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Your controversial opinions

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.

It is indeed only a fixed series of opponents for the first go-around, but if the point after that is just post-game training, then I don’t think I understand how it’s significantly less tedious to have a randomized set of Trainers rather than a constant set. While the variety is certainly nice, if anything I would expect the randomized system to have a higher chance of producing an annoyance, since you can’t predict what you’re going to be up against and might get caught off-guard. Same goes, I suppose, for the Alola games’ randomized Title Defense battle.
 
And, making Wallace the champion.... yeah, no. Steven was infinitely cooler.
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.
Here's an unpopular opinion from me: I actually prefer Wallace as a Champion to Steven. May be because I've played through Emerald more than any other Hoenn game (played through Emerald multiple time, Ruby and Omega Ruby only once each), but I still stand by my opinion. Juan was also a good replacement for Wallace as the final Gym Leader (which is why it kinda irks me that Juan was given Wallace's team (and maybe also personality) in the anime, but that's not a topic for this thread) and Steven works better as a retired Champion/post-game boss ala Red IMO.
 
I don't know how popular these are, but :wynaut:
  • Hoenn really does have too much water, and I would absolutely remove 0.2/10 points from a review of RSE/ORAS because of it

I loved Hoenn's water routes. They're vast, difficult to navigate, about as 'hostile' as a Pokémon game gets, and that's why they're great. I have a strong distaste for many of the shorter routes in later games, stuffed with roving nurses and character cutscenes to seemingly remind you that you're never too far from civilisation. I legitimately have to get out the map for Hoenn's water routes on occasion, and that's brilliant.

- 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

I'm surprised you feel that - the type variety isn't huge but it rarely ever is at that point. Prior to Falkner, you can get your mitts on:

- Rattata
- Pidgey
- Sentret
- Hoothoot
- Spinarak/Ledyba
- Spearow
- Jigglypuff
- Geodude
- Caterpie
- Bellsprout
- Zubat
- Dunsparce
- Onix
- Gastly

Oh, here's another hot take: the Original 151 designs actually are the best.
 
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Here's an unpopular opinion from me: I actually prefer Wallace as a Champion to Steven. May be because I've played through Emerald more than any other Hoenn game (played through Emerald multiple time, Ruby and Omega Ruby only once each), but I still stand by my opinion. Juan was also a good replacement for Wallace as the final Gym Leader (which is why it kinda irks me that Juan was given Wallace's team (and maybe also personality) in the anime, but that's not a topic for this thread) and Steven works better as a retired Champion/post-game boss ala Red IMO.

But why do you prefer Wallace? What is it about Juan that makes him a good replacement, when he's essentially just switching one Water-type expert for another? And what about Steven makes him work better as a retired Champion? (I actually don't disagree that that would be a neat angle to take for a character; it reminds me a little bit of Mustard, or Alder in B2W2, but I don't think Steven is fleshed out enough in the Gen 3 games to really make it mean anything. How do his experiences as a former Champion inform his personality? That actually is an element within Mustard and Alder, and even Blue.)

In fairness, you've now got me thinking that I should elaborate on my Team Flare appreciation some more. So I'll start by granting what I think is probably their biggest flaw - that their modus operandi is not a great fit for the setting of the Pokémon world. It is strange to hear Lysandre bemoan peoples' tendency to take things without returning the favor or paying it forward, when the Pokémon world is so fundamentally generous and utopian. It is hard to take Lysandre's concerns about overpopulation and vanishing resources seriously when the world that we travel seems devoid of the real world's social, political, economic, and environmental struggles. But I think this is something of a recurring problem with all of Pokémon's villains, except for Team Rocket, Team Plasma, and perhaps Team Yell. A quick run-down:

Team Rocket: They're not out to fix any of the world's maladies, they are the malady, so this is fine, if generic.

Teams Aqua and Magma: Essentially, Team Aqua are concerned that Pokémon habitats are being disrupted and eliminated by human development, which Team Magma endorses. Tama Hiroka has talked about how the conflict between Teams Aqua and Magma was likely inspired by the complex nature of the Isahaya Bay reclamation project. But the thing is, in the games themselves, humans seem to have already figured out how to live harmoniously with Pokémon. We see numerous examples throughout the game. The Rusturf Tunnel project was cancelled because they recognized that it was having a negative effect on the Whismur population. Fortree City is a healthy and environmentally clean settlement because people have made their homes a part of the surrounding nature rather than cutting down trees to make space for new homes. Sootopolis is kind of a similar deal. That volcano wasn't hollowed out by human technology, it's just a dormant caldera that filled with rainwater and was then settled upon. Dewford, Verdanturf, Lavaridge, Pacifidlog - all these places are ataraxic communities that have seamlessly hybridized with the natural landscape. Like, there's a problem in your worldbuilding when the sharpest example of human activity having a deleterious effect on the wild might very well be that old man and his Zigzagoon saying they pick up peoples' litter from the beach.

(Side note: Wally's asthma is worse in Petalburg than it is in Verdanturf, but we're not really told why this is - I wonder, why didn't they take the opportunity to establish some kind of factory in the nearby area that is generating pollution that makes it harder for Wally to breathe?)

Team Galactic: Cyrus's belief is that spirit is the root of all strife in the world. But what strife is he even talking about? This viewpoint is even less qualified than Team Flare's, where at least you do have some fleeting examples of elitism and wealth hoarding in the games, outside of those caused by Team Flare themselves. Sinnoh is a downright peaceful country landscape where nobody seems to have any problems with one another.

Team Plasma: These guys do work, because they're not necessarily wrong - Pokémon do get hurt in battles. The extreme is that they ignore the positive relationships and experiences that form as a result of Pokémon battling. This is probably, I think, the best job that the Pokémon games have done in terms of justifying the villains' viewpoint within the setting - but then, you can also say that the games don't really do enough to assuage our worries now that we've been convinced that we're playing into system that is fundamentally harmful on some level.

Team Skull: While I like the backstory that they are social outcasts because they failed to make it very far into the island challenge, I always found that a bit difficult to bite, considering how warm and considerate the Alolan people are in every other respect. Hapu even talks about how it's natural for Alolans to help out one another, and your character is welcomed to the island with open arms. Like, do you really expect me to believe that if your character hadn't completed the island challenge, they'd become a pariah who's left with no prospects but to join a gang? Come on. In this sense, I feel like Team Yell work a lot better, because their dilapidated hometown is not really a result of a social rift, of people looking down on them - Spikemuth was once a buzzing place, after all. The state of their place is just a consequence of the popularity of Dynamax battles overshadowing what their city had to offer, and Piers's pride steering him to refuse relocation.

So, I don't think the disparity between the world that Team Flare claims to see and the world that we actually see is a problem exclusive to them. It is a flaw, but one within the core tenets of Pokémon's storytelling philosophy as a whole.

The reason why I like Team Flare so much is because they are a pretty biting indictment of the the billionaire class. Lysandre is a man whose noble intentions of philanthropy became undermined by his numerous personal flaws, blind spots, and misdiagnoses of the real problems. Sycamore tells us that he wishes he had caught on to this and helped Lysandre get past his ego, and when you look closely, that really is the root of Lysandre's corruption. Lysandre had something of a savior complex, thinking of himself as a "chosen one." This is a really problematic perspective to take if you're trying to connect with people less fortunate, because it, by definition, puts you above everyone else. If there are "chosen ones" who have a responsibility to use their resources to help others, then that implies that the people in need of help are not "chosen," and it's that kind of thinking that can lead you down a path that is obsessed with success though rugged, by-your-own-bootstraps individualism (even if you yourself only got to your successful position by receiving help from others), and which condemns those who fail to make it in society as being lazy or undeserving. This is why Team Flare ends up composed of a bunch of idiotic, air-headed aristocrats who think the world would be a lot better if there were just fewer poor people sucking up resources (they blame "overpopulation" for the shortage of goods, when they're the ones keeping the wealth stockpiled and out of the hands of people who need it) - because Lysandre views society as divided into two groups, "givers" and "takers." He sets Team Flare with such a high membership fee as a means of keeping Team Flare pure and composed only of "givers." This immediately creates a wealth disparity. People who don't have so much money are stereotyped as "takers" and are outright barred from joining, even if they might have valuable, first-hand insight as to how their situations could be improved. Meanwhile, the wealthy start to see Team Flare as an exclusive club where they can share ideas. This insulates them from reality and creates a confirmation bias. The ultimate weapon scheme represents the extreme end of where this leads - a handful of aristocrats literally taking everything in the world for themselves at the expense of everyone else. There is a good chance that you will see this in your lifetime, when climate change really gets going, and protection from the elements becomes even more prominent a front of class warfare. The rich have the means to prepare, stockpile, and secure themselves, all while millions will starve, die of heat stroke or disease, or be displaced by the ravaged environment. The ultimate weapon has, quite frankly, already been deployed.

I also think there is an interesting quality to Lysandre in the way he exalts "beauty" and youth. I remember there being someone on this board, not sure if they're still around (I'm having trouble locating their posts - EDIT: Found it!), who talked about how Lysandre's rhetoric mirrored that of what you often see from right-wing authoritarians. Personally, I've always thought of his conversation with Diantha at Café Soleil, where he seems to push the idea that she has a responsibility, as an actress, to remain beautiful for the sake of others, and completely steamrolls her opinion when she says she wouldn't want to remain static and forever young. Within that, I think, are shades of the sexist tendency where women past a certain age are no longer seen as fit to be movie stars, regardless of their talent, and will be relegated to smaller roles. Ultimately, while there may be some part of Lysandre's brain that means well, he's also kind of an arrogant, privileged asshole with some really nasty biases influencing his decisions.

Though... all that being said, I have a real problem with the conclusion that Calem/Serena takes away from the whole experience:

> "I've been thinking ever since that incident in Geosenge. Lysandre chose only Team Flare. You and I chose everyone but Team Flare. But since our positions forced our hands, you can't really say any of us were right. So maybe... If both sides have something to say, it's best to meet halfway..."

Like uhh no mate, I think I can say that genocide is categorically not right, and that preventing genocide is not equivalent to committing it. Besides, Lysandre was given every opportunity to back down, and chose not to. We were well past the point of compromise.
 
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if anything I would expect the randomized system to have a higher chance of producing an annoyance, since you can’t predict what you’re going to be up against and might get caught off-guard. Same goes, I suppose, for the Alola games’ randomized Title Defense battle.
For the first one, I actually like that. I prefer to not be able to predict what my next opponent will be. For the second one, you can actually abuse it since the opponents are not set until you sit down. So if you don't like your opponent, you can soft reset and it will givr you another.
 
I loved Hoenn's water routes. They're vast, difficult to navigate, about as 'hostile' as a Pokémon game gets, and that's why they're great. I have a strong distaste for many of the shorter routes in later games, stuffed with roving nurses and character cutscenes to seemingly remind you that you're never too far from civilisation. I legitimately have to get out the map for Hoenn's water routes on occasion, and that's brilliant.



I'm surprised you feel that - the type variety isn't huge but it rarely ever is at that point. Prior to Falkner, you can get your mitts on:

- Rattata
- Pidgey
- Sentret
- Hoothoot
- Spinarak/Ledyba
- Spearow
- Jigglypuff
- Geodude
- Caterpie
- Bellsprout
- Zubat
- Dunsparce
- Onix
- Gastly

Oh, here's another hot take: the Original 151 designs actually are the best.
I'm mostly referring to gen 2 pokemon, which there's little to no variety of. My favourite gen 2 mons (Sneasel, Houndoom, Tyranitar) are tucked away in the postgame. If I wanted to use generation 1 pokemon (which is most of the list).... I would play generation 1.
 
I'm mostly referring to gen 2 pokemon, which there's little to no variety of. My favourite gen 2 mons (Sneasel, Houndoom, Tyranitar) are tucked away in the postgame. If I wanted to use generation 1 pokemon (which is most of the list).... I would play generation 1.
Can't you catch Sneasel in the Ice Path? Although that is still pretty late.
 
Can't you catch Sneasel in the Ice Path? Although that is still pretty late.

If I recall, you can in Crystal, and not the other games. You have a fair point though.

It is only available in the Ice Path in Crystal, yeah. In GS (and the remakes), Sneasel only appears at Route 28 and Mt. Silver.
 
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.

I know it's not a black-or-white issue, hence why I said "some of the flaws". But still, some of the time they spent redoing Kanto in 3D could have been used to give SWSH some dungeons and new locations to make the story flow better. Additionally, neither RS, DP or XY had their own "experimenting with the new console" predecessors and they turned out fine if not better than SWSH.
 
I think Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee is one of the best games in the series. It might even be in my top five. The graphics and music are beautiful, the catching method is more fun and addictive than the traditional one, and the simplified mechanics are a breath of fresh air. Two much-loved features from past games, walking Pokemon and Gym Leader rematches, were brought back, and the former was even improved upon by giving you the ability to ride certain Pokemon. Battle backgrounds, model scaling and walking Pokemon are all a lot more polished than in Sword and Shield (even though I still like Sword and Shield more overall).

I also think it's really neat how you can collect "seen" entries for every non-Mythical Pokemon without trading - it makes for a fun single-player challenge, even if there's no reward for it like there was in Diamond, Pearl and Platinum. And the game is more fun to replay than some of the other modern titles due to it having relatively few cutscene interuptions.

I wouldn't want breeding, abilities or held items to disappear from the series, but I do think that EVs and IVs (and possibly the stat-altering effect of Natures) should be removed. Something I like about Pokemon battles, within the Pokemon universe itself, is that they put children and adults on an even playing field. A ten-year-old can take down an entire crime organization with the help of their magical creatures - isn't that brilliant? But this philosophy doesn't extend to the real-world playerbase, sadly, because of all these obscure values which an average ten-year-old could never fathom.

Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate how recent games have made competitive battling more accessible (once The Crown Tundra adds the Ability Patch, all Pokemon will finally be able to compete fairly, which is how it should have always been). But the process of getting a Pokemon ready for battle is still much too complicated, and isn't even explained fully in the games themselves; you have to do research online to figure it all out.
 
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It is only available in the Ice Path in Crystal, yeah. In GS (and the remakes), Sneasel only appears at Route 28 and Mt. Silver.
Yeah, I realized it after posting. The funny thing is that it was a case of "right for the wrong reasons" since I was confusing the Ice Path with the Ice Cavern in FRLG.
 
  • While Cynthia is one of my favorite champions, I find her overhyped nowadays
  • Leon is one of the best champions we've had in the series
  • I prefer the Pokemon World Tournament over the battle tower/frontier.
  • I'm okay with the Elite Four not returning again especially after how brilliantly SwSh handled the the league format. Only Elite 4 I care about honestly is Unova's
  • Base BW is better than BW2. The only things I like about BW2 are the PWT and the added parts to the region.
  • Hop is the best friendly rival we've gotten
  • Dexit was going to happen eventually
  • Gamefreak actually listens to fans...but the issue is Pokemon is so big one subset of fans will always be left unsatisfied as they can't conceivably add every thing every group of fans wants
 
Dexit was going to happen eventually
Sincerely, it's a miracle the series lasted that long without resorting to that earlier.

Gamefreak actually listens to fans...but the issue is Pokemon is so big one subset of fans will always be left unsatisfied as they can't conceivably add every thing every group of fans wants
This is why I don't like the "they don't listen to fans" argument. There are so much fans that want so much different things that I find it next-to-impossible to please everyone. Just because they are not catering to you doesn't mean that other fans don't enjoy those changes/lack of changes.
 
This is why I don't like the "they don't listen to fans" argument. There are so much fans that want so much different things that I find it next-to-impossible to please everyone. Just because they are not catering to you doesn't mean that other fans don't enjoy those changes/lack of changes.

I think that argument would be hard to use for virtually any fanbase, but it's especially difficult for something as huge and successful as Pokemon is. I still remember how jarring it was to see people being upset over not getting D/P remakes or Let's Go Johto games announced back when they had an announcement for Pokemon Unite. I realize that these probably aren't the same people being upset over getting new main series titles every year and fans have been really eager for D/P for at least a couple of years. I remember fans wanted those to be the first Switch titles instead of Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee. Even so, hearing people complain about Sword/Shield about a year only to then hear people being upset over not getting a proper new game this year was jarring to say the least.
 
-Despite the limited postgame, X/Y weren't that bad at all, and I really liked how the Kalos was designed.

-Double Battles should be the default format in-game against trainers.

-I don't miss wild horde battles at all. And if they ever come back, they should only be used with groups of trainers instead - like how the Magma/Aqua grunts handled them.

-The Exp. Share effect after gen VI should only be given to you after you've become champion, and until then should only be the same as the held item in gen IV.

-We should be allowed to make a Pokemon shiny through a key item, so to make them no longer rarities.

-Exp Candies should never have existed in the games.

-The Battle Pyramid was the best battle facility ever designed in the games, and should be how the postgame of future titles should be roughly modeled after.

-The story is rarely the reason I play a Pokemon game, as none of the stories in Pokemon ever surpassed the mediocre threshold - Not even the one in B/W. Not that I'd mind more improvements there.

-I want the next games to break against the Grass-Fire-Water starters, and do a different triad that doesn't use those types.
 
Sincerely, it's a miracle the series lasted that long without resorting to that earlier.


This is why I don't like the "they don't listen to fans" argument. There are so much fans that want so much different things that I find it next-to-impossible to please everyone. Just because they are not catering to you doesn't mean that other fans don't enjoy those changes/lack of changes.
So who were they catering to when they made EXP mandatory or removed the GTS (among other features)....

Lets say x person keeps EXP share on for all games. Did excluding the option to not turn it off somehow increase x person's enjoyment of the game? It doesnt make sense to me.

Who do both of these changes benefit. Now you have to log in to a phone to use the GTS instead. Who was asking for that?
 
So who were they catering to when they made EXP mandatory or removed the GTS (among other features)....

Lets say x person keeps EXP share on for all games. Did excluding the option to not turn it off somehow increase x person's enjoyment of the game? It doesnt make sense to me.

Who do both of these changes benefit. Now you have to log in to a phone to use the GTS instead. Who was asking for that?
You know those are not the things I was talking about... And I'm not saying all decisions are good. I was to most others which fall enormously in the "your mileage may vary" territory. I'm not defending them against all criticisms, just the ones that are overexaggerated in my opinion.

You know there's a big problem when the other monster game fans make fun of us for things that are normal for them. And I couldn't disagree with them.
 
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