POKEYMANS thread

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Thu Jun 06, 2019 3:10 am

Some thoughts.

The two legendaries look someone took a Cres Garurumon and a Z'd Garurumon* and stapled Ken Sugimori over them.

So far, none of the new Pokemon really stick out to me... yet. I REALLY hope that we get more than 81 Pokemon this time. But it is good that HM's are truly a thing of the past...

I hope we get a story centered around the Galar region wanting to pull a Galexit from the Pokemon League.

And finally, I really dig the cute beret of the female protagonist. I want one.

*If you don't know who those Digimon are, shame on you.

Iduno · Post by **Iduno** » Mon Jun 10, 2019 2:57 pm

I was at the game store, and noticed the new Pokemon Team Ups booster packs for sale.

https://www.pokebeach.com/news/1218/Tea ... imikyu.jpg

Can ghosts even do that? Am I just being even more broke-brained than usual, or is anyone else seeing the Gengar banging a doll?

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Tue Jun 11, 2019 9:42 pm

I can see how it would look that way, but I think the Mimikyu is supposed to be ahead of and slightly to the right of the Gengar.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Sat Jun 29, 2019 1:09 am

NINTENDO ARE A BUNCH OF FUCKING [EDITED]!

Nintendo is only going to allow Pokémon that only appear in Sword/Shield to be transferred from previous games! WHAT THE FUCK?!

This is their response:

Pokémon Company Shitfuckers wrote:Thank you to all of our fans for caring so deeply about Pokémon. Recently, I shared the news that some Pokémon cannot be transferred to Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield. I've read all your comments and appreciate your love and passion for Pokémon.
Just like all of you, we are passionate about Pokémon and each and every one of them is very important to us. After so many years of developing the Pokémon video games, this was a very difficult decision for me. I'd like to make one thing clear: even if a specific Pokémon is not available in Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield, that does not mean it will not appear in future games.
The world of Pokémon continues to evolve. The Galar region offers new Pokémon to encounter, Trainers to battle, and adventures to embark on. We are pouring our hearts into these games, and we hope you will look forward to joining us on this new journey.

So, basically, fuck you for wanting to having favorites or wanting to have every single Pokémon in one game. Well, you go fuck yourself Nintendo, you worthless shits.

Axebird · Post by **Axebird** » Sat Jun 29, 2019 1:28 am

Seems fine. Having a different variety of Pokemon in each game could shake strategies up, like a seasonal rotation. Having ~900 mon in each game is overkill anyway.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Sat Jun 29, 2019 5:45 am

Pokémon masters looks sexy

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Jun 29, 2019 5:46 am

Having to catch that many in a single game is too much, but having them available by transfer, even if only in post-game, is basically fucking expected. That said, I wasn't going to get it for the Switch I don't have anyway, so I'll continue to just enjoy the Sweary Scottish Lass things people create, and the GIANT SHEEP pictures.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Sat Jun 29, 2019 12:34 pm

Axebird wrote:Seems fine. Having a different variety of Pokemon in each game could shake strategies up, like a seasonal rotation. Having ~900 mon in each game is overkill anyway.

Fine for you, maybe. I want to have my favorites, such as Primarina and many of the Mythicals, but now I won't be able to, and probably never will because Nintendo and Pokemon Company are run by [EDITED].

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Sat Jun 29, 2019 4:32 pm

I mean, the series motto is "gotta catch 'em all," so not being to have them all in one game is kinda self defeating. Like that's fine for spinoffs but it's kind of expected at this point...and I strongly doubt that the Switch hardware is less robust than the 3DS was so I also find it unlikely that it's a hardware limitation.

Koumei wrote:Having to catch that many in a single game is too much, but having them available by transfer, even if only in post-game, is basically fucking expected. That said, I wasn't going to get it for the Switch I don't have anyway, so I'll continue to just enjoy the Sweary Scottish Lass things people create, and the GIANT SHEEP pictures.

Basically this, except I'll end up getting the game if not just because Shrapnel will pester me into getting the opposite version so I can trade everything to him.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sat Jun 29, 2019 7:16 pm

There's no reason why you can't have rotations and "seasons" for competitive game modes alongside the single player free-for-all. I mean, I won't really care so long as you can still have every 'mon in your online bank, but I 100% understand that for the vast majority of players the big "strategy" is grabbing the first bird you see and slapping Roost and Fly on it whilst you wander around hilariously overleveled.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Sun Jun 30, 2019 2:12 am

I, myself, give no fucks about competitive gameplay. I personally think it's awful, but if other people are into it then, wha-hey, thas' cool.

What the fuck is even the point of allowing players to transfer Pokemon if they are only going to allow ones that only appear in Sword/Shield? The whole point of transferring Pokemon is to fucking get unobtainable Pokemon! THAT'S WHAT IT'S FUCKING FOR! Goddamn FUCK I HATE Nintendo! I REALLY FUCKING HATE THEM AND I WANT THEM TO DIE!

Jesus this just makes me really fucking angry. Like, actual proper "I-want-to-fire-a-hail-of bullets-into-a-tree" angry.

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Mon Jul 01, 2019 6:08 am

OgreBattle wrote:Pokémon masters looks sexy

Darth Rabbitt wrote:I mean, the series motto is "gotta catch 'em all," so not being to have them all in one game is kinda self defeating. Like that's fine for spinoffs but it's kind of expected at this point...and I strongly doubt that the Switch hardware is less robust than the 3DS was so I also find it unlikely that it's a hardware limitation.

You're a bit late to those news, because before the dinossaurs came out Pokémon Ruby and Saphire for the GBA didn't have all the pokémon from Red/Blue/Gold/Silver that ran in the weakher game boy (color). The "gotta catch em all" bit was actually discretly dropped from the game's box with Ruby and Saphire and never came back. Black/White (2), X/Y, Sun/Moon, they no longer made that claim.

That was mostly due to a big mechanics overhaul where every mons had to be significantly revamped.

I would bet they're doing some heavy mechanical revamp and there again and there was no simple way to transfer all the hundreds of mons piled up.

Shrapnel wrote:I, myself, give no fucks about competitive gameplay. I personally think it's awful, but if other people are into it then, wha-hey, thas' cool.

What the fuck is even the point of allowing players to transfer Pokemon if they are only going to allow ones that only appear in Sword/Shield? The whole point of transferring Pokemon is to fucking get unobtainable Pokemon! THAT'S WHAT IT'S FUCKING FOR! Goddamn FUCK I HATE Nintendo! I REALLY FUCKING HATE THEM AND I WANT THEM TO DIE!

Ahem, Game Freak was the one making the decision but they're not Nintendo, they're an independent studio that releases games to other platforms and everything, The rights to Pokémon are shared between Game Freak and Nintendo, but GF are still the ones designing the main pokémon games.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Mon Jul 01, 2019 7:57 pm

Except no. You can transfer ALL Pokemon from Gen VII prior to Pokemon Home. They just don't want to allow Pokemon that aren't in the new games to be transferred because everyone at Game Freak is a fucking retard.

When the switch from Gen II to Gen III came, they simply did not have the technology to transfer data from a Game Boy Color to a Game Boy Advanced.

That is not the case now. Game Freak notably did not say that they couldn't transfer Pokemon from Gen VII to Sword/Shield, it's that they wouldn't.

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Mon Jul 01, 2019 11:48 pm

That was also a choice back in Gen III. They could've developed tech to transfer data from Game Boy to Game Boy Advance, it's just data at the end of the day, 0s and 1s, there was even an official universal link cable released that allowed to connect a GBC and GBA, but they just decided it wouldn't be worth the extra time and effort.

Resources in the real world are finite, everything you add means lots of other things don't get added, and deciding to not just try to brute force everything old and hope for the best in return for better polishing what does get in is a defensible design decision. And Matsuda himself points out they're leaving old pokémons behind so they have a pool of a more reasonable size to polish, graphics and mechanics wise. There's just not enough resources to upgrade everybody to the new standards this time, it was bound to happen (again) as the number of pokémon kept increasing.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Tue Jul 02, 2019 2:36 am

You know what? I don't know why your defending a shitty company, and quite frankly, I no longer care. At the end of the day, Game Freak has fucked their fans, and there is no excuse for that.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Tue Jul 02, 2019 10:40 am

If we were talking about Digimon video games that is understandable. Teeny budget Digimon Story still has 300+ Digimon in PSVita caliber

But Pokemon is the most lucrative IP in human history. Disney superhero movies spend megabucks and are far beneath the value of Pokemon.

I don't know the exact relation of Game Freaks & Nintendo, how Pokemon profits are split, but there are billions and billions and billions of dollars made, it goes places.

It's not unheard of for console makers to fund certain studios at a loss either.

Sony Playsation is willing to spend way way way more on Kojima Productions making a new IP, Sony Playstation is likely not making that money back, they're doing it because Sony Playstation is a brand name and it sells playstations to sell more video games in general.

As video games, Pokemon Sword & Shield is guaranteed to make more than Death Stranding will, Death Stranding still gets a bigger budget.

-----

Movies too, Spiderman IP value is nothing compared to Pokemon, movies like Into the Spiderverse (budget 90m) still get big funding to produce technically amazing graphics with characters and story I don't care about. I love Pokemon's setting, I love the writing that's gone into it, I love the Ken Sugimori style... Detective Pikachu (budget 160m) wasn't the movie for me. Give a Spiderverse budget to a 2D Ken Sugimori or Tokiya lookin' Pokemon movie and it'll do better than Spiderverse, way more

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Tue Jul 02, 2019 2:44 pm

maglag wrote:You're a bit late to those news, because before the dinossaurs came out Pokémon Ruby and Saphire for the GBA didn't have all the pokémon from Red/Blue/Gold/Silver that ran in the weakher game boy (color). The "gotta catch em all" bit was actually discretly dropped from the game's box with Ruby and Saphire and never came back. Black/White (2), X/Y, Sun/Moon, they no longer made that claim.

Way to miss the forest for the trees. Collecting all the Pokemon (including ones from earlier games) was still something done in Gens III-VII. The fact that Game Freak sneakily removed a motto still associated with the series doesn't actually stop that.

maglag wrote:Ahem, Game Freak was the one making the decision but they're not Nintendo, they're an independent studio that releases games to other platforms and everything, The rights to Pokémon are shared between Game Freak and Nintendo, but GF are still the ones designing the main pokémon games.

Then fuck Game Freak. This isn't the gotcha you seem to think it is.

maglag wrote:That was also a choice back in Gen III. They could've developed tech to transfer data from Game Boy to Game Boy Advance, it's just data at the end of the day, 0s and 1s, there was even an official universal link cable released that allowed to connect a GBC and GBA, but they just decided it wouldn't be worth the extra time and effort.

This doesn't actually invalidate Shrapnel's point. Gen III actually had the data for earlier Pokemon, you just had to do weird shit (or cheat) to get them in. This game doesn't have data for earlier Pokemon (at least the ones not found in the games) at all.

Also, fuck Gen III. It's the most overrated Pokemon gen. So your whataboutisms fall flat.

Resources in the real world are finite, everything you add means lots of other things don't get added, and deciding to not just try to brute force everything old and hope for the best in return for better polishing what does get in is a defensible design decision.

This might (key word, might) be a defensible design decision if:
1. Pokemon wasn't a license to print money (so resources are actually near infinite and you're really only limited by hardware). Ogre actually pointed this one out though.
2. Pokemon actually bothered polishing stuff they put in (the last one that felt polished was the 10-year-old Heart Gold/Soul Silver). As is they'll be polishing a turd.

And Matsuda himself points out they're leaving old pokémons behind so they have a pool of a more reasonable size to polish, graphics and mechanics wise. There's just not enough resources to upgrade everybody to the new standards this time, it was bound to happen (again) as the number of pokémon kept increasing.

Matsuda can go suck a barrel of cocks. Given that Pokemon (nor most Nintendo games) have never really had good graphics, this strikes me as a really stupid move on Game Freak's part even if they weren't risking losing any goodwill from fans and were as limited in resources as you seem to think they are. Play to your strengths, not your weaknesses.

OgreBattle wrote:It's not unheard of for console makers to fund certain studios at a loss either.

Sony Playsation is willing to spend way way way more on Kojima Productions making a new IP, Sony Playstation is likely not making that money back, they're doing it because Sony Playstation is a brand name and it sells playstations to sell more video games in general.

Nintendo (and possibly Game Freak) hates their fans way too much to do something like that.

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Thu Jul 04, 2019 7:09 am

Darth Rabbitt wrote: Way to miss the forest for the trees. Collecting all the Pokemon (including ones from earlier games) was still something done in Gens III-VII. The fact that Game Freak sneakily removed a motto still associated with the series doesn't actually stop that.

But just how many people actually bothered to collect all the mons in a single game? In particular when that number just kept getting bigger and bigger?

Darth Rabbitt wrote:
maglag wrote:Ahem, Game Freak was the one making the decision but they're not Nintendo, they're an independent studio that releases games to other platforms and everything, The rights to Pokémon are shared between Game Freak and Nintendo, but GF are still the ones designing the main pokémon games.
Then fuck Game Freak. This isn't the gotcha you seem to think it is.

Blaming the wrong people for something is quite counter-productive.

Darth Rabbitt wrote: This doesn't actually invalidate Shrapnel's point. Gen III actually had the data for earlier Pokemon, you just had to do weird shit (or cheat) to get them in. This game doesn't have data for earlier Pokemon (at least the ones not found in the games) at all.

Pokemon Sword and Shield also has plenty of data, lots of 0s and 1s, if you hack it or do weird shit you can add anything you want (and can fit in that amount of 0s and 1s).

Darth Rabbitt wrote: Also, fuck Gen III. It's the most overrated Pokemon gen. So your whataboutisms fall flat.

Now that's just your opinion, gen V is the most hated one, not III.

Darth Rabbitt wrote:
Resources in the real world are finite, everything you add means lots of other things don't get added, and deciding to not just try to brute force everything old and hope for the best in return for better polishing what does get in is a defensible design decision.
This might (key word, might) be a defensible design decision if:
1. Pokemon wasn't a license to print money (so resources are actually near infinite and you're really only limited by hardware). Ogre actually pointed this one out though.

That's assuming money can solve anything.

But pokemon has a certain, well, charm, magic, call it what you want, that plenty of other groups tried to replicate and only produced something inferior. Heck, pokemon wasn't even the first monster collecting franchise, but it sure did become the most popular one and has managed to hold to the top position in the genre for two decades now!

So sure you could recruit thousands of corporate workers and soulless programmers and give them a decade's worth of budget, but chances are that you'll just end up dilluting the actual talent that made pokemon so good in the first place and end with some soulless AAA game with pretty graphics and nothing else.

Darth Rabbitt wrote: 2. Pokemon actually bothered polishing stuff they put in (the last one that felt polished was the 10-year-old Heart Gold/Soul Silver). As is they'll be polishing a turd.

Again that's just your opinion, plenty of people enjoyed the games after Heargold/Soulsilver.

Darth Rabbitt wrote: Matsuda can go suck a barrel of cocks. Given that Pokemon (nor most Nintendo games) have never really had good graphics, this strikes me as a really stupid move on Game Freak's part even if they weren't risking losing any goodwill from fans and were as limited in resources as you seem to think they are. Play to your strengths, not your weaknesses.

And what is exactly pokemon's strength? Collecting is a part, but also the simple story, exploring, curbstomping other kids and taking their money, just getting away from home and making adults aknowledge you with no need of some eldritch abomination forcing you to.

Just look at all the Nuzlocke players. They self-impose themselves limitations that make it outright impossible to collect all the mons, but enjoy the game nevertheless. Collecting the mons is just one of pokemon's strengths, and collecting every last one is something only a very few people actually bother with.

Plus if you try to hold to an old strength for too long, it does becomes a weakness. "Gotta catch em all" was a nice motto back when there were only 150, but it simply couldn't scale up forever, and they dropped said motto all the way back in Ruby/Saphire. Or like Nintendo used to have the best graphics back with the SNSE, but trying to have top graphics resulted only in the Gamecube.

Darth Rabbitt wrote: Nintendo (and possibly Game Freak) hates their fans way too much to do something like that.

You mean like Sony and most of the gaming industry lately are censoring games like crazy recently while Nintendo lets us get the digital titties as the devs intended us to?

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Thu Jul 04, 2019 12:12 pm

Plus if you try to hold to an old strength for too long, it does becomes a weakness.

I honestly did not feel the magic in Pokemon X Y or Sun & Moon, I was more interested in seeing what PIXIV was making of the cutie tan girls than most of the new monsters. I considered online battling then immediately dropped it because I've never liked how breeding works and feel on a storytelling level it goes against the theme of bonding with your pokemon.

I am more enthused for the mobile game as it has what they still do excellently: attractive girls in limber poses

So sure you could recruit thousands of corporate workers and soulless programmers and give them a decade's worth of budget, but chances are that you'll just end up dilluting the actual talent that made pokemon so good in the first place and end with some soulless AAA game with pretty graphics and nothing else.

That's part of it, Game Freaks has a very good team, them getting immense resources to go all out is building on top of that core element that few have been able to match.

I don't think Pokemon games have gone astray necessarily, but I would like to see them do a little more, or at least put money into the movies because I want to see a big budget Pokemon anime movie. There really is no reason for this world to only have Disney putting a modest budget to an animated action movie. I want to see Japanese animators on a Disney level budget, provided by Pokemon/Nintendo, telling the Pokemon stories they've always done.

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Fri Jul 05, 2019 2:12 am

maglag wrote:But just how many people actually bothered to collect all the mons in a single game? In particular when that number just kept getting bigger and bigger?

Who knows exactly how many? I don't know but you don't either. What we could do is debate the merits of keeping that feature in there.

maglag wrote:Blaming the wrong people for something is quite counter-productive.

And nitpicking responses isn't counterproductive?

Pokemon Sword and Shield also has plenty of data, lots of 0s and 1s, if you hack it or do weird shit you can add anything you want (and can fit in that amount of 0s and 1s).

Gen III had data for all Pokemon in the game, so it was just a matter of using a hacking device to spawn the ones that didn't appear anywhere. Sword and Shield doesn't have that data. And Nintendo makes their systems increasingly hard to hack because they really don't want you to have fun with their games in any way than the one that they personally intended to so yeah, good luck coding a bunch of Pokemon from scratch and hacking them into an increasingly difficult to hack game.

Now that's just your opinion, gen V is the most hated one, not III.

Gen V is worse, don't get me wrong. But there's a consensus that it's the worst. In my experience, everyone talks about Gen III like it's the best fucking thing ever. Therefore, even though Gen V is the worst, Gen III is the most overrated. Those are two different things.

That's assuming money can solve anything.

It can't solve everything, but it can solve a lot of things. All other things being equal, having a bigger budget is good. That doesn't mean a big budget alone can carry something, but it certainly helps.

But pokemon has a certain, well, charm, magic, call it what you want, that plenty of other groups tried to replicate and only produced something inferior. Heck, pokemon wasn't even the first monster collecting franchise, but it sure did become the most popular one and has managed to to the top position in the genre for two decades now!

That I'll give you. Pokemon certainly has something that keeps it successful (which might be as simple as name recognition at this point)

So sure you could recruit thousands of corporate workers and soulless programmers and give them a decade's worth of budget, but chances are that you'll just end up dilluting the actual talent that made pokemon so good in the first place and end with some soulless AAA game with pretty graphics and nothing else.

Wait, you were the one going on about graphics, and how jettisoning Pokemon was a necessary evil to improve them. I said I think that is a bad idea. Are you now agreeing with me?

Again that's just your opinion, plenty of people enjoyed the games after Heargold/Soulsilver.

Of course. And I enjoyed games after those, I just don't think they felt as polished. That is all that I stated.

And what is exactly pokemon's strength? Collecting is a part, but also the simple story, exploring, curbstomping other kids and taking their money, just getting away from home and making adults aknowledge you with no need of some eldritch abomination forcing you to.

You mean the simple story that they add more and more cutscenes and dialogue boxes to make? See, I just picked out a tiny detail from your point! It's what you've been doing the whole goddamn time! Do you see why that is unproductive?

As for your greater point, I would say that the strengths of Pokemon are being able to collect and battle a wide variety of quirky creatures using simple-to-learn mechanics. It's a game that you can put as little or as much effort into as you want.

Just look at all the Nuzlocke players. They self-impose themselves limitations that make it outright impossible to collect all the mons, but enjoy the game nevertheless. Collecting the mons is just one of pokemon's strengths, and collecting every last one is something only a very few people actually bother with.

Yes, there are multiple ways to enjoy the games. I never said there wasn't. I just said that one way that people enjoy them is the collecting aspect and I didn't think that it was good to water that down.

Plus if you try to hold to an old strength for too long, it does becomes a weakness.

Yes, I agree, but I don't think "having lots of Pokemon" is an old strength that was being held on to for too long. I think it's the one thing Pokemon has consistently improved on.

"Gotta catch em all" was a nice motto back when there were only 150, but it simply couldn't scale up forever, and they dropped said motto all the way back in Ruby/Saphire.

But they gave the option to do so until Sword/Shield, which is a Switch game and thus bigger than the 3DS titles. They opted to drop it and focus on gimmicks and graphics, which I consider to be stupid.

Or like Nintendo used to have the best graphics back with the SNSE, but trying to have top graphics resulted only in the Gamecube.

Again, you're making my point about graphics not being Nintendo's strong suit! My argument is that a large roster of 'mons is the Pokemon series' strong suit, and graphics aren't, so I think that it is stupid for Game Freak to sacrifice the former for the latter.

You mean like Sony and most of the gaming industry lately are censoring games like crazy recently while [url=https://twinfinite.net/2019/07/nintendo-censorship/]Nintendo lets us get the digital titties as the devs intended us to?

Another failed "gotcha." Did you even read what Ogre posted about Sony putting more money into something that will make less money for the purpose of winning fan loyalty? I honestly can't remember the last time Nintendo did that.

As for censorship, Nintendo will crush fan games/mods/remakes (Pokemon Uranium, Project M, Metroid II remake, etc.) in an attempt to boost sales for their own titles. That is also a form of censorship, and one that I find substantially more pernicious than the standard prudishness surrounding digital titties (porn is easy to come by, after all.) That doesn't make Sony's censorship good but it's stupid to pretend that Nintendo is innocent of the same crime.

You know what? I'm not going to continue this discussion. You consider this to be a reasonable design decision, and I don't. As you said, that's your opinion. You are free to have it and I am free to disagree with it. Mine is different. I am free to have it and you are free to disagree with it. I honestly don't think I'm going to convince you, nor that you will convince me. Therefore the reasonable thing to do would be to walk off.

I think Shrapnel summed my thoughts up best in his last post anyways.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Fri Jul 05, 2019 2:49 am

maglag wrote:But just how many people actually bothered to collect all the mons in a single game? In particular when that number just kept getting bigger and bigger?

I did, you pusillanimous filth. I did. Now shut the fuck up, because no one else, especially I, will continue to engage further with someone who has such a stunted intellect.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Jul 05, 2019 6:22 am

I don't collect all of them (exception: the amazing quality romhack, Extreme Red, which didn't have every pokemon but I collected every one in that game). But I always collected my personal favourites which did grow as the series expanded (Abra, Rhydon, Dratini, Sneasel, Mawile, Buizel, Drifloon, Petilil etc). And saying you can't do that is basically a dealbreaker.

Suggestion: save time and space by not going for the new fancy graphics (which currently look like the game will need to be delayed to make basic movement and shit work properly).

Also, I'd argue that the first Black and White were the worst games, but B2W2 were so much better as to generally save the generation as a whole (not bringing it up to 4Gen or 6Gen level, maybe not even "baseline buggy 2Gen before the actually perfect remakes in 4Gen"), whereas RSE were the second-worst ones and FRLG weren't that much better (mostly getting by on being "a nice coloured version of the beloved originals"). So if you judge a generation as a whole, I'd call 3rd the worst. Just looking at individual titles within the generation, fine, you have B1W1 (nobody disagrees) followed by RSE (people I don't care about disagree). 3rd Generation is mostly just good for romhacking, with the most resources available for it.

On that note, aside from Extreme Red, which I would probably call the best, I also suggest people tjeck out Omega Red (the feature-creep sequel to Extreme Red, but with so many different species per area that the Catch-Em-All attitude will see you just bogged down forever), and Altered Emerald (I quite like the variant with dumb pokedex entries - "Wurmple hides in trees, occasionally eating bark and writing haikus.")

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Fri Jul 05, 2019 7:00 am

Koumei wrote:I don't collect all of them (exception: the amazing quality romhack, Extreme Red, which didn't have every pokemon but I collected every one in that game). But I always collected my personal favourites which did grow as the series expanded (Abra, Rhydon, Dratini, Sneasel, Mawile, Buizel, Drifloon, Petilil etc). And saying you can't do that is basically a dealbreaker.

A fair complain, but Game Freak better than anybody would have statistics about which pokémon are nobody's favorites and those would be the ones getting the axe hopefully. I bet they're a non-insignificant number, in which case it makes extra sense to don't bother updating them now. They're certainly not going to cut pikachu/charizard. Let's see what the final list ends up being.

Koumei wrote: Suggestion: save time and space by not going for the new fancy graphics (which currently look like the game will need to be delayed to make basic movement and shit work properly).

A game isn't just graphics. Stats also need to be coded, pokémon movesets get changed every game (including the moves themselves), bugs get ironed out and in the case of a pokémon that the online statistics show nobody's nothering with for the last games... Why bother trying to update them when you could instead be properly polishing the other pokémon that people actually care about and making new pokémon that people may care about or working on other features?

Koumei wrote: Also, I'd argue that the first Black and White were the worst games, but B2W2 were so much better as to generally save the generation as a whole (not bringing it up to 4Gen or 6Gen level, maybe not even "baseline buggy 2Gen before the actually perfect remakes in 4Gen"), whereas RSE were the second-worst ones and FRLG weren't that much better (mostly getting by on being "a nice coloured version of the beloved originals"). So if you judge a generation as a whole, I'd call 3rd the worst. Just looking at individual titles within the generation, fine, you have B1W1 (nobody disagrees) followed by RSE (people I don't care about disagree). 3rd Generation is mostly just good for romhacking, with the most resources available for it.

Being good for romhacking is still good.

Koumei wrote: On that note, aside from Extreme Red, which I would probably call the best, I also suggest people tjeck out Omega Red (the feature-creep sequel to Extreme Red, but with so many different species per area that the Catch-Em-All attitude will see you just bogged down forever), and Altered Emerald (I quite like the variant with dumb pokedex entries - "Wurmple hides in trees, occasionally eating bark and writing haikus.")

See? If Game Freak had skipped Ruby/Saphire/Emerald or activated their self-destruct codes to erase them from existence, you wouldn't be able to enjoy those roms.

Also Altered Emerald has only like 400ish pokémon. So what gives, did they luck out in including all your personal favorites?

(and of course your favorite rom of Extreme Red doesn't allow you to actually catch em all either, but is still Koumei's favorite. Case closed that you can leave pokémon behind and make not only a good game, but the best game!)

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Jul 05, 2019 7:16 am

maglag wrote:A game isn't just graphics. Stats also need to be coded, pokémon movesets get changed every game (including the moves themselves)

This stuff takes less time, and close to zero space. The main thing eating their resources appears to be the new engine (which is just "modifying the new Unreal Engine", sure).

Being good for romhacking is still good.

It doesn't make the core thing good. It just means that "old stuff that is easy to mod due to lack of security and the fact that it's a bunch of nice simple sprites and not animated 3D models". It certainly doesn't make them (or the ORAS remakes) worth spending money on.

See? If Game Freak had skipped Ruby/Saphire/Emerald or activated their self-destruct codes to erase them from existence, you wouldn't be able to enjoy those roms.

Except I would, because people would have modded whatever came out in their place. They'd mod "something else altogether" to make those.

Also Altered Emerald has only like 400ish pokémon. So what gives, did they luck out in including all your personal favorites?

Not quite, no. I stopped playing before getting to the end there, but it certainly had enough that I liked, and I did notice the lack of certain favourites. Also it made some lesser, easily overlooked ones interesting such that you're more likely to pick them up. Like Parasect.

Incidentally, here's a delightful looking "It's not Pokemon but it's basically Pokemon" game that has nothing to do with GameFreak or Nintendo: Temtem.

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Fri Jul 05, 2019 8:09 am

Koumei wrote: This stuff takes less time, and close to zero space. The main thing eating their resources appears to be the new engine (which is just "modifying the new Unreal Engine", sure).

Testing graphics is fast, testing stats and combat not so much.

Koumei wrote: It doesn't make the core thing good. It just means that "old stuff that is easy to mod due to lack of security and the fact that it's a bunch of nice simple sprites and not animated 3D models". It certainly doesn't make them (or the ORAS remakes) worth spending money on.

Except I would, because people would have modded whatever came out in their place. They'd mod "something else altogether" to make those.

They why don't they? Ruby/Saphire already came out almost two decades ago, yet remain the most popular options for modding despite plenty of other games and resources coming in between. A core thing that manages to hold for so long is pretty good.

Koumei wrote: Not quite, no. I stopped playing before getting to the end there, but it certainly had enough that I liked, and I did notice the lack of certain favourites. Also it made some lesser, easily overlooked ones interesting such that you're more likely to pick them up. Like Parasect.

Incidentally, here's a delightful looking "It's not Pokemon but it's basically Pokemon" game that has nothing to do with GameFreak or Nintendo: Temtem.

It's coming out on Switch, so Nintendo had a look at that too and approved it. Again, pokémon wasn't even the first game of its genre and always had plenty of competition, often in the same hardware, yet endured this long.

Let's see how well temtem does when it does come out. I personally look forward the genetic degradation mechanics where eventually every temtem becomes sterile just from breeding. Also a literal mustache-twirling villain!

Plus it's funny how things go from "Game Freak should include all the old pokémon designs" to "let's try that game that has zero old pokémon designs". Again, turns out that old designs aren't such a dealbreaker after all.