QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
Title says it all. I'll probably post some later, but for now, interested to hear some others.
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What are some theories, assumptions, headcanons, or general opinions about the series you've changed your mind on over time?
- Thread starter QuentinQuonce
- Start date
I used to shit on Gen 1 a lot over the past few years for being a buggy and unbalanced mess, and I'd say "Pokemon should never have gotten as big as it did with this being its first game". Then I replayed Gen 1. It's still a buggy and unbalanced mess, but most of the bugs aren't really there for a casual playthrough, but what is there is actually a surprising amount of lore, depth, and wonderfully written characters (read: Blue). Talking to all the NPCs I realized just how much of the knowledge we take for granted was imparted by the NPCs and how many game mechanics they actually refer to. Of course the entire game is missing huge quality of life things (bag space looking at you) but pretty much every first game in a series starts out like that, but for everything else the game had, it holds up a lot better than I was expecting.
Kind of came to this realization a while ago, but....I think we all overstate the problem of Johto Pokemon not being used by leaders, or notable trainers in general, in the Johto games
Of the 8 Johto leaders, half of them use Johto Pokemon and they're even their ace.
All 4 members of the E4 use Johto Pokemon
5 of the Kanto leaders use Johto Pokemon
Like, the Johto leader rosters could tsill be better don't get me wrong. There's really not a reason Misdreavus couldn't have been on Morty's team is the primary one that everyone brings up, Bugsy could have swapped the cocoons out, not to mention Chuck having 2 Pokemon is ridiculous, discussion of levels goes back to GSC's level curve problems....
But the way we as a community talk about it, you would think that we had Miltank & Kingdra and that's it.
Of the 8 Johto leaders, half of them use Johto Pokemon and they're even their ace.
All 4 members of the E4 use Johto Pokemon
5 of the Kanto leaders use Johto Pokemon
Like, the Johto leader rosters could tsill be better don't get me wrong. There's really not a reason Misdreavus couldn't have been on Morty's team is the primary one that everyone brings up, Bugsy could have swapped the cocoons out, not to mention Chuck having 2 Pokemon is ridiculous, discussion of levels goes back to GSC's level curve problems....
But the way we as a community talk about it, you would think that we had Miltank & Kingdra and that's it.
I used to believe that Team Rocket were responsible for the creation of Mewtwo in the games, because that's the case in the Anime and Pokémon Adventures. But after looking a little closer, there's absolutely nothing in the games that connects Team Rocket and the creation of Mewtwo, so I don't consider that canon for the games.
I also used to think that the theory about the Fire starters following the Chinese zodiac was true, but not anymore. After looking closer at it in recent years, I realized that only 5/9 of the starters match the zodiac, which isn't really enough. I think that this theory is an example of how people are trying to see a pattern where there isn't one.
At various points before Gen 5, I used to think that the Johto games had the best post-game in the series, because you had an entire new region to explore. Then I played HG/SS, which made me realize how bad it was and completely changed my mind.
Back when X/Y were new, a common complaint about them was that they had way too much fan pandering to Gen 1. I sheepishly just went along with it, but when I thought back on it later, I realized that it wasn't that bad. It was there, but it didn't bother me, and it was nowhere near as bad as in Gen 7, which is much worse in my opinion (and no, I don't think the 20th anniversary was a good excuse).
Speaking of Gen 6, I used to be quite negative towards it in the past. I have always liked it, but I can apprecate it a lot more nowadays and it is easily my second favorite. I also felt that I could appreciate it more after playing Gen 7 (and 8/9 to an extent). In comparison, I feel like I have started to like Gen 7 less recently. I still like it and it is still a contestant for my third favorite generation, but it can never go any higher than that, and I wonder if I don't actually enjoy Gen 8 and 9 more. It is hard to say. Maybe I should go back to US/UM just to see how I feel about them nowadays.
I used to like Emerald better than OR/AS... because of the Battle Frontier. But after actually playing through OR/AS, and then playing through the Frontier in Emerald once more, I can safely say that I prefer OR/AS on the whole. They have so much more content and way better gameplay, while I only like 3/7 of the facilities in the Emerald Frontier.
Might have more, but this was what I could think of right now.
I also used to think that the theory about the Fire starters following the Chinese zodiac was true, but not anymore. After looking closer at it in recent years, I realized that only 5/9 of the starters match the zodiac, which isn't really enough. I think that this theory is an example of how people are trying to see a pattern where there isn't one.
At various points before Gen 5, I used to think that the Johto games had the best post-game in the series, because you had an entire new region to explore. Then I played HG/SS, which made me realize how bad it was and completely changed my mind.
Back when X/Y were new, a common complaint about them was that they had way too much fan pandering to Gen 1. I sheepishly just went along with it, but when I thought back on it later, I realized that it wasn't that bad. It was there, but it didn't bother me, and it was nowhere near as bad as in Gen 7, which is much worse in my opinion (and no, I don't think the 20th anniversary was a good excuse).
Speaking of Gen 6, I used to be quite negative towards it in the past. I have always liked it, but I can apprecate it a lot more nowadays and it is easily my second favorite. I also felt that I could appreciate it more after playing Gen 7 (and 8/9 to an extent). In comparison, I feel like I have started to like Gen 7 less recently. I still like it and it is still a contestant for my third favorite generation, but it can never go any higher than that, and I wonder if I don't actually enjoy Gen 8 and 9 more. It is hard to say. Maybe I should go back to US/UM just to see how I feel about them nowadays.
I used to like Emerald better than OR/AS... because of the Battle Frontier. But after actually playing through OR/AS, and then playing through the Frontier in Emerald once more, I can safely say that I prefer OR/AS on the whole. They have so much more content and way better gameplay, while I only like 3/7 of the facilities in the Emerald Frontier.
Might have more, but this was what I could think of right now.
Not trying to dunk on your take or anything, but I'm curious as to why you think this? I felt that Alola pretty tastefully implemented Kanto and Johto into the region, seeing as Hawaii has historically interacted with Japan quite a lot and has a pretty sizable Japanese population. Things like the protagonist being a Kantonian immigrant, Red and Blue hanging out on vacation, the Kantonian Gym, etc. all feel like natural consequences of the regions' proximity to one another. Crucially, Alola has homages to both Kanto and Johto, which makes sense the two have always been very closely knit. Malie City and Garden in particular has its origins in Johto settlers, which is pretty neat! I think the most egregious Gen 1 reference I can think of is, like... Diglett's Tunnel, which has a different layout but is otherwise too conceptually similar to Diglett's Cave for my tastes. It is true that Gen 1 'mons are the only non-Gen 7 'mons to receive exclusive Z-moves, but it's a much more limited selection of Gen 1 'mons - 5 Gen 1 'mons get Z-moves (counting the two Pikachus independently, and not counting A!Raichu), while 11 Alolan 'mons (counting the Tapus as one since they all get one move, and counting A!Raichu as a Gen 7 mon) get them.
By contrast, X and Y's implementation of Gen 1 stuff felt very... corporate, if that makes sense? France does have a high rate of Japanese tourism so I don't want to dismiss any reference entirely, but ti felt like things were slotted in for the sake of pandering more than out of consideration for the world. Viridian Forest is copied tile-for-tile in the Santalune Forest for no discernible reason, the sleeping Snorlax and Poke Flute segment is repeated pretty early into the game, fan-favorites Charizard and Mewtwo received not just one, but two Mega Evolutions, Sycamore giving you a Kanto starter... speaking of Megas, no Gen 6 Pokemon except for Diancie get a Mega (and, in a cruel twist of fate, it's only available in ORAS), while 10 Gen 1 Pokemon get Megas in X and Y (and the number jumps up to 13 in ORAS). It makes Gen 6 Pokemon feel outshined in their own debut generation, which is pretty backwards to me.
Of course, I acknowledge that what feels 'natural' or not is very highly subjective, and that I'm also somewhat biased since I adore Alola, and Gen 7 as a whole. I'd love to hear your thoughts on Alola's fanservice here, if you're interested in talking more about it. I'll also add that, outside of the Gen 1 fanservice, I've been replaying X lately for the 10 year anniversary and I'm very pleasantly surprised by how much I still like it - the fanservice is glaring enough to me that it still takes me out of things a bit, but god Kalos is such a pretty region. 10 years is officially the threshold where you can safely be nostalgic for it without feeling ridiculous, right
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This. The problem is more of the viability of the Pokémon rather than the availability of the Pokémon. My only real nitpick is why Bruno still has an Onix even though a Gym Leader (Jasmine) uses a Steelix. His two Onix in FRLG are even evolved in the postgame rematch, so what the heck happened here? Did one of them de-evolve over the span of three years or something?
Also, I think the cocoons are meant to be a reference to how Bugsy wants to pretty much be a Bug-Type Pokémon professor, so maybe he’s studying evolution or something.
Oh dear, stupid me, what have I done? Why did I have to mention the fan pandering? I should have stuck with just mentioning Team Rocket/Mewtwo and the Fire starters in my previous post, since that was my original plan. Instead, I came up with more things, including the fan pandering stuff. This wasn’t how I had planned to spend this Sunday morning… and noon, since this post took forever to write. I had so many other things I wanted to do today… but this had to be done, and I decided to do it ASAP just to get it out of the way. If I didn’t do it, I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on other things. But just to make this clear, I’m not putting any blame on you, my royal marine friend. I can only blame myself for getting into this stupid mess. I also want to apologize if any of this is poorly written, or if I don’t explain myself properly. This is what happens when I am forced to participate in a discussion I had no intention of starting.
Fortunately, I had written some quite long posts about this subject in the past, so I have partly copypasted them with some minor changes and additions. Now, let’s get this done! First of all, let me try to reply to the things you said.
I strongly disagree that the way Kanto
Regarding X/Y, I think their implementation of the Gen 1 stuff felt way more natural and tasteful than anything the Alola games did. Once again, I don’t care for historical accuracy, the stuff in X/Y didn’t bother me nearly as much as it did in Gen 7.
Next, I want to take a look at specific instances of fan pandering in the games. Everything you mentioned, and some more things. We’ll start with X/Y and why the things they had doesn’t bother me all that much.
- Santalune Forest having the exact same layout as Viridian Forest. I never noticed this when I played through X/Y, I only learned about it later on thanks to people whining about it on the internet. I don't really have a problem with this as it feels very subtle and difficult to notice unless you take a very close look at the map of the forest.
- X/Y had many Mega Evolutions from Kanto. That's true, but there were many from Hoenn too. Johto and Sinnoh also got a few as well. Unova and Kalos also got one each in OR/AS. On the whole, I think it was fine. I also like when Kanto Megas are successful. If they can take a boring old Kanto Pokemon and spice it up to make it interesting again, I'm all for it. As for Charizard and Mewtwo getting two forms, it didn’t bother me.
- Getting a Kanto starter early on in the game. I didn't mind this. You have to obtain it, but nothing forces you to use it. I just boxed it after obtaining it and went with the Pokemon I wanted to use instead, then I later evolved it for Pokedex purposes during the post-game. The same goes for the Lapras you obtain later in the game.
- Snorlax is blocking the way at one point, and it has to be awoken with the Poke Flute. This is the kind of reference I'm okay with, and it makes a lot of sense. My only issue here is that this is the only way to get a Snorlax in the games, and you only get one chance.
- Story similarities to Gen 1. You encounter Team Flare for the first time in a cave with fossils, and they later raid a place where Poké Balls are created in order to obtain the Master Ball. Team Rocket did these two things in the Gen 1 games as well. To me, these also very minor references and I didn’t even notice them when I first played through X/Y.
- The Laverre Gym has a similar puzzle to the Saffron Gym in Kanto. I don’t remember if I thought much of it when I played X/Y, but if I did, then it didn’t bother me at all.
- Apart from the Kalos legends, there are only Kanto legendaries in the games. Not much of a problem for me, because there are barely any Kalos legends to start with. And the way they set it up means that no matter how you play, you'll always get 2 legends from both Kanto and Kalos. While you are forced to encounter the legendary bird once after beating the game, you have to actively hunt it down to get it, and the odds of randomly running into it are quite low. You also have to actively go and look for Mewtwo if you want it.
- Some moves like Psychic and Hyper Beam use their original sound effect from Gen 1. I found it a bit weird, but I didn't really mind it, and I stopped noticing after a while since I always turn off animations eventually. What really bothers me is that this has been kept in every new game after Gen 6, these sound effects are still used in Gen 9 (I think? Correct me if I’m wrong) and it has become really grating at this point.
- The first wild Pokemon you'll encounter on Route 2 is predetermined to always be a Pidgey. I didn't mind, I just caught it like I would have with any Pokemon I didn't have yet. Once you are past it, there are several other Pokemon you can get here. Not all of them are from Kanto, and Pidgey is not among the most common ones.
- There are many Kanto Pokemon in X/Y. That's true. But there are many Pokemon from the other regions/generations as well. I didn't notice the large number of Kanto Pokemon in the games until I looked at the Serebii page for unavailable Pokemon in the games. It shows that in total, if we include the post-game fossils and Friend Safari, only 8 Kanto Pokemon are missing from X/Y. There are considerably more Pokemon missing from other regions, but I wasn't too bothered by it since X/Y has a very large amount of obtainable Pokemon on the whole.
- Many Kanto Pokémon in the regional dex. That’s also true, but if we look at the statistics, most of the other regions are strongly represented as well, with only Gen 4 falling behind a bit. X/Y also has excellent Pokémon distribution/variation, and when I played, I never felt that the Kanto Pokémon were more present than the Pokémon from any other region/generation.
- Partly related to the above, the Gen 6 Pokémon being outshined in their own home region. This is true as well, but it is not because of the Kanto Pokémon, but rather because X/Y has the largest regional dex to date as well as the lowest number of new Pokémon, making the new Pokémon drown in the masses of old Pokémon. It could still have been worse though, I think Johto, Alola and D/P Sinnoh were even worse with showcasing their new Pokémon.
That’s how I feel about stuff in Gen 6. Next, let’s look at the fan pandering in Gen 7 and why it bothers me more.
- First, the regional dex and Pokémon distribution. Once more, we have the statistics. In S/M, there are 87 Pokémon from Kanto in the regional dex and 81 from Alola, while the other old regions have between 14-33. Now, we need to take into account that the size of the Alola dex in S/M is only 2/3 of the Kalos dex, but even so, it is extremely unbalanced. US/UM improved upon it a bit, but they also added more Kanto Pokémon. In terms of percentages, 24% of the Pokémon in the Kalos dex are from Kanto, while it is 28% in the Alola dex in S/M. US/UM has 24% just like X/Y. When I played the Alola games, it felt extremely obvious that the games had a strong Kanto bias in their regional dexes, and I do not approve of it at all.
- The Alola games have way worse Pokémon distribution than X/Y, with several Pokémon being extremely common and found almost everywhere. Several of the most common ones are Kanto Pokémon, they are the Rattata, Zubat, Magikarp and Diglett lines. S/M also feature a very large number of Kanto Pokémon early on in the games, while they don’t have nearly as many from the other regions. US/UM are a bit better though. This really bothered me when I played through the Alola games. On the whole, I think X/Y did a way better job than the Alola games at showcasing Pokémon from all regions in their regional dex.
- A very large number of the new Pokémon in the Alola games are uncommon or rare, while the new Pokémon in X/Y they were uncommon at best. If you ask me, this is an instance of where the new Pokémon are outshined in their own home region/generation. It was extremely annoying to try to find new Pokémon in Alola since I had to search for a long while or go through tedious means in order to get them.
- Alola forms are strictly Kanto Pokemon only, compared to Megas which at least represented most/all regions. I find this very bothersome, it feels like extremely blatant and obvious fan pandering. Regional variants are such an amazing concept, but they completely blew the execution in the Alola games by making them Kanto-only. Thankfully, Galar and Hisui did the concept much better thanks to having regional variants (and even evolutions) from multiple regions.
- When it comes to exclusive Z-moves, the only Pokemon to get them that aren't from Alola are all from Kanto. Another very obvious bias towards Kanto.
- 4 out of the 7 Poké Ride Pokémon are from Kanto, while only one is from Alola. Charizard is the one that bothers me the most since it isn’t even in the Alola dex, it can’t be found in S/M at all (but it can be found in US/UM thanks to Charmander being available through Island Scan).
- There are many references to Kanto during the main story, and the word “Kanto” is spammed so many times that it becames really tiresome after a while. There are also a lot of other minor Kanto references that annoy me. For instance, we have the recreation of the Nugget Bridge (quite possibly the most non-subtle and unnatural reference I have ever seen), the "Kantonian" Gym in US/UM, and Diglett's Tunnel (this is what we get after the great caves in Kalos?). The player character has moved to Alola from Kanto, Lille goes to Kanto in the end of S/M, while Gladion goes to Kanto and Johto to train in US/UM (and he uses a Kanto starter when he comes back). There’s also Samson Oak, though I actually like him and I wish he had gotten more screentime.
- The Rainbow Rocket episode in US/UM. While the bosses from all previous evil teams appear, Giovanni is the final boss, and all the Grunts are from Team Rocket.
- Red and Blue are the bosses of the Battle Tree. This is actually something that doesn’t bother me. The reason is that statistically, you don’t get to battle them that much compared the other special trainers if you battle at the Tree a lot or get a long streak.
- S/M were released after we had seen a lot of fan pandering already, with X/Y (but to me, it wasn't that bad), Pokemon Origins and Pokemon Go. This annoyed me because I was pretty tired of the fan pandering at the time and I wanted less of it, not more.
- The 20th anniversary. I don’t think this was a good excuse for them to have so much Kanto pandering. A proper anniversary should celebrate all previous generations. They showed that they were capable of doing this since they did it with the mythical events during 2016, and with Pokémon Generations. Too bad S/M didn’t do the same thing.
On the whole, I felt that the Alola games were a lot much more "in your face" with their fan pandering, while I think it was more natural and subtle in X/Y. On a personal note, I should mention that I had very high and specific expectations on S/M. I wanted Game Freak to make a game pair that focused on the new Pokemon, the new region and the new features, but they decided to do the complete opposite and focus on the oldest generation in way too many instances. I feel that S/M had way too much fan pandering and focus on Kanto and Gen 1, while they didn't have anywhere near as much focus on the other regions, the references to Kanto more or less completely overshadowed all the other regions. Including Alola itself, which loses a bit of its identity thanks to this.
That said, it could have been even worse. Island Scan did for once not have a ton of Kanto Pokemon, I don’t have the statistics but it felt like it focused more on the other regions. In S/M, it had the Johto and Unova starters instead of the Kanto starters. In US/UM, it does have the Kanto starters, but it also has the Hoenn, Sinnoh and Kalos starters. Out of all the non-legendary Pokemon you can meet at Ultra Wormholes, none of them are from Kanto (or Alola), all of them are from Gen 2-6. Regarding the Fossils, they included Aerodactyl and the Sinnoh/Unova Fossils in S/M, not Kabuto/Omanyte. US/UM added them, but they added the Hoenn and Kalos fossils as well. So while it was bad in Gen 7, it could have been a lot worse.
Then at the end of Gen 7, there’s LGP/E. Even more fan pandering! I don’t think I need to say more here.
Fortunately, there has been way less fan pandering to Gen 1 and Kanto starting from Gen 8. There were a few things in S/S, but nothing major. The GMax Pokémon are mostly from Gen 1 and Gen 8, (yes, Garbodor and Melmetal exist, but those are only 2) and the three most popular Pokémon in Galar are Charizard, Gengar and Machamp. Charizard is also Leon’s ace. But it was nowhere near as bad in Gen 7. Gen 8 also had BD/SP and L:A, which focused on Sinnoh/Hisui instead of Kanto. And then in Gen 9… after playing through Violet, I can’t think of a single instance where there was major fan pandering to Gen 1. The only thing that stuck out was the Gen 1 mini-sprites on the Alfornada observatory, but that’s very minor and it didn’t bother me at all.
Now, to reply to the third paragraph of your post. You’re right about what can be considered “natural” is very subjective. I personally find the fan pandering in X/Y to feel way more natural than in the Alola games, while you feel the opposite, and that’s totally fine! I might also feel this way because I have a much stronger positive feelings to Kalos and Gen 6 than to Alola and Gen 7 (I still like it, but not as much as Gen 6, and maybe not as much as I did in the past either), while you adore Alola.
I’m glad you still like X/Y. I recently played them a little as well (on their anniversary date) and it was fun. Kalos is a pretty region that’s really fun to explore. The games have very solid gameplay and many good features/mechanics. While I agree that 10 years is the nostalgia threshold, I still don’t feel nostalgic for X/Y. To me, they still feel recent. I can’t say I have nostalgia for them yet, only memories. It feels like these past 10 years just flew by, time moves so fast… I guess that’s what happens when you get older.
I think that’s all I have to say about this subject. Apologies for this mega-long off-topic post. Now, let’s get back to the actual topic at hand! I thought it over and came up with one more thing I have changed my opinion about.
Prior to Gen 8, I used to have a very strong dislike for jerk rivals. I thought they were the worst type of rivals and I never wanted to see any more of them. The reason for this was of course Blue and Silver, I think both of them are awfully written in their games and I consider them to be the worst rivals in the series. Regarding Gladion, I don’t consider him to be a jerk rival, more like a mostly edgy but also friendly rival. Either way, this was how I felt about jerk rivals. Then Gen 8 happened. I played Sword and met Bede, the first jerk rival since Silver… and to my own surprise, I thought he was okay. Not perfect, but way better written and far more interesting than Blue or Silver. Did Game Freak just make a jerk rival that wasn’t bad? I never expected that to happen.
I then bought the DLC, started playing the Isle of Armor, met Klara… and once I was done with the IoA story, I was surprised. Not only was Klara an excellent jerk rival, she eventually became my favorite rival in the series. So thanks to S/S and the DLC, I changed my mind. I still prefer friendly rivals on the whole, but Gen 8 has showed me that jerk rivals aren’t automatically bad. It is just Blue and Silver that suck because they are so poorly written in their games. Jerk rivals can still be good if they are well-written. Like Klara, and Bede to an extent. I haven’t played Shield, but I have no doubts that Avery is just as great as Klara.
Suspicious Derivative I meant to quote a single line from your post but it's long and I'm on mobile so bear with me when I don't:
>It is just Blue and Silver that suck because they are so poorly written in their games.
BIG BIG BIG disagree here and normally I wouldn't have bothered to bring it up... EXCEPT that my disagreement specifically fits the thread title/concept of "things you've changed your mind on", so it's a perfect place to discuss it.
As a kid, I thought Blue / Gary (since as a kid you really do see them as the same character if you watch the anime and play the game) was a jerk rival, like many others. I got older and read some different takes on it and replayed the games and a few things changed for me.
Basically, I interpret Blue to be wearing a big grin on his face with everything he says and does, and Red to be smirking right back at him in response. Like, the way I read it, Blue isn't actually being mean to Red, but just kind of making smarmy remarks because he knows Red can take it, and because he knows it will help motivate Red to move be the best trainer possible. I read their relationship as being quite friendly in spite of the game trying to say how much they are "rivals", and that this is just the way Blue talks and acts - cocky and arrogant - but in reality it's kind of a persona that's directed toward Red.
I learned just the other day that his quip of "I already caught 40 kinds" on the S.S. Anne is actually impossible if he is playing the same game as the player, because the most you can have at that stage is 38. Either he was lying or he is playing a different game, but either way, 99% of players aren't going to have 40 when they get to him, so he's going to have more every time. Honestly? I think it was intentional. I think things like that and his party at Nugget Bridge having something you can't even encounter yet (Abra) are very, very deliberate and are meant to make *the player* see him as always being one step ahead, just like Red, and his taunts are a way of motivating you to catch up! Whether the player interprets this as jerk behavior or the friendly rivalry I now read it as is specific to the individual, of course, and I'm not going to say anyone's wrong for thinking he is a jerk, but this is an example of my own headcanon has changed over the years.
Also because I literally have been talking about Blue in particular with a friend the last few days and this is a PERFECT chance to spill my opinion
>It is just Blue and Silver that suck because they are so poorly written in their games.
BIG BIG BIG disagree here and normally I wouldn't have bothered to bring it up... EXCEPT that my disagreement specifically fits the thread title/concept of "things you've changed your mind on", so it's a perfect place to discuss it.
As a kid, I thought Blue / Gary (since as a kid you really do see them as the same character if you watch the anime and play the game) was a jerk rival, like many others. I got older and read some different takes on it and replayed the games and a few things changed for me.
Basically, I interpret Blue to be wearing a big grin on his face with everything he says and does, and Red to be smirking right back at him in response. Like, the way I read it, Blue isn't actually being mean to Red, but just kind of making smarmy remarks because he knows Red can take it, and because he knows it will help motivate Red to move be the best trainer possible. I read their relationship as being quite friendly in spite of the game trying to say how much they are "rivals", and that this is just the way Blue talks and acts - cocky and arrogant - but in reality it's kind of a persona that's directed toward Red.
I learned just the other day that his quip of "I already caught 40 kinds" on the S.S. Anne is actually impossible if he is playing the same game as the player, because the most you can have at that stage is 38. Either he was lying or he is playing a different game, but either way, 99% of players aren't going to have 40 when they get to him, so he's going to have more every time. Honestly? I think it was intentional. I think things like that and his party at Nugget Bridge having something you can't even encounter yet (Abra) are very, very deliberate and are meant to make *the player* see him as always being one step ahead, just like Red, and his taunts are a way of motivating you to catch up! Whether the player interprets this as jerk behavior or the friendly rivalry I now read it as is specific to the individual, of course, and I'm not going to say anyone's wrong for thinking he is a jerk, but this is an example of my own headcanon has changed over the years.
Also because I literally have been talking about Blue in particular with a friend the last few days and this is a PERFECT chance to spill my opinion
also alola never really stops you to say "here is a kanto starter you have to take one"
sure Alolan forms are all Kanto Pokemon, but that's also new forms that you don't have to catch, and don't play much a role in the plot.
Alola has fanservice that almost all is explicitly not in your face, while Kalos literally forces you to do Viridian Forest again
In both games, the first encounter is guaranteed to be the same species. Kalos' first guaranteed encounter is a Pidgey. Alolas' first encounter is a Pikipek.
Kalos forces you to see shit while in Alola it's mostly just there to enjoy or dislike, but is rarely something that makes me roll my eyes.
That's fair, and you make some interesting points. I never thought of the relation between Blue and Red that way, and I still don't, but that's a new way (for me) to look at it. In addition, I didn't know that it was impossible to have 40 species registered in your dex at that point during the game. Thanks for sharing!
I should also mention that the reason I wrote that part about jerk rivals was because you mentioned Blue in your post yesterday.
I just explained myself on how I feel about all of these things you mentioned and why, but let's try to make it clear once more.
Forest: Would you ever have noticed that Santalune and Viridian Forest share the same layout if nobody had told you, or if you hadn't looked at the maps? I would definitely not have seen it. That's why I consider it subtle. It's there, but is only notable if you look really close at it.
Starters and forms: X/Y gives you a Kanto starter, but there's nothing forcing you to use it. If you want a Mega, you can go with something from another region (but there aren't that many to choose from during the main story, which is a common criticism that I agree with). Meanwhile, if you want to use an Alolan form, you must use a Kanto Pokémon. And no, I don't consider new forms to be new Pokémon.
Everything else: Alola uses the word "Kanto" many times during the story, while I don't think it is ever used in Kalos. Alola has the Nugget Bridge recreation, a Kantonian Gym, a cave named Diglett's Tunnel, the player has moved from Kanto to Alola, Lille/Gladion goes to Kanto after the main story, Samson Oak is there, we have Red and Blue at the Battle Tree, Rainbow Rocket, and riding on Machamp/Lapras/Tauros/Charizard. Kalos has nothing that's on the same level as this. Kanto Pokémon are also more common in Alola and you are way more likely to run into a Kanto Pokémon than anything else during a majority of the game. THIS is what I mean by "in your face". All of this made me roll my eyes on many occasions, and it detracted the experience many times. Alola literally pushes Kanto in your face and doesn't even try to hide it, while Kalos does it in a way more subtle and natural way. Granted, this is just my opinion on the matter, so if you disagree (which you do), then that's fine. But my (unpopular) opinion still stands: Alola was much worse and way more in your face with the Kanto fan pandering than Kalos, which I thought handled the subject in a more natural and subtle way.
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
Did you watch that video too, because hoo-boy it annoyed me and I'm dying to write something about it
Because the premise is faulty in a bunch of ways:
- There's no indication anywhere that version-exclusive Pokemon are version-exclusive to anyone but you, the player. This is admittedly one of those things where you make your own mind up, but my take has always been that version-exclusivity is simply a case of gameplay/story segregation. It's not that you literally live in a universe where Bellsprout never appears, it's just a way of representing that you're never lucky enough to find one and need to resort to trading for it. Other trainers use Pokemon that aren't in the wild: Blue catches and uses a Growlithe in both Red and Blue, and there's a collector in RS who uses either a Zangoose or Seviper depending on which version he's encountered in, calling it a "rare" Pokemon. So in the Ruby universe, Seviper is incredibly uncommon - that's all. There's no in-universe reason that a player of LeafGreen couldn't catch an Electabuzz or a player of Ruby can't catch a Lotad; they just don't because of a gameplay contrivance. Hell, the amount of NPCs who ask for Pokemon found right outside their city for something rare has always made this more plausible - some people can't get away from Spearow, other people can't find one novmatter how hard they try.
- Speaking of trading, as several people commented on the video said, for all we know Blue arrived in a location five minutes before us and met an NPC who wanted to trade a Rattata for a Scyther. We trade Pokemon with NPCs, but it's not as if other NPCs don't; we even see a few doing it. There's presumably only one girl in Vermilion trading a Farfetch'd, so why would we assume Blue gets that? There's literally every possibility that he's obtained Pokemon we haven't. Another rebuttal was regarding evolution stones. We're only finding the items we find - there's nothing to say Blue didn't pick up fifteen Moon Stones in Mt Moon, or randomly find a Water Stone in Cerulean City.
- The person who made the video states that clearly Blue can't have strong Pokemon other than those we fight. Except right after the battle with him in Lavender Town, he has five Pokemon, and tells you he just caught a Cubone. "Just" could plausibly mean "earlier today" instead of "five minutes ago" but I think from context he means the latter. It's the old "do NPCs have more Pokemon on their teams than we see" argument and yes, I happen to think so. He also mentions training "teams" of Pokemon so I think it's absolutely fair to assume he's got a lot more than the ones we fight, and has evolved a lot of them.
- As you point out, he's likely already been to places we haven't yet. So the idea that he's "playing like the player" is bunkum. Gary in the anime had a car and an entourage; I don't think that Blue has those, but he's Professor Oak's grandson and likely has all sorts of advantages you don't; he even mockingly tells the player that he'll tell his sister not to give you a Town Map, so who knows what other gadgets and items he has to make his life easier?
- Zooming out, the wider point is that Blue is always ahead of us. So there's every chance he didn't encounter the same roadblocks we did. He might have: gotten to Saffron City before the guards closed the gates or gotten through Mt Moon before the Super Nerd blocked the path. Hell, he might have been to the Safari Zone and back before the Snorlax came and blocked the road south of Lavender Town (how else does he have an Exeggcute in the Pokemon Tower battle?)
- And "40" is unlikely to be an exact figure in any case. People are always so literal-minded when it comes to dialogue like this.
Sorry, diverting the point of my own thread a little but that video bugged the hell out of me when I saw it and I'd been dying to write this.
I didn't watch the video, a friend of mine did and told me about it.
I agree with your points 1, 2, 3, and 4. But here's the thing: the reason why I agree is that I don't think the debate about whether Blue is lying, whether he has access to trading, whether he has been to other places, all that is even relevant. It's obvious you see those points as being relevant to a refutation of the video's logic, and I agree that the logic is flawed, but the thing is is that I have a different view on what's actually the relevant part of the game pointing out his Pokédex number:
I agree with your points 1, 2, 3, and 4. But here's the thing: the reason why I agree is that I don't think the debate about whether Blue is lying, whether he has access to trading, whether he has been to other places, all that is even relevant. It's obvious you see those points as being relevant to a refutation of the video's logic, and I agree that the logic is flawed, but the thing is is that I have a different view on what's actually the relevant part of the game pointing out his Pokédex number:
This is the point. If you take a look at my post, I said:
I say 99% because I'm accounting for the people who trade before the S.S. Anne. You can obviously get a lot more than just version exclusives just by trading with your friend who already beat the game, and I have no way of knowing how many people did that kind of thing back in the day, but I would guess the majority of players a) both didn't do a whole lot of trading during the game's story, and b) weren't evolving every Pokémon they captured (in part because they may not have known how, for the Moon Stone guys, and in part because I doubt the player has a level 36 starter and Pidgeot by that time). So it's my view that in the vast majority of cases the player wouldn't have 40 Pokémon and therefore Blue would be a step ahead, but a very plausible step because a new player with 21 entries registered in their Pokédex would probably see 40 as a plausible target to beat considering they would have already seen Pokémon from areas the player can't even access yet (Onix, Machop, Poliwag, Staryu, Starmie) and might not know that they actually were unobtainable at that stage. A young player with 21 entries in their dex could probably reasonably do some quick math to arrive at 40 as being a possibility, but one they failed out, whereas if the game told you Blue caught 120 entries I think the Pokédex 'battle' would have been over before it started. Whether or not 40 was even intended to be literal, I think the point of noting the 38 species trivia is (or at least should be, like I said I didn't watch the video) to point out that choosing the exact number 40 deliberately, if indeed it was done deliberately, has the effect of making it seem like's he one step ahead. It's is the character building that makes him appear that way: of course in 2023 we all know he is the Champion so he can't not be one step ahead of you, but back in a player's first run, you had to get that across to the player somehow!
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
Sure, I just had to get all that off my chest (...keyboard? whatever) because it bugged me for being such a flawed premise.
I mean hell I'm not going to tell anyone not to think deeply about single lines of dialogue or esoterica from this series, I do it all the time. Mostly I was just annoyed at myself for watching all 25 minutes of it, it's a ridiculous length for a video of that nature.
Every time Mew gets cloned, it always seems to result into a Mewtwo, so maybe this happens anytime experiments are done on a Mew, whether it's in Kanto, Unova, or Kalos.
Any video about an obscure and unlikely minor topic gets a thumbs up from me for novelty alone. (See also: the construction site in Vermilion City)
About Giovanni and Mewtwo, I thought him getting a Legendary Pokémon was out-of-character because "Team Rocket was a grounded organization that seeks profit, not world domination!"
But then it hit me.
Giovanni wants profit, but most importantly, he wants power. He wants to be the strongest Trainer in the world.
Also, Kanto's Legendary Pokémon aren't mythological figures, but rather powerful cryptids, Mewtwo being the strongest of all.
With that in mind, Giovanni catching Mewtwo in the games does make a bit of sense.
And USUM's Episode R is basically "Giovanni already took over his planet, so he tries to one-up himself by taking over the multiverse too."
As for me, I used to be a big denier of the "Kangaskhan was Cubone's mom" theory. Even if Cubone kinda looks like Kangaskhan's baby, I very much believed they are completely unrelated species, and that Kangaskhan was just an endangered species (hence why it's a rare catch in the Safari Zone only).
This lasted until a certain leak that showed a Marowak carrying a baby on its pouch. And even then, my initial reaction was denial.
I mean, Marowak3 & Kangaskhan existed at the same time. If anything that should have further cinched it for you; they're unrelated.
As for me, I used to be a big denier of the "Kangaskhan was Cubone's mom" theory. Even if Cubone kinda looks like Kangaskhan's baby, I very much believed they are completely unrelated species, and that Kangaskhan was just an endangered species (hence why it's a rare catch in the Safari Zone only).
This lasted until a certain leak that showed a Marowak carrying a baby on its pouch. And even then, my initial reaction was denial.
Even after gen 1, where they like to play up having Kangaskhan & Cubone being near each other, they're still distinctly unrelated they just like to put them together since one's a protective mother and the other is a baby orphan.
Not going to quote all the posts that caught my attention but just some thoughts.
The Kanto/Gen 1 pandering was definitely far more noticeable and in your face in Kalos than Alola, if certain aspects of these don’t bother you that’s great but it was undeniably more forced in Gen 6. Um also is it just me or is 20th Anniversary far more of a good excuse for some Genwunning then just because? (perhaps it was impacted by some of the negative response to the soft reboot in the initial B/W games?)
Rivals are an interesting topic - for me they basically come in 3 types. Gen 8 kinda tried to do all 3 (overly friendly, neutral rivalry, jerk rival) with Hop, Marnie and Bede.
I definitely prefer the latter two (as concepts at least) to the former. I liked a lot of things about Nemona but she was very overly friendly from the beginning which annoyed me. Arven/Penny are harder to define since they aren’t really rivals in the traditional sense initially (especially Penny) but Arven is definitely standoffish before warming up to us and both relationships felt a bit more natural.
The Kanto/Gen 1 pandering was definitely far more noticeable and in your face in Kalos than Alola, if certain aspects of these don’t bother you that’s great but it was undeniably more forced in Gen 6. Um also is it just me or is 20th Anniversary far more of a good excuse for some Genwunning then just because? (perhaps it was impacted by some of the negative response to the soft reboot in the initial B/W games?)
Rivals are an interesting topic - for me they basically come in 3 types. Gen 8 kinda tried to do all 3 (overly friendly, neutral rivalry, jerk rival) with Hop, Marnie and Bede.
I definitely prefer the latter two (as concepts at least) to the former. I liked a lot of things about Nemona but she was very overly friendly from the beginning which annoyed me. Arven/Penny are harder to define since they aren’t really rivals in the traditional sense initially (especially Penny) but Arven is definitely standoffish before warming up to us and both relationships felt a bit more natural.
I liked it when someone changed my mind about gen 1's A story and main antagonist is actually the gym leaders and Rival respectively and the Team Rocket stuff is kind of a side B plot that just kinda happens to the player. Makes me enjoy the gen 1 game's story a lot more
Her benefit isn't really the same as the rest. The Legendary Pokemon basically abducted her husband. She wants to get her husband back and associates UB-01 with her family. There is no "benefits" outside of sentimental ones.
Which is better writing. Better writing is character writing.
This isn't a bad thing anyways.
This isn't really in full context, there's an actual timeline because Lusamine is an actual character where things change at different times in the story. Which unlike the other villains with shit regarding kids, isn't the case.
Plus, this isn't really "cliche" or bad writing. You're just writing traits in a flashy order to make a character sound, what, generic?
Where an entirely different, much smaller team of developers rewrote her and basically removed the climax of Lusamine and Lillie's arc? All because corporate didn't want to keep a conventionally attractive character as irredeemable when they wanted to put her in things like Pokemon Masters? Damn, that's really a flaw in her writing! We gotta ignore the original which had 20x more devs, was worked on for three years, and was... the original.
You haven't.
Not only did you misunderstand Lusamine's character but you brought it down to the base traits and didn't realize what made Sun and Moon well-written in the first place: It's a story about characters. The Pokemon serve the plot and characters, not the other way around.
Ghetsis, Giovanni, whatever; Wow, they own a big organization! A criminal organization, and they were always criminals. Giovanni never was making some genuine effort to be a good person, he was always an evil mafioso bossman. Ghetsis was a manipulator from the start, and found an orphan to manipulate him and try to become ruler of Unova.
Lusamine's motivations are entirely personal, and about an actual decline. Team Aether was not always some evil, fucked up organization, Lusamine and her husband, Poke Pelago guy (Mohn) by the way, liked their jobs of helping Pokemon. Which is why Mohn still helps Pokemon even with amnesia when he ends up on a random island.
The event of losing her husband to a Nihilego Ultra Wormhole is what started the decline. Lusamine started to detest what her kids were becoming, became obsessed with finding Nihilego and that "beauty" (which is why Lillie is dressed like one), and yes, abused her children. Gladion leaves earlier as he cannot abide by her and her abuse of Type: Null, which he is aware of. Lillie with her abuse of Cosmog as well.
The game is basically about Lillie reclaiming her confidence and self-worth from an abusive mother, and a legendary Pokemon and the player helps push her forward. That's what makes Pokemon Sun and Moon well-written compared to the other games. Giovanni is a bad man from the start, if anything they try to slightly redeem him later (which wasn't a characterization from the sequel, they try in Pocket Monsters Red and Pocket Monsters Green), and Giovanni is just batshit insane.
Lusamine-Nihilego is the climax of Sun and Moon, and Lillie commands the evolved Nebby to attack in a cutscene. This is actually, in my opinion, the most earned ending to any climax in the entire series. She has grown as a character enough to be able to attack her abusive Mother and Monster hybrid.
Lusamine is not like any other antagonist before her, nor is she badly written, nor is she a bad or generic or cliche character. She's just good, and never take a shit on Sun and Moon's writing within a 500,000 mile radius of me ever again. Good night.
Yeah I think a few things have been oversimplified there to push your negative views on the subject..
Also hey I really loved in Emerald how we had both teams being the bad guys - I’d love this to be a thing in a future generation, either you the player being caught between the two evil forces, or something like a team with a specific vendetta against you vs a team with a more overarching goal.
While I loved Team Skull and Team Star’s leaders (sorry not sorry Team Yell you suck), I’d love to see a shift in the future to have some teams/bosses remaining irredeemably evil - perhaps with a rematchable team boss hiding in his lair waiting for the time where he can finally beat you. I kinda miss that.
Its not just a lack of “jerk” rivals, even the “villainous” teams at this point are becoming much more nice. It’d be interesting to see how they could develop a proper villainous team with more of the character nuance they have relative to older games.
Also hey I really loved in Emerald how we had both teams being the bad guys - I’d love this to be a thing in a future generation, either you the player being caught between the two evil forces, or something like a team with a specific vendetta against you vs a team with a more overarching goal.
While I loved Team Skull and Team Star’s leaders (sorry not sorry Team Yell you suck), I’d love to see a shift in the future to have some teams/bosses remaining irredeemably evil - perhaps with a rematchable team boss hiding in his lair waiting for the time where he can finally beat you. I kinda miss that.
Its not just a lack of “jerk” rivals, even the “villainous” teams at this point are becoming much more nice. It’d be interesting to see how they could develop a proper villainous team with more of the character nuance they have relative to older games.
Hmm. Touché. At first, I was reading this thinking you were trying to... for lack of a better word, "get upset with me", but then I actually turned my brain on for more than five seconds and realized you were just trying to help me understand why these characters are well-written and even pretty unique. I still think some of my points do stand, namely the idea that Pokémon loves to make the leaders of recognized companies a "twist villain" at some point, but that's not really a character design flaw aimed at Lusamine and her family specifically. All I know for certain is that it's been a very long time since I've played one of the Alola games (In fact, I think that's the region I've played least recently) so it's very possible I just forgot about a lot of this, but either way I still want to respect and value these opinions on my own opinions if that makes sense.
Edit to prevent double posting
If it felt like I was doing that to save space in an already crammed post and as somewhat of an exaggeration to get my points across... you would be exactly right. I mainly wanted to illustrate the lack of originality with a lot of these guys more than anything, since with a franchise as big as Pokémon, it's not nearly as often as it could or should be that the envelope of what makes a "good antagonist/villain" is pushed in recent installments. To ant4456's credit, at least the Aether Foundation's "villainous phase" was primarily built around their family dynamic starting when Lusamine lost her husband.
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I'm not mad at you per se, I was just a bit cranky and used your post as my soapbox to show others who may not know the deeper intricacies of Sun and Moon's writing, too. I wrote it at let's see... I posted it at around 4:42 AM here, took about 10-20 minutes to write, haha. Lusamine is a twist villain, but also Lillie does hint to it. She tends to shy away from her origin (explicitly, the game even calls attention to it), and implies her distaste of her clothes/style chosen by Lusamine very early on. I think it's done well, and Lillie clearly doesn't want to go to Aether Paradise. So there is something telling you that something is wrong, and in my opinion it's done fine enough.
Also, on the mention of Team Skull, I like Team Skull a lot. It's based on the concept of real world teen gangs, and I think it does a good job. While they are pushed as comedic relief, their struggle is something that can be found in real life commonly:
A sense of belonging. Guzma is basically their charismatic leader, and they tend to mention/discuss about how they have felt alienated from society. Which is pretty realistic for these sorts of groups. It also could play at some undertones of issues in the lower class, and Guzma has explicitly been abused by his father. He also turned to this because of his feeling that he was denied by society, which is part of his anger with Kukui.
When replaying Generation 7, I hope those of you who didn't take Team Skull seriously (which I don't blame you, they're clearly meant to be comedic relief at first) and see how a lot of their existence is at least partially caused by a society designed to reject many youth, and how a gang can actually form: lots of people that feel they do not belong anywhere else, with a common hatred.
Basically, they're punks, which yeah; duh. But I think it's pretty tasteful and well-done as well.
I didn't like Team Star as much, I felt that they didn't really build them up nearly as well. My biggest issue with Scarlet/Violet is its episodic nature and how most events cannot be put into one order, which duh, but also yeah can make things weaker without a specific type of story. Arven survived the best because they had a more specific type of story for it. I feel like Penny as a leader, like, makes sense but also doesn't? The game tries to make a big deal about who the leader is, but if I'm honest? I thought the Director Clavell fight was actually super hype in comparison to the actual real-re-reveal of who is the leader of Team Star.
I'm not gonna claim it's badly written per se as I would have to play the game more, and actually analyze the text, but I just didn't enjoy it much.
On the topic of villains, I feel like we just need a change of pace. I love Team Skull, but three comedic relief evil teams in a row is a bit much. Just like how people who played since Gen 1, by the time of Team Plasma, were making parodies on Youtube about how evil teams were all the same and boring and too Generically Evil, you just need changes of pace, I think.
I remember being suspicious of Aether Foundation as soon as they were revealed. Team Skull just didn't have the resources to be a credible threat in a legendary-focused plot, but here's an outside organization that does. So I have a hard time considering them actually being villainous as a twist.
While I get what you mean, I want to say that no, Sun and Moon isn't really a "legendary-focused plot", that's what makes Sun and Moon pretty unique in my opinion.
In most Pokemon plots, the characters, the humans, serve only one real purpose: to setup and bring you in to see the Legendary Pokemon. In Sun and Moon, the Legendary Pokemon serve only one real purpose; to setup and bring you in to see the characters at their worst, or best.
The worst; Lillie running from the Aether Foundation, visibly aghast and scared to death. She clutches herself, and the legendary, Cosmog, brings her out. But the focus isn't just on Nebby, it's setting up Lillie for the game. When we see Nebby next, it's not really about Lillie but instead the player, and this scene is for a specific role. Later in the game at Poni Poni Canyon, Lillie after her arc is almost complete, will do something similar to the player.
The player's role (story wise) for most of the game is to support Lillie, and in the introduction we see why, and how Lillie will gain inspiration from the player character. Crossing that rocky bridge with full confidence to save Nebby. Of course, it also sets up Tapu Koko as well, and etc. etc. etc. From here on out, Nebby is mostly comedic relief and plays a very small role for a lot of the game.
When Nebby is brought up in the middle part of the game, it's also usually to push Lillie to another location, and is less about how Nebby is driving the plot forward.
While Lusamine wants to use Nebby for her goal, in this way Nebby is not really being used as the character to be interested in. The point is how these unethical practices and Lusamine's interests (downright insanity) has created such a divide between Lillie and her Mother.
And Nebby evolving does drive the plot forward, but it also is mostly there to bring good plot moments for Lillie and ultimately for Lillie to command Nebby to attack Mother Beast.
I could go into similar stuff about Nihilego, etc., but the only other plots that come kind of close to this is Black and White and Scarlet and Violet. Both of which are also considered to have above average writing for the series, and I think that's for good reason; I hope Game Freak learns the right lesson, even if Sword and Shield in my opinion failed it.