Topic: Pokemon Sword & Shield

@Tsurii Yeah, gen 2 had quite a few problems; and that's without talking about the distribution of new Pokemon.

I still wish the old EXP Share made a come-back, only because it saved a lot of time training Pokemon like Abra and Magikarp. It didn't feel like cheating, but it just saved a bunch of tedious switching back and forth between several Pokemon during battle.

@Tsurii In general, I'm not a fan of having to handicap myself by not engaging with certain core systems in a game in order to make it engaging. I'm doing it in Let's Go! by ignoring Pokemon I've already caught, candies, and boxing my starter, but I'd prefer if the game would scale the rare candy distribution a bit depending on a difficulty setting, for example. That way, I'd still be able to fully engage with the design of the game without making things excessively easy for myself. As it stands, if I fully engaged with the systems in Let's Go!, I'd be killing every single enemy in the game with one or two hits, and that's a bit...

Granted, there will always be ways in RPGs to make things easy for myself if I want to invest the time, like grinding, super training, or min-maxing stats with rare items, but I'm not talking about that.

@Tsurii I think we do need difficulty settings. I have no problem with difficulty being there for those who want it if they so choose. However the way that Sun did it really bothered me. Not only did I feel like the difficulty and AI was all over the place in that game, but I also got really irritated when I had to face a trainer with Pokemon that had those values raised and my Pokemon felt horribly weak randomly. EV/IV breeding/training is something that should never be expected of playing through the games, unless it is put in a higher difficulty setting that we have the option to choose.

EV/IV grinding is the polar opposite of fun for me and I shouldn't have to feel like getting into that meta nonsense when I'm just wanting to play through the game casually.

Having a hard mode where important trainers are EV trained (to a reasonable degree), with better movesets and a smarter AI would be enough. You don't even need to increase their levels I think.

Do y’all think they’ll actually update the battle animations, or will the Blastoise Hydro Pump meme continue to live on 👀

@Tsurii Riddle?

@Tsurii Ah, right. I think that was debunked though, because that wasn't him saying it, he's not leaking anymore iirc. That ''leak'' came from another Chinese person, but he said he hasn't played a Pokemon game before, but the trailer made him want to play it. Whatever that means, so take it with a huge grain of salt.

@-Green- If they couldn't do it for LGP/E when they had such a small number of Pokemon to focus on, I wouldn't get your hopes up.

I'm pretty much expecting Gen 8 to be Sun/Moon HD but set in a different region.

@Grumblevolcano Even with all of my pessimism, I believe they'll be more ambitious than that. Maybe not dramatically so, but I have enough faith it will be not be just S/M in HD.

But hey, at least that'd be better than anything even remotely resembling LGP/E.

I have finished Pokemon X yesterday.
But i felt the Ultimate Weapon and the battles for Four Elites were like Anti-Climax.
I didn't really felt the emotion or something that made get into the storyline.
I felt the storyline quality was flat, like everybody there were ready to battle with you.

I think the gameplay and storyline of Monster Rancher 4 PS2 was a little bit better than Pokemon franchises i knew so far. I didn't say Pokemon games was bad but i think Pokemon games need some twist to keep the games fresh and more interesting. Maybe by keep all the abilities from Pokemon and we can decide what abilities for our Pokemon.

@Grumblevolcano I find the memories of Whitney's Miltank largely overblown. Gen 2, while extremely nostalgic, was overall painfully easy. All that made Miltank tough was that most players didn't have a fighting move to hit it with at that point or a rock-type resist. But it wasn't hard to get at least one of the 2.

@Anti-Matter: While the Pokemon series won't be winning any story of the year awards anytime soon, the best games plot-wise (in my opinion) are Pokemon Black/White and their sequels on the DS.

Opinions vary, but I felt that X/Y were pretty weak in the story department barring a couple of moments. They were the first time that I almost put down a Pokemon game before finishing it. I'm ultimately glad I stuck it out, but that long slog between the first and second gym was terrible.

Tbh, I think I’m really just salty towards B/W’s story. Nothing against B2/W2’s plot though.

The issue I have with B/W’s narrative is that it felt kind of, how do you say, stuck up itself. It kept asking these questions and trying to make these points on the position of Pokémon and their relationship with people, but it never felt like it explored them at all. As a kid I was sort of just like okay, because the game essentially gives no real clash. Like N had the potential to stand for his own cause, but he just folds and is like yeah you’re right. Oh and the big baddy he doesn’t believe in the cause either. He’s just a typical mastermind. Sooooo, what about the point. Was it all just meaningless talk, because you know that was an actual meaningful conflict that could’ve been made, but naw.

It’s like it all just fell apart on itself and any point it was trying to make were left unexplored and half baked imo. Like still, it definitely is one of the more well put together plots in the mainline series, but it ruining itself like it did, puts it down really hard imo. Personally, I can ignore lack of good narrative in Pokémon, used to it, but B/W’s just makes me salty.

It’s like Gamefreak tried to do a somewhat serious topic, but where to chicken to go through with it

B/W won't win any awards for amazing writing, but between stuff like Bianca's father showing concern about his daughter venturing off and the little questions raised about the role of Pokemon in that society, the entire game felt much more grounded and relatable than ones released previously or sense. Also, N is probably the most interesting antagonist in the series.

That's all I want. Not cutscenes every five steps like in Sun/Moon.

Honestly S/M’s cutscenes were some of the worst things I’ve seen in a Pokémon game. Even word vomit like some of the earlier Mystery Dungeon games are not as brain numbingly dull.

Never thought I would be so unamused watching a cutscene, atleast until I played KH3. Now that game took the title, but still please, Arceus my lord, improve the cutscenes.

General rule of thumb for me is if I feel tempted to reach for my phone while watching a game’s actual story for the first time, then it has failed.

S/M has a decent narrative (by Pokemon standards, anyway; Lusamine gave me proper Ragyō Kiryūin vibes, and that's not a bad thing), but it really bothers me how often the game rips control away from me. If it's for a proper story cutscene, then sure, I'm game. But don't rob me of the ability to control my character to show something stupid, like a couple of Team Skull grunts within spitting distance gabbing to eachother about something meaningless.

I'm kind of hoping they ditch the "friendly rival" concept in the newest game, even if it means ditching the whole "rival" thing entirely. How'd we go from Blue/Gary being the biggest jerk in the world to Hau, a disgusting yes man who practically worships the ground you walk on?

Yeah I'm not crazy about B/W's plot either. And it doesn't come close to making up for the lack of gameplay outside of battles.

@-Green- @Ralizah @iKhan I actually share my opinion with @Blitzenexx . (What follows is IMHO.) B/W had a great story — not just for a Pokemon game but a great story in general. I really like how they made multiple characters complex and multifaceted. Ghetsis not believing in the cause didn't hurt the story; if anything it made it more impactful, since it increased his menace since it reveals he's a patient planner (and patient-planner villains are generally the most deadly and dangerous of them all, as evident in various franchises/mediums). It would have hurt the story if N didn't believe in the cause, but he did. And N did believe in his cause, he supports it throughout the entire game IMHO. And asking all the questions was very impactful IMHO exactly because they DIDN'T explore them — they let you, the player, question it yourself and wonder yourself, "is this OK?" Had they railroaded it and steered you with dialogue, it would have made less of an impact on the player. Plus the multifaceted nature of the characters was very refreshing — I rolled my eyes at Alder when he was introduced because he just seemed like the traditional perfect champion, but when Ghetsis explained his backstory and the challenges he was struggling with - exemplified in his losing to N — that made him far more multidimensional and multifaceted than any champion before and since IMHO. His arc, seeing him from a lost champion to him showing why he was champion when he explained to N at the end of the game, was very satisfying to watch. And all of this led to my favorite finale/ending in any video game I've ever played — the fact that N was championing a supportable cause, the music, how you realized you were truly the only remaining resistance against N before he took control of Unova, how you and N were even-matched with the legendaries, and the ending with N's music and his realization — all of that was amazingly orchestrated.

TLDR; try replaying B/W if you get a chance, you might change your mind in regard to the story. GameFreak did a great, mature take on the story with B/W, and if we get anything on that level with Gen 8 then we'd be in for a real treat.

I didn't see it coming, but I'm actually beginning to get a little hyped for gen 8. And I'm actually having kinda fun with Let's Go. Is 2019 the year I get my interest in Pokémon back? Hope so!