Hottest Pokemon take?
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i feel like designs have gone downhill significantly. pokemon was always about selling merch and creating marketable critters, but now its very transparent. a lot of the nonevolved pokemon seem to have that "kawaii" look to them - generic big eyes, some kind of behavioral gimmick. newer designs feel like they lack care.
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I don’t like the fairy type. (not the design of Pokémon with the fairy type, the type itself) The fairy type was introduced to nerf my favourite type. (dragon) But ended up being one of the most powerful types in the game. If you want to nerf dragon-types, just buff ice-types.
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Coming in here to second @Acornyo's take, and to take it further: As someone whose opinions are greatly impacted by the gameplay of Pokemon, I feel that Lucario and Gallade are incredibly lame pokemon from a gameplay perspective. It's hard to really put it into words, but the way that Lucario and Gallade sweep most games feels boring in a way that using Gliscor or Scrafty, for example, doesn't. It's likely that these two Pokemon have movesets that aggregate a ton of very powerful moves onto the same Pokemon, such that they feel almost mind-numbingly easy to use in combat.
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I don’t like open world games any more and I want the next generation to return to on-rails linear progression. The world felt more full and lively with more room for polishing. I still love Scarlet and Violet and appreciate that they tried something new, I just think it’s not a good formula for Pokémon with the exception being Legends Arceus.
I do not think that open world is inherently a bad thing in concept. It is just that too many games slap open world design into their franchise with little thought as to how it will apply to their own game world and game systems. It is a good thing to slap in the marketing blurb on the back of the box.
Scarlet and Violet did not do enough to adapt an open world to the existing game formula. They want to let you tackle the gyms in any order, but the gyms do not adapt to the level at which you tackle them, so have to be at a low level or restrict access to facilitate it.
The game could have used level scaling, changing the levels of the Pokémon you face to match the levels you will likely have depending on your gym badge. It could also do what the manga implied gym leaders do, and change the number and type of Pokémon you face depending on the number of badges you have.
For example, if you face a gym with no badges, you could only fight two level 10 Pokémon in their first form. But if you face the same gym with 7 badges you could instead fight the evolved forms of those Pokémon at around level 50 in addition to two more Pokémon at the same level. Adjust the numbers according to difficulty curve for each gym.
Linear design does have another advantage in that it allows developers to carefully craft the areas players encounter, putting more artistic detail and adding more features to them, and ensure that the challenge each area provides will be appropriate to the player's level, as the developer can predict in a linear experience what levels, abilities, items, etc. a player will have.
A big open world tends to be bland across the board, because there is not as much time to dedicate to individual areas, but also because a player could encounter it at the start of the adventure just as easily as they could at the end, so you have to limit what the player can do to those of a new or low level player.
All of these problems can be tackled with careful, clever design. Unfortunately the current release cycle means we get three games in the span of one year, so there is simply not the time to think it through. Make a big empty map, slap some gyms and Pokémon in it, slap "open world" in your marketing, and move the dev cycle onto the DLC and the next game.
QA testing? In this economy?
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I don't like incineroar, never did, and I was team litten from the start! Ended up picking popplio.
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/comment/14950#Comment_14950I do have to agree with that (at least in terms of recent releases) but what spin-off series is your favorite? I'll always have a soft spot for Pokemon Colosseum and XD for the atmosphere and music even though the level scaling in both games is pretty bad. I was a fan of the Mystery Dungeon series when it released even though I was pretty bad at the game and only finished the remaster of Red/Blue Mystery Dungeon when it released several years ago.
In terms of recent spin-offs, I have to say Legends Arceus was really fun. The catching mechanic was fun and they made shinies easy to find. I also enjoyed the new pokemon snap game since the graphics are probably the best we'll ever get out of a pokemon game 😭.
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The lack of a National Dex in recent games was an inevitability. A simple consequence of Pokémon's continuous growth.
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