Your controversial opinions

[FinnishPokéFan92]

For all the hate that X and Y get, I maintain my opinion that they are underappreciated. For example, the Pokémon variety is phenomenal, for both in the wild and in Trainer battles. Like, compare this list of Rustboro Gym's Gym Trainers from Emerald...

Spoiler

...to Grant's Gym Trainers in X and Y.

Spoiler

In fact, all the Kalos Gyms are like this. No Gym has a Gym Trainer who shares Pokémon with another Trainer in the same Gym. And frankly, I consider this a huge plus. And it's not just limited to Gyms. Even the random NPCs you find on routes have surprisingly varied teams, and the possible encounters on routes are so rich.

Variety of availabile Pokémon is truly one of X and Y's greatest strengths. It gives so many possibilities for team building and makes battles feel less repetitive.

 

[swiftgallade46]

For all the hate that X and Y get, I maintain my opinion that they are underappreciated. For example, the Pokémon variety is phenomenal, for both in the wild and in Trainer battles. Like, compare this list of Rustboro Gym's Gym Trainers from Emerald...

Spoiler

View attachment 146357

...to Grant's Gym Trainers in X and Y.

Spoiler

View attachment 146358

In fact, all the Kalos Gyms are like this. No Gym has a Gym Trainer who shares Pokémon with another Trainer in the same Gym. And frankly, I consider this a huge plus. And it's not just limited to Gyms. Even the random NPCs you find on routes have surprisingly varied teams, and the possible encounters on routes are so rich.

Variety of availabile Pokémon is truly one of X and Y's greatest strengths. It gives so many possibilities for team building and makes battles feel less repetitive.

Not that I disagree with you, but don’t you think it’s not really fair to compare the first gym of a gen 3 game to the second gym of a gen 6 game? Granted, the fact that it’s only Geodude is a bit ridiculous even for gen 3, but things were a lot different back then.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Not that I disagree with you, but don’t you think it’s not really fair to compare the first gym of a gen 3 game to the second gym of a gen 6 game? Granted, the fact that it’s only Geodude is a bit ridiculous even for gen 3, but things were a lot different back then.

Of course I understand, but there were still other unevolved Rock Pokémon by that point too.

 

[Norzan]

Of course I understand, but there were still other unevolved Rock Pokémon by that point too.

They were either fossils (i very much doubt you would face fossils in the first gym), Aron, Rhyhorn, Onyx (a little too strong to be in the hands of regular trainer of the first gym) or the Larvitar line (fighting a pseudo legendary, even if the first stage, is yet another thing i doubt Gamefreak would put in the first Gym). Rhyhorn and Aron are the most viable candidates, even if i think Rhyhorn is another pokemon that is a little too strong to be in the hands of a regular trainer in the first gym. And maybe they didn't wanted to reveal Aron so early.

Geodude at that point was still the safe rock type to put in an early gym. Althought they could have done like the first generation and give them a Sandshrew or something.

 

[swiftgallade46]

They were either fossils (i very much doubt you would face fossils in the first gym), Aron, Rhyhorn, Onyx (a little too strong to be in the hands of regular trainer of the first gym) or the Larvitar line (fighting a pseudo legendary, even if the first stage, is yet another thing i doubt Gamefreak would put in the first Gym). Rhyhorn and Aron are the most viable candidates, even if i think Rhyhorn is another pokemon that is a little too strong to be in the hands of a regular trainer in the first gym. And maybe they didn't wanted to reveal Aron so early.

Geodude at that point was still the safe rock type to put in an early gym. Althought they could have done like the first generation and give them a Sandshrew or something.

Yeah, and of those Rhyhorn and Aron are the only ones in the Hoenn Dex. I think for Aron maybe they just didn’t want to have a Steel-type so early.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

They were either fossils (i very much doubt you would face fossils in the first gym), Aron, Rhyhorn, Onyx (a little too strong to be in the hands of regular trainer of the first gym) or the Larvitar line (fighting a pseudo legendary, even if the first stage, is yet another thing i doubt Gamefreak would put in the first Gym). Rhyhorn and Aron are the most viable candidates, even if i think Rhyhorn is another pokemon that is a little too strong to be in the hands of a regular trainer in the first gym. And maybe they didn't wanted to reveal Aron so early.

Geodude at that point was still the safe rock type to put in an early gym. Althought they could have done like the first generation and give them a Sandshrew or something.

Yeah, and of those Rhyhorn and Aron are the only ones in the Hoenn Dex. I think for Aron maybe they just didn’t want to have a Steel-type so early.

Corsola?

 

[swiftgallade46]

Corsola?

I assumed we weren’t counting Pokémon that don’t evolve otherwise there would also be Relicanth, Solrock, and Lunatone. They don’t really belong in the first gym.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

I assumed we weren’t counting Pokémon that don’t evolve otherwise there would also be Relicanth, Solrock, and Lunatone. They don’t really belong in the first gym.

Admittedly, yeah. Still, I really like X and Y's Pokémon variety and how it made Trainer battles more varied, instead of giving every single Trainer a Rattata or a Patrat.

And speaking of variety, I like how Sword and Shield had variety in Trainer classes spread throughout the game.

 

[Life]

Upon replaying Soul Silver, I've come to the conclusion that this may actually be the worst Pokémon game I've played so far

/edit, I didn't mean to write so much but I guess I had to vent, so here's a spoiler haha

Spoiler

• Professor Elm is kind of a joke? After he gives you your starter and sends you to fetch the Togepi egg, he doesn't do anything else in the game. He makes less appearances than Professor Oak and doesn't even give you your Pokédex, making his character pretty irrelevant. Sure, he gives you a few phone calls but it's nothing Lyra or Professor Oak wouldn't have been able to do. Given that his expertise is Pokémon evolution you'd think that would tie into the games more, but it really doesn't. Feels like a missed opportunity that they didn't do something with that and the legendary dogs
• The Pokégear kinda sucks ? It's pretty lackluster compared to the C-Nav; the radio is a fun feature but hard to use since it changes when you switch routes. The phone feature is pretty gimmicky and scheduling rematches with it is near impossible due to the specific criteria
• Before you can catch any pokémon you have to go nearly two towns over to pick up an egg fist. It's pretty annoying since you have to go back through these routes anyway, and it makes your starter somewhat over-leveled by the time you catch anything else
• The gym leaders rarely use pokémon introduced in Gen II (something I'll never understand). Only half of them have a Gen II pokémon (their ace), but then use only Gen I mons
• Like the gym leaders, the E4 rarely use any Gen II pokémon
  • Will uses two Xatu, not even a Slowking or Espeon??
  • Koga has an Ariados... and a Forretress for some reason?
  • Bruno only has a Hitmontop (and still uses Onix...)
  • Karen thankfully has an Umbreon, Murkrow, and a Houndoom, but then uses Vileplume and Gengar... Was Sneasel not an option?
  • Lance still has three Dragonite and no Kingdra
• All around it feels like there's little representation for Gen II pokémon in these games. Most of them are delegated to late-game routes (please tell me why I can't get a Teddiursa/Phanpy until the 8th gym??) with Gen I pokémon being pushed to the front
• The "free to explore" option after Ecruteak City backfires hard: after defeating either Chuck, Jasmine or Pryce, the other two leaders become fairly easy (if they weren't already) since there's no difference in their team's levels. The other trainers en route to those gyms also become irrelevant since they're too weak to give decent EXP. Then there's the fact that if you save Pryce for last, you have to do the Lake of Rage/TR Hideout and the Radio Tower events back to back, making the game heavily Team Rocket oriented for an unfortunate amount of time
• Team Rocket in these games feels overall unnecessary. Like you could remove them from the game and almost nothing would change. The first time you encounter them is right before the second gym in the Slowpoke well, and then there's nothing until you arrive at the Lake of Rage. If you get there before your seventh gym, it's a pretty large time gap. You end up fighting two different executives at the Mahogany Town hideout (they couldn't make 3 different events?) and then when you do the Radio Tower fight, you meet Archer... who had no prior mentioning/foreshadowing so his appearance feels completely boring? Not to mention that he's completely under-leveled too, so the fight is also an absolute bore. Rocket focuses so much on restarting in these games but we don't even know what they want to do after starting up (or if we do it's barely touched on) so us taking them down doubles the unnecessary feeling that their placement in the game has. At least tie them into the Lugia/Ho-Oh plot given that they also barely have any relevance.
• Going off of that, the plot tie-in with the box legendaries feels very forced, just to give the player some sort of "chosen one" moment. But given that it comes after the defeat of Team Rocket, it's like... what are we even being chosen for? To take on the league? Didn't really need that.
• The leveling curve is absolutely atrocious.
  • After Blackthorn City (where Claire's Kingdra is level 41) there almost no trainers on the way to the Indigo League, making it nearly impossible to level up your team to a reasonable 50 without doing some intense grinding. Even then, the pokémon in Victory Road max out at level 36 making the grinding so much harder. I was using an emulator (lost my copy) sped up and it took me probably two hours to train my entire team.
• The Kanto post game is... alright? I'm not sure yet, I'm only 4 Kanto badges in. But I'm frustrated that the gym leaders are under-leveled: either make them a challenge OR low enough levels to where I could start with a new team if I wanted. The trainers around Kanto are all fairly weak, and the wild pokémon are at this weird 15-25 level range where it's impossible to catch them because everything in your team can OHKO. It feels like they didn't know what they were doing when they added in the region

Overall, I can't say I'm as impressed with the game as I was the last time I played it. I get that these are supposed to be sequels, but they're really, really lackluster and drag on between doing absolutely insane amounts of grinding and then not having a challenge at all. Lackluster characters, boring plot... I really don't know what these games have going for them except the pokémon follow feature and some nice autumn-visuals.

 

[prog rocker]

Well, the Prof. Elm problem can be explained by him being a last minute addition, considering Blue was the one that originally gave you your starter and Oak was still THE Pokémon Professor.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Before you can catch any pokémon you have to go nearly two towns over to pick up an egg fist. It's pretty annoying since you have to go back through these routes anyway, and it makes your starter somewhat over-leveled by the time you catch anything else

As someone who's ONLY shiny encounter in their entire life has been at this point, I still haven’t recovered from it.

Well, the Prof. Elm problem can be explained by him being a last minute addition, considering Blue was the one that originally gave you your starter and Oak was still THE Pokémon Professor.

Is that true for Silver or Soul Silver? Because the presence of Elm should be well planned by Soul Silver, since that’s what Life is talking about.

 

[prog rocker]

Is that true for Silver or Soul Silver? Because the presence of Elm should be well planned by Soul Silver, since that’s what Life is talking about.

Normal Silver, but seeing how remakes don't deviate much from their source, that indirectly screwed SS, too. On the other hand, they had plenty of time to fix it and they didn't.

Also sorry for entering beta content nerd mode

 

[zoroarctic]

I don't buy the Fire starter-Chinese Zodiac theory. The Cyndaquil and Fennekin lines should conclusively debunk that.

 

[Jimothy]

I don't buy the Fire starter-Chinese Zodiac theory. The Cyndaquil and Fennekin lines should conclusively debunk that.

Haha I don't buy it and I actually don't think those lines are what debunk it. I'm perfectly willing to sub any rodent for the Rat and any canine for the Dog.

I just think it's a huge stretch to think that they are intentionally trying to make every fire starter in every generation fit any sort of theme at all. And I think it's silly to think that even noticing that it kind of fits when you squint at it is going to affect their design decisions in the future.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

Haha I don't buy it and I actually don't think those lines are what debunk it. I'm perfectly willing to sub any rodent for the Rat and any canine for the Dog.

I just think it's a huge stretch to think that they are intentionally trying to make every fire starter in every generation fit any sort of theme at all. And I think it's silly to think that even noticing that it kind of fits when you squint at it is going to affect their design decisions in the future.

Just a heads up, the Cyndaquil line aren't rodents, they're badgers (though Cyndaquil physically resembles an echidna quite a bit), which is in an entirely different genus. Yeah, I know Cyndaquil is called "the fire mouse Pokemon" but if we're gonna call it a mouse on that basis alone then we might as well start calling Blastoise a shellfish while we're at it.

...That said, though, even if we discount the Cyndaquil line as a fit for the Rat, the fact still stands that most of the Fire Starters do line up quite well with Zodiac animals (foxes may not be dogs, but they're still canids, so it's a fair match), which imo gives a lot of credence to the Chinese Zodiac theory. Most likely is that initially it wasn't a thing until the developers noticed that they'd coincidentally picked Chinese Zodiac animals and from there they decided to just run with it, with the Cyndaquil line having to retroactively stand in for the Rat simply because nothing else fits.

 

[Jimothy]

I guess I always saw the Cyndaquil line as porcupines, just with fire instead of quills.

Though again, I’m of the opinion that it’s wholly unintentional and they don’t care, the very next fire starter is always perfectly likely to not fit the zodiac at all.

 

[swiftgallade46]

Just a heads up, the Cyndaquil line aren't rodents, they're badgers (though Cyndaquil physically resembles an echidna quite a bit), which is in an entirely different genus. Yeah, I know Cyndaquil is called "the fire mouse Pokemon" but if we're gonna call it a mouse on that basis alone then we might as well start calling Blastoise a shellfish while we're at it.

I don’t think it’s quite incorrect to classify it at least partially as a rodent, though. Pokémon often draw inspiration from several different sources at once. For example, much of Psyduck’s classifications and nomenclature would suggest that it’s a duck. Based on its design, though, you would probably assume more that it’s based on a platypus. At the end of the day, it probably has elements of both and neither one is wholly correct or incorrect.

That same logic could probably used for Cyndaquil. Maybe it retains mouse-like behaviors or patterns.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

I don’t think it’s quite incorrect to classify it at least partially as a rodent, though. Pokémon often draw inspiration from several different sources at once. For example, much of Psyduck’s classifications and nomenclature would suggest that it’s a duck. Based on its design, though, you would probably assume more that it’s based on a platypus. At the end of the day, it probably has elements of both and neither one is wholly correct or incorrect.

That same logic could probably used for Cyndaquil. Maybe it retains mouse-like behaviors or patterns.

Perhaps, but even if that's the case, any mouse inspirations are clearly gone as soon as Cyndaquil evolves.

Still, though, I do think that the Fire Starter Chinese Zodiac theory holds up for the most part regardless of if Cyndaquil has some rodent inspiration or not, since even if Cyndaquil isn't thought of as a mouse/rat, the rest of the Fire starters still fit nicely with their designated Zodiac animals, with the Fennekin line being the only other debatable one, and even then, foxes are closely related to dogs regardless, so it's considerably less debatable then Cyndaquil.

 

[Esserise]

I just can’t really buy the idea that they’d consciously decide to design each Fire Starter after a zodiac animal and then also consciously choose to do a fox instead of an actual dog and then justify it with some taxonomical technicality. It’s like… who thinks like that? If it’s supposed to be a dog, then just make a dog. I think I’ve said it before in this very thread - it’s like using an ocelot for the tiger candidate. Surely, they’re related, but nevertheless they’re very different animals - physically, behaviorally, and in terms of their pop culture profiles.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

It is still pretty odd that in 23 years of the franchise history we have never recycled a fire starter that is in totally no way related to the zodiac animals. It’s a pretty big coincidence seeing there are only 12 animals in the Chinese Zodiac and the amount of real world species to take inspiration are thousands. Isn’t it odd that almost every fire starter has been related to that? If it’s unintentional it’s a hell of a coincidence. What are the chances?

I am not one of those people who point out patterns in everything. I don’t think there’s any pattern for grass or water starters, but the zodiac works way too well for me to completely discredit it, seeing the high specificity of Zodiac animals compared to... the entire animal population.
The chinese zodiac isn’t a dogma they are following religiously, but it can be a loose inspiration for the starters. Why does it have to be a extreme? They can deviate from them, resulting in stuff like Fennekin and Cyndaquil, while still taking a lose inspiration from it.
I am a staunch believer of the fact that the Chinese Zodiac at least acts as a loose inspiration for the fire starters. Anyone who refuses to even consider the possibility isn't what I’d call a healthy approach.