|
Post by BettyNewbie on Jun 1, 2018 22:53:15 GMT -5
One thing that concerns me about LGPE (and I'm not seeing being discussed nearly enough) is how heavily the boy is being promoted alongside Pikachu and the girl is being promoted alongside Eevee: No player character has EVER been promoted this heavily with a specific starter in the games before. Yes, May and Dawn got heavily promoted with Torchic/Piplup in the anime, but their actual game artwork never stuck them with a specific starter, and that's because GF didn't want to send the message that you had to pick a certain starter when playing as these characters. You could still 100% play as May and pick Mudkip or play as Dawn and pick Chimchar. But, here, right in the game trailers and official art, we're getting Baby Red/Pikachu and Baby Hilda/Eevee shoved at us without even the slightest hint of Baby Red/Eevee or Baby Hilda/Pikachu. Why constantly portray these characters with only one of the starters and never the other? I have a sinking feeling that these player characters are version exclusives, too. As in, you won't be able to play as a girl in the Pikachu game, and you won't be able to play as a boy in the Eevee game. I guess it's the logical next step after the increasing low key gender segregation of the DS and 3DS games -- actual gender-segregated games with gender-segregated starters. Pikachu is for boys, Eevee is for girls, and never the twain shall meet. Let's just ignore the fact that 87.5% of Eevee are male, or that Pikachu was specifically chosen as the mascot in the first place because of its gender neutral appeal.
|
|
|
Post by adzpower on Jun 2, 2018 4:03:02 GMT -5
I would be shocked if they did something like that, and if they did it would basically kill all sales for the Eevee version because let's face it, the target demograhic is boys, who will want to play as a boy. I'm hoping the only reason they're doing this is because its well known even by casual fans that Red and Ash looking characters have the Pikachu and they can't have Hilda clone stand there with nothing so they gave her the Eevee? That's what I'm hoping.
|
|
|
Post by BettyNewbie on Jun 2, 2018 10:05:18 GMT -5
I would be shocked if they did something like that, and if they did it would basically kill all sales for the Eevee version because let's face it, the target demograhic is boys, who will want to play as a boy. I'm hoping the only reason they're doing this is because its well known even by casual fans that Red and Ash looking characters have the Pikachu and they can't have Hilda clone stand there with nothing so they gave her the Eevee? That's what I'm hoping. If they do this, they're probably assuming that loads of girls and women will go out and buy the Eevee version. As I said, there's a very obvious message of "Pikachu is for boys" and "Eevee is for girls" being peddled here, which I don't like at all. It's already bad enough that the games have become increasingly more gender-segregated since Gen 4, ie. color-coded Pokedexes and regional devices, the PCs being dressed as a blue/pink pair, old Pokemon having pointless gender differences retconned onto them, and so on. GF seems to operate under the mindset that the only way girls will like Pokemon is if they get a special "pinkified" version of it. This likely started in Gen 4 due to the DS being targeted towards a broader audience than the GB/C and GBA, and it looks like this sexist gender-based marketing is only continuing unabated. Of course, the grand irony is that I'm not sure if it's even working. To me, it still feels like Pokemon was most popular with girls during the height of Pokemania, back when we couldn't even PLAY as a girl, let alone had excessively "pinkified" female protagonists. Most girls and women don't like being pandered to with outdated stereotypes.
|
|
|
Post by adzpower on Jun 12, 2018 15:34:45 GMT -5
I am absolutely repulsed by the E3 footage of these games. DISGUSTED. They literally force you to use a water or grass type before challenging Brock. I just can't anymore, I am so done. This game is just a bland nothing, there is nothing here, no substance, no game, nothing, I can't think of another way to put it, it might as well just not exist, because it is nothing.
RIP Pokemon 1996-2012.
|
|
|
Post by BettyNewbie on Jun 13, 2018 10:46:26 GMT -5
Preach it. Just the sight of some random nobody in place of BLUE MOTHERF'ING OAK was enough to infuriate me. So, now, we're gonna trash the games' best and most iconic rival all because he's "mean" and might "scare" the little kiddies? FUCK YOU. (And, has Gary gotten a raw deal, or what? The show gave him an anticlimactic ending as a lab assistant and has left him to rot in early DP, while M20 reduced him to a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo in favor of pointless OCs. Now, his game counterpart is not only getting his iconic brown starter ripped away from him, but is also getting written out of his own damn remakes!)
|
|
|
Post by adzpower on Jun 13, 2018 13:35:41 GMT -5
I am just do shocked by all this, I expected some change sure, but removing Blue? Arguably aside from Red, the most well known human Pokemon character of all time maybe bar some of the gym leaders? Idiotic is what is, just completely mind-boggling, instead of course we had to get a new "fwend" to help guide us because this game won't be easy enough already, I just can't even believe its come to this, I just....I can't even imagine what they're smoking over at Game Freak if they thought any of this was a good idea.
|
|
|
Post by BettyNewbie on Jun 13, 2018 16:15:35 GMT -5
What GF is doing is taking cues from the anime. The show shafts game rivals in favor of random nobodies all the time -- just ask Silver and Wally. The Elite Four will probably be similarly replaced by some "tournament" full of more random nobodies, because making little kids fight five trainers in succession without healing is "too hard." (Plus, Lance is yet another character that I really like, so you know these games will find some reason to exclude him, because my favorite characters aren't allowed to have nice things.) Pokemon truly died in 2006. Gens 1 and 2 were its Golden Age, Gen 3 was its Twilight, and Gen 4 was its Death Knell. It was all over the very moment DP first came out in Japan. Gen 5 was the Dead Cat Bounce that fooled everyone into thinking the series was turning around, but the die was already cast, and Gens 6 and later have only continued from where Gen 4 left off. Maybe, Pokemon was one of those series that was best left in 2D. It's painfully obvious that the transition to 3D has come at the cost of content, as well as the very charm of the games.
|
|
|
Post by adzpower on Nov 2, 2018 8:27:57 GMT -5
DID YOU SEE THE NEWS BETTY? DID YOU SEE IT? MASUDA IS STEPPING DOWN AS DIRECTOR! As Tim likes to say, thank the dead Gods of Krypton.
|
|
|
Post by BettyNewbie on Nov 2, 2018 19:56:28 GMT -5
DID YOU SEE THE NEWS BETTY? DID YOU SEE IT? MASUDA IS STEPPING DOWN AS DIRECTOR! As Tim likes to say, thank the dead Gods of Krypton. Yup, I saw the news.I don't wanna be a Debbie Downer, but I'm not sure if this will change much about the games. Remember the Alola games? Well, none of them were directed by Masuda, and guess what, they still sucked. They still had the same hackneyed formula that the series has been pushing ever since RS, but with cheap battle gimmicks and cringe fanfic-grade storytelling thrown into the mix. If the end of the Masuda Era simply means the start of the Ohmori Era, then I'll take a hard pass. Masuda's games were merely mediocre. Ohmori's were outright awful. Just compare RS (directed by Masuda) and ORAS (directed by Ohmori). The former is a middling, unpolished game that had a few decent, but half-baked, ideas. The latter is a flat-out insult to the franchise and a slap in the face to anyone who bought it. What we need is either Tajiri or someone else who thinks like him, not money-grubbers like Masuda and Ohmori.
|
|
|
Post by adzpower on Nov 3, 2018 7:23:52 GMT -5
The reason this excites me is mainly because it was pretty clear that Masuda had lost his edge, the way he spoke in interviews oer the last few years was quite worrying, with his sytematic dumbing-down of the franchise, he really was so out of touch with what fans wanted, I think perhaps he's realized this.
Whilst not actually being the director for the last few games, it was pretty clear that he still held a large amount of influence over their direction, he was still a producer on all of them. The way he spoke of making the games easier was clear to see when playing the likes of ORAS or S/M. And with Let's Go being his final game as director, its a shame that his legacy will go out with a whimper, but at the very least this will give us some new blood that might actually steer the franchise in a good direction.
|
|
|
Post by BettyNewbie on Nov 3, 2018 12:02:37 GMT -5
The reason this excites me is mainly because it was pretty clear that Masuda had lost his edge, the way he spoke in interviews oer the last few years was quite worrying, with his sytematic dumbing-down of the franchise, he really was so out of touch with what fans wanted, I think perhaps he's realized this. Whilst not actually being the director for the last few games, it was pretty clear that he still held a large amount of influence over their direction, he was still a producer on all of them. The way he spoke of making the games easier was clear to see when playing the likes of ORAS or S/M. And with Let's Go being his final game as director, its a shame that his legacy will go out with a whimper, but at the very least this will give us some new blood that might actually steer the franchise in a good direction. And, that's because he has a large amount of influence over Ohmori. The only real difference between the two is that Ohmori is huge on AUs and overblown plots involving parallel universes, and even that arguably has roots in Masuda's work (going all the way back to RS having different villains based on version). Otherwise, they both go along the same philosophy of repeating the same standard formula and offering a barebones experience in debut games so they can "resell" cut features in third versions and remakes. I agree that Masuda stepping down is a good thing, but little will change if the "fresh blood" that replaces him all learned the ropes from him and follow his philosophy on game design. Especially, if that "fresh blood" is Ohmori, which I am 99% certain it will be. We'll see how things go with Gen 8, though. Maybe, they'll finally surprise me for once, although they have a lot of good will to win back after the last two gens.
|
|
|
Post by BettyNewbie on Jan 25, 2019 13:03:10 GMT -5
I don't know if we've already done it, but I'm in the mood to air out some unpopular opinions about the franchise: - Dragonite > Charizard. The latter isn't the worst Pokemon ever, but it's a pretty generic fire-breathing dragon, and it's not even Dragon Type. On the other hand, Dragonite has an adorable design and a wonderful Pokedex backstory as a kind, intelligent Pokemon who helps those lost at sea, yet can become scary when provoked. Everything about Dragonite is far more interesting and special, and it's a shame that so many fans dismiss the Pokemon simply because it doesn't look "badass." The conspiracy theorist in me believes that Dragonite got screwed out of an Mega Evolution so Charizard could get an extra one. - None of the remakes are that great, and FRLG was the only one that was ever truly needed. Yup, I'm sayin' it. None of the four remake pairs ever fully addressed the flaws of their respective originals, and HGSS, ORAS, and LGPE changed more things for the worse than the better. FRLG was at least somewhat justified by Gen 3's trading compatibility issues and the brokenness of the original RBY, but the other three were never anything more than hollow cash grabs designed to promote new handhelds and cash in on nostalgia. I wish GF would shelve remakes in favor of revisiting past regions with sequels. - Sinnoh was the franchise's Jump the Shark moment. While Hoenn arguably set the stage, it was with the Sinnoh games that the modern Pokemon formula truly became a formula. Just about every single thing these games brought to the table was a cheap rehash of something that had previously been done before. Team Galactic was a cheap knockoff of Magma/Aqua. Super Contests were a cheap knockoff of Hoenn's Contests. The Underground was a cheap knockoff of Hoenn's Secret Bases. The Platinum Battle Frontier was a cheap knockoff of the Emerald Battle Frontier. The Creation Trio was a cheap knockoff of the Weather Trio. Cynthia was a cheap knockoff of Steven. Infernape was a cheap knockoff of Blaziken. I could go on and on. Even the "innovations" people like to give Sinnoh credit for weren't really Sinnoh's. GSC was the first game to have Day/Night and added pre/evolutions for older Pokemon. Crystal was the first game to have online features. FRLG was the first game to have wireless trading. Gale of Darkness was the first game to have a P/S Split. And, do I even need to mention God Llama and what an awful idea it was to introduce god Pokemon into the series? Or, what a tedious, HM-laden clusterfuck the Sinnoh region is to navigate? DPPt were the first main series games to truly be skippable and non-essential, and the fact that so many people embraced them did nothing but tell GF that mediocrity sells. It is because of DPPt's success (and subsequent underperformance of the slightly more ambitious BW/B2W2) that we got XY and U/SM. It is because of DPPt's success that the series has stagnated and struggles to break out of the same tired formula. - Cynthia is massively overrated. Okay, she was the franchise's first female Champion, but that's about it. Otherwise, she's an extremely boring character who doesn't warrant even a fraction of the hype she gets. She has practically no personality to speak of, and what little characterization is there is just a straight copy/paste of Steven's (who was pretty boring, himself). And, her "awesome" team is horribly cliched (and probably hacked) and nowhere near as hard to beat as people make it out to be. And, no, she's not the first Champion to not be a type specialist -- Remember Blue, anyone? Read this excellent takedown for more details. I highly doubt she would be nearly as popular if she wasn't a hot blonde with a supermodel figure. - Kris will forever be the best female protagonist. Great, distinctive design that's feminine, yet tough and practical. Plus, she defeated 16 gyms, caught all three Legendary Dogs, prevented Team Rocket from resurrecting, and defeated the "undefeatable" Red. The First Girl is still the Best Girl, and she deserves far more respect and recognition than she gets. It disgusts me when fans ignore and dismiss her just because she isn't a "waifu" like May/Dawn/Serena. - Lance will forever be the best Champion. How is this man anything but admirable? He was the first Champion to go out there and help the protagonist against the Evil Team, and his League battle was tough, but fair. And, how can you not love his sweet personality, his love for Pokemon, or his humility? He doesn't even care about winning or losing every battle. Plus, he's very easy on the eyes. <3 I hate that people dismiss him as a "cheater" just because GF got sloppy with the programming of his team a couple of times (RB, GSC). I swear there's gingerphobia going on in this fandom. That's it for now. Got any opinions of your own?
|
|
|
Post by adzpower on Jan 26, 2019 7:27:13 GMT -5
Ooh this is gonna be fun.
I hate Lucario He is shoved down our throats so much and I just don't get it, there is nothing particular special about it, no interesting typing, no amazing stats or moves, its design is fine but its no better or worse than any other Pokemon really, but for some reason it gets massive hype and promotion and gets pasted into everything, I believe it was one of, if not the first Pokemon announced to have a mega evolution, it even had a huge statue in that one city I can't remember the name of from X/Y. In the animated trailer for B2/W2, the main character of the trailer, the male trainer from the game, has a freaking Lucario, www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBdp_dLEdqU, WHY?! ITS NOT EVEN A GEN 5 POKEMON! THERE WAS NO NEED WHEN YOU COULD HAVE PROMOTED GEN 5 AND GIVEN HIM A POKEMON FROM UNOVA! I HATE LUCARIO.
Sick of Kanto Now, I don't know if this really counts, I find that there are two camps, 50% of the fanbase is sick of Kanto (including me), and 50% want everything set in Kanto with only gen 1 Pokemon available aka Pokemon Let's Go (to hell), now, I'd be up for a sequel set in the far future where the region has become more advanced and therefore might look quite different with new species of Pokemon and different layouts for cities, routes etc, but as it is, just no more. My brother played Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu and his biggest complaint (aside from the easiness), was that only the original Pokemon were in it, he was bewildered as to why he couldn't fully evolve his Golbat, or why he couldn't evolve an Eevee into Espeon, and I agree with him, it made no sense at all, these Pokemon are real, they are canon, they exist, instead of introducing genwunners to some cool Pokemon (even just the pre-evolved and evolved forms of gen 1 Pokemon) they ignored them and acted like they don't exist. This also leads into my other unpopular opinion that I am SICK OF THE GEN 1 POKEDEX.
GEN 5 is the Peak of Pokemon Somehow these masterpieces are the lowest selling (aside from USUM), mainline Pokemon games, and it bothers me greatly, the story was good, the features were good, the gen 1-4 erasure for the base games was refreshing, and the games were actually kind of difficult at times, the characters were cool, I liked N and what he stood for though it was flawed, I thought the region had great environmental variety and there was tons of post-game, but I see these games ripped to shreds all the time and its so saddening because this is what Pokemon could be, Game Freak got scared by the lower sales and went back to doing what they always do, in fact I'd say these games being less successful than their predecessors is what scared them into making games for 3 year olds.
Kill Ash The anime is long, LONG past needing a new main character, starting from Gen 2 we should have gotten a new protagonist at the start of every new region, be it a character from whatever game was out at the time, or someone new created for the show, at this point I don't care, just for thelove of God ditch Ash! He has no character development, has no idea what he's doing most of the time and after completing Kanto he should have vanished (maybe a few cameos here and there), Digimon has a new cast at the start of every series, as do other shows aimed for younger audiences like Yugioh, Power Rangers etc etc, and it doesn't seem to do them any harm, if anything I would have thought a new character would bring people BACK to the show if only out of curiosity.
I think Pokemon is doomed So with the recent release of Let's Go (to hell), I now firmly believe that Pokemon is doomed, if that's the best they can come up with for the first ever Mainline Pokemon Switch game then its over, the 2019 games will suck, because they just haven't taken the proper time to work on them, I would gladly have them vanish for 3+ years to make a game if it meant that we would get something amazing, but since X/Y everything has been so rushed, and it shows, Game Freak need more staff, more producers, more people who can actually programme would be good as well, I keep seeing upcoming trailers for the first Yokai Watch Switch game, and it blows Let's Go completely out the water and is getting people who have never played a Yokai game excited, if it does well then I can see a lot of the Pokemon fanbase migrating over to a franchise that is actually making good games, people will only put up with their shit for so long. I want to be wrong, I want Pokemon to claw its way back to the top, I want the 2019 games to be amazing, but I don't think they will be.
|
|
|
Post by BettyNewbie on Jan 26, 2019 11:29:38 GMT -5
I have some more:
- Ash, Misty, Brock, and the TRio should've all been written out after Johto. If Team Rocket and the game counterparts of Ash and Brock were nowhere to be found in the Hoenn games, then they had no business being in the Hoenn anime either. Johto was originally planned as Ash's big finale, and I wish they had stuck to those plans instead of dragging his story out into Hoenn and beyond, where he became little more than a hollow marketing tool whose characterization changed at whim and never had a solid end goal to work towards. It also would've been nice to see Misty get real closure in her goal and not see Brock and the TRio devolve into being self-parodies because they stuck around for several years too long.
- Paul isn't anything more than an off-brand Silver. What happens when you take Silver, give him purple hair, and remove every ounce of depth and nuance from his character? You get Paul, a Draco in Leather Pants character who was originally supposed to be a "criticism" of competitive scene, but quickly became the show's biggest Gary Stu ever because both the writers and older fans (predictably) fell in love with him. Gag me. I wish we had gotten the real Silver in the show instead of this cheap ripoff.
- Brendan has the coolest male protagonist design. You all can fight me on this one. His white beanie is cool (and so much better than a boring baseball cap), and in Emerald, he manages to look cute, tough, and sporty all at once. I also love how adorably awkward he looks in RS as a pale kid overdressed for the climate. (I refuse to acknowledge that "Orlando" is the same character. Fuck ORAS.) Red may be the iconic original hero, but his design is very plain. I prefer guys with a little more style.
- Protagonist designs went downhill after Gen 3. Brendan's white beanie must've scared off one too many people, because the male protagonists have all been generic, interchangeable Red/Ash clones dressed in blue since Gen 4. Meanwhile, the girls have been slathered in pink/red and stuck in miniskirts/short shorts so they can be feminine "eye candy" for the fanboys (even their bags have increasingly looked more and more like purses since Gen 5). Character customization helped mitigate this somewhat in XY and U/SM, but it's not enough when the default designs still exist.
|
|
|
Post by adzpower on Jan 29, 2019 10:42:46 GMT -5
I'm struggling to think of anymore
But actually I'd never thought about it before but now you bring it up I agree that Brendan has the coolest design, I especially liked his style in Emerald. All the others are kinda boring though I do like Ethan's red jacket/hoodie that looks a little different to just the standard jackets they usually have. Don't even get me started on the Alolan region protagonists eurgh.
Which has actually just reminded me of another unpopular opinion that I have.
Ditch the fire/water/grass starters With all the Pokemon that exist, you'd think some professor by now would have found an interesting alternative to the very standard fire/water/grass starter choices in the games, there are plenty of other type triangles we could have instead, fighting/dark/psychic would be a cool one, or rock/flying/fighting or maybe they could use just one of the original types like ground/poison/grass.
|
|