

[prog rocker]

But we still have this, it’s just slightly obscured by the optics of the “tournament.” You’re still always going to face Bede, Nessa, Bea/Allister, and Raihan in the same order. It’s an Elite Four in all but name, even reverting to the pre-BW linear progression style, it just uses characters that we have already battled before instead of introducing new ones (which I do think is an improvement).

Yes, but it's only for the first time IIRC. My problem is with them being the same opponents always with literally no variation, which made training in previous games tedious.

 

[Daren]

I'm uncertain how controversial this is, but I've always felt that it was odd to essentially have two climaxes one after the other. In my opinion, fighting the Elite 4 and Champion after the beating the evil team and capturing the legendary is unsatisfying because you just went through this big, climatic event and yet you have another hill to surpass afterwards. I feel that becoming the Champion is diminished a little because of its proximity to the other major climax--it's sort of part of the falling action when it shouldn't be in my opinion. I'd rather see the Champion event build up to the evil team/legendary event rather than it be awkwardly pushed afterwards.

I want to piggyback off this (and in fact was thinking about posting something similar).

I don't think the games really need both the Gym quest and the evil team/legendary crisis and that trying to do both diminishes them. I think it worked okay in gen 1 and 2 where Team Rocket are just a recurring obstacle, but evil teams after that tend to have more story focus with cutscenes and large-scale goals that would drag the player in even if they stayed at home.
Imagine trying to combine a sports film with a World War II movie where the two split focus evenly; it'll probably turn into a disjointed mess.

Personally, I'd prefer they drop the evil team between the two because world saving games are a dime a dozen compared to something a bit smaller in scope and more personal in focus.

 

[Norzan]

I want to piggyback off this (and in fact was thinking about posting something similar).

I don't think the games really need both the Gym quest and the evil team/legendary crisis and that trying to do both diminishes them. I think it worked okay in gen 1 and 2 where Team Rocket are just a recurring obstacle, but evil teams after that tend to have more story focus with cutscenes and large-scale goals that would drag the player in even if they stayed at home.
Imagine trying to combine a sports film with a World War II movie where the two split focus evenly; it'll probably turn into a disjointed mess.

Personally, I'd prefer they drop the evil team between the two because world saving games are a dime a dozen compared to something a bit smaller in scope and more personal in focus.

I have had shared the same sentiment for a long while. The story constantly switching between both sides either makes both sides feel undercooked, or one clearly more developed than the other, making you question why didn't they just dropped the one that barely has much focus at all and just focus more on the one that already has the bigger attention.

 

[Hidden Mew]

I think that Cynthia is a bit overhyped. I don't dislike her by any means and I can see why she is so popular, but I also think that all of the hype around her over the years has made me less excited for her compared to other fans.

I don't really like the concept of jerk rivals. Aside from Silver and maybe Bede, I don't think that the jerk rivals have been particularly good. Blue in particular is pretty annoying. A character still being rude and condescending towards the player even after you beat them doesn't make me particularly eager or excited to battle them again. This was a big issue for Bede too, but I feel like he works better in retrospect after seeing where his storyline goes. I'd rather have the rivals be interesting/likable characters instead of just jerks for the shake of it.

I don't think that X/Y really needed a third version. It would have been nice for them to expand on Kalos a bit more, but I didn't think that they were necessary and getting Sun/Moon was a better choice for the 20th anniversary celebration.

Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee are the best first generation remakes and I'd say the best way to experience the original games as well. They're just a lot of fun to play through.

Sword/Shield are easily one of my top three favorite main series titles. I just love so many of the characters, the new Pokemon and the Galar region itself. It is always fun to play through in a way that does feel different compared to other Pokemon games.

I think that Dynamax is a better concept than Mega Evolution. I miss Mega Pokemon as much as the next person, but I think the Dynamax mechanic is handled better than Mega Evolution was. There are still special Gigantamax forms, but every Pokemon can Dynamax within the games and you can take part in Max Raid Battles pretty early on too. In terms of showcasing the mechanic and being accessible for every player, I think that Dynamax does it better than Mega Evolution generally did.