Unpopular opinions

[MisogiKurakawa]

Pokemon will always be a joke as long as you have basic knowledge of type matchups. It doesn't need any attempt to balance the level curve or anything like that, because it's pointless, people will always just grind more if needed, and if you can't grind more, it'll just become "do you know type matchups y/n" like Legend Arceus does.

Gonna have to disagree there. Having played a lot of fan-works like Reborn/Rejuvenation, it's entirely simple to make Pokemon challenging. It just requires pushing the mechanics so that the player constantly has to strategise, and also implamenting a level-cap. Which pretty much all these games do, I'd note.

I thought the fun in Pokemon was adventure, the creatures themselves and experiencing good music, seeing new characters, etc. I didn't realize that a core part of Pokemon was just feeling dopamine every time you hit an arbitrary number of exp, silly me.

fun fact btw Elden Ring does have levels, and it doesn't have scaling either

The "appeal of Pokemon" is a very nebulous concept, but the facet of mechanical development in gradually leveling up your ever expanding collection is a huge part of the core systems. Taking that away just kinda guts any sense of an internal progression system in favour of a collection hunt.

I'm well aware. Elden Ring blocks you off via the punishing level of power in enemies, making sequence breaking more of an option than a recommended outcome.

 

[ant4456]

Open World is what every future Pokemon game should be. Scarlet and Violet is one of my favorite Pokemon games, despite being a game so unpolished it shouldn't even be sold legally. I just hope next time it's a finished game.

 

[MisogiKurakawa]

Open World is what every future Pokemon game should be. Scarlet and Violet is one of my favorite Pokemon games, despite being a game so unpolished it shouldn't even be sold legally. I just hope next time it's a finished game.

Why exactly? What about "open-world" is so desirable in this context that Pokemon's entire gameplay structure should just be completely overhauled to fit it?

 

[ant4456]

I think it's funny that no matter what game series it is, someone will always get mad at even the prospect of open world being an evolution of the series. Be it Zelda, Dark Souls, Pokemon.

The answer is that open worlds give the player the most roleplaying potential. Pokemon shouldn't be about game mechanics it should be about roleplay first, game mechanics second. An open world gives me the most opportunities to go where I want as my own trainer in-game, opens up catching opportunities, feels more immersive.

I want Pokemon to emulate the closest experience possible to roleplaying as a trainer in the world, and that does not include being give three best friends whom we all share Pokemon and have to follow linear paths in forests and I can't move to the other half of the city because Fuck You

I will know my Pokemon gaming experience has peaked when I can go throughout the entire forest, not just a path cut out in it. Go between the trees, see Pokemon hanging out, find a small lake with a rare Pokemon, and that becomes very memorable to me as something that I did.

 

[Worldie]

Open World is what every future Pokemon game should be

The answer is that open worlds give the player the most roleplaying potential. Pokemon shouldn't be about game mechanics it should be about roleplay first, game mechanics second. An open world gives me the most opportunities to go where I want as my own trainer in-game, opens up catching opportunities, feels more immersive.

I want Pokemon to emulate the closest experience possible to roleplaying as a trainer in the world, and that does not include being give three best friends whom we all share Pokemon and have to follow linear paths in forests and I can't move to the other half of the city because Fuck You

I will know my Pokemon gaming experience has peaked when I can go throughout the entire forest, not just a path cut out in it. Go between the trees, see Pokemon hanging out, find a small lake with a rare Pokemon, and that becomes very memorable to me as something that I did.

Now, this is something we can agree on.

Honestly it's more a matter of doing it *right*.
Despite the technical flaws, the Open World of SV is pretty well executed. Lot of nooks and crannies to explore, the pokemon look lively and most of them look "natural" (see my mention of jigglypuffs being blown away). It still needs some improvements, but between that and how they handled the one on Legends Arceus, I think they're on the right track.

Now, if they just actually asked/got some help from actually good Switch optimizers like Monolith...

 

[MisogiKurakawa]

I think it's funny that no matter what game series it is, someone will always get mad at even the prospect of open world being an evolution of the series. Be it Zelda, Dark Souls, Pokemon.

The answer is that open worlds give the player the most roleplaying potential. Pokemon shouldn't be about game mechanics it should be about roleplay first, game mechanics second. An open world gives me the most opportunities to go where I want as my own trainer in-game, opens up catching opportunities, feels more immersive.

I want Pokemon to emulate the closest experience possible to roleplaying as a trainer in the world, and that does not include being give three best friends whom we all share Pokemon and have to follow linear paths in forests and I can't move to the other half of the city because Fuck You

I will know my Pokemon gaming experience has peaked when I can go throughout the entire forest, not just a path cut out in it. Go between the trees, see Pokemon hanging out, find a small lake with a rare Pokemon, and that becomes very memorable to me as something that I did.

You see, that is very nice in concept, but it comes with a slew of technical limitations which have to be recognized.

The thing about the concept of "role-playing" in the context of video games is that they come up against the inevitable wall of what is actually creatively feasible in a fictional experience. While theoretically SV can create the illusion of being able to give the player free-range, they are still ultimately being asked to preform very set actions; Go through the Gym challenges with the support of Nemona, track down the Titan Pokemon with Arven, and deal with Team Star with the help of Penny and Clavell, then finally head down into Area Zero with your friends and confront Sada/Turo. This is not "bad" design, but it is ultimately one which acknowledges that the games cannot be a simulacrum of a "real" lived experience, they are still ultimately narrative games which desire you to complete a narrative.

You want to find those special areas with rare Pokemon? Well, those areas have to be purposely placed in the map by the designers with the intent of you finding them. They are not and never will be a personalized experience as much as a replicable one. They are actions which are shared with dozens of players exploring the environment, because the point of these games is not roleplaying, but in creating an intricate explorable environment through which you can investigate. This is, of course, a fulfilling form of discovery, but I wouldn't really call it something which justifies, again, ditching all the mechanical progression aspects of the game just you can make it easier to....not stick to a narrative form, I guess? It's an odd proposition, is what I'm saying.

 

[Bakugames]

just play a ttrpg (dungeon and dragon fans do not interact

 

[Worldie]

just play a ttrpg (dungeon and dragon fans do not interact

Sir that'd require human interaction, that's kinda gross

 

[MisogiKurakawa]

Sir that'd require human interaction, that's kinda gross

The Hedgehog Dilemma in action.

 

[Bakugames]

My honest opinion: my issue with open worlds is that they dont actually provide that much of the roleplaying flair because their development cannibalizes that. Botw/totk have the worst stories of their franchises because the devs had to spend 5 years developing the gameplay itself. Their plot points are underdeveloped, their regions rely a lot on "up to the reader!!!" (or give a bad answer if its totk lol), their characters are shallow, badly written or not written at all, and while the game is visually stunning, the actual locations are repetitive and unremarkable beyond specific areas.

So you dont have good story, you dont have good characters, and you dont have interesting areas. Older games in the series managed to create a sense of wonder about their characters and areas much better than botw ever did. And all of this is to service for a fairly mid gameplay.

I will give to totk that its story wasnt made worse by the open world, they just decide to make a bad story individually. interesting philosophy I think

 

[Ironmage]

For me personally, having a branching/freeform narrative for a game is only relevant if the gameplay can match or exceed the story in its depth of options. Why would I actually go through with playing to see a different direction (instead of looking up the cutscenes on the internet or not bothering entirely) if the gameplay isn't going to be fresh and interesting the second time around?

 

[pika pal]

My honest opinion: my issue with open worlds is that they dont actually provide that much of the roleplaying flair because their development cannibalizes that. Botw/totk have the worst stories of their franchises because the devs had to spend 5 years developing the gameplay itself. Their plot points are underdeveloped, their regions rely a lot on "up to the reader!!!" (or give a bad answer if its totk lol), their characters are shallow, badly written or not written at all, and while the game is visually stunning, the actual locations are repetitive and unremarkable beyond specific areas.

So you dont have good story, you dont have good characters, and you dont have interesting areas. Older games in the series managed to create a sense of wonder about their characters and areas much better than botw ever did. And all of this is to service for a fairly mid gameplay.

I will give to totk that its story wasnt made worse by the open world, they just decide to make a bad story individually. interesting philosophy I think

The issue I find with Open World structure is that at best there's an overarching frame and then it's mostly vignettes/mini-stories at different locations until some tie-up at the end, unless the story is heavily rail-roaded and the non-linear open world is effectively where all your side-content is like in Xenoblade Chronicles 1. It's more work than I think most devs can put in to create a narrative that can give the player that much true freedom and still connect all the areas they visit in a meaningful way.

Open World games can work when that is the design ethos, but with the way clearly-linear Nintendo games and the like are structured, the approach either results in an arguable loss of the original identity (Zelda) or doesn't drastically alter your objectives so much as the trip between them (Pokemon).

 

[Pikachu315111]

Eternatus is the one they have to watch now since it is explicitly what provides Dynamax Energy to Galar by appearing and existing. At the same time Eternatus is extra-terrestrial apparently, which will beg the question of if they keep it a one-off species (since it being captured is canon) or explain it as another one landing (yet not causing another Dynamax phenomenon).

1. No Dynamax Band.
2. No Power Spots (which were areas of Galar that got dosed with Etenatus's energy during the first Darkest Day).
3. No Wishing Stars (which, like Z-Crystals shattered off Necrozma thus existence is an accident, were an after result of Eternatus's defeat after the first Darkest Day. Seemingly Eternatus let out a massive amount of energy that those particles of energy still lingered in Galar's atmosphere even thousands of years later. Though, to go with Galar's energy crisis subplot, Wishing Stars are finite though thanks to Rose creating a second Darkest Day probably not something which needs to be concerned with for a few extra hundreds of years)

Still, all-in-all, Dynamax & Gigantamax are very much things stuck in Galar. Now, obviously, with in-lore Eternatus caught and out-of-game probably studied along with the Wishing Stars, they could handwave in another region that they've created a way to replicate the Dynamax phenomenon and can artificially create a Power Spot; but that's all up to GF (so likely not, at least not until a gen where a Galar remake is possible).

If anything it's Mega Evolution and Z-Moves which should be questioned not appearing elsewhere as you only need the the magic stones and way to harness them, no magical field of energy. Sure, you can just say "well those stones aren't found in that region", which is fine for Galar's adventure as you were part of a League tournament which was heavily focused on Dynamax (Rose wouldn't want to distract people from that with Megas and Z-Moves). But in Scarlet & Violet we're part of a world famous prestigious Pokemon Academy, one which has a focus on battling and scientific research of Pokemon, so it seems odd they would not have exported some Mega Stones and Z-Crystals. As for Terastal in future games, while it seems like the only think you need is a charged Tera Orb, once you use the Tera Orb to Terastallize once is where the problem likely will be. Tera Orbs probably only can naturally recharge in Paldea, so unless you have a way to replicate the Terastal Phenomenon it's stuck in Paldea.

Hard turning to the topic of additional Eternatus appearing, pfft, talk to all the other god-like Legendaries which have other versions of themselves appear in "Legendary Hunts" throughout the gens. If the Indigo Disc were to do it's own "Legendary Hunt" it'll just be handwaved away as something being caused by the Terastal Phenomenon's reality bending power (or somehow the Time Machine had been repurposed into summoning Legendary Pokemon).

Honestly even then, I'd love if they do a very small lore reference like they've done for Dynamax dens.
Peony makes some very funny remarks about some of the legendaryes you can catch, and you actually have a small dialogue for the gift Cosmog that implies it came from a ultrarift somewhere (as well that implying ultra rifts may be the cause of the legendaries appearing in first place).

Well, we do have a Pokemon Academy full of Instructors of various interests who have nothing to do once you done all their courses aside post game battling, so would be nice to throw them a bone. At the very least Jacq and Raifort would probably be interested in Legendary Pokemon. Heck, Nemoma, Arven, and Penny are now visitable in their dorm rooms; Nemona surely would be interested, I could even see her giving Peony like responses but more battle-focused than questioning their everyday practicality.

This has always been the case, in major and minor ways.

• Necrozma's Burst Form is just straight-up gone now; they could have made an alternative way to get it, but they didn't
  
  
• Diantha says "Xerneas and Yveltal are found only here in Kalos!" which I snorted with laughter at the first time I played XY as it seemed dead certain to be proven wrong
  
  
• Mega Evolutions in general. It literally took GF one game to break their own design rule for megas (you have to hold a stone to mega evolve), thus making Mega Rayquaza incredibly broken
  
  
• We're told, very clearly, that there are only three Type:Null in existence; it took literally one game for them to disregard this and go "yeah, nah, someone made more!"
  
  
• Similarly we're told - multiple times - that only one Mewtwo was made, causing understandable confusion when others appear in the games and anime

Ultra Necrozma is pretty much in the same boat as Mega Rayquaza, hard connected to a gimmick even then technically they're something a little different. At the very least they could have them do what Eternatus do, temporarily transform when doing their Signature Move but due to lack of additional power transform back.

Well Diantha isn't wrong, all other instances of Xerneas and Yveltal have been extradimensional in nature. Same with the Guardians Tapu, Unova's Dragons, & Sinnoh's Dragons.

Is it breaking the rules when purposely down? It's not like they did it for a normal Pokemon, they did it for a Legendary with a center role in the post game story. Now, questioning whether it was a wise idea to make an OP Pokemon like Mega Rayquaza is up for debate (the issue with Mega Rayquaza isn't just it can hold any item, but also it's new Signature Move (a Flying-type Close Combat which Rayquaza would want even if it couldn't Mega Evolve with it) and it's Ability creating a special weather affect removing its Flying-type weaknesses).

I don't have an issue with more Type: Null being made, but in the case of how they presented it in SwSh it was dumb. I can believe once Aether Paradise got its act together a less-than-well-meaning scientist (likely one working under Faba) would sneak away with a copy of the Type: Full blueprints and sell them on the black market (and, surprise, Macro Cosmos has no problem with doing business there). But the scene of how you got it was so stupid, apparently they got blueprints for an artificial Pokemon CLEARLY made JUST for battling... and upset it couldn't be used for other applicable services like saving money on their electric bill (oh, yeah, because you need to evolve it so it could change Type, that was TOTALLY the problem...).
Like, if I were to rewrite the scene: It would be a batch of Macro Cosmos employees trying to get a Type: Null to obey them but it refuses. the Type: Null then noticing the player and runs over to them. The employee sees the Type: Null acting calmly in front us, realizes we're the Champion, and decide to give us the Type: Null both because it listens to us and in exchange for keeping quiet about it. They'll reveal that Type: Null is an artificial Pokemon created by Aether Paradise in Alola to battle Ultra Beasts, but the project initially failed and only a handful were ever made. However it was then discovered it wasn't a failure and you have to evolve them for them to "work" (obviously they don't have the full story). Thinking a Pokemon like that could be useful against Eternatus, they "acquired" the blueprints and made their own. Unfortunately, it didn't listen to them, so was locked away. Until now, with Macro Cosmos now under heavy investigation they tried to move it to a hidden location as not to get the company further in trouble but it broke loose (it refuses to stay in its Poke Ball). They then give us the Memories explaining when it evolves it can use them to change Types, wish us luck, and leave. If this sounds a bit too serious, they can throw in joke dialogue like having some suggest silly things to calm it down and exaggerate how oblivious they are about Type: Null's history.

I guess the same could go for Mewtwo. Like, I wouldn't mind if the next time there's a non-extradimensional Mewtwo in the game we get to see both the scientists and lab which it was made in (and we get told how come extra Mewtwo appear now and again as I imagine getting a Mewtwo blueprint would be harder). While in Gen I we did meet Mr. Fuji, they never directly connected him to Mewtwo so you never talk to him about it.

and yes, we're still all waiting for the 0IV caps

Hopefully we do get a 0 IV Bottle Cap (Rusted Bottle Cap?)

Or, when we use a Cap for the Attack and Speed stat, give us the option to make them 0.

vote dragon type Meowth 2025

I mean, Meowth do love to hoard treasure... and I found this interesting TV Tropes page. Another Europe region (one which the Alps are a part of specifically) could give us one based on a Tarasque or Tatzelwurm.

Side track, but I'll always been annoyed that it took until Gen 8 for Entei to learn Flare Blitz outside of events. It got Sacred Fire of all things by level-up two generations prior, even though it had never even been an event move.

Well it makes sense if you believe in the theory its a resurrected Flareon.

Reminder, Legends Arceus introduced a Fire-type Thrash, Raging Fury. Right now it's only learnable by Infernape and Arcanine (it can be breeded onto a normal Growlithe in SV). So let's take bets now on how long it'll be before Flareon and Entei learn it.

(Cautious on putting my two cents on the Genning & Open World/Level Removal discussions)

 

[ant4456]

Z Moves require Alola's energy (aka Necrozma's energy) in the canon of the games.

You cannot use a Z Move outside of Alola *in the canon of the games.

I think the anime ignores this but the anime is not the same so whatever, it can be different there that's fine.

You can make fun of the ways that you get extra Legendaries but honestly the first two make sense.

ORAS: Hoopa.

USUM: You can travel between dimensions and do this in the main story.

 

[Hugin]

Open World games can work when that is the design ethos, but with the way clearly-linear Nintendo games and the like are structured, the approach either results in an arguable loss of the original identity (Zelda) or doesn't drastically alter your objectives so much as the trip between them (Pokemon).

But Pokemon hasn't always been clearly linear. The Gen II layout has been discussed to death, but people forget that Gen 1 let you hit up most of the map as soon as you made it through Rock Tunnel. There was a clear intended order, but it wasn't forced. Gen 3 and 4 were linear, but they still used the Metroidvania approach of sending you repeatedly through the same areas with new tools to let you explore further, and allowed a reasonable amount of sequence breaking.

And Legend of Zelda bounces back and forth between Metroidvania-with-dungeons and linear puzzle-platformer with an overworld. BotW wasn't a departure from the series in anything but scale, and that usually they kept the freedom to the 2d games.

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

In a way both BOTW/TOTK and SV really feel like a call back to the very original old school, 8-bit 2D, iterations of their respective franchises, in terms of their non-linear structure and premise predicated on world exploration, except grander in scale in a 3D environment with much stronger hardware and a more realized world design.

SV does evoke a lot of Gen 1 RGB with its open world non-linearity and premise based on exploration of the vast world of Paldea and figuring your way out around the region. Kanto in Gen 1 was pretty non-linear, as stated, as while you had to do Brock and Misty first and Giovanni last, after Misty, the vast majority of Kanto opens up in such a way that you can feasibly explore Kanto however you want, and do Gyms in any order, while also having a bunch of dungeons that in some cases don't have to be visited, but you can explore them when you find a way to get through them and get nice rewards. Gen 1 didn't really railroad the player in any specific direction: you could do the Gyms, the Team Rocket infiltration, and dungeon exploration in a variety of different orders, and Kanto was a region that was really about exploring as you saw fit and figuring things out on your own. In the grand scheme of things it's a relatively small region and simple in scope, but it did its job really well for a Game Boy RPG.

SV really evokes a lot of that except in a grander scale on the Switch with Paldea, with more of a 3D world exploration element this time, and more challenges to pass that unlock different things, like the Titans unlocking Koraidon/Miraidon powers that open up further exploration possibilities. The non-linearity means you can explore at your own leisure in these cases, like in Gen 1, and there are clear intended points where you probably shouldn't be there yet but the game won't stop you from trying if you're feeling brave: you wanna try to tackle stronger areas with your weaker team? That's all on you.

It's like how BOTW/TOTK with respect to Zelda invoke much of Zelda 1 on NES as Zelda 1 was basically a world that you could explore however you want before games from ALTTP onwards and most of the OOT style games went comparatively linear. ALBW on the 3DS was also a non-linear game that allowed you to do dungeons in any order, which was clear lead-in to how BOTW and TOTK would be structured. With the case of SV, while SV itself invokes RBY with its open world non-linear gameplay and exploration, they were definitely setting up the groundwork with SwSh and its DLC as well as PLA, with the Wild Area being a relatively large explorable area with levels all over the place, and Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra being an extension of that (SwSh even allows you to explore the Tundra earlier if you want even if its levels clearly indicate post-game intended area). While SwSh's campaign was linear, the Wild Area, Isle of Armor, and Crown Tundra were clear blueprints for SV's open world. PLA expanded on this too, with large sub-areas that could be explored however you want and being more varied and larger in scope than SwSh's wild areas.

In a sense there's more of a "back to the roots" in tandem with modernization in both cases, modernizing the world and scope+scale as well as exploration and gameplay but also returning to the roots of the very first entry in terms of the style and what the original game of the franchise went for.

 

[ant4456]

yeah I don't really see SV's open world as like... tacky, or just following the trends

I mean, look at how much people liked Crystal Clear. And how much basically everything tied to the linear games is disliked and has been for a while.

Gen 7 is literally my favorite gen but I can admit that a linear story based Pokemon game is not what a lot of people, including the devs, including me, want Pokemon to exclusively be

fyi: I don't like level scaling. I think instances where I wandered into overleveled areas made them much more memorable to me, and nuzlockes gives me a sort of fun thrill. I'm not supposed to be here yet!

It's not a clash with the freedom of an open world, it allows a progression and mastery of the world combined with abilities outside of battle, like higher jumping and gliding. Unraveling the world is the fun part of open worlds to me mechanically.

fallout new vegas versus fallout 3

new vegas gives you options where if you go here it will be much more dangerous but faster, 3 scales it so you can theoretically take on any challenge at this moment

the reason I said the "no level" idea was as a compromise because I think if you want to do scaling (which I think is BORING), then you might as well not even have levels in that way, and at least have scaling in terms of evolution/moves

 

[ant4456]

also I'm sick of people who say "wow how am I supposed to know what level this area is shpposed to be"

IT'S A FUCKING DONUT. YOU START AT THE LOWEST LEVEL AND THE FURTHER YOU GO OUT IT GETS A HIGHER LEVEL.

Literally just use basic cognitive skills when looking at a fucking circle

It's designed so that you break through the world going back and forth at edges of your level zone. So you pick a side, start working on things there, then the other side is mostly optimal, then you get abilities and level cap for other side, then the other side has ability, etc. etc. etc.

They give you a detailed map for a reason use it, it's a fucking donut with marked objectives, it's not hard to navigate

 

[Ironmage]

In a way both BOTW/TOTK and SV really feel like a call back to the very original old school, 8-bit 2D, iterations of their respective franchises, in terms of their non-linear structure and premise predicated on world exploration, except grander in scale in a 3D environment with much stronger hardware and a more realized world design.

SV does evoke a lot of Gen 1 RGB with its open world non-linearity and premise based on exploration of the vast world of Paldea and figuring your way out around the region. Kanto in Gen 1 was pretty non-linear, as stated, as while you had to do Brock and Misty first and Giovanni last, after Misty, the vast majority of Kanto opens up in such a way that you can feasibly explore Kanto however you want, and do Gyms in any order, while also having a bunch of dungeons that in some cases don't have to be visited, but you can explore them when you find a way to get through them and get nice rewards. Gen 1 didn't really railroad the player in any specific direction: you could do the Gyms, the Team Rocket infiltration, and dungeon exploration in a variety of different orders, and Kanto was a region that was really about exploring as you saw fit and figuring things out on your own. In the grand scheme of things it's a relatively small region and simple in scope, but it did its job really well for a Game Boy RPG.

SV really evokes a lot of that except in a grander scale on the Switch with Paldea, with more of a 3D world exploration element this time, and more challenges to pass that unlock different things, like the Titans unlocking Koraidon/Miraidon powers that open up further exploration possibilities. The non-linearity means you can explore at your own leisure in these cases, like in Gen 1, and there are clear intended points where you probably shouldn't be there yet but the game won't stop you from trying if you're feeling brave: you wanna try to tackle stronger areas with your weaker team? That's all on you.

It's like how BOTW/TOTK with respect to Zelda invoke much of Zelda 1 on NES as Zelda 1 was basically a world that you could explore however you want before games from ALTTP onwards and most of the OOT style games went comparatively linear. ALBW on the 3DS was also a non-linear game that allowed you to do dungeons in any order, which was clear lead-in to how BOTW and TOTK would be structured. With the case of SV, while SV itself invokes RBY with its open world non-linear gameplay and exploration, they were definitely setting up the groundwork with SwSh and its DLC as well as PLA, with the Wild Area being a relatively large explorable area with levels all over the place, and Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra being an extension of that (SwSh even allows you to explore the Tundra earlier if you want even if its levels clearly indicate post-game intended area). While SwSh's campaign was linear, the Wild Area, Isle of Armor, and Crown Tundra were clear blueprints for SV's open world. PLA expanded on this too, with large sub-areas that could be explored however you want and being more varied and larger in scope than SwSh's wild areas.

In a sense there's more of a "back to the roots" in tandem with modernization in both cases, modernizing the world and scope+scale as well as exploration and gameplay but also returning to the roots of the very first entry in terms of the style and what the original game of the franchise went for.

Where this runs into issues for me is that I don't always think the series legacy is based entirely or in some cases even primarily on the first game. It's a pattern I associate with a lot of classic nintendo franchises: a good but not amazing first game, a divergent second game, and a third that takes the first's concepts and hammers them into something with a 30+ year legacy. Could you imagine a new Metroid game that calls back to the NES game but not Super? I don't feel that BotW and TotK go back to the roots of the series because I believe some of those roots are in ALTTP or OOT. If anything, TotK feels like it's paying aesthetic lip service to the rest of the series while ignoring any substance from outside of BotW: the Star Wars sequel trilogy of Zelda games.

I don't think I'm capable of providing an objective answer to whether RGBY contain all of the roots of the series, but my subjective answer is a hard no. I started in the boundary between gens 3 and 4. At some level, the free exploration was never in the main game. Where I felt like I was making my own path was at the Battle Facilities with all possible transfer mons at my disposal.

 

[ant4456]

Well considering it's a hot take thread: I think most Zelda games are mechanically shit and that's why I like BotW/TOTK way more. A Link Between Worlds and Wind Waker I also really like, but the rest are boring slow slogs outside of the 2D games, which just feel bleh. The 3D Traditional formula is dogshit with some of the least mechanical depth of any Nintendo games. A great guide on how NOT to do combat, slow execution times on easy puzzles, slowwwwww.

Formulaic puzzle design that made me as a kid think I hated puzzle games. No, Zelda puzzles just suck.

I almost didn't get BotW but I'm glad I did, and I'm glad they realized: Their shit did stink.

 

[Pikachu315111]

Z Moves require Alola's energy (aka Necrozma's energy) in the canon of the games.

Source? I tried looking it up, but all Bulbapedia says is that Professor Kukui says Z-Move's power are similar to that of Ultra Wormholes, and the Ultra Recon Squad reveal it's the light energy Necrozma shined over Alola "long ago".

also I'm sick of people who say "wow how am I supposed to know what level this area is shpposed to be"

GUYS. ARE YOU 6 YEARS OLD.

IT'S A FUCKING DONUT. YOU START AT THE LOWEST LEVEL AND THE FURTHER YOU GO OUT IT GETS A HIGHER LEVEL.

Literally just use basic cognitive skills when looking at a fucking circleView attachment 548081

It's designed so that you break through the world going back and forth at edges of your level zone. So you pick a side, start working on things there, then the other side is mostly optimal, then you get abilities and level cap for other side, then the other side has ability, etc. etc. etc.

They give you a detailed map for a reason use it, it's a fucking donut with marked objectives, it's not hard to navigate

Actually, no. Not really. Going by the Levels of the bosses (Gym Leaders, Team Star, & Titan) I mapped out the intended "path" of the game and it's quite all over the place:

(Red lines indicate paths you must travel by foot
Dark red lines indicate flying backtracking)

Three notable things here:

1. Alfornada is intended to be the 7th Gym even though it's all the way on the bottom left. You could easily find yourself in a location right next to the early game where the Wild Pokemon, Trainers, and finally Gym Leader can crush your team. "Well, obviously you're meant to turn back when you hit that wall". True... except by the time I got to that point in my first playthrough, while I certainly noticed the difficulty jump, I wasn't TOO low leveled I couldn't take on the area as long as I used my Type Advantage. I managed to beat Tulip early on, and I'll admit at the time I actually felt like I found a point in the game which actually challenged me which was exciting BUT then I got back onto "track" and now I was WAY more powerful than all the other challenges. Note that Tulip is also meant to challenged right after the Ground Titan (a boss a lot of players also tend to sequence break cause why wouldn't you challenge it after facing Kofu?) and then you're "expected" to go back to Mt. Glaseado to defeat Grusha... oh and then the last titan and TWO remaining Team Star bosses.
   
   
2. The left & right zigzag of mid game. I'm going to assume that GF thought process here is that you're going to fully challenge one side first and then the other, so they did a "difficulty zigzag" in order for both sides to feel to have a somewhat consistent level progression. Except, all that means if by the time you're done with one side, you're going to easily steamroll the other. Also, we still have odd instances such as the Earth Titan and Eri who are late game levels (infact Eri is the last boss going by Level; and yes, I fought Eri earlier and she was a sudden difficulty spike, still defeated her but felt like it came out of nowhere) yet they're both located in these middle areas.
   
   
3. Well, already gave my anecdotes, but for being the place where you'd think the most difficult challenges should be Mt. Glaseado is where the most egregious region jumping happens. Now, GF's likely thought is that you'd obviously have plenty of flying points so backtracking shouldn't be a deal, but the thing is we don't know the "proper" path. Rhyme is supposed to be the 6th Gym Leader but she's RIGHT NEXT TO Grusha, both who are surrounded by the final 3 bosses (by level). If you go up Paldea by its west path challenging every boss you come across, you're going to end up challenge the Dragon Titan, the second to last (by level) just before climbing the mountain (note you get the Swimming power-up from the Flying Titan which you'll do early on following the west path). And then we have the final two Star Bosses, you'd think Ortega would be the strongest as he's on the very top (he was the last Star Boss I fought) but he's only the 16th. Going by level you're then expect to face the Dragon Titan after followed by going to the most Northeast side to face finally face Eri.

NOW, they could have "solved" this issue by having the Pokemon Center nurse guide. You can actually ask the nurse which boss you should challenge next... EXCEPT instead of directing you to the boss which follows the level scale, they'll guide you to the next boss CLOSEST to you. So if you just Kofu and ask her what to challenge next, she's going to tell you the Ground Titan (though I hadn't tried it, I wonder if she would tell you to go to Alfonda next after you defeat Katy, now THAT would be an extreme challenge).

As a bonus here was my path

 

[Hugin]

also I'm sick of people who say "wow how am I supposed to know what level this area is shpposed to be"

IT'S A FUCKING DONUT. YOU START AT THE LOWEST LEVEL AND THE FURTHER YOU GO OUT IT GETS A HIGHER LEVEL.

Literally just use basic cognitive skills when looking at a fucking circleView attachment 548081

It's designed so that you break through the world going back and forth at edges of your level zone. So you pick a side, start working on things there, then the other side is mostly optimal, then you get abilities and level cap for other side, then the other side has ability, etc. etc. etc.

They give you a detailed map for a reason use it, it's a fucking donut with marked objectives, it's not hard to navigate

Thing is, you're almost right. There's a trend up each side. Tulip, Mela, the Quaking Earth Titan, and the entire lategame area screw it up, though. How hard would it have been for them to label the map with the levels, or make the Center direct you to the actual next location? I like open worlds, but most of them allow more room for player skill to overcome a level discrepancy, or are better at signposting when something's too strong*. SV did neither.

*Pokemon has actually been good at this in the past. XY did it a lot, with a forced fight against a very tough route trainer with very few mons at the start of a route. If Kadabra is kicking your ass, "go away and grind" is the logical response, but since it's just one mon, you're not likely to wipe(poor Nuzlockers).

 

[Ironmage]

It also feels worth bringing up that constantly switching between two sides is not the intuitive way to traverse a circle. I would expect people to start off going in one direction and keep going in that direction for a while. Which because the adjacent zone on their current side would only be a moderate increase (skipping over only one area that is at similar levels to the current one), could fail to tell the player that they should be looking elsewhere. If the intention is that the progression is a straight line and you are relying on the map to inform players of this, then the map probably needs to be analagous to a straight line.

 

[Pikachu315111]

How hard would it have been for them to label the map with the levels, or make the Center direct you to the actual next location?

Or, something I forgot to suggest in my post: Level-scaling.

"What? You expect them to make 18 different teams/movepools for each boss?"

How to put this simply

If GF is going to make a truly open world game with the mechanics of the core Pokemon games, they should have to put in the work needed for such a system to work. They're a long-standing, fully staffed, reputable game developer connected to Nintendo who make one of the most popular games in the world, so popular they own part of a company dedicated to selling merch of that series which makes millions if not billions of dollars each year; YES, I am expecting them to put in the work that I could do in a couple of hours! Heck, they don't even need to make 18 different teams/movesets, they just need to make like 4 or 5 and then have the Levels & Stats adjust. I'm tempted to do it myself, maybe later when I have the time...

 

[ant4456]

literally none of these things are a problem IMO

yes I want the world to sometimes kick my ass and sometimes I want to feel powerful and like I can stroll on by without care

it colors the world instead of everything feeling the same the entire way through, which is boring

I hate this Bethesda ass BotW ass design motto because level scaling is dogshit there too. BotW's mid and endgame feels like shit where nothing will ever be a challenge ever, and Bethesda worlds don't really matter when I might as well be noclipping through all of it.

there is a difference between having dancing people in the road stopping me from going through and me being able to take my chances anyways, it gives me the player agency and more options

if I want this item that's at the higher level areas in my Nuzlocke but if I get into encounters it's a risk, it makes it so much more interesting than if everything was within 3-5 levels of me anyways.

I will say that I am more partial to upscaling of level, but definitely not downscaling.