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General Discussion & Speculation Thread

Rio!

Composer
Same here. I only spoiled myself things that I was really curious about so I haven't kept up with all the leaks and spoilers that came out and don't intend to check especially when it comes to USUM's main story.

Yeah, I'm all for some suspense, especially when it gets to the story's climax and all. I also checked out the Nat Dex deal these games and saw what I needed to for Duskroc so that was nice to know! I might still take a peek at lists of tutor moves so once I start actually breeding, I'll have a physical list somewhere. Every time I think I've got a team together, something changes my mind. x)


I'm sure we'd all be talking about this morning's trailer if it weren't for the fact that so many people delved into the spoilers. It was actually some very interesting info, but stuff that it seems like most people already knew.

I'll just say this: there are only so many places you can avoid on a pokemon forum on the topic of the new games. Not to say either it's terribly difficult to put one and two together, especially with a visual indicator strikingly similar to happens with Mega evolving/Primal Reversion Pokemon. Even with that, it's still possible to keep the personal hype going.
The trailer in itself was quite good on building up the new moves Alola pokemon will have at their disposal. That art shown prior to the in-game battle about to use Ultra Blast was pretty nifty as well. Is it just me, or has there been more promo art for this region than others? Either way, I'll be one of those dorks still 'oohing and ahhing' the first few times I use that move, haha.

As an aside
I have to say it does take the fun out of speculation when there are certain parties intent on shoving their opinions down other's throats, and rubbing their nose into the metaphorical dirt.
Just agree to disagree and move? Idk, seeing this dragged on for pages is nothing short of exhausting.
 

Thure

Well-Known Member
I would also be totally hyped about the Necrozma trailer... but sadly there was this annoying Thumbnail Spoiler on YouTube...
 

Rio!

Composer
I would also be totally hyped about the Necrozma trailer... but sadly there was this annoying Thumbnail Spoiler on YouTube...

That's a real bummer. It can be a pain avoiding those, especially those 'Recommended for you' vids.
...
One literally has to stay off any kind of website to seeing anything by accident. It's partly why I gave up on Tumblr some time ago. x.x
 
That's a real bummer. It can be a pain avoiding those, especially those 'Recommended for you' vids.
...
One literally has to stay off any kind of website to seeing anything by accident. It's partly why I gave up on Tumblr some time ago. x.x

I went a little extreme and completely cut myself off of YouTube (except new trailers which I watch on my phone, since the formatting on it covers the spoilers), and I'm heavily restricting what I do on Instagram. It may not sound like too much, but since watching videos and browsing through my Instagram feed are two things that take up a lot of my free time, it's actually quite a lot to me. I just wish that people would be more considerate of those who want to avoid spoilers.

As an example, I'm personally not too miffed that I learned about
Ultra Necrozma and the names of what I'm assuming are UBs? I only saw them in Bolt's list of things a while back
Since discovering things involving what's in the spoiler tag actually hasn't ever been much of the experience for me - mainly due to me being a later fan and so entering a franchise which already had a ton of lore, characters, and Pokemon. That's why I looked at that specific spoiler tag in Bolt's list, since it didn't bother me too much if I found out what was inside it. However, if someone doesn't want to be spoiled on things like Pokemon and formes, then I respect that and try my very hardest to keep those spoilers away from someone's eyes. Meanwhile, since I'm a huge story and characters-focused gal, I would be really happy if others could respect my wishes and let me know if there is story spoiler content if I click on something, especially without spoiling what's in the thing before I click it.
 

DanielS

Active Member
I find pokebank incredibly useful seeing as how I don't want to spend $80(used) to $150(new) on a 2ds or 3ds and seeing as my friends don't play Pokemon or own a 3ds it would be difficult to transfer a 97% complete living Dex onto new games without pokebank so $5 is incredibly cheap for the service
 

Bus

Well-Known Member
I prefer to not be spoiled on brand new generations, but for a '3rd version' like this one, I don't mind taking a look at what they have in store.
 

Orphalesion

Well-Known Member
I love spoilers for new generations, I always want to know the new Pokemon as soon as possible. And with new generations there's also plenty to discuss even with everything spoiled and leaked.

With a third version like this there's just not as much to discuss, imho.

Even without spoilers the trailer was pretty much nothing but a succession of Pokemon displaying one new move they have, that's not exactly that much material for discussion.

The only thing that might still lead to a decent amount of speculation is the final part of the trailer. And even without the leaks and spoilers it's fairly clear by now what's going on there. They teased it enough during the pre-release.
Even without any leaks I'd be pretty indifferent to the trailer, bunch of Pokemon showing off a move "wooooo".
 

Bguy7

The Dragon Lord
I prefer to not be spoiled on brand new generations, but for a '3rd version' like this one, I don't mind taking a look at what they have in store.

It's kind of the opposite for me. I'll never look at story spoilers if I can help it, but when a new generation comes around, I want to see the complete list of new Pokémon as soon as possible so I can plan my team, but in a third version, since there are relatively few new things, I like to keep as many of them surprises as possible. I'm especially excited this time around with the possibility of there being Ultra Beasts we haven't seen before and whatever this possible Necrozma form might be. Since they're all things that will likely pop up in the story, I don't need to worry about making sure I know they exist before hand, and I can go in and see a completely new Pokémon while playing a game for the first time ever.
 

Bus

Well-Known Member
It's kind of the opposite for me. I'll never look at story spoilers if I can help it, but when a new generation comes around, I want to see the complete list of new Pokémon as soon as possible so I can plan my team, but in a third version, since there are relatively few new things, I like to keep as many of them surprises as possible. I'm especially excited this time around with the possibility of there being Ultra Beasts we haven't seen before and whatever this possible Necrozma form might be. Since they're all things that will likely pop up in the story, I don't need to worry about making sure I know they exist before hand, and I can go in and see a completely new Pokémon while playing a game for the first time ever.

Fair enough I suppose. A little odd since its kinda backwards lol, but to each their own. From the moment this was announced, I wasn't expecting too much, and as such, I'm sufficiently pleased with everything shown thus far. I'm looking forward to getting a chance to play it on Friday. I had reserved Ultra Moon, but after seeing the exclusives, I'm wondering if I can show up to Gamestop and say "Hey, I'm here to pick up my reserved copy of Pokemon Sun!". I was hoping it may switch a bit from the last gen, but it looks every pokemon I would choose for exclusives are on the Sun side except for Lunaala itself.
 

Darthlord7

The Smug Pikachu
It's kind of the opposite for me. I'll never look at story spoilers if I can help it, but when a new generation comes around, I want to see the complete list of new Pokémon as soon as possible so I can plan my team, but in a third version, since there are relatively few new things, I like to keep as many of them surprises as possible. I'm especially excited this time around with the possibility of there being Ultra Beasts we haven't seen before and whatever this possible Necrozma form might be. Since they're all things that will likely pop up in the story, I don't need to worry about making sure I know they exist before hand, and I can go in and see a completely new Pokémon while playing a game for the first time ever.

We are on the same page. I also check for every new Pokemon that become available in every generation since I always build a regional team which is consisted of new Pokemon for my first playthrough in the new region.
 
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Bguy7

The Dragon Lord
Fair enough I suppose. A little odd since its kinda backwards lol, but to each their own.

I wouldn't say it's backwards, it's just different priorities. The spoilers I care about not being spoiled on are story spoilers, and that's what 90% of Ultra Sun and Moon's spoilers are going to be, just because it's about all there is to spoil in the first place. Before the release of a new generation there are many non-story spoilers to be had, namely, the new Pokémon.
 

BCVM22

Well-Known Member
No, not yet. But it's also between 11 PM and 1 AM across the country. The actual Friday business day - and failing that, the pre-holiday days of next week - are the more important question.
 

Requiem Aeternam

Dance like an eggplant!
Picking up my copies later. Looking forward to playing through Ultra Moon after work. I didn't get my entire team prepared beforehand (mostly due to laziness) so I'll be breeding the last 3 Pokemon in UM. Going to be quite tricky without Bank and the IV Checker but I'll manage. It also means I can get the IV Checker as soon as I reach the Battle Tree if it has the same location and requirements as SM's.
 

PrinceOfFacade

Ghost-Type Master
It's kind of the opposite for me. I'll never look at story spoilers if I can help it, but when a new generation comes around, I want to see the complete list of new Pokémon as soon as possible so I can plan my team,

I'm the exact same way, but for different reasons.

I must know the full roster of a generation before getting the game. If I don't, I feel cheated. Even more so, I don't like going up against a wild pokemon I know literally nothing about. I leave the suspense and surprise to not knowing when I'll bump into a new pokemon, especially one I'm itching to have on my team.
 
So, USUM sells 1,2 million copies in its first three days in Japan. Pretty solid start while not in the same league as the start of the generation. Already a million seller in Japan only, wonder how they've done in the west.
 

Stone Dragon

Well-Known Member
I cant be other only one who is bothered that they changed the first areas a bit and made them look better, but after Hau'oli it's.. the same? The fact that they indeed changed the overworld in the beginning makes it even worse that they just stopped later on. And the empty area on Poni is still empty and has no new bulding like the other ones.
I thought it would be so easy for them to add details to the overworld, but they apparently thought its not neccessary. This really bugs me becuse the region has more potential and they could have added many little details. Platinum had new tilesets, BW2 too afaik. It's not that I expected and set my hopes to high, its just that it's not that big of a deal to change little things.

And I see people comparing the first areas with Sun/Moon to point out how muc they changed. These people probably never played longer.
 

Boss1991

Pokémon Master
So this is my opinion of USUM:

I think it is a solid game when rated individually. But I think it falls short from every other third version/ sequel except Crystal. Not only in relation to when each game is released, but even when judging all previous third versions by today's standards.

I think the main issue with USUM is that most of the developers energy went into one-off improvements: things that can only be enjoyed one time unless you reset your game: the new story additions, the postgame RR plot, the plethora of small event missions scattered around the region in the postgame, etc. Once you do those things, you are left with not so much content (and by content, I mean stuff you can do on a daily basis. Over and over again, when you want.)

So what kind of things do we have that are not one time only? The Battle Tree, the Battle Agency, the Royal, Mantine Surf, and Photo making. Then we also have some minor stuff like PokeFinder, Refresh, Ultra Soaring, the Battle Buffet and the Kantonian Gym knock off.

It's not a bad amount of things by any means, it is actually quite solid, but most of those things are less meaty and shorter than what previous third versions gave us. So yeah, I for me the main issue of USUM is that it gives you less meaningful gameplay content (aka stuff you can do multiple times) in favor of giving us more movie content (watching cutscenes and more cutscenes).

But then there is an other big issue I have with US UM, that is very annoying: the teasing. Here are some examples...

- Hau having a Pokemon following him all the time. A feature many fans have wanted back, yet our PC cannot have it but Hau can.

- Some dialogue about how this Kantonian Gym has been created to give people in Alola a flavour of Kanto, and that they plan to bring full Gyms to Alola soon (though it never happens in game). They basically made a "the Battle Frontier project has started!" teaser for a second time. They never learn.

- And the worst one: in this interview Iwao (or Ohmori, not sure) elaborated on how originally, the previous game villains were planned to be brought back as rival NPCs in the Battle Agency, but they later decided to involve them in a postgame story and that's how Team Rainbow was created. So, in other words, we were originally going to be able to REMATCH all of those villains repeatedly in the Battle Agency as many times as we want. But they thought that seeing each one of them for a grand total of 5 minutes, and never being able to rematch them again, would be more satisfying for the fans. Their backwards logic is impressive.

- speaking of the Battle Agency, they somehow managed to bring the Factory back, but made it worse.

So yeah, I decided not to get USUM. It is a solid game in its own right, but for fans like me who want extended postgame content, rather than one off cameos, the game feels lacking. BW2 for instance, managed to bring back all previous gym leaders and Champs, yet USUM can't be bothered to bring even a dozen of them for the Battle Tree. Don't even get me started on the biggest missed opportunity of USUM (new Alola Forms).

All those things annoy me to the point they overshadow the positives for me. It happened in ORAS, and they are repeating it here. Imo, games like Platinum, BW2, HGSS and Emerald leave a sense of completeness and satisfaction that USUM just fails to give me. USUM screams wasted potential (despite the positives), unlike previous third versions.

PD: sorry for the wall of text. Please don't quote it if you wanna answer it. XD
 
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So, do we have any news on when the music album will be available to purchase? I really wanna listen to some sweet music while I SR for Shiny Nihilego.
 
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