Your controversial opinions

[There Is No Arceus]

gens 1 and 2 straight up do not hold up, to the point where they're borderline unplayable. Gen 1's mechanics and type chart are way too broken to have a good time, and the level curve in gen 2 has you grinding for ages before you can finally take on the final boss.

 

[DigitalGen6]

gens 1 and 2 straight up do not hold up, to the point where they're borderline unplayable. Gen 1's mechanics and type chart are way too broken to have a good time, and the level curve in gen 2 has you grinding for ages before you can finally take on the final boss.

What level curve?

 

[Bolt Strike]

gens 1 and 2 straight up do not hold up, to the point where they're borderline unplayable. Gen 1's mechanics and type chart are way too broken to have a good time, and the level curve in gen 2 has you grinding for ages before you can finally take on the final boss.

Agreed, but not for the same reason. Gen 1 and 2 are so archaically designed due to hardware and roster limitations that they feel like they belong in the stone age. There's terrible Pokemon variety because there's only 150/250 Pokemon leading to some VERY limited options for team building and terrible NPC roster designs (Ghost trainers having to spam Gastly line, Dragon trainers having to spam Dratini line because they were the only Pokemon of their types being some of the worst offenders). The maps look like they took a 5 year old's LEGO set and put it through a trash compactor. The writing is practically nonexistent. There's almost nothing to do outside of the main campaign. It's outdated in just about every aspect and the newer games put them to shame. Even the remakes do very little to address these issues, they improve the graphics and provide more extra content (especially HGSS), but they don't do much else to modernize the experience so it's like every time we revisit Kanto or Johto it feels like they're tying one hand behind our backs.

What level curve?

Can't tell if serious.

If you don't know, basically a "level curve" refers to the pace at which levels increase over the course of the game. The main complaint with GSCHGSS is that the level curve is fairly inconsistent (which unfortunately is unfixable to some degree because it's two regions, but there are some things that still could've been done better). Most of the Johto gym leaders have fairly low level stuff with none of their Pokemon except Clair's Kingdra reaching Lv. 40+ on your first battle, and the Johto Elite 4 is fairly low too with the highest level Pokemon being a Lv. 50 Dragonite (which is underleveled because Dragonair doesn't evolve until Lv. 55). Then when you reach Kanto, the levels stagnate around the 50s for almost the entirety of the region, then Red jumps WAY up to the 70s and 80s. So basically the choice in levels for the game's trainer rosters is wonky and inconsistent, which leads to inconsistent difficulty.

 

[There Is No Arceus]

Agreed, but not for the same reason. Gen 1 and 2 are so archaically designed due to hardware and roster limitations that they feel like they belong in the stone age. There's terrible Pokemon variety because there's only 150/250 Pokemon leading to some VERY limited options for team building and terrible NPC roster designs (Ghost trainers having to spam Gastly line, Dragon trainers having to spam Dratini line because they were the only Pokemon of their types being some of the worst offenders). The maps look like they took a 5 year old's LEGO set and put it through a trash compactor. The writing is practically nonexistent. There's almost nothing to do outside of the main campaign. It's outdated in just about every aspect and the newer games put them to shame. Even the remakes do very little to address these issues, they improve the graphics and provide more extra content (especially HGSS), but they don't do much else to modernize the experience so it's like every time we revisit Kanto or Johto it feels like they're tying one hand behind our backs.

gonna have to push back on some of those things. Gen 1 did have optional content outside of the main campaign, like the power plant and the seafoam islands. also, HGSS did alleviate many of the problems with the johto games; they made the trainer pokemon scale better, especially in kanto, and they gave us the national dex halfway through the game to spice up enemy rosters. They also fleshed out Kanto more and actually gave us stuff to do there besides a boss rush. are these games perfect? no; red is still too high a level and the wild pokemon are too low a level, but at least it's not as bad as it was way back when. And at least the visuals are the best they've ever been.

 

[guzmania]

Can't tell if serious.

i think she's being sarcastic, the level curve is ridiculously steep and poorly designed so i believe shes joking by calling it flat/nonexistent

 

[Greninjaman]

I think a way to fix the curve would be to block the path to Mahogany until you clear out the western side of Johto?

 

[guzmania]

I think a way to fix the curve would be to block the path to Mahogany until you clear out the western side of Johto?

that, and i would also just straight up adjust the levels of a lot of mon. grinding for red is probably the biggest slog in the entire series considering how high of a level he is compared to literally everything else in the entire game. him being 80~ makes sense lore-wise but just fucks with the gameplay itself. (personally, i would just make wild pokemon in the area a higher level to make grinding for him less atrocious? i like the concept of superbosses but god was the red fight horribly executed.)
johto is very very special to me but it has some of the most poorly thought-out mechanics in the series

 

[guzmania]

anyway dropping some more of my opinions here

• az is kind of an asshole and i dont feel sorry for him. i dont think he has necessarily poorly written, at least compared to the rest of xy. i just cant get past the fact that he was willing to destroy so fucking much bc he was sad one of his pokemon ran away from him. like dude. holy shit. at least he realized what he did was wrong, but still.
• cyrus's motivations arent as ridiculous as a lot of people, including myself in the past, think. if you are familiar with his backstory why he did what he did becomes a little more understandable, or at least easier to see. the problem is sinnoh didnt do the best job showing us cyrus's background, meaning the players have to kind of search for it, and thus if you do not do that then it makes sense why people would think he pulled the "world with no emotions" thing out of his ass, therefore find him boring/dumb/uninteresting/whatever, and not want to learn more about him because they already have negative feelings toward him. (this is not a cyrus defense post istg hes a terrible person and i know that, this is just my stance on him)
• skull is by far the best written team
• and in turn, guzma is the best written team leader. i honestly think he blows lusamine/penny/ghetsis out of the water, and i would even say he is maybe better than n (and i adore n and would defend him and his writing til my last breath)
• cynthia is cool but ultimately overrated and i think people would pay her far less mind if she wasnt conventionally attractive.
• ive said this a million times all over the site but a lot of the hate silver gets is, i wouldnt say unwarranted or unfounded because he is kind of an ass and hes done bad shit and i know that, but kind of unfair considering hes an abandoned kid who was raised by a (presumably) single father who is also a mob boss. the reason why silver is so obsessed with strength is because, knowing giovanni, he probably instilled in silver from a very young age that strength is the number one indicator of a person's value, and thus if you cannot be strong you are worthless. so of course he wants to be strong, even if he has to do bad things to achieve it, he thinks that he cannot be loved or cared for or worth anything unless he is strong. he's a child and one with effectively no family at that. he would never admit it but he craves validation like nothing else, that's why he feels the need to be at the top no matter what. and at the end of the day after realizing the error of his ways, he doesnt just drop a "whoopsies! sorry" like some pokemon characters' "redemption arcs," he makes the decision by himself to change for the better, and the player actually gets to see that in action. think about his dialogue from the beginning of the game towards the end. people bring it up a lot, but the crobat. look at masters ex, he has some of the most growth out of ANYONE in there! even ho-oh acknowledged this; it only chooses the pure of heart to bond with, and while silver wasn't necessarily the best person on pasio, he was the one who worked the hardest to become a good person because he wanted to, so ho-oh chose him. yeeeah sorry for the rant idk if its obvious but i love silver
• yes, xy's story is THAT bad. and the rivals are THAT bad (minus serena and calem, who i don't think are necessarily outright bad if not kinda mediocre). i like kalos because i think it's a beautiful region and xy had some really good things going for it but fuck the writing is not one of them. people can clown on kanto and johto for having "empty" plots but gen 6 fell beyond flat. it was just pitiful in comparison to 5.

and no, i'm NOT biased, thanks for asking. gen 8 was my first (and my least favorite) and my first experiences with the pokemon fandom were back when 5 was the most hated by far <3

• hop > hau > barry... sorry.
• rowlet is the worst starter in the series :3 also johto has the best ones
• lgpe aren't bad games, they're just for a different audience than mainline pokemon i feel
• i take back what i said the one time somewhere here, most of the baby pokemon are actually NOT cute
• shiny rayquaza is inferior to the original
• if you think penny is a bully, which ive seen a lot of people claim, i honestly think you did not even pay attention to the plot. this isnt my penny bias bc i have blue bias and VERY silver bias and you can call them bullies all you want, i wont care bc they sorta are (that being said, i really dont like it when people complain about silver being mean if they dont even know his background), but penny just isnt. not that shes some kind of angel, she did kinda run away from her team (even if it was for their sake) and she's also, uh, a literal embezzler, but bully is one of the last words that should come to mind to describe her. she just is not one by any real definition of the word and if you think she is one i suggest you either look up what constitutes a bully or reexamine her background + the plot of starfall street because she, objectively, simply is not a bully (and is actually the opposite), and it is really really annoying to hear people say that.

ok thats it for right now

 

[Bolt Strike]

Gen 1 did have optional content outside of the main campaign, like the power plant and the seafoam islands. also,

Not what I mean. I'm talking about sidequests. Things like battle facilities, Contests, Pokeathlon, Pokestar Studios, etc. Gen 1 basically just had the Game Corner, and even the remakes don't really add much with FRLG just having the Two Island Game Corner and the Trainer Tower. Really the only remake to really fix this was HGSS with them adding things such as the Pokeathlon and the Battle Frontier among other things.

HGSS did alleviate many of the problems with the johto games; they made the trainer pokemon scale better, especially in kanto,

Well I'm not really bothered with the level scaling as much as some people, but Kanto was too little too late, and as you admit later, they didn't fix the issue with Red which was kind of glaring.

and they gave us the national dex halfway through the game to spice up enemy rosters.

Again, too little, too late. It only really affected the random NPCs, not the gym leaders or anything, and the roster issues were mainly in Johto, not Kanto, because that's where the Ghost and Dragon trainers are (which are the types that have the biggest issues in GSC). What HGSS really needed was to either have the full National Dex from the start or expand the Johto Dex beyond 5 cross gen evos (I mean you don't even get all of the cross gen evos for crying out loud, just the ones that evolve by learning a move and leveling up). Johto needs a major dex expansion closer to what Platinum got, throw in some later gen families, especially for Ghost and Dragon which are woefully lacking, and make the original gym rosters of Ghost and Dragon type trainers like Morty, Clair, and Lance more like what they were for their rematch rosters. I want to see them add stuff like Duskull or Drifloon or Altaria to the Johto Dex, not just a handful of cross gen evos. Stop pretending like there's still only 2 freaking Ghosts and Dragons in the game when there isn't, it was unavoidable back in the originals but it's not anymore.

ive said this a million times all over the site but a lot of the hate silver gets is, i wouldnt say unwarranted or unfounded because he is kind of an ass and hes done bad shit and i know that, but kind of unfair considering hes an abandoned kid who was raised by a (presumably) single father who is also a mob boss. the reason why silver is so obsessed with strength is because, knowing giovanni, he probably instilled in silver from a very young age that strength is the number one indicator of a person's value, and thus if you cannot be strong you are worthless. so of course he wants to be strong, even if he has to do bad things to achieve it, he thinks that he cannot be loved or cared for or worth anything unless he is strong. he's a child and one with effectively no family at that. he would never admit it but he craves validation like nothing else, that's why he feels the need to be at the top no matter what. and at the end of the day after realizing the error of his ways, he doesnt just drop a "whoopsies! sorry" like some pokemon characters' "redemption arcs," he makes the decision by himself to change for the better, and the player actually gets to see that in action. think about his dialogue from the beginning of the game towards the end. people bring it up a lot, but the crobat. look at masters ex, he has some of the most growth out of ANYONE in there! even ho-oh acknowledged this; it only chooses the pure of heart to bond with, and while silver wasn't necessarily the best person on pasio, he was the one who worked the hardest to become a good person because he wanted to, so ho-oh chose him. yeeeah sorry for the rant idk if its obvious but i love silver

The thing with Silver is that he has the same issue as Cyrus: his backstory is locked behind optional content. You only really get to see that he's Giovanni's son in the Celebi event, the main game story doesn't really give you any insight into why Silver is the way he is, you just battle him while he continually insults you and Team Rocket without any real explanation. I'm guessing many of these people probably didn't play that event, or maybe not even HGSS at all.

 

[guzmania]

The thing with Silver is that he has the same issue as Cyrus: his backstory is locked behind optional content. You only really get to see that he's Giovanni's son in the Celebi event, the main game story doesn't really give you any insight into why Silver is the way he is, you just battle him while he continually insults you and Team Rocket without any real explanation. I'm guessing many of these people probably didn't play that event, or maybe not even HGSS at all.

that's fair, gotcha. it just gets a little grating after a while, it sucks when people just... make assumptions about things they don't know about, i guess.

i kinda keep forgetting it's not explicitly said in the mainline series that giovanni is silver's dad (it does come up in masters, though, at least)

 

[Poke Dragon]

Origin Dialga and Origin Palkia are better designed than their Altered forms. They convey the otherworldly aspect of these Pokemon so much better than what their Altered forms were trying to do.

 

[Pigrider09]

Unique methods of evolution are great! I think that it really sucks that most of the time, we either have to shove special thing in pokemon's face, give away pokemon, or give away pokemon holding special thing. It kind of gets tiresome after a while, especially because of all the new items constantly being added. There is a limit to this, yes, which I think applies to galarian yamask and maybe gimmighoul. The ideal unique evolution should be able to be done either by complete accident or a quick search. Evolutions like pancham, inkay, and nincada are some great examples of this. I would even go back and change some more standard evolutions. Take one of my all time faves Garchomp. What if gabite learned sandstorm a bit earlier, and evolved by leveling up in a sandstorm? This could be done on complete accident, and would be easier with modern pokemons forgiving move remember system. Anyways, I shall let the thread react probably negatively to this.

hop > hau > barry... sorry.

Apology acceptance pending

 

[FelipePR]

• hop > hau > barry...

Hop = Best Friend ever.

• Rowlet is the worst starter in the series :3 also johto has the best ones

In what sense? I love the Little Owl, even though it is a weak Pokémon and has a bad Stat distribution.

 

[There Is No Arceus]

I think a way to fix the curve would be to block the path to Mahogany until you clear out the western side of Johto?

i wouldn't like this; it would prevent me from spreading out the team rocket stuff. though i would approve if they locked off the path to Olivine until you're finished in Mahogany; Jasmine's ace is higher than Pryce's anyway.

 

[Greninjaman]

i wouldn't like this; it would prevent me from spreading out the team rocket stuff. though i would approve if they locked off the path to Olivine until you're finished in Mahogany; Jasmine's ace is higher than Pryce's anyway.

I guess that would work as well.

 

[DigitalGen6]

i think she's being sarcastic, the level curve is ridiculously steep and poorly designed so i believe shes joking by calling it flat/nonexistent

Actually I didn’t even know what a level curve was

 

[guzmania]

Unique methods of evolution are great! I think that it really sucks that most of the time, we either have to shove special thing in pokemon's face, give away pokemon, or give away pokemon holding special thing. It kind of gets tiresome after a while, especially because of all the new items constantly being added. There is a limit to this, yes, which I think applies to galarian yamask and maybe gimmighoul. The ideal unique evolution should be able to be done either by complete accident or a quick search. Evolutions like pancham, inkay, and nincada are some great examples of this. I would even go back and change some more standard evolutions. Take one of my all time faves Garchomp. What if gabite learned sandstorm a bit earlier, and evolved by leveling up in a sandstorm? This could be done on complete accident, and would be easier with modern pokemons forgiving move remember system. Anyways, I shall let the thread react probably negatively to this.


Apology acceptance pending

nah actually i agree with you on the first one
sorry about the second though. i like them all. i really dont dislike any of the rivals except for the xy ones, literally all the others are 7/10 or higher.

Hop = Best Friend ever.



In what sense? I love Little Owl line, even though it's a weak Pokémon and has a bad Stat distribution.

someone gets it! i love him
i shouldnt have said worst, it is just my least favorite. they're horribly aesthetically unappealing to me, and it's not helped by the fact that it has to contend with litten and popplio, but admittedly, i likely just have weird taste. i get why people like it though.

 

[Blanc]

Origin Dialga and Origin Palkia are better designed than their Altered forms. They convey the otherworldly aspect of these Pokemon so much better than what their Altered forms were trying to do.

Valid take but I think it’s worth considering that these forms were trying to achieve incomparable concepts. I believe it’s easiest to say the origin forms of the trio are meant to be their ‘biblically accurate forms’ since Origin being ‘original’ and thus closer to Arceus itself. The altered forms merely give off the idea that they are the forms the Pokemon take meant for earthly perception— as in just being imposing, celestial dragons. In this concept, I’d say in defense that they pulled off the goal pretty well, as the Origin forms feel abstract and loosely eldritch compared to their tangible mirror selves. I used to dislike the Origin form designs until I thought about it this way, then I started to really appreciate them.

 

[Norzan]

Origin Dialga and Origin Palkia are better designed than their Altered forms. They convey the otherworldly aspect of these Pokemon so much better than what their Altered forms were trying to do.

They could have done the otherwordly thing without making them look completely hideous. Giratina's Origin Forme legit looks great and an improvement over the original.

 

[Greninjaman]

I think they were meant to look weird. It was the two of them attempting to become like Arceus, but it didn't work out well for them.