Neat-ish I guess.
That was my reaction too. I don’t know what I was expecting when it’s exactly what it said it was going to be lol
1 Like
I thought everyone here hated Pokémon? 
I don’t hate Pokemon, I just never really invested time in the franchise but I have respect for those that do.
1 Like
I liked the new one…enough
Those are probably nicest opinions on Pokémon I’ve seen here in years. 
Doesn’t seem like very many people on SRK liked the more recent games. Most of the peeps from the Pokémon thread seem to be gone too. 
I’ll always love Pokémon to some degree because there’s so many different mediums where you can support it besides the video games.
But Sun/Moon, the Lets Go, Pokémon Go and Sword/Shield have all been trash tier. Not unplayable but just genuinely bad games, imo.
All the side games like mystery dungeon are dope. I still read all the manga, I use to follow the card game extensively.
What are some of the bigger footnotes making them so bad?
They don’t have the same sense of adventure
Imo. They’re extremely linear to the point of frustrating. They aggressively hold your hand now. They take all the fun out of the training and grinding by giving you super good items right off the bat, most of the stories are horribly written or horribly paced.
There’s a lot.
I mean I havent played a Pokemon since Platinum which put me to sleep. Before that my last was yellow. So Swords the first one I’ve played in years so I’m not connected, attached to or whatever when it come to Pokemon so most of the stuff that seems to bother people doeant bother me.
Like I don’t give a shit about the missing parts of the Pokedex, far as I’m concerned there are too many already while Pokefans seem to be raging that their favorite stupid dog fighter was left out lol.
1 Like
best part of Gen 8 (IE Sowrd Shield) is the Wild area…literally is what I always envisioned about catching pkmn.
1 Like
Yea The Wild area was sick, I spent all my time there lol. I was “stuck” there for like 30 hours lol.
I think the overall Pokemon experience has been a really over rated one for years now. All these games are imo ok at best team building time wasters.
1 Like
Your sentiments match a lot of what I’ve heard before and a lot of the reasoning here still genuinely confuses me.
Like, when was Pokémon ever challenging? Ever? Forcing me to grind out Geodudes 50 times for every single Pokémon on my team is the exact opposite of fun to me and every game they stray farther from that idea for that very reason. It’s not hard. It’s just time consuming. At the worst, you can just self impose whatever rules you want onto the games to make them more challenging. Except S&S since XP share is always on by default I guess.
In regards to the linearity, I’m not sure I understand because the games have never really been about some huge open world that let’s you go in any direction you want from the start like Dark Souls. You start in the same town every time, move through the same path every time, and backtrack accordingly depending on when you get the right move or item to progress. This has been consistent for pretty much every mainline game.
The story is… Whatever. I don’t think it’s any better or worse than it’s ever been. It’s always some trite, meaningless drivel that’s meant to move you through the game. Black and White were really the only games to have some semblance of mature storytelling. If I want fun stories, I’ve always gone to the shows or movies for that.
Not trying to tell people how to enjoy their games, but I just cannot bring myself to understand a lot of the reasoning the Pokémon community has for completley writing off these newer games. To me the fun has always been exploring these worlds, catching mons, and training up expirimental teams to go head to head with other real trainers. They are relatively short PVE expiriences that end up becoming PVP based expiriences once you finish the solo content. shrug
I think the most reasonable criticism is the big chunk of the National Pokedex missing, but even with that they ended up bringing the vast majority of those guys back while also giving them new forms or moves sometimes.
Out of curiosity: what is your favorite/ideal Pokémon game?
Jade Cacoon. Better then any Pokemon game imo.
1 Like
Googles
Interesting… Should I try the original or go for the sequel?
Never played the sequel so I dunno.
Anyone remember Monster Rancher on PS1? You could generate monsters in that game using your music CD collection.
2 Likes
Despite seeing Monster Rancher merchandise everywhere as a kid that’s one series that somehow completley eluded me.
From a game play stand point: HeartGold/SoulSilver
From a story stand point: BlackWhite/BlackWhite 2
2 Likes
I hate how Game Freak consistently squander the franchise’s potential with ass backwards decisions 24/7.
They’re solid games if you can mod the shit out of them tho. 
Oh boy…
There are several, really.
The most obvious one is how they constantly want to have their cake and eat it too.
Can someone please try to explain what sense does it make for this incessant Kanto pandering with several Kanto OGs getting all sorts of regional formes, G-Max forms, Mega Evos, starter picks on games where they aren’t starters, if the games are incredibly handholdy and easy to the point of boredom?
I really understand that they want to balance the difficulty for their biggest target, the younger audiences.
But then they pander to people who played RBY. Most of these people are at least over 20yo.
Speaking of handholding…
Pokémon games since Sun and Moon suffer from a staggering case of corridor syndrome.
Don’t get me wrong, this is different from linearity.
Pretty much all pokémon games are pretty linear. The Kanto-based ones had a fair chunk of sequence breaking potential and Johto (unfortunately) had its own split path. After that, you have plenty of places to explore, but rarely ways to just skip gyms and do them after different ones.
Not in the latest games. You wanna explore? You better like the Wild Area and the DLC areas.
The routes are extremely linear and often have very simple and blatant small detours at best when they have items. The fixed camera will screw you constantly, especially after the Wild Area.
Got somewhere? Want to keep going a little further and see if you can find some other mons? No good. Here’s an NPC. Yes, an NPC. Because now they removed Field Moves/HMs/Rides so there are no natural obstacles. Just NPCs pushing you around arbitrarily.
The difficulty is just an embarrassment. The AI is as dumb as a sack of bricks. The teambuilding is actively made to gimp most major trainers.
And instead of y’know, difficulty settings, (it’s not impossible or too much work. BW2 had them.) the game just don’t have them.
Then you have outrageously bad decisions. SwSh brought a calamity from LGPE to the main series, the forced Exp. Share.
The Exp. Share takes one of the foundations of the franchise, training your Pokémon, and takes a shit on it. They just get exp out the ass for being in your party. The horrible artifact of Exp. Groups only make it worse.
Then the DLC dropped. And you get an Exp. Charm in an unavoidable story cutscene. This boosts your Exp gain by 50%. So even if SwSh somehow managed to not bungle the level curve, it’s broken now.
Why? You can’t turn it off. And new saves get them as early as the first Wild Area visit.
Then you have technical problems. The infamous OoT trees are just unacceptable no matter how you slice it. The draw distance is abysmal in the Wild Area, sure, but when you go to Motostoke, a city with a fixed camera angle (bad), and get a giant Onix popping into existence in front of your very eyes, I call bullshit.
The games after ORAS and you can probably put that one on the list because of the Infamous Battle Frontier Project, reek of a lack of effort.
Even a blatantly rushed game like XY has signs of genuine effort. SwSh doesn’t get the same.
Really, I could bring something bad about everything in the latest games and probably something good about them if you ask, but I’m too sleepy now.
TL;DR: Pokémon is grossly mismanaged by Game Freak because they don’t have the ambition to realize the series potential to even the bare minimum.
4 Likes
Platinum is pound for pound the GOAT Pokémon game.