Your controversial opinions

[Bolt Strike]

Literally. It'd be super easy. At the very least, I can pretty easily count on them adding at least the full 649 dex, maybe nyot crossgens since if they did go the HD2D route that'd mean new sprites (the original Gen 5 sprites hold up pretty well syo they could easily reuse them, though I can much more easily see the crossgens getting into these games than I could in BDSP since a lot of them are of mons that you can actually catch in the originals) but if they did that'd still be great.

Maaaybe if they did an HD2D style they could get away with it, but I'm skeptical if they're going to go that route. But certainly if it's a 3D game, I DON'T think we can count on the full 649 because of how much (or rather little) they've added to the games since Dexit. Look at some of the past games and how many they had:

LGPE (technically pre-Dexit, but they did restrict you to the 1st gen so I'm counting it as a Dexit game): 153
SwSh at launch: 434 (400 in dex + 34 transfer only)
SwSh DLC additions: 230 (178 in dex +46 not in dex but still obtainaible in game + 6 transfer only), with a total of 664 in SwSh + DLC
BDSP: 493
LA: 242
SV at launch: 477 (400 in dex + 77 transfer only)
SV DLC additions (to date, not counting Indigo Disk when we don't know all of what's in it yet): 95, with a total of 572 in SwSh + Teal Mask

This paints a pretty clear picture, ~400 Pokemon is pretty much their limit for how many they can include in a game at launch. They can get more with DLC, but we can't count on BW remakes getting DLC. So the full 649 Pokemon 5th gen National Dex might be unrealistic for them. It's a bit weird to say this because it's unprecedented, but I think in light of this trend if you count on the full 649 being in, you might be setting yourself up for Game Freak to disappoint you in a completely new way. Expecting the 300 BW2 Unova Dex Pokemon seems reasonable, but I suspect we won't get much more than that if anything.

 

[Kanjouhi]

Maaaybe if they did an HD2D style they could get away with it, but I'm skeptical if they're going to go that route. But certainly if it's a 3D game, I DON'T think we can count on the full 649 because of how much (or rather little) they've added to the games since Dexit. Look at some of the past games and how many they had:

LGPE (technically pre-Dexit, but they did restrict you to the 1st gen so I'm counting it as a Dexit game): 153
SwSh at launch: 434 (400 in dex + 34 transfer only)
SwSh DLC additions: 230 (178 in dex +46 not in dex but still obtainaible in game + 6 transfer only), with a total of 664 in SwSh + DLC
BDSP: 493
LA: 242
SV at launch: 477 (400 in dex + 77 transfer only)
SV DLC additions (to date, not counting Indigo Disk when we don't know all of what's in it yet): 95, with a total of 572 in SwSh + Teal Mask

This paints a pretty clear picture, ~400 Pokemon is pretty much their limit for how many they can include in a game at launch. They can get more with DLC, but we can't count on BW remakes getting DLC. So the full 649 Pokemon 5th gen National Dex might be unrealistic for them. It's a bit weird to say this because it's unprecedented, but I think in light of this trend if you count on the full 649 being in, you might be setting yourself up for Game Freak to disappoint you in a completely new way. Expecting the 300 BW2 Unova Dex Pokemon seems reasonable, but I suspect we won't get much more than that if anything.

yeah, nyow that I think of it we might nyot get the full 649 dex if it's 3D. Especially because they've made new models for the mons in SV. (Which is honestly exactly why I'm hoping they'll go the HD2D route... It'd alsyo probably be easier to add post-649 mons if they did sprites too. With the ones I can reasonably see there's nyot TOO many new sprites they'd have to make.)

 

[FlitPix]

One of the major problems with the current Exp. Share is how completed detached you will feel from most of the party. Before you had to send out a pokemon to at the very least get experience and thus actually participate in a way. The only exception would be when you were using the old Exp. Share but that only applied to one pokemon. Wide party exp means more often than not a pokemon will never actually participate in a battle, not even show up once, but will be in the background doing nothing while leveling up and evolving if it can. You see it evolve and you most likely feel nothing because it hasn't even come out of the pokeball once to do battle and basically contributed nothing.

People are also incredibly overdramatic when it comes to old pokemon games when they claim you had to grind when in reality you didn't. If you fought most trainers, you would be at worst like three to five levels below whatever you had to fight and that was more enough because all you had to do was actually interact with the game's mechanics to get an advantage in battle and not just brute force by overleveling. The type chart, the setup moves, status moves and so on aren't there for window dressing, the devs wanted you to use them to come up with strategies. The old pokemon games had actual level curves, ones better than others, unlike the recent games where you can't tell what the level curve is meant to be given the sheer amount of exp you gain.

I disagree with this analysis. If the game and its trainers are designed well to account for modern Exp Share and how it affects both level curve and Pokémon usage, ideally type coverage will not be in your favor if you just use one Pokémon for every fight, and you will be forced to switch out to another team member, or at the very least feel enough friction in what you're doing to make it clear that switching is the better option.

As I said before, the Exp Share is not the problem. The problem is that the game is not adequately designed around it until a sudden sharp curve near the end, so it suffers overall by its inclusion and the inability to disable it. I think the only Gen 8 game that doesn't have this problem is Legends: Arceus (and even then, I still ended up being overleveled for the final fight, so maybe it's just not as bad...).

Also, in my main Platinum save which is in post-game, my starter Torterra is Level 96, my Houndoom is in the 80s, my Luxray is in the 70s, and everything else is in the 60s or below. I am also in constant rematch fights with an Exp Share on my lowest level mon and it does not level up very often, maybe a few times a day if I'm playing consistently (which I'm usually not). Granted, Gen 4 is probably the worst and most biased gen to use as an example since it exacerbates this problem tenfold by not giving a proper place to grind levels at all in the post-game outside of maybe the Battleground or Saffron's Fighting Dojo (the latter of which is an absolute pain to set up), but my point is that this problem definitely exists in the older games and shouldn't be downplayed like this. I can also bring up many examples from my many other main save files, but I don't think I need to.

I totally understand where you're coming from with the detached feeling though, I've definitely noticed it myself. I think aside from proper trainer design, a decent "band-aid" fix to this would be to introduce something on the same level as Amie/Refresh. Why this was removed, I will never understand. LGPE did it fine enough even if it was limited to your partner Pika/vee. SV came close, sort of, with the washing mechanic, but it barely does anything aside from raise friendship a bit, and doesn't feel nearly as personal as Amie/Refresh did. I want more than just watching my Pokémon play among themselves - I want to form a bond with my Pokémon by interacting with them directly in substantial ways. More substantial than throwing a ball, at least.

i don't really get the aversion to grinding. i just go watch an episode of something while devoting 3% of my attention to the game. A bit of grinding at the end is vastly preferable to the entire game being a giant snoozefest until the E4. Of course, this wouldn't be an issue at all if GF just gave us the ability to toggle the EXP Share. But GF doesn't seem to like options.

Why do you think it's called grinding? And perhaps more bizarringly, why are you presenting this as a binary problem with only two non-ideal solutions (endgame grind vs boring overall game)?

A Pokémon game can work with modern Exp Share, even a forced one like we've been getting. We just haven't gotten one that does (yet? We'll see).

 

[There Is No Arceus]

Why do you think it's called grinding? And perhaps more bizarringly, why are you presenting this as a binary problem with only two non-ideal solutions (endgame grind vs boring overall game)?

A Pokémon game can work with modern Exp Share, even a forced one like we've been getting. We just haven't gotten one that does (yet? We'll see).

i presented it that way because people often defend the exp share in BDSP by saying it means you don't need to grind at the endgame. I vastly prefer a bit of grinding at the end over the entire midgame being a snoozefest. I agree that it would be better to have neither.

Also, even if the game is balanced around the exp share, there should still be an option to turn it off. Sometimes i want to get a new team member up to the level of the other guys, while not overleveling said other guys.

 

[Norzan]

Also, in my main Platinum save which is in post-game, my starter Torterra is Level 96, my Houndoom is in the 80s, my Luxray is in the 70s, and everything else is in the 60s or below. I am also in constant rematch fights with an Exp Share on my lowest level mon and it does not level up very often, maybe a few times a day if I'm playing consistently (which I'm usually not). Granted, Gen 4 is probably the worst and most biased gen to use as an example since it exacerbates this problem tenfold by not giving a proper place to grind levels at all in the post-game outside of maybe the Battleground or Saffron's Fighting Dojo (the latter of which is an absolute pain to set up), but my point is that this problem definitely exists in the older games and shouldn't be downplayed like this. I can also bring up many examples from my many other main save files, but I don't think I need to.

My recent playthroughs of Emerald and Platinum my team of six were always hovering around the same level and they are at worst like three to four levels below whatever mandatory fight i had to do. And i barely did any grinding.

It seems more to me you are attempting to shift the blame into the game and not maybe some poor level management from your part (your example shows this).

 

[Poke Dragon]

I really didn't like how BDSP handled its level-ups. It's unavoidable for the entire game to be easy, and then right at the Pokemon League, the difficulty suddenly jumps up. That's the thing I always hated in any RPG I have ever played, the challenge should slowly build up, not skyrocket. I remember my playthrough of Pokemon Sword where I didn't use any Exp items during the main game (and didn't grind) at all and as a result, it was very enjoyable because it always meant the challenge slowly built up. It felt great to have every gym battle always being down to the wire and having everything depend on the final Pokemon available in the party while the opponent also had one Pokemon left to defeat.

 

[Sheep40]

Pokemon's pacing and level curve was never good and needs to be completely overhauled. I propose we get free stat points on level up that we can distribute as we see fit, make effort values more important to a pokemon's growth than pure levelling and give moves individual stat scaling. This would make building a PVP team much easier whilst still allowing PVE to remain (less) challenging. As for pacing, make the region loop in on itself, opening up areas of the starting route later on or giving us the front of victory road in the early game just to see where we're going.

Pokemon should embrace the fact that it's a JRPG, especially story-wise.

The next Pokemon game should be an immersive sim (Thief, Deus Ex, Bioshock, Dishonored, Hitman-style of game with looping level design and an emphasis on player interactivity). because SV had no dungeons, what comes after should be one really big dungeon.

 

[Norzan]

Legends Arceus should have been the game released on the holiday season of 2022, and Scarlet and Violet should have been released this year's holiday season (me personally i would have waited until next year so that these games could have been released in a much better state).

I know some people for some reason argue more time wouldn't have made a difference, but at least i'd rather be sure it's the development team's fault for the state the game was released in, and not whoever is making Gamefreak crank out these games faster and faster with each year.

 

[There Is No Arceus]

at least there's no new game this holiday season

 

[Sheep40]

the next time type matchup rebalancing occurs, they should lean into the legendary complexity of the type system a bit more.

I propose making normal type the poster child for this, as it should have either supereffective or ineffective relations with everything (retaining it's no effect with ghost, coincidentally one of it's proposed super-effectives). Why? Because this type (tehee) of elemental complexity is NORMAL for pokemon.

normal becomes super effective against itself because it's normal to have different views of normality.

Normal becomes ineffective against fire, and fire becomes super effective against it, because normally fire is dangerous.

normal becomes ineffective mutually with water because water is not usually very dangerous though it can be annoying to control.

Normal becomes ineffective against ice, and ice becomes supereffective against it, because ice is freezing and painful normally.

Normal becomes supereffective aginst bug, and bug ineffective against it, because normally bugs are easy to kill.

Normal becomes supereffective against grass, and grass ineffective against it, because grass is normally trampled.

Normal becomes ineffective against rock, and rock supereffective against it, because normally rocks are hard to break.

Normal becomes ineffective against steel, and steel supereffective against it, because normally steel is very hard to move

Normal becomes supereffective against ground, and ground ineffective against it, because digging is easy.

Normal becomes ineffective against fighting, as normally fighting is difficult and dangerous.

Normal becomes mutually ineffective with flying, as normal-flying types are some of the most common pokemon.

Normal becomes supereffective against psychic, and psychic ineffectivse against it, because psychic phenomena isn't normal.

Normal becomes supereffective against ghost because supernatural phenomena is often easily explained.

Normal becomes supereffective against dragon, and dragon ineffective towards it, because mythical creatures are not normal

Normal becomes mutually supereffective against dark because it's normal to fear darkness.

Normal becomes supereffective against fairy, and fairy ineffective towards it, because magic is not normal.

 

[guzmania]

Nemona thinks that sounds a little too complicated.

 

[There Is No Arceus]

This Nemona theme that's being forced on us today is dumb. Gimme my distortion world theme back.

 

[FelipePR]

This Nemona theme that's being forced on us today is dumb. Gimme my distortion world theme back.

Impossible, Memona is a mean girl. She wants to be idolized, not give freedom to her subjects, Oops, I meant her friends.

 

[Norzan]

Don't even know if it's controversial, but Xerneas/Yveltal/Zygarde battle theme slaps and it's the best legendary theme in the series. Yveltal and Xerneas are also peak design for cover legendaries.

 

[KatrinaSForest]

Xerneas is really cool looking, I can't deny that.

The Pokémon Masters version of Cyrus is the best, most interesting version of Cyrus.

 

[Sheep40]

I like it when the legendaries do not exhibit the same stylistic traits as normal pokemon. Especially if they jsut flat out do not look like pokemon.

Why? They're basically gods who walk the earth, of course they're not supposed to look like common animals.

 

[PinkIceFox]

Team Aqua is the only villain team plot that makes sense for Hoenn region games. Maxi seems like he's too smart of a guy to not realize 'hey maybe this would end horribly'. So it me it makes sense that they're a rival team trying to stop Archie from doing stupid things. Archie 100% seems like the type to act first, think later.

I want voltorb flip to come back. It was fun. (My girlfriend would hate me for this, she loathes voltorb flip. lol)

 

[guzmania]

I want voltorb flip to come back. It was fun. (My girlfriend would hate me for this, she loathes voltorb flip. lol)

nah, but this is just correct

• metagross is peak pseudo
• alola, as a whole, had the best regional forms (though i do wish it wasn't just kanto mon)
• victory road is the least fun part of every pokemon game (i say this respectfully)
• dynamax was fun. absolutely busted and a super questionable decision to have existed in the first place. but fun.
• gen 3 absolutely SWEPT in terms of new mon. 2 was second place. my full ranking is 3 > 2 > 5 > 6 > 4 > 7 > 9 > 1 >>> 8

- on that note, emerald > oras

• meloetta is the ~superior~ gen 5 mythical
• i have. issues with them both (NOT controversial) but both gen 6's gameplay and story are superior to 8's, i feel (though 8 had the better rivals)

 

[There Is No Arceus]

maxie just wants the game to get a higher rating than 7.9/10.

I want voltorb flip to come back. It was fun. (My girlfriend would hate me for this, she loathes voltorb flip. lol)

You know you can always boot up your copy of HGSS and play it right?

 

[guzmania]

maxie just wants the game to get a higher rating than 7.9/10.


You know you can always boot up your copy of HGSS and play it right?

every non-hoenn game doesn't have enough water >:3
eh, true, but it's fine to want it to make a comeback too, right? though admittedly it'll totally never happen...