What it needs to make a better Pokémon game nowadays?

[burninmylight]

sundin13 said:

burninmylight said:

Maybe you don't get it because you're using the complaints as a strawman. No one is saying that every single gimmick should be in every new game. The complaint is that the gimmicks are just that - gimmicks - that feel cheap just to market each new gen as something different, but often come out feeling half-baked and half assed, and then get thrown out by the next gen when some of them could stand to stick around and be improved upon.

Some definitely needed to be (or need to be) left behind because a newer feature came long to improve upon them (or GF at least thought so even if this wasn't the case), but others are cut for no good reason. Like Kneetos said, GF could have really put in the time to make contests a significant fixture of the series; even back in the early days of the anime, contests seemed to be an important part of the Pokemon world. I remember when they were first introduced in R/S, I thought they would continue to improve in future games and imagined that they could become an alternative to actual battles, and Nintendo/GF could market that for the people questioning why their selling games about kids forcing animals to fight. But nope, they were gone, then made a brief comeback tour for the R/S remake, then gone again.

What I don't get is why anyone would want to continue paying full price for new games with less content. Not even talking about features/gimmicks here, but a limited Dex. Gen 7 handled the National Dex nicely; limited the Regional Dex and what you saw as you went through the story mode, but opened up more mon after beating the game for those who really want to go the extra mile. And even if you couldn't get a mon within the game, everything was still coded into the game and you can trade for it. Literally everyone got what they wanted. Instead, you want less access to content. That's like saying that sports games shouldn't feature full rosters of teams and just focus on the stars and rookies that year.

That really isn't the impression I get whenever people complain about cut features, but if that is what you believe, I won't necessarily argue with you. Some of the gimmicks are a lot of fun and add to the gameplay and I don't think there should be any complaints about a game specific feature in that regard. On the other hand, some gimmicks suck. For example, Gigantimax was a garbage gimmick (and generally Sword/Shield was a garbage game).

From the sounds of it, Terstallize is a much better gameplay gimmick. From what I gather from the presentation, the Pokemon keeps their original moveset (switching to the simpler Dynamax moveset always sucked, because it removed what makes each of the different moves interesting) and being able to gain new typings and STAB bonus modifications does significantly change how certain pokemon can be used. Visually it isn't the most interesting gimmick (Gigantimax generally sucked, but some of the Dynamaxes were cool (if only they didn't suck to obtain)), but it seems like it will actually make battling more interesting, which probably puts it below Mega Evolutions but above the other game specific gimmicks in my book.

As for the Dex, one of the best things about the core Black/White game was that every time you ran into a pokemon in the main game, it was something you had never seen before in previous games. You aren't running into 1000 Zubats and Digletts every time you enter a cave, you are seeing something new (although the designs weren't always the most interesting for these new Pokemon). That gave the games a very distinct feel that truly made you feel like you were seeing something new instead of just a rehashing of the same old thing. I get nothing out of seeing a Ratata again and again and again, but I do get excited about seeing new Pokemon.

A more limited Dex also allows the games to do more with what they have (while GF often doesn't capitalize on that ability, they also have never really leaned into that, including about 650 Pokemon in S/S+DLC). I see people complaining about Pokemon battle animations and field animations all the time. As such, I would much rather a game focus on making 100 Pokemon's animations unique and interesting than a game which focuses on putting in 900 Pokemon with the same old cookie cutter animations. Again, this isn't something that the games always capitalize on even when they utilize a more limited set of Pokemon, but if I could choose that trade, I would pick a more limited Dex every day. 

The size of the Dex is a huge limiting factor to what you can do with the games, and throwing in the same Pokemon we've seen a million times before makes the experience feel like something I've experienced dozens of times already. I want a game which focuses on giving me the most polished, most fresh experience with a limited number of Pokemon rather than a game which carries around the bloat of almost a thousand Pokemon.

Sports games kind of highlight this problem of bloat by giving you big rosters stuck into cookie cutter games, that sell you on little more than a roster update every year. I don't want Pokemon to be the kind of game that sells you on a roster update every year. Pokemon games aren't quite at that point, but they also aren't at the point where they are providing a focused but polished experience. They are full of bloat so I won't really begrudge them for paring some of that back.

Funny that you mention Black/White, the generation that technically had the most "new" mon, but the majority of them were blatant ripoffs of Gen 1 mon. Timburr line = discount Machop line, Trubbish = discount Grimer, Sawk & Throh = uglier Hitmonchan and Hitmonlee, and so on. To each their own, but to me and many others, Gen 5 felt very uninspired.

Like I said, nothing wrong with limiting the Regional Dex. I feel like Gen 7 handled this better than any other game. The majority of new mon (regional forms count as new mon in this case) really felt like they belonged in Alola and helped tell the story of that land, like the Alolan Raticate/Gumshoos rivalry, and the fairy mon that looks like a lei but I can't remember the name. But at the same time, those games didn't limit your access to any other Pokemon. If you really wanted to collect them all, either as a completionist or for battling purposes, you could collect them all. That is more content that is completely optional. Why wouldn't you want more optional content available to the people who want it?

More Pokemon doesn't mean more bloat and less polish. Pokemon isn't Smash Bros., where Sakurai meticulously fine tunes each fighter for balancing purposes. I guarantee you that GameFreak don't give a shit about that kind of balance. If you want a polished, fresh experience (lol, why are you playing Pokemon then?), then you look for that in the story mode. Then after the story mode, why can't the rest of us have more? The latter doesn't hurt your experience in ANY way. Again, we have proof of that already in previous games.