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Your LEAST favorite Pokemon game

Really? I'd love for you to elaborate, if you have time :giggle: To me, the existence of the Ultra Reckon Squad completely changes the dynamic between Lusamine and her children. Having her be a flat out overbearing and autocratic mother without the influence of Nihilego's poison (if I remember correctly, in the USUM timeline she wasn't poisoned, right?) was a welcomed change. But in return, it lessens Lillie's and Gladion's characters. Lillie's wardrobe symbolism immediately looses meaning, as well as the subsequent agency she gained when she changed in SM.

Well, the problem here is that Lusamine was never said to have been poisoned in either game, at least not the way that fandom usually interprets it. The only time that Lusamine is exposed to Nihilego's toxins in SM is when she merges with it during the climax when they're in Ultra Space. The way that Nihilego affects you is through physical contact, by sitting itself on the head of a host (you can see this in its concept art, where figure #2 is labeled as "a typical example of its parasitic behavior," and in this Daisuki Club artwork). That's why it's shaped like a hat.

So the only way it could have made physical contact with her prior to the events of SM is if she had encountered one sometime before, but we know that isn't the case, because when that first Ultra Wormhole opens up during our first trip to the Aether Paradise, she reacts to Nihilego as if she's never met one before - asking it if it came from another world. Had she encountered one previously, wouldn't she already know that? Furthermore, there's the wormhole experiments themselves - it's that incident, where they are later revealed to have been working with just a sample of Cosmog's gasses (and thus only able to briefly open an unstable wormhole), that causes Lusamine to realize that she will need the full power of Cosmog in order to open a viable path to Ultra Space. She mutters that to herself once Nihilego flees ("So, it's true... I still need that Pokémon. I need to get it back."), so it's hard to claim that maybe she was feigning her unfamiliarity during the incident. That incident that we bore witness to was a breakthrough in her research of Ultra Space. But if she'd only just then figured out that she would need all of Cosmog in order to open a portal, we can't really say she'd been opening up portals at any point prior. And if you were to stretch it to suggest that maybe she was present when Mohn opened a portal and disappeared all those years ago, and maybe a Nihilego hopped out, tagged her, and then left (which, A) is really the kind of thing the writers should probably make explicit through a flashback or something rather than leaving the audience to imagine wholecloth, and B) isn't as far as we know a way that Nihilego's poisons can work; we don't know if the host's behavior is still altered even without a Nihilego latching onto their head), then you'd have to explain why she didn't know that she would need all of Cosmog's power in order to open a wormhole, because we know that Mohn used Cosmog to open his wormhole.

What first sent Lusamine on a downward spiral was losing Mohn. There were not extradimensional alien branwashing toxins involved in that - just the grief of someone whose innate ego and saviour complex caused them to fold inward without seeing the pressure it was causing her to put on her loved ones, and then lashing out and refusing to take responsibility when those loved ones said they'd had enough. Lusamine became obsessed with the Ultra Beasts, Gladion suspects, because she ultimately wanted to find a way back to him, but over time, with no meaningful progress being made in her efforts, that deteriorated. Gladion left her, a wake-up call that she ignored because she viewed it as a rejection of her love. This made her even more suffocating toward Lillie. From Lusamine's point of view, her overbearing authority was compensating for her fear of losing more of her family. The way she came to think was that by clutching her charges ever tighter, they wouldn't leave her. But since she only focused on how this made herself feel, it caused real damage to Lillie and Gladion that she couldn't acknowledge. And then, in SM's version of events, once Lillie left, Lusamine had no one to turn to. Left to her own devices, she just began to wallow in her own misery. The only thing she had left was her research into the Ultra Beasts, and so with no family left to speak of, she said, "Fine - if this world rejects me, then I reject this world", and attempted to simply leave to a place where she could act out her obsessions.

In USUM, on the other hand, the Ultra Recon Squad happen to step in and inform her of the looming threat of Necrozma. This gives her something productive to focus on instead of just running away, and whets her saviour complex. She sees it as an opportunity to prove that she's worthy of love and gratitude by taking it upon herself to save everyone. If they don't even ask for it, then all the better, in her eyes.

As for Lillie's outfit, it's a very rough approximation of Nihilego's form. I don't think the idea there is that Lusamine ever saw a Nihilego herself and then actively chose to make Lillie cosplay as one. If we keep in mind what I said about the first incident at Aether Paradise, we know that Lusamine cannot have encountered a Nihilego before. However, we are told by Gladion in the post-game that what Mohn left behind was a weakened Cosmog and papers about Nihilego. Lusamine was probably just being subconsciously influenced by descriptions of the creature in those papers, as she grew more and more obsessed with researching Ultra Space. Conspicuously, we are also told that only two kinds of Ultra Beasts had been seen in Alola prior to Lusamine opening up wormholes all over the region - those two being Guzzlord, with the International Police mission ten years before, and Nihilego, which Wicke tells us has been "sighted in Alola's past." Since Mohn came to Alola to research the Ultra Wormholes, there's a pretty good chance that he looked into these records and jotted down what they had to say, which could have included a vague description of what emerged from the hole in the sky way back when.

The symbolism is still just as effective - it still communicates the same idea about Lusamine putting her wants before the needs of her children, and smothering any of Lillie's own identity in the process. If anything, I'd argue that it's stronger for not being some direct influence on the part of a Nihilego, because if Lusamine was brainwashed and acting under and alien influence the whole time, then she can't really be held responsible for her actions. But Lillie tells us at the end of SM that she's been helping the recovering Lusamine to understand what she did wrong. And Lusamine's decision to let Mohn go at the end of USUM, too, I think is stronger if it's read as an acknowledgement of where she went wrong in her willful choices before.

As for Lillie's agency, I do think that's a point of USUM that is worth criticizing, because she does take something of a backseat. My charitable reading of this is that it's meant to reframe the narrative to be more about the player's exploits and good-doings, as a contrast to how SM were, I think, by-and-large Lillie's story, but more cynically I think there's just maybe not a lot to be done about it since they likely wanted to make the game's story play out differently so that more people would be inclined to buy it, and the biggest and most obvious way of doing that is by reducing the Lillie scenes in favor of other things. Granted, we do get to see a slightly more finished portrait of how she and Lusamine might go about reconciling their relationship, as well as seeing Lillie's first efforts as a Trainer (they are, of course, admirably pitiful), but ultimately it still just makes me wish we'd gotten Kanto sequels instead, to more fully explore those ideas.

As for Gladion, fleeing the Aether Paradise with a Type: Null because of a much generic motivation severely weakens their partnership... In my SM headcanon, that weird hand twitch hints at PTSD; one can only imagine what kind of twisted, gruesome experiments he ran into in the AF laboratories. Watching him balance trauma and anxiety with kindness and determination was amazing.

That's interesting, because to me, I'm not really sure what Gladion's motivation was in the original SM. All he ever says is that he feels a need to become stronger. But USUM actually tell us why - because the loss of his father made him want to become capable of protecting the people he cares about. He is like his mother, but is informed by her mistakes and tries to carry out her noble intentions in a more empathetic, albeit still flawed, way.
 
My least favorite is Pokemon Picross. It's fun for a couple hours, but like any freemium game you can't proceed to the next area without grinding for weeks on end on the same practice puzzles over and over again. It just stopped being fun after a while.
 
Probably maybe My Pokémon Ranch. Yes, i've played it. It kinda sucks. It's my least favorite. I still like the idea, and some other things, but other than that, it sucks.
You know what’s worse? It made for a neat storage system, and you got some goodies...but the Platinum update never came out here in the US...come to think of it , how exactly was Platinum supposed to communicate with the Wii without that wireless signal that occurred on the main menu like in Diamond and Pearl?
 
Moon/Sun. These were the games that taugh me to not look at a new game's every information and to have control, otherwise GF will show almost everything before the release date! I was expecting more Alolan forms and was very disappointed. I also didn't liked the fact that it had no option to rebattle trainers which makes said trainers loose value as characters. I hated the fact that there were more roads but no cars, having version-exclusive colours and cloth was lame and Team Skull is just a lost opportunity to apply a cool name to some gothic-inspired evil team!
Moon was the first game that I've put aside almost immediatly after finishing the main story.
 
Is it the slowness and TM/HM overusage that deterred you from it in DP?
The slowness, combined with how Platinum completely overshadowed it in every possible way.

That said, my list of least favourite games has changed. Here is the ranking:

  1. RGBY, because the ridiculous lack of content
  2. ORAS, because of the offensive exclusion of the Emerald Battle Frontier, Gym Leader rematches, and Game Corner.
  3. Sun Moon: it just feels unfinished.
  4. DP, because of the slowness and being completely irrelevant after Platinum
 
RBY is glitchy, ugly, and incredibly empty. Aside from that:

-SM/USUM: UM seemed a bit unfinished in comparison to USUM, but USUM somehow feels like it didn't bring anything new and worthwhile to the table in comparison to SM, aside from story alterations. Alola also felt really small to me for some reason. It doesn't help that I'm not a fan of tropical areas.
-BW: I dislike a significant chunk of the Gen 5 Pokemon, and am mostly neutral towards the rest. Being stuck with only them throughout the game is not fun, especially when my favorites are late-game only or evolve at stupidly high levels. Not a fan of Team Plasma either, to be honest. B2W2 is far better to me.
 
The slowness, combined with how Platinum completely overshadowed it in every possible way.

That said, my list of least favourite games has changed. Here is the ranking:

  1. RGBY, because the ridiculous lack of content
  2. ORAS, because of the offensive exclusion of the Emerald Battle Frontier, Gym Leader rematches, and Game Corner.
  3. Sun Moon: it just feels unfinished.
  4. DP, because of the slowness and being completely irrelevant after Platinum

I mostly agree with the reasons, especially with ORAS. The way they took out BF and the rematches were so disheartening. Although I cannot lie, I still liked them. Good analysis though!
 
Oh, please. Even XY (aka the game right before ORAS) found a way to have both Gym Leader Rematches and Pokémon League rematches.

There is no excuse for not having both.
 
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Oh, please. Even XY (aka the game right before ORAS) found a way to have both Gym Leader Rematches and Pokémon League rematches.

It sure found a way, but in practice, XY's rematches were pretty garbage. The Gym Leaders only use two Pokémon, and the Elite Four teams don't change at all from the first time you challenged them, even in levels. It's very impressive.

(I suppose you could go to the Battle Chateau to challenge Diantha under a Black Writ, raising her team by a whopping 20 levels, but then you're facing her with only four Pokémon, one of which is a Gardevoir that can only do damage via Dream Eater because it only knows that, Hypnosis, Captivate, and Stored Power (despite not having any moves to boost its own stats). This is one of those cases where even though something has quantitatively more of something, the substance and quality of it is considerably lesser. If anything, one might say that XY being right before ORAS helped ORAS know what not to do.)

There is no excuse for not having both.

Suppose not, but then, I'm not sure they need an "excuse" since they're just rematches. Yeah Gym Leaders are cool I guess, but whoever they're against, at the end of the day, you're still just mowing down the same CPU teams over and over for cash and experience, and ORAS already have a far more efficient method for the latter in the form of O-Powered Blissey Bases. (Actually, Gym Leader rematches have pretty much always been more staggered and less efficient/useful than Elite Four rematches in the first place. In Emerald their willingness to rebattle is RNG, in Platinum you can only battle four people at the Battleground once per day, in HGSS you have to go through a lot of tedious extra setup by calling them at specific times to even make the rematches happen, and in B2W2, it's a tournament style where you battle three people you don't get to choose, and it's non-canon so the "Gym Leaders" may as well just be standard Battle Facility Trainers who cosplay. Granted, there are a handful of battle styles to choose from there, but in any case, the PWT doesn't reward money or experience so it's not really even trying to take the place of Elite Four rematches as the go-to infinitely renewable source of post-game battling.)
 
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It sure found a way, but in practice, XY's rematches were pretty garbage.
My point is that, I would rather have something that is subjectively garbage to you, rather than something that is objectively non existent for both of us, because it's simply not in the game at all.

At least we have the option to experience Gym Leader Rematches in XY and decide whether we consider them garbage or not, rather than not being able to do them at all.

I am a fan of the Hoenn Gym Leaders. And it's sad that I can rematch them in a Unova game (BW2), but not in the long awaited Hoenn remakes.
 
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RBY is glitchy, ugly, and incredibly empty. Aside from that:

-BW: I dislike a significant chunk of the Gen 5 Pokemon, and am mostly neutral towards the rest. Being stuck with only them throughout the game is not fun, especially when my favorites are late-game only or evolve at stupidly high levels. Not a fan of Team Plasma either, to be honest. B2W2 is far better to me.

Hey, Can i copy and past your answer? It was so perfect.
 
XY.

the tl;dr of it is that the plotline of Kalos was pretty much all over the place, Team Flare wasn't exactly the best representation of absolute world destruction and genocide making it hard to take the plot seriously in the first place and the French culture wasn't ingrained as much as it could have been, I think. Looking back at how prominent Hawaiian culture is ingrained in Alola, Game Freak could've done a lot better integrating more French customs into Kalos, I think.

Also obligatory mention of the four rivals that did not need to exist whatsoever; Calem/Serena would've been just fine rivals on their own.

Amending this because I feel like BW is now my least favourite.

Shocker! I know; the very game that a lot of people hold onto a pedestal as the pinnacle of Pokemon gaming is my least favourite. That's the funny thing about individual taste, isn't it?

Honestly though, the story is fine. The characters are fine and Team Plasma is fine (for the most part; there are... forgettable and unnecessary characters but whatever). What I found unforgivable though, was that BW was unfortunately the start of when Game Freak up and ripped the Battle Frontier from existence and replaced it with mediocre, watered down Battle Tower clones. I can only enjoy the story once (or rather, I choose to only enjoy a story once because deleting my save data and starting over kinda feels like a waste). The post-game, however, is there to stay and I can't say that I've had any positive experiences with the Battle Subway whatsoever. It really did leave much to be desired. Therefore, BW didn't have longevity to me. There was no reason for me to keep playing past the Elite Four and that's mostly what determines how fun a Pokemon game is for me.

At least XY had the Battle Chateau to keep me going for a while, even if Battle Maison was another annoying Battle Tower clone. At least Chateau was unique in that you can level grind in it. I just wish I had that same feeling with BW.
 
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It's hard choice tbh... ORAS, Emerald, LGPE, HGSS, Platinum are all among my favorites...

I'd have to go with either RB, GS, or DP.

All three are made completely irrelevant by either remakes and/or third versions.

If I had to pick, probably DP. I admittedly have very little experience with RB or GS, I owned GS and additionally own Blue and Silver on VC, and also owned Yellow and Crystal all my life, but I never even bothered to play the original paired versions due to there being remakes and third versions instead, so I suppose I have to go with DP, even though I loved playing Diamond when it came out, little me didn't realize how incomplete of a game it really was, Platinum is the true Sinnoh experience and there's no denying that.
 
Unfortunately I gotta go with USUM. Alola was fun in its own right with SM. I suppose if the features from USUM were in SM it would be great. But playing through Alola a second time just didn't do anything for me. It actually took me a LONG time to finally beat that game. I just... Never wanted to.
 
I haven't really played many spin-offs and the ones I have played, I've liked them all. So I will only talk about main series.
Actually my least favorite games are Red, Blue and Yellow. They have aged really poorly and replaying them on the Virtual Console only brought back bad memories. The mechanics are broken, they're laden with bugs, and it reminded me how much they made me rage.
 
My least favorite would be the X/Y version of the main series. It's probably because I'm not invested in the story of the game as I am with its anime of that time. It's quite forgettable for me as soon as ORAS was released. It was so good that I never even bothered doing my usual post-game stuff on X/Y.
 
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