|
Post by BettyNewbie on Feb 22, 2018 19:54:16 GMT -5
How would you rank the main series games so far? I know I've asked this before, but that was a while ago, and my list has changed since then. Here's my updated rankings: Crystal GS Yellow RB . . B2W2 Emerald FRLG BW . . . . RS HGSS . . . . . . . . XY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Platinum . . . .
DP ORAS SM USUM My top choices have not changed at all. I'll always remain partial to the GB/C gens, with Crystal still being the pinnacle of the 8 bit era and the peak of the series. On the other hand, I've found myself warming to FRLG and cooling on HGSS. While FRLG still frustrate me for lacking so many features from GSC and RSE for the sake of "authenticity," at the same time, though, this also makes them the sole remakes to be a straight improvement over their respective originals and not make any unnecessary changes that piss me off. HGSS, on the other hand, will never be able to live down Lyra, the erasure of Green at Mt. Silver, the erasure of the GS Ball, and the gutting of the Suicune story, no matter how much I like the things the games actually improved on from Crystal (following Pokémon, Pokéathlon, P/S Split, Gym Leader/E4 rematches, slightly more fleshed-out Kanto). I've also warmed to the Hoenn and Unova games a lot, although RS have still aged pretty poorly. At the very least, those games showed ambition and a willingness on GF's part to take risks, with B2W2 being the highlight of the post-Gen 2 games. XY are the epitome of mediocrity, so they're right in the middle. They added a few nice mechanical improvements (Fairies, Exp. Share, Character Customization), but nothing else about them stands out. Kalos is boring, the new Pokémon are meh, and Mega Evolutions can bite me. Sinnoh, remake Hoenn, and Alola can go screw themselves. God Pokémon, Zinnia, Fallers, and Ultra Beasts are why GF should never try to attempt large-scale worldbuilding. These games feel less like Pokémon games and more like bad fanfiction of Pokémon games. Platinum ranks a little higher for at least genuinely fixing its predecessor's mistakes (and there were plenty -- it should say something that even most Sinnoh fans think DP are steaming hot garbage), which neither ORAS or USUM even tried to do.
|
|
|
Post by adzpower on Feb 23, 2018 5:55:52 GMT -5
See, this is where we differ I feel, because I loved Sinnoh, I must have spend hundreds upon hundreds of hours on Platinum completing all the contests, exploring the underground etc, that's one of the reasons it will be my number 1 I think, that and it improved so much from Diamond/Pearl. Though I will admit the region itself isn't exactly that vibrant.
1. Platinum 2. Crystal 3. FR/LG 4. Gold/Silver 5. B2W2 6. Emerald 7. B/W 8. HG/SS 9. R/S 10. D/P 11. R/B/Y - Some people will find this entry so low blasphemous but I don't think they've aged well
12. X/Y
13. ORAS - I loathe these remakes, but at least the graphics are nice
14. USUM - I wasn't sure whether or not to rank these higher or lower, I put them higher simply because I suppose they have slightly more to do on them?
15. S/M - Bye Felicia
|
|
|
Post by BettyNewbie on Feb 23, 2018 12:56:00 GMT -5
See, this is where we differ I feel, because I loved Sinnoh, I must have spend hundreds upon hundreds of hours on Platinum completing all the contests, exploring the underground etc, that's one of the reasons it will be my number 1 I think, that and it improved so much from Diamond/Pearl. Though I will admit the region itself isn't exactly that vibrant. I just can't get past the God Legendaries those games introduced (particularly The Llama), and I also don't care for many Gen 4 Pokémon outside of a few of the new evolutions. Plus, I've become burnt out from the constant Lucario/Cynthia/Looker circlejerk that's been going on over the last 10 years, with M20 being the apex of it. I hate seeing Kanto and Johto stuff taking a backseat to already overexposed Sinnoh stuff during an anniversary that is supposed to be theirs. 11. R/B/Y - Some people will find this entry so low blasphemous but I don't think they've aged well I still enjoy playing RBY myself, but I agree that FRLG are, more or less, a straight upgrade. You can play as a girl, you have Running Shoes, you can grind with the VS Seeker, your bag can store more than 20 items, the sprites don't hurt your eyes, and there's fewer bugs and glitches. The only things that are really downgrades from RBY, IMO, Blaine and Giovanni's teams (FRLG should've used their superior Yellow teams instead of their weaker RB ones), Giovanni and the (round 1) E4 being nerfed in levels, and being forced to complete a tedious sidequest to catch Mewtwo. While HGSS added a lot more than FRLG did, they also made far more unnecessary changes that hurt the games more than helped. I've said it a million times, but Lyra is a character that should've never existed. Gen 2 already had a perfectly good female protagonist in Kris, and even if she was only in Crystal, it's not like HGSS didn't already include other Crystal-exclusive content (like Eusine, for example). HGSS' handling of the Legendaries was also worse than Crystal's. The Kimono Girls plot was a forced attempt at making Gen 2 play out more like the Hoenn and Sinnoh games (where the Box Legendaries play a major role in the plot), while the Suicune story was watered-down into just Eusine chasing Suicune for *reasons* and not going much into depth about the mythology behind the Legendary Dogs and their importance to Ecruteak's history and culture. Ditching the GS Ball and Ilex Forest Celebi event in favor of a lame anime tie-in Pichu was also very uncool. I also have no love for the Sinjoh Ruins and the random ass Sinnoh cameos (Cynthia, Crasher Wake, Maylene) that were forced into HGSS. FRLG didn't shoehorn in any Hoenn characters or a Weather Trio event, and even ORAS were fairly light on Kalos stuff despite the shoehorned Mega Evolution plot. So, why did HGSS somehow need Sinnoh Legendaries and Sinnoh characters? Didn't they already get their time in DPPt? 12. X/Y 13. ORAS - I loathe these remakes, but at least the graphics are nice IMO, the graphics of the 3DS games are nowhere near as nice as they could be, especially in comparison to what we got with Colosseum, XD, and PBR (and even the Stadium games, to a lesser extent). I mean, which of these two do you think looks better? Obviously, the 3DS is a more limited console than either the Gamecube or the Wii, but it's still pretty sad that the newest main series games fall well short of the graphics of a game that was made in 2003. If I still see the same blocky graphics with washed-out colors and ugly black outlines in the Switch game, then I'll know for sure that GF really doesn't give a damn anymore. 14. USUM - I wasn't sure whether or not to rank these higher or lower, I put them higher simply because I suppose they have slightly more to do on them? 15. S/M - Bye Felicia Both games are crap, but I put USUM lower because they failed to do the bare minimum of what third versions are supposed to do -- be an improvement on the initial pair. Not only are the games still overloaded with cutscenes, but USUM also completely gutted the Lusamine/Lillie/Gladion story (aka. the one good thing from SM) and nerfed the franchise's first female villain into being a Damsel in Distress for all of the male villains from past games (Rainbow Rocket). USUM also added very few new areas and did nothing to make Alola any less of the bland, barren region it was in SM, nor did they even add a significant new Battle Facility on par with the Battle Frontier/PWT. That's a step down from even Yellow/Crystal/Emerald/Platinum, let alone B2W2.
|
|
|
Post by adzpower on Feb 25, 2018 14:39:16 GMT -5
See I didn't use the internet much as a teenager, only at school or when I really needed too, so I wasn't really exposed to the huge Cynthia fandom until a few years ago, so for me, I only ever experienced her from her appearances in the games, so to me, she was just another champion who helped the player out a few times, and that was it, I had no idea she was so popular until years after D/P/P had come out.
I have to admit, a couple years ago HG/SS would have been higher on my list, but I find them difficult to replay, not only do those late DS era games seem ancient now but I just find it so cumbersome when I find my team is at least ten levels lower than it should be, all because I dared to have a full team of six.
|
|
|
Post by BettyNewbie on Feb 25, 2018 23:29:08 GMT -5
See I didn't use the internet much as a teenager, only at school or when I really needed too, so I wasn't really exposed to the huge Cynthia fandom until a few years ago, so for me, I only ever experienced her from her appearances in the games, so to me, she was just another champion who helped the player out a few times, and that was it, I had no idea she was so popular until years after D/P/P had come out. To me, the fact that she was even in HGSS and BW was the first clue that she was getting special treatment from GF. Steven and Wallace weren't in FRLG, so why did Cynthia need to be in HGSS? Why did any Sinnoh characters need to be in HGSS? Didn't they already get enough attention in DPPt? (And, yes, I fully realize that Steven was also in HGSS, but his last appearance had been in the previous generation, so that didn't bother me. Plus, he served the purpose of letting you get the Hoenn Starters and Weather Trio in HGSS, which were otherwise very difficult for DSi owners to get since the console lacked a GBA slot.) As for BW, those games were explicitly meant to be a hard reset. They took place in a distant, isolated region and didn't let you use any older Pokémon. Logically, they shouldn't have featured any returning older characters, and yet they somehow found a way to bring Cynthia back (along with Looker and Caitlin). The last hard reset games, RSE, didn't feature any returning characters, and even DPPt only brought back Jasmine and Prof. Oak, and those games weren't even trying to be a reboot. Again, why the special treatment for Cynthia? I'm not sure exactly how it started. Did Cynthia simply become more massively popular than any other previous Champion, so GF started to promote her more, or did she become super popular because GF decided to more heavily promote her than previous Champions? I have to admit, a couple years ago HG/SS would have been higher on my list, but I find them difficult to replay, not only do those late DS era games seem ancient now but I just find it so cumbersome when I find my team is at least ten levels lower than it should be, all because I dared to have a full team of six. That's one thing HGSS really needed to fix from GSC. Why couldn't they have bumped up the wild Pokémon levels in some areas? And, why couldn't they have brought back the VS Seeker from FRLG, or at the very least, redid the phone to function more like the Match Call from Emerald?
|
|
|
Post by adzpower on Feb 26, 2018 16:25:40 GMT -5
A slight change in topic, I was playing Gold earlier on my 3DS and I was really, really finding myself wishing that Nintendo will re-release Emerald and FR/LG on their online store as well, I know we have R/B/Y already and of course we have ORAS but I would really love to have all the definitive versions of these games, easily accessible and ready to play with just a few clicks of a button, we're in 2018 and we still haven't got access to a lot of these older games, its pretty medieval if you ask me. Trouble is I know if they did upload them they'd give us the sub-par versions first, we'd have to sit through Ruby and Sapphire to get to Emerald etc, when they announced Gold and Silver I knew for certain they would be giving us Crystal at a later date, but I went ahead and got Gold anyway because I knew that out of the "first" versions of games these two were by far some of the best, however I will not do that again with future releases, I'm not going to download Ruby only for Emerald to get announced 5 months later, I suppose we shall have to wait and see. More than anything I'm curious to see how they hold up, or if its childhood nostalgia that's tainting my memories, I could use emulators but I don't like to use those very much, call me old fashioned but I feel like data like that can be lost so easily and I tend to get quite attached to my teams
|
|
|
Post by BettyNewbie on Feb 27, 2018 13:01:17 GMT -5
A slight change in topic, I was playing Gold earlier on my 3DS and I was really, really finding myself wishing that Nintendo will re-release Emerald and FR/LG on their online store as well, I know we have R/B/Y already and of course we have ORAS but I would really love to have all the definitive versions of these games, easily accessible and ready to play with just a few clicks of a button, we're in 2018 and we still haven't got access to a lot of these older games, its pretty medieval if you ask me. Trouble is I know if they did upload them they'd give us the sub-par versions first, we'd have to sit through Ruby and Sapphire to get to Emerald etc, when they announced Gold and Silver I knew for certain they would be giving us Crystal at a later date, but I went ahead and got Gold anyway because I knew that out of the "first" versions of games these two were by far some of the best, however I will not do that again with future releases, I'm not going to download Ruby only for Emerald to get announced 5 months later, I suppose we shall have to wait and see. More than anything I'm curious to see how they hold up, or if its childhood nostalgia that's tainting my memories, I could use emulators but I don't like to use those very much, call me old fashioned but I feel like data like that can be lost so easily and I tend to get quite attached to my teams I think it will eventually happen, but it will have to be on the Switch, not the 3DS. Unfortunately, the 3DS struggles with GBA emulation. At least Gen 2's best entry (Crystal) is now available on the 3DS, but it's pretty unfortunate that Gens 1 and 3 are stuck with the inferior RBY and ORAS. In fact, the GBA games are basically the most cut-off and obsolete nowadays, since they're the only ones that can't be played on anything newer than a DS Lite (which was discontinued in 2011). It'll be interesting to see what happens to Gens 4-7 when we fully transition into the Switch Era. Since the Switch lacks a second screen, not only can it not play DS/3DS carts, but it can't even emulate them either. So, that's four gens of main series games that will get completely cut off from the newest hardware. VC re-releases of GSC and RSE can easily replace HGSS and ORAS, but that still leaves Sinnoh, Unova, Kalos, and Alola. Sinnoh will probably get remakes in the next few years (for better or worse), but the other three dual screen regions may get left out in the cold for a long time (not that I really mind in the case of Kalos and Alola).
|
|
|
Post by adzpower on Feb 28, 2018 13:49:02 GMT -5
Yes, when we come around to remakes let's please leave Kalos and Alola on the cutting room floor thank you Game Freak. See when it comes to the Switch, I'm really, REALLY trying to not let myself have hope, because I feel like its just going to be dashed again when yet another round of disappointing games come out.
|
|
|
Post by BettyNewbie on Feb 28, 2018 21:14:32 GMT -5
Well, Pokémon Day has now come and gone with a load of hype, but little else. Zeraora wasn't even revealed, and we didn't get anything new in regards to Pokémon Switch. All we got was an uninteresting trailer for the equally uninteresting M21 that introduced a bunch of bland OCs and confirmed that the movie centers around Lugia. I'm starting wonder if we're staring down the barrel of another 2015 -- no game, no news, and just a bunch of boring anime hype and mediocre spinoffs. Could be a long year ahead of us. (Am I the only person who has absolutely NO interest in Detective Pikachu or its movie? It looks like just another boring Pikachu spinoff, ala. Hey You Pikachu/Pokémon Channel.)
|
|
|
Post by adzpower on Mar 2, 2018 12:11:47 GMT -5
Yeah I was kind of hyped only for them to reveal some boring ass Lugia movie, um....we've already had one of those you know? Give us something different please.
As for Detective Pikachu, I know almost nothing about it, all I know is that Ryan Reynolds is in it and I'm a fan of his but not enough to make me interested to watch it. Just yet another Pikachu led production that we really don't need.
|
|
|
Post by BettyNewbie on Mar 2, 2018 12:56:42 GMT -5
Yeah I was kind of hyped only for them to reveal some boring ass Lugia movie, um....we've already had one of those you know? Give us something different please. I'm starting to get bad flashbacks to the new Star Trek movies, of all things. M20 was a lot like Star Trek 2009 in that it was a heavily nostalgia-influenced continuity reboot that came around as an attempt to revive a dying series after a couple of severe flops (XY movies, Insurrection/Nemesis) that was mostly well-received, but came off as a glossier, shallower version of the original. And, now, we have M21 trying to be a poor man's remake of M02 just like Into Darkness tried to be a poor man's remake of Wrath of Khan. This isn't going to end well.As for Detective Pikachu, I know almost nothing about it, all I know is that Ryan Reynolds is in it and I'm a fan of his but not enough to make me interested to watch it. Just yet another Pikachu led production that we really don't need. I have no idea why this movie is even being made. If you're going to make a live action Pokémon movie, wouldn't it make more sense to do it based on either the games or anime instead of some obscure (and Japan-only up until very recently) Pikachu spinoff? Even a movie based on an older, more known spinoff like Pokémon Snap or Colosseum/XD would make more sense. Not even Ryan Reynolds can save this from being a disaster.
|
|
|
Post by adzpower on Mar 10, 2018 12:24:10 GMT -5
I do wonder where Pokemon will go from here, will it continue to decline? Or will they really put their thinking caps on and give us some wonderful content again, regardless of any disappointment I might feel I'm still interested to see where GF take it. At the end of the day they can make whatever manga or anime or movies that they want, I don't care about those, I just need the games to be good, maybe one day they will be again.
|
|
|
Post by BettyNewbie on Mar 25, 2018 14:07:51 GMT -5
Well, the recent Spike Chunsoft announcement has come and gone without word of a new Pokémon Mystery Dungeon game. This significantly increases the odds of the upcoming Switch game being a Fall 2018/Winter 2019 release, as Spike Chunsoft traditionally releases PMD games during long break periods for the main series: - Red/Blue Rescue Team = released in late 2005/2006 in the gap between Emerald and DP - Explorers of Time/Darkness = released in late 2007/early 2008 in the gap between DP and Platinum (add in Explorers of Sky, and you can argue for it being a break between DP and HGSS since Platinum was just a third version) - Gates to Infinity = released in late 2012/early 2013 in the gap between B2W2 and XY - Super Mystery Dungeon = released in 2015 in the long gap between ORAS and SM If we were going to be waiting until late 2019 for Pokémon Switch, then Nintendo would've likely pushed Spike Chunsoft to release a new PMD game since that series primarily exists as filler between main series games. Releasing a new PMD close to a new main series game (especially a new generation) would only cannibalize PMD sales. In short, I think we're going to get some big news within the next two months. Zeraora will likely be revealed next month, which would then be followed by the unveiling of the upcoming Switch game (along with a few Gen 8 Pokémon).
|
|
|
Post by adzpower on Apr 24, 2018 15:04:34 GMT -5
I'm exhausted of Pokemon, I'll be honest my fandom is waning slightly this year, it feels like a long time since we've had some really good games, the movies suck, the anime sucks, the manga sucks, and now the games suck, what else is there to enjoy?
Lately I've been way more into *gasp* Digimon, who, unlike Pokemon, has a good anime series, brings out really fantastic, challenging games and has relatable, likeable characters with actual personalities.
At this point the only hope I have is that they will continue to remake the games for the VGC so I can at least relive the golden days.
|
|
|
Post by BettyNewbie on Apr 24, 2018 18:27:02 GMT -5
I honestly can't blame you, Adam. Gen 7 really was just a throwaway filler generation slapped together for the 20th anniversary. The games have more gimmicks than substance, the new Pokémon are extremely underwhelming, and Alola is a horribly boring, shallow region. Throw in a mediocre, ugly anime, and you have a generation that is a complete waste of time. I've never wanted to see a generation end as much as this one. I've found myself more interested in fanworks lately, particularly hacks and art. The Gen 1/2 hacking community is a welcome reprieve from the rest of the fandom, which has become intolerable.
|
|