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#swsh has like. the same exact problems
adrianasunderworld · 2 years
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Why do you think so many people cling to the idea that Leona would be an asshole to his s/o? Like he would delight in beating up his partner and would be offended if his partner wanted a little bit of intimacy.
I know Leona is mean and he is very guarded but..still
He’s not that kinda character. Basically, why does the fandom have two very different versions of Leona?
I am going to be 1000% honest and say I'm pretty sure it's people being racist. Leona, someone who is based off a film that takes place in Africa, meaning he would be black. So people are vehemently characterizing him, the black housewarden, as an aggressive abuser? Hmmm...
Like you said, Leona is no saint, he's guarded and can be an asshole. But he isn't an aggressor. He's said time and time again that using brute force for a problem isn't his ideal, that he prefers to make a plan and out smart the opponents. When he found out some Savanaclaw students were going to gang up on and beat Jack up, Leona intervened. These are not the marks of an abuser. The only time I can think of him being over the top pissed (save for the Overblot, but everyone went off the rails leading up to their Overblots. So he isn't special in that regard.) was when the Mc meets him in the botanical garden. But the matter is let go once Ruggie shows up a moment later and it is forgotten. It ended up being all talk. The point I'm getting at is Leona doesn't get physical until it's needed, even with people he doesn't like. So him putting hands on his partner of all people doesn't make sense. In short Leona is a poc man who isn't some flawless saint, and thus will be villainized.
I think another part of it on some level is people being misogynistic. I see a good chunk female Leona fans putting him into the role of protector for girl!Yuus and xreaders. For example. Another thing about Leona as a character, that has been stated multiple times in game is in his culture, women are valued and respected, and him being raised in that culture, means Leona does too. Part of Leonas appeal ,to female fans specifically, is him actually giving a fuck about women, and I do think some asshats absolutely hate that. Because I've seen tik toks joking around about some of the boys being misguided, like they clearly took some bad "how to be more manly" type advice. Then look at the comments and it's stuff like, "He took advice from Leona" Are we talking about the same Leona? Because the one I know would hear you spouting that nonsense and think you're fucking idiot. People love to do the exact opposite of his characterization.
This all reminds when I was very into Pokemon SWSH. Raihan is my favorite character in that game. And I saw a good chunk of people really lean into the whole "feral dragon man" persona. If you haven't played the game, when the gym leader Raihan battles in the arena, he yells, he takes a wide stanch, he acts like the dragons he trains. And it's all an act for the cameras. Outside the gym he is friendly, takes care of historical artifacts, and likes taking pictures for his instagram. He is the most laidback guy in that game. And yet people really love to make his battle persona his only personality trait. Raihan is also a very tall dark skinned man. I can't help but side eye it all. Because none of that math checks out unless you add a racist bias to the equation.
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crystalelemental · 11 months
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“books-are-my-life-stuff: Oh, you reminded me. Alola was actually my second favorite region after finishing Pokemon Moon for the first time. Despite the unfair difficulty of Totem fights, I enjoyed the environment, lore, legendaries, and especially characters of Alola. They were great, they felt welcoming, the characters felt very close to me, I love the tradition, and I felt "at home" in Alola.“
That’s fair, I won’t really argue that.  I do like the legends and the UBs, and I can get that someone might enjoy it.
“However, Alola now falls to fourth place after playing Ultra Moon only in span of a month after Moon. It's probably my fault, I should have given more time between the two games, but back then I didn't expect 80% of USUM as just rehash of Pokemon Moon, and the changes that USUM made, some are great (the QoL improvements, Hau being more awesome) but some are...not as much personally (Lusamine's character, the Rainbow Rocket postgame).
After some time, the flaws of Alola games for me start to show as I slowly get over the hype. I think it has similar problems as with every games in later gens: they leave other characters severely underdeveloped. Sure, it's not like Kalos where every single character is underdeveloped, but characters that aren't the Aether family are very much overlooked. SwSh fixed that a little bit but Marnie is still underdeveloped compared to Bede and Hop.
As a result, fans tend to focus solely on the developed characters: the Aether family, especially Lillie. Alola characters that aren't Aether family tend to be great as groups but as individuals they don't have much, there are obviously some exceptions like Hau, Kukui, Guzma, but even then they're still underdeveloped compared to Aether family. And the manga of Alola generation doesn't fix this at all, even though the XY version of the manga was great.”
In fairness, a lot of the “third” games tend to just be...mostly the same exact game, so I don’t think that’s what hindered it.  Almost the opposite; what they did change just wasn’t changed for the better, like the adjustment to Lusamine or the inclusion of Rainbow Rocket.  Other characters have always been fairly under-developed, but I think the problem is that as the games became more story-centric, it starts to hit a little worse.  When the games were mostly just straight gameplay with very few stops, it didn’t matter that gym leaders and the like weren’t that well developed.  You get a little bit, and you develop from there.  But in games where every goddamned route is at least one cutscene, sometimes multiple, it starts to hurt that you don’t actually know much about them.  It always especially bothered me in Gen 7 that you don’t actually battle the trial captains.  They may as well not even be there.  I know there’s supposed to be some what to face off against them, but for the life of me I don’t think I ever figured out how to do it.  So I don’t blame anyone for latching on to the few that did get that focus.
Also I’m kinda surprised the manga doesn’t do more.  I figured that was one thing I could count on with it.  I think the anime involved a lot of the trial captains.  I guess if you want character, that’s what you have to go with.
“I dunno, maybe I'm just holding an unreasonably high standard for modern Pokemon games in terms of story and characterization after Unova, which I still consider as the best, but Unova really did a great job in making a lot of characters memorable and relevant to the plot somehow, modern Pokemon games tried but kept failing to do so. If only the focus weren't too much on the Aether family and more balanced, the Alola characters would probably be stronger.
I still like Hau the most among all Alola characters though, despite him being underdeveloped and the manga proves that he still can be sidelined even further than the main games.”
No, I think that’s fair.  Considering they did do a good job with the development of a cast with Unova, I think it’s reasonable to expect a bit more from the later games as well.  There shouldn’t be any reason for the reduction in quality of what’s produced, and personally I’ll go to my grave blaming the decision to move to 3D models without extending the development cycle.  I feel like it’s super easy to track that as soon as they made that shift, things started falling apart in terms of content being cut or not fully fleshed out or recently just kinda not looking great.  It’s messy.
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crowingoverthis · 1 year
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pkmn scarlet/violet rant!
Now that i finished the main story, got almost all the pkmn (took me 60 hours, cause i just walk around to complete the dex ahsgfdasd) and i just have some postgame left. Here is my huge imhotake on it xD
7/10 Gameplay 4/10 Graphic/Performance 10/10 Pokemon 9/10 Music 11/10 Characters/story
41/50 Thats a pretty high score!
7/10 Gameplay Well its open world pokemon everyone wanted! You can go anywhere and do what you want. And now some ppl complain about not having directions haha When you literary can open the map and see exclamation marks on where to go so ??? Anyway, my problem was the repetitiveness off, everything? As much as liked just roaming and catching pkmn its still the same thing. To be fair most games are like that, based around 1-2 gameplay loops. I just wish these gameplay loops were a bit more interesting. But this is pkmn at its core. But my complaint is - why is the level no scaling? its not that hard to do gamefreak, I dont want to fight an early game trainer/gym i missed that still is lvl 10 after i beat 4 gyms. And some locations are pretty but too empty, just a lot of slapped on flat textures.
5/10 Graphic/Performance Everyone already saw the glitchs and some had multiple crashes. (i didnt experience any of that, just huge fps drops when it rained. Some ppl say the digital version is better and has less issues) Aside from that, you can finish and play the game from start to finish np! So i wont dwell on that any more. All in all, its the same situation as with Cyberpunk! Well almost cause CD Projektred over promised and under delivered massively at release date. Gamefreak pretty much did everything they promised! Just failed with the polish, bugs and graphics (when the grass is just a photoshop brush... its yeah, a bit very rushed (look at BOTW grass). The pkmn themself look great! Not like having some texture on pkmn is that important, but oh well. The character animations and animations OUTSIDE of battle or close to you are not bad. Inside of battle its the same as SWSH but you can rotate the camera, that sometimes cant even show stuff properly if you are on a hill or cave. Almost forgot! the huge down side of this game as well are the loading screens and the slowness of some things (that's especially noticeable in school).
10/10 Pokemon Like i always say - the one (well and music) things Gamefreak never fails is with designs and creating more pkmn! Of course there are mons i don't like (grasswaterstarterevos) but they are true to what they represent and i can respect that. Every pkmn is loved by someone and that's what makes the diversity of creatures so amazing.
9/10 Music Not much to say than that's its great! (Just a minus point from me personalty cause i don't like techno music and some tracks were like that >:C ) The transition between tracks is nice too.
11/10 Characters/Story I can say in general (NO spoilers)... this game has one of the best pkmn stories. Yes at the same level as gen 5 > 7 (which were the best imho so far.) It just like moulds together so well? Just the repetitiveness i talk about brings it down a bit. The characters have great designs and are (mostly, Nemonaplz) well written and its fun to learn about them! I'm glad GF took more time on story (wish they had even more time).
(mild spoilers) - Best character is the director hands down out of discussion. Not even joking xD. The school idea is very cute and i think its pretty good for newer players and kids who want to play and actually learn about pkmn! cause you do learn stuff in this school that is more then grass beats water, well its the first lesson so you do learn that too but after that i promise it gets better! History class is the coolest! (although i do wish we could learn about the region and cool stuff by y know talking to ppl a bit more...) As a person who was bullied in school, i like TEAM STAR’s story, but i wish they would tell the stories differently than the exact same 5 battles. Bonus! 6/10 locations. Decided to put locations here too cause why not. The main town is great! just some wonky spots that are empty, The other towns on the other hand, have a great look on the outside but when you go in, there's not much there. You can’t go inside of ANY buildings (just the sandwich +gyms). The "wilderness" is pretty much flat textures with pkmn randomly spawning on them. Just things GF needed to have more time to work on.
Conclusion-  Imma change the score too 39/50 cause the location bonus and that is a kinda important point too! SO If you can ignore some minor glitches and dont care about fps drops: Its a good game! Plus if you liked Arceus and just want to play a pkmn game its actually probably the best there is now on the switch! But the bad performance and now that even Nintendo is offering refunds, just shows that rushing unfinished games is not worth! and I hope they FINALLY gonna learn something from that.
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jubilfetv · 2 years
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talking about my problems with gen 8 pokemon design for no reason cause i feel like it
seeing those pokemon legends leaks has made me soooo apprehensive about future pokemon games and especially gen 9. cause while i think every gen is gonna have hits and misses (except gen 4 LOL im not even biased saying these cause dppt genuinely had some of THE best designs) with swsh and now pla im so. WHO is gamefreak hiring for these designs
like i hate to sound like a genwunner but at least with older pokemon designs, even if i didnt like them, they still looked like pokemon
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like im not crazy about gurdurr but at least it still looks like. a pocket monster. and not whatever this new gen has been churning out. like look at these
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its literally just a fucking squirrel like whats special about it. couldnt you have at least changed up the colours so its not literally just a squirrel from real life. hate these bitches
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like at least do something interesting with it when its inspired from a real life animal LMAO?!?!?  greedunt you will never be pachirisu emolga etc
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b4 i say anything else. i hate inteleon
biggest problem i have with the starters is that theyre either boring or they just suck. rillaboom is the  best one out of these but i dont like that it just has a drum LOL like its a gorilla u couldnt have leaned into the beating-chest thing instead of just giving it a drum?
scorbunny is THE most boring design. it just looks like someones furry character. thats not an insult but it doesnt even look like a pokemon. speaking of which why is everything so perfectly round? why is sobble so round why couldnt you have taken inspiration from real life lizards instead of just making it a generic boring cute design
cinderace is too anthro and i hate its anime eyes. didnt even put any effort into making it look like a creature that could plausibly exist in this universe cause it just looks like a guy inn a fursuit. speaking of which WHAT is with scorbunnys random yellow markings??? how would those even occur naturally in the wild. the colours is something else i have such a big issue with wrt gen 8 but ill get to that
and inteleon. literally the worst pokemon design in the entire franchise. was there really no other way to design a spy inspired lizard. why did you have to go the furbait bedroom eyes humanoid barely even a lizard creature route. UGLY!!!!!!!!!! fuck you inteleon
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still mad we didnt get something like this instead. anyway comparing the gen8 starters with like, the gen2 or gen4 ones u really see where they started just going with boring cutesy designs instead of taking more inspo from the real life animals theyre inspired from. imagine totodile designed today... i dont wanna think about it
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anyway even though i love impidimp it really showcases so many of the problems i have with these designs. theyre all obviously designed for modelling which isnt a BAD THING except that it seems to be the most simple modelling in existence. shapes are perfectly round or square and theres barely any interesting shapes
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Like really.
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also i hate this fucker for the same reason as skwovet/greedunt in that its literally just a regular penguin with an ice cube on its head. like WHY keep it the exact same colours as a normal penguin except for the random blue?! its not like youre limited to a certain palette
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galar does have some really good designs though i wont pretend like it doesnt. toxtricity is one of my fav ever designs & i also love grimmsnarl (wish they kept it pink), corviknight, centiskorch, dragapult
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anyway im gonna talk about the colours now. LOL. a big problem in these new designs is just the random colours slapped onto the pokemon without any effort to make them seem like natural markings OR something interesting for the design. like look at galarian slowpoke/slowbro compared to like croagunk
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like the colours actually feel deliberate and LOOK good with each other. galarian slowpoke/bro just look like someone adding random colours in an attempt to make the design more visually interesting but it just looks like when im trying to work out an oc colour palette and start painting stuff over randomly. theres like. no thought behind it.
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like with morgrem why the  random green lower body?? if its bc grimmsnarl’s green why not just keep regular grimmsnarl pink like the shiny??? it just feels random and doesnt blend well together. also WHAT the hell is up with its arms lol. also looking at it now they really could have played with  a hair tail thing where it looks like a devils tail. LOL. at least i like grimmsnarl
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onto the pla leaks. ill get the ones i like out of the way first: h. growlithe, ursaluna, wyrdeer, basculegion, h. zorua/zoroark, h. braviary, h.voltorb. kleavor’s okay and i like typhlosion with its flames. decidueye couldve been worse. idk.  it looks better in action but i still prefer alolan decidueye
like no wonder they stopped showing us trailers LOL imagine a trailer of that hideous sneasel evo. it literally just looks like a stretched out sneasel. you will never be weavile
lilligant is boring considering its modern form
arcanine is fine i guess but i dont like the colours and theres like none of that stone guardian lion inspiration in there. hate to be that guy but literally all the fandesigns i saw were WAY better
samurott is boring. would look more interesting if they adjusted the colours and made the mustache black. ill probably choose it though just cause i want infernape on my team and will need a water type
h. electrode is boring as hell lol. why didnt they give it a mustache. voltorb is SO fun and then what. they just carved out electrodes eyes? YAWN
overqwil is fugly. sorry
avalugg is just like whatever
i like sliggoo/goodra’s typing but again theres just so much more you couldve done with it
new genie is um. well. its something. the turtle form i dont mind so much but i hate all the hearts and i dont like the colour palette
dialga and palkia are HORRIBLEEEEEE like 1) THROAT CANNON? WHAT WAS THE THOUGHT PROCESS BEHIND THIS? 2) get rid of the circular things and palkia will look SO much better 3) ik they were going for a combined with arceus thing here or something whatever but it looks like shit. black/white kyurem>>>>>>>these bitches any day
anyway yeah. was the pitch Make them ugly and or boring as possible or something. cause these designs are so. 
id better not hear anything about a gen9 until at LEAST 2024 btw and they better hire some new designers cause i cant put up with this *acting like im not always gonna love pokemon*
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ravenwolfie97 · 3 years
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alright i’ve already got a spicy hot take on the sinnoh remakes
well, for one thing, they’re not what i expected. and they’re fine! completely inoffensive games! they remade the DS games on the Switch. but it looks like that’s All they did
we have precedents for remakes, hence why we’d been demanding them since sun/moon. ever since red/green got remakes on the GBA, we had set a precedent for what a pokemon remake looks like and what it entails
and brilliant diamond/shining pearl hold up to None of those precedents
the crux of my argument is built upon the style and design of the game, based on what little has been revealed as of this morning. the style perfectly mimics what we had on the DS, and i do find that attention to detail admirable. however, no prior remake has done this; they all had, instead, taken the groundwork of that generation and Updated it to the style of the current one. ORAS doesn’t look exactly like Ruby/Sapphire; it looks Better than them because they updated everything to meet the standards set in X/Y. quite frankly, they surpassed the standards of X/Y, in my opinion, bridging the gap between that and Sun/Moon
the same cannot be said of BDSP. they do not resemble Sword and Shield in any way whatsoever. sure, they stayed faithful to their original games, but since when did any other remake stay completely faithful to their original games? you can’t say that FRLG is Exactly like Red and Blue, because it’s not; the graphics were updated to the standards of RSE, the designs for all of the trainers, buildings, and environments changed, and they added divergent content to make it stand out as its own experience, rather than just being Gen 1 again. HGSS did the same, expanding on GSC to match the fidelity of the Gen 4 games as well as update all the designs and add new content to make it unique. ORAS brought a huge amount of changes, again surpassing the expectations set by XY, and while it diverged heavily from its source material it was still very faithful in its opening and brought the Gen 3 experience to modern heights. even Let’s Go, another Kanto remake, was extremely divergent from its source material, and that’s great! but nothing about BDSP stands out from the original Gen 4 games. it’s the exact same as the games from 15 years ago; no new designs, no new environments, not meeting the standards of Sword and Shield by a longshot. they stayed too faithful to the original games, when the remakes were seemingly on the track to be even more divergent after ORAS
i think a big part of the problem here is because BDSP isn’t made solely by Game Freak; they outsourced the design process to ILCA, who made Pokemon HOME. the style used in Pokemon HOME is pretty different from that of the other 3D pokemon games, all polished like plastic toys and overly-saturated. one could argue that Let’s Go and SwSh look like that too, but those models are Textured and have different lighting than what’s shown in the trailer for BDSP. that’s not a matter of not doing it yet, because that would have been an easy fix - it’s a matter of their personal style not gelling with what we expect
but the elephant in the room is really the overworld art style. why did they go with something that tried to resemble the original sprite art when we’d fully moved on to actual human-shaped trainers. why do they have such large and detailed hands when the original overworld sprites had Circles for hands - that’s not very faithful, now is it?
i’m not gonna ask for a miracle to be made and have ILCA step down and have Game Freak handle the Sinnoh remakes, because clearly they had other plans with Pokemon Legends. i won’t even ask for the miracle of them making the overworld actually look like Sword and Shield, or even Let’s Go. this is mostly just to air my frustrations over this artistic choice being extremely counter to the precedents set by the previous remakes. if you’re going to make it look faithful to the original games, cool. that’s different and i can appreciate that. but the fact that literally nothing in terms of character or environment design has changed bothers me the most. it’s not a reimagining, it’s not a modern retelling... it’s just pandering. and half-assed pandering, at that. they really did say “you want sinnoh remakes that badly? here you go, we didn’t wanna do it, so someone else did. it’s the same game on the switch now. happy?”
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fantasyresident · 4 years
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There’s Something I Have To Address
Just like when the Dexit controversy was stirring, there is now a “new” controversy (if you want to call it new) that is causing unhinged fans to go after Masuda. Only this time, they decide to do it in response to people wishing him well for his BIRTHDAY. Last time it was a wedding, this time it’s his fu**ing BIRTHDAY. I missed this insane ordeal, which happened on January 12th (5 days ago from now) but I thought it was important to respond because I always consider harassment wrong, especially against people who work hard at what they do. 
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Apparently people are automatically assuming Pokemon were cut in the first place to be added later for money, even though they took the time to make a free update that allows you to get them through trade. Now it is true there is still a little bit of a “paywall” for them since Pokemon Home is a paid service, but if you’re operating a service like that, shouldn’t you be allowed to charge for it? And if it’s a low price like Pokemon Bank, that’s an extremely small paywall especially compared to what other games expect you to pay for various things. The other cost is the Nintendo Online subscription, which again is a service that has to be constantly run, which I and anyone else who believes in paying for hard work would think, SHOULD be paid for. Not to mention, the Online Membership has different payment packages you can choose from. The single member plan is quite cheap (compare it to the terrible price of Play Station Plus). Many PS4 games lock online content behind that $60 PS+ paywall and nobody complains about it. Yet Pokemon expects you to pay for the same thing only for far less and suddenly it’s a “problem”.
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This isn’t to say that everything is perfect with the Pokemon Company. In fact, I do believe there is some level of corruption going on somewhere within the company. (Most likely the marketing department) But then again, you look at any company these days and you find the same exact issues all over the place. However, since Pokemon is a huge brand and people have seriously extreme attachments to the franchise, people complain more about Pokemon than other franchises that pull the same (and even far worse) tricks. Do I believe Masuda or Ohmori are behind any of this. NO. Masuda and Ohmori seem very passionate about their work in the Pokemon franchise and I don’t believe they called all of these shots. There’s more to a company than just a couple people making decisions. Many people make decisions in a company and normally most of the decision-making process is made privately, so we Pokemon fans don’t even know the full picture of what’s going on behind the scenes, yet many people are harshly judging others. Masuda did give reasoning for dex cuts previously, referring to things like game balancing, better animations, etc. For one, they most likely did try out game balancing, but realized when everyone was using the same broken Pokemon that their plans for that were done for.As for the animations, many did improve or were worked over entirely, even if a handful remained the same. (New animations wasn’t a total lie like everyone’s making it out to be.) Referring back to the gameplay balancing, the timing makes sense, considering not long after the first tournament they decide to reveal the DLC expansion pass for more Pokemon. (They probably used the results of the tournament as a way of judging how well the game was balanced.) There’s literally a million things that could have happened behind the scenes to change their minds, yet people interestingly enough automatically glue their minds to the word “corruption” and “greed”. Negativity spreads like wildfire and not everyone wants to deal with that shit. I’m very skeptical of big-shot gaming companies, but do I automatically assume the worst every time Game Freak does literally anything that people doesn’t fully understand? Of course not. If you’re going to attack Masuda for making very good DLC for $30, then attack the creator of Call of Duty for the COD Black Ops 2 season pass that costs $50. Or you can criticize all of the other games that have season passes that cost just as much or more than Pokemon SwSh’s very expansive passes. 
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I realize that some of you critics will refer to how supposedly “empty” the base game of Sword and Shield was and then rant about how games that are complete from the start deserve to have highly priced DLC, but let me address that point. It may be “incomplete” in your opinion, but it’s not in others’. For me, the game felt fulfilling and I especially loved the new gen of Pokemon creatures. The only thing that felt a bit bare was lore, and SwSh aren’t the only games to lack that, so it’s not that shocking to me. They’re still great games. If you’re going to call SwSh’s expansion passes expensive, then be fair and consider all other expansion passes/season passes. Not only that, but DLC as well. Consider the often absurd cost of skins that are marketed in many games like Final Fantasy Dissidia NT. Just because the Pokemon Company decided to do DLC, that doesn’t mean they’re planning to make us pay heavily for pre-existing Pokemon. Again, there are small pay hurdles, but considering I only have a small amount to spend per month and I can even afford to pay what the Pokemon Company is asking, that really speaks volumes for how relatively cheap the content is. You also have to consider how companies need methods for earning revenue in the long term, something inbetween releases of major titles, and a service like Home will not only benefit the Pokemon players, but it will also benefit the people putting their time and effort into making the service a success. A win/win for everyone.
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What I’ll say is, leave other people the f*ck alone, this includes Masuda. Whether if your biased mind wants to admit it or not, game developers DO work hard and they don’t deserve to be attacked on their birthday of all times. Nobody does. When you act, put yourself in someone else’s shoes first. Would you want to spend such a long time on a game that you felt passionate about only to be put down by a bunch of people on your own birthday? This really just shows how fans don’t even think of game developers as people, they just think of them as factories for making games. Whether if you liked Sword and Shield or not, that doesn’t matter. Stop attacking Masuda and bombarding him with paparazzi-style questions that imply he’s cheating fans their money.  
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silverstrangequark · 4 years
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A spoiler-free review of SwSh
I don't talk much, but there are things that need to be said, especially for the people out there who are still considering whether or not they want to invest on the new Switch titles. Here's what I've noticed of the several aspects of the game while playing it. Most of these impressions were already evident as early as before the first badge, and didn't change throughout the game. I'm still not done, but I've put a good 12+ hours in and I think that's enough to have an informed opinion of it. If anything changes, I'll update this journal. I fully realise that the following are entirely personal opinions and that some people may differ in their thoughts and impressions of the game. That's fine and understandable. I have written this journal respectfully and with no intention to attack those who are enjoying the games. I ask that you reserve me the same politeness and courtesy. 1. Story It's not a mystery that Pokémon doesn't have the best storytelling, with few notable exceptions like BW. SwSh doesn't really deliver anything exceptional in this sense. The story isn't terrible, just thoroughly uninteresting and hard to get into. The characters feel more like tropes and caricatures than actual people, though this is also a problem in a good portion of the mainline games, so I'll just count it as a point of neutrality rather than a full negative. [/] 2. Mechanics Up to personal opinion, but I find the new battle mechanics absolutely unnecessary. The Pokémon Company has stated previously in official conferences that they want to bring the franchise "back to the roots", and Dynamax is not the way to do it. I can deal with Mega Evolution and Z-moves being removed, but what was introduced in their stead is basically a combination of both with a different flavour (increasing different stats and changing the effect of special moves), at which point I'm really questioning why they didn't maintain the original mechanics in the first place, or just wipe them out altogether. I personally liked battling the way it was before. I don't find that new battle gimmicks make a game more interesting - they make it more annoying, if anything, as they basically force you into a specific battle style to keep up with your opponents. [-] 3. Gameplay What in the world is pacing?!? The game takes you through several hours of early-game tutorials (bits of which are skippable, so at least that's a good thing, I don't want to be shown how to catch Pokémon for the 20th time) which give the player the impression that the game will be long and rich. Once you get to the first gym, that very impression is crushed and you start steamrolling leader by leader in rapid succession. There are moments in the game in which you travel through literally ONE ROUTE and then the next gym is one town over. Kalos has sparked some complaints for awkward pacing after the third gym, but this is just a whole another level of bad game flow management. [-] 4. Designs This is likely the most personal point of all, but I find the new Pokémon okay. Some of them look weird, but overall the designs are true to the series and more or less what I'd expect from Pokémon. I don't have as many favourites in this generation as I do for the others, which means in general terms it didn't really impress me, but if Galar is your thing then go for it. I can at least give them credit for introducing regional evolutions, that's likely one of the most interesting things they've done in this game - one which I hope they keep into the future, as I'd like to see more regional variants and evolved forms thereof. [+] 5. Graphics The one selling point of this game according to its very developers! Graphics have got to be good, right? Nope. 5.a. The overworld is really well done. Cities and towns blend into each other seamlessly and there is a very three-dimensional sense of perspective throughout the region. Lighting is more realistic than ever before (for how realistic a Pokémon game can be, that is), and there is better texturing work than in the previous installments of the series. [+] 5.b. ...Unfortunately, that's about all I can say. The Wild Area, advertised as the game's major attraction, fails to deliver - at least compared to my expectations. While the overworld itself is well done graphically, the WA showcases several odd graphical choices and the shapes, colours and textures are all weirdly unnatural and simplistic. The character keeps glitching in and out of the screen (not sure if this was intended, but I didn't like it; please provide a consistent camera view). The area itself is not even that big and can be completely explored in maybe 30 minutes total. Considering that this game has half the average amount of routes because of the Wild Area, I don't think this is quite enough to make up for what was cut. [-] 5.c. Pokémon models and attack animations are all 100% reused from previous generations. They don't feel any more interesting or realistic and we still have Pokémon shooting Flamethrower and Ice Beam out of something other than their mouths in an average case, or a completely alien corner point of the screen in particularly bad cases. You would think in 2019 they would at least care enough to fix this, but they didn't. [-] 5.d. Battle backgrounds are completely awful and a huge step down from the Sun and Moon generation. If you fight indoors, you will have NO BACKGROUND. There will just be a flat gradient. Even outdoors backgrounds are not perfect, as there are several areas near the sea in which you will just get a weird grassy terrain background (usually recycled from the previous route or some other nearby location). Sun and Moon had individual backgrounds even for battles in the Trainer School, for crying out loud! Who thought this was a good idea? [-] 5.e. Characters look, move, and feel much in the same ways as they did in the 3DS games and I've seen some hilarious gifs comparing the new friendly rival to Hau. They use the exact same movements. I would give this a neutral point if they had at least made an effort. [-] 6. Variety Dexit is obviously an issue, but one that I had coming eventually. With the sheer amount of Pokémon ever invented, there was bound to be a cut somewhere along the line. The selection of around 400 is overall not too small but also not great, and leaves a certain amount to be desired. [/] 7. Music Likely my first time playing a Pokémon game and being thoroughly uninterested in the soundtrack. Several themes are reused throughout, not just in routes (which is average for Pokémon) but also in places like caves, and the city themes feel like an odd mashup of old generations in which the originals definitely did it better. Apart from a couple battle themes of "relevant" characters, I find it really hard to get invested in the music. [-] Appendix: Overall At 2 positives, 2 neutrals, and a whopping 7 negatives, I have to say this is the most disappointing Pokémon game I've ever played, and I've played every single main series release. I enjoyed Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee much more, because at least I knew what to expect and the game was exactly what I expected it to be. Sword and Shield were marketed as some mind-blowing innovative titles with amazing graphics and a whole new gameplay experience, and I can honestly say they don't meet that promise at all. The Dexit rage and #GameFreakLied hashtag have more than a reason to exist. 3/10 If you're a long-term fan, skipping these won't harm you at all. In fact, as a long-term fan myself, I can say it's pretty likely these games will leave a bitter taste in your mouth for how unfinished they obviously are. Some people are enjoying them as-is, and that's fine, I can respect that, but I don't believe they're anywhere near worth their current price tag. If you're not a long-term fan but just looking to get into Pokémon, please please start with a different generation. There are so many good games to play out there, that deserve your time and money more than SwSh do.
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dairoyx · 5 years
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Silly things I’ve heard defending GameFreak
1. “It’d be too much work to make new models for 1000 pokemon and Gamefreak shouldn’t have to work that hard”
Yeah... Except they DON’T have to make new models for 90% of the pokemon that appear. They have been reusing the X and Y models for 7 years. 
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  (These are the exact same model X and Y just displays a lower resolution)
And even with that said Pokemon is one of the single most profitable and well funded franchises in the world with a networth well above 20 Billion. This is not some small indie company owned by 10 people working constantly. This is a AAA multi-billion dollar game developing company. 
JUST DELAY THE GAME. I’d rather have a good pokemon game every 3 years than a meh pokemon game every year. I have absolutely no problem with a game being delayed so long as the final product reflects the extra time put into it.
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Botw was delayed twice and is one of my favourite games of all time. As Shigeru Miyamoto said “A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad”
But don’t worry im sure they’ll find some way to fit all  O̙̘̩͗͗̌̋̀R̭̅ͭ̓̎̃̉I̤̮̹̩̮͓ͮͨͪͫ͂̒͘ͅG̢͓͕̃̽̆ͥ̓ͮ̂I̧N͒ͩ͌ͫͣ҉̘̣̞A̙̟Ļ̔̈́ͪ͊͂ͮ̒ ̞͚̕1̷̞̈ͭ̔5ͫ҉͇̟̟1̢̗̣̼̝̳̻̿ͧ̉͂ into SwSh
2. “This isn’t permanent. You guys are overreacting. They’ll fix this”
No. This isn’t like pokemon bank not being compatible at launch like in Sun and moon, This is gamefreaks policy GOING FOWARD. Do you know what that means? it means this is pokemon now. The motto of pokemon is no longer “gotta catch em all” it’s “gotta catch some of em”. 
And based on what they’ve said they don’t plan on issuing these pokemon later in an update. They haven’t made any new statements about it indicating they had no plans from the start. The only way gamefreak will budge on this stupid opinion is if pokemon fans stir up a shitstorm loud enough they might just listen.
3. “Just enjoy what you get stop being entitled”
I’m sorry. Sorry that I don’t want to leave half of all the pokemon I’ve spent the last 10 years of my life raising, loving and hunting for. These games preach these morals of “love your pokemon” and “love makes pokemon stronger” but don’t seem to understand that every pokemon is loved by someone.
It’s not entitled to hold Gamefreak to a high standard. They don’t get some ‘please understand’ get out of jail free card. They need to stop rushing these games for the christmas period and cutting out so many aspects. Dataminers find so many files of things that are just blatantly left out like zygarde and mythical pokemon.
Is it entitled to not want to leave me my beloved chesnaught behind? is it entitled to not want to leave all my shiny legendaries that I SR’d for hours to get? NO. 
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And it’s not just that. The lack of new Mega evolutions, Z moves, Regional variants only to be replaced with... big pokemon? Dynamax is just mega evolution without the cool bits. It’s a powerup for your pokemon just like mega evolution but unlike mega’s it doesn’t change design, typing or ability which made megas so cool. 
All of these disappointing reveals one after another with kinda mediocre pokemon designs being released (starters not included) has successfully derailed my hype train for SwSh. 
Bring back the national dex or i’ll smack ye wee shites
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ON THE OTHER HAND BREATH OF THE MOTHERFUCKING WILD 2 FUCK YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
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LOOKS SO GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD. NINTENDO YOU HAVE EARNED BACK MY TRUST COMPLETELY
MFW my hype for sword and shield is ruined
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MFW BOTW 2 confirmed
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Sorry I just wanted to end on a brighter note.
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smilingperformer · 4 years
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I think the biggest concern is that people think they're paying more for a game with less content. (since technically, there's no reason why you couldn't have all the pokemon in the game. But then you would need to worry about balancing the game for all those pokemon, and the meta would turn into the same exact game its been for years now. Its really hard to balance a casual/hardcore market, and I think gamefreak prefers the casual market that spends a lot on Mobile Games.)
cont. Thats not to say that's a bad thing! I just think people are concerned only with how they play the game, not the fact that a 7 year old will approach the game completely differently then a 30+ year old. So they fail to see some of the problems some of the games had, because they didn't really care about the game's pacing/collecting.  I think the game looks like it will be fun to play.            
I have to get this out of my chest, nothing personal anon:
National Dex isn’t imo content per say (I mean as in it’s content but not important content for the game itself), because the Pokemon part of NatDex tend to be something you have to transfer from outside of the game, thus not actually part of the game itself, thus actually limiting the amount of content they can add outside of Pokemon you can’t get through the game. So I myself don’t count lack of National Dex as ‘less content‘. Buuuut that’s just how I see it I guess.
May I add, I always count the value of the game based on how many hours I end up spending on the game. On most Pokemon games I own, the average time is 55 hours. On Alola games I spent hundreds of hours, most on Ultra Moon (I think 240+? I always mix up certain numbers so it could be 270+...). If I end up spending my time on Galar for waaaaay longer than 55 hours, then it’s worth the damn 60 euro tag.
I’m not sure you can really say that Game Freak cares more for casual market. It’s more on TPC if anything. Game Freak doesn’t make other than mainline games, no? They haven’t made any of the mobile games. So saying they care more of that part of the franchise is just.... not a fact? Rest I agree with. Pretty sure Competitive is always filled with certain meta, meaning the large pool is actually meaningless when you’re pretty much only guaranteed to do well with certain ‘mon. It does help with variety each gen to have different ‘mon on the pool as well.
Pokemon is and will always be a game franchise aimed for all ages. Meaning it has to be easy to approach for younger gamers as well. I’ll be judging SwSh as full games once I get them in my hands and complete the story. Do note, I think it’ll take me a while due to busy worklife. Heh.
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pokefan531 · 4 years
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My take on Pokemon Unite and covering the problems
Hey guys. I am gonna do my take on Pokemon Unite and put out what is going on with it, and what I think about it. I see a lot of negative feedback, so I'll address a couple of sides of this situation.
Well, last week, we got Pokemon Presentation that has more than one thing, and it covers Cafe Mix, New Snap, Sword and Shield Isle of Armor that came out the exact day, and new things about sleep and home. Last week has a lot of content on it, and they then say next week is a big announcement. It will make it seem like it's worth seeing since the first presentation was a good one due to its content.
When I saw the recent presentation, it was just Pokemon Unite on the entire presentation, and people seem to be disappointed of it. First off, I don't hate it and just thought it was just a League of Legend reskin to Pokemon that is on Switch and Mobile. We will be breaking down to each problems. I will put the good, the bad, and what they could've done to be neutral to the situation.
First problem is the marketing and what the last Pokemon Presentation said about the next presentation on the following week that it will be a big announcement. Well, if they say it's gonna be a big announcement, it will make people have high expectations like wanting a johto or sinnoh remake. You're pretty much giving it more hype by saying. So, I only saw the recent presentation with no expectations, because I didn't want them to make any remakes to begin with since Let's Go Games cost them development time on Sword and Shield, that brought up #BringBackNationalDex situation as well as being really rushed for the holidays with less effort on animation and graphics that I saw from DistantKingdom. I wanted games to be developed well and not disappoint people that last year's problem has. At the same time, I never really have high expectations on most panels since they always come unexpected, so the presentation didn't anger me or anything. I just thought if the game was really worth a big presentation. Mobile and Free to Play games aren't really a big announcement since they are just small games, but what is would be something that is exclusive on game consoles as a paid game. I do think they could've included the game on last week's presentation to have at least a bit longer presentation that is with all its games being announced. That way, it would've been more neutral and people would be like "Okay...A Pokemon MOBA game." instead of "THAT'S A BIG ANNOUNCEMENT?! A POKEMON MOBA GAME?". You can see the attitude change, if they either include that game on last week's presentation or swap it with Pokemon New Snap since it's an iconic game, and if New Snap was covering the whole presentation from Wednesday, it would've been a deal breaker. People would be more happy and it should include gameplay for a little bit. I think they should've present Unite better. Also, a presentation should have at least two things, with a little bit of showing off merch and stuff. I know Diablo has that problem two years ago because it was marketed as a big announcement for a PC franchise and it turned to be a mobile free to play game, and it was booed on the panel and blizzard people has some attitude on the fans, especially since there was no new Diablo game for a long time. With Pokemon Unite, it wasn't as worse since I don't every gaming news overreacting to its feedback, so the drama is pretty smaller than Diablo's situation.
The second problem of Pokemon Unite was it was made by Tencent, a Chinese company who makes free to play mobile games. People do not like that company and I'll explain why based on my research. Tencent is a level of EA, aka Electronic Arts. As we should know, EA is a very greedy company that is unfriendly with its consumers, and fill their games with microtransactions and trying to get more money from people. The best example of a game that has this problem was Star Wars Battlefront 2 when it came out, and it has microtransactions that let's players become stronger when paying powerups so it's a pay to win kind of thing. Also, you have to pay for characters to get it instantly, as you would have to grind for too many hours otherwise. There is also a game from EA called Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes, a free to play Mobile game. It was heavily forced to pay microtransaction to progress the game much quicker, and it recently banned a player for reporting that there are hackers, and they ignored him and thought he was breaking their TOS. EA is a very shady company. So with Tencent, they're almost the same level as EA, so that is pretty much the reason why people don't like Tencent. They do stuffs like this too as far as I heard. I don't really play those type of games because I don't like when they decide to make free to play games that heavily relies on Microtransaction that really impacts the enjoyment of a game, but as for Pokemon Unite, we haven't seen more information yet besides the gameplay. I wouldn't expect it to be as much fun since I gathered information about Tencent.
[Edit 9/22: Well, right after I post this, people told me more about Tencent. They’re worse than EA, because they have huge connections with Chinese government, and they can control and see people’s data and such, as well as censorship, so they have much more government control, and they own so many things, moreso than Disney and Microsoft. Well, it was announced a year prior that Tencent would work on a Pokemon game, but SwSh not having dex was taking over, since it was a main game. With a poor presentation, it’s theorized that Tencent paid the Pokemon Company to have their own presentation for the game, or that TPC decided to do that, but more on the former. Still, it wouldn’t get as much backlash if it was included on the presentation a week before with the other games.]
As a concept, it looks decent. The models and its gameplay looks fine. I thought it would be all right on itself. MOBA games are really big in China and any mobile games there. They barely play console games since most consoles haven't sold there until the PS4 era, but everyone has phones so they can play games anywhere. It may be all right, but I wouldn't expect much. If you do want to play a new Pokemon free to play game, tryout Pokemon Cafe Mix. It's a lot more fun and its microtransactions are completely optional, and you an play the game without internet/mobile connection. Cafe Mix came out few days ago and it looks addicting. It's on Mobile and Switch.
So, do I think the fans have the right to be disappointed by the game, or are they really toxic? Well, I do think they were expecting the panel too highly because they said this presentation was gonna be big, but it isn't. I suggest not to make things clickbaity, and be more honest about it. Since I learned about Tencent, it isn't that surprising. [Also, I know they’re people who will have high expectations for the remakes and such, but they should remind themselves that Tencent made an announcement a year prior.] However, I don't think they should go after people that work on those games, or have a divide on a fandom of a particular game, because I don't want a split fandom. I had that problem with The Last Jedi and its problems (TLJ is much worse than this, believe me). [Yes, even with all the problems with Sword and Shield, Let’s Go games, and recently Unite, I believe almost every fandom I’ve been in had toxic sides that will react, and it is the companies fault for creating a mess of this hype and announcement. I didn’t feel ashamed enough with the Pokemon situations, unlike Star Wars, which was fueled by PC culture left and right since TLJ came out, and the fandom was worse. I am not doubting that Pokemon fandom, like most fandoms, have their bad sides, and we’re living in a social media era for over a decade. I never take part of any hashtags for protest, since I was BBND taking things too far to others on Twitter, and JusticeForChloeB was another one. I’ve seen things gets worse since mid 2010s because of stuffs like Twitter and shifts with game companies deciding things like Pokemon Unite, Star Wars Battlefront 2, or Diablo Immortal in this era that creates backlash due to companies decisions.] Overall, Pokemon Unite could've been presented better and the company who made it should try to avoid mistakes EA has made on their records. I personally don't play MOBA games or a couple of free to plays, so I am pretty much more neutral to Pokemon Unite itself. Still better than Sony's recent game, TLoU2. The beginning had a meaningful description of Pokemon fans, but I think it should've been with last week's presentation to have more neutral reaction. I'm glad it got sorta calm a few days after it. If you got information, you can comment.
My next take will be on Miraculous Ladybug Season 3, and my next video should be out nearly next week. Have a good night.
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