Literally the next post.
Did I jinx myself for posting this?
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Pokemon feels like the game series with the single most wasted potential of all time
- Thread starter Revolsin
- Start date
Literally the next post.
I think pokemon is just straight up not comparable to other jrpgs. How many other jrpgs are basically a one on one battlesystem? This alone changes how you design most systems... Especially your "characters".
DQ11 isn't really comparable because it is just a typical jrpg. Monsters just roam the fields without much thought put into reason or power levels. Thinking about most jrpg logic reveals how plain stupid most are and that world building is crap.
Pokemon needs changes but not in the it should be a AAA openworld game.
Make the game non linear. You start somewhat Center of the Region. You can basically choose the route and some have level recommendations. Thr gym leaders scale with the amount of batches. Their job is to test your skills and not feel like a push over. (Brock basically did this in the anime ova)
DQ11 isn't really comparable because it is just a typical jrpg. Monsters just roam the fields without much thought put into reason or power levels. Thinking about most jrpg logic reveals how plain stupid most are and that world building is crap.
Pokemon needs changes but not in the it should be a AAA openworld game.
Make the game non linear. You start somewhat Center of the Region. You can basically choose the route and some have level recommendations. Thr gym leaders scale with the amount of batches. Their job is to test your skills and not feel like a push over. (Brock basically did this in the anime ova)
Have they not upgraded the visuals coming from Sun and Moon? Even games in the same generation of consoles always end up looking better than the last, sometimes it's even very apparent like the jump from Diamond and Pearl to HeartGold and SoulSilver, then again to Black and White, XY to Sun and Moon, and so on.
This is their first full-fledged HD game, I'm sure there's room for improvement. Even within this same game, they have time before release to make improvements, as they have done in the past.
Yeah, perhaps I was a little too crass and I apologize. I should have worded that better, it's not fair to Game Freak.
I'm merely speaking as a person fed up with what I perceive to be a waste of an IP with a massive amount of potential. But it is my opinion and I understand many others do not share it.
OP
OP
Linearity makes perfect sense when it's actually serving a purpose. Uncharted and The Last of Us are excellent linear games that makes full use of their linearity to provide the best graphics they can on top of a continously engaging story.
What does linearity in Pokemon do, actually? In what way shape or form is it enhancing the game?
Linearity is a choice that comes with the disadvantage of not allowing player freedom in the world. If it's not made with reason, it shouldn't be there.
This pretty much all facts. What I deem to be the issue is:
- Pokemon is annualized
- there is only 1 dev
- so it's essentially like a sports title, minus the AAA status.
What I think would have to happen is, either TPC & Nintendo need to come together & bolster GF or they would have to treat Pokémon like CoD with a rotating set of dev teams making the games. Ppl like to say "oh we don't want a different studio making Pokémon" but fact of the matter is that's sssentially what already happens. The team that made LG & SS are full of new talent that wasn't there before. As long as leadership of the new studios comes from GF/TPC & design pillars are set I don't see any reason why new teams couldn't make good, true to series mainline Pokémon games.
But that's just my interpretation of it.
- Pokemon is annualized
- there is only 1 dev
- so it's essentially like a sports title, minus the AAA status.
What I think would have to happen is, either TPC & Nintendo need to come together & bolster GF or they would have to treat Pokémon like CoD with a rotating set of dev teams making the games. Ppl like to say "oh we don't want a different studio making Pokémon" but fact of the matter is that's sssentially what already happens. The team that made LG & SS are full of new talent that wasn't there before. As long as leadership of the new studios comes from GF/TPC & design pillars are set I don't see any reason why new teams couldn't make good, true to series mainline Pokémon games.
But that's just my interpretation of it.
It allows for much better balance because you'll know that a player character will be at X point at around Y level, so you can design encounters for that.
An open world Pokemon game would require some kind of level scaling that might not flow as well or be a linear game in disguise because higher leveled Pokemon and trainers would effectively gate you to one path.
I agree with this point 100% and it is extremely annoying that people keep trying to mention that the ones complaining about the current formula are asking for something that is not Pokémon. I love Pokémon, I just want the look of it to be as ambitious as one might expect from the most popular multimedia franchise in the world. I don't want an MMO, I don't want it to be open world. I want to walk through the cities and forests the way they have been portrayed in promo/concept art for years.
But isn't that a different conversation altogether? You are of course correct, there is little reason for them to change when they are so succesful by doing what they know. But that doesn't stop many fans from being disappointed.
To me it always seemed like Game Freak really wanted to sell the idea of going out in the world of Pokémon to have a great adventure and explore, almost (if not just) as much as the creatures themselves. On the Game Boy, the Pokémon games were the biggest adventures in games I could possibly imagine, and it's disappointing that for many people, that has not been the case in a long time.
Sure.
Sun and Moon had a clear focus on the story and characters. You may not like it, but they said being on more powerful hardware entices them to be even more expressive and tell better stories. They can keep improving the story aspect going forward and also improve the world itself, but that's not saying there wasn't a reason for the increase in linearity.
Also since these games are designed for handheld on the go play being linear means the player will always know where to go (forward) when they start playing again.
Pokémon may be almost annualized, but new generations have a development cycle of 3+ years every time. They're not making these games in a year, and they already have different teams working on them within the company itself, on top of a lot of outsourcing and great resources management.
Whenever someone says P5 isnt a big enough change from the others, im just going to show them the dancing game. Checkmate.
I completely agree op.
Can we least have the options to speed up the combat so it's not slow as molasses?
Can we make the campaigns have teeth so I'm not one-shotting 90% of encounters with a single fairy type move?
Can we have more post-game content?
If even those issues were addressed, my enjoyment of these games would be improved immensely.
FFS, we don't even know if S&S will feature trainer appearance customization or the option for Pokémon to follow you in the over world :(
Can we least have the options to speed up the combat so it's not slow as molasses?
Can we make the campaigns have teeth so I'm not one-shotting 90% of encounters with a single fairy type move?
Can we have more post-game content?
If even those issues were addressed, my enjoyment of these games would be improved immensely.
FFS, we don't even know if S&S will feature trainer appearance customization or the option for Pokémon to follow you in the over world :(
OP
OP
I just don't understand why people aren't getting that inbetweens exist.
The immediate next step for pokemon isn't a huge jump into a directionless open world. Linearity and openness have a big range. Simply something like Xenoblade Chronicles is more than enough. That game balances levels, and tells a cohesive pretty good story while being far more open in nature than Pokemon(while not actually being an open world at all).
Moving on from corridors and barricades every two steps isn't becoming open world people.
USUM are far from being easy, even for me who played every single mainline game from the start of the series. They also have a lot of postgame content as shown by the 300+ hours I spent on them. I find the battle speed to be just fine, but that's coming from someone who also found gen 4 and games like FF9 to be just fine speed-wise, so I guess I'm easy to please in that part.
Does like anyone care about balance in Pokemon in the story.
Sun and Moon are super cake walk unless you limit yourself and turn off XP Share and avoid battles and don't use many items... Same for the other games.
They're clearly terrified of going all Breath-of-the-Wild on the series because they're still selling tremendously well and don't want to "ruin" the appeal.
On this note, how about they bring back difficulty levels, but not in a dumb way like BW2? Give us the ability to select our difficulty from the very beginning.
So like every other Pokemon game ever made.
They're just easier to you because you know how to play them now. Making them unbalanced open world would just make all the players who haven't mastered the systems like you have an even harder time.
Oh no, I don't think we saw enough of Sword and Shield to criticize them like that... yet.
Which would be easier to account for in a linear game. :v
I would love a Pokémon game like Xenoblade 2, but that is a really high bar to reach as I consider it to have one of the best worlds if not the best world of any game ever, and it's not fair to call the developers incompetent because they're not able to make something like that yet. The new region seems really big and cool from what little I've seen, so they're already improving, and at a pace I consider reasonable.
I agree, OP. In my humble opinion, Pokémon Sword & Shield was the most boring Pokémon reveal ever. I was looking forward to it after the ok Let's Go games, but now I'm skipping it. It simply looks like an HD upscaled version of the 3DS games. Of course certain parts look better and all that jazz, but the overall artstyle and vibes is just like the 3DS games in my eyes. And that is no good. And the starters are equally as average looking too. Let's Go was ok for what it was trying to do, just a chill and fun chibi looking remake of a classic GB game, but for the brand new generation, I was expecting something bigger, but it seems it's going to be the same-y stuff we have seen on Pokémon for the last decade or so. Game Freak is tide to making an RPG Pokémon yearly so that clearly is not enough time to make the Pokémon revolution ala BotW we've been hoping.
At least I'm hyped af for the detective Pikachu movie.
At least I'm hyped af for the detective Pikachu movie.
I know the hate for Gamefreak, but 3DS games really don't look like that. Not even Chronicles on New 3DS.
Every JRPG does this since forever, and most of them are way more open than Pokemon post DP. You don't have to have your game be just a series of corridors to make sure the enemies will be the right level, that's basic design and GF isn't that incompetent.
Just concede the games are linear because their scope is limited, it's no problem if you're fine with it.
Most JRPGs have 5-9 playable party members.
Pokemon has hundreds.
That's not what I call "limited"
I'm a huge Pokemon fan but I agree with OP. This might sound like a ridiculous jump but I actually think this is a really good example of how capitalism fails the game industry. I feel like the only reason the series isn't more ambitious is because it's obviously more profitable to do things this way, instead of giving the developers significantly more time and resources they're kept on what feels like a mid-tier budget for a yearly release schedule. Because if the development team had the time, resources, and manpower to create a mega-Pokemon dream game with a five year development cycle (huge world, more post-game content than ever before, runs like a dream, etc.), it probably wouldn't significantly increase sales and the publisher would be stuck with one Pokemon game in five years instead of five.
Yes there's years between gens but the mainline games have pretty much been annualized since Platinum in 2009. But idk how big these teams are that are separately making the games
I feel like AR will be a perfect fit for pokemon and it will be exciting to see how far they go with it when the tech is better.
AR glasses + life sized pokemon battling in parks would be cool.
For innovations sake I hope people stop buying the Red/Blue clones they put out each year.
AR glasses + life sized pokemon battling in parks would be cool.
For innovations sake I hope people stop buying the Red/Blue clones they put out each year.
Yeap.
Remember that part in Gold/Silver where when you reach Ecruteak City and get surf and the world just opens up like crazy. You can go left towards Olivine for the next gym. You can go to the right towards Mahogany Town and all the way to the Lake of Rage to catch the Red Gyarados. You can go to the totally optional cave in Route 42 and explore and find a Tyrogue. You can go back to Union cave and surf and explore previous inaccessable areas of the cave and find a Lapras.
In Sun/Moon you can't walk 10 steps without a cutscene telling you to go somewhere or having a Tauros block the path or having literal waist high gates block a route unless you beat a trial.
Sorry, I thought we were talking about linearity?
How many party members you can have doesn't affect enemy balancing in the slightest, the exp system is the same. Pokemon itself has been more open in the past allowing for players to beat certain gyms in different orders, and the balance didn't suffer.
There's no excuse for how linear SM are except for that's how GF chose to do it.
There is no difference in gameplay with those party members at all aside from stats, except for the handful gimmick Pokemon there are in every gen. And they aren't even all that different most of the time either.
The newest Fire Emblem games have hundreds of recruitable party members too, for that matter.
The "there are just too many Pokemon" excuse has always ticked me off. Especially considering how GameFreak has already shown us they don't care about cutting Pokemon at all.
Remember that part in Gold and Silver where the game's level curve became a flat line and you spent hours fighting level 20 Pokemon until the game made a massive cliffside you had to climb over and then did it again once you reached Mt. Silver. Remember how boring and empty the world was?
The only reason Gen 2 isn't the worst Generation is that Gen 1 exists.
Uh, no? A Pokemon has typing, stats, moves, and abilities. That's tons of variation between each evolutionary line.
In Fire Emblem for the vast majority of the games there's just stats.
And why would you want them to cut Pokemon?
In Sun and Moon when you get access to surf you can go back to MeleMele and explore the sea routes, when you get Tauros you can go back and explore Ten Carat Hill, there's Seaward Cave which is optional and that leads to Kala'e Bay, the Lake of the Sunne/Moone which you can visit when you want and isn't locked even though you can only get Cosmog in the post-game, etc.
I like how people talk down on the battle system when in reality it's probably the only JRPG with PvP and backwards compatibility, which the games are balanced around, not PvE. That limits how much you can affect the battle system, and the core is basically perfect as is. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
The most they should do is directly buff some forgotten Pokemon like they buffed Nidoking's base Attack stat on top of the new generational addition. And add an unobtrusive Easy/Challenge Mode from BW2.
It can do with a bigger world on the levels of Xenoblade 1 and 2, but don't touch the battle system and turn it into a shitty action RPG. With 800+ Pokemon that's not happening.
The most they should do is directly buff some forgotten Pokemon like they buffed Nidoking's base Attack stat on top of the new generational addition. And add an unobtrusive Easy/Challenge Mode from BW2.
It can do with a bigger world on the levels of Xenoblade 1 and 2, but don't touch the battle system and turn it into a shitty action RPG. With 800+ Pokemon that's not happening.
Call me crazy, but I'm fine with where Pokemon is now. I love when a new game comes out and I can just relax and enjoy it casually. I know I'm in the minority on that one. But the familiarity and ease of play is just right for me. I love running around, finding a cute new Pokemon, and training and bonding with it. I personally don't need much more than that.
Playing Let's Go over Thanksgiving break was honestly one of the highlights of my year last year. During a stressful time, it was a purely relaxing experience.
Playing Let's Go over Thanksgiving break was honestly one of the highlights of my year last year. During a stressful time, it was a purely relaxing experience.
Typing
--Basically just changes the damage formula with the stats.
Moves
-Aside from the gimmicky moves, they are 80% of the time single or multi-attacks just based on the Att/Sp At stat.
Abilities
-I would give you this, if it wasn't because most abilities are boring as all fuck and barely change gameplay.
Also nice strawman there, when the Fire Emblem games I mentioned have different classes, weapons, personal growths, gameplay styles, roles in the battlefield, abilities; both by class and personal, and stats.
And for your last point, I just want people to stop using the shitty excuse that Pokemon cannot do better because of it's vast amount of Pokemon, when the series is still selling amazing when they cut six damn generations of Pokemon for no damn reason.
You say this so casually like it doesn't somehow massively effect how a Pokemon plays.
Typing is hugely important to a Pokemon, type weaknesses and resistances will determine a lot about what said Pokemon can face and what moves it can use.
A Fire/Flying type is going to be put in different roles in a fight than a Water/Steel type. Pokemon's asymmetrical type chart means there's tons of variance just from typing alone.
Both of these show me that you haven't ever played Pokemon.
"Gimmicky" moves are by far the most important moves. What utility a Pokemon can offer with those moves is far more important in most cases then its damage moves.
And abilities, barely changing gameplay? That's absurd, most Pokemon are made by their abilities. A core part of their usability comes from them. A Pokemon with Guts completely changes the status effect dynamic for example.
Not one of these is even half as important as a Pokemon's typing.
Classes in Fire Emblem are basically just shorthand. It effects a characters base stats, caps, and weapon use. The difference between a Myrmidon and a Mercenary is literally just a handful of stats. Weapons are a ton more limited than moves. They're basically just the same attack for different aspects of the weapon triangle, with maybe a utility weapon to get bonus damage against a specific type of enemy.
And skills are far from universal in Fire Emblem games.
Your argument falls short when I played 4 Pokemon gens when I was a kid. Maybe I was just dumb and never figured out this complex and deep battle system every Pokemon fan speaks of.
I like watching Pokemon features grow and evolve.
Unfortunately I have to watch them ditch good features time and time again.
One step forward one step back.
Unfortunately I have to watch them ditch good features time and time again.
One step forward one step back.
It was made for a reason. It's just that the reason is controversial: to make it more "cinematic". There's a reason why every area has a pretty set story beat and cutscenes that must be played in a certain way. That and given how hard it took for the 3DS to render all of the detail (there's a reason triple and rotation battles are out), I don't think the game could handle a large map.
That being said, I don't think that will happen with Sword and Shield. The 3DS isn't around to tie the game around its neck.
I'm willing to give Sword and Shield a chance. Maybe just having the traditional Pokemon experience on a HD TV or portable is all the series needs for now.
I'm not expecting it to be an amazing experience as the trailer didn't show anything new and looked like Sun and Moon with HD assets but with gyms returning. The region looks interesting to explore at least.
I'm not expecting it to be an amazing experience as the trailer didn't show anything new and looked like Sun and Moon with HD assets but with gyms returning. The region looks interesting to explore at least.
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I mean, you deliberately said abilities barely affected gameplay when, in fact, they were one of the biggest, most impactful addition to the combat system. It really shows you never cared to master the combat in these games and only approached it on a superficial level. Which is completely fine, Pokemon is a game for you to play the way you want. But at the same time, it undermines your arguments about the gameplay. Because you haven't experienced all of it.