Yes, again, there are some SPICY takes here, I know. Although something I forgot to mention: I still think Pokemon is top of its class, even when compared to its contemporary rivals, in the music and atmosphere department, and making its worlds feel really immersive and lived in. But as somebody who doesn’t play life/farm sims, I need the meat of the experience to be more engaging, and mainline Pokemon just has not done that for me in far too long. I actually still really enjoy occasionally replaying some of the older single player spinoffs, such as the first couple Mystery Dungeon games and Pokemon Conquest, but that’s about it. Even Legends Arceus was too different in the wrong ways to catch my interest. Hehe “catch.” Also I realize Doubles is a thing, but it only slightly mitigates the simplicity issue and does literally nothing to mitigate the meta’s stranglehold on the worldwide community. I also realize that the meta pre-dates Gen 6, but Gen 6 was when it intrusively barged its way into my life and became impossible for me to ignore.
I don't think Pokemon is that immersive n lived even compared to its rivals, ofc the monster taming genre isn't exactly known for having the most NPC lively world, the whole focus is the monsters n the gameplay, modern Pokemon did try to make it more lively and thats credit to them, but still is bland or limited, since you mentioned farm/life sims they do have a more deep lively world in terms of NPC, on my head I'll always think either Harvest Moon 'n Stardew Valley
LOL STOP BEING A CRYBABY ABOUT META, JUST KNOW TO BUILD DON'T BE LAZY, even bad strategies can win match, just see how Tempt4 won vs a mod (yes he is a good player besides having a cherry picking battles on the channel), or how liepard was op in gen5, same with espathra in gen9 just know to build, know to play and do it good; if you don't want to do that your arguments are invalid... unless the meta is unhealthy and then u have a point. PD: Besides that raising perfect iv mons are a pain, still dunno why gamefreak don't make this easier...
@@fandenovelas777 My point is that even knowing what to do, it’s a massive grind just to prepare. And because so few Pokémon are competitively viable, you end up seeing the same ones on every team. How is that fun in a combat system this simplistic to begin with? Where is the player expression in this game with hundreds of unique monsters, where only like 10 are being used in rotation?
His dissection of the multi-player and 'meta' is exactly how I feel about Super Smash Bros. nowadays. Not everyone wants to adhere to someone else's dissertation on how the game should be played.
I agree I dislike meta stuff but i feel like have to check it because what if I’m missing out this is for single player games as well i hate how day 1 a game will have a full walkthrough. Also any casual yugioh fan feels the pain of the meta my dumb spell counter deck will never be good
The meta feeling artificial is definitely a relatable point. Gameplay is broken down to its atomic level and it’s like watching a completely different game. Impressive to be sure, but it’s not for a casual gamer like me.
The problem with it is that the devs don’t balance the game and they definitely don’t care if a Pokémon will end up being trash when they create it’s stats and such. Multiplayer battling was always the biggest draw for me since it’s the only time when you can actually apply strategy and have your opponent do the same. The other massive problem is how fucking hard it is to build even one team of competitively ready Pokémon.
To be honest a lot of things have a no middle difficulty problem. You get good enough to beat the CPUs but then go online and get destroyed so hard you can’t even process why you lost.
It was the same thing I experienced with Mario Kart Wii. While I was able to beat the 50cc mode, when I played online, some of the players had three/four/five stars next to their username, and yet they ended up going so freakin' fast that on my end was normal speed compared to them, that, despite getting close to the top positions, I still ended up below the top 5. So even I knew in 2007 that online multiplayer is kind of shit. Even I stunk a call of duty black ops 1 zombies but I still had fun. And while many people have moved on to newer games in the series, I've pretty much stuck with the originals since, well, looking at the new ones of COD zombies, looks way, waay harder than the older more retro ones of the past. So yeah, for me personally, I always think parts of the past are more appreciated and a lot more fun compared to the games of today. And yes, while video games have evolved over the past 50 years, I still prefer to watch youtube videos or even movies rather than play video games. Because well, I don't find Video games as fun as I used to. And even then I'm always looking for games in the past that I remember playing as a child (especially the PC games with the Hot Wheels Action Stunt one, Operation, and the original late 1990s version of the Backyard sports to name a few).
The thing that gets me with Pokémon is that they had the foundation for a new battle formula with double and triple battles but they just got rid of them
Doubles is still there, aka 2v2 which is actually the official format in the form of VGC as opposed Singles OU still has most of the same issues he has with singles
@@goGothitaLOL Personally, when i saw the triple battles in Gen 5, I thought they would go to the extreme by doing 5v5 or 10v10, and also, instead of 6 pokemon you carry with, I would double it to 12 pokemon you carry with to make it much more grueling but exciting at the same time. And sadly that never happened so, go figure.
I think it’s also really telling just how significantly more enjoyment and thought there is in double battles. Hell, Pokémon like Plusle and Minun benefit heavily from that because of their abilities. Why Game Freak still insists on keeping over 90% of all single player battles as single battles I will never understand.
@@burning_lizardThe entirety of the Blueberry Academy DLC and epilogue in SV is made up of only Double Battles, at least. Not a single Single Battle in sight. And that’s a lot of battles they make you go through, and a good chunk of them are actually reasonably difficult.
X/Y was my last one too! I wish no ill will on the series but the first 1:19 of this video is so relatable. Here for this video. Edit; oh my god you’re SPITTING. Thank you for expressing this perspective. I love fighting games but I refuse to go hard at smash for the reasons you listed. My taste for competition has evolved and a lot of Nintendo titles don’t facilitate the kind of depth I want. Its like a meta super imposed over what are best enjoyed as casual experiences.
I actually REALLY enjoyed a unique take on the monster catching genre called Cassette Beasts. In that game, you don't send monsters out, but rather transform into them to fight with their form. The element system is much more unique and interactive than "bonus damage," and you fight in a party of two since you always have a companion with you. You can even fuse together for a myriad of benefits as you fight, with the obvious drawback being you're only taking one turn in combat now.
Huh? Oh wow, from the name alone I thought Cassette Beasts is just another Pokemon knock-off (whether it's good or not), but what you've described sounds pretty interesting! Doubt I'll ever check it out considering my laziness, but at least it's nice to know the game is more than it seems at first glance.
Used to feel the same. Started going to IRL events and using Discord and found plenty of people who aren’t too competitive or too casual. Helps to play with people who love the game for what it is.
This is actually why I love the spin-off games (REAL spin-offs by REAL devs, not dreck made by Gamefreak or those fucking FOMO fueled mobile games). Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, Pokemon Snap, even games like the Ranger games have incredible ideas, concepts, and even stories - things that the main games have never done well, even when they tried, rare as that was. It's a shame, because Pokemon really is timeless. I just wish TPC and GF cared about the series beyond being an easy cash grab.
Pokémon Conquest is probably my favorite Pokémon game ever, possibly even above all the mainline games. I would give so much for another one (or at least a remake or such).
Competitive Pokemon used to actually let you use some of your favorites as long as you knew how to slot it in, these days it's just shooting yourself in the foot most of the time which is sad to see.
This is flat out just not true, the meta in competitive Pokemon existed as far back as Gen 1, which is evidenced by the Nintendo Cup of 1997, the representative of the Kanto region of Japan, Suzuki Yusuke used a team of Pokemon that matches exactly what the modern meta of RBY that Smogon considers to be the best Pokemon in the OU tier. Suzuki ended up tying for 3rd place in that tournament.
I really understand your point of view, even as someone who likes Pokemon but was never really invested in it in the first place. The alternatives you propose are awesome as well, great tastes !
Hot take: the core combat system of Pokemon is actually excellent... but the games go out of their way to make it boring. If only a casual playthrough of a pokemon game involved as much strategy as a Pokemon Showdown match then the games would actually feel more worth playing. Battling top tier pokemon vs. other top tier pokemon is fun. Training them to get to that point is not fun.
here's a way to make pokemon more fun remove rng make ghost and bug type pokemon immune to confusion make a pokemon sleep for three turns.. no as in have a chance of waking up... no.. they will sleep all 3 turns nd the counter will not reset if you switch out so you can know when your pokemon will wake up make the chance of the ai (computer) getting para'd and hax'd higher then the player.. the ai gets all the good luck so this is fair.. if battling other players as humans.. keep it the same for both - make shedinja's wonder guard immune to - all weather except hail - he will only take damage rom stealth rocks this will make shedinja only take outside damage from hail and stealth rocks oh and - wonder guard is immune to mold breaker make crits more likely to happen to the player then the AI (the computer' ai and the game itself removes crits from the player and steals them so this is fair) things that have a high crits ratio still work the same for any user ban the ai and the game of rom trying to screw over the player and actively trying to steal from the player when they're winning.. the game tries to ruin battles only when the player is winning.. yeah game how about get a life?
You hit the nail on the head for why I hate competitive gaming scenes, not just in Pokemon but in most series. Unless a game is REALLY well-designed, the "meta" consists largely of figuring out which mechanics, characters, moves, etc, to utilize--usually a minority of them--and which ones to ignore completely--usually the majority. It's reduction of a game to a fraction of itself in the name of personal glory, as well exposing the flawed design of games I used to think were great.
See, I don't play Pokemon with strategy in mind. I just choose whatever pokemon I like and try to get them strong enough to actually use. If they start out strong or have some sort of cool ability, that's just a plus.
I wish that double battles were more common in Pokémon's single-player campaigns. It's strange that they're so rare because official Pokémon VGC tournaments use the doubles format, and there's lots of moves and abilities such as Tailwind and Intimidate that are more useful in doubles (there are even some such as Helping Hand and Friend Guard that straight up do nothing in singles). There are even instances in the games where you encounter two evil team grunts at once and it looks like they're both about to fight you at once in a double battle, but then for some reason they decide fight you one at a time instead. It's also a shame that triple battles and rotation battles were only in a few games before being axed in Sun & Moon.
when i was a kid playing pokemon x, it took about 3 months for every passer-by to gen in perfect iv’ed and ev’ed legendaries, with the highest base stats and only the very best moveset. i only played with friends at the time, but realising how inaccessible the random online space was it was extremely difficult to find someone on a level playing field. when you’re 9 and versusing a bunch of grown adult men who know how to manipulate the statistics of a digital animal, it’s difficult to still have fun to way the game preaches at you to. none of the information about ivs and evs were even accessible at the time let alone for a kid who didn’t know where to look. for the people than defend pokémon’s stagnation with “it’s just a kids game” they seemingly don’t care that battling online has become completely inaccessible to kids anyways, ESPECIALLY now. i agree it’s not a popular take, but i cant lie and say it doesn’t make the game less fun.
This video literally hits every mark that I feel about the franchise lately. I LOVED Pokemon as a kid, and while I enjoyed Pokemon X and Y for what it was and the first time in a long time changes it felt like it brought to Pokemon (first to be fully 3D, Mega Evolutions, a new Pokemon type, raid battles, technically riding Pokemon, character customization) it was the beginning of my eventual disconnect with the series. It just feels like the Pokemon formula is stale. The stories have been getting dumber since Black and White 2, the rival(s) have been getting dumber, the villains have been getting dumber, the single fresh take of Arceus didn't get implemented into the mainline game, the lack of meaningful additions to the bog standard Pokemon battles has made it tiresome, and the overall narrative of the games have been getting dumber. I got almost every game growing up with the exception of Crystal, unfortunately. My older brothers had Red and Blue so my twin and I had those to start out with. My older brothers stopped playing after Gold and Silver, but my twin and I were hooked. We got Fire Red and Leaf Green, we shared Ruby and when Emerald came out I got Emerald, similar story with Diamond and Platinum, he got Heart Gold and I got Soul Silver, he got Black and I got White, but after that it was just me continuing the legacy. Each iteration felt like they were adding something meaningful, or at least something unique. Gen 3 got the beauty contest and, if I remember correctly, the intro battle animations, and double battles. Gen 4 had the first bit of 3D to really iterate on the world and better intro animations. Gen 5 has continuous battle animations, an even better 3D world that was iterated on, the stories were phenomenal, a bold take on a soft reset, although it definitely had some issues with the villain team. The mistakes of BW I feel were largely fixed in B2W2, albeit with a slightly weaker story. Plus, gen 5 introduced triple battles and rotation battles. Gen 6 felt a bit more cookie cutter Pokemon, but it introduced the things I mentioned in the second sentence above, it felt worthy of existing and brought new ideas to Pokemon. Gen 7 really didn't feel that way, at least not to me. Sure, Z moves are "new," but it didn't feel as new or special as megas. Sure, the world has better 3D controls and looks better than the weird chibi aesthetic of X and Y, but that's just polish. The only game in the series that really had a difference was the Let's Go games which, while a great time and the nostalgic kid in my thoroughly enjoyed it, didn't really have any impacts on the franchise as a whole. Technically overworld Pokemon appearing was added in later games, but it felt much more natural and right in LGE than in Sword and Shield. I guess it added regional variants, I'll give it credit for that, but that being the only meaningful addition feels largely empty and meaningless. I'm glad it exists for future games, but it's underwhelming. It also removed HMs and made them secret techniques or PokeRide things, but honestly I think that was a bad decision for narrative purposes. Ultimately, Gen 7 didn't really add meaningful new things. Nothing really changed with gen 7 onwards outside of Arceus. All of that to say, it really does feel like Pokemon's been stale. It really does feel like it's just for babies and diehards now. I used to be a diehard, but it wore me out in the 3DS era. To win me back, the single player game needs to have a good story and actually have a fresh new take on the Pokemon formula. Bring back the Arceus encounters, keep normal trainer battles but allow people to not engage if they don't want to. If the world's going to be completely either allow Pokemon to not need badges to use properly and have the gyms scale so if you go to the toughest area and capture a level 40 or 50 Pokemon it doesn't cheese the rest of the game. Make the story good again, acknowledge that adults play the game and have stayed with the series since they were kids. Don't just make it so the games cater towards little kids, please let us skip the catching Pokemon tutorial, heck just let us go straight into choosing our Pokemon and going on an adventure by having an option at the start of the game, there's a lot they can do to make it both accessible to little kids while not being handholdy the entire time. I'll end my rant by saying I think GameFreak forgets that we were once kids playing the game before it was as handholdy. The games have always been linear, they were built to be that way, but outside of the forced learn how to capture Pokemon tutorial, they never felt railroady like they have for the past several generations. GameFreak should really take a step back and realize there's an older audience that still wants Pokemon in their lives, but feel abandoned by how babyish the games feel nowadays.
@@ThrillingDuck I appreciate the video, and I appreciate that the algorithm told me about this. It was a great video and really spoke to me since I feel the same way about the franchise. I love it, I hope it gets better, but until something really changes I'll just be keeping my eye on it.
The stories and villains have been getting dumber? Have to disagree. Pokémon kinda goes back and forth on well-written and dumb villains. Gens 5, 7, and 9 have the best stories, characters, and antagonists to date, so it’s weird you didn’t elaborate on why you feel that way beyond just a sweeping generalization.
@@komarunaegi7460 To be fair, my post was already a wall and I didn't want to make it even longer. I'm also going off my memory of a lot of the earlier games which may be slightly through rose tinted glasses as they were a huge part of my childhood, X & Y came out in high school for me with Sun and Moon in college. Gen 5 was fine, I really enjoyed it, but how I remember Team Plasma being used was kinda meh. Mind you, I haven't played B2W2 since either late freshman or early sophomore year of high school, but the team just felt more disjointed. I can't really recall anything post game, and from what I can remember of finding Kyurem it was kind of underwhelming compared to other story legendary creatures at the time. Gen 6 was very mid for villains but I can largely forgive it for being the first entry being fully 3D. Flare seemed like a watered down version of Plasma with Lysander's justification being dumb. Gen 7 was really bad for me and was the first major disconnect, ESPECFIALLY because Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon were nearly literally the same game with a DLC added at the end. The start was exactly the same, any changes for the pre-end game was minor and unnoticeable, the Ultra Beasts were cool but for a whole nother 70 bucks it was a major blow. The skull gang people, I forget their name, were dreadfully awful villains followed closely by Marnie's punks, and the pristine obvious villains that I also forget the names of hardly had a reason to be evil outside of mommy dearest wanting a tentacle space Pokemon from another dimension. Gen 7 also felt like a tutorial for the entire first 3 hours or so of the game, or at least for like the first 3 or so islands, I can't fully remember but it was painfully slow and super railroady taking you everywhere. Maybe it's because of the islands, but Gen 3 didn't feel like this, although Hoenn was a bigger island. I also hated Hau, he was a boring and badly written rival. Gen 8 was even worse than gen 7 to me. The map was so empty and boring, the justification of being too scared to catch a higher level mon when you could otherwise see it in a low level area was dumb, the experience for defeating it was piss poor, the random encounters could screw over you trying to get an overworld Pokemon so the mix really messed with flow, I didn't enjoy the characters at all, and just like in gen 7 the antagonists, team Yell, was painfully boring and dumb. I'm fine not always being the savior of the world, not every villain needs to be Aqua, Magma, Plasma, or Flare, but even Team Rocket was a better grunt gang of organized crime than just some punk kids. Gen 9 I couldn't even finished, but I watched my friend play it, so I'll grant that my bias here is external and the weakest to justify, but the opening of the game I didn't like, I did encounter the camera bug that crashed the game and sometimes unloaded chunks, I'll grant that the overworld Pokemon were better but coming off the coattails of Legends I was extremely disappointed in the fight system being a poorly done mix of standard and pseudo-Arceus. It should be the player's choice to engage, not stepping on a bug you hardly could see in a bush. IF you're going to have overworld Pokemon then allow us to more easily engage or disengage rather than just making it bog standard Pokemon that you run into first instead of being RNG grass that was made due to limitations back in the day. The limitations were broken in Legends, yet we have this clunky system instead. The overworld was also incredibly boring, the graphics looked bad, the lighting was terrible, terastylizing was boring, and the gyms were dumb. The plot twist villain being Penny was also really stupid and I didn't like the rival friend group either. I'll grant it some credit for trying to be the first open world mainline game, but after Legends got me excited for Pokemon again, that spark didn't ignite into a flame with Scarlet and Violet. I felt like the worst games, and mind you this is entirely my opinion from a person who grew up with Pokemon since childhood, were gen 7-9 so far. I have nostalgia for gens 1 and 2 but they are a bit rough to go back to, I still love 3 and ORAS, 4/Sinnoh was fine and improved upon from 3 and the introduction of the Legends of Creation was awesome, I especially loved Platinum, 5 in both iterations were really good and I loved Zekrom, Unova was just absolutely beautiful, the story was great and B2W2 felt justified because they actually changed the story to be a few years later with the villains being disjointed under "new" management. Gen 6 was fine, a lot of growing pains from becoming fully 3D, but it can be forgiven for that. I absolutely felt gutted with Alola onwards.
@@soulfuldevil I gotta disagree with most of your comment. A lot of it is literally just “I don’t like it” and “I think this is dumb” without much elaboration outside of a few points here and there. Like, that’s just your opinion and that’s fine, but those aren’t objective reasons for the games being bad, that’s just how you personally felt. The stuff you mentioned about the graphics and gameplay are totally separate points from what I asked (since I just asked what you didn’t like about the story and characters) and they’re the only parts of your comment I agree with, outside of Gen 6’s and Gen 8’s story being lame-I agree with that too lmao But even then, Team Flare wasn’t a rehash of Plasma at all, and you totally misread the motives for the teams in Gen 7, too. They’re just unmemorable and boring for totally different reasons, like taking a lot from Team Galactic and the game not doing a good job to make Lysandre’s goal feel like anything more than a bunch of yapping that most people skip through since the story never supports most of what he’s saying. I thought Team Skull and the Aether Foundation were great imo. Not every villain has to be this world-ending threat and Skull being a gang that’s mostly comic relief was a nice change of pace. And they weren’t just goofy villains either; they had depth because they were all outcasts that got failed their Island Challenge or rejects that had nowhere else to go in life, so they all unified under Team Skull to lash out and form their own family. The Aether Foundation also works as the serious threats of the game. Lusamine is an abusive mother toward her children but a lot of what she does is based off the grief and trauma she experienced losing her husband and going crazy trying and failing to get him back. She ends up lashing out at her kids, going down a dark path, and ends up infected by the Ultra Beasts she initially tried to kill, growing obsessed with them instead. It’s really sad, and it’s cool seeing Lillie and Gladion grow as characters past that. USUM being so similar to SM being a criticism doesn’t make sense to me. If you tolerated Yellow, Crystal, Emerald, and Platinum, USUM changed just as much as those games. I couldn’t get into USUM as much either but those games still had some good moments. If I was an adult in the 90s that played Yellow not long after Red/Blue I’d better have seen people complaining the same thing. Team Yell IS an underwhelming team and that’s mostly because of their execution. Team Skull had more to them besides being a silly gang, while Yell is just exactly what they say on the tin-they’re based off extreme and toxic sports fans that harass people over their favorite athletes and teams and try to rig things in their favor. They either should’ve tried to make them funnier or give them more to do. Chairman Rose and Macro Cosmos is meant to be the serious threat of Gen 8 but they’re way worse than the Aether Foundation because their plans don’t make any sense. Rose means well and wants to stop an energy crisis that’ll happen in 1000 years and Leon is willing to help him tomorrow, AFTER his match with you, but Rose is like “No, screw you, I want you to help me NOW” and basically summons Satan during the Super Bowl just to make his point. Gen 9 is one of my favorite gens story-wise. I agree the graphics and performance issues suck but they actually put a good amount of effort into the plot and character writing here. Pokémon has always had obvious twists so I’m not sure why Penny’s bothers you, but her, Nemona, Arven, Kieran, and Carmine all have fleshed-out personalities and character arcs and fun dynamics with each other and the player. Prof. Sada/Turo as the antagonists was also the first time I felt dread and stakes in a Pokémon game. If you didn’t like them that’s fine but at least to admit you were just biased against them.
OH MY GOD, SOMEONE THAT NOTICED SV IS LINEAR. THANK YOU!!! Worse of all, the objectives are scattered EVERYWHERE, the game basically forces you to backtrack nonstop if you want to do things without overlevelling, and Nemona literally DIRECTS YOU TO THE SECOND GYM INSTEAD OF THE FIRST. S/V looked amazing but they screwed up so bad. I feel like it would've been great if it had gotten some more development time. I get the feeling Team Star's bases were gonna be stealth minigames based on the dialogue and that sounds super cool compared to what we got. but hey SE finally chose to give us a Monsters game after 17 years so I'm thriving, Joker 2 was a good part of my childhood.
Omg being directed to the second gym first would’ve given me a rage hernia, holy shit. How could they be so unapologetically SLOPPY with such a basic courtesy??
Honestly that's fair, I adore Pokemon and I'll still buy the games but I agree with the badge not scaling, it is a bit of a pain having to find out which badges your supposed to do first rather than just stumbling upon them, but with the meta game that's the main thing I love about the games it's like 4D chess and for me it makes competitive more challenging but I 100% get why you and many others just aren't into it!
I felt the same way with both the competitive and the campaign of Pokémon for a long time as well, despite falling under pressure and playing a bit further in the series than you have. It is just not at all a series trying to be something beyond marketable and for children. If you like tactical rpgs I recommend Triangle Strategy, it has all the challenge and fun I want in a tactics game without the grind. If you don’t mind a slow story I think you might love it
For me open world in the context like Skyrim don't work with Pokemon. The Pokemon main games should've kept they unique labyrinth design from the 2D games. Open world like Skyrim made the Pokemon games bland and without character. Overall Game Freak still could create an "open world" game but keep they unique world design from older games in better graphics. Make the world dense not empty like in Skyrim.
As someone who plays a bit of competitive pokemon, albeit on a simulator, top level play is almost always just winning the prediction game, and the higher you go on the ladder the more layers of knowing that your opponent knows that you know that your opponent knows that you'll switch you have. It's not great. Also hell yeah someone mentioned the amazing Digimon games nobody knows about. I loved both of them, and they're what made me pick up Persona 5 after playing the hell out of them.
There was a fan project called Pokemon Generations. It was Pokemon with real-time combat. It was primitive, but still in the right direction for the type of Pokemon game I'd like to see. Just imagine playing as your Pokemon, dodging attacks or getting behind cover to avoid huge AoE moves. Or luring your opponent into water for extra damage on an electric attack. Or changing the battlefield from grass to a fiery pit with a devastating fire attack. Or breaking apart every rock in the battlefield to prevent your opponent from hiding. I'd really like to see something where environment and positioning makes battles less dependent on stats and elemental weaknesses, and more focused on predicting your opponent's moves like the anime. Unfortunately, that'd take forever with the huge roster, but the thought of it is still fascinating to me.
@@sunayama4650 I imagined a game with this concept when I was a kid too! Would absolutely pull me back in if it was executed with even a modicum of competency.
legends game wasnt made for multiplayer in mind at all, the fact they scale battling down was made to more accurately show how far back in time your in
I just replayed my first Pokemon game, which was Omega Ruby (I was around 10 when it released), took Treecko (as far as I know the worst of the Hoenn starters), and never used something else because I could beat everything without really thinking. My last Pokemon game was Moon, which I dropped because it was too easy. This is why I totally understand and support you point of view. For everyone wondering I didn't just play ORAS and Moon. Between their releases I picked up other Pokemon games like Black, White 2, X as well as Pokemon Silver (via Virtual Console on my 3ds).
I have felt about the same. I recently got into persona games and playing them makes me wish pokemon would do something new with it's combat. I need to try a shin megami tensei when I finish
I'd recommend either of the Devil Survivor entries as a gateway SMT game if you're coming from Persona. They're much more character driven than most other SMTs and their narratives are totally unrelated, so you can play them in any order :)
Cassette Beasts is an indie that came out this year that, as a long time pokemon fan, is an excellent alternative that feels familiar but changes up the whole system in great ways
100% accurate. Amazing. Based takes. No disagreement. My only point of contention would be not hammering home just how unforgivably bad the writing in Gamefreak Pokemon games has always been. But despite being Gen Z and starting with Leaf Green (and my favourite region being Hoenn) I also dropped it after playing X version. There's just nothing compelling about the games other than the concept. I get more from the movies, spinoffs, or videos about Pokemon than I do from Gamefreak's abominations.
I don't play modern Pokemon because I feel like the franchise has just run out of ideas, the most recent release I played was Shield, but I thought it was beyond average, I'm not revisiting ORAS with Alpha Sapphire, because I loved Omega Ruby so much and I wanna get back to that point with a save file. My favourite gen is still 5, thanks to Unova, but I also really love 6, the last games I really loved were USUM, but after that it really went downhill. I would love to go back to the days of having Sun and Moon's gameplay, or even ORAS's, while still developing new regions for the player, I also don't like a lot of the newer Pokemon designs, there's literally a copy and pasted Tentacool called Toedscool and it just feels so generic. I don't really see myself buying newer Pokemon games and I don't like the Paradox Pokemon either, but those are my thoughts
I have really gotten to respect genwunners a bit more. Genwunners are famous for hating on new stuff because it’s different and bad, too dissimilar from where their love started. People would always clap back, myself included, ‘There’s not too many mons or your Pokémon look just as dumb’ But I’m honestly burnt out caring about new Pokémon. “What are you, a new bird? Haven’t seen that 1000 times. Oh look, two new legendaries to add the pile of ‘rare’ Pokémon. What are we at 100 now? A tenth?” Not only that, Pokémon is less feeling like a world of magic and wonder and a biology documentary. Cool, there’s over 1000 species of ants… I really just wanted to see some ants. Like 10 types is enough. Pokémon like Garchomp who were these monstrous beings that demanded respect are now not even top tier for their respective niche. Gae champ was literally the face of OU and was recently considered for UU because why would anyone ever consider him over Dragapult or DD Dragonnite. This is of course not unique to Pokémon, nor to franchises I love. There’s gotta be new things and there has to be more new things and then more new things until the old things are just whatever. I feel like most people point at gen 5 as peek Pokémon for a reason. It had just enough old things while painting itself as completely new. It didn’t give into nostalgia but was respectful of what came before and had just enough to feel like a complete world without actually being homework. Sure problems started before then (gen 4 famously created a pantheon of gods that both escalated legendaries and completely ruined them going forward, gen 1 was split between 2 games which was a decision made with the best of intentions that has ruined the franchise forever and gen 3 really leaned into ‘Pokémon you liked but again’) but all of those issues were building blocks, things that started the fatigue without ever going over a line Arecus was received so well I think because it expanded on the lore and world to a point where Pokémon felt like… well Pokémon. Creatures who lived in a world. Gen 9 meanwhile feels like a shop where everything is moving about brightly coloured and demanding your attention. It’s surreal. Most respect for people who keep playing for a love of the games and not the franchise itself, because it has it aged over the years into something new. Not worse, but new in such a way that makes it hard to approach
everything here is why Yugioh and online Pokemon is godawful. I wish the main games would challange me for sure, but the meta aspect of it just destroyed the person enjoyment of learning by yourself a makeshift deck/team of things you'd love and making the best out of them
Lol thank you! Sticking around for content outside your usual interests really means a lot :) Hopefully whatever I cover next will be more in your wheelhouse! More Nintendo is guaranteed sooner or later regardless, fret not.
@@ThrillingDuck Oh! Very exciting! Camt wait for it! I really hope the best for you man. Your vidros are very fun to watch! Hopefully you are having fun too! Thanks so much for eveeything :D
Okay so...first of all love the video, a LOT of your points are perfectly valid and I agree with them But there's a couple of comments made about pokemons online competitive specifically that rub me the wrong way, you seem to completely glance over the existence of double battles/ multi battles, and the fact that the standardized format for most official tournaments is doubles battles. Another thing is your comment about speed essentially being the end all be all of the battle, completely ignoring how things like paralyze, trick room, and just slower bulky-er offensive pokemon exist I'm not trying to argue that pokemon is this perfect franchise and that your completely wrong and stupid for even questioning pokemons quality, I just think your perspective is a little skewed in some aspects But that's I really have to say about that, I seriously love the video, hope to see you succeed in the future
Thanks a lot! I actually touched on double battles briefly in the pinned comment, but I don’t blame you for not seeing that haha. Regarding details like paralyze and trick room, you’re right of course, but my real point was simply that the first strike is too important, even if the speed stat isn’t the end all be all :)
Dang this has happened with so many of my friends and it's kinda sad. As you said in your pinned comment, pokemon has it nailed down when it comes to world building and atmosphere. Like the crazy details in the pokedex about how different species interact, and how connected the people in the regions are with their pokemon is insane. That being said, you don't really get to... SEE a lot of that. considering pokemon have like a couple animations at most and weren't even in the overworld until pretty recently. I also want to say that Double battles help fix the difficulty problem, but the thing is they never use it in the main games. The most it will ever get is like 1 gym leader where that's their thing. I honestly thing double battles should be the standard thing going forward in games especially considering that's what their official competitive format. Personally my dream pokemon game is an open world game like scarlet and violet, but with traversal mechanics that require you to use abilities from pokemon you catch. Like needing to catch water types to put out fires, fighting types to break rocks in caves, ghost types to pass through walls and solve puzzles etc. basically like a psuedo zelda like game, but were the items are pokemon. A game like that with level scaling on gyms and maybe the research tasks from legends arceus would be the dream. Id also like the game to run without my switch exploding but that's probably too much to ask haha. :)
I think it's hilarious that you used Pokemon XD music while talking about all the problems modern pokemon has. Partially because XD somewhat fixes those problems: 2v2, no online, and story battles that can actually be a pain in the ass if you get too cocky.
The GameCube duology are basically the only entries with the traditional battle system I still have any affection for, and it’s largely because all battles are doubles and narratively and world-building-wise they feel like playing through a Pokémon OVA. That said, I really just used those tracks cuz I love them lol. XD’s music is just 👌
@@ThrillingDuck Colosseum and XD are *phenomenal*. I just wish they inspired the main series to try more crazy things. Both rotation and inverse battles are fun, but they were wiped away clean one or two generations later...
Boom. Random video choice but you nailed a major issue I've been trying to figure out. How meta ruins online gaming...... I couldn't put my finger on it and it is t just pokemon. It's everything. It's all competition and no expression or fun. Cheers mate. Good video
The meta 1000% strips the enjoyment out of it What makes Pokenon fun at a base level is using what you decide to, but then knowing it might not be "the right option" prevents that. Learning the meta was very fulfilling, but it ends up meaning I prefer the older games that let your mindlessly play at your own discretion without abundant filler, because the meta makes it a job. Just straight grinding out my own team in my own bubble is the kinda comfort food I liked the games for. Newer games have decimated how fun that bubble is. I just can't care about the worlds as much. The older overall design rings more meticulous and meaningful in thought in terms of development, but I've unfortunately mostly played them out to satisfaction these days. That same Gamefreak clearly is no longer with us.
I'll probably keep on liking pokemon which is ok, the same amount as you stop playing pokemon, your taste has changed and if your not having fun I support your decision on quitting, but there's nothing wrong with continuing and loving pokemon more and more as time goes on because we are all humans that have our own taste
You mentioned Hungrybox but you should've talked about how in the beginning he played deliberately outside the Fox meta as Jiggly just because she was his favorite and won anyway. What I would call a win for fun
Interesting! I actually didn’t know about that, but that’s because I don’t seriously follow these guys - I have only a casual and surface level familiarity with a few names due to happenstance exposure. I think it’s cool that that’s how he got his start, but he still has a channel devoted to the proliferation of the meta (as far as I can tell), so in my head he gets lumped in with the rest haha.
@@ThrillingDuck Yeah he definitely plays a lot more within the meta now but I'd say it's more of the meta absorbing his alternative playstyle. It's always cool when players break norms and are so good that the meta has to adapt. That's why he's my favorite pro. But I still agree with your larger point, metas are pretty annoying for casual gamers like me
The other problem with "the meta" is that it takes away all the fun of actually learning the game. If you want to play online, you look up the current meta online, grind what you need, and then play. Only a few people are actually evolving the meta and the rest just follow. That's not fun.
I think I understand what you're trying to say. There's too high of a skill ceiling for no pay off... maybe. I mean I really do love to out play opponents competitively I can definitely get how it's stale. Especially with sv and sword and shield. They just add gimmicky mechanics and never have them return again. They never let the series grow or anything.
I feel like when people complain about Pokémon games not innovating enough, they completely disregard the mountain of spin-off games we have. The main series always will be for turn based battling, and if you want innovation, you should check out games like Pokémon Mystery Dungeon or Pokémon Ranger. There's really no way to change current Pokémon's mechanics drastically, even what they did in Pokémon Legends Arceus felt odd for a Pokémon game.
I completely get the whole meta-defining parts. They can really make or break a game even on a semi-casual front. I don't inherently mind it if the game isn't asking to be ludicrously precise like Pokemon does (IVs, Pokemon itself, etc). For games with fixed rosters or something like Smash Bros or Splatoon, I do like to watch some high level stuff just for fun, and I do like to see what's considered good on a character or kit. Not that I'll necessarily use them myself, but it's interesting.
I agree with everything except the last thing you said. Official games have grown stale. If you are bored one day and feeling adventurous I'd recommend trying some pokemon fangames. The community has done what gamefreak has not and it definitely scratches that itch for me. Insurgence is a good start. Opalo is my personal favorite. On the other hand, the future is bright for the monster taming genre, lots of unique games to look forward to.
Meta kills every game, on that we all agree. What I hate about new Pokémon games are meaningless one-game gimmicks and really really declining quality of Pokémon designs. Btw never ever in my whole life, since 1996, I gave two shits about IV's or EV's. Just avoided using Rare Candy's because they are not natural :P
Agreed on the one-off gimmicks as well. I actually liked Mega Evolution because it felt like a natural extension of traditional evolution and the Mega forms had great designs, but Gigantamax and whatever those crystal crowns are called look dumb as shit and flat out just don’t feel like they belong in-universe.
@@ThrillingDuck YES! I agree totally. Call me old-fashioned but Mega Evolution was one of the best innovation in games and had to be continued. Hell, maybe Z-Moves were kinda cute with those dances too, not gonna lie about it.
honestly feel like Pokémon designs have only gotten better each gen. like for me, someone who started out in Gen 7. i really dislike kanto Pokémon because they feel so boring and plain compared to later gens like 4-now. even johto Pokémon i usually really hate because of how basic they are.
I forgot why I subbed then I remembered the Jill Video - Also yeah Pokemon is like Bread - you just need to spice it up with some extra toppings you know add something more
First of, Insightful video, thanks Duck. Agreed with the point about the Meta. It saps Individuality and accessibility (in terms of fun) in exchange for reward through investment and research into deep lore of strategy and training. Struggling with that in Heart Gold as well. The internet sorta sucked out the mystery and whimsy of it as well, which is definitely fair. People finding a Lapras in Union cave when it just came out made thw world seem more mythical and worthy of exploration. Imagine people having to figure out or even map out how to find one. Now you can just look online and see it's on Friday in this specific spot. You sound like an old samurai speaking about how the way of the sword has died.😂 But you made a good point because I suppose that's what technology, research and archiving do to science and arts. We aim for feasibility and expediency instead of exploration generally which is good too because we don't cover old ground and are able to explore farther. The point of wonder and discoverabilty just normally gets deeper to achieve. Or something ion no scienteeest🤷🏾♂️🙆🏾♂️🤦🏿😮💨😂
The thing with competative is it's actually really easy to fix. The issue is that the systems for making pokemon stronger are incredibly convuluted, which means the players who don't want to sit there and learn them and then grind it out are left with a huge disadvantage to those who are. If you toss out IVs entirely, and smash together EVs/natures into a more understandable and streamlined(and most importantly easily changed) system like a "battle style" or something, you remove this artificial power gap. Then it's just a matter of proper balance so that pokemon aren't completely outclassed by others. Sure there will always be a top meta since perfect balance is near impossible, but so long as the difference between the gold and silver medal is minor and not insurmountable like it is now, you'll have a healthy and fun multiplayer environment.
The last Pokemon game I really invested time on was Platinum. I dropped out of trying B/W when I saw that, not only the game was easier, they would literally give you away the most effective Pokemon for the gym of you didn't have it. If I wanted an rpg that literally helped me win it, I'd rather play an idle game instead.
(Sorry for just now commenting on an older video, I just found your channel and wanted to check stuff out LMAO) All of your complaints/criticisms of Pokémon are 100% valid ones! Competitive Pokémon is fun to watch (at least imo) and CAN be fun to partake in in some aspects, but it definitely kills it a bit when, like, EVERY VGC player is using nearly identical teams. :/ Obviously, the pre-evolutions are going to be weaker than the fully evolved forms, but besides that, what is even the point of making some of the other 'mons in the first place if only a decent couple of handfuls of ones they've made are competitively viable? It's just not as fun when literally EVERY competitor is using a Flutter Mane (a Scarlet & Violet Pokémon), y'know? Whatever happened to the whole "using your favorites" thing? While I can definitely have a good conversation and fun with Competitive talk with certain friends, being ONLY into the competitive part 100% of the time can be MISERABLE. Same with Smash, it's not really fun when people are only picking a certain character because they're Top Tier or whatever the fuck. Smash Bros. and Pokémon are MUCH more enjoyed (at least for the most part) when you're just playing casually and shooting the shit with your friends. You'll have a much greater time busting out a Smash/Pokémon match just to decide who gets to pick what to get for dinner or something, which are one of the many reasons why I love both of these franchises so much. But yeah, all of your takes here are fine ones! :) (And thank you for not just coming on here and being like, "PoKéMoN iS sTuPiD aNd AnYoNe WhO LiKeS iT iS sTuPiD!!!!!" There's WAY too many shitty and baseless opinions like that on the internet, and seeing yours with perfectly fine takes was a refresher!)
You never have to apologize for commenting on any of my videos! Old or otherwise haha. I make them to have a conversation. Glad this one resonated with you too! Thanks for having so much to say - it was fun to read :) And yeah, obviously I echo these sentiments lol.
Captured my feelings on watching competitive smash even as someone who was a triehard back when smash 4 lol. I just recall playing melee and brawl as a kid and them being at their most fun when it was just me and my cousins being casuals unaware of how to even roll lol. Which is even weirder cause I've grown to actually grind more at more traditional fighters. Even coming from Nintendo themselves with ARMS, I enjoy hearing about that game's ins and outs by pro level players and watching tournament highlights likely because it and other fighters are explicitly built with that aspect from the ground up. The metas are organic evolutions of buckling down and getting good whereas with smash, it looks and feels like high level play is simply something some nerds discovered by accident, and the creators have just slowly started incorporating aspects in the past couple entries that appeases that crowd in the gameplay... Wait isn't that exactly what happened? Lol. For Pokemon i also was a sweaty Showdown visitor for a time as a teen though even then i just used pokemon i liked or went random for fun. But yeah these days listening to someone like Wolfy talk stats n shit puts me to sleep (no hate to him, respect him actually). I definitely value the world, lore and character side of the franchise much, much more than the competitive scene.
Pokémon's competitive play is balanced around double battles (since it's the official tournament format), which allows for a more layered strategy each turn, which might better suit your tastes. I did lose interest in Pokémon as a single-player game after generation three because of the diminishing returns of every subsequent release.
good video, i understood and even agreed despite loving the modern games i was so happy when they removed EVs and IVs in legends arceus and i really hope they just make that the standard for future games
9:00 You know it gotten so bad when MFing Sakurai himself threw a jab at them during one of the DLC reveals: “So this fighter can hit the target at frame one and three and…… wait a minute! We don’t do that shit here, we’re here to have fun”.
9:39 Funnily enough when Smash Ultimate came out, I was in College, and I found a group of "casual" smash players. My Melee loving self thought they would play like me and spam smashes for fun. Nope, they rekt me on repeat and NEVER let me win, not even out of friendliness. I was their punching bag until I just stopped and left the group. Then one of them came and asked me "Why did you leave?" It's because their "casual style" was abusing the meta, not making unique techniques. It Sucked.
Have you tried playing TemTem? I mean I haven't, but I've seen an animated video about it and got the impression that it's a harder Pokemon, you might enjoy it.
I love Pokemon, but I can’t really find fault with this video, I have been playing for 15 odd years now. The fun I find in these games are nuzlockes. But that is a external ruleset not provided by the game. I’ve rarely played multiplayer due to the reasons you mentioned, the quality of life changes make creating a viable team easier, but when I played multiplayer at the start of gen 9 I would just see the same 4 or 5 Pokemon on every team, it just wasn’t fun for me at all. Personally I think the takes made in this video weren’t that hot to me, even as a Pokemon enjoyer I can very much relate to many of the issues with my beloved franchise! Anyway just stumbled upon this channel on my homepage! Subscribed for more!
Glad to hear it, welcome aboard! And yeah, you pretty much hit the nail on the head with that “same 4 or 5 Pokemon on every team” bit. So much for player expression.
Smash is a weird existence as a fighting game and not very enjoyable to watch since it’s very warped version of the game While other fighting games their tournaments players generally resemble the normal gameplay but longer combos
Agreed. Professional players of technical fighting games actually look like they’re playing the same game as a layman, but pro Smash literally looks like a different game altogether.
i disagree with the notion that all the old pokemon games didn’t have aspects to them that gave challenge or made you think. the battle resorts in gen 3 and 4 are great end game content that’s extremely demanding and even rematching some of the gym trainers and elite 4 trainers adds new pokemon to their teams and makes them switch out mons and such. gen 6 is the exception because that’s where the games became brain dead easy especially with the introduction of some mechanics like experience share. the game creators even said this was done because kids don’t have a long enough attention span to make it to post game content so they made the base game easier, cut poat game challenge battles, and just get ready for the next game.
You’re right about the postgame, but the main game doesn’t really prepare you for it at all. And it shouldn’t take a game until after its credits to get good. I also think it’s kind of sad that Exp share is always cited as a major source of challenge removal - all it’s supposed to do is cut down on grinding. If the Exp share is what “dumbed down the game” then what does that say about the game? It implies that level was more important than strategy to begin with, which isn’t exactly what I would call great design.
what’s good in the main game is subjective, some people like different things about it. if you want to comment on the battles themselves then yea waiting for postgame for a better challenge is a bit lame, but the point is the option is there and it’s not like pokemon games are crazy long anyway. gen 6 itself doesn’t have great design. most gym leaders had 3 pokemon with 3 moves each. not to mention the free mega pokemon handouts like the gen 1 starters and a mega lucario. many things beyond the exp share make gen 6 easier than the other games
I stopped playing Pokémon because a video made by someone named Gireum Red or something shows that they never really cared in the first place. The entire corporate mindset behind Pokémon's design philosophy based on that video was that "it will sell anyways" which is no more apparent than with Scarlet and Violet. In fact unless they start putting their act together then the last and the latest Pokémon game I'm leaving with is Pokémon Sleep, which I can't speak for whether that's good or bad exactly. Thankfully, there's just about enough monster tamers for me to migrate to so that it won't leave a Pokémon shaped hole in my heart now that I've stopped tolerating the bullcrap this franchise puts out. But then again I've always been more of a Yo-kai Watch person.
The multiplayer/meta thing is certainly accurate, but it's also a hard thing to fix. Balance is a difficult thing to achieve while keeping the unique qualities of various mechanics. With the internet making the sharing of info an almost automatic process, it's inevitable that pokemon will be quickly ranked according to competitive viability.
Yeah fortunately for me I was always more into single player games than competitive ones, but the concept of metas in general has kind of destroyed most of my desire to interact with competitive online experiences at all, and unfortunately there is no realistic fix for that. I really would get back into Pokémon if they did something to actually evolve the single player experience though. And, yknow, actually put some effort into the development lol.
@@ThrillingDuck Right there with you. That's why I rarely do any competitive multiplayer. Maybe some ranking system - like elo - would help competitive games be more beginner-friendly. Seems to have worked okay for Advance Wars By Web.
The first two generations of Pokemon dealt with types completely differently. Having the right type advantage only gave you a bit of an edge, it absolutely did not decide a match. That all changed in Gen 3
Agree about the Pokemon Meta not so much on Smash bros. crispy gameplay is always fun to see and only really showcased by the best of the best. MKLeo who you showed many times just so happens to be the best player in the world and his go too strategy is "playing perfectly" so of course it's not going to look like organic smash bros. that kid is inhuman. A better example would be the MVC3 meta where everyone is spamming infinite combos and Doom missiles.
Interesting take! I usually hear the opposite - that pro play in traditional fighting games actually resembles the game as played by casuals (visually speaking) whereas Smash looks like a completely different game when played by pros. I respect your opinion though :)
@@ThrillingDuck Ah that part really depends on the fighting game. Top level Tekken has the characters twitching back and forth unnaturally for positioning and looks and plays completely different from casual fighting. SF4 meta was embarrassingly defensive from what little I saw with both players crouch blocking and throwing Fireballs for chip damage for most of the match. MK and KoF are working as intended I guess granted I don't really follow their competitive scenes but KoF really facilitates extreme high level play built into it's mechanics and a lot of the single player Bosses are way tougher than you can reasonably be from skill alone so I have a hard time imagining the meta looking unnatural when the base game cheats so hard. But U/MvC3 is the most egregious, it feels like entire mechanics and character and move interactions are completely ignored because of the state of that meta. One of my fav characters has a "Secret Move" that's strong enough to counter Hypercombos and it never gets used because people only ever toss out Hyper Combos at the end of their infinite combo loops so every match looks about the same and plenty of mechanics almost never come into play in the face of Magneto or Dr.Doom just juggling the opponent to death over and over. Pro Smash might not look like casual Smash(ignoring Melee because that does look ridiculous) but it does look like the characters themselves are fighting to the best of their abilities. And true casual smash should be a chaotic experience played with items and stage hazards on anyway.
now i agreed most of your points up until the meta part where for the first half i agreed that metas are boring and after its establish god damn 3/4 of the playerbase only plays like that but for smash i couldn't agree on competitive smash (and just competitive fighting games) really show you what type of person is behind the controller. The types of combos, the structure of those combos, how they wiff punish. these are all factors that aren't artificial at least for my eyes. Also the point of playing online first off smash online is already dog water with their being no separate ranked and casual play but if want to play at a fair playing field and not feel you are being pounded into mince meat then then you need to take some time to grasp the controls. editing note: yeah finished the video glad you admit this video was your tangent/rant (not meant to insult) on your refusal to get good
Meta is the thing players use to take the fun out of a game....But we cannot get out of it in a pvp scene, otherwise we are going to get bodied. That's how dominant those strategies are
To me, I try to be my own in a sense. Karen of the elite four put it best. And I feel like screw the meta though I know I'm on for a time too. The meta can kiss my tail and also I called out gens 7 through 9 as bad games overall.
@@Yinyanyeow I get not liking competitive but this weird copium casual fans have trying to prove that “erm even the games think ur weird!!!” Is so corny (karen literally says she uses dark types because they’re strong)
I can agree on pretty much all of your single player points, pokemon was my first rpg series but for a while now ive been branching out to series like dragon quest, persona, final fantasy, fire emblem etc and the battle system and gameplay of pokemon feels very boring and stagnant. Comparing pokemon to the other series ive grown to love i just find that the others have more opportunities for tactics, difficulty, variety etc whereas pokemon, despite how many they are, not having any of these components. you'd think that 6 v 6 4 move slots would open itsellf to a lot of variety but at this point pokemon is so easy that it devolves down to knowing the type chart and hitting super effective and it's just not fun for me anymore, doesn't help the story isnt really too interesting most the time. The only pokemon games this doesnt apply to is the mystery dungeon series which i think are honestly leagues ABOVE main series in almost every aspect. I have the same opinion with multiplayer in pokemon not being fun for me, but I heavily disagree with your meta take, but as long as you aren't the kind of person to ridicule the ppl who like meta and high competitive stuff like that then its a pretty valid opinion lol
My answer to the not doing the work for competition Pokemon point. I would look into online simulators like Pokémon showdown or what others do hacking Pokémon in ( not advocating for it but it’s not an uncommon phenomenon). It’s a good point though I can’t be bothered to make a perfect Pokémon so I just use showdown. I don’t think you’re gonna find much ground on the play style thing but it’s a opinion that you’re entitled to have all the power to you.
Yeah, a system that allows players to skip the grinding would definitely help/be of value to me, but the hyper-simplistic combat focused around mind games still just doesn’t appeal to me anymore. Thanks for the comment! If I ever decided I was interested in returning to competitive Pokemon, it would probably be via one of the simulators you mentioned.
For someone who hasn't played Pokemon in the past decade you managed to find a bunch of good animations from various Pokemon games before and after XY.
Not sure what you’re getting at (perhaps implying that I’m a poser who totally still plays Pokémon games?), but I openly said that I’m “keeping an eye on the series.” Everything I showed was from trailers that pop up at the top of the list when searching the games. Not sure what “good animations” you’re talking about.
I love playing smash bros. with my friends , some of my best gaming memories are playing smash bros. Meelee and brawl in couch play. Pokémon has been just okish... All beside Arceus for the switch i've gotten second hand at cheaper prices because i'm not excited for Pokémon anymore... Great vídeo 👍
pokemon has lost its point really. you have to pay for Home, cant have all mons at once on one game at all. even gamfreak japanese devs know it will sell well so theres no point to hyper polising it. its pointless.
Emerald, and Generations 4 and 5 are the best. They at least play great, and tried to add as much as they could. Anime graphics should have been used in any Japan-based video game for better potential for smooth gameplay, stable physics, and plenty of content. The characters should look appealing, even being sex dimorphic with sex-locked clothes and hair. The arching head and tall eyes design is the best in making characters look cute. The school setting contradicts the open-world setting and theme that the schools work in the old Pokémon games since the schools are just minor places you can visit like they are training modes. All the routes and cities open is how you can make an open-world video game while still having some linear elements like with the gyms you can only get in based on how many badges you have. The Exp. Share should be an option to level up Pokémon evenly, and just over-level the different ID Pokémon. Abilities no longer work in the overworld, which takes away the Pokémon-getting variety. Now we are back to how the Abilities work in RS and FRLG. Despite Game Freak being so lazy in copying the Pokémon models and moves from the 3DS games, they did not try and copy the male and female models to change the hair, eyes, and clothes as a way to create new characters. I heard that making ugly characters is hard to do because they waste memory size. Inti Creates, M2, Arika, and Code Mystics can probably make Pokémon games better-especially with anime graphics that would allow potential for the Regional PokéDex, National PokéDex, Abilities working in and out of battles, sex dimorphic characters, sex-locked clothes and hairstyles, overworld Pokémon, Loto-ID, rematches, Battle Frontier, reusable TMs, TRs, HMs, arcades, farming, and others. Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are the worst in the series for being ugly and broken, as well as being porikore as the Japanese say.
I completely sympathise with you regarding the meta, but I think you can still have fun with it and even win because so many become utterly dependent on stock sets, IVS, EVS, etc. There's little more satisfying than fighting someone with base smogon sets with your own well trained, but original setups and having them assume the same thing about you, only to freak out when you do something completely unexpected for them and they can't adapt 😂 You can always outsmart rigid AI level thinking with human passion and ingenuity, I feel
Glad to hear those stories are still out there! I assume there’s still a certain amount of grinding required to get your mons set up though, so for the time being I’ll pass lol 😅
@@ThrillingDuck Yeah, but I'm a perfectionist and grind maniac anyway, even with no multi-player. If I like the characters or gameplay, I guess I want to perfect it. By the way, this isn't monster collecting, but the Fire Emblem series has become a new favorite RPG series for me. Similar to what happened with you. Bought my 3DS for Y and wound up staying for FE, starting with Awakening and Fates on the same console. And unlike Pokemon, I've actually bought the later Switch games for FE too. I'd never touch a current Pokemon. It died after gen 6 for me.
It doesn't help that currently most of the best Pokemon for competitive are locked behind a paywall. You need own a copy of Sword/Shield and their respective DLC, Legends Arceus, and Scarlet/Violet and their respective DLC just to have a chance at crafting a team. I put together a team for online battles in Pokemon Sword and I would continually get wrecked by people who had the DLC or more "meta relevant" teams. Plus so much of the 1000+ Pokemon are completely useless if you want to compete.
Exactly, and the saddest part to me is that there's really no solution to this. Actually balancing literally 1000 Pokemon is altogether unfeasible, and the meta will just sort of always exist now. There's just no fun allowed anymore in the online sphere, unless you find treating the game like a full time job with a meta-approved cookie cutter team fun.
Just found this video, I 100% agree with the braindead combat. I tried replaying Pokemon several times over the last year but I lose interest every time after an hour because of the combat. It was fine in the year 2000 but now its absolutely outdated as boring asf
Really when it comes to teams I just pick the pokemon I want on my team because I just don't think of how good a pokemon is, heck a lot of times I forget what others say about the pokemon that is on my team, I can understand why competitive ruins the game for you but for me I just ignore it because on a roleplay I focus on what team i want to have the most fun with
Not sure what was that Smash part about, made me feel like you don't understand the difference between casual and competitive play. People who participate in tournaments being very good to the point their actions look artificial is not Smash exclusive, that literally applies to any sport/game/whatever. Thats not a Pokemon or Smash problem it's just human nature.
Yes, again, there are some SPICY takes here, I know. Although something I forgot to mention: I still think Pokemon is top of its class, even when compared to its contemporary rivals, in the music and atmosphere department, and making its worlds feel really immersive and lived in. But as somebody who doesn’t play life/farm sims, I need the meat of the experience to be more engaging, and mainline Pokemon just has not done that for me in far too long. I actually still really enjoy occasionally replaying some of the older single player spinoffs, such as the first couple Mystery Dungeon games and Pokemon Conquest, but that’s about it. Even Legends Arceus was too different in the wrong ways to catch my interest. Hehe “catch.”
Also I realize Doubles is a thing, but it only slightly mitigates the simplicity issue and does literally nothing to mitigate the meta’s stranglehold on the worldwide community. I also realize that the meta pre-dates Gen 6, but Gen 6 was when it intrusively barged its way into my life and became impossible for me to ignore.
I don't think Pokemon is that immersive n lived even compared to its rivals, ofc the monster taming genre isn't exactly known for having the most NPC lively world, the whole focus is the monsters n the gameplay, modern Pokemon did try to make it more lively and thats credit to them, but still is bland or limited, since you mentioned farm/life sims they do have a more deep lively world in terms of NPC, on my head I'll always think either Harvest Moon 'n Stardew Valley
Imo the only things they do that are better than their contemporaries is music and character design.
LOL STOP BEING A CRYBABY ABOUT META, JUST KNOW TO BUILD DON'T BE LAZY, even bad strategies can win match, just see how Tempt4 won vs a mod (yes he is a good player besides having a cherry picking battles on the channel), or how liepard was op in gen5, same with espathra in gen9 just know to build, know to play and do it good; if you don't want to do that your arguments are invalid... unless the meta is unhealthy and then u have a point.
PD: Besides that raising perfect iv mons are a pain, still dunno why gamefreak don't make this easier...
@@fandenovelas777 My point is that even knowing what to do, it’s a massive grind just to prepare. And because so few Pokémon are competitively viable, you end up seeing the same ones on every team. How is that fun in a combat system this simplistic to begin with? Where is the player expression in this game with hundreds of unique monsters, where only like 10 are being used in rotation?
@@ThrillingDuck thats not true there is a good amount and you can play diffrent metas
His dissection of the multi-player and 'meta' is exactly how I feel about Super Smash Bros. nowadays. Not everyone wants to adhere to someone else's dissertation on how the game should be played.
I agree I dislike meta stuff but i feel like have to check it because what if I’m missing out this is for single player games as well i hate how day 1 a game will have a full walkthrough.
Also any casual yugioh fan feels the pain of the meta my dumb spell counter deck will never be good
@@shamluis2125 well your spell counter deck would never be good even in 2004
The meta feeling artificial is definitely a relatable point. Gameplay is broken down to its atomic level and it’s like watching a completely different game. Impressive to be sure, but it’s not for a casual gamer like me.
The problem with it is that the devs don’t balance the game and they definitely don’t care if a Pokémon will end up being trash when they create it’s stats and such. Multiplayer battling was always the biggest draw for me since it’s the only time when you can actually apply strategy and have your opponent do the same. The other massive problem is how fucking hard it is to build even one team of competitively ready Pokémon.
To be honest a lot of things have a no middle difficulty problem. You get good enough to beat the CPUs but then go online and get destroyed so hard you can’t even process why you lost.
It was the same thing I experienced with Mario Kart Wii. While I was able to beat the 50cc mode, when I played online, some of the players had three/four/five stars next to their username, and yet they ended up going so freakin' fast that on my end was normal speed compared to them, that, despite getting close to the top positions, I still ended up below the top 5. So even I knew in 2007 that online multiplayer is kind of shit. Even I stunk a call of duty black ops 1 zombies but I still had fun. And while many people have moved on to newer games in the series, I've pretty much stuck with the originals since, well, looking at the new ones of COD zombies, looks way, waay harder than the older more retro ones of the past. So yeah, for me personally, I always think parts of the past are more appreciated and a lot more fun compared to the games of today. And yes, while video games have evolved over the past 50 years, I still prefer to watch youtube videos or even movies rather than play video games. Because well, I don't find Video games as fun as I used to. And even then I'm always looking for games in the past that I remember playing as a child (especially the PC games with the Hot Wheels Action Stunt one, Operation, and the original late 1990s version of the Backyard sports to name a few).
The thing that gets me with Pokémon is that they had the foundation for a new battle formula with double and triple battles but they just got rid of them
Doubles is still there, aka 2v2 which is actually the official format in the form of VGC as opposed Singles OU
still has most of the same issues he has with singles
@@goGothitaLOL Personally, when i saw the triple battles in Gen 5, I thought they would go to the extreme by doing 5v5 or 10v10, and also, instead of 6 pokemon you carry with, I would double it to 12 pokemon you carry with to make it much more grueling but exciting at the same time. And sadly that never happened so, go figure.
I think it’s also really telling just how significantly more enjoyment and thought there is in double battles. Hell, Pokémon like Plusle and Minun benefit heavily from that because of their abilities. Why Game Freak still insists on keeping over 90% of all single player battles as single battles I will never understand.
@@burning_lizardThe entirety of the Blueberry Academy DLC and epilogue in SV is made up of only Double Battles, at least. Not a single Single Battle in sight. And that’s a lot of battles they make you go through, and a good chunk of them are actually reasonably difficult.
X/Y was my last one too! I wish no ill will on the series but the first 1:19 of this video is so relatable. Here for this video. Edit; oh my god you’re SPITTING. Thank you for expressing this perspective. I love fighting games but I refuse to go hard at smash for the reasons you listed. My taste for competition has evolved and a lot of Nintendo titles don’t facilitate the kind of depth I want. Its like a meta super imposed over what are best enjoyed as casual experiences.
Lol thank you so much! And absolutely, very well put :)
I actually REALLY enjoyed a unique take on the monster catching genre called Cassette Beasts. In that game, you don't send monsters out, but rather transform into them to fight with their form. The element system is much more unique and interactive than "bonus damage," and you fight in a party of two since you always have a companion with you. You can even fuse together for a myriad of benefits as you fight, with the obvious drawback being you're only taking one turn in combat now.
Somebody else here mentioned Cassette Beasts, but they didn’t really describe it. That sounds rad, I’ll definitely check it out, thanks!
Huh? Oh wow, from the name alone I thought Cassette Beasts is just another Pokemon knock-off (whether it's good or not), but what you've described sounds pretty interesting! Doubt I'll ever check it out considering my laziness, but at least it's nice to know the game is more than it seems at first glance.
Used to feel the same. Started going to IRL events and using Discord and found plenty of people who aren’t too competitive or too casual. Helps to play with people who love the game for what it is.
This is actually why I love the spin-off games (REAL spin-offs by REAL devs, not dreck made by Gamefreak or those fucking FOMO fueled mobile games). Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, Pokemon Snap, even games like the Ranger games have incredible ideas, concepts, and even stories - things that the main games have never done well, even when they tried, rare as that was.
It's a shame, because Pokemon really is timeless. I just wish TPC and GF cared about the series beyond being an easy cash grab.
Ranger games has really good story. They should be the one making the mainline game.
Pokémon Conquest is probably my favorite Pokémon game ever, possibly even above all the mainline games. I would give so much for another one (or at least a remake or such).
Competitive Pokemon used to actually let you use some of your favorites as long as you knew how to slot it in, these days it's just shooting yourself in the foot most of the time which is sad to see.
like karen herself said
win using your favorites
This is flat out just not true, the meta in competitive Pokemon existed as far back as Gen 1, which is evidenced by the Nintendo Cup of 1997, the representative of the Kanto region of Japan, Suzuki Yusuke used a team of Pokemon that matches exactly what the modern meta of RBY that Smogon considers to be the best Pokemon in the OU tier. Suzuki ended up tying for 3rd place in that tournament.
I really understand your point of view, even as someone who likes Pokemon but was never really invested in it in the first place. The alternatives you propose are awesome as well, great tastes !
Thanks a lot! SMT is basically in my top 3 franchises of all time at this point haha.
Hot take: the core combat system of Pokemon is actually excellent... but the games go out of their way to make it boring. If only a casual playthrough of a pokemon game involved as much strategy as a Pokemon Showdown match then the games would actually feel more worth playing.
Battling top tier pokemon vs. other top tier pokemon is fun. Training them to get to that point is not fun.
I can definitely understand that perspective :)
here's a way to make pokemon more fun
remove rng
make ghost and bug type pokemon immune to confusion
make a pokemon sleep for three turns.. no as in have a chance of waking up... no.. they will sleep all 3 turns nd the counter will not reset if you switch out so you can know when your pokemon will wake up
make the chance of the ai (computer) getting para'd and hax'd higher then the player.. the ai gets all the good luck so this is fair.. if battling other players as humans.. keep it the same for both
- make shedinja's wonder guard immune to
- all weather except hail
- he will only take damage rom stealth rocks
this will make shedinja only take outside damage from hail and stealth rocks oh and
- wonder guard is immune to mold breaker
make crits more likely to happen to the player then the AI (the computer' ai and the game itself removes crits from the player and steals them so this is fair) things that have a high crits ratio still work the same for any user
ban the ai and the game of rom trying to screw over the player and actively trying to steal from the player when they're winning.. the game tries to ruin battles only when the player is winning.. yeah game how about get a life?
At least there’s always the rom-hacks and fan-made Pokémon games for you to try
You hit the nail on the head for why I hate competitive gaming scenes, not just in Pokemon but in most series. Unless a game is REALLY well-designed, the "meta" consists largely of figuring out which mechanics, characters, moves, etc, to utilize--usually a minority of them--and which ones to ignore completely--usually the majority. It's reduction of a game to a fraction of itself in the name of personal glory, as well exposing the flawed design of games I used to think were great.
Very well-worded, I agree completely!
See, I don't play Pokemon with strategy in mind. I just choose whatever pokemon I like and try to get them strong enough to actually use. If they start out strong or have some sort of cool ability, that's just a plus.
I wish that double battles were more common in Pokémon's single-player campaigns. It's strange that they're so rare because official Pokémon VGC tournaments use the doubles format, and there's lots of moves and abilities such as Tailwind and Intimidate that are more useful in doubles (there are even some such as Helping Hand and Friend Guard that straight up do nothing in singles). There are even instances in the games where you encounter two evil team grunts at once and it looks like they're both about to fight you at once in a double battle, but then for some reason they decide fight you one at a time instead. It's also a shame that triple battles and rotation battles were only in a few games before being axed in Sun & Moon.
The indigo disk dlc is all about double battles and I love it for it among other things
when i was a kid playing pokemon x, it took about 3 months for every passer-by to gen in perfect iv’ed and ev’ed legendaries, with the highest base stats and only the very best moveset. i only played with friends at the time, but realising how inaccessible the random online space was it was extremely difficult to find someone on a level playing field.
when you’re 9 and versusing a bunch of grown adult men who know how to manipulate the statistics of a digital animal, it’s difficult to still have fun to way the game preaches at you to. none of the information about ivs and evs were even accessible at the time let alone for a kid who didn’t know where to look. for the people than defend pokémon’s stagnation with “it’s just a kids game” they seemingly don’t care that battling online has become completely inaccessible to kids anyways, ESPECIALLY now.
i agree it’s not a popular take, but i cant lie and say it doesn’t make the game less fun.
This video literally hits every mark that I feel about the franchise lately. I LOVED Pokemon as a kid, and while I enjoyed Pokemon X and Y for what it was and the first time in a long time changes it felt like it brought to Pokemon (first to be fully 3D, Mega Evolutions, a new Pokemon type, raid battles, technically riding Pokemon, character customization) it was the beginning of my eventual disconnect with the series.
It just feels like the Pokemon formula is stale. The stories have been getting dumber since Black and White 2, the rival(s) have been getting dumber, the villains have been getting dumber, the single fresh take of Arceus didn't get implemented into the mainline game, the lack of meaningful additions to the bog standard Pokemon battles has made it tiresome, and the overall narrative of the games have been getting dumber.
I got almost every game growing up with the exception of Crystal, unfortunately. My older brothers had Red and Blue so my twin and I had those to start out with. My older brothers stopped playing after Gold and Silver, but my twin and I were hooked. We got Fire Red and Leaf Green, we shared Ruby and when Emerald came out I got Emerald, similar story with Diamond and Platinum, he got Heart Gold and I got Soul Silver, he got Black and I got White, but after that it was just me continuing the legacy. Each iteration felt like they were adding something meaningful, or at least something unique. Gen 3 got the beauty contest and, if I remember correctly, the intro battle animations, and double battles. Gen 4 had the first bit of 3D to really iterate on the world and better intro animations. Gen 5 has continuous battle animations, an even better 3D world that was iterated on, the stories were phenomenal, a bold take on a soft reset, although it definitely had some issues with the villain team. The mistakes of BW I feel were largely fixed in B2W2, albeit with a slightly weaker story. Plus, gen 5 introduced triple battles and rotation battles. Gen 6 felt a bit more cookie cutter Pokemon, but it introduced the things I mentioned in the second sentence above, it felt worthy of existing and brought new ideas to Pokemon. Gen 7 really didn't feel that way, at least not to me. Sure, Z moves are "new," but it didn't feel as new or special as megas. Sure, the world has better 3D controls and looks better than the weird chibi aesthetic of X and Y, but that's just polish. The only game in the series that really had a difference was the Let's Go games which, while a great time and the nostalgic kid in my thoroughly enjoyed it, didn't really have any impacts on the franchise as a whole. Technically overworld Pokemon appearing was added in later games, but it felt much more natural and right in LGE than in Sword and Shield. I guess it added regional variants, I'll give it credit for that, but that being the only meaningful addition feels largely empty and meaningless. I'm glad it exists for future games, but it's underwhelming. It also removed HMs and made them secret techniques or PokeRide things, but honestly I think that was a bad decision for narrative purposes. Ultimately, Gen 7 didn't really add meaningful new things. Nothing really changed with gen 7 onwards outside of Arceus.
All of that to say, it really does feel like Pokemon's been stale. It really does feel like it's just for babies and diehards now. I used to be a diehard, but it wore me out in the 3DS era. To win me back, the single player game needs to have a good story and actually have a fresh new take on the Pokemon formula. Bring back the Arceus encounters, keep normal trainer battles but allow people to not engage if they don't want to. If the world's going to be completely either allow Pokemon to not need badges to use properly and have the gyms scale so if you go to the toughest area and capture a level 40 or 50 Pokemon it doesn't cheese the rest of the game. Make the story good again, acknowledge that adults play the game and have stayed with the series since they were kids. Don't just make it so the games cater towards little kids, please let us skip the catching Pokemon tutorial, heck just let us go straight into choosing our Pokemon and going on an adventure by having an option at the start of the game, there's a lot they can do to make it both accessible to little kids while not being handholdy the entire time.
I'll end my rant by saying I think GameFreak forgets that we were once kids playing the game before it was as handholdy. The games have always been linear, they were built to be that way, but outside of the forced learn how to capture Pokemon tutorial, they never felt railroady like they have for the past several generations. GameFreak should really take a step back and realize there's an older audience that still wants Pokemon in their lives, but feel abandoned by how babyish the games feel nowadays.
Appreciate the lengthy and thought-out comment :)
@@ThrillingDuck I appreciate the video, and I appreciate that the algorithm told me about this. It was a great video and really spoke to me since I feel the same way about the franchise. I love it, I hope it gets better, but until something really changes I'll just be keeping my eye on it.
The stories and villains have been getting dumber? Have to disagree. Pokémon kinda goes back and forth on well-written and dumb villains. Gens 5, 7, and 9 have the best stories, characters, and antagonists to date, so it’s weird you didn’t elaborate on why you feel that way beyond just a sweeping generalization.
@@komarunaegi7460 To be fair, my post was already a wall and I didn't want to make it even longer. I'm also going off my memory of a lot of the earlier games which may be slightly through rose tinted glasses as they were a huge part of my childhood, X & Y came out in high school for me with Sun and Moon in college.
Gen 5 was fine, I really enjoyed it, but how I remember Team Plasma being used was kinda meh. Mind you, I haven't played B2W2 since either late freshman or early sophomore year of high school, but the team just felt more disjointed. I can't really recall anything post game, and from what I can remember of finding Kyurem it was kind of underwhelming compared to other story legendary creatures at the time.
Gen 6 was very mid for villains but I can largely forgive it for being the first entry being fully 3D. Flare seemed like a watered down version of Plasma with Lysander's justification being dumb.
Gen 7 was really bad for me and was the first major disconnect, ESPECFIALLY because Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon were nearly literally the same game with a DLC added at the end. The start was exactly the same, any changes for the pre-end game was minor and unnoticeable, the Ultra Beasts were cool but for a whole nother 70 bucks it was a major blow. The skull gang people, I forget their name, were dreadfully awful villains followed closely by Marnie's punks, and the pristine obvious villains that I also forget the names of hardly had a reason to be evil outside of mommy dearest wanting a tentacle space Pokemon from another dimension. Gen 7 also felt like a tutorial for the entire first 3 hours or so of the game, or at least for like the first 3 or so islands, I can't fully remember but it was painfully slow and super railroady taking you everywhere. Maybe it's because of the islands, but Gen 3 didn't feel like this, although Hoenn was a bigger island. I also hated Hau, he was a boring and badly written rival.
Gen 8 was even worse than gen 7 to me. The map was so empty and boring, the justification of being too scared to catch a higher level mon when you could otherwise see it in a low level area was dumb, the experience for defeating it was piss poor, the random encounters could screw over you trying to get an overworld Pokemon so the mix really messed with flow, I didn't enjoy the characters at all, and just like in gen 7 the antagonists, team Yell, was painfully boring and dumb. I'm fine not always being the savior of the world, not every villain needs to be Aqua, Magma, Plasma, or Flare, but even Team Rocket was a better grunt gang of organized crime than just some punk kids.
Gen 9 I couldn't even finished, but I watched my friend play it, so I'll grant that my bias here is external and the weakest to justify, but the opening of the game I didn't like, I did encounter the camera bug that crashed the game and sometimes unloaded chunks, I'll grant that the overworld Pokemon were better but coming off the coattails of Legends I was extremely disappointed in the fight system being a poorly done mix of standard and pseudo-Arceus. It should be the player's choice to engage, not stepping on a bug you hardly could see in a bush. IF you're going to have overworld Pokemon then allow us to more easily engage or disengage rather than just making it bog standard Pokemon that you run into first instead of being RNG grass that was made due to limitations back in the day. The limitations were broken in Legends, yet we have this clunky system instead. The overworld was also incredibly boring, the graphics looked bad, the lighting was terrible, terastylizing was boring, and the gyms were dumb. The plot twist villain being Penny was also really stupid and I didn't like the rival friend group either. I'll grant it some credit for trying to be the first open world mainline game, but after Legends got me excited for Pokemon again, that spark didn't ignite into a flame with Scarlet and Violet.
I felt like the worst games, and mind you this is entirely my opinion from a person who grew up with Pokemon since childhood, were gen 7-9 so far. I have nostalgia for gens 1 and 2 but they are a bit rough to go back to, I still love 3 and ORAS, 4/Sinnoh was fine and improved upon from 3 and the introduction of the Legends of Creation was awesome, I especially loved Platinum, 5 in both iterations were really good and I loved Zekrom, Unova was just absolutely beautiful, the story was great and B2W2 felt justified because they actually changed the story to be a few years later with the villains being disjointed under "new" management. Gen 6 was fine, a lot of growing pains from becoming fully 3D, but it can be forgiven for that. I absolutely felt gutted with Alola onwards.
@@soulfuldevil I gotta disagree with most of your comment. A lot of it is literally just “I don’t like it” and “I think this is dumb” without much elaboration outside of a few points here and there. Like, that’s just your opinion and that’s fine, but those aren’t objective reasons for the games being bad, that’s just how you personally felt.
The stuff you mentioned about the graphics and gameplay are totally separate points from what I asked (since I just asked what you didn’t like about the story and characters) and they’re the only parts of your comment I agree with, outside of Gen 6’s and Gen 8’s story being lame-I agree with that too lmao
But even then, Team Flare wasn’t a rehash of Plasma at all, and you totally misread the motives for the teams in Gen 7, too. They’re just unmemorable and boring for totally different reasons, like taking a lot from Team Galactic and the game not doing a good job to make Lysandre’s goal feel like anything more than a bunch of yapping that most people skip through since the story never supports most of what he’s saying.
I thought Team Skull and the Aether Foundation were great imo. Not every villain has to be this world-ending threat and Skull being a gang that’s mostly comic relief was a nice change of pace. And they weren’t just goofy villains either; they had depth because they were all outcasts that got failed their Island Challenge or rejects that had nowhere else to go in life, so they all unified under Team Skull to lash out and form their own family.
The Aether Foundation also works as the serious threats of the game. Lusamine is an abusive mother toward her children but a lot of what she does is based off the grief and trauma she experienced losing her husband and going crazy trying and failing to get him back. She ends up lashing out at her kids, going down a dark path, and ends up infected by the Ultra Beasts she initially tried to kill, growing obsessed with them instead. It’s really sad, and it’s cool seeing Lillie and Gladion grow as characters past that.
USUM being so similar to SM being a criticism doesn’t make sense to me. If you tolerated Yellow, Crystal, Emerald, and Platinum, USUM changed just as much as those games. I couldn’t get into USUM as much either but those games still had some good moments. If I was an adult in the 90s that played Yellow not long after Red/Blue I’d better have seen people complaining the same thing.
Team Yell IS an underwhelming team and that’s mostly because of their execution. Team Skull had more to them besides being a silly gang, while Yell is just exactly what they say on the tin-they’re based off extreme and toxic sports fans that harass people over their favorite athletes and teams and try to rig things in their favor. They either should’ve tried to make them funnier or give them more to do.
Chairman Rose and Macro Cosmos is meant to be the serious threat of Gen 8 but they’re way worse than the Aether Foundation because their plans don’t make any sense. Rose means well and wants to stop an energy crisis that’ll happen in 1000 years and Leon is willing to help him tomorrow, AFTER his match with you, but Rose is like “No, screw you, I want you to help me NOW” and basically summons Satan during the Super Bowl just to make his point.
Gen 9 is one of my favorite gens story-wise. I agree the graphics and performance issues suck but they actually put a good amount of effort into the plot and character writing here. Pokémon has always had obvious twists so I’m not sure why Penny’s bothers you, but her, Nemona, Arven, Kieran, and Carmine all have fleshed-out personalities and character arcs and fun dynamics with each other and the player. Prof. Sada/Turo as the antagonists was also the first time I felt dread and stakes in a Pokémon game. If you didn’t like them that’s fine but at least to admit you were just biased against them.
OH MY GOD, SOMEONE THAT NOTICED SV IS LINEAR.
THANK YOU!!!
Worse of all, the objectives are scattered EVERYWHERE, the game basically forces you to backtrack nonstop if you want to do things without overlevelling, and Nemona literally DIRECTS YOU TO THE SECOND GYM INSTEAD OF THE FIRST.
S/V looked amazing but they screwed up so bad. I feel like it would've been great if it had gotten some more development time. I get the feeling Team Star's bases were gonna be stealth minigames based on the dialogue and that sounds super cool compared to what we got.
but hey SE finally chose to give us a Monsters game after 17 years so I'm thriving, Joker 2 was a good part of my childhood.
Omg being directed to the second gym first would’ve given me a rage hernia, holy shit. How could they be so unapologetically SLOPPY with such a basic courtesy??
It takes a true fan of a series to tolerate the meta of any given multiplayer game
Honestly that's fair, I adore Pokemon and I'll still buy the games but I agree with the badge not scaling, it is a bit of a pain having to find out which badges your supposed to do first rather than just stumbling upon them, but with the meta game that's the main thing I love about the games it's like 4D chess and for me it makes competitive more challenging but I 100% get why you and many others just aren't into it!
I felt the same way with both the competitive and the campaign of Pokémon for a long time as well, despite falling under pressure and playing a bit further in the series than you have. It is just not at all a series trying to be something beyond marketable and for children.
If you like tactical rpgs I recommend Triangle Strategy, it has all the challenge and fun I want in a tactics game without the grind. If you don’t mind a slow story I think you might love it
It's already in my backlog haha. I'm a huge fan of the Bravely games, so everything by that team is of interest to me!
For me open world in the context like Skyrim don't work with Pokemon.
The Pokemon main games should've kept they unique labyrinth design from the 2D games. Open world like Skyrim made the Pokemon games bland and without character.
Overall Game Freak still could create an "open world" game but keep they unique world design from older games in better graphics. Make the world dense not empty like in Skyrim.
The last 2 seconds of this video brought a tear to my eye finally, someone who's not blind
As someone who plays a bit of competitive pokemon, albeit on a simulator, top level play is almost always just winning the prediction game, and the higher you go on the ladder the more layers of knowing that your opponent knows that you know that your opponent knows that you'll switch you have. It's not great.
Also hell yeah someone mentioned the amazing Digimon games nobody knows about. I loved both of them, and they're what made me pick up Persona 5 after playing the hell out of them.
Your description of the predicting game was amazing lol, thank you for that. And yeah, Digimon Story kicks ass!
There was a fan project called Pokemon Generations. It was Pokemon with real-time combat. It was primitive, but still in the right direction for the type of Pokemon game I'd like to see.
Just imagine playing as your Pokemon, dodging attacks or getting behind cover to avoid huge AoE moves. Or luring your opponent into water for extra damage on an electric attack. Or changing the battlefield from grass to a fiery pit with a devastating fire attack. Or breaking apart every rock in the battlefield to prevent your opponent from hiding.
I'd really like to see something where environment and positioning makes battles less dependent on stats and elemental weaknesses, and more focused on predicting your opponent's moves like the anime. Unfortunately, that'd take forever with the huge roster, but the thought of it is still fascinating to me.
@@sunayama4650 I imagined a game with this concept when I was a kid too! Would absolutely pull me back in if it was executed with even a modicum of competency.
legends game wasnt made for multiplayer in mind at all, the fact they scale battling down was made to more accurately show how far back in time your in
I genuinely respect the lore reason, but regardless it was a turnoff for me 🤷🏻♂️
I just replayed my first Pokemon game, which was Omega Ruby (I was around 10 when it released), took Treecko (as far as I know the worst of the Hoenn starters), and never used something else because I could beat everything without really thinking. My last Pokemon game was Moon, which I dropped because it was too easy. This is why I totally understand and support you point of view.
For everyone wondering I didn't just play ORAS and Moon. Between their releases I picked up other Pokemon games like Black, White 2, X as well as Pokemon Silver (via Virtual Console on my 3ds).
I have felt about the same. I recently got into persona games and playing them makes me wish pokemon would do something new with it's combat. I need to try a shin megami tensei when I finish
I'd recommend either of the Devil Survivor entries as a gateway SMT game if you're coming from Persona. They're much more character driven than most other SMTs and their narratives are totally unrelated, so you can play them in any order :)
Doubling up the recommendation for SMT Devil Survivor or Devil Survivor 2.
Cassette Beasts is an indie that came out this year that, as a long time pokemon fan, is an excellent alternative that feels familiar but changes up the whole system in great ways
Sounds neat, I’ll check it out, thanks!
100% accurate. Amazing. Based takes. No disagreement.
My only point of contention would be not hammering home just how unforgivably bad the writing in Gamefreak Pokemon games has always been. But despite being Gen Z and starting with Leaf Green (and my favourite region being Hoenn) I also dropped it after playing X version. There's just nothing compelling about the games other than the concept. I get more from the movies, spinoffs, or videos about Pokemon than I do from Gamefreak's abominations.
Surprised no one is talking about Monster Hunter Stories and how dope the combat is.
FUCK I love that game!! Should've mentioned it lol...
I don't play modern Pokemon because I feel like the franchise has just run out of ideas, the most recent release I played was Shield, but I thought it was beyond average, I'm not revisiting ORAS with Alpha Sapphire, because I loved Omega Ruby so much and I wanna get back to that point with a save file. My favourite gen is still 5, thanks to Unova, but I also really love 6, the last games I really loved were USUM, but after that it really went downhill. I would love to go back to the days of having Sun and Moon's gameplay, or even ORAS's, while still developing new regions for the player, I also don't like a lot of the newer Pokemon designs, there's literally a copy and pasted Tentacool called Toedscool and it just feels so generic. I don't really see myself buying newer Pokemon games and I don't like the Paradox Pokemon either, but those are my thoughts
I have really gotten to respect genwunners a bit more. Genwunners are famous for hating on new stuff because it’s different and bad, too dissimilar from where their love started. People would always clap back, myself included, ‘There’s not too many mons or your Pokémon look just as dumb’
But I’m honestly burnt out caring about new Pokémon. “What are you, a new bird? Haven’t seen that 1000 times. Oh look, two new legendaries to add the pile of ‘rare’ Pokémon. What are we at 100 now? A tenth?”
Not only that, Pokémon is less feeling like a world of magic and wonder and a biology documentary. Cool, there’s over 1000 species of ants… I really just wanted to see some ants. Like 10 types is enough.
Pokémon like Garchomp who were these monstrous beings that demanded respect are now not even top tier for their respective niche. Gae champ was literally the face of OU and was recently considered for UU because why would anyone ever consider him over Dragapult or DD Dragonnite.
This is of course not unique to Pokémon, nor to franchises I love. There’s gotta be new things and there has to be more new things and then more new things until the old things are just whatever.
I feel like most people point at gen 5 as peek Pokémon for a reason. It had just enough old things while painting itself as completely new. It didn’t give into nostalgia but was respectful of what came before and had just enough to feel like a complete world without actually being homework.
Sure problems started before then (gen 4 famously created a pantheon of gods that both escalated legendaries and completely ruined them going forward, gen 1 was split between 2 games which was a decision made with the best of intentions that has ruined the franchise forever and gen 3 really leaned into ‘Pokémon you liked but again’) but all of those issues were building blocks, things that started the fatigue without ever going over a line
Arecus was received so well I think because it expanded on the lore and world to a point where Pokémon felt like… well Pokémon. Creatures who lived in a world. Gen 9 meanwhile feels like a shop where everything is moving about brightly coloured and demanding your attention. It’s surreal.
Most respect for people who keep playing for a love of the games and not the franchise itself, because it has it aged over the years into something new. Not worse, but new in such a way that makes it hard to approach
everything here is why Yugioh and online Pokemon is godawful. I wish the main games would challange me for sure, but the meta aspect of it just destroyed the person enjoyment of learning by yourself a makeshift deck/team of things you'd love and making the best out of them
Sword and Shield was the final blow for me.
Bruh was cookin' (chefs kiss)
I havent played a single Pokemon yet despite being a Nintendo fan, but very happy to watch another video of yours!
Have a good day!
Lol thank you! Sticking around for content outside your usual interests really means a lot :) Hopefully whatever I cover next will be more in your wheelhouse! More Nintendo is guaranteed sooner or later regardless, fret not.
@@ThrillingDuck Oh! Very exciting! Camt wait for it! I really hope the best for you man. Your vidros are very fun to watch! Hopefully you are having fun too!
Thanks so much for eveeything :D
Okay so...first of all love the video, a LOT of your points are perfectly valid and I agree with them
But there's a couple of comments made about pokemons online competitive specifically that rub me the wrong way, you seem to completely glance over the existence of double battles/ multi battles, and the fact that the standardized format for most official tournaments is doubles battles. Another thing is your comment about speed essentially being the end all be all of the battle, completely ignoring how things like paralyze, trick room, and just slower bulky-er offensive pokemon exist
I'm not trying to argue that pokemon is this perfect franchise and that your completely wrong and stupid for even questioning pokemons quality, I just think your perspective is a little skewed in some aspects
But that's I really have to say about that, I seriously love the video, hope to see you succeed in the future
Thanks a lot! I actually touched on double battles briefly in the pinned comment, but I don’t blame you for not seeing that haha. Regarding details like paralyze and trick room, you’re right of course, but my real point was simply that the first strike is too important, even if the speed stat isn’t the end all be all :)
I wish you said something about pal world! But then I think it had not been released when you originally posted. Great video!
Thanks a lot! And that is correct, this is a pre-Pal World vid haha.
Dang this has happened with so many of my friends and it's kinda sad. As you said in your pinned comment, pokemon has it nailed down when it comes to world building and atmosphere. Like the crazy details in the pokedex about how different species interact, and how connected the people in the regions are with their pokemon is insane. That being said, you don't really get to... SEE a lot of that. considering pokemon have like a couple animations at most and weren't even in the overworld until pretty recently. I also want to say that Double battles help fix the difficulty problem, but the thing is they never use it in the main games. The most it will ever get is like 1 gym leader where that's their thing. I honestly thing double battles should be the standard thing going forward in games especially considering that's what their official competitive format.
Personally my dream pokemon game is an open world game like scarlet and violet, but with traversal mechanics that require you to use abilities from pokemon you catch. Like needing to catch water types to put out fires, fighting types to break rocks in caves, ghost types to pass through walls and solve puzzles etc. basically like a psuedo zelda like game, but were the items are pokemon. A game like that with level scaling on gyms and maybe the research tasks from legends arceus would be the dream.
Id also like the game to run without my switch exploding but that's probably too much to ask haha. :)
I would LOVE your hypothetical Pokémon game. I’d buy that shit day one.
I think it's hilarious that you used Pokemon XD music while talking about all the problems modern pokemon has. Partially because XD somewhat fixes those problems: 2v2, no online, and story battles that can actually be a pain in the ass if you get too cocky.
The GameCube duology are basically the only entries with the traditional battle system I still have any affection for, and it’s largely because all battles are doubles and narratively and world-building-wise they feel like playing through a Pokémon OVA.
That said, I really just used those tracks cuz I love them lol. XD’s music is just 👌
@@ThrillingDuck Colosseum and XD are *phenomenal*. I just wish they inspired the main series to try more crazy things. Both rotation and inverse battles are fun, but they were wiped away clean one or two generations later...
Boom. Random video choice but you nailed a major issue I've been trying to figure out. How meta ruins online gaming...... I couldn't put my finger on it and it is t just pokemon. It's everything. It's all competition and no expression or fun. Cheers mate. Good video
Thanks a lot man!
The meta 1000% strips the enjoyment out of it
What makes Pokenon fun at a base level is using what you decide to, but then knowing it might not be "the right option" prevents that. Learning the meta was very fulfilling, but it ends up meaning I prefer the older games that let your mindlessly play at your own discretion without abundant filler, because the meta makes it a job. Just straight grinding out my own team in my own bubble is the kinda comfort food I liked the games for. Newer games have decimated how fun that bubble is. I just can't care about the worlds as much. The older overall design rings more meticulous and meaningful in thought in terms of development, but I've unfortunately mostly played them out to satisfaction these days.
That same Gamefreak clearly is no longer with us.
I'll probably keep on liking pokemon which is ok, the same amount as you stop playing pokemon, your taste has changed and if your not having fun I support your decision on quitting, but there's nothing wrong with continuing and loving pokemon more and more as time goes on because we are all humans that have our own taste
You mentioned Hungrybox but you should've talked about how in the beginning he played deliberately outside the Fox meta as Jiggly just because she was his favorite and won anyway. What I would call a win for fun
Interesting! I actually didn’t know about that, but that’s because I don’t seriously follow these guys - I have only a casual and surface level familiarity with a few names due to happenstance exposure.
I think it’s cool that that’s how he got his start, but he still has a channel devoted to the proliferation of the meta (as far as I can tell), so in my head he gets lumped in with the rest haha.
@@ThrillingDuck Yeah he definitely plays a lot more within the meta now but I'd say it's more of the meta absorbing his alternative playstyle. It's always cool when players break norms and are so good that the meta has to adapt. That's why he's my favorite pro. But I still agree with your larger point, metas are pretty annoying for casual gamers like me
The other problem with "the meta" is that it takes away all the fun of actually learning the game. If you want to play online, you look up the current meta online, grind what you need, and then play. Only a few people are actually evolving the meta and the rest just follow. That's not fun.
I think I understand what you're trying to say. There's too high of a skill ceiling for no pay off... maybe. I mean I really do love to out play opponents competitively I can definitely get how it's stale. Especially with sv and sword and shield. They just add gimmicky mechanics and never have them return again. They never let the series grow or anything.
I feel like when people complain about Pokémon games not innovating enough, they completely disregard the mountain of spin-off games we have. The main series always will be for turn based battling, and if you want innovation, you should check out games like Pokémon Mystery Dungeon or Pokémon Ranger. There's really no way to change current Pokémon's mechanics drastically, even what they did in Pokémon Legends Arceus felt odd for a Pokémon game.
So, I addressed some of that in the pinned comment, but I really don’t think growing beyond baby’s first turn based RPG is a huge ask.
I completely get the whole meta-defining parts. They can really make or break a game even on a semi-casual front. I don't inherently mind it if the game isn't asking to be ludicrously precise like Pokemon does (IVs, Pokemon itself, etc).
For games with fixed rosters or something like Smash Bros or Splatoon, I do like to watch some high level stuff just for fun, and I do like to see what's considered good on a character or kit. Not that I'll necessarily use them myself, but it's interesting.
I agree with everything except the last thing you said. Official games have grown stale. If you are bored one day and feeling adventurous I'd recommend trying some pokemon fangames. The community has done what gamefreak has not and it definitely scratches that itch for me. Insurgence is a good start. Opalo is my personal favorite. On the other hand, the future is bright for the monster taming genre, lots of unique games to look forward to.
Meta kills every game, on that we all agree. What I hate about new Pokémon games are meaningless one-game gimmicks and really really declining quality of Pokémon designs.
Btw never ever in my whole life, since 1996, I gave two shits about IV's or EV's. Just avoided using Rare Candy's because they are not natural :P
Agreed on the one-off gimmicks as well. I actually liked Mega Evolution because it felt like a natural extension of traditional evolution and the Mega forms had great designs, but Gigantamax and whatever those crystal crowns are called look dumb as shit and flat out just don’t feel like they belong in-universe.
@@ThrillingDuck YES! I agree totally. Call me old-fashioned but Mega Evolution was one of the best innovation in games and had to be continued. Hell, maybe Z-Moves were kinda cute with those dances too, not gonna lie about it.
honestly feel like Pokémon designs have only gotten better each gen. like for me, someone who started out in Gen 7. i really dislike kanto Pokémon because they feel so boring and plain compared to later gens like 4-now. even johto Pokémon i usually really hate because of how basic they are.
I forgot why I subbed then I remembered the Jill Video - Also yeah Pokemon is like Bread - you just need to spice it up with some extra toppings you know add something more
Lol welcome back!
I agree with your points sucks there is no middle ground. I only play for shiny hunting now pretty much
First of, Insightful video, thanks Duck.
Agreed with the point about the Meta.
It saps Individuality and accessibility (in terms of fun) in exchange for reward through investment and research into deep lore of strategy and training.
Struggling with that in Heart Gold as well.
The internet sorta sucked out the mystery and whimsy of it as well, which is definitely fair. People finding a Lapras in Union cave when it just came out made thw world seem more mythical and worthy of exploration. Imagine people having to figure out or even map out how to find one. Now you can just look online and see it's on Friday in this specific spot.
You sound like an old samurai speaking about how the way of the sword has died.😂
But you made a good point because I suppose that's what technology, research and archiving do to science and arts.
We aim for feasibility and expediency instead of exploration generally which is good too because we don't cover old ground and are able to explore farther. The point of wonder and discoverabilty just normally gets deeper to achieve.
Or something ion no scienteeest🤷🏾♂️🙆🏾♂️🤦🏿😮💨😂
@@cac1700 Lmao about the old samurai part. Thanks a lot - glad you enjoyed it :)
The thing with competative is it's actually really easy to fix. The issue is that the systems for making pokemon stronger are incredibly convuluted, which means the players who don't want to sit there and learn them and then grind it out are left with a huge disadvantage to those who are. If you toss out IVs entirely, and smash together EVs/natures into a more understandable and streamlined(and most importantly easily changed) system like a "battle style" or something, you remove this artificial power gap. Then it's just a matter of proper balance so that pokemon aren't completely outclassed by others.
Sure there will always be a top meta since perfect balance is near impossible, but so long as the difference between the gold and silver medal is minor and not insurmountable like it is now, you'll have a healthy and fun multiplayer environment.
The last Pokemon game I really invested time on was Platinum. I dropped out of trying B/W when I saw that, not only the game was easier, they would literally give you away the most effective Pokemon for the gym of you didn't have it. If I wanted an rpg that literally helped me win it, I'd rather play an idle game instead.
(Sorry for just now commenting on an older video, I just found your channel and wanted to check stuff out LMAO)
All of your complaints/criticisms of Pokémon are 100% valid ones! Competitive Pokémon is fun to watch (at least imo) and CAN be fun to partake in in some aspects, but it definitely kills it a bit when, like, EVERY VGC player is using nearly identical teams. :/ Obviously, the pre-evolutions are going to be weaker than the fully evolved forms, but besides that, what is even the point of making some of the other 'mons in the first place if only a decent couple of handfuls of ones they've made are competitively viable? It's just not as fun when literally EVERY competitor is using a Flutter Mane (a Scarlet & Violet Pokémon), y'know? Whatever happened to the whole "using your favorites" thing?
While I can definitely have a good conversation and fun with Competitive talk with certain friends, being ONLY into the competitive part 100% of the time can be MISERABLE.
Same with Smash, it's not really fun when people are only picking a certain character because they're Top Tier or whatever the fuck.
Smash Bros. and Pokémon are MUCH more enjoyed (at least for the most part) when you're just playing casually and shooting the shit with your friends. You'll have a much greater time busting out a Smash/Pokémon match just to decide who gets to pick what to get for dinner or something, which are one of the many reasons why I love both of these franchises so much.
But yeah, all of your takes here are fine ones! :) (And thank you for not just coming on here and being like, "PoKéMoN iS sTuPiD aNd AnYoNe WhO LiKeS iT iS sTuPiD!!!!!" There's WAY too many shitty and baseless opinions like that on the internet, and seeing yours with perfectly fine takes was a refresher!)
You never have to apologize for commenting on any of my videos! Old or otherwise haha. I make them to have a conversation. Glad this one resonated with you too! Thanks for having so much to say - it was fun to read :) And yeah, obviously I echo these sentiments lol.
Captured my feelings on watching competitive smash even as someone who was a triehard back when smash 4 lol. I just recall playing melee and brawl as a kid and them being at their most fun when it was just me and my cousins being casuals unaware of how to even roll lol. Which is even weirder cause I've grown to actually grind more at more traditional fighters. Even coming from Nintendo themselves with ARMS, I enjoy hearing about that game's ins and outs by pro level players and watching tournament highlights likely because it and other fighters are explicitly built with that aspect from the ground up. The metas are organic evolutions of buckling down and getting good whereas with smash, it looks and feels like high level play is simply something some nerds discovered by accident, and the creators have just slowly started incorporating aspects in the past couple entries that appeases that crowd in the gameplay... Wait isn't that exactly what happened? Lol.
For Pokemon i also was a sweaty Showdown visitor for a time as a teen though even then i just used pokemon i liked or went random for fun. But yeah these days listening to someone like Wolfy talk stats n shit puts me to sleep (no hate to him, respect him actually). I definitely value the world, lore and character side of the franchise much, much more than the competitive scene.
Beautifully put.
the last pokemon game i probably actually enjoyed was either USUM or SWSH
everything after just feels so bleh
Pokémon's competitive play is balanced around double battles (since it's the official tournament format), which allows for a more layered strategy each turn, which might better suit your tastes. I did lose interest in Pokémon as a single-player game after generation three because of the diminishing returns of every subsequent release.
good video, i understood and even agreed despite loving the modern games
i was so happy when they removed EVs and IVs in legends arceus and i really hope they just make that the standard for future games
Love the Pokémon Colosseum ost
9:00
You know it gotten so bad when MFing Sakurai himself threw a jab at them during one of the DLC reveals:
“So this fighter can hit the target at frame one and three and…… wait a minute! We don’t do that shit here, we’re here to have fun”.
@@DarkJ1425 Lol I loved that
9:39 Funnily enough when Smash Ultimate came out, I was in College, and I found a group of "casual" smash players. My Melee loving self thought they would play like me and spam smashes for fun. Nope, they rekt me on repeat and NEVER let me win, not even out of friendliness. I was their punching bag until I just stopped and left the group. Then one of them came and asked me "Why did you leave?"
It's because their "casual style" was abusing the meta, not making unique techniques. It Sucked.
@@KobaltKai5215 Lol “casual” my ass
@@ThrillingDuck XD
Hot (or not) takes. Last good Pokemon remake: ORAS. Only good 3D Pokemon: Legends Arceus
I stopped playing Pokemon when it got way too serious and complicated. Basically, once you could battle people on the internet is way too competitive.
Fuck yeah shin megami tensei 😎
If you’re reading from a script the pun is absolutely intended.
Lol well it couldn't be avoided. More trouble than it was worth to reword it.
Have you tried playing TemTem? I mean I haven't, but I've seen an animated video about it and got the impression that it's a harder Pokemon, you might enjoy it.
Sounds interesting, I’ll give it a look, thanks!
@@ThrillingDuckHave you ever played Nexomon? It's really similar to Pokémon, and they are making a third game.
I love Pokemon, but I can’t really find fault with this video, I have been playing for 15 odd years now. The fun I find in these games are nuzlockes. But that is a external ruleset not provided by the game. I’ve rarely played multiplayer due to the reasons you mentioned, the quality of life changes make creating a viable team easier, but when I played multiplayer at the start of gen 9 I would just see the same 4 or 5 Pokemon on every team, it just wasn’t fun for me at all. Personally I think the takes made in this video weren’t that hot to me, even as a Pokemon enjoyer I can very much relate to many of the issues with my beloved franchise! Anyway just stumbled upon this channel on my homepage! Subscribed for more!
Glad to hear it, welcome aboard! And yeah, you pretty much hit the nail on the head with that “same 4 or 5 Pokemon on every team” bit. So much for player expression.
Smash is a weird existence as a fighting game and not very enjoyable to watch since it’s very warped version of the game
While other fighting games their tournaments players generally resemble the normal gameplay but longer combos
Agreed. Professional players of technical fighting games actually look like they’re playing the same game as a layman, but pro Smash literally looks like a different game altogether.
Meta really is the bane of new pokemon games who's entire appeal is online play
i disagree with the notion that all the old pokemon games didn’t have aspects to them that gave challenge or made you think. the battle resorts in gen 3 and 4 are great end game content that’s extremely demanding and even rematching some of the gym trainers and elite 4 trainers adds new pokemon to their teams and makes them switch out mons and such.
gen 6 is the exception because that’s where the games became brain dead easy especially with the introduction of some mechanics like experience share. the game creators even said this was done because kids don’t have a long enough attention span to make it to post game content so they made the base game easier, cut poat game challenge battles, and just get ready for the next game.
You’re right about the postgame, but the main game doesn’t really prepare you for it at all. And it shouldn’t take a game until after its credits to get good.
I also think it’s kind of sad that Exp share is always cited as a major source of challenge removal - all it’s supposed to do is cut down on grinding. If the Exp share is what “dumbed down the game” then what does that say about the game? It implies that level was more important than strategy to begin with, which isn’t exactly what I would call great design.
what’s good in the main game is subjective, some people like different things about it. if you want to comment on the battles themselves then yea waiting for postgame for a better challenge is a bit lame, but the point is the option is there and it’s not like pokemon games are crazy long anyway. gen 6 itself doesn’t have great design. most gym leaders had 3 pokemon with 3 moves each. not to mention the free mega pokemon handouts like the gen 1 starters and a mega lucario. many things beyond the exp share make gen 6 easier than the other games
I stopped playing Pokémon because a video made by someone named Gireum Red or something shows that they never really cared in the first place. The entire corporate mindset behind Pokémon's design philosophy based on that video was that "it will sell anyways" which is no more apparent than with Scarlet and Violet.
In fact unless they start putting their act together then the last and the latest Pokémon game I'm leaving with is Pokémon Sleep, which I can't speak for whether that's good or bad exactly.
Thankfully, there's just about enough monster tamers for me to migrate to so that it won't leave a Pokémon shaped hole in my heart now that I've stopped tolerating the bullcrap this franchise puts out. But then again I've always been more of a Yo-kai Watch person.
The multiplayer/meta thing is certainly accurate, but it's also a hard thing to fix. Balance is a difficult thing to achieve while keeping the unique qualities of various mechanics. With the internet making the sharing of info an almost automatic process, it's inevitable that pokemon will be quickly ranked according to competitive viability.
Yeah fortunately for me I was always more into single player games than competitive ones, but the concept of metas in general has kind of destroyed most of my desire to interact with competitive online experiences at all, and unfortunately there is no realistic fix for that. I really would get back into Pokémon if they did something to actually evolve the single player experience though. And, yknow, actually put some effort into the development lol.
@@ThrillingDuck Right there with you. That's why I rarely do any competitive multiplayer.
Maybe some ranking system - like elo - would help competitive games be more beginner-friendly. Seems to have worked okay for Advance Wars By Web.
When i was a young wippersnapper
The first two generations of Pokemon dealt with types completely differently. Having the right type advantage only gave you a bit of an edge, it absolutely did not decide a match. That all changed in Gen 3
Pokémon games just pander to people who don’t play RPGs let alone video games.
Hemorrhoids are not something that I don’t want to have but I will say that I do have hemorrhoids and they are something that I do enjoy.
Agree about the Pokemon Meta not so much on Smash bros. crispy gameplay is always fun to see and only really showcased by the best of the best. MKLeo who you showed many times just so happens to be the best player in the world and his go too strategy is "playing perfectly" so of course it's not going to look like organic smash bros. that kid is inhuman. A better example would be the MVC3 meta where everyone is spamming infinite combos and Doom missiles.
Interesting take! I usually hear the opposite - that pro play in traditional fighting games actually resembles the game as played by casuals (visually speaking) whereas Smash looks like a completely different game when played by pros. I respect your opinion though :)
@@ThrillingDuck Ah that part really depends on the fighting game.
Top level Tekken has the characters twitching back and forth unnaturally for positioning and looks and plays completely different from casual fighting.
SF4 meta was embarrassingly defensive from what little I saw with both players crouch blocking and throwing Fireballs for chip damage for most of the match.
MK and KoF are working as intended I guess granted I don't really follow their competitive scenes but KoF really facilitates extreme high level play built into it's mechanics and a lot of the single player Bosses are way tougher than you can reasonably be from skill alone so I have a hard time imagining the meta looking unnatural when the base game cheats so hard.
But U/MvC3 is the most egregious, it feels like entire mechanics and character and move interactions are completely ignored because of the state of that meta. One of my fav characters has a "Secret Move" that's strong enough to counter Hypercombos and it never gets used because people only ever toss out Hyper Combos at the end of their infinite combo loops so every match looks about the same and plenty of mechanics almost never come into play in the face of Magneto or Dr.Doom just juggling the opponent to death over and over.
Pro Smash might not look like casual Smash(ignoring Melee because that does look ridiculous) but it does look like the characters themselves are fighting to the best of their abilities. And true casual smash should be a chaotic experience played with items and stage hazards on anyway.
I do disagree with some statements that you made but I can understand why you said that and respect your opinion
now i agreed most of your points up until the meta part where for the first half i agreed that metas are boring and after its establish god damn 3/4 of the playerbase only plays like that but for smash i couldn't agree on competitive smash (and just competitive fighting games) really show you what type of person is behind the controller. The types of combos, the structure of those combos, how they wiff punish. these are all factors that aren't artificial at least for my eyes. Also the point of playing online first off smash online is already dog water with their being no separate ranked and casual play but if want to play at a fair playing field and not feel you are being pounded into mince meat then then you need to take some time to grasp the controls.
editing note: yeah finished the video glad you admit this video was your tangent/rant (not meant to insult) on your refusal to get good
Yes to everything
I don't play pokemon games no more
never play pokemon games
except for a little bit of pokemon snap
I don't play pokemon games
Maybe once in a while
a little bit of classic Gen 4
but that's ok, not right now
I got things to do
Meta is the thing players use to take the fun out of a game....But we cannot get out of it in a pvp scene, otherwise we are going to get bodied.
That's how dominant those strategies are
To me, I try to be my own in a sense. Karen of the elite four put it best. And I feel like screw the meta though I know I'm on for a time too.
The meta can kiss my tail and also I called out gens 7 through 9 as bad games overall.
Karen wasn't talking about competitive she was talking about silver
And he feels like a stand-in for certain people so it still stands.
@@Yinyanyeow but he’s not, so it falls flat
@@Yinyanyeow I get not liking competitive but this weird copium casual fans have trying to prove that “erm even the games think ur weird!!!” Is so corny (karen literally says she uses dark types because they’re strong)
@@ChronoCartographer If you think that is copium, you probably are using that since I don't see it.
I can agree on pretty much all of your single player points, pokemon was my first rpg series but for a while now ive been branching out to series like dragon quest, persona, final fantasy, fire emblem etc and the battle system and gameplay of pokemon feels very boring and stagnant. Comparing pokemon to the other series ive grown to love i just find that the others have more opportunities for tactics, difficulty, variety etc whereas pokemon, despite how many they are, not having any of these components. you'd think that 6 v 6 4 move slots would open itsellf to a lot of variety but at this point pokemon is so easy that it devolves down to knowing the type chart and hitting super effective and it's just not fun for me anymore, doesn't help the story isnt really too interesting most the time. The only pokemon games this doesnt apply to is the mystery dungeon series which i think are honestly leagues ABOVE main series in almost every aspect. I have the same opinion with multiplayer in pokemon not being fun for me, but I heavily disagree with your meta take, but as long as you aren't the kind of person to ridicule the ppl who like meta and high competitive stuff like that then its a pretty valid opinion lol
Yeah, I tried emphasize that I just don’t like engaging with it, but there’s nothing objectively wrong with it or the people who do :)
My answer to the not doing the work for competition Pokemon point. I would look into online simulators like Pokémon showdown or what others do hacking Pokémon in ( not advocating for it but it’s not an uncommon phenomenon). It’s a good point though I can’t be bothered to make a perfect Pokémon so I just use showdown. I don’t think you’re gonna find much ground on the play style thing but it’s a opinion that you’re entitled to have all the power to you.
Yeah, a system that allows players to skip the grinding would definitely help/be of value to me, but the hyper-simplistic combat focused around mind games still just doesn’t appeal to me anymore. Thanks for the comment! If I ever decided I was interested in returning to competitive Pokemon, it would probably be via one of the simulators you mentioned.
For someone who hasn't played Pokemon in the past decade you managed to find a bunch of good animations from various Pokemon games before and after XY.
Not sure what you’re getting at (perhaps implying that I’m a poser who totally still plays Pokémon games?), but I openly said that I’m “keeping an eye on the series.” Everything I showed was from trailers that pop up at the top of the list when searching the games. Not sure what “good animations” you’re talking about.
@ThrillingDuck oh no I'm just impressed you still managed to do that
@@Garde_Mystik Oh ok, thanks lol
I love playing smash bros. with my friends , some of my best gaming memories are playing smash bros. Meelee and brawl in couch play.
Pokémon has been just okish...
All beside Arceus for the switch i've gotten second hand at cheaper prices because i'm not excited for Pokémon anymore...
Great vídeo 👍
Thanks a lot!
pokemon has lost its point really. you have to pay for Home, cant have all mons at once on one game at all. even gamfreak japanese devs know it will sell well so theres no point to hyper polising it.
its pointless.
If they're never going to make the games challenging the least they could do is innovate on the gameplay to keep things fresh.
have you played Pokemon mystery dungeon it's a fun game to play.
Yup! I gave it a shout-out in the pinned comment actually :)
Emerald, and Generations 4 and 5 are the best. They at least play great, and tried to add as much as they could.
Anime graphics should have been used in any Japan-based video game for better potential for smooth gameplay, stable physics, and plenty of content. The characters should look appealing, even being sex dimorphic with sex-locked clothes and hair. The arching head and tall eyes design is the best in making characters look cute.
The school setting contradicts the open-world setting and theme that the schools work in the old Pokémon games since the schools are just minor places you can visit like they are training modes. All the routes and cities open is how you can make an open-world video game while still having some linear elements like with the gyms you can only get in based on how many badges you have.
The Exp. Share should be an option to level up Pokémon evenly, and just over-level the different ID Pokémon.
Abilities no longer work in the overworld, which takes away the Pokémon-getting variety. Now we are back to how the Abilities work in RS and FRLG.
Despite Game Freak being so lazy in copying the Pokémon models and moves from the 3DS games, they did not try and copy the male and female models to change the hair, eyes, and clothes as a way to create new characters. I heard that making ugly characters is hard to do because they waste memory size.
Inti Creates, M2, Arika, and Code Mystics can probably make Pokémon games better-especially with anime graphics that would allow potential for the Regional PokéDex, National PokéDex, Abilities working in and out of battles, sex dimorphic characters, sex-locked clothes and hairstyles, overworld Pokémon, Loto-ID, rematches, Battle Frontier, reusable TMs, TRs, HMs, arcades, farming, and others.
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are the worst in the series for being ugly and broken, as well as being porikore as the Japanese say.
I completely sympathise with you regarding the meta, but I think you can still have fun with it and even win because so many become utterly dependent on stock sets, IVS, EVS, etc.
There's little more satisfying than fighting someone with base smogon sets with your own well trained, but original setups and having them assume the same thing about you, only to freak out when you do something completely unexpected for them and they can't adapt 😂
You can always outsmart rigid AI level thinking with human passion and ingenuity, I feel
Glad to hear those stories are still out there! I assume there’s still a certain amount of grinding required to get your mons set up though, so for the time being I’ll pass lol 😅
@@ThrillingDuck Yeah, but I'm a perfectionist and grind maniac anyway, even with no multi-player. If I like the characters or gameplay, I guess I want to perfect it.
By the way, this isn't monster collecting, but the Fire Emblem series has become a new favorite RPG series for me. Similar to what happened with you. Bought my 3DS for Y and wound up staying for FE, starting with Awakening and Fates on the same console. And unlike Pokemon, I've actually bought the later Switch games for FE too. I'd never touch a current Pokemon. It died after gen 6 for me.
@@Burns_RED Fire Emblem's great too - love me some FE. Shit, I was a Corrin main in Smash 4 lol.
It doesn't help that currently most of the best Pokemon for competitive are locked behind a paywall. You need own a copy of Sword/Shield and their respective DLC, Legends Arceus, and Scarlet/Violet and their respective DLC just to have a chance at crafting a team. I put together a team for online battles in Pokemon Sword and I would continually get wrecked by people who had the DLC or more "meta relevant" teams. Plus so much of the 1000+ Pokemon are completely useless if you want to compete.
Exactly, and the saddest part to me is that there's really no solution to this. Actually balancing literally 1000 Pokemon is altogether unfeasible, and the meta will just sort of always exist now. There's just no fun allowed anymore in the online sphere, unless you find treating the game like a full time job with a meta-approved cookie cutter team fun.
Just found this video, I 100% agree with the braindead combat. I tried replaying Pokemon several times over the last year but I lose interest every time after an hour because of the combat. It was fine in the year 2000 but now its absolutely outdated as boring asf
Really when it comes to teams I just pick the pokemon I want on my team because I just don't think of how good a pokemon is, heck a lot of times I forget what others say about the pokemon that is on my team, I can understand why competitive ruins the game for you but for me I just ignore it because on a roleplay I focus on what team i want to have the most fun with
Not sure what was that Smash part about, made me feel like you don't understand the difference between casual and competitive play. People who participate in tournaments being very good to the point their actions look artificial is not Smash exclusive, that literally applies to any sport/game/whatever. Thats not a Pokemon or Smash problem it's just human nature.
Mhm, that's why I said "action games like Smash."