Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

@FishyS Pokemon titles tend to stay the same, but they don't feel dated in my opinion. Not like Dragon Quest. The stories keep Pokemon games pretty fresh, and there are changes to central mechanics. The devs have been doing new things every game, and the games are becoming more creative with time (PLA and Scarlet and Violet).

Dragon Quest just feels like it's the same exact game with 0 changes to anything it does.

@KidSparta I enjoyed Scarlet and Violet for the core game that was there- but I dislike how unpolished they are. Mechanic-wise and story-wise SV is probably my second favorite game in the series. It's just hard to recommend to anyone because of how broken and unpolished it is as a game.

@FishyS I feel like the cities were my largest gripe with SV. While they did a lot to make them fit in and have lore, the lack of interiors really hurt Scarlet and Violet with their cities. Mesagoza is also probably the worst city out of any modern pokemon title imo.

Also- the only reason the lack of level scaling bothered me was because the gyms would be underwhelming depending on what level you hit them at. I don't mind the wild pokemon not scaling though, given that it keeps gameplay more interesting and makes specific areas more challenging if you want to get to specific places. Sorta similar to Xenoblade and how it handled it's area designs.

@FishyS @VoidofLight Both of you are nailing it. I think it is one of the best games in the series creatively, but it doesn’t quite reach that potential because of the technical issues. GameFreak easily has the potential and resources to make a game that isn’t plagued by such numerous glitches and visual bugs, so I’m absolutely not trying to make an excuse for them. Not perfect, no way, but definitely overhated.

@VoidofLight As I said, I most like the Dragon-Quest spin-off games (treasures, monsters, builders, etc). I think the series puts a lot of their creative ideas into those. Granted all those games are super easy, but they're fun and feel fresh to me at least. But also, for both Dragon Quest and Pokemon I don't play every single game. I feel like both franchises have good ideas spread over the series, but they start to feel a bit too samey to me if I play every single one of them. I do agree with you though that Dragon Quest has a bit less variety — it does aim for a certain classic feel.

@FishyS I love the spin-offs for Dragon Quest. Dragon Quest Builders 1 and 2 are genuinely great. Just kinda wish that the main series was as interesting to me.

Since we're about to get a Legends game centered around a city I'm hoping we go from some of the worst cities to the best city. I'm looking forward to it.

I agree the gyms were the biggest issue with the level scaling — it would have been such an easy fix to just make those scale. I do think it would have been fun if more super high level Pokemon spawned in even the easier areas as you leveled though.

(sorry for the multiple pings)

I can say if I was still regularly playing Pokemon the recent games would've been insulting to me and make me re-consider. Even if I ended up adoring Legends, the fact that it followed up such a lame, pathetic, lacking remake of D/P and then was followed up by such a disaster of a release, all in the span of a year, sucks. I've heard excuses that "well actually they couldn't delay it because all the merchandise and anime was ready to go and planned out ahead of time" but its ridiculous that Gamefreak thought it could develop an open world Pokemon game in the same time they release every gen, this was clearly not going to be enough time. And they had another 2022 Pokemon RPG they could've used if they had any foresight, it never should've been a consideration to release gen 9 so soon.

And personally as someone who at the same time watched the internet bury the look of the Advance Wars remake for its graphics (which quite frankly are still more appealing than maybe any 3D Pokemon RPG), while New Pokemon Snap despite a decade of people begging for it and being the best looking Pokemon game ever still sold at least 10X less than any of those recent mainline games, I find the whole thing infuriating. And its not even about graphical power, I genuinely think the DS games look better than any mainline Pokemon afterwards.

@kkslider5552000 This seems to be more of the popular opinion. Most people tend to despise Pokemon for graphical qualities, and a ton hate BDSP citing that it "ruined" their childhood.

Personally for me, I haven't fallen off the series despite playing since Gen 5. I don't like the direction that the series went in with Gen 7 and Gen 8- and I genuinely don't like how fast Pokemon games are pumped out either. However I feel like PLA and SV give me a bit of hope that the team still cares about the games, even if the quality isn't the highest. The mechanics and stories in SV and PLA are better than what they did with Gen 7 and 8 at the very least.

BDSP is a game I'm fine with. I was one of the few people who didn't think it was a massive crime or extremely low quality release. Sure, it wasn't on par with HGSS or ORAS- but it was fine for what it was. A remake of Diamond and Pearl. It was clear that PLA was the actual ORAS or HGSS "remake," while BDSP was moreso just something they off-loaded to another development team for those who were clamoring for a remake of Diamond and Pearl in the first place. It should've had the platinum features included, but they did tell people outright what to expect when the games were first announced.

@FishyS The fact ZA focuses on one city is both interesting to me but also kind of scary at the same time. I'd like to think that it'll end up being a bit more focused due to being a single city- but I'm also scared since that means the scope is going to be larger for said city and that it could run worse or look worse due to that. Hopefully them not showing gameplay for the game means that it's a late release for next year and that they're taking time to make it look more polished as a result.

Ah... Pokemon.

So, I guess my own unpopular opinion is that I never enjoyed the look of the DS-era games. I also never particularly liked the Johto region. So HG/SS never did much for me, personally. The only NDS-era Pokemon game I enjoyed was Black/White, since it was refreshing to see them reboot Pokemon, and the writing was surprisingly strong.

Mainline Pokemon RPGs are just more appealing than photography simulators. No matter how passionate a vocal internet minority is, it can't overcome larger mass market trends. SMT V: Vengeance and MH Stories 2 also blow away any Pokemon game on the Switch, but were never going to sell even 1/20th as well Scarlet/Violet, either.

Quality rarely directly translates into good sales.

@Ralizah Honestly I can agree with your take on the DS Pokemon titles. Gen 5 were the only games I've enjoyed out of the line-up on that system. Gen 4 with Sinnoh just felt incredibly bland to me and Gen 2's remakes were games I still haven't touched. Johto just feels like a nothingburger of a region.

I really loved Gen 5's direction for visuals along with the region design. Some of the best music in the series came from Black and White and Black 2 White 2. The 3D effect of the world mixed with the 2D Sprites was something I wish they evolved with- instead of going full 3D. It was ahead of it's time given how Square Enix started moving towards that style after a while, and it felt like it created this impressive visual clash which still sticks with me to this day.

My opinion definitely even more unpopular.
I think Nexomon games looks more interesting for me than Pokemon games especially if you compare Nexomon 1 & Extinction with Pokemon Scarlet / Violet.
Also, Yokai Watch games from mainline and spin off (Blasters, Sangokushi, Yokai Gakuen) looks more interesting for me than Pokemon games.

I think something that people overlook with Pokemon is that much of the experience comes from the actual role-playing. Building a team to suit your playstyle, or even setting yourself personal challenges, is something inherent to Pokemon that I don't think is as prominent in other JRPGs. I think this is especially important for those of us who grew up with Pokemon, at a time where our imaginations could run wild.

While we're on Pokemon takes, here are mine:

• No Pokemon game is truly bad - the core experience is just too solid.
• That said, my least favourite in the series are easily either the Let's Go games (I think tying experience to catching devalues battles and throws the whole level curve out of whack, resulting in quite a dull experience) or Sun/Moon (just. let. me. play. the. bloody. game.)
• I think Black/White is overrated - Unova's far from my favourite region, the attempt to "soft reboot" the series results in, IMO, quite a lacklustre Pokedex (I think Hoenn did a much better job of this), and IMO this marks the point where the series became way too handholdy.

@Buizel Honestly I can see that Unova is where the series started getting to the point where it railroaded the player. It doesn't really bother me all that much though since the region design and music really resonated with me growing up.

I do agree though with your take on Sun and Moon. that game is the one that nearly made me quit the series for good. A lot of friends I had at the time dropped out of Pokemon after it since the game couldn't keep their interest. I was the only one to really beat the game once, let alone twice out of the bunch of friends I've had- and the playthrough of Ultra Moon was where I was heavily considering just dropping the series as a whole due to how slow and dull those games genuinely were.

I feel like the issue with Sun and Moon compared to Gen 5 has to do with personal stakes involved in the story. In Gen 5 I actually felt like I was involved to some degree. It felt like even though the game was about N's journey, we were still just as important as N in our own journey. They created a perfect foil for who our "character" was meant to be- and I genuinely found myself enjoying it because of that. In Gen 7 you had them attempting the same thing with Lillie, but it fell flat for the most part. Mainly because you were put on the back-burner with Lillie being the actual main character of the story for that game. Every main story fight outside of rival battles effectively could've been resolved by Lillie if she had her own Pokemon- given that those battles were her own battles. Her own inter-personal drama with her family. It just didn't sit right with me with the combination of how long the story takes to get going in the first place. The forced tutorials also genuinely hurt. Especially the one online one that effectively would throw you into a thirty minute tutorial if you didn't already do it.

Also I agree with the "No Pokemon game is truly bad" thing. The core mechanics tend to be very solid as a whole. It's just the over-all quality outside of that which tends to suffer. Either on a technical level like Scarlet and Violet, or on a level where it felt like the devs just didn't care about the game's level design or story (Sword and Shield). I'm just glad that even though the technical issues of Scarlet and Violet existed, they took more risks with the story in that game.

@VoidofLight Yeah, I'm tempted to agree with you there when it comes to story.

Like, thinking about it, the Pokemon series has been really hit or miss with its stories. I recently finished Diamond and, while I generally look back at Gen 4 with fondness, I remembered part of why I was slightly underwhelmed by D/P when they first came out - the story is just generic "end of the world" nonsense with no personal stakes and insufficient build-up. At least with Gen 3, the increased scope of the story was novel, and the idea of land vs. sea was interesting and well-represented with the mascot legendaries and rival teams. Gen 4 gives me no reason to care about its villains and legendaries, and the Team Galactic sequences feel like more of a bother than anything.

Other games have gone down this route also. I honestly can't comment on Gen 6's story because I find it so forgettable. Gen 8's story has basically no player agency - heck, half of it happens off-screen and involves others characters e.g. Leon. At least I reckon PLA and Gen 9 have improved things in this regard, making good use of supporting characters while also making it feel like the player has some stake / agency in the story.

All this considered, I think gen 5 does have one of the better stories. But for me, it doesn't make up for the other things about the game that I dislike. Personally I still think nothing beats gens 1 and 2 - the stakes were much lower than anything from generation 3 onwards, but everything felt more personal and meaningful. I understand why they couldn't just do that forever though!

Considering how much I like to complain about handholding and the overabundance of story in modern Pokemon, you'll be surprised to find that I actually really like Pokemon Colosseum...I think the difference there is in the personal stakes. The main character's background is really baked well into the main story (although arguably his motives aren't clear). Plus the plot/setting in general is just a unique take on the Pokemon world that I'm all for.

@Buizel I sort of wish more pokemon games would try to go for Pokemon Colosseum levels of storytelling. Colosseum showed there's a lot of untapped potential for interesting ideas and stories in the world of Pokemon, and it feels like Gamefreak barely looks at them. I do feel like the newer games do pay more attention to building up characters and making the stories more involved as a whole. They're starting to actually play around with ideas that previous games never really would have considered- or twists that actually are set up in advance and give a bit more depth to characters as a whole. Things like the professor being dead the entire game and replaced by an Ai version of themselves or a man who follows you closely in order to later backstab you in order to try and see God for himself. The second twist example isn't the best- but it feels like it's more engaging than "Guy hates world and wants to make a new one," or "Man wants to destroy the entire region because he thinks its ugly."

I just wish that PLA gave us more insight into why Volo felt the way which he did. We don't really get to see a lot of what he believes from his own perspective since we're tied down to what our own characters are able to see. Kind of hope that if we get more involved plots down the line that the writers will start to throw in flashbacks like how we had them in Black 2 White 2 (if we used game link).

@FishyS
I personally think Scarlet / Violet was my least favorite in term of the game performance, uniform color + design, making sandwich, the weirdo looking of gym leader + team Star leader, but... the plot twist of the real professor was dying long time ago and got replaced with the AI professor was really made me surprised for the first time professor will be your opponent in Final battle.
The idea of Paradox form of certain Pokemon kinda interesting but I still think overall performance of Scarlet / Violet looked embarrassing compared to Sword / Shield.
I still keep my eyes on the Pokemon clones Nexomon 3 that still being developed and last time the developer revealed the teaser of their Nexomon 3 creatures animation and it looks pretty great, something that Gamefreaks should be watch out.

The DS era of Pokemon was the highest the series will reach in terms of both variety and quality. I really don't think the series will do anything like it did back on the DS.

Not only did you have one of the best remakes in Heartgold/Soulsilver, you had one of the best Mystery Dungeon games in Explorer or Sky. To say nothing of the weird spinoffs we got like Pokemon Ranger and Pokemon Conquest.

We don't get spin offs like that anymore and the quality of the mainline series speaks for themselves. As of the remakes, people weren't exactly jumping for joy with Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl.

I feel like ORAS is better than HGSS ngl. Even though it lacks in the Battle Frontier, ORAS just felt more interesting given that it had a better region to work with.

@Buizel Yeah, SuMo was frustrating. Couldn't go five minutes without the game ripping control away from you. Sometimes to just, like, pan around an area for two seconds. It was aggravating.

For my money, X and Y were really impressive Pokemon games when they came out, and they're still my favorite 3DS entries. Also have the best large city in the series.

@VoidofLight I get why people liked having Kanto as an entirely extra available post-game region. It was a cool choice. But the core region itself... eh. I'd rather just play RBY and get my Kanto fix that way.

Yeah, the mix of 2D and 3D elements in BW/B2W2 was definitely cool at the time. I actually like 3D models for Pokemon battles, but more stylized overworlds would've been a neat thing for GF to stick with.