| the_dengle said: Wikipedia's definition of an open world does include Xenoblade. As it says, the game does not have to be non-linear as a whole, it can have segmented non-linear bits which Xenoblade has in spades. I am not the person calling things whatever I want here. You keep saying scale but all you mean is that you want the camera behind the player character rather than above them. That has nothing to do with the scale of the world. It's not focused criticism. You have indicated multiple times that you believe many of Pokemon's design choices are inherently inferior to the alternatives -- you don't like turn-based battles, preferring real-time combat. You don't like random encounters, preferring visible encounters in the field. You don't like top-down perspectives, preferring behind-the-back perspectives. It's not even that you "prefer" these things, you group them directly into asking for a "better" game. You think that if you tell Game Freak you want Pokemon to be "better" they would understand that these are the things you want, but that's not the case. They are not better. They are different. In reality you are asking Game Freak to make a completely different game, not a better one. Furthermore, you assume that this would pay off big time -- it's exactly the same rhetoric we've been hearing from the MM fanbase for the past 3 years. Nintendo is stupid for not doing this, they'd make so much money, there are millions of us. No they weren't. No they won't. No there aren't. There are a few thousand of you congregating in the same areas of the internet, contributing to the echo chamber. It wouldn't be humoring me. In light of all of these design choices you don't seem to like at all, I'm genuinely baffled as to why you have any attachment to this series. |
Wrong. To say that that is all I want completely ignores why people enjoy open world games. The behind the back camera is nessecary to enjoy a map with Xenoblade's scale. Having a behind the back camera in Pokemon XY would make the game less enjoyable, because the map is built for an over the head view. Pokemon has just as many "segmented non-linear bits" as Xenoblade.
Stop putting words in my mouth and stop making things up. I don't dislike turn based battles just because I prefer real time combat. Random encounters are a flaw of any JRPG, including Pokemon. They aren't some unique design choice. They completely leave the ability to find the Pokemon you want to a random number generator, and harshly limits the believability and lived-in feel of any world. It turns what is supposed to be a vibrant ecosystem bursting with wildlife into a barren video game area with a random number generator for enemy encounters.
Saying that I just "don't like top down views" harshly oversimplifies the issue, and there is an issue. ALBW is one of the best Zelda games, period. A 2D, top down game. That doesn't mean that ALBW wouldn't have been better if it was made to sport a larger 3D world, which would nessesitate a behind the back 3D camera, because it would have. Difference is, Zelda is already making those kinds of games.
A top down view limits the scale of the world. It limits the detail. It limits the means of traversability. It limits the believability. It limits the explorability. And for absolutely no good reason other than technological constraints. Xenoblade Chronicles, the constant example, is a better game because it has all these things. Xenoblade Chronicles, if reformated to be a top down, 2D game, would be an objectively worse game because of all those things they'd need to limit because of it. Pokemon is, in essense, that top down, 2D Xenoblade. And unlike Zelda, it doesn't have a 3D, massively open world, nessicerily behind the back 3rd person equivilant to justify it's existance.
And yes, I group them with being a better game. They make a better game. There's a reason why nearly every single JRPG that started top down on a console has evolved to be 3D, "behind the back," games.
The MM fanbase was wrong if they ever thought a simple remake of an already niche game would somehow be supremely lucrative, just like any Pokemon fan who thinks that a new Pokemon Snap or Stadium game will make them a boat load of money.
Exponentially increasing and evolving (sorry) the scale of what is arguably the most powerful video game franchise in the world, next to Mario, is an entirely different beast though. The two examples are not even remotely comparable. MM fans are a whisper compared to the outright uproar that is the Pokemon fanbase that actually wants this, and especially the audience that would have no intrest in Pokemon otherwise.
The Pokemon games aren't "niche" games like MM is. Massively open world games aren't a "niche" concept. Pokemon may as well be Nintendo's GTA, only they're still stuck on GTA 2 and China Town Wars, when the majority of fans, and yes I did say the majority, would much rather be playing 3-5, especially now that it's finally technologically achievable.
