Your Controversial Pokémon Game Opinions V.2 (Please read OP before replying!!)

[beasttrash]

PLEASE READ THIS POST BEFORE REPLYING!! ~Thank you!! ​

Hi everyone! Welcome to the "Your Controversial Pokémon Game Opinions" thread V.2!!

Here you can share your hot takes regarding the Video Game series, mobile and spin off included. Discuss! Debate! Maybe your controversial opinion isn't as quite hot of a take as you think it might be!

NEW TO THIS THREAD: To keep things cordial here, we are introducing new guidelines in order to mitigate hurtful, bad faith arguments that make the discussion spiral into meaningless flame wars. We're under no illusion that this won't happen in here eventually, so we want to be transparent in how this will work.

Essentially: the mod team will have the discretion to take action against users who ignite and contribute to a conversation that has turned toxic. Some examples of this include:

• Using charged language to bait others into replying.
  • Ex: "People who think Pikachu is overrated are so stupid and ungrateful, lil' guy is a big part of the reason this franchise is so popular and this is the thanks he gets?? If you wanna talk real overrated just look at Greninja: dumb Mary Sue frog gets dumb Mary Sue form no one else has just because he was the XYZ writers' personal nepobaby, yet everyone glazes it to death because they have shit taste and only care about hype moments and aura."
• Using straw man's fallacy or ad hominem to disrupt the conversation.
  • Ex: "Yeah we already know you hate Jacinthe, can't you talk about something else for once?"
• Overuse of bold, italics or capitalization, which may be perceived as screaming or yelling.
  • Ex: "I HATE Generation 8 and Dexit! HOW DARE THEY remove Murkrow from the Dex!!! Is Masuda a FRICKIN IDIOT or something?"
• Repeating popular controversial opinions about the series for engagement bait.
  • Ex: "I don't like that Game Freak continues to rush their games out for the holidays. Don't you all think they should spend more time on them?"

To maintain civility, we will be using a strike system for repeat offenses:

1 Strike	Mod PM
2 Strikes	Points Infraction
3 Strikes	1 Month Thread Ban
Final Strike	Permanent Thread Ban

Of course, depending on the situation, we might escalate differently and even further than this. However, this is the general outline of how we will handle things if the conversation becomes unproductive.

Now, all of this isn't to dissuade anyone from sharing their controversial opinions. Ranting and venting is good for the soul!! We all love things that some people might not like and we all want to see the franchise become a better version of itself. In general, what we want from you all is to be nice to one another and agree to disagree if you cannot see eye to eye about something. Respect is the key here!! If you cannot communicate your disagreement nicely, you can close the tab and go to another thread. Sometimes it's better to keep your thoughts to yourself then engage with something that is only going to make you upset. As a wise prophet once said: "If it sucks... hit da bricks! Real winners quit!"

And please note: we respect and acknowledge your opinions. If the mod team decide to take action on your post or reply, its how you've expressed yourself rather then the opinion itself.

Finally, this thread is just for video game controversial opinions! If you wanna share your hot takes about the anime or manga... that thread is in the works and will be linked here as soon as its available! c:

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Now with all of that out of the way, let's share some game opinions!

Lemme start: I don't think IGN was wrong when they said Hoenn has too much water. The routes are too long and exhausting.

 

[Mialentia]

As far as "too much water" is concerned, I think it's valid criticism for Gen 3... but for ORAS? Not so much. They actually went in and shrank the water routes to not be as big, and the encounter rate was lowered as well while surfing. In general, it makes the back half of ORAS much less annoying than Gen 3 (I love both, that being said!).

 

[falinksedin]

I don't think "too much water" in a vacuum is a problem. The problem for me is the routes all have basically the same encounter tables, the NPC teams draw from the same pool of designated "swimmer" Pokemon, and there's very little by way of optional areas to make the routes feel different from each other (even the dive caves feel pretty similar), which all results in the back half of Hoenn feeling super homogenous. "Too much water" sort of focuses on the forest and not the trees, but I do agree with the general sentiment. I also love gen 3 though; the games are still fun in spite of the water routes. And I agree the QoL changes in ORAS help a lot.

 

[Finnematics]

I don't mind the water routes at all. I think it's interesting that Hoenn just happened to have a lot of water in it compared to other regions. I wouldn't want the regions to be of equal makeup each time, I think it would get boring.

The main issue for me is that you need 3 water related HMs (Surf, Dive & Waterfall) to navigate the region and progress the story. Whatever Water-type you use on your team will unfortunately be relegated to carrying out that burden, having 3 of their 4 move slots dedicated to HMs. This is probably more of a me issue though, since I don't like using more than 1 type in my teams.

 

[beasttrash]

I didn't even realize they updated the encounter tables for ORAS!! I'm pretty set on ORAS being the overall better Hoenn experience, but it still has a few of the pitfalls of the originals.

Going back to the last part I mentioned: the routes being incredibly long with not much breathing room is the big thing for me. I guess that's why there is such a particular emphasis on secret bases in Hoenn. I used to set up mine on Route 120 (righttt near that pond with the berry plot.) just so I could catch a break between Fortree and Lilycove lol. Only being able to have one secret base doesn't help with that ngl. There are a couple of routes that are pretty long in later games (Sinnoh and Kalos in particular.) but they are not nearly as exhausting as Hoenn's (Route 123 hurts to think about lol.)

 

[Palamon]

The EXP Share not being able to be turned off is a good thing, and this is the hot take I'll die on.

 

[Kathylikestoread]

I liked Urbain as a rival

 

[falinksedin]

One of mine is that I think the battle frontier/tower was not a great experience. I like the idea of it existing in the games on paper, but as implemented in gens 3 and 4 it's less a test of how good you are at Pokemon battling and more a slot machine where you see how long you can go without getting swept by evasion spam/Quick Claw proc/OHKO moves/whatever. Yes, there's a degree to which you can build to mitigate RNG (though another part of the problem is that accessibility of building competitive mons is nonexistent in those gens), but even so, facing the same teams that rely on the same gimmick over and over isn't much fun.

While they offer much less in terms of the facilities available, the NPC movesets in the battle facilities from gen 6 onwards have shifted gradually more towards being actual tests of Pokemon battling. The ironic thing is that while I don't miss the battle frontier of old, the fact I like the idea of it as postgame content and the fact that the devs have gotten better at making good NPC sets means I do want it back lol

 

[Morningstar]

I think Sableye is a gimmick pokemon due to how they overbalenced it over the typing

"Ooh this mon has no weaknesses except fairy"

"Wait, why is it dying to a stiff breeze?"

 

[RetroPokeFan]

I'm trying to type this without it being too mean or strike worthy but I'm not a fan of the original Kanto games on the Game Boy.

I don't like the old art style/graphics, I don't like Pikachu's old design, the fact it feels like it's been held together with duck and scotch tape (with glitches up the wazoo) and a few other incredibly small things.

It just makes them look so unbelievably outdated that it should be put in a museum rather than played (or at least experienced via the GBA or Switch remakes). I don't think the franchise gets into its major groove until the Johto era which has aged much more gracefully even with a few minor bumps here and there.

Again, no idea if I'll end up with a strike or not.

 

[Pigrider09]

Kanto has a bottom three dex in comparison to all the other regions. It’s not necessarily its fault, just because they had no ability to build off of other regions, but some of the filler is really rough, the likes of which, in my opinion, have not been replicated since.

Power creep is good, actually. Getting new people to play and engage with your new pokemon helps new people come to the series and old players return. The only problem is that game freak has been a bit too fast to increase the power level and a bit too slow to update the power level of past generations mons.

Tera is the best generational gimmick. Granted, I have not had any experience with dynamax, so I can’t have a complete opinion on that. But from what I’ve seen, Tera allows for much more creativity with either explosive offense or defensive plays, perhaps even some niche utility! Also, all pokemon can use it!

Bug and Rock shouldn’t be buffed. They’re supposed to be weaker early game types that you and your starter can train against (not sure if this is intentional or not, but I really like how no matter what starter you choose, you’re strong against one of them!) If you add one to your team, it might get outclassed by the mid game, or not! Depends on what kind of trainer you are! From a game design standpoint, it really doesn’t make sense to make them overly strong (unlike the ice type, which is supposed to be a late game type and really needs a buff).

 

[falinksedin]

Bug and Rock shouldn’t be buffed. They’re supposed to be weaker early game types that you and your starter can train against (not sure if this is intentional or not, but I really like how no matter what starter you choose, you’re strong against one of them!) If you add one to your team, it might get outclassed by the mid game, or not! Depends on what kind of trainer you are! From a game design standpoint, it really doesn’t make sense to make them overly strong (unlike the ice type, which is supposed to be a late game type and really needs a buff).

I think people often deem types good or bad on the basis of the type chart alone. Some types have traditional roles in a playthrough, like you say, but even with competitive viability, a type's moves and Pokemon are a huge part of its identity.

Grass is horrible defensively (generally, it's actually pretty good right now) but gets access to all kinds of great moves and abilities.

Bug kind of has a similar thing going on. Quiver Dance is fantastic, as is Rage Powder (though it's on so many Grass types it's probably more associated with them), Sticky Web is great in singles, Silk Trap is incredible on paper. Compound Eyes is great when paired with Powder moves. The problem is just there are very few Bug types who can take advantage of these. Volcarona is just about the only decent Quiver Dance user I can think of. Silk Trap is currently exclusive to Spidops, who is one of the Pokemon of all time for sure.

Rock is a great offensive type, inaccurate moves notwithstanding. But it has so many weaknesses that Rock Pokemon need to move first and hit hard. No amount of bulk is going to fix taking super effective damage from basically everything.

Ice has the same thing. Great offensive type; having STAB on it is genuinely fantastic, but Avalugg and Cetitan die too quickly to get anything done. When we get a Pokemon that fits the type like Chien-Pao, it's great.

TL;DR: nothing on the type chart needs its matchups buffed, even competitively speaking. The types with fewer good matchups tend to have better utility, or those weak defensively are good offensively. (I'd go so far as to say this is good and gives types flavour. I don't want every type to just have its own physical and special versions of Dazzling Gleam and Aqua Jet). The problem is just that some types tend to get Pokemon whose designs don't match the designs of the types (or are outright bad). The only "buffs" needed are making better Pokemon who synergise with their typings better. (I don't think this is a very hot take - "stop the slow bulky Ice types and give us glass cannons" has been echoed for who knows how long at this point. At least the sword cat suggests they're finally listening.)

 

[Welkamo]

I think people often deem types good or bad on the basis of the type chart alone. Some types have traditional roles in a playthrough, like you say, but even with competitive viability, a type's moves and Pokemon are a huge part of its identity.

Grass is horrible defensively (generally, it's actually pretty good right now) but gets access to all kinds of great moves and abilities.

Bug kind of has a similar thing going on. Quiver Dance is fantastic, as is Rage Powder (though it's on so many Grass types it's probably more associated with them), Sticky Web is great in singles, Silk Trap is incredible on paper. Compound Eyes is great when paired with Powder moves. The problem is just there are very few Bug types who can take advantage of these. Volcarona is just about the only decent Quiver Dance user I can think of. Silk Trap is currently exclusive to Spidops, who is one of the Pokemon of all time for sure.

Rock is a great offensive type, inaccurate moves notwithstanding. But it has so many weaknesses that Rock Pokemon need to move first and hit hard. No amount of bulk is going to fix taking super effective damage from basically everything.

Ice has the same thing. Great offensive type; having STAB on it is genuinely fantastic, but Avalugg and Cetitan die too quickly to get anything done. When we get a Pokemon that fits the type like Chien-Pao, it's great.

TL;DR: nothing on the type chart needs its matchups buffed, even competitively speaking. The types with fewer good matchups tend to have better utility, or those weak defensively are good offensively. (I'd go so far as to say this is good and gives types flavour. I don't want every type to just have its own physical and special versions of Dazzling Gleam and Aqua Jet). The problem is just that some types tend to get Pokemon whose designs don't match the designs of the types (or are outright bad). The only "buffs" needed are making better Pokemon who synergise with their typings better. (I don't think this is a very hot take - "stop the slow bulky Ice types and give us glass cannons" has been echoed for who knows how long at this point. At least the sword cat suggests they're finally listening.)

Something about this post clicked something in my head. Put something into words I didn’t even know I was thinking about.

 

[falinksedin]

Don't get me wrong (just clarifying because I don't want my original post to come across wrong), I don't think every Pokemon needs to be a hyper-optimised competitive powerhouse, nor do I think every Pokemon of a given type has to fit its general archetype. Frosmoth is a really cool example of a Pokemon that bucks the Ice trend by having so much special defence and an ability to boost it further to actually pull off being bulky, which it can then utilise to lean into its Bug typing and get a Quiver Dance or two off.

I don't think every Pokemon should lean into the general archetype of their typing. I'm totally down for different spins on Pokemon design. It's not that there aren't enough Pokemon who exclusively align with certain typing, it's just that there aren't enough Pokemon of certain typings who don't suck, which is why those typings get a bad rap. And being fundamentally, polar-opposite misaligned with the typing/its moves is the most common reason for sucking.

 

[Battista]

I'm trying to figure out how to word my controversial opinion regarding voice acting in future games. I'll just say this - I don't think voice acting will be the saving grace everyone thinks it is, especially not with an English dub.

I'll agree with people that voice acting would be better than watching mouth flaps and reading text (think Rose's intro and Piers' concert in Sword/Shield), but that's more of an issue with the jump to 3D than it is with lack of vocalization. As someone who has tried to watch both the anime's English dubs - 4Kids AND TPCi - as well as games like Masters and Pokken, Pokemon's track record with English vocals just...isn't good to me. It almost always feels very stilted and unnatural, and I'm not sure if that's because it's tailored to "younger audiences" so it's not meant to appeal to me, but I don't have that issue with the main series' scripts per se, so I really don't know...

My solution would be to go back to sprites in the main series, sort of like an Octopath Traveler situation perhaps? Then the emphasis on text wouldn't be so out of place. But since that's unlikely, just give me the option to switch to Japanese.

 

[beasttrash]

I'm trying to figure out how to word my controversial opinion regarding voice acting in future games. I'll just say this - I don't think voice acting will be the saving grace everyone thinks it is, especially not with an English dub.

Yeah I agree with this in general. I don't think I would mind it for cutscenes, but I think I'd get annoyed if its used during battles. I'm still on the fence if it would sound good in the overworld, I think it might be fine? I suppose I'd just have to see it in action.

I don't play Masters with sound on, and if I do play with sound on the voices are also in Japanese. I'd also like the option to switch the language as the dub is often too cringe for me haha.

 

[nesskai]

While I think voice acting might be good for new generations I don't think I'd like it for remakes, Masters already throws me off with voices not sounding how I'd expect aha

 

[RetroPokeFan]

Yeah I agree with this in general. I don't think I would mind it for cutscenes, but I think I'd get annoyed if its used during battles. I'm still on the fence if it would sound good in the overworld, I think it might be fine? I suppose I'd just have to see it in action.

I don't play Masters with sound on, and if I do play with sound on the voices are also in Japanese. I'd also like the option to switch the language as the dub is often too cringe for me haha.

I'm one of the few big dub aficionados here (mostly the anime side) and I've never really warmed up to Masters's dub at all. There's a few good voices here and there but half of them are just directed to sound high energy and energetic and it feels like most of them just completely blend together.

Don't even get me started on the Galar voices either. As a British person myself most of them sound really bad (to the point I prefer their anime VA's and even Twilight Wings) and I'd have preferred it if they got some remote talent from the UK if they wanted to have them use British accents.

 

[The Mega Champion]

The Pokemon fanbase will never learn and will constantly and eternally be stuck in a PT-like infinite purgatory loop they are clearly going to never come out of

Tell me when I'm telling lies

=/

 

[falinksedin]

The Pokemon fanbase will never learn and will constantly and eternally be stuck in a PT-like infinite purgatory loop they are clearly going to never come out of

Tell me when I'm telling lies

=/

This is a semi-related one of mine, and I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, but I think it's something a lot of people don't realise/forget. I think a lot of people who play Pokemon, and especially ones who engage discourse online about Pokemon, only play Pokemon, or at most maybe some other Nintendo games or the odd Stardew Valley.

There's nothing wrong with that, of course, people can engage or not engage with the medium of video games however they like, but I think it can lead to a bit of a disconnect at times. Pokemon discourse can get very superlative (best games/worst games ever, best/worst graphics ever, most bugs/most unplayable game ever, etc.) when in reality Pokemon as a series is a relatively bunched-together set of games on the spectrum that is all video games ever. Sometimes I see a take that sounds kinda silly to me and I have to stop and remind myself it might be a "person who's only ever seen Boss Baby thinks their second ever movie is awfully derivative of Boss Baby" type situation. Not to say all praise/critique of Pokemon from people who only play Pokemon is invalid - most of it is very much valid. Rather my point is just that I think a lot of (already pretty tired and miserable) Pokemon discourse is made worse by people forgetting (or wilfully ignoring) that when someone says something is the best or worst ever it might genuinely be the best or worst thing they personally have experienced. And conversely, the other side present their personal opinions that are ultimately based on very small sample sizes as objective, forgetting (or willfully ignoring) that there are a lot of video games in the world. And so the whole thing is kinda just a vicious cycle of ever-worsening discourse about whatever the controversial issue of the day is.

There's also the thing (and like, most games have this to some extent) where a lot of people who have a lot of problems with Pokemon would probably be better served by other games and would really benefit from going outside their comfort zone and trying something new; they just don't realise or refuse to acknowledge it. There are plenty of objective critiques to be made of Pokemon that Gamefreak can and should be expected to fix, but when you see stuff like people wanting a super rich, more mature, campaign with loads of choices that have big effects on the story like, Pokemon is probably never going to be that. But there are loads of other games that already are!