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.
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.