Pokemon

[deanb]

[TCP]

Meowth is a straight up dawg.

 

Very, very, slow start. Jesus fuck I just want to go on my Pokemon adventure. It'd be nice if when you started if there was a prompt that said "Have you played a Pokemon game before?" if you select yes it'll cut out most of the tutorial shit. 

[Saturnine Tenshi]

[deanb]

[TheMightyEthan]

Meowth is a straight up dawg.

 

Very, very, slow start. Jesus fuck I just want to go on my Pokemon adventure. It'd be nice if when you started if there was a prompt that said "Have you played a Pokemon game before?" if you select yes it'll cut out most of the tutorial shit. 

 

Yeah, Civ's got it right for the tutorial options: New to Civ, New to Civ VI, or No Tutorial (Civ V did it the same way).

[Baconrath]

I just tried starting a new HeartGold file for science and it had a No Info Needed button for like the super basic, low-level stuff ("the A button does this" etc.) when you first start but still does that routine where it has to show you how to catch The Pokeymans and stuff.

So I'm not sure if the stuff in Sun/Moon is a step back or just the same schtick.

[CorgiShinobi]

The beginning did bother me. At first I was impressed with how cinematic these Pokemon games are, but then you realize it has been about two hours and you're still being told the basics of Pokemon.

 

Granted, I think the game did a solid job of being far more transparent with moves, stats, and abilities. There isn't much need to have to jump online to look up these things now.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

this sounds ideal for me - the last time i tried a Pokemon game it assumed so much prior knowledge I had no clue what i was doing. Though of course I now have to wait to see if Pokemon star is a real thing

Edited November 20, 2016 by TheFlyingGerbil

[TCP]

I definitely don't think this has lived up to the hype that online reviews and early impressions gave.

The tutorial shit continues throughout the entire game, you can't go somewhere new without a forced cutscene of someone telling you where you are. The story is garbage as usual but carries on and on and on. take a few steps up a path, here's another long cutscene followed by an easy battle. Speaking of which, remember trying to figure out where to go next in a Pokemon game? That's not something to worry about anymore! There's a flag on the minimap telling you where to go next (which is always a needlessly long cutscene). The sense of exploration is completely gone.

Most annoyingly after the first trial, anytime you try to catch a Pokemon, if the battle goes on for more than 2 or 3 stages, the Poke you're trying to capture will "call for help" and in pops another Poke to help it out. It wouldn't be a big deal if you could still throw a Pokeball, but you can't unless there's just one. I've had a high level Pokemon show up, I've started widdling down it's health with false swipe, it calls in a friend, I kill the friend (becareful not to use a move like Razor Leaf that will damage both!) and then try to put the first Poke to sleep or paralyzed or something, but before I can do that, it calls in ANOTHER friend. This isn't more challenging, it's just tedious. 

There's a new mechanic that, if you've fought a type of Pokemon before, the game will tell you which moves are affective against it. Which again, breaks the fucking game. It'd be one thing if the game would remember that electricity moves aren't good against whatever Poke you're fighting if you've used an electric move before, but it tells you everything. This isn't just the moves of your Pikachu are remembered, no, it's all your moves for any Pokemon. 

I've played HeartGold and Omega Ruby in the past 6 months. This game is easily the worst of the three. 

[TheMightyEthan]

There's a new mechanic that, if you've fought a type of Pokemon before, the game will tell you which moves are affective against it. Which again, breaks the fucking game.

You say it breaks the game, I say it's about fucking time. The whole combat system is based around exploiting type advantages, and it was really stupid that you were supposed to have to memorize all of that for hundreds and hundreds of Pokemon.  This one might actually be playable without a Pokedex pulled up on my phone.

[TCP]

Yeah but it ruins any sense of experimentation in combat. I think the game remembering what an electric, grass, rock, etc move does to each Poke after you've tried that type of move is a much better alternative. 

[CorgiShinobi]

But that would be asinine then if you always had to use an individual move on each Pokemon to know the "Effective" status.

 

The experimentation as you call it comes from the actual moveset you have for that Pokemon. It's one thing to know "Water > Fire", but it's another to know the damage type, the range, status effects, and other slight attributes that contribute to the battle. Hell, even the Pokemon's ability affects the moves.

 

Take the Yungoos I caught. It learns Bite, a Dark-type move. I think to myself, "I already have Dark-type moves on my other Pokemon, so why keep Bite?" I removed it, but later I discovered that Yungoos had Strong Jaw, an ability that increases the damage of all biting attacks. I was concerned about elemental typing I completely forgot to take into consideration the Pokemon's other attributes.

 

Of course I can always go back to the Move Reminder, but my Yungoos served his purpose and is chilling in the PC.

[TCP]

I fucking did it. Going for shiny pokes now.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

Well done. Out of curiosity, what sort of percentage would someone get if they were just playing through the game without any particular thought to catching them all?

[TCP]

Maybe 40%?? A lot of them are evolutions of Pokemon you're never going to use, then a bunch are Pokemon that don't show up in the wild often, multiple Pokes that only evolve from stones which there are only one of in each game, and of course version exclusive Pokes. It helps to have another copy of the game with another 3DS handy. There's at least 10, maybe more, that you can only get through trading (usually with a rare item). So I'd boot up my wife's system, transfer it over, watch it evolve, then transfer back. 

I spent way too much time on this but with it being winter outside and dark at like 3:30pm, the wife and I have been watching a lot of TV shows, so it's been nice to have a handheld game I can grind as we watch TV. The big key for this was GTS trading. Using QR codes once a day you can catch only one of four specific Pokes that aren't in the game in a traditional sense (they're not even in the dex), and every day it changes. This includes the final evolutions of the Black/White starters. So I caught the water starter, bred it to get the first form (over and over again), and GTS traded them probably 25 times if not more. This cut down a bunch of time.
I did try going to a full Pokedex in Omega Ruby, I caught every Poke I could in the over world and afterwards transferred in all my Heart Gold, Black, Black 2, and Y Pokes. I ended with 200ish to go. But there's no National Dex in Sun/Moon so that cut out 500+ Pokes, making it way easier to get the Shiny Charm.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

That does sound like quite an achievement then, kudos. 

[CorgiShinobi]

I would say that if you use the Pokemon Pelago, you can get multiple stones of the ones you get once in-game. I got two Ice Stones before I even made it to Po Town.

 

Honestly, I ended at 37%, but I did spend some extra time trying out different Pokemon, so maybe naturally if you're interested in only catching, you'll even up a little over 30%.

[TheMightyEthan]

Yeah, I haven't played SuMo, but I think 30% is roughly where I usually end up.  I'm somebody who doesn't change his team much once I've got one that's pretty well balanced, so I only see the evolutions for a few pokemon, though I do try to make a point of catching any pokemon I encounter in the wild that I don't already have.

[Mal]

 

I believe it to be true that the devs at The Pokemon Company/Nintendo screw around in HD, ultra crisp Pokemon on their free time. Everyone else got to wallow in emulators to get as close as perfect visuals and performance as possible.

[deanb]

A bunch of pixeleation on the textures belies it being "HD", mainly scales well cos loads of Nintendo games just use a single colour rather than much in the way of "textures".

 

But yeah kinda embarrassing the screen quality of the 3DS.

[deanb]

 

[TCP]

I wish there was a dislike button.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

With the blink and you'll miss it announcement, it's time to speculate. Would you rather a polished up from 3DS-based Pokemon Moon soonish or wait a lot longer for a new generation "A+B" entry built entirely for switch?

[TheMightyEthan]

Frankly I don't understand why they're not doing both.  Port Sun/Moon to Switch as either Stars or Eclipse for release this fall, which would be far less work than developing a whole new game, and then also develop a full new A+B entry for Switch.

[Mister Jack]

I would much rather they make a whole new game.  Anyone interested in Pokemon already owns a 3DS as it is, so a Switch port seems rather pointless.