Pokémon XII: Truth of the Ideal Thread

[tgva8889]

My biggest problem with Emerald is that the evil teams are just stupid. I've been watching Chuggaaconroy's Let's Play of it on Youtube and the evil teams are just... like, they tell you exactly where you should go to stop their evil scheme. There's another guy in the region who's has extremely powerful Pokemon and I would bet could crush both teams just as well as you could, and you meet him incredibly early. Your Rival isn't a character and doesn't do anything important, which I feel is worse than there not being one at all. Also, you will spent over 25% of your game time on the ocean, completely defeating the purpose of a host of Pokemon weak to the Water-type, which is a minor problem but it makes the end-of-the-game pacing kinda... well, terrible. Emerald was, however, the first game to actually make the Legendary Pokemon relevant, though I believe Black/White has done the "relevant Legendary pokemon" thing the best in my opinion.

I agree that it does the plotting probably a bit better than Red/Blue in terms of when you fight the evil teams. However, the thing I appreciate most about Red/Blue is that (spoilers, though I think unnecessary for anyone in this thread) the final Gym Leader is the Boss of the Evil Team. I think that gives you some closure, as while you stop the Evil Team's plans, you don't actually defeat them, so you never know if they're going to do something else during the game. You're only sure they're done when you realize that Giovanni is the last Gym Leader.

I'm fairly certain that Gold/Silver has the worst pacing of any of the games, as after you defeat the Elite 4 the plot ceases to exist for the second half of the gameplay. That's just unacceptable at this point. That, I think, we can agree on. However, I do appreciate that Gold/Silver has you defeating the Evil Team before you fight the 8th Gym Leader as well. I believe both Gold/Silver and Red/Blue also have the advantage of you actually knowing the Champion for some reason. As far as I know, Wallace doesn't do anything in Emerald, which really makes it hard to care about the fact that I've defeated him.

[NineThePuma]

Post Game revisiting of other regions would be nifty, so long as there was SOMETHING TO DO there. HG/SS fails that because the "Core Plot" is basically finished before you even fight Claire.

Something that irritates me is that, for all the "upgrades" to the graphics, regions have stayed at about the same size throughout. I'd really like a more sprawling, massive region to play in.

What would be really cool is reverting the graphics back to Advance Era stuff (maybe touch them up some) to reduce the space that's taken by tile sets and stuff, and then put every "Gen I-IV" region into one game. You choose your starting region, and deal with some sort of local stuff, and after a certain period of time, you get the option to go to another region. Everything is paced based off your number of badges in the region you're in, and the pacing is such that it's hard to play one region entirely exclusively. But the "minor" plots all seem to wrap into each other, and eventually you find out that someone is pulling the strings behind the entire game. Would be awesome.

[tgva8889]

I honestly don't think that the reason we haven't done that yet has anything to do with graphics.

[NineThePuma]

It has to do with cartridge space, I figure.

[tgva8889]

It probably has more to do with the fact that many people would probably never finish that game.

[NineThePuma]

I'd finish it!

[Turalisj]

Same here. The biggest letdown of Black was that too much seemed to be focused on needing others to enjoy it.

[tonberrian]

A huge, sprawling region would be nice for a change. I'd also like to get rid of the grid movement system and get something much more free range, like Colosseum's.

[NineThePuma]

I'm, surprisingly, okay with the grid movement. Getting rid of it would feel weird.

On the other hand, I can see where you're coming from. I just think that Colosseum worked it by being on a console.

[tgva8889]

That seems like an entirely different complaint, and one that I myself can agree with. Making the game require other people isn't a great design choice. While I understand (and "beating" Pokemon has, technically, always "required" other people), I disagree with the choice.

You do realize that you're asking them to literally cram 4 games into the same game and maintain the same kind of challenge, despite the fact that there is a clear level cap of 100 in the game? You would have to fight wild Pokemon of levels in the 90s for this to possibly work. The game is just way too long. It would either be incredibly easy, incredibly difficult, or incredibly time-consuming. I can't think of any plot that would actually be fitting that could give both closure and convince me I need to play more of this game. Nostalgia is nice but it's also cheap. There needs to be more than that.

And considering that Game Freak can print money through a fairly different technique that requires less man hours, I don't see this ever being a reality.

Edit: In terms of large regions, sure. But it highly depends on how you do it. Large in the way that Emerald did it wasn't really all that great, because you kinda sped through it and hit the ocean, which was tons of the same. The game that has best done large regions, in my opinion, is probably either Black/White or Gold/Silver. Honestly, if Gold/Silver managed to have actual plot in the Kanto half of the game, it would hands-down be the best Pokemon game ever made.

[tonberrian]

In other news, finding a Lucky Egg on your Chansey is the best thing ever.

[OracleofWuffing]

What would be really cool is reverting the graphics back to Advance Era stuff (maybe touch them up some) to reduce the space that's taken by tile sets and stuff,

Actually, if cartridge space is a concern,* the low poly-count maps you see in the current generation are possibly saving more space. Reason being, you have to store all the tiles for three directions (presuming the left and right tiles are mirrored) and "subtiles" for transitional elements in all directions, whereas with a polygon model, you just have one texture file with that, and have the graphics processor apply shading as appropriate on the fly for all directions.

When it comes to the story stuff, though, I'd much rather have the badge-collecting elite-four stomping thing going on in the limelight, and it really frustrates me when there's a whole sidestory that's gotta be resolved before I can go to the next gym (Clay, you jerk). The way I see it, I'm supposed to be a pokemon trainer who's enthused about becoming a Pokemon Master... So why do I have to save the world? Pick one of those storylines, and develop it into something focused and polished.

*It isn't, Pokemon White's like 260 MB and I want to say the card it's on maxes out near 512 MB. While that's the largest capacity Nintendo licenses, It's certainly possible to have a DS card which stores up to 16GB, and it's theoretically possible to have a DS card which stores 32GB. We live in the age of compression- check that, we outgrew the age of compression- anyone saying that they couldn't do something on a modern system because there wasn't enough cartridge space wasn't trying hard enough.

[tgva8889]

Oracle: That might actually make an interesting game, if they could make the motivations work. They'd need to have an active Champion that does stuff, a Rival that you really want to beat to the punch, and probably some other stuff you'd need to do to get to the Gym Leaders (like puzzle-filled routes in between). I could do with that, if only they'd explain a lot more about the Pokemon League, like where these Gym Leaders get all the money they'd need to operate their Gyms and give you a ton of money for beating them.

Honestly, if there was a post game during which anyone actually recognized that you were the Champion and you didn't have to fight some other Champion, that'd be sweet.

Speaking of "picking a storyline and sticking with it," the Orre series does a pretty good job of that. Last time I checked.

[OracleofWuffing]

Honestly, if there was a post game during which anyone actually recognized that you were the Champion and you didn't have to fight some other Champion, that'd be sweet.

One thing that came to mind after posting, which like, completely destroys the point I was making, would actually be to move the crime syndicate story to the postgame section. You'd have room to make the bad guys actually look threatening, and at the same time, have people thinking you're the only guy that can handle this because you're the champion. On top of this, you don't have a lousy excuse for the villains to underestimate you by then.

Speaking of "picking a storyline and sticking with it," the Orre series does a pretty good job of that. Last time I checked.

My distaste for Colosseum has been documented elsewhere. They might have stuck with a storyline, but in short my opinion is that they certainly didn't develop, focus, or polish it.

[Aerodynamik]

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My biggest problem with Emerald is that the evil teams are just stupid. I've been watching Chuggaaconroy's Let's Play of it on Youtube and the evil teams are just... like, they tell you exactly where you should go to stop their evil scheme. There's another guy in the region who's has extremely powerful Pokemon and I would bet could crush both teams just as well as you could, and you meet him incredibly early. Your Rival isn't a character and doesn't do anything important, which I feel is worse than there not being one at all. Also, you will spent over 25% of your game time on the ocean, completely defeating the purpose of a host of Pokemon weak to the Water-type, which is a minor problem but it makes the end-of-the-game pacing kinda... well, terrible. Emerald was, however, the first game to actually make the Legendary Pokemon relevant, though I believe Black/White has done the "relevant Legendary pokemon" thing the best in my opinion.

I agree that it does the plotting probably a bit better than Red/Blue in terms of when you fight the evil teams. However, the thing I appreciate most about Red/Blue is that (spoilers, though I think unnecessary for anyone in this thread) the final Gym Leader is the Boss of the Evil Team. I think that gives you some closure, as while you stop the Evil Team's plans, you don't actually defeat them, so you never know if they're going to do something else during the game. You're only sure they're done when you realize that Giovanni is the last Gym Leader.

I'm fairly certain that Gold/Silver has the worst pacing of any of the games, as after you defeat the Elite 4 the plot ceases to exist for the second half of the gameplay. That's just unacceptable at this point. That, I think, we can agree on. However, I do appreciate that Gold/Silver has you defeating the Evil Team before you fight the 8th Gym Leader as well. I believe both Gold/Silver and Red/Blue also have the advantage of you actually knowing the Champion for some reason. As far as I know, Wallace doesn't do anything in Emerald, which really makes it hard to care about the fact that I've defeated him.

I wasn't saying Emerald was perfect, and I can't argue with any of the points that you made about it, I just thought it was the best one so far. I think the only thing that you said that I disagreed with was that the evil teams were stupid the whole game through, and that this was a problem. The evil teams in all of the games have been bumbling idiots. That's just how it is. Their recruitment policies aren't very good. Also, how smart can you be if you either want to flood the entire planet or dry up all of the water? You're probably pretty dumb, yeah?

[Talvereaux]

I agree with disliking the evil teams of RSE. Sure Pokemon villains are always a bit on the dumb side but Team Magma and Aqua's schemes don't even run on Earth logic. It's hard to take their 'oh, Arceus, what have I done?!' monologues seriously when you consider how obvious the conclusion of their plans were from the second they were proposed. People diss Galactic and Plasmaaaaaaa a lot more, but at least Cyrus and Ghetsis have more than a foggy idea what their evil plans entail.

My biggest beef with Gen III was its world design. I can forgive the dumb story because while there are plenty of games I play for the story (see: Mass Effect, Hatoful Boyfriend), Pokemon just isn't one of them. Don't construe that as me saying that I dislike the stories of Pokemon games, or that they might as well not exist. The stories are there and I appreciate and follow them, but they're more of perks on the side than a driving reason I play, and as such, I don't consider a bad one by itself to especially hurt a title.

[tgva8889]

My problem with Team Magma and Aqua isn't that the teams are dumb, it's that their leaders are idiots. Archie tell you exactly where to go to stop him after stealing the submarine. Maxie writes an incredibly non-threatening letter to the Space Station. Both of them don't pay attention to the legends they're trying to enact and don't even get the right orbs, despite the fact that I feel like logic would dictate that the Red Orb is the one that goes with Groudon and the Blue Orb is the one that goes with Kyogre. While there are bumbling idiots in all the other teams, at least they aren't the highest level members. Giovanni never does anything stupid in the games except maybe fight you, and neither do any of the other generation's major villainous leaders, at least as far as I can remember.

How am I supposed to take saving the world seriously if there isn't a big bag that I actually care about defeating? Obviously all the grunts are stupid, they're grunts, it's their job to be speed bumbs in my path to the leader. But Maxie and Archie are stupid enough that I can't fathom how no one has defeated them before me, especially since there are at least 2 people in the region with Pokemon that are stronger than theirs.

Oracle: Yeah, that might work better. Though they would need really good drive to get you to play the first half of the game. Some people might be into the whole "I just want to be a Pokemon Master" plot, but I think most people will not be. They need a Rival that inspires more hatred than Gary ever did.

And yeah, I can agree on some level. I think XD actually did a pretty good job of developing the plot, from what I can remember. Coliseum didn't as much. But what are you specific problems with them? I don't remember glaring failures to develop the plot.

[Starwulf]

To whomever proposed the idea of making a giant POkemon game with all areas thus far, I'd like to say that I heartily concur! I think that would be an incredibly fun game, especially if they managed to weave an interesting story and forced you to visit other regions before you could entirely finish any single one of them. It would certainly be a big game, but I'd be more then willing to put the time into it ^^

On another note, I haven't been following the thread much lately, but I don't think I've seen anyone mention this(and if they did, I apologize), but what do you all think of the new Black and White 2 that is being developed? I learned about this over on Bethsoft forums, I was stunned, as they've never made a direct sequel to a pokemon game before.

[Geno9999]

What would be really cool is reverting the graphics back to Advance Era stuff (maybe touch them up some) to reduce the space that's taken by tile sets and stuff, and then put every "Gen I-IV" region into one game. You choose your starting region, and deal with some sort of local stuff, and after a certain period of time, you get the option to go to another region. Everything is paced based off your number of badges in the region you're in, and the pacing is such that it's hard to play one region entirely exclusively. But the "minor" plots all seem to wrap into each other, and eventually you find out that someone is pulling the strings behind the entire game. Would be awesome.

That sounds closer to like a Pokemon MMO-type game, rather than a main-series title. Though that does open up some other choices, like being able to create teams/groups flavored after some of the team outfits.

Which brings me to what I would love to get from the next games:
Being able to customize your Trainer's looks.
The personality thing in Gen 4 and Gen 5 was a step in the right direction, but it is not enough. I want to make trainer that combines the better parts of Orre, Sinnoh, and Unova, or maybe make a female trainer that looks like Carmen Sandiego.

[tonberrian]

Wah!

I found a shiny Barboach in the Great Marsh! But it ran before one of the Safari Balls could stick! My first shiny in Gen IV, too!

[Goldfly]

Wah!

I found a shiny Barboach in the Great Marsh! But it ran before one of the Safari Balls could stick! My first shiny in Gen IV, too!

That's a real shame. It sucks to lose a shiny like that.

[Starwulf]

Ya know, I've been wondering this for a while: How rare ARE shiny pokemon? I played through the entire of Soul Silver, and I continued to play for about another 20 or so hours after completing EVERYTHING, and I never once saw a single shiny pokemon. Kind of depressing :-(

[tonberrian]

That's a real shame. It sucks to lose a shiny like that.

What's worse is that it dodged like 5 Safari Balls first. It was teasing me.

[Geno9999]

Wah!

I found a shiny Barboach in the Great Marsh! But it ran before one of the Safari Balls could stick! My first shiny in Gen IV, too!

Iknowthatfeelbro.png

I've only seen one shiny in Gen IV. I was going through Cerulean Cave to capture Mewtwo, and I found a Shiny Parasect. Unfortunately I accidentally fainted it.

[Partof1]

They're pretty rare. I've had runs with none, and I've had a run with over half a dozen encountered. They're a weird sort of luck

[Qwertystop]

The only shiny I ever saw (other than Red Gyarados, and a Totodile that I soft-reset for in SS) is...

Actually, none. Never seen one.

[Illven]

Ya know, I've been wondering this for a while: How rare ARE shiny pokemon? I played through the entire of Soul Silver, and I continued to play for about another 20 or so hours after completing EVERYTHING, and I never once saw a single shiny pokemon. Kind of depressing :-(

Standard is 1/8192. There are tricks to raise it higher though. (i.e Pokeradar, breeding pokemon of different nationalities.)

[tgva8889]

I've seen 3 non-automatic shinies. One in Gold was a Purple Drowzee, and two in Black. I do see a lot of random Pokemon, though, so I dunno if that's really any indication.

[OracleofWuffing]

And yeah, I can agree on some level. I think XD actually did a pretty good job of developing the plot, from what I can remember. Coliseum didn't as much. But what are you specific problems with them? I don't remember glaring failures to develop the plot.

I was so disappointed with Coliseum (not just because of the plot but for other reasons as well) that I did not play XD, so I've got no beef with the second title. I have the means to play it, but why would I be interested if my taste has already been soured? That said, I really don't want to go into a complete critique of Coliseum, because I know a huge number of folks here like the Coliseum titles for whatever reason, and the end result is inevitably going to be people jumping on me because I'm unfairly judging a game to ridiculous standards.

For the sake of discussion, though, the first five seconds of the game? The part where you quit the gang, steal the snag machine, and blow up the gang's hideout, the results of which set the mechanics and purpose for the entire rest of the game? That happens for pretty much no reason at all. Sure, you later hear about how mean the gang was. You also later hear how you were one of the tops in the gang, despite not knowing all that much about the gang. One day, you wake up, decide to blow up a building, and use a machine only for good. That's not polish. That's not focus. That's not developed. Maybe it was supposed to be rule of cool, but then the rest of the story fails to follow that rule.

I learned about this over on Bethsoft forums, I was stunned, as they've never made a direct sequel to a pokemon game before.

Oh, what was that? I was busy playing card games with the Vampire Boss of Pokemon TCG2.

I want to make trainer that combines the better parts of Orre, Sinnoh, and Unova, or maybe make a female trainer that looks like Carmen Sandiego.

Honestly, the first time I saw a female ranger's sprite in Gen 5, I thought I had caught Carmen Sandiego.

That said, I totally still want Bulbasaur standing on my head.

Re: Shinies
Only shinies I legitimately have are Linoone and Ditto. Well, and Red Gyrados way back in Gold, but that's way back in Gold.

[Othesemo]

I found and caught my first shiny yesterday. The best part?

It was a metagross. I found it while audino grinding in Giant Chasm.

My first shiny was a pseudo legendary. The coolest pseudo legendary at that. I have named it Gyges, and together we shall curbstomp the world. *Does happy/megalomaniacal dance*