Unpopular opinions

Hence too much water. Yeah, if they made the different areas of water interesting then this complaint wouldn't hold much water *dodges brick* but all water routes feel too much like the same so when you get to that part of the game you feel a bit of a drag (probably not helped with random encounters on the water).
You know, I don't think I've ever seen someone list a water route in a "favorite" or "best-designed" routes list. What do you guys think is the best water route in the series? :blobthinking:
 

Pikachu315111

Ranting & Raving!
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You know, I don't think I've ever seen someone list a water route in a "favorite" or "best-designed" routes list. What do you guys think is the best water route in the series? :blobthinking:
Does the Mantine Surfing spots in Alola count?

If not, I'd actually say Hoenn's Route 130 to 134 is actually quite an interesting stretch of water routes. There's a puzzle you need to figure out via travelling the correct tides to get to the scattered islands, said scattered islands usually have something on it even if its just an item or trainer, there's a hidden town floating in the middle of it, and it's connected to two locations where Legendary Pokemon are. Sure you'll probably need to go through it a few times to get everything, but it's certainly not a boring route.
 
You know, I don't think I've ever seen someone list a water route in a "favorite" or "best-designed" routes list. What do you guys think is the best water route in the series? :blobthinking:
Route 9 is my fav route in Galar not counting the Wild Areas. I like the design of that iceberg maze with all the hidden objects to obtain and lol at the Grapploct.

Im tired of seeing the gen 4 battle revolution being used as the great examples of battle animation that gamefreak should take.
The objective of Battle Revolution is to be a 3d battle simulator, so it focuses on the spectacle of battles with its longer animations. Speaking of which, I remember watching an teaser trailer where the battles looked more fluid than the released game. Why we can't have nice things? :( probably they didn't have enough time to make it happen...

That was likely due to the change of making it a slice of life series where Ash is going to school with several of the Trial Captains and Lillie. They couldn't have Lillie if Lusamine was like she was in the games so toned down her insanity and kept her "smothering" trait hence the conflict with Lillie (which unfortunately took a lot away from Lillie's character as her whole thing was building up the courage to confront her mother. Poignant in the games where Lusamine is a psycho sociopath that Lillie is afraid of, less so when their biggest argument in the anime was whether they should evolve a Clefairy and Lusamine going ahead without Lillie's approval because she thought it was "cuter" as a Clefairy. I think maybe the anime wanted to show in this regard Lillie isn't anymore different from Lusamine in having strong (& selfish) convictions... but they wanted that "big moment" from the games too).
This is what killed the Aether arc for me :/. Part of why I can understand and empathize with Lillie's extreme naivety and insecurities is her messed up upbringing, and how it was build up in SM. She frees herself from her cage and was taken by Kukui and Burnet as a sort of surrogate daughter, and it's nice that she gets to meet more friends and travel throughout Alola, probably first time ever she visits the islands, judging by how little she knows of the islands and its traditions. Anime Lillie instead lives in a comfortable mansion (thanks Ash for once again taking the spotlight and taking her role as Kukui's assistant -_-) and has a trauma, which constantly switches between being taken seriously or for laughs, most times it's the latter. These changes kinda erase the tension with this character.

Lusamine has very little to do with Lillie's struggles aside from being busy, she is no longer an antagonist (Faba is to blame for pretty much everything) yet Lillie still calls her out like if it were one. At least we get to see more of Lusamine after the Aether Arc, which is something I can't say about og SM, but still, I don't like what they did to SM story...oh and then there's the anticlimactic Necrozma arc and how they wasted Hau and Team Skull. Yup, not a fan of the SM anime.

Not that I'm arguing against this, it's your opinion obviously, but I feel at least Shauna could be bumped up to a D as her character arc had way more going on than Tierno and Trevor (I'd argue she even has more depth than the opposite gender rival).

Also I don't feel Hop is quite an S, or Hau is just an A. I feel wherever you place one you kind of place the other as they have a number of similarities or parallel foils.

Also the cynic in me wants to place Trace in F cause of the stupid reason they made him.
Well yeah, that's why I put Shauna above the other two. Her huge lack of battles against her (I think only 2) also don't do her any favors.

I prefer Hop more. I like more when you get rivals you met since childhood, it makes her friendliness more believable than say, May/Brendan. Hop is more openly competitive towards other people, mostly because he starts very confidently since he is the Champion's bro, while Hau is the opposite of that.

Also, trust me. I really wanted to put Trace on F but that scene with the Cubone saved him.
 

Codraroll

Cod Mod
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max raids have shown to me that the whole battling system needs a complete overhaul next gen. it's becoming incredibly clunky and hard to transition back to after playing other games that aren't so slow (I don't even think I could go back and play the old Pokemon games anymore when everything was even slower). this is not just exclusive to max raids obviously, but it's why I hate this feature, each battle is so slow for like no reason.

like I personally don't understand why we have so many text boxes and why each effect needs it's own line and pause AFTER the action has been done. ex when you use a boosting move, you see the text box of your mon using the move, plays the boosting animation, then the text box displays the effect. or when a dynamax Pokemon puts up a shield you see the shield go up then a text box explaining it. or when you get a crit that gets its own text box and a pause too. why aren't these things happening at the same time why do I have to sit through each individually.

also clunky stuff like when you use multi hit moves on a dynamax Pokemon you have to sit through a zoom in, attack animation, zoom out, zoom in, attack animation, repeat, then "it's super effective," followed by "x used the move y times." it just looks really bad and I don't think there's any excuse for keeping it like this anymore.
I have a feeling that the archaic battle system of Gen III is still used to this day because ... they are still literally using the Gen III system under the hood. Each generation's battle code is just copied over and added to for each new generation of games. That implies that in order for things to happen simultaneously ("Scyther used Swords Dance to sharply raise its attack!" while the animation shows just that, for instance, or "Sandstorm buffeted Staravia, Luxio and Phantump!"), a total rewrite of the code would have to be in order. It would be a heck of a lot of work to ensure that everything works the same, but smoother, and it would take a lot of time - a resource Game Freak famously doesn't have a lot of to spend.

I guess a code rewrite would be accompanied by a large-scale Dexit and Movexit, as well as an item and abilities purge. All the content piled onto the old engine wouldn't make it past the makeover. Come to think of it, the small content purge we saw this generation could possibly have been a "test run" for a future major overhaul.
 

Yung Dramps

awesome gaming
So I see a lot of people saying that one reason the DLC is good is because as a smaller, self-contained project it gives the main team extra time to really work hard on and polish the next game in the series, unlike third versions.

But... Does it really?

Sure, they don't have to worry about marketing it like an enhanced release, nor do they have to worry about making changes to the story. But on the other hand, just look at how much content Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra add! Two whole new regions of the map with new Pokemon, areas, lore and mini-stories all of their own. To me this seems like just as much, if not more work than something like USUM, whose new areas amounted to glorified hallways unlike the fully realized SWSH DLC areas and had much of the same bells and whistles. Is there really any tangible proof the DLCs are actually doing their supposed job of buying Game Freak time when it could just be more of the same in regards to scheduling?

It's also worth noting that enhanced versions, if I recall correctly, were already primarily developed by Game Freak's "B Team". I imagine it's the same for this DLC.
 
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didls

formerly Besom
So I see a lot of people saying that one reason the DLC is good is because as a smaller, self-contained project it gives the main team extra to really work hard on and polish the next game in the series, unlike third versions.

But... Does it really?

Sure, they don't have to worry about marketing it like an enhanced release, nor do they have to worry about making changes to the story. But on the other hand, just look at how much content Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra add! Two whole new regions of the map with new Pokemon, areas, lore and mini-stories all of their own. To me this seems like just as much, if not more work than something like USUM, whose new areas amounted to glorified hallways unlike the fully realized SWSH DLC areas and had much of the same bells and whistles. Is there really any tangible proof the DLCs are actually doing their supposed job of buying Game Freak time when it could just be more of the same in regards to scheduling?
To be honest, with the reception of the DLC, I would expect them to release another unfinished game and then "patch" it with more DLC (without actually fixing the core issues of the game, unlike an enhanced version). I guess an example would be if they released a DLC for DP (lol imagine) that had the Battle Frontier, without actually fixing the core issues of the game that Platinum did (poor optimization and Pokémon variety, specifically).
 
Here's an unpopular opinion
I'm GLAD a bunch of Gen 2 cute mons were scrapped. Yes, even Kotora line
Because even GF admitted there were too many baby mons, and I'm not really a fan of how the anime's reception drastically affected the development of "kiddier" designs, and potentially may have affected the series overall. Many Gen 1 mons were "cutified" for the anime already as well, with it affecting post Gen 3 art (Haunter and many other mons 4 fingers, Nidoqueen and Lapras's teeth, Slowpoke's belly, Kakuna's claws)
That sad...really sad Shelder's, Pinsir's, Lickitung, Farfetch'd's evo and the Warwolf line were scrapped
 
The weird thing is, Tabaan(the shellder thing) was a standalone Pokemon and not an alternate evolution to Shellder, it was coded as such and its movepool did not match up to either Shellder or Cloyster.
Yeah, that was weird, even though it totally was Shelder after Slowpoke
Then again Twinz potentially became Wobuffet, and 1 mon was found in another mons scratchpad, so meh
 
Kotora was a bland pokemon that would not provide anything interessing to the series other than being cute pokemon for marketing number #2059210692.

Cute pokemon arent automatically bad, but you have to draw a balance between the cute, the cool, the funny and the creepy imo. Gen 2 beta just had too many babies and too many cute dudes

Also baby pokemon are an useless addition. They didnt need to exist, but now that they do, just retcon them to be normal pokemon already. Theyre treated as normal pokemon anyways since most can be caught in the wild, the breed and incense stuff is needless mechanics.

Either that or fundamentally change how baby pkmn work. Make them not be able to fight until evolving and give a compensation in that baby pkmn get better ivs/ev growth or something idk. Give a reason for the category to exist
 
Remember in X/Y when wild baby Pokemon had 3 guaranteed perfect IVs because they were in the Undiscovered Egg group just like Legendaries? This was considered a bug since it didn't return in any game, which sucks since it gave you motivation to raise them.
AKA:

Tired: Using Korrina's gift Lucario.
Wired: Catching a Riolu on Route 22 with a possible perfect Speed IV and two others. 5% encounter so you have to put in the work, but I'd say it's well worth the effort.
 
Baby Pokémon would’ve worked much better with a different model for breeding. The cool thing about baby mons is that they give their evolved forms access to new moves, often in the form of interesting utility options or unique coverage, but because babies themselves can’t breed, they tend make the process of breeding take so much longer (applies less to the incense babies of course).
 
The cool thing about baby mons is that they give their evolved forms access to new moves, often in the form of interesting utility options or unique coverage).
That point is no longer as important, since as of Gen VIII an evolved Pokemon can learn all of it's pre-evolution exclusive moves via the move relearner, making incense babies have no purpose outside of pokedex filler.
 
Im tired of seeing the gen 4 battle revolution being used as the great examples of battle animation that gamefreak should take.

No offense to those who like the game, but the animations in that game are slow and look really ugly. The fact pokemon just walk towards the enemy really breaks any sense of immersion and makebelive that the games try to put and just says "yeah theyre actually standing like that and waiting each turn, no actual fight happening under the game mechanics of a turn base game, its just how it actually is" and it bothers me a lot.

The animations take so long for everything. It takes long to do a move, it takes long for a pkmn to recover from a move, it takes long for a pokémon to faint. It looks nice in the first 10 minutes and quickly turns into a snooze fest. It being online, with lots of wait probably give them leeway, but if those animations were used for a main pokémon game i'd never turn animations on again
The animations themselves are fine, the speed can be tweaked without new assets.

Not that I'm disagreeing with you, the speed really is too slow.

The combat flow could be like Fire Emblem Three Houses speed-wise. Speaking of which, a dodging animation for missed attacks is something I've been wanting since the N64 era.
 
The speed already is negatively tweaked for faint anims to be faster since XD, and many are cut off before they finish
Really the anims aren't lagging the flow when you realize, Gen 5 is equally as slow combat wise, especially for multihit moves, and Base Gen 4 for HP was MUCH worse, cuz the text prompts interrupting EVERY TIME is silly
I don't like how Genius Sonority got mistreated as "doing all good anims" when that was HAL. The only anims they did were Humans in Colo (which sucked), and Gen 4s and walking (which notably looked terrible compared to 1-3 anims)
And then they ended up merging with Creatures Inc anyway, so bad Gen 6 anims? On them
 
The combat flow could be like Fire Emblem Three Houses speed-wise. Speaking of which, a dodging animation for missed attacks is something I've been wanting since the N64 era.
what do you mean you dont like the opposing pokemon standing without any animation playing, mocking your choice of using focus miss /s

honestly before wanting new animations, i want the optimization of the battle animations and speed first. getting rid of useless box text, maybe using words in battle (like how you get a "miss!" or "super effective!" pop up in other jrpgs) instead of text boxes.
 
Im tired of seeing the gen 4 battle revolution being used as the great examples of battle animation that gamefreak should take.

No offense to those who like the game, but the animations in that game are slow and look really ugly. The fact pokemon just walk towards the enemy really breaks any sense of immersion and makebelive that the games try to put and just says "yeah theyre actually standing like that and waiting each turn, no actual fight happening under the game mechanics of a turn base game, its just how it actually is" and it bothers me a lot.

The animations take so long for everything. It takes long to do a move, it takes long for a pkmn to recover from a move, it takes long for a pokémon to faint. It looks nice in the first 10 minutes and quickly turns into a snooze fest. It being online, with lots of wait probably give them leeway, but if those animations were used for a main pokémon game i'd never turn animations on again
Well, DistantKingdom addresses your criticism of PBR's animations being too slow in the opening seconds, so I'd suggest watching this video. He provides very strong reasoning on how slowness and high animations are correlated to each other. You can have fast animations and still be high quality.

When Pokemon actually does a punching move in PBR, they actually go up to the opponent and punch them. Unlike in Pokemon, where they just perform a basic animation and then a special effect just plays, like Dizzy Punch. It looks really bad. In most other games, the characters at the very least go up to the target before punching them. It just looks really outdated on a 3D console, especially since its a home console. Even for moves like Meteor Mash and Power Whip the Pokemon stays in place and performs a generic animation , the camera just quickly moves to the opposing Pokemon as they take the hit with Special Effects taking place

As someones who studies Animation at College level, I know how difficult it is to animate a series of kicks and punches. So that's probably why Creatures chose to address physical moves in such manner ( and the fact that the games have a strict deadline ). As for Special moves, they are significantly easier to animate than a physical move. For a move like Hyper Beam, all they have to do is use a generic animation and create a focal point in which the beam is shot out. Creating frames for an attack that does not require physical contact is significantly easier. Even the anime prefers to perform special attacks over physical attacks because its easier to do the frames for a beam than it is for punching. Look at Lucario in the anime: Which looks easier to draw frames for: A Blue Ball that travels in a continuous line with no altercations that eventually hits the opponent? Or a series a kicks, punches, and high stands that would require a much greater understanding of how people perform these motions in real life? Its not all perfect on Special animations however. Moves Max Flare performed by Dynamax Charizard and Magmortar do not come out of their mouth or cannon, rather the focal point is created at a certain angle and then the generic animation plays for the attack.

The people are calling out GF not because their animations or Pokemon Models are low quality, but rather they are keeping it in a style that is very reminiscent of 2D Pokemon games despite being in 3D. And not like GF doesn't have the resources to make these models, all existing Pokemon have walking snd running animations in SwSh, so a PBR style is definitely possible. But feels that the real reason why 3D Pokemon games don't look like Stadium is because GF wants everything to look like the 2D era- things like Pokemon facing their backs always can work on 2D, but does not translate well to 3D, where the Pokemon are modeled to scale probably due to the fact that if they were scaled, that camera angle would not work. Or how Pokemon are throwing "bites" and "kicks" at each other despite being in 3D and looking very strange to "throw" those marks. The main problem with how battles are animated in SwSh is the fact that looks identical to Red and Blue, games released more than 20 years ago, are completely inferior hardware.
 
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didls

formerly Besom
NGL, I do not like the current of making breeding so easy. Since Gen 6, EV training has gotten easier and easier, and now we're able to train their IVs and change their Nature? I mean, it's great that it's so easy to get battle-ready Pokémon, but this is really starting to trivialize the existance of IVs, Natures and EVs in the first place IMO.

Compare this to say, DPPt or HGSS (mostly DPPt) where the EV training process is still rather streamlined (easy to get vitamins, trainer battles and Counter app), but it's still "underground" and not shoved-in-your-face, which I love.
 

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