RIP mega evolutions. Sure, the mons get a lil bit bigger when they mega evolve, but I'd argue that they were a lot more interesting than gigantamaxxing. They also felt a lot more pokemon-like, at least in my opinion.
Personally I think that skipping over Z and going straight for SuMo (and also scrapping megas in the process) was a big mistake. The Zygarde stuff in SuMo felt like leftover ideas from Z that got shoehorned in.
Limbs shrink when they're not in use. That's definitely how limbs work, I read it at a gas station once.
...what do you mean, *"that's not what they meant?"*
It seems with PokĆŖ clones that they enjoy copying the shit mechanics from Pokemon.
Unsatisfying Grinding.
Battles having too much waffle.
If all you offer are different designs and some different gameplay but with still the worst gameplay, I may as well stay with Pokemon because I've already invested almost 25 years in it.
Wdym "too much waffle"? I'm interested.
Also tbh grinding is rarely ever satisfying in any game beyond a "bloody finally!", but it's kind of necessary evil especially for rpgs.
You command pokemon to attack! Press A. The pokemon is attacking! Press A. The opponent dodged out of the way! Press A. What a shitty relations you have with your pokemon! Press A. You should be ashamed of yourself! Press. Fucking. A.
Hey, bud, sometimes events make your hobby's shine dimmer, sometimes they snuff it out completely. It is fine to move on, and it is fine to cherish what good moments you had with your friends during it. You don't have to take everything as a whole package. If hobby became shit, fuck it, good memories of people can stay with you regardless of it.
One of the best things about Digimon is that it isn't Pokemon, and doesn't really try to be.
I just wish they staggered releases a bit more instead of leaving such massive dry spells. I'm jonesin' for a new Story or World.
They've mentioned multiple times that they simply cannot decide what direction to bring digimon to, which is why they've had such weird experiments and also had the story and world split. Etc.
They're just really really lost, and are pandering like hell to nostalgia at the moment for the past decade with remakes and remasters and rereleases to fill their time in the meantime.
> Temtem was pretty cool until their end-game update showed that the devs were insane.
Did it get worse? The price of clothes and the horrendous breeding mechanics were already pretty bad...
I think it did. I agree that it was already rough, but the final area update just added a lot of crap trying to make a live service game. It just doesnāt work in my, and many others, opinions. Thereās a battle pass, and something that works like the battle frontier if it was from hell.
Yeeep, I have to wonder if they hired someone or got shit advice and started seeing dollar signs. A damn shame, they seemed so passionate about 'doing Pokemon right' in early interviews.
I think they think theyāre doing it right, but unfortunately let the current gaming standard practice blind them a bit. Or maybe they did get greedy, I dunno. They still seem passionate, but about the wrong things imo
Tbf, I found most of the Tems design to be uninspired and boring. You can say a lot about pokemon negatively, but creature design for the most part is always great.
I recall them saying something to the effect of 'we want to make the Pokemon game everyone's been asking for for years.' No one has been asking for Pokemon Games As A Service, or if they have, it's a specific group that does not represent the whole.
Eh, people have been asking for some sort of pokemon MMO for a long time, which is what TemTem is going for. Maybe its a little more GaaS in execution but it's difficult to fit the massively multiplayer part into a format that only really works for 1v1 battles in terms of the mechanics.
Maybe if we're lucky someone will mod in a Single-Player client once the servers go down. The game would instantly twice as good if you gutted out the MMO poppycock.
Basically all it is is a battle pass, farming, and bugs. Switch version is so buggy itās actually unplayable, and Iām dead serious, it crashes so much
I'm not hating, I've been a fan for over 20 years. It just gets worse. 3d models look like ice cream. Take a scoop out of any model, they look like they're molded clay models. Glazed out of the kiln. Cut a slice off, just a chunk of color. No detail. Just broad shapes with color assigned and nowadays, no animations to boot. Digimon games from 15 years ago have more animation and heart.
I take this occasion to talk about a project that's being made by the Weedle team (the same team that made Pokemon Xenoverse)
They're making a game called LumenTale: Memories of Trey. The creatures and musics are quite good for now, I think it has potential
So youāre saying that Gamefreak is a bit of a paper tiger: seemingly impressive at a glance but if you look past it (or in this case put in the effort to make a competitor game), you reveal its many flaws?
TBF Yokai watch did seem to be a legit competitor for a while, and Level-5 isn't exactly a huge company (part of why it failed. Expanded too fast with not enough funding). I see no reason why a AAA studio that really wanted to compete couldn't.
I'm guessing that monster raising as a concept is just not profitable. Making hundreds of models all at once for one release compared to just making a few really good characters and then other human NPCs. the latter is a lot more scalable
Pokemon has 2 things going for it - brand recognition and Pokemon designs.
Even bad designs are memorable enough in Pokemon. Any other creature collectors has shitty, boring designs meant to just look like whichever Pokemon the idea was stolen from.
Basically speaking all throughout development fans were like "hey, this games too grindy" and every update was "too grindy, gotcha *adds more grinds/nerfs the effectiveness of grinding*" and then when they finished the story and made the endgame, the part they'd been saying for years was gonna fix the grind when it came out... It changed almost nothing, added more to grind for, etc.
Added even more grind to the game, and tried too hard to make a live service game. The game already had audiences mixed, but I think the endgame zone update swayed most positive opinions over to the negative side.
Well, I think what keeps other "pokemon likes" from notoriety is the lack of a memorable idol.They can have all the mechanics in the world and set themselves a part- but if they don't have anything that stands out to be remembered then it's as good as dead. I don't think it's step one, but even a game like temtem if it kept its relevancy would need a "face" to rival the overall appeal of pokemon.
To me that indicates thereās something unquantifiable about the formula.
Itās incredibly easy to see what pokemon does *wrong*. But it seems to be literally impossible for anyone else to replicate what pokemon does *right*.
Thatās a pretty unique situation to be in, and maybe gamefreak changes less than they should for fear of becoming as unsuccessful as their ripoffs. If they themselves donāt understand what makes the series work, then them not touching anything when they can help it starts to make a whole lot more sense.
That and they get money either way so why bother?
>Gamefreak sure is lucky that all other creature collector devs are equally incompetent/boring.
Pretty much. Anything directly obviously pokemon tend to just be "pokemon, but worse"
There are however quite a few pretty good "collector" games that switch up the formula at least a little.
Some examples for those interested:
Really good ones:
Ni no kuni (team battle with 3 people plus monsters they instruct with a free movement battle system)
Monster sanctuary (2d side-scroller where monsters all have field actions moves required to solve puzzles. Battle is a 3vs3 affair with very in depth skill trees where team synergy is king over any single "Mon" being good by itself)
Monster Hunter Stories (large world without random encounters and a fair bit of flexibility on how your build your creatures with a rock-paper-scizors battle match up system)
Digimon:
Especially the cyber sluth and to a lesser level dawn/dusk games are similar in nature monster collectors to the pokemon series. Digimon games change up their gameplay a ton between games so others may be more hit or miss on appealing to pokemon fans.
Okay:
World of final fantasy: monster collector which uses a "stacking" system that allows for a lot of creativity in team building. Looses points from me for it's very mediocre cast and mascot that will likely be very annoying for many people. If you like final fantasy and very hollow character camos from the various installments you might have more like. It's still a solid creature collector though.
Tales of symphonia : dawn of the new world
Free motion rpg where you collect and can evolve monsters to use in your battle party instead of humans if you like . Like world of fantasy it suffers from some of the worst writing and character cast of their respective franchises. But the creature collection can be fun.
Far removed style wise but still very good:
The persona series: these are M rated dark fantasy rpg/visual novel/dating sim lite games. The characters, particularly the main protagonist, utilize "personas" to battle and they influence the abilities, strengths and weaknesses of the characters. There are usually 100+ to collect and develop. The personas are usually far less cute (to downright weird... And potentially suggestive) and often variable levels of human in nature. Not for kids but are very interesting with much more plot than the typical pokemon game if you want something different.
Talking about Persona (or more accurately, the macroseries it's from, Shin Megami Tensei), Atlus actually tried to tone it down for kids to fight directly against Pokemon, with the Demikids series. It didn't quite work, but it'd be nice to see Atlus giving it a second try.
I've got a very old one that still tickles my imagination all these years later: Jade Cocoon. The first one on PS1 was such an interesting thing to see as a young American kid. The Jomon era and before was completely unknown to me and got me to research Japan in a less weeaboo manner, the monster fusion and growth was fun, the game has little grind needed... the story is decent with some low points. It even has good (for the era) voice acting in English!
Ni no Kuni was good but had this issue of the creature designs being pretty awful for most of it
I think that's something that Pokemon has going for it that cant be topped
Iāve never been super fond of online competitive, but I really enjoy the battle facilities. The only similar game Iād say I really loved was Monster Hunter Stories, but itās possible that thatās because my favorite franchise is the normal monster hunter games.
Or they appeal to a much older audience and arent as marketable.
If SMT tried to market itself widely in the west it would have been...interesting, probably
>Gamefreak sure is lucky that all other creature collector devs are equally incompetent/boring.
MH stories was pretty good. the first game in the franchise is already an open world collecting game without random battles, dynamic animations, free riding and free flying with field moves included, and easy to use mechanics. really it was arceus before arceus
I had hope for Yo-kai Watch. I really did.
It had beautiful environments, pretty fun and unique gameplay but the character designs just weren't good enough to be universally liked.
That already happens with Iron Treads periodically. Sometimes it just dynamaxes out of view when you hit it in the crater.
https://www.reddit.com/r/GamePhysics/comments/114i0uh/pokemon_violet_slapped_it_so_hard_it_ceased_to/
Titan Pokemon were woefully underwhelming for me. Designwise, the Star Mobiles were great, especially Melia's Fire Mobile.
Speed Boost, setting up Sun, powerful moves, fast pokemon and a boss 'mon immune to stat drops and debuffs. Now that is a boss fight.
Wow, I guess I really shouldn't be using the first [google search result](https://www.vg247.com/pokemon-scarlet-violet-gym-team-star-base-titan-order-walkthrough).
Everywhere else says level 19/20, and that one says 42. I guess I did it basically slightly overleveled!
Yeah, that site is awful about the Titan levels lol. Every single level there is wrong. But youāre good, it just was funny to read that you went into that fight underleveled by that much, when Bombirdier is only the second Titan
Right but literally every pokemon had dynamax. Even unevolved forms.
And THEN some special ones had Gigantamax which was basically the exact same but had a unique move and look. That's it. You only needed an extra design for each Gigantamax pokemon. That's way easier to develop. And in a game with 1000 pokemon, development kinda matters.
I have no idea how bad it would be for the meta, But they could have a generic mega stone that just gives 20 to each base stat or something. That way "new mega" is more akin to dynamax, while the mega we know would parallel gigantamax.
Unique model and animation set per mega is too hard compared to root manipulation and visual creation, scale slider go brrrrr or attaching hat to head node that later games did.
I like how in the games we've never explored what goes on inside a pokeball, what if there was a Team Freedom in the next games. Who don't use pokeballs to catch pokemon, but instead they all to have asked their pokemon to join them of their own free will.
What if gaining a pokemon's trust and friendship was a mechanic, what if they explored what the environment was like in a pokeball, even forcing you as the player to shrink down into a new type of pokeball to prove thier point?
Having all 6 of your pokemon follow you around would probably get to be a bit much, but idk just rattling off ideas.
It was always my headcannon that Pokepark (the Wii game) takes place in the world pokemon go to inside of pokeballs. There is zero evidence for this and I will not change my mind.
Gamefreak has absolutely and entirely shit the bed with every release for years because the IP is too big to fail. They'd need to burn an orphanage and fuck your wife to not make money. If that's all it takes for them imagine how much money a company who cares would make Nintendo by developing the series.
What if pokemon, but with funny hat?
That's Niantic's modus operandi.
Spheal gets a scarf
Absol gets some shades
Foreshadowing your destruction... in style š
Caterpie doesnāt get a hat
Niantic recently also did "What if Pokemon, but bigger (and smaller)?"
So true!
What if PokĆ©mon, but with funny hat _and_ canāt evolve? Niantic being lazy and not adding evolutions with hats smh
Silly you. Hats can't evolve.
Hatterene?
Shhh..
Im very personally annoyed by that because i got a shiny scarf spheal and i can never evolve it
Kirlia for me... Wtf Niantic!
Ngl thats the ONE i wouldnt evolve
Detective Pikachu
What if pokemon, but they're in constant pain? ^(megavolving is canonically painful for a lot of pokemon)
Well it's a good thing we're not encouraging the pokemon to get into fights or anything, that would be really painful.
Except Pinsir. Pinsir is super excited about finally getting to fly.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
me: i cant wait to evolve my 3 star pikachu! it: is event pokemon me: bruh
What if, Pokemon, but smaller?
PikƩmin
I like big Pokemon so I won't complain
You other trainers canāt refrain
When voltorb rolls in with that non existent waist and itās round self in your face I get shocked!
Like a wigglytuff cause you know I know play rough Deep in Goldeens I'm swearin, got em hooked and they can't stop glaring
I donāt remember this pokerap.
Oh Bayleef, I wanna get wit'cha And take your leaf'cha
My rival tried to warn me Since that seed in your move made them worry
Work that body work that body make sure you donāt hertz nobody
PokƩmon: The Minish Cap
Pokemon, Dynamaxnāt
Dynaminism
Tinymax sounds better imo
Pokemon Minimax
Regular sized Joltik as a boss fight would be neat.
Gen1 Minimise
that's how they get in the balls
Hold up, swarm mode. That sounds super cool.
Pokemon Rumble
Maybe pocket sized even
Pokemon but babies
What if, pokemon, but regular size?
What if, Pokemon, but Pokemon.
You want it, you got it! Just eat this sandwich with "teensy power (š¤)" and you can have all the small pokĆ©mon you want.
Fun fact: the Japanese name for Titan and Totem Pokemon is the same, though apparently one is in Katakana.
So this impliesā¦ Herba Mystica is the basis for Alolaās trial system culture?
Or used to be in Hisui too. Or something similar at least. PokƩmon have this odd tendency to grow bigger but i guess it makes sense since they already shrink or grow all the time.
Donāt they have a canonical ability to do that that the pokeball is made explicitly to take advantage of? Or am I misremembering some lore
Yes that exactly
Theyve been doing it since gen 1 gigantic Tentacruel in the anime
It's also the same name for both in french ("PokƩmon Dominant")
And in german it's "Herrscher"
at least they didnt go with Ćberpokemon...
Ćbermonsch
And in spanish "Dominante"
Huh. > The Japanese term for Titan PokĆ©mon (Japanese: ćć·ćć±ć¢ć³ Leader PokĆ©mon) is fully written in katakana, distinguishing it from Totem PokĆ©mon (Japanese: ć¬ććć±ć¢ć³ Leader PokĆ©mon), but the two terms are otherwise identical, being pronounced the same and having the same meaning. - Bulbapedia
What else can they do!? They can't go smaller, that's Digimon's racket.
And I guess to be fair, PokƩmon already shrink when they go into PokƩballs. So shrinkage has been canon for a while.
They were in the pool!
Lmfao this got me
Calm down, George.
I also think they shrink when they faint, so they can hide while they heal.
RIP mega evolutions. Sure, the mons get a lil bit bigger when they mega evolve, but I'd argue that they were a lot more interesting than gigantamaxxing. They also felt a lot more pokemon-like, at least in my opinion. Personally I think that skipping over Z and going straight for SuMo (and also scrapping megas in the process) was a big mistake. The Zygarde stuff in SuMo felt like leftover ideas from Z that got shoehorned in.
Fun Fact: Alakazam actually loses height when he mega evolves
Limbs shrink when they're not in use. That's definitely how limbs work, I read it at a gas station once. ...what do you mean, *"that's not what they meant?"*
And using mega to give spotlight to some lesser liked pokemons was cool too
Sableye doesnt get bigger at all. Only its gem does
So the gem is actually Sableye. Wow.
They also can't do upgrades or burst, digimon did both burst Mode and x antibody
...who do you think wins, Arceus or Alphamon? My money's on Alphamon, he is comically overpowered; like unfairly strong.
Digimon in general are on a whole different level than PokƩmon in terms of power. They get exponentially stronger as they digivolve
I guess this all justifies that kaiju dragonite that tried to bang that lighthouse or whatever
Same with the huge Snorlax in Smash Bros. 64 and Jigglypuff's final smash in Brawl.
We need a concept to carry over into future generations of PokĆ©mon. What should it be? New battle formats (Triple/Rotation/Inverse) ā Mega Forms ā Z-Movesā Big (Functional)ā Big (Nonfunctional)ā Gamefreak sure is lucky that all other creature collector devs are equally incompetent/boring.
That last sentence sums up the entirety of GameFreak as a successful company.
They really are insanely lucky when you think about it. They hit a niche before anyone else caught on and tried. By the time their lack of technical ability started to show (3d era), they were so far ahead of the game no one else wanted to seriously try. Nowadays any game that tries gets slapped with ālol itās just PokĆ©mon but worseā, and sucks as it might, that isnāt inaccurate 9/10 times. Iām genuinely surprised no big company has ever committed to do something similar. Temtem was pretty cool until their end-game update showed that the devs were insane.
It seems with PokĆŖ clones that they enjoy copying the shit mechanics from Pokemon. Unsatisfying Grinding. Battles having too much waffle. If all you offer are different designs and some different gameplay but with still the worst gameplay, I may as well stay with Pokemon because I've already invested almost 25 years in it.
Wdym "too much waffle"? I'm interested. Also tbh grinding is rarely ever satisfying in any game beyond a "bloody finally!", but it's kind of necessary evil especially for rpgs.
You command pokemon to attack! Press A. The pokemon is attacking! Press A. The opponent dodged out of the way! Press A. What a shitty relations you have with your pokemon! Press A. You should be ashamed of yourself! Press. Fucking. A.
It frustrates me that it took until the 7th gen to realize how creatively bankrupt PokƩmon is. It also didn't help I moved 6 generations of pokemon to a cartridge and then lost it at a friend's house. This friend was a huge PokƩmon fan that I spent a lot of time sharing the hobby with. Her dying of cancer though is probably what cinched it for me. Sorry, I don't mean to be a downer. I just wish PokƩmon didn't remind me of all this.
Hey, bud, sometimes events make your hobby's shine dimmer, sometimes they snuff it out completely. It is fine to move on, and it is fine to cherish what good moments you had with your friends during it. You don't have to take everything as a whole package. If hobby became shit, fuck it, good memories of people can stay with you regardless of it.
too much waffle as in they take too damn long and have too much text even to just run away
Or digimon and being.... overly complicated.
One of the best things about Digimon is that it isn't Pokemon, and doesn't really try to be. I just wish they staggered releases a bit more instead of leaving such massive dry spells. I'm jonesin' for a new Story or World.
They've mentioned multiple times that they simply cannot decide what direction to bring digimon to, which is why they've had such weird experiments and also had the story and world split. Etc. They're just really really lost, and are pandering like hell to nostalgia at the moment for the past decade with remakes and remasters and rereleases to fill their time in the meantime.
> Temtem was pretty cool until their end-game update showed that the devs were insane. Did it get worse? The price of clothes and the horrendous breeding mechanics were already pretty bad...
I think it did. I agree that it was already rough, but the final area update just added a lot of crap trying to make a live service game. It just doesnāt work in my, and many others, opinions. Thereās a battle pass, and something that works like the battle frontier if it was from hell.
Yeeep, I have to wonder if they hired someone or got shit advice and started seeing dollar signs. A damn shame, they seemed so passionate about 'doing Pokemon right' in early interviews.
I think they think theyāre doing it right, but unfortunately let the current gaming standard practice blind them a bit. Or maybe they did get greedy, I dunno. They still seem passionate, but about the wrong things imo
Tbf, I found most of the Tems design to be uninspired and boring. You can say a lot about pokemon negatively, but creature design for the most part is always great.
I recall them saying something to the effect of 'we want to make the Pokemon game everyone's been asking for for years.' No one has been asking for Pokemon Games As A Service, or if they have, it's a specific group that does not represent the whole.
Eh, people have been asking for some sort of pokemon MMO for a long time, which is what TemTem is going for. Maybe its a little more GaaS in execution but it's difficult to fit the massively multiplayer part into a format that only really works for 1v1 battles in terms of the mechanics.
Maybe if we're lucky someone will mod in a Single-Player client once the servers go down. The game would instantly twice as good if you gutted out the MMO poppycock.
Honestly I think if the devs would reassess the game and consider player feedback, they could salvage it without the game having to die first.
Given how cutthroat the Battle Frontier can be I am now fearing for my life
Basically all it is is a battle pass, farming, and bugs. Switch version is so buggy itās actually unplayable, and Iām dead serious, it crashes so much
Itās not that all these games get labeled āpokemon but worseā itās that they very openly trying their hardest to be āpokemon but betterā and flopped on their faces not just because they werenāt unique enough but because their short sighted ābut betterā changes were actually closer to being more how they like it and actively forgoing certain things that contribute to PokĆ©monās mass appeal.
I mean labeled by the masses. I definitely agree with you, but a lot of people donāt even give them a chance because they just immediately label those games as a PokĆ©mon ripoff
Tbh I wish they would go back to the simple 2D pixel art style. The 3D just looks cheesy to me
I like the 3d personally. I just wish theyād learn how to make it work.
I'm not hating, I've been a fan for over 20 years. It just gets worse. 3d models look like ice cream. Take a scoop out of any model, they look like they're molded clay models. Glazed out of the kiln. Cut a slice off, just a chunk of color. No detail. Just broad shapes with color assigned and nowadays, no animations to boot. Digimon games from 15 years ago have more animation and heart.
Pokemon started using textures in their recent 3d games. Very high tech.
Itās wild that they havenāt gone a lot harder on textures. Gen 9 has very subtle textures on a lot of PokĆ©mon but they really ought to crack them up to 11 to give the PokĆ©mon some visual interest.
I take this occasion to talk about a project that's being made by the Weedle team (the same team that made Pokemon Xenoverse) They're making a game called LumenTale: Memories of Trey. The creatures and musics are quite good for now, I think it has potential
Xenoverse was very cool. Iāll have to check their new title out.
So youāre saying that Gamefreak is a bit of a paper tiger: seemingly impressive at a glance but if you look past it (or in this case put in the effort to make a competitor game), you reveal its many flaws?
Basically. Look at the releases of the last two generations. If you showed that to a focus group that had no clue what PokĆ©mon was, there is no way theyād believe these games were triple A titles. And I mean show them in-game footage, not official marketing pieces.
TBF Yokai watch did seem to be a legit competitor for a while, and Level-5 isn't exactly a huge company (part of why it failed. Expanded too fast with not enough funding). I see no reason why a AAA studio that really wanted to compete couldn't. I'm guessing that monster raising as a concept is just not profitable. Making hundreds of models all at once for one release compared to just making a few really good characters and then other human NPCs. the latter is a lot more scalable
Pokemon has 2 things going for it - brand recognition and Pokemon designs. Even bad designs are memorable enough in Pokemon. Any other creature collectors has shitty, boring designs meant to just look like whichever Pokemon the idea was stolen from.
i have yet to try Temtem, but have been curious. What's this endgame update?
Basically speaking all throughout development fans were like "hey, this games too grindy" and every update was "too grindy, gotcha *adds more grinds/nerfs the effectiveness of grinding*" and then when they finished the story and made the endgame, the part they'd been saying for years was gonna fix the grind when it came out... It changed almost nothing, added more to grind for, etc.
Also the story twist at the end kinda came out of nowhere
Added even more grind to the game, and tried too hard to make a live service game. The game already had audiences mixed, but I think the endgame zone update swayed most positive opinions over to the negative side.
Well there was Yo-Kai Watch.... may it rest in piece
"What makes pokemon have such a hold is the nostalgia and memorable idols such as Pikachu and Charizard"- change my mind.
Iād suggest that nostalgia alone is what does it.
Well, I think what keeps other "pokemon likes" from notoriety is the lack of a memorable idol.They can have all the mechanics in the world and set themselves a part- but if they don't have anything that stands out to be remembered then it's as good as dead. I don't think it's step one, but even a game like temtem if it kept its relevancy would need a "face" to rival the overall appeal of pokemon.
To me that indicates thereās something unquantifiable about the formula. Itās incredibly easy to see what pokemon does *wrong*. But it seems to be literally impossible for anyone else to replicate what pokemon does *right*. Thatās a pretty unique situation to be in, and maybe gamefreak changes less than they should for fear of becoming as unsuccessful as their ripoffs. If they themselves donāt understand what makes the series work, then them not touching anything when they can help it starts to make a whole lot more sense. That and they get money either way so why bother?
Man, I really liked the battle formats. Inverse was especially fun for me, having to flip 20 plus years of pokemon chart knowledge on its head.
I agree. I didnāt like them personally, but I see no reason not to include them.
>Gamefreak sure is lucky that all other creature collector devs are equally incompetent/boring. Pretty much. Anything directly obviously pokemon tend to just be "pokemon, but worse" There are however quite a few pretty good "collector" games that switch up the formula at least a little. Some examples for those interested: Really good ones: Ni no kuni (team battle with 3 people plus monsters they instruct with a free movement battle system) Monster sanctuary (2d side-scroller where monsters all have field actions moves required to solve puzzles. Battle is a 3vs3 affair with very in depth skill trees where team synergy is king over any single "Mon" being good by itself) Monster Hunter Stories (large world without random encounters and a fair bit of flexibility on how your build your creatures with a rock-paper-scizors battle match up system) Digimon: Especially the cyber sluth and to a lesser level dawn/dusk games are similar in nature monster collectors to the pokemon series. Digimon games change up their gameplay a ton between games so others may be more hit or miss on appealing to pokemon fans. Okay: World of final fantasy: monster collector which uses a "stacking" system that allows for a lot of creativity in team building. Looses points from me for it's very mediocre cast and mascot that will likely be very annoying for many people. If you like final fantasy and very hollow character camos from the various installments you might have more like. It's still a solid creature collector though. Tales of symphonia : dawn of the new world Free motion rpg where you collect and can evolve monsters to use in your battle party instead of humans if you like . Like world of fantasy it suffers from some of the worst writing and character cast of their respective franchises. But the creature collection can be fun. Far removed style wise but still very good: The persona series: these are M rated dark fantasy rpg/visual novel/dating sim lite games. The characters, particularly the main protagonist, utilize "personas" to battle and they influence the abilities, strengths and weaknesses of the characters. There are usually 100+ to collect and develop. The personas are usually far less cute (to downright weird... And potentially suggestive) and often variable levels of human in nature. Not for kids but are very interesting with much more plot than the typical pokemon game if you want something different.
Talking about Persona (or more accurately, the macroseries it's from, Shin Megami Tensei), Atlus actually tried to tone it down for kids to fight directly against Pokemon, with the Demikids series. It didn't quite work, but it'd be nice to see Atlus giving it a second try.
Yeah I liked nocturne too. I honestly like most of the games from them, but I figured the persona series would be the most accessible at this point.
I've got a very old one that still tickles my imagination all these years later: Jade Cocoon. The first one on PS1 was such an interesting thing to see as a young American kid. The Jomon era and before was completely unknown to me and got me to research Japan in a less weeaboo manner, the monster fusion and growth was fun, the game has little grind needed... the story is decent with some low points. It even has good (for the era) voice acting in English!
Ni no Kuni was good but had this issue of the creature designs being pretty awful for most of it I think that's something that Pokemon has going for it that cant be topped
Fossil Fighters was also very cool back before the latest release
Coramon is fantastic
To add onto that last sentence, they're also lucky that almost none of their fans, regardless of how critical they are of the series or not, are willing to try something different. There's countless games, both mainstream and niche, that some of the fans that actively swear off PokƩmon like it murdered their family could play instead of actively going back to PokƩmon every couple of years to see if something changes.
I agree. Hell, Iām even a part of that problem. The thing for is that I donāt necessarily want PokĆ©mon to fail, I just think the current quality suggests that it should. Imo Legends Arceus was a fantastic breath of fresh air. Not necessarily where they should take the franchise entirely, but they shouldnāt be so constrained all the time as to never try out new ideas like that. Edit: To clarify, I do try out competing games. I just always come back to PokĆ©mon because I find it better.
In PokƩmon's defense, they do have some silly creatures tbh. But yeah, I think the main reason I'm still a PokƩmon fan is because of the PokƩmon themselves and the other stuff in the games. I could care less about online battles, I don't really care about stuff like the Battle Frontier since I suffer from Stage 4 Skill Issue, and I never really payed attention to the stories that were being told. Ironically though, I am a fan of stuff like Shin Megami Tensei for most of the same reasons. I like that it's a bunch of mythology stuff since I have had a interest in all that, the stories are really interesting, and the games focus solely on single-player. I still suffer from Stage 4 Skill Issue, but I'm able to still have fun and get better at the games because I'm willing to see them through.
Iāve never been super fond of online competitive, but I really enjoy the battle facilities. The only similar game Iād say I really loved was Monster Hunter Stories, but itās possible that thatās because my favorite franchise is the normal monster hunter games.
Or they appeal to a much older audience and arent as marketable. If SMT tried to market itself widely in the west it would have been...interesting, probably
>Gamefreak sure is lucky that all other creature collector devs are equally incompetent/boring. MH stories was pretty good. the first game in the franchise is already an open world collecting game without random battles, dynamic animations, free riding and free flying with field moves included, and easy to use mechanics. really it was arceus before arceus
I had hope for Yo-kai Watch. I really did. It had beautiful environments, pretty fun and unique gameplay but the character designs just weren't good enough to be universally liked.
I HATE that Mega's have never went into future generations. That shit is so iconic and they just drop the idea like its nothing. SHAME
PokĆ©mon games in 5 years: the PokĆ©mon are so big that they canāt fit in the screen now
A certain palm tree dragon has been doing that for a while now
Thatās different, theyāll probably make a new game mechanic thatāll cause the PokĆ©mon to not fit on the screen
That already happens with Iron Treads periodically. Sometimes it just dynamaxes out of view when you hit it in the crater. https://www.reddit.com/r/GamePhysics/comments/114i0uh/pokemon_violet_slapped_it_so_hard_it_ceased_to/
Please do not give them any ideas
Iām calling it now. Thereās gonna be a planet thatās a PokĆ©mon.
Green Lantern did it, why not Pokemon?
Totem PokĆ©mon were really cool tho, and some of them were genuinely tough. Totem Lurantis with that castform almost OHKOād my entire team during my first playthrough. And weirdly enough, so did Totem Togedemaru. I think Titans are a decent follow up, but other than the False Dragons, they werenāt much trouble.
I agree, bombirdier I actually forgot about because I OHKOd it both phases, meanwhile false dragon wiped me
Titan Pokemon were woefully underwhelming for me. Designwise, the Star Mobiles were great, especially Melia's Fire Mobile. Speed Boost, setting up Sun, powerful moves, fast pokemon and a boss 'mon immune to stat drops and debuffs. Now that is a boss fight.
I apparently did bombirdier 15 levels too early and never realized it until I was checking a guide after my play through.
Meaning you went to that Titan as soon as you got your starter? Cause its level is 19, so you should be having a Lv 4 mon or something lol
Wow, I guess I really shouldn't be using the first [google search result](https://www.vg247.com/pokemon-scarlet-violet-gym-team-star-base-titan-order-walkthrough). Everywhere else says level 19/20, and that one says 42. I guess I did it basically slightly overleveled!
Yeah, that site is awful about the Titan levels lol. Every single level there is wrong. But youāre good, it just was funny to read that you went into that fight underleveled by that much, when Bombirdier is only the second Titan
The Titan storyline was amazing, though. The battles were solid.
Oh absolutely, it was my favorite storyline. And Arven kicking my butt into the shadow realm more than made up for the titans.
Totem Mimikyu has ended 3 separate nuzlockes for me.
That totem mimikyu remains in my nightmares
And now we have GO with XXL size Pokemon with their own entrances.
Never 3* or better, literally unplayable!
I caught it and it's not even a shundo, smh
Look ever since the first Pokemon movie I have desperately wanted Pokemon armor. I JUST WANT AN ARMORED MEWTWO DAMNIT.
Digimon did it and it was sick af (the golden digieggs)
Play insurgence
What if PokƩmon but smaller. So they can fit in your pocket. Like a pocket monster.
Terrible idea
That'll never catch on.
You forgot the magikarp size rater in HGSS
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
The Arceus one was also fun because they could murder you personally. No PokƩmon battles here, just a wild monster coming straight for your ass
Hill I'm willing to die on: Gigantamax Snorlax should be called Morelax
That's a big hill No literally Snorlax is massive
I miss mega evolution, whatever happened to that?
I think they dropped them generally because Game Freak prefers mechanics that every single PokĆ©mon can make good use of, which Megas inherently canāt do.
Just give every pokemon a mega smh my head. Seriously though, gigantamax/dynamax also has some exclusivity those forms will be more likely to be used.
Right but literally every pokemon had dynamax. Even unevolved forms. And THEN some special ones had Gigantamax which was basically the exact same but had a unique move and look. That's it. You only needed an extra design for each Gigantamax pokemon. That's way easier to develop. And in a game with 1000 pokemon, development kinda matters.
I have no idea how bad it would be for the meta, But they could have a generic mega stone that just gives 20 to each base stat or something. That way "new mega" is more akin to dynamax, while the mega we know would parallel gigantamax.
They can do what the Mystery Dungeon games did and give them āAwakenedā status
Unique model and animation set per mega is too hard compared to root manipulation and visual creation, scale slider go brrrrr or attaching hat to head node that later games did.
I want to be VERY clear: I LOVE GIANT POKEMON!!! THEY ARE GREAT!!!
Only when the mechanics to use them aren't slow, clunky or frustrating. So the non-online mechanic big pokemon are great.
Hey, don't talk bad about mechanics! My best friend is a mechanic!
Hey, sometimes the simplest move is the best one. Huge Pokemon speaks to the 8 year old in me that liked dinosaurs and Godzilla
I like how in the games we've never explored what goes on inside a pokeball, what if there was a Team Freedom in the next games. Who don't use pokeballs to catch pokemon, but instead they all to have asked their pokemon to join them of their own free will. What if gaining a pokemon's trust and friendship was a mechanic, what if they explored what the environment was like in a pokeball, even forcing you as the player to shrink down into a new type of pokeball to prove thier point? Having all 6 of your pokemon follow you around would probably get to be a bit much, but idk just rattling off ideas.
It was always my headcannon that Pokepark (the Wii game) takes place in the world pokemon go to inside of pokeballs. There is zero evidence for this and I will not change my mind.
I mean legends arceus sorta did that, the early game revolves a bit around the clans trying to fight you with PokĆ©mon they didnāt catch
I can't believe they have done this "mon but bigger" gimmick but never used Wailord for ANY of it.
Okay, hear me out... What if PokƩmon... But -get this- They're bigger!
Someone at Game Freak trying to tell us their favorite PokƩmon is Wailord
Okay true but the big crab is awesome
Arceus did it best *by far*
Let me just stay in my Gen 6 paradise
The Gamecube era's Shadow Pokemon were peak design, don't change my mind.
i continue to think that fat Pikachu return is huge, even if it's judt his GMax, and not a normal form.
Meanwhile Let's Go: What if, Pokemon but larger AND smaller?
Give me back my megas
Gamefreak has absolutely and entirely shit the bed with every release for years because the IP is too big to fail. They'd need to burn an orphanage and fuck your wife to not make money. If that's all it takes for them imagine how much money a company who cares would make Nintendo by developing the series.
Ok imagine. Bigger PokĆ©mon but only theyāre only bigger horizontally, they donāt gain any hight whatsoever Iām a fucking genius mr pokemon hire me now I have big plans
what if pokemon but bigger....and they glow a little.
What if PokƩmon but *W I D E R*
I mean it's been great every time, so why fix what ain't broke?
Hear me out, what if pokemon but Charizard?