Topic: Pokémon Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee!

@Snaplocket I did enjoy Gen 6, don't get me wrong. But I felt it pretty meh when I tried going back to it again. Gen 7 also has problems, but I don't feel the same with that game for some reason, despite the much longer cutscenes in place.

Well the Pokemon fanbase can be split into groups and certain decisions makes one group happier but at the same time makes another group disappointed. So like if Pokemon Switch ended up becoming a large scale RPG like Xenoblade 2, it would cause massive problems for the competitive side of the community who just want to beat the story as quickly as possible to get on with special training for online battles and tournaments.

This is no outcome for Pokemon Switch where the fanbase is satisfied.

@Tsurii Hah! I forgot about that one. Was it ever used a lot in Sun and Moon?

@Grumblevolcano Yeah, that's pretty much the bottom line. It's something that just happens with long-running franchises.

The way some elements are implemented into the games is something worth talking about too. For example, I think a subset of people (in which I include myself) wouldn't be so against changes like GF adding "a story" to Sun & Moon if the writing in those games wasn't so freaking bad. It's better to have no story at all than a by-the-numbers one with little to no redeemable qualities that just keeps getting in the way of the good parts. It's the biggest flaw the latest games have, in my opinion, and this particular issue doesn't seem to improve with each generation. If anything, it keeps getting worse.

@MarcelRguez @Octane I haven't played Gens 6 and 7, but is the story really that annoying? I just beat Black and White for the first time, and it's mind-blowing just how amazing the story is. All main characters have a surprising amount of depth and layers, and the overall plot was excellent and captivating from beginning to end. The villain stands out as someone who actually manipulated behind the scenes instead of just blindly getting the legendary and going "time to destroy world!" and is thus far more intimidating than previous Pokemon villains. And the central question of the game is a powerful one, which made N all the more of an excellent character. All leading up to not just the most epic finale in all of Pokemon, but a genuinely well-done finale when compared to other games as well.

Basically, the story in Black/White wasn't just "good for a Pokemon game"; it was an excellent story period. If they can pull that off again, I would be more than happy to have story in Pokemon games.

I would like a pokemon game to have a great big story that goes on for near 100 hours and have post game play than competative in it.Or have a mode for that.Also a very large open region.

I don't get one thing. Let's say this game has 100 pokemen. From what I understand, if you buy this game, you may actually only be able to find 80 out of those 100 pokemen. For the last 20 you need to trade them with someone else, but where do those people get them? I've heard they need to be transferred from another Pokeman game. Does this happen by connecting to an internet server?

@shadow-wolf The story is much more "in-your-face" than Gen 5 and at the same time worse than Gen 5 with the actual quality being on par with something like Gen 3 or 4. I thought Gen 6 was a massive downgrade from Gen 5, and while Gen 7 had good ideas with the story, there were some critical missteps so it didn't come anywhere near close to its potential like Gen 5 did.

@Grumblevolcano I thought pokken was for the quick story and online fight people.I think the should do a pokemon game that goes foe 100 hours and more.

@Agriculture Pokemon games typically come in differnet versions. For example, if you can't find a pokemon in Pokemon Moon, it might be available in Pokemon Sun instead. In addition, some older pokemon aren't available in each game, but can be transferred over from previous games. Every game since Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire allows pokemon to be transferred forwards, and yes this sometimes involves servers.

@shadow-wolf I love BW for all the reasons you mention and I think everything about the story of Sun and Moon (from the sequence of events itself to the writing and scripting) is a big step down from that.

I also think the way the story is presented doesn't do the writing much favors. If body-language is going to be a thing from now onwards, the characters need to at least audibly interject from time to time, otherwise they just look like a bunch of mimes having a conversation. Think how Zelda or Fire Emblem games use sound bites for stuff like "hmm" or short sentences like "I see" to give some more context to the text box you're reading.

And on that not, make the main characters react and emote to what's happening around them. Right now they feel like androids.

@MarcelRguez I think including two new regions in a new generation would be a better trend. I've always liked the idea of a second, advanced region that still has level progression, but also pulls out all the stops and goes all in with competitive AI and movesets for your opponents. A whole new region meant to test your abilities as a Pokemon Master.

I'd even be cool with having a long post game plot that introduces optional new legendary Pokemon and a new threat to fight against. I'd also love if the Elite 4 in this "Master Region" used Ubers. I love the idea of legendary Pokemon not seeming cheap on the player's team. I love the idea that escalation happens in the Pokemon world, that you're not the only one who gets to be supremely powerful. You start carrying a stick, and pretty soon someone uses a metal rod. Escalation is what makes overcoming challenges in the real world so rewarding.

@-Juice- to a certain extent this has already been implemented.

• G/S/C/HG/SS had all of Kanto.
• R/S had just the battle Tower and Latios/Latias which was a really bad postgame when you look back on it.
• Emerald had the Battle Frontier, which while not a “region” basically fits what you described, a location full of trainers with strong Pokémon to test you.
• D/P I don’t really remember but they had a Battle Facility and lots of legendaries.

And I think this has been mentioned in the thread already, but I’d rather have a meaty main quest than lots of post game. Of course both would be nice but is not practical, so I’d prefer they did the former than the latter. The post game should be used simply for more challenge and to provide an epilogue/tie up some threads from the main quest. Black and White does this perfectly, where post game hunting for the Seven Sages perfectly complements the main quest and ties some threads up, as well as offering more difficult trainers.

@MarcelRguez @EvilLucario Ah ok that makes more sense. A Gen 3 or Gen 4 story but with animations does sound not so great. And I didn’t play Gen 7 as you know but simply from watching gameplay the lack of reaction in the perpetually smiling protagonist really destroys the overall impact of scenes. I really hope they fix that on the next game, games on N64 and PS1 were able to have characters that reacted to their surroundings and it’ll be absolutely inexcusable on the Switch.

Someone brought up the Battle Royal mode? Oh boy!

RANT TIME:

So most of you probably aren't aware, but a popular thing among players the past few years (let's say around the time of X/Y onward) has been a fanmade mode called Free For Alls, where 4 players go into a multibattle, but instead of treating it like a double battle, everyone is trying to kill each other to be last man standing. What's the greatest about this "mode" is that you can use any, and I do mean ANY Pokemon and potentially come out on top just by the sheer dynamics (big and powerful mons tend to get targeted to death quickly while more unassuming ones can go untouched for example), so there's no "tiers" regarding what you can and can't lose. Also it's generally played with voice chat so there can be discussion about plays, alliances, deception, all that type of verbal strategy.

Now, this has some inherent problems, namely some spread moves not affecting the person next to you, hazards/screens only helping/hindering one side of the field (in fact many circles ban the latter two for that reason), certain moves just flat out not affecting the player beside you (for example the countering moves and Destiny Bond), and the potential of a game ending too early if one side of the field is out of mons before the other (though smart players know how to avoid this in most cases).

Fast forward to SM, and the official Royal mode seemed poised to solve all those problems. Except, while it DID fix them, it added a bunch of others. Namely, the point system and the rule of the game ending once someone's out of mons. The point system in particular ruins the "any mon can win" concept to its core because now using weaker mons is a liability as people will gun for anything to nab points, plus the latter rule also undermines the last man standing mentality while also generally shortening games well before their time. In fact they messed it up so badly that nobody plays the mode and went back to how they did it before in the Doubles format.

So now the sad part is we'll probably never get a proper FFA mode as GF will just look at the lack of popularity of Royals and not step back to fix it, instead opting to can the mode altogether (though even if it was popular they'd still probably can it anyway given their propensity of removing well-liked features between gens to maintain their BS "every gen has to be unique" moniker).

Battle facilities are the exact opposite of what I'm talking about. They're rigid, set, and don't offer any actual feeling of progression. I'm talking GSC/HGSS post gameplay content, but tailored towards strong trainers. Kanto was pretty mediocre, but that's because of the lack of overall narrative to drive you through it, along with subpar movesets and stat spreads for the gym leaders.

I'd love a meaty main quest too, but people complained about how long it took to get through Alola and its focus on narrative. I fear that they're going to go back to giving us X and Y styled narratives. I just hope they decide to compensate for all of this by adding on a huge bulk of narrative content onto the post game for players that actually like a JRPG to play like a JRPG.

Given the announcement about the 3DS being supported even after 2019 combined with the already known knowledge of some Switch games getting 3DS ports, I'm becoming more convinced that Pokemon Switch will be a joint Switch/3DS release.

That sounds like a cool idea. I'll probably get this Pokeman game for Switch. I didn't play this series on older systems.

@Grumblevolcano But GF already said repeatedly Pokemon is done on 3DS now.

@Grumblevolcano it will mostly be supported with remakes/demakes of older games, like luigi's mansion and Mario & Luigi bowsers inside story.