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burninmylight on 07 October 2017
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mZuzek said:
burninmylight said:

Even though I haven't actually played S/M (because I have Future Sight and knew to wait a year for USUM), I don't think Z-Moves are bad. At first I thought that way, but when I learned that they are one-time nukes in a battle instead of constant nukes like Megas, I realized that they are actually way more balanced and give every Pokemon a chance to do something with themselves instead of a select handful (and half of that handful didn't even need Megas in the first place).

But yeah, Pokemon will never completley reboot in the truest since. Way too many licensed critters to suddenly stop selling merch on. It doesn't really need a true franchise teardown and rebuild though, just like Zelda didn't. Just like Zelda, each game is essentially its own little self-contained origin story, and each new game is telling a new character's story and gives GF the chance to put in any single character and Pokemon it wants without worrying about plot continuity. If it suddenly wanted to go in a new direction with the next game, it can easily do that.

I guess it would also be nice if it took a cue from the latest Zelda and get it in its stupid head that most people playing these games know how to play the damn game already, and to stop treating everyone like 8-year-olds who never played a game in their life. The most consistant complaint I'm hearing about S/M is the nonstop cutscenes and tutorials, and I ain't got time for that.

Z-moves being balanced (they aren't) doesn't make them any better as a mechanic, because they are completely dumb, one-time things that can be used at any point in a battle and whenever they are, will just trigger a boring, stupid 30-second cutscene that only looks cool if you're 6 years old. I don't care about how balanced or not Mega Evolution was (eh, I thought it was fine), it at least kept the focus on the gameplay and you always knew when it was coming. I just hate it whenever games decide to completely turn off gameplay for long-ass cutscenes and Z-moves on Pokémon is the worst case of it I've seen yet.

Also, each Pokémon game isn't self-contained like Zelda at all. The stories and characters and regions and such are self-contained, but the franchise always keeps moving forward with more Pokémon, more moves, more items, more mechanics, etc. without ever dropping even a single one (the only thing I can recall ever being dropped was the gen 3/4 contests). Zelda isn't like that at all - each Zelda game plays very differently, they each have their own set of mechanics and most of them don't come back in later games.

There are plenty of mechanics that get introduced in Pokemon games that don't come back for later games (Safari Zone, Pokemon following you, Triple Battles, Battle Institute to name a few), but that's hardly a point in GameFreak's favor. The point is that usually when a franchise of some sort, say a video game IP, comic, movie franchise or whatnot, gets a complete reboot, it's mostly for plot and continuity related reasons. It's so the writers, directors and whomever can start over with a clean slate after the canon has gotten so messed up and convoluted that they can't hardly do anything with a new story without writing themselves into a corner or being severly hamstrung on what they can do within the confines of the franchises universe.

Pokemon and Zelda don't have that problem because with (almost) each new game, you start off with a new character in a different time and setting. So these franchises can get a "soft" reboot without completely tearing everything down. IPs like Star Fox and Metroid, those would need a hard reboot. Devil May Cry already got a hard reboot. Breath of the Wild kind of is a soft reboot for Zelda if you ask me.

"each Zelda game plays very differently, they each have their own set of mechanics and most of them don't come back in later games."

I'd say that console Zelda's for the past 20 years have hardly played differently from a core gameplay standpoint. Yes, they all have fluourishes or hooks here and there to set them apart from one another, but they are all largely Ocarina's offshoots until BotW.

Also, I never said Z-Moves are balanced. I did call them a "one-time nuke." I said they aren't bad (or let's say as bad as some megas). They have the potential to make already good Pokemon broken, or already stupidly good Pokemon broken beyond repair. But they also have the potential to make bad or mediocre Pokemon be able to do something and carve some sort of niche for themselves. When you make a new mechanic and you give it to everyone instead of the select few, that's what happens. Megas were all about the chosen few, and they made some mediocre Pokemon better, some mediocre Pokemon still mediocre, and some already very good Pokemon ridiculous and overly powerful to the point of centralizing the competitive game. At least with Z-Crystals, everybody gets a lick of the popsicle.

I'm with you on the long-ass cutscenes for the Z-Moves though. I watch a lot of battles online, and I feel like I can get up and fix a sandwhich everytime someone uses a Z-attack. This isn't Metal Gear Solid. I want to play a game, not watch a crappy movie in 240p.