KyogreThunder
Call of Fate
Inspired by similiar threads for Generations I, II, III, IV, and VI. What are the things about Unova games you disliked?
The once a day limit to access it was also pretty bad. If you had a copy of all four games then you could only use one of them to get into the Dreamworld. And there was no guarantee that you’d get the HA Pokémon you wanted or that it would want to stay with you.Dream World.
Wasn't even a great feature to begin with. Then they proceed to shut it down a few years prior to the Nintendo WFC shutdown.
So goodbye to Dream World exclusive hidden ability Pokémon.
Sprites can sometimes look a bit grainy notably their back sprites in battle.
The games were too dumbed down and overall insulted my intelligence.
The region was linear and gave you no choice of where to go whatsoever and the whole region feels smaller than the likes of Hoenn and Sinnoh.
The difficulty was lower, the trainer rosters were forcibly nerfed, NPCs constantly told you where to go, and the one attempt to rectify this was locked behind an absurd key system that very few people could really access.
Limiting the game to new Pokemon only was unneeded and limited variety, and most of the new Pokemon felt like ripoffs of older ones, especially 1st gen Com Mons, which defeated the purpose.
And as refreshing as BW2 was, the execution definitely felt lazy and there were some wonky pacing/timing issues as a result. The added Pokemon were too clustered in newer and formerly post game areas and because most of those newer areas were late in the game, you really didn't have great variety until the last two gyms. And there were a lot of important features like breeding and fossil restoration that weren't available until post game because they couldn't be bothered to move them. You can tell they didn't put any thought into the timing of the new story progression.
Linear? Well, it’s not QUITE as expansive as the two regions you mentioned, but at the end of the day both of them do have a set path you follow to the Pokémon League. They’re all linear to an extent just Unova doesn’t hide it as well, and that’s okay because there are still optional areas to visit like Relic Castle and Mistralton Cave. I actually really like Unova for changing the setting completely and think all of the locations are really memorable: can you really say that Dragonspiral Tower, Chargestone Cave, Relic Castle, Celestial Tower, and all the cities stand out less than Mt Moon, Rock Tunnel, etc? Seasons helped Unova too.
The difficulty felt about standard for a Pokémon game at least for me because, well, Pokémon isn’t a difficult game series. I don’t remember NPCs constantly telling me where to go but even if they did that’s at least somewhat better than forced tutorials. I remember NPCs just having the same old random but sometimes interesting or funny stuff to stay.
I can understand if you don’t like it, but calling it “unneeded” is a bit much. I personally think limiting the game to only new Pokémon is really refreshing! I likd being thrown into a region where I knew none of the available Pokémon, I had to adapt quickly and got to see all the new critters, which is much better, at least in my opinion, than what XY did, watering down the new Pokémon with old ones so much that they became forgettable and missable during the story.
The vast majority of the new Pokémon feel absolutely nothing like ripoffs. Feel free to list them, but all I can think of is a set of about 3 or 4 evolution lines that simply take a totally different spin on an idea presented by a gen 1 evolution line. That’s not a ripoff. If you ask someone like me, these Pokémon even do it better.
Okay Unova is actually the last candidate I would consider for a lazy generation. Behold, the only game with a meanginful and impactful story, and the one with fantastic attention to detail in the lore (behold, Abyssal Ruins!). Not to mention how much effort was clearly put into making each new corner of Unova a standout area and the soundtrack. They also had to make animated sprites for literally every Pokémon. I’m not sensing laziness here. Can you elaborate on what you mean by laziness?
I think that you're talking about Alola here. That region was much more linear.The older regions didn't have an entirely set path, there were instances where you could branch off (and for more than just an optional dungeon, unlike Unova) and there was a lot more backtracking. Unova, on the other hand, had you follow a set path from beginning to end, setting up roadblock after roadblock after roadblock forcing you to progress forward throughout the entire game. The linearity is a lot more deliberate in Unova's design.
The older regions didn't have an entirely set path, there were instances where you could branch off (and for more than just an optional dungeon, unlike Unova) and there was a lot more backtracking. Unova, on the other hand, had you follow a set path from beginning to end, setting up roadblock after roadblock after roadblock forcing you to progress forward throughout the entire game. The linearity is a lot more deliberate in Unova's design.
The random characters dotted around the region? Yeah, those were the same. I'm referring more to situations where someone like Bianca or Cheren or Alder was constantly shoved in your face telling you what to do.
Additionally, the trainer rosters were unnecessarily limited which made the battles feel too short and easy. You'd think it was against Unova's law for the gym leaders to use more than 3 Pokemon or something.
It is unneeded. They didn't need to make you unfamiliar with the entire roster to make the game feel fresh, there are other ways of doing that that would be much more effective. They've come up with much better ways to shake up the formula with things like Megas, regoinal variants, and Poke Ride since then.
Also, even if you liked it, other people may not have. If you don't like any of the new Pokemon you wouldn't enjoy the game period, so it's better to have as diverse a roster as possible to appeal to as many people as possible.
The problem is that revisiting previous ideas for Pokemon, even if they're a different spin on those older Pokemon, really undermines the aforementioned attempt to make the game feel fresh. That feeling would've been much more effective if they had used completely original ideas, recycling ideas for this game made the roster too predictable.
Okay first of all, having a good story doesn't make a game not lazy. It just means you put emphasis on the story. Second, the areas don't really stand out all that much to me.
As far as what I meant, re-read my post. I never said the generation was lazy (although I would say that it was completely misguided and a poor direction to take the franchise). I said the execution of BW2's design was lazy. I'm referring to things like not moving the Day Care Center from Rt. 3 when it went from an early game area in BW to a post game area in BW2 and breeding being locked to post game as a result, or the Pokemon distribution issues I highlighted earlier. You can clearly tell they didn't think those things through, they just copy/pasted those things from BW and didn't bother to think about how the change in progression affected those things.
I actually loved that the older Pokemon weren't available at first since it felt so fresh but I understand not everyone wants to be forced to abandon all their favorites.