Like, the series isn’t famous for its writing, but I absolutely loved the last part of Arceus. The Volo fight hit me out of nowhere, and the fact the fight itself was actually challenging was a very pleasant surprise. I wish we got a little bit more of an explanation for potato mochi guy, but the game has just the right balance of mystery and allusion to D/P to make you think. The isekai elements also reminded me of the first Mystery Dungeon games in a really good way.
I really liked most of Black/White, but I think it got a little weaker at the end. Exploring the idea that maybe this isn’t really different from cockfighting, that maybe it’s wrong to capture Pokémon and perhaps force them to fight was an interesting idea even if the game pumped the breaks on exploring it with “nah Ghetsis is just evil lol” at the end. (I never played BW2, so not sure if it’s any better there.)
On the opposite end of things, Sw/Sh are just absolute fucking slop. I played them stoned as shit, which usually makes me very easy to impress, but no. Chairman Rose is stupid and I don’t even remember why I fought him. Team Yell might as well as come from an episode of Johnny Test. I already came in pissed about Dexit, and nothing about those games seemed to go beyond the tier of entertainment and challenge that I’d expect from an iPad game for a toddler.
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Temtem. Like I’m not trying to be a troll, but Tem has so much more going on in its world.
the lack of endgame content has been a problem for a while for pokemon game, it was only the battle tower at the end in most games. i did like the ultra moon of the various legendaries which can ben shiny you cant get easily in previous consoles.
Probably the mystery dungeon games
People play pokemon for the story? Is this like someone that reads Playboy for the articles?
Not always for the overarching main plot, but a lot of the games have decently written characters. The main story of Ruby/Sapphire is pretty dumb (let’s flood the entire world!/let’s get rid of all of the ocean!) but Wally is a pretty fun character to watch grow.
It’s kinda the beauty of the franchise. There’s a lot for everyone. I mostly play because I’m a completionist who wants to complete the Dex, some people want to shiny hunt their favorites, some people want to get into competitive (and even then there’s tiers/which gens you play, which are all vastly different strategically), and sometimes it’s just to see all of the different character designs.
Reading Playboy for the articles was 100% legit btw. They published stories by Arthur C Clarke, Kurt Vonnegut, Ray Bradbury…
I think most would consider PMD Explorers of Sky to have the the best story overall.
For mainline, Platinum is the way to go. Team galactic has a strong presence and compelling motivation, beyond: we want money/power. I love how you can physically see the evidence of their evil effecting the world - in a couple instances. I also like it’s balancing: it will pressure you without being to much of a grind(big improvement over Diamond/Pearl); and it doesn’t really hold your hand at all, once you reach Eterna City.
Lot’s of interesting side areas as well, and I like the lore surrounding the god pokemon.
Take my opinion with a grain of salt, for the most part, I’ve mostly enjoyed games released in the third generation and didn’t touch anything past the seventh. The increasing amount of handholding turned me off and degrading mega evolutions from the once advertised evolution of the gameplay formular to a mere gimmick broke the last straw.
That being said: The Gamecube games hands down. The intro cutscene to Colosseum has more story than some generations did in their entirety and instead of you just stumbling into the plot you are actually an integral part of it. As an added bonus, both games feature final bosses that actually fight back. I think Colosseum is the only Pokemon game I ever struggled in.
Of course, taking everything Pokemon into account, Mystery Dungeon is the only true answer, but I wanted to go with an traditional RPG first.
If you insist on mainline games, you’re probably right about the fifth generation. These games have everything you would need, but the execution itself is fumbled - and it has to be, since they questioned their own franchise at its core. Logically speaking, N is right and everyone else is wrong.
There are some interesting things in other generations, but it usually feels tacked on and isn’t actually relevant for 95% of the game. Like, the sixth generation had some nice ideas - but they are mostly implied or retold, without you having any urgency in the matter. Once again why I chose the GC games, two of the few games with you being part of the plot. In the early mainline games, you mostly happen to be there when story happens, in the later games, you sometimes only get told that story happens somewhere.
+1 for Colosseum.
Sw/Sh were a real low point. They boiled the story down to “Let the adults handle it” and left you just running between gyms the entire game.
It’s honestly been too long since I’ve played the older games to judge their writing… but I did play Scarlet recently, and have to give props to Arven’s storyline. It is a shame the game is at Resident Evil 6 levels of unfocused, and brain-dead levels of easy.
masuda is the reason behind this, he said he was tired of pokemon so hes going to make half-assed game going foward, that is the reason i never got a switch.
I set Scarlett to be in Chinese because I assumed the story would be as forgettable as Sw/Sh’s and I’d get some easy practice just mashing yes on dialogues, but lo and behold it looks like there’s actual choices and stuff? I’m surprised at a mainline Pokémon game actually needing you to be able to read, and I have no idea how to set the game back to English, so I haven’t played it much at all.
You cannot change a pokemon game’s language in the middle of a playthrough. You choose the language at the very beginning of the game. This is because a breeding pair of Pokemon with different language origins have a higher chance to breed with each other and produce eggs faster - I think the eggs may also have a higher chance to be shiny, but I’m less sure of that. Either way, it’s supposed to motivate you to trade online.
If you wanna change your language, you’re gonna have to wipe your save and start over.
I don’t recall any choices that mattered. They are all fake choices like “Do you want to be rivals: yes/no” and choosing no just repeats the question.
I only singled out Arven because his character started out kind of bratty and my opinion of him flipped completely by the end of the game.
It’s the classroom quizzes I can’t do. My vocab does extend to “yes” and “no,” but the lessons are bit beyond my first grader knowledge of Chinese.
Is there any reward for the classroom stuff? I completely skipped it thinking it was all tutorial.
Probably a Mystery Dungeon game. I’d go with Gen 5, having not played it on ages, for a mainline game.
Scarlet/Violet was surprisingly decent, at least in the end-game.
Grain of salt, as i havent played the mystery dungeon games or Colosseum, but Platinum had a great amount of story, and a decent amount of post-game content that wasn’t just min-maxing to win.
Everything post-B2/W2 is just too hand-holdy to me.
Don’t knock the Ranger games either, they were fun adventures.
Guardian Signs and Shadows of Almia were fun! I wish the ranger games got more love
Ranger fans represent, i grew up on SoA and GS and will never stop being sad that we’ll never get another
X/Y. Fucking fight me.
Ah yes, the “it’s been 3000 years” guy, genuinely one of the series best moments.
What else was there? The villain? Whack. The champ? Whack. The prof? Whack. The 5 rivals? Whack. I don’t think 2 great scenes make a good story, no matter how elaborate the lore.
Thank you for your input, but I won’t leave my mountain to fight you on your hill.
Yeah, it’s silly because everyone knows it’s Black and White Because N Was Right
I was so disappointed with b/w.
The premise was really great. The “Pokemon is just dogfighting for kids” argument is a long-standing argument, and I was so stoked that they took it on.
And then they just bait-and-switched it to “The team doesn’t actually want to stop dogfighting, they just want to be the only ones with dogs to fight everyone else”. It was the laziest cop-out possible.
Killmonger syndrome. The “villain” has a point, but rather than engage with it, they’ve gotta bomb a school or something.
I recently caught Shaymin in Arceus and it made me uncomfortable. The quest is helping a woman find a Pokémon that helped her in the past, and then immediately after I threw poke balls at it. It escaped every time, so eventually I had to force it into a fight, beat it until it was too weak to escape me. I had just done a quest which acknowledged that some ‘mons don’t like fighting too…
This could have been a great “difficult choice” moment. But Pokemon games don’t do these. If you want to 100% the game, you gotta catch em all. I haven’t played Arceus, but I’m quite sure the game never acknowledges whether you caught the Shaymin or not. And with no stakes on the line, there is no “difficult choice” moment.
Would’ve been cooler if N didn’t use pokéballs. Just a minor flavor change.
