-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
-
Congrats to the winners of the 2023 Smog Awards!
(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon
- Thread starter BriarRose
- Start date
Deleted User 400951
Banned deucer.
Is Quagsire even aware that it's a sire?
Anyways, now for a real post:
It's that they think that they're running out of damaging moves that bothers me. While yes, in terms of balance (imo it'd be strong Physical Ice, Water and Electric along with some others and strong special Normal, Rock, Steel and some others) there's not going to be much more, couldn't they focus more on moves? I'm worried that by Gen 9 the lack of new moves will end up making both in-game and competitive rather similar to past gens.
I wouldn't count Z moves normally with my competitive bias of them being OP, but I guess they do kind of count. To say that they added 47 imo is just too much of a stretch - they're still technically the same move with the same title.
As for Laser Focus, I get why those mons got it but off the top of my head I think Sawk, Genesect, Weavile, Aegislash(as a pre-evo), maybe maybe Nidoking, and just in general warrior and fighter-like mons (nidoking is a king let it pass pls) could. That's just the start with my complaints here. Don't get me started on Lunge and Smart Strike. TBH IDEK why th they gave such poor distribution. But imo there needs to just be more moves in general. In the other RPGs you see that you don't have this much diversity in attacks. It's a strength of Pokémon imo and they need to keep maintaining that strength.
Last edited:
dont you love it how the ai in battle tree can use protect as many times in a row without failing? yea its old news but anyone who denies hax can kiss my ass. i just saw a beedrill use protect 2x in a row without failing once on at least 5 different occassions. meanwhile i use protect twice and guess what happened next
No Battle (whatever) replay video has ever documented that the AI cheats. It's just that over a large enough number of battles, improbable stuff happens from time to time. Go make your claim in the Battle Tree thread, and be prepared for a long line of people ready to put their lips to your bottom.
True, however it does feel like the games does purposely send out a Pokemon who would have an advantage over the first one you send out after you get onto a winning streak.
"Oh gee, another Rock-type at the start of a battle I have sent a Charizard out first for... good thing I have Mega Charizard Y and Solar Beam"
"Oh gee, another Rock-type at the start of a battle I have sent a Charizard out first for... good thing I have Mega Charizard Y and Solar Beam"
That's confirmation bias, that's all it is.
oh come on. dont know if youre trying to be a white knight because you cant actually be this arrogant. do i need video proof lol just go put yourself in a scenario where the opponent knows protect and enjoy. who the f%*#k needs proof
Yeah it's annoying but I believe that getting a double protect is more likely than hitting two Focus Blasts in a row. Getting a double protect is about 49.99% and two Focus Blasts hitting is 49%. Honestly the most annoying part of it is the time it wastes.
Someone is totally Not Mad
the people who have achieved thousands and thousands of wins in the battle facilities without cheating because they know how the AI go?
I have to say, I strongly agree with the sentiments about double Protect. Here I refer to my streak of 4,273 in the Battle Tree, which WOULD have hit 5,000 had it not been for the unfortunate appearance of Aegislash-3, which King's Shielded twice in a row while I tried to hit it, not only dropping my attack by FOUR stages (which is twice of two), but also affording its ally free turns to attack both of my Pokemon, which I had instructed to target down the Aegislash. I now leave a conspicuous lack of Battle Video or screenshot to back up any of the claims which I have made thus far in this post.
By drawing upon the experiences which are surely universal, and at the same time unique to me and not shared in any of the other thousands of battles played by other leaderboard-toppers, I make the claim that the AI in the Battle Tree has stacked the odds against me, counterteamed me - because the Pokemon my team has a glaring weakness to appeared over 300 times out of 4,274 battles - and is generally not playing fair. I further handwave any statistical arguments or notions of confirmation bias which any well-meaning user may bring up.
By drawing upon the experiences which are surely universal, and at the same time unique to me and not shared in any of the other thousands of battles played by other leaderboard-toppers, I make the claim that the AI in the Battle Tree has stacked the odds against me, counterteamed me - because the Pokemon my team has a glaring weakness to appeared over 300 times out of 4,274 battles - and is generally not playing fair. I further handwave any statistical arguments or notions of confirmation bias which any well-meaning user may bring up.
Last edited:
Hmm, so their might be some luck stacking toward the AI... though the only reason it would do that is if it was specifically programmed to do so. So let me add another layer to this conundrum: if the AI does indeed cheat, does this mean GF doesn't think the AI would be able to win on its own if playing completely legitimate? And if that is the case, is this a fair way of balancing the game so that the player isn't 100% dominating thus might get bored if nothing opposes them? Or should they keep the AI to the RNG rules as the player, having the possibility of the player 100% dominating which would give the player a feeling of accomplishment that they have "beaten" the game and the only challenge left are other players.
Emerald frontier was never really proven, I know Jumpman16 at the least has posted many a post alluding to the Emerald frontier cheating. He said that Game Freak even admitted this at some point, and coming from Jumpman I'm inclined to trust this but I haven't been able to corroborate it from my own research. The old age of Emerald means I don't think there was much research into it, and there hasn't been since then.
That said, I have a lot of experience with the Frontier and Maison and I am 100% convinced that those (along with the Subway and Tree) do not employ any form of hax whatsoever.
I got off a triple Protect once in the Maison.
That said, I have a lot of experience with the Frontier and Maison and I am 100% convinced that those (along with the Subway and Tree) do not employ any form of hax whatsoever.
I got off a triple Protect once in the Maison.
Whoa! That only happens, like... once in a blue moon! Or... *does the calculations* 11 % of the time!
The odds of successfully using Protect five times in a row is actually still greater than 1 %, meaning that if every opponent was to try it in every battle (and not mess up your streak while doing so), you could potentially see it happen dozens of times during a record-breaking streak.
I wanna say, Ash-Greninja doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would, because I actually really like the concept of it: make an underwhelming Pokemon work right and you're rewarded with an extremely powerful mon that justifies that support. I'm not even that bothered by Greninja being the shilled mon (though since Gen 4 I feel like GF has had issue with shilling at least one "fan-favorite" mon each gen for at least a brief time). The one thing that bothers me is the name: Ash-Greninja.
I've made my issues with Ash apparent in other discussion threads, but this has little to do with the character himself. The form not having a name that does not tie it to one specific person seems like an illogical choice to push the anime, despite the fact that the anime itself is mostly a glorified game commercial that makes back its own money in the process. The way the anime talks about it, the phenomena Ash and Greninja exhibit is rare, but not completely unprecedented: Sycamore evidently knows of it as "Bond Phenomena", and it's even compared to Mega Evolution, even if Greninja is the only case they could have recorded. Imagine if Rotom's changes were named "Charon Rotom" formes or such, despite it by all rights having the ability to do so before Charon recorded any of that info. Why can't the form be something like "Bonded Greninja"? Reference that the only other time you've seen it was "a young man from Pallet Town", but don't tie the name to the form specifically, especially since we are gaining a Geninja that uses the form despite not being Ash ourselves.
And on the matter of the Professor's appearance and the player never being alone, it goes into a different issue I have: they're trying to tell more interesting stories, but the player character is still a block of wood. This means they have to have characters constantly hanging around the player since this isn't a journey for many like a typical RPG cast, but the player doesn't have enough personality to them to carry a cutscene on their own, especially since they not only don't speak, but they don't even emote, as people have joked about in SM. I know the obvious reason: they want little kids to project onto the PC, but look at the Legend of Zelda. Link was literally named for his role as the link between the player and the game, but that hasn't stopped him from becoming one of the most expressive silent protagonists in Nintendo's games since Wind Waker. While he's not terribly complex or talkative, just by watching Link's expressions and movements in cutscenes you can get a sense for how he thinks and feels, such that a cutscene can have weight and tension despite not have many speakers (typically the villain or the usual companion like Midna). Obviously this was a limitation of the Sprites in Gen 5 that the writing could manage to compensate, but in these games, your player character is just kind of standing around in the cutscenes and doesn't really do anything besides move you to the gameplay connections. It's why the story had so much of Lillie doing things and people talking up Lillie compared to your own actions: because the player character didn't have any kind of means to depict interactions to show friendship and bonding/influence the two had on each other. There is a lot of complaints about the story being so much about her, but it troubles me less because it emphasizes Lillie (the actual story they did around her is fine for me), but it highlights that the player character doesn't have enough substance to carry a story, and as a consequence there's little avenue to make the story about them if they get any more complex or high stakes than just their own journey like Gens 1-4.
I've made my issues with Ash apparent in other discussion threads, but this has little to do with the character himself. The form not having a name that does not tie it to one specific person seems like an illogical choice to push the anime, despite the fact that the anime itself is mostly a glorified game commercial that makes back its own money in the process. The way the anime talks about it, the phenomena Ash and Greninja exhibit is rare, but not completely unprecedented: Sycamore evidently knows of it as "Bond Phenomena", and it's even compared to Mega Evolution, even if Greninja is the only case they could have recorded. Imagine if Rotom's changes were named "Charon Rotom" formes or such, despite it by all rights having the ability to do so before Charon recorded any of that info. Why can't the form be something like "Bonded Greninja"? Reference that the only other time you've seen it was "a young man from Pallet Town", but don't tie the name to the form specifically, especially since we are gaining a Geninja that uses the form despite not being Ash ourselves.
And on the matter of the Professor's appearance and the player never being alone, it goes into a different issue I have: they're trying to tell more interesting stories, but the player character is still a block of wood. This means they have to have characters constantly hanging around the player since this isn't a journey for many like a typical RPG cast, but the player doesn't have enough personality to them to carry a cutscene on their own, especially since they not only don't speak, but they don't even emote, as people have joked about in SM. I know the obvious reason: they want little kids to project onto the PC, but look at the Legend of Zelda. Link was literally named for his role as the link between the player and the game, but that hasn't stopped him from becoming one of the most expressive silent protagonists in Nintendo's games since Wind Waker. While he's not terribly complex or talkative, just by watching Link's expressions and movements in cutscenes you can get a sense for how he thinks and feels, such that a cutscene can have weight and tension despite not have many speakers (typically the villain or the usual companion like Midna). Obviously this was a limitation of the Sprites in Gen 5 that the writing could manage to compensate, but in these games, your player character is just kind of standing around in the cutscenes and doesn't really do anything besides move you to the gameplay connections. It's why the story had so much of Lillie doing things and people talking up Lillie compared to your own actions: because the player character didn't have any kind of means to depict interactions to show friendship and bonding/influence the two had on each other. There is a lot of complaints about the story being so much about her, but it troubles me less because it emphasizes Lillie (the actual story they did around her is fine for me), but it highlights that the player character doesn't have enough substance to carry a story, and as a consequence there's little avenue to make the story about them if they get any more complex or high stakes than just their own journey like Gens 1-4.
This kinda reminds me of a problem I had with Fire Emblem Fates.
It was trying to tell a large, complex story (you can argue on how well that was achieved and I certainly won't blame you), but the main character was a customisable avatar. This meant that to allow for the player to fully project onto this avatar, they couldn't really give them much character development and traits beyond the very basics -- the character who is supposed to be the one driving things forward is deliberately stunted for purposes of allowing the player to project. The two just don't mix.
You see it with a ton of hollywood movies, too -- they create a blank slate so the viewers can project whatever personality and emotions they want onto them, leaving the story empty and lifeless. It's rightly called out by movie critics and I think it's about time the same was applied to video games that are trying to tell a decent story.
It was trying to tell a large, complex story (you can argue on how well that was achieved and I certainly won't blame you), but the main character was a customisable avatar. This meant that to allow for the player to fully project onto this avatar, they couldn't really give them much character development and traits beyond the very basics -- the character who is supposed to be the one driving things forward is deliberately stunted for purposes of allowing the player to project. The two just don't mix.
You see it with a ton of hollywood movies, too -- they create a blank slate so the viewers can project whatever personality and emotions they want onto them, leaving the story empty and lifeless. It's rightly called out by movie critics and I think it's about time the same was applied to video games that are trying to tell a decent story.
Deleted User 400951
Banned deucer.
This is an issue to many, but I think there's more to it than the main character not talking (which to me isn't really important for reasons I'll explain later). You do have to remember that BW1 & BW2 are considered by many (I think most tbh) fans to have the best plotline in the series, and even there the main character is lifeless. It's the plot of alola in general, one of the many things I truly hated about Gen 7. To ease your burden, I'm gonna put it in bullet points:
-The start. I disliked how they said "this is for the grand trial!". It didn't feel like th other games to me, in which it was for the professor and for your own, self-guided journey. It already started feeling scripted out here.
-Lillie. Lillie imo was a terrible character and they spent way too much time focusing on her. Gladion, Hau and the sort were, as a result, underdeveloped. The only other really developed character was Lusamine, whom I'm about to complain about as well.
-Lusamine is overrated and not really that dark. I get the whole relationship with Lillie thing, but it's really not enough to keep a plotline going. It feels like it gets repetitive and stereotypical, and doesn't take quite the risks as other plotlines do. Compare this to BW2's where Ghetsis literally threatens to freeze the player (which to me is pretty much threatening to kill), or when Cyrus betrays an entire team and goes ahead with his plans.
-As I said earlier, other characters were underdeveloped. Gladion in particular stood out to me as someone who could have been elaborated on a lot more. He had an interesting premise as a rebel against his mom who would actually fight back to stop her (unlike Lillie who was pretty much a damsel-in-distress under a not-so-clever disguise), yet was shoved aside in favor of Lillie, Lillie and more Lillie. Hau too could have been made to be more - ala Hugh in BW2, or Silver in HGSS (with the Celebi event).
-I know I'm sounding redundant, but the Trail Captains and Kahunas sucked. In earlier gens, we'd always have like one badass gym leader or Champion who would take charge of defeating the villainous team - like how Lance did in HGSS, and Steven Stone, and Cynthia - but not here. None really seemed exciting. And Professor Kukui imo is a shoddy replacement because he didn't really do much vs at least Team Skull.
-The Aether Foundation was undeveloped. I mean, Team Skull had plenty of personality and imo are one of the best teams we've had thus far, but the Aether Foundation did jack. They pretty much said "We're here to help Pokemon and give them new homes :)!" but when they were truly discovered for what they were, they pretty much said "Oh no! We've been caught! Time to pathetically fight back!". That's about it for the Foundation.
I personally think that by leaning the RNG to the favor of the AI (which I have found no evidence for), it'd honestly force the player to use real strategy. It makes things tougher because it forces the player in bad situations, which encourages thinking. Even then, I think it's still a problem how brute force alone can get you through Battle Frontiers. In Platinum in particular, it's virtually impossible to lose in the Battle Tower. You just need a team with good items and some basic competitive strategy (I've used frickin DragMag before) and you're set. To me, RNG fixing isn't gonna be enough to solve that brute force problem.
I actually like having the PC in Pokemon not talking and being whatever you want it to be. I've made tons of stories with my PCs due to this and I love it. Also, if you give them character, then certain people are not going to be able to relate when a Pokemon game is supposed to be relatable.
As for your movie critic point, as an amateur critic myself that does indeed bug me, but there are ways around it. Have you ever watched "The Message"? Religious aspects aside, the main character never speaks one and is never shown, yet drives things forwards quite well.
And as usual I write another novel. Have fun reading frens!
And that's why Awakening's story is much better - in that game, Chrom is arguably the one leading the story, and the Avatar, while important to it, can be a blank slate without it detracting from the plot.
The difference is, of course, that Chrom is a playable character, compared to the Pokemon games where characters like Lillie or Hau are simply NPCs. I think that's where the problem comes from. They're characters out of your control, and thus take the game away from you. That's why the game sometimes doesn't feel like it's about the player, which can be frustrating.
Last edited:
Ash-Greninja: My main issues with Ash-Greninja is pretty much anime-exclusive: it's name and it's role in the anime. For the name, really, they couldn't think of a better name for the transformed state aside Ash-Greninja like "Bond-Greninja"? As I've said before, I don't mind seeing concepts of the anime crossing to the games but direct references to main characters? Let's keep that separate. As for it's anime role, it was pretty much used because they didn't want to give Ash a Mega because he was a special anime protag snowflake. To this day I'm wondering if this was always the plan, because to me it felt like they were setting up for Ash to getting Mega Charizard Y. They brought Ash's Charizard back, it was revealed Charizard was getting two Mega Evolutions, and they introduced Alain who used Mega Charizard X and made him a rival. It felt like Ash would learn to use Mega Evolution and we'd have an awesome Mega Charizard Y vs X battle. But NOPE, as it turns out they brought Charizard back for no reason cause Ash was given a super special transformation exclusive to him cause the writers got bored making a Pokemon anime and decided they wanted to make a half shonen/half idol anime. And to rub salt in the wound, we still got a Mega Charizard Y vs X battle but it lasted all of 3 minutes with Alain & X dominating most of it.
Also I do feel this makes Greninja a bit of an odd one. The other Kalos Starters don't have this kind of transformation. Sure, Charizard got two Mega Evolutions, but Blastoise and Venusaur got a Mega Evolution and you could argue it makes sense for their to be split Charizard's Mega Evos (one kept to its original design while the other became the Dragon-type it always wanted to be); also Mewtwo got to Mega so it wasn't alone in that regard either. But Ash-Greninja is an anomaly all on it's own. Will we ever get another Pokemon with the Battle Bond power? *Looks at Ash's Rockruff with suspicion*
Blank Slate, Complex Story: I don't think there's a problem with having a blank slate character in a complex story, but the writing and gameplay has to be made around it which obviously Pokemon Sun & Moon (and apparently Fire Emblem) didn't do. I can't speak for Fire Emblem, but I can tell you where Sun & Moon fell short on this: the player's reaction. Or rather, lack of reaction. Most every scene the player has the default face while every other character is showing off various facial expressions to match what mood they're feeling. Your essentially just dragging your character around, watching a story unfold around them while having little input aside having them respond back to you in a different way (which doesn't have any lasting effect outside the scene and it all plays out the same in the end). Let's take Black & White and how it did its story. There the game made you feel important, after a few casual battles with N you were than targeted by Team Plasma as possibly the opposite opposition to N. Since the game's path was relatively linear, they were able to make set pieces to create this, let's be honest, artificial importance but make it feel it was because of your own actions of being a good trainer. You could even say the plot itself was written around that, Team Plasma wanting to release everyone's Pokemon because they think trainers treat Pokemon as slaves while your character shows N that isn't true (theoretically). But Sun & Moon isn't like that at all. The story is a personal one but not one pertaining to your character (an issue they had before in Black 2 & White 2 which was more Hugh's story your character hi-jacked). And when your character is a blank slate, this is bad because now you're being put back as a viewer of events rather then actively involved. You weren't leading the charge into Aether Paradise, Gladion was. You didn't have any major character development from your experience, Lillie did. Even Hau had more involvement and development since he failed to prevent Lillie from being taken and joined the Aether Paradise raid to both save Lillie and redeem himself. At most you were just a chaperone/bodyguard, there just to do the heavy lifting. Gladion or Hau could have easily taken the player's place when Lillie went to get back Lusamine and nothing would change.
So, now that we know what not to do with a blank slate in a complex story, what should we do? Well, how about we check other games with highly praised stories with blank slates to see what they did. Bioware games are a good example, mainly Dragon Age and Mass Effect (and there's also Bethesda's Fallout series). For all intent and purposes, the main characters are blank slates who are the driving force of the story. Throughout those games your given choice that does have an effect and comes with both benefits and consequences. This especially include character interactions where you can make it so a character deeply admires/respects you or hates you. Sometimes through direct conversation, sometimes with actions you do that doesn't match that's characters ideals. This allowed you to mold your character better, being given more speaking options and how your character responds to situations.
Now I'm not suggesting making a Pokemon game like you would a Dragon Age/Mass Effect/Fallout, I'm saying look how they did character building and adapt it. For example, have the game track how we treat our rivals and have the rivals remember and respond back in ways matching their characterization. During certain moments let us choose the way our character would act, like would we let things play out or would be intervene (and if so, when would we intervene?). This could then be used to have player react certain ways in cutscenes based on our interactions and actions. That way, even if the player is in a story that doesn't put them on that high of an importance level, we'd still be contributing to the story in our own way and how characters act.
Island Challenge: I think the issue here isn't the Island Challenge itself but the game hand holding you through it. Professor Kukui constantly popping up as well as Hau and Lillie following not that far behind didn't make it feel you were doing that much on your own. True, in BW and XY you were also with a group of friends for most of your journey, but in those games it felt like they had them doing other things letting you go on and do your own thing until you bump into them or they purposely waited to meet back up with you. But SM? A lot of the time it felt like they were either right behind or slightly ahead of you, keeping pace with you so they can initiate a trivial cutscene.
Lillie... And Others: I'm curious whether it's not Lillie herself that's the problem but the over focus on her. Personally I liked Lillie's story arc on the whole, but I can agree maybe they could have eased off on it, especially during the beginning. Gladion I actually felt had a nice amount of screen time though I wouldn't complain if they gave him more. Like have a scene of him interacting with Plumeria and/or Guzma, him actually disciplining some Skull grunts, or had him in Po Town (we never learned how he heard about Lillie's kidnapping so fast). Finally, despite Hau being with you most of the way he barely develops. I think not only may he needed some more development early on but also maybe traveled with you and Lillie to the final island. Just seems strange he would run off after all that to train. Actually, I think maybe both needed to have a side quest after the Aether Paradise raid. With Gladion you can help him re-establish order within Aether Paradise by fishing out members who are either Team Skull in disguise or are loyal to Faba who's trying to seize power. For Hau, if he's not going with you to the final island I'd say maybe have him going around the islands to check if things are alright after the Ultra Beasts were unleashed (and maybe give us a glimpse of some of the Ultra Beasts while helping out with damages they caused).
Lusamine: No, Lusamine is dark, but a personal level of dark. Cyrus, Ghetsis, and Lysandre were a more grander scale of dark, as in their goal was to take over the world. While Lusamine's actions did put the world in peril, that's not what's dark about her. She lacks empathy and shows what a human with no inhibitions would be like. She was perfectly ready to kill both the player and Lillie in the Ultra Space all because Lillie told her off. As or cliche, I don't see how. If anything, the other villains were cliche as they just wanted to take over the world like a cartoon villain.
Captains & Kahunas: I think this is a situation where, since it was attempted to give all characters some personality, it results in none standing out. In past games we had Gym Leaders where the only thing they did was be a boss, though usually having one or two which actually did something. In SM they tried giving all the Captains & Kahuna something to do outside their role of being a boss but any that had a bigger role was lost in the shuffle. Had this not been done I'd think Acerola and Nanu would be the standouts as they had story roles.
Aether Foundation: Yeah, the Aether Foundation needed more screen time before the twist happened. They were established... and that's it. We needed more interaction with them, especially the higher ranking members, before they did the twist they were the real bad guys. Once again, doing side quests for them wouldn't have been a bad idea, and with them having members and building all over you can have them give out different quests pertaining to the area to make it feel like they have an encompassing presence throughout Alola.
Also I do feel this makes Greninja a bit of an odd one. The other Kalos Starters don't have this kind of transformation. Sure, Charizard got two Mega Evolutions, but Blastoise and Venusaur got a Mega Evolution and you could argue it makes sense for their to be split Charizard's Mega Evos (one kept to its original design while the other became the Dragon-type it always wanted to be); also Mewtwo got to Mega so it wasn't alone in that regard either. But Ash-Greninja is an anomaly all on it's own. Will we ever get another Pokemon with the Battle Bond power? *Looks at Ash's Rockruff with suspicion*
Blank Slate, Complex Story: I don't think there's a problem with having a blank slate character in a complex story, but the writing and gameplay has to be made around it which obviously Pokemon Sun & Moon (and apparently Fire Emblem) didn't do. I can't speak for Fire Emblem, but I can tell you where Sun & Moon fell short on this: the player's reaction. Or rather, lack of reaction. Most every scene the player has the default face while every other character is showing off various facial expressions to match what mood they're feeling. Your essentially just dragging your character around, watching a story unfold around them while having little input aside having them respond back to you in a different way (which doesn't have any lasting effect outside the scene and it all plays out the same in the end). Let's take Black & White and how it did its story. There the game made you feel important, after a few casual battles with N you were than targeted by Team Plasma as possibly the opposite opposition to N. Since the game's path was relatively linear, they were able to make set pieces to create this, let's be honest, artificial importance but make it feel it was because of your own actions of being a good trainer. You could even say the plot itself was written around that, Team Plasma wanting to release everyone's Pokemon because they think trainers treat Pokemon as slaves while your character shows N that isn't true (theoretically). But Sun & Moon isn't like that at all. The story is a personal one but not one pertaining to your character (an issue they had before in Black 2 & White 2 which was more Hugh's story your character hi-jacked). And when your character is a blank slate, this is bad because now you're being put back as a viewer of events rather then actively involved. You weren't leading the charge into Aether Paradise, Gladion was. You didn't have any major character development from your experience, Lillie did. Even Hau had more involvement and development since he failed to prevent Lillie from being taken and joined the Aether Paradise raid to both save Lillie and redeem himself. At most you were just a chaperone/bodyguard, there just to do the heavy lifting. Gladion or Hau could have easily taken the player's place when Lillie went to get back Lusamine and nothing would change.
So, now that we know what not to do with a blank slate in a complex story, what should we do? Well, how about we check other games with highly praised stories with blank slates to see what they did. Bioware games are a good example, mainly Dragon Age and Mass Effect (and there's also Bethesda's Fallout series). For all intent and purposes, the main characters are blank slates who are the driving force of the story. Throughout those games your given choice that does have an effect and comes with both benefits and consequences. This especially include character interactions where you can make it so a character deeply admires/respects you or hates you. Sometimes through direct conversation, sometimes with actions you do that doesn't match that's characters ideals. This allowed you to mold your character better, being given more speaking options and how your character responds to situations.
Now I'm not suggesting making a Pokemon game like you would a Dragon Age/Mass Effect/Fallout, I'm saying look how they did character building and adapt it. For example, have the game track how we treat our rivals and have the rivals remember and respond back in ways matching their characterization. During certain moments let us choose the way our character would act, like would we let things play out or would be intervene (and if so, when would we intervene?). This could then be used to have player react certain ways in cutscenes based on our interactions and actions. That way, even if the player is in a story that doesn't put them on that high of an importance level, we'd still be contributing to the story in our own way and how characters act.
Before we start I just want to say you're not wrong in your opinions, they're your opinions afterall. I just wanted to give my perspective on some of things you mentioned:
Island Challenge: I think the issue here isn't the Island Challenge itself but the game hand holding you through it. Professor Kukui constantly popping up as well as Hau and Lillie following not that far behind didn't make it feel you were doing that much on your own. True, in BW and XY you were also with a group of friends for most of your journey, but in those games it felt like they had them doing other things letting you go on and do your own thing until you bump into them or they purposely waited to meet back up with you. But SM? A lot of the time it felt like they were either right behind or slightly ahead of you, keeping pace with you so they can initiate a trivial cutscene.
Lillie... And Others: I'm curious whether it's not Lillie herself that's the problem but the over focus on her. Personally I liked Lillie's story arc on the whole, but I can agree maybe they could have eased off on it, especially during the beginning. Gladion I actually felt had a nice amount of screen time though I wouldn't complain if they gave him more. Like have a scene of him interacting with Plumeria and/or Guzma, him actually disciplining some Skull grunts, or had him in Po Town (we never learned how he heard about Lillie's kidnapping so fast). Finally, despite Hau being with you most of the way he barely develops. I think not only may he needed some more development early on but also maybe traveled with you and Lillie to the final island. Just seems strange he would run off after all that to train. Actually, I think maybe both needed to have a side quest after the Aether Paradise raid. With Gladion you can help him re-establish order within Aether Paradise by fishing out members who are either Team Skull in disguise or are loyal to Faba who's trying to seize power. For Hau, if he's not going with you to the final island I'd say maybe have him going around the islands to check if things are alright after the Ultra Beasts were unleashed (and maybe give us a glimpse of some of the Ultra Beasts while helping out with damages they caused).
Lusamine: No, Lusamine is dark, but a personal level of dark. Cyrus, Ghetsis, and Lysandre were a more grander scale of dark, as in their goal was to take over the world. While Lusamine's actions did put the world in peril, that's not what's dark about her. She lacks empathy and shows what a human with no inhibitions would be like. She was perfectly ready to kill both the player and Lillie in the Ultra Space all because Lillie told her off. As or cliche, I don't see how. If anything, the other villains were cliche as they just wanted to take over the world like a cartoon villain.
Captains & Kahunas: I think this is a situation where, since it was attempted to give all characters some personality, it results in none standing out. In past games we had Gym Leaders where the only thing they did was be a boss, though usually having one or two which actually did something. In SM they tried giving all the Captains & Kahuna something to do outside their role of being a boss but any that had a bigger role was lost in the shuffle. Had this not been done I'd think Acerola and Nanu would be the standouts as they had story roles.
Aether Foundation: Yeah, the Aether Foundation needed more screen time before the twist happened. They were established... and that's it. We needed more interaction with them, especially the higher ranking members, before they did the twist they were the real bad guys. Once again, doing side quests for them wouldn't have been a bad idea, and with them having members and building all over you can have them give out different quests pertaining to the area to make it feel like they have an encompassing presence throughout Alola.
Greninja was a fan favourite Pokemon from the outset, eclipsing Delphox and Chesnaught (I had to think for a second to recall both these names, whereas Greninja is just instant) so Greninja is naturally going to be given special treatment. It also explains why Charizard and Mewtwo got two Mega Evolutions. Their both fan favourites and two of the most popular Pokemon. Giving Charizard a second Mega Evolution was probably more because of fan favourtism than wanting to keep an original design and having a dragon. If they had to give us only one Charizard it would probably be X. Given how Charizard (and Mewtwo) were favoured in this way, I don't think Greninja is all that odd.
"Greninja's Bond Phenomenon activates! Greninja became [player]-Greninja!"
^ why didn't they just do (something like) that? :/
^ why didn't they just do (something like) that? :/
Because it looked like Ash not the player character.
And it was a gift from Ash with his ID iirc
I want to emphasize that I cited the Zelda games, because they show you can still make a silent protagonist expressive and defined as a persona without breaking their role as the player Avatar. As for the Fire Emblem example, the issue is that Corrin is supposed to be a character with a defined identity that is challenged/grown during the game, whereas Robin's character is written around their amnesia, turning an element of the "blank slate" into a means to ironically give Robin a proper character by the time the story is over.
Hell, one of my favorite RPG stories of all time is Dragon Quest V, and that game is not only sprite-based, but features a silent protagonist, thus meaning there is neither avenue of expression listed above. What makes that story still work is something BW understood: Your character is still at the center of it. In DQ5, the important plot threads and decisions happen not just TO your character, but because of them, which makes his role feel active and gives a sense of what type of person he is, even if it is the rather standard good-natured fantasy hero. In the later Pokemon games, your player doesn't really "do" things to make the plot happen, rather the plot advances after they do something like a Gym milestone and they react: Plasma attacks with Kyurem, Lysandre issues his ultimatum, Team Skull kidnapped Lillie. It really underlines how your player isn't an active force in a lot of the main plot, and in some cases doesn't need to be there besides being the player connection: In Gen 6, your Rival and Shauna are at the base as well, if you didn't need to be there your rival could just as easily have been the one to handle Xerneas/Yveltal, and the Lusamine encounter in Ultra Space speaks for itself (in a more focused plot, it would culminate in Lillie and Nebbie with a Pokemon team facing against Lusamine themselves instead of you fighting because Boss fight).
And this works against the other characters as well: characters like Shauna and Lillie or Gladion suffer because they talk about doing things, but then the featureless player character actually does everything we see, robbing them of what should be opportunities to display competence of character development. Sun and Moon's plot as a story (ignoring the need to conform to Pokemon standards for a moment) would have been much stronger if the player character had not existed as such: you play as one of Gladion/Lillie, the Professor's assistant who wants to better him/herself as a person, so she sets out to take part in the island challenge with their friend Hau. Eventually, they find their sibling hanging with Team Skull, and the gang exploit the connection to steal Nebbie, forcing them to finally confront the control freak mother they ran away from and show that they can stand on their own. Simple "Hero's Journey" inspired structure, but it both means playing as a character with a degree of agency and making the character involved with the Lusamine plot more developed, central, and competent in their development.
One of the reasons Wes from Colosseum is such a popular character is because, while not espoused on, he has a history before he becomes the player character, which lets the player fill in a characterization around that as context and allows discussion of complexities and potential motivations besides just being the game hero. Wes still wasn't QUITE there as to this topic, but he was a starting point I think they should look into again if they have any interest in making a protagonist of value to the storytelling. If not, I think they should stick to story structures like Gen 5 and reserve their more complex stories for spin-offs where they don't have to stay within such constraints, because the spin-offs like Mystery Dungeon show that this series can not just tell decent stories, but tell them pretty well.
Hell, one of my favorite RPG stories of all time is Dragon Quest V, and that game is not only sprite-based, but features a silent protagonist, thus meaning there is neither avenue of expression listed above. What makes that story still work is something BW understood: Your character is still at the center of it. In DQ5, the important plot threads and decisions happen not just TO your character, but because of them, which makes his role feel active and gives a sense of what type of person he is, even if it is the rather standard good-natured fantasy hero. In the later Pokemon games, your player doesn't really "do" things to make the plot happen, rather the plot advances after they do something like a Gym milestone and they react: Plasma attacks with Kyurem, Lysandre issues his ultimatum, Team Skull kidnapped Lillie. It really underlines how your player isn't an active force in a lot of the main plot, and in some cases doesn't need to be there besides being the player connection: In Gen 6, your Rival and Shauna are at the base as well, if you didn't need to be there your rival could just as easily have been the one to handle Xerneas/Yveltal, and the Lusamine encounter in Ultra Space speaks for itself (in a more focused plot, it would culminate in Lillie and Nebbie with a Pokemon team facing against Lusamine themselves instead of you fighting because Boss fight).
And this works against the other characters as well: characters like Shauna and Lillie or Gladion suffer because they talk about doing things, but then the featureless player character actually does everything we see, robbing them of what should be opportunities to display competence of character development. Sun and Moon's plot as a story (ignoring the need to conform to Pokemon standards for a moment) would have been much stronger if the player character had not existed as such: you play as one of Gladion/Lillie, the Professor's assistant who wants to better him/herself as a person, so she sets out to take part in the island challenge with their friend Hau. Eventually, they find their sibling hanging with Team Skull, and the gang exploit the connection to steal Nebbie, forcing them to finally confront the control freak mother they ran away from and show that they can stand on their own. Simple "Hero's Journey" inspired structure, but it both means playing as a character with a degree of agency and making the character involved with the Lusamine plot more developed, central, and competent in their development.
One of the reasons Wes from Colosseum is such a popular character is because, while not espoused on, he has a history before he becomes the player character, which lets the player fill in a characterization around that as context and allows discussion of complexities and potential motivations besides just being the game hero. Wes still wasn't QUITE there as to this topic, but he was a starting point I think they should look into again if they have any interest in making a protagonist of value to the storytelling. If not, I think they should stick to story structures like Gen 5 and reserve their more complex stories for spin-offs where they don't have to stay within such constraints, because the spin-offs like Mystery Dungeon show that this series can not just tell decent stories, but tell them pretty well.