I was surprised with how little the Pokemon formula has changed over the past 20 years. Despite all the advances in graphics and such the core gameplay loop is still catch Pokemon and play rock paper scissors in a turn based battle system. Any new mechanics like mega evolutions seem to be just gimmicks that don't carry forward to the next gen.
To be fair, the rock/paper/scissors battle loop has 16 (17? Fairy type?) different types with many combinations to build a strategy on. This is why platforms like Pokémon Showdown exist, the "catch and train and breed and battle" loop is too tedious for my adult self.
I appreciate the battle system but the mainline games themselves were primarily designed for a younger audience.
What? You don't want to breed 100 pokemon in the same lineage to get one with the perfect (hidden) EV/IV stats, attitude, and moves? How lazy!!! At least do it for 8 pokemon so you have one good team!!!! Get off your ass mate. /s
Yeah I can't believe they thought this was a good idea lol. Glad they are making the system easier. But way too japanese games have grinding mechanics just for gear.
> I can't believe they thought this was a good idea
I don't think they originally intended to make players minmax entire teams, but to give an edge to those who spent some time training and breeding the right way.
Anyway, most people I've met who played at tournaments either admitted (privately) to using hacked Pokémon or denied it while blatantly using a full perfect IV team with some shiny. (I've think they're cracking down on hacked teams harder now, though.) So I think anyone still grinding for their dream team is actually doing it for fun.
Agreed, I feel like it's a hold over from when games were shorter and they had to add tedium to artificially lengthen the game, and since people were used to it they just never removed the tedium.
Minmaxing in almost any game is excruciatingly unfun though, it's not unique to Pokemon. I can't think of a faster way to kill the enjoyment of any game than to try to minmax.
Don't you just level up as high as possible in bioware or bethesda games? Not what I would consider "minmaxing". Skyrim is fun because I can get everything to 100 at whatever pace I choose but there is no "min" involved there for the most part. I haven't played one in a while but there really isn't an incentive to keep your level low in those games. There's only "maxing" with no "min".
Souls games have the community agreed level cap of ~125 for PvP matchmaking, so minmaxing makes sense here - but there barely ever any RNG involved in making a Dark Souls build and you just level up and beeline for the things you want while playing the game "normally" (beating levels and bosses, sunbro'ing to get additional XP along the way, etc..). That said, there's an argument to be made that when ignoring the multiplayer aspect that getting to level 300+ to beat NG+7 is way more fun than minmaxing a 125 build and trying to beat NG+7 that way (my preference, of course).
If there was additional RNG involved with weapon stats or anything like the EV/IV system in a souls game I would never play it, for sure. It's simplicity is what makes it amazing. It's why I hate the bloodgem and chalice dungeons in bloodborne, despite it otherwise being my favorite souls game.
RTS and Tower Defense games I'll give you, since the meta strategy is efficient resource management and maximizing damage to obliterate your opponents with as little resources used as quickly as possible.
What I just can’t understand is why pokemon go is not made into a full-blown game? Like, it literally could be the most popular game ever, if only they would take the logic out of one of the nintendo games, and implemented it for pokemon go. It is popular enough as is, but it would literally be a killer combo, and they already have all the logic/datatables/animations/license in place. It might hurt the sales of nintendo hardware, but you would target at least an order of magnitude more customers with it. Add some pay-to-win elements (e.g. full restore could also be bought with real money), but also make them drop, but rarely in the game and you will have insane profits.
But to just throw balls at pokemons, is just a disgrace to the very well made original games.
> Like, it literally could be the most popular game ever,
The most popular game ever for next 25 years? They have been making and remaking the same game(1996) ad infinitum for longer than Google(1998) existed. They are not going to need that kind of a quick exit path.
But it shouldn’t have to be an exit path. It could be a game+community in one go, that forever produces profit. Bit like wow and stuff like that, but much more popular.
One of the very few games in the past decade, which I can refer to as “actually got significantly held back by technical limitations of the host platform”. Same with Pokémon Scarlet/Violet and Shin Megami Tensei 5.
I am not picky in terms of graphical fidelity or anything like that, very happy to play older games, even those that don’t run that well. But I had to straight up step away from SMT5, despite how much i was excited for the game, because it felt like I was controlling a blob of pixels at under 30fps most of the time. While pokémon games i mentioned above had slightly more stable performance, Arceus was the most lifeless and depressing open world i’ve seen in a very long time.
Which is such a shame, because you could obviously see the devs tryng to evolve the pokémon formula in an exciting new direction, only for it all to be squandered and met with criticism due to not necessarily the fault of the devs, but the host platform. And that’s why I am upset about Switch being so weak. Would gladly play more games on it, but it is extremely unappealing when even a lot of the top tier AAA exclusives look awful (exceptions apply, e.g., zelda games), have lifeless worlds, and cannot even run at stable 30fps.
I am not asking for PS5 tier graphics or anything like that. I am even willing to grind my teeth and forego 60fps. But ffs make it at least a stable 30 and let the world of a game (Pokémon) that is supposed to be full of “wildlife” and nature not look like it was annihilated in a nuclear strike the day prior to the events of the game taking place.
At this point, i would only count first party mario-universe type of games to be not held back by anything (and maybe Zelda, but you can obviously see how the devs had to push it to the max of what’s even technically possible with it). And that’s pretty much how Switch ended up just as a “mario- and party- game machine” for me.
The most memorable Zelda games are 3D though. Ocarina of Time, Majoras Mask, Wind Waker, Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom, Twilight Princess etc…
I think if you asked most Zelda fans to list their top 5, you’d get a majority 3D representation
Why do you think that Zelda should have stayed 2D? Some Zelda games, such as OoT, Majora's Mask and BotW to name a few, are considered to be some of the very best games ever made.
To some extent it probably depends on where you started with the games. I was about 6 or 7 when the original The Legend of Zelda came out. I had well over a decade of playing Zelda games before OOT came out, I was in college at the time. If I had been a kid when OOT came out then that, or one of the other 3D games, might have been my favorite.
Besides the technical problems, I had a lot of fun with violet. I really like the game, which makes the missing polish even sadder. Though I haven't bought a new Nintendo game in years. I only buy used, because I don't want to directly support these development cycles.
I honestly enjoyed Pokemon Arceus. It has a 3D open world game and there is a fun mechanism of throwing the Pokeball. I think they found a great formula for future games. The graphics are somewhat disappointing at times, but it's so fun. Hopefully future versions of the Switch will be more powerful to play 3D open world games.