RE: Sugimori hints Gen 7 will be much more simple
Wait... "I have yet to play the games"... you mean you are discussing this and you haven't played the games? The thread's corner of shame is that way -> look for DNA, he's already there.
But no, there is no poll, just the fact that this site represents a demographic sample from all pokemon fans (you know, similar to the method used to make polls?) and how everyone's opinion was divided when megaevolutions were announced (me included), and now, you are the only one I hear advocating for its removal. I say that shows a shift of opinion. Extrapolating that trend lets me assume fans's opinions changed from love/hate to love/meh and a little hate.
Yes, I have yet to play the games but that only means I have no real experience, but my opinions are based on the stuff that I read from different sites and gamer's opinions, so there's no need to send me or anyone else to some corner of shame, when there's no shame at being cautious and read about something instead of just buying the game and end up finding it a waste of money.
The site may have many users but how many of them are into Pokémon videogames and how many of them express their opinion? Not only that, if this demographic sample only represents, for example, 1% of the entire fandom, then it's not useful and therefore your extrapolation is useless.
Lemme see, oh, here it is:
I forgot what you said earlier about the 4 years thing. My bad.
Megaevos don't make up as regular evolutions, many people got confused by that.
This gen didn't have evolutions of older pokemon. This gen had megaevolutions. That's casuality, not causality, those facts are not (directly) related.
That's the thing, to us they are not actual evolutions but it seems that GF thinks they are and that's why there are no (true and permanent) evolutions to older Pokémon nor more Pokémon unrelated to previous ones.
First, new evolutions are new pokemon, so the new pokemon would not be just 70 or so. I think you meant new lines, in that case.
When I mean variety, I mean difference, not quantity. Completing old evolution lines instead of adding new pokemon could potentially make every pokemon part of a 3-stage line, or half 3-stage and half 2-stage, where would the variety be there? It's okay for some pokemon to be standalone, some to evolve once and some to evolve twice, some megaevolve, etc... GF's challenge (not an easy one) is making every one of those different pokemon capable of holding their own and being strong in some situations. When a fistful of pokemon is strong in every situation, you get the current metagame and smogon's tiers, and that's bad, as far as the franchise's intent is concerned.
Thanks for clearing that out about difference.
While understanding what you say, I'm not sure if I agree with you, namely that every Pokémon has to hold their own...isn't the "purpose" of Pokémon to battle strong and weak Pokémon "according" to the Dragon Elder in Blackthorn? I think that the games as they stand are made with weak and strong Pokémon but, if they were made with that variety, then it would be better if it were like you said: each one holding their own.
I was alluding at the urbanistic value of the cities, more than the gaming cliche; as you said, there are only so many different habitable environments, though there is no need to feature them all in any game.
All those towns are generic because their whole schtick was "we live on an island", "we are a BIG city", "we live atop trees, crazy, huh?", "we are a small town" and so on. Those cities could only be defined by that, instead of having their own particular story, reflected on their layout , their architecture, those are generic cities.
Look at this:
That's a master plan for the city of paris made by one of the greatest m********* in the history of architecture, Le Corbusier. He wanted to demolish a big part of the city (one of the oldest, more organic parts of the city) and build that. Is it interesting, urbanistically speaking? or does it seem like something out of "1984"? That's a regular pokemon town.
Now, they are geting better at it:
You have nacrene city, which is comprised of old train depots repurposed to be homes; nacrene is organic, has a history, a novel and plausible concept.
You have also nimbasa city, which only purpose is to entertain; that's a lot more to it than "grassy area town with fun facilities".
There's ecruteak, with its distinctly japanese architecture and history.
Driftveil's urban growth from a port/industrial city to a tourism hotspot and the place of the PWT.
Lacunosa, showing its customs not only in its people, but also in its layout.
Urbanistically, santalune city feels like a real town, I was dumbfounded after seeing it for the first time.
Or camphrier town, acting as the small settlement outside of the former castle of the king of kalos, it tells much.
You can read kalos's history in lumiose, too, despite being all modern buildings and narrow alleys, that perimetral wall doesn't lie. some shit went down there. That, and the sheer scale of the city.
Or cyllage city, with its twisting roads and the bike path surrounding it, there's more there than "coast city".
Or coumarine city, a two-part commercial harbor and city in a cliff, though I'll never understand why the city is not in the cliff facing the ocean, instead of facing inner kalos.
Laverre city seems very interesting too, though a little overboard withe the fairytale town thing.
Of course, GF still has a lot to improve, shalour city is a shame, and vaniville town is still two god damn houses... they got it right with aspertia... see what I mean about them experimenting and throwing away the good stuff with the bad?
Your examples are solid but the things that you saw in those, I also see them in Hoenn (and I already gave an example that may be a reason for them being there: Australia's diversity): Rustboro was a city whose main employer was Devon Corporation and the city reflected that with the employees buildings; Dewford was indeed just an island in the ocean but that was the purpose, I think that the town's sign even mentioned it; Slateport was a busy city with a deep connection to the sea, explained by an old woman near the shipyard, and that open aired market was just awesome; Mauville was the typical Celadon and Goldenrod, no point in hiding it and New Mauville was just Kanto's Power Pant all over; but then we had three location whose "history" was connected to Mt. Chimney - Verdanturff was a quiet place where the volcano's ashes didn't get there, Lavaridge was the hot baths location and Fallarbor was a comunity of farmers that tried to live on that weird soil; Fortree was a city build on trees that, despite (I guess) not being explained why, it may had something to do with the heavy rain on routes 119 and 120 and so it made sense to build a city on trees, but like some residents said, there were problems with Bug-type Pokémon entering their homes and that way of living made them have a deeper relation with Pokémon.
In Sinnoh, very few of these connections were explained: only Roark's city, Sunnyshore, Snowpoint, Eterna.
Veilstone is a commercial sea gate and yet it has no harbour; Floaroma, or whatever it name is, is just a town full of flowers with no apparent connection to the Valley Windworks nor the Fuego Ironworks (which, by the way is some well hidden factory...); the city where Contests are held has some kind of religious building without an actual explanation (I guess it has something to do with Arceus but who knows?).
All that is true, and it happened already, it was called FRLG, but it happened back in the third generation.
The thing is, if you do remakes, as they did, you are bound by the existing story (even if you improve it a little as in HGSS, it's not enough), which was bad; if you do a new game in old regions (or sequels), as leaf ranger was suggesting (ex: BW2), you are bound by the same old pokemon, since you can't add brand new pokemon to an old region, even with a new story. Adding an old region GS style seems to be a solution, but GF proved that they can't justify it through an interesting story.
If a new game's (new game=new gen) plot took you back to kanto/hoenn/sinnoh/etc, I would love it, and it would be long and probably interesting, but the regions having the potential to improve over time is not a compelling enough motive to use them again.
Yes you can. If you add new types to older Pokémon because of new discoverires then you can add new Pokémon to older regions with the explanation of undiscovered, just like in real life there are new species being found, just not in large numbers like the ones needed in my sugestion and that's one of the main reasons why I like to see the regions' connection to one another explained - to allow for future possibilities like mass outbreaks or migration, it's not an entirely reasonable explanation but it might be one that's better accepted.
If i'm derailing the thread, I apologize, I'll excuse myself now.
I don't think that we are derailing the thread since we're still considering Masuda's words but, if this discussion mainly based on previous generations has upset someone then I too apologize.
Wait... "I have yet to play the games"... you mean you are discussing this and you haven't played the games? The thread's corner of shame is that way -> look for DNA, he's already there.
But no, there is no poll, just the fact that this site represents a demographic sample from all pokemon fans (you know, similar to the method used to make polls?) and how everyone's opinion was divided when megaevolutions were announced (me included), and now, you are the only one I hear advocating for its removal. I say that shows a shift of opinion. Extrapolating that trend lets me assume fans's opinions changed from love/hate to love/meh and a little hate.
Yes, I have yet to play the games but that only means I have no real experience, but my opinions are based on the stuff that I read from different sites and gamer's opinions, so there's no need to send me or anyone else to some corner of shame, when there's no shame at being cautious and read about something instead of just buying the game and end up finding it a waste of money.
The site may have many users but how many of them are into Pokémon videogames and how many of them express their opinion? Not only that, if this demographic sample only represents, for example, 1% of the entire fandom, then it's not useful and therefore your extrapolation is useless.
Lemme see, oh, here it is:
But yes, difficulty selection from the begining of the game is a must; I don't know what they were thinking in BW2.professorlight said:It could be that GF is really changing the timetable, releasing 80 pokemon gens every two years, to keep it fresh, instead of bombarding us with 150 and then wait 4 years, filling us with useless spinoffs, remakes and third versions that are basically the same damn game with some bells and whistles.
I forgot what you said earlier about the 4 years thing. My bad.
Megaevos don't make up as regular evolutions, many people got confused by that.
This gen didn't have evolutions of older pokemon. This gen had megaevolutions. That's casuality, not causality, those facts are not (directly) related.
That's the thing, to us they are not actual evolutions but it seems that GF thinks they are and that's why there are no (true and permanent) evolutions to older Pokémon nor more Pokémon unrelated to previous ones.
First, new evolutions are new pokemon, so the new pokemon would not be just 70 or so. I think you meant new lines, in that case.
When I mean variety, I mean difference, not quantity. Completing old evolution lines instead of adding new pokemon could potentially make every pokemon part of a 3-stage line, or half 3-stage and half 2-stage, where would the variety be there? It's okay for some pokemon to be standalone, some to evolve once and some to evolve twice, some megaevolve, etc... GF's challenge (not an easy one) is making every one of those different pokemon capable of holding their own and being strong in some situations. When a fistful of pokemon is strong in every situation, you get the current metagame and smogon's tiers, and that's bad, as far as the franchise's intent is concerned.
Thanks for clearing that out about difference.
While understanding what you say, I'm not sure if I agree with you, namely that every Pokémon has to hold their own...isn't the "purpose" of Pokémon to battle strong and weak Pokémon "according" to the Dragon Elder in Blackthorn? I think that the games as they stand are made with weak and strong Pokémon but, if they were made with that variety, then it would be better if it were like you said: each one holding their own.
I was alluding at the urbanistic value of the cities, more than the gaming cliche; as you said, there are only so many different habitable environments, though there is no need to feature them all in any game.
All those towns are generic because their whole schtick was "we live on an island", "we are a BIG city", "we live atop trees, crazy, huh?", "we are a small town" and so on. Those cities could only be defined by that, instead of having their own particular story, reflected on their layout , their architecture, those are generic cities.
Look at this:
Now, they are geting better at it:
You have nacrene city, which is comprised of old train depots repurposed to be homes; nacrene is organic, has a history, a novel and plausible concept.
You have also nimbasa city, which only purpose is to entertain; that's a lot more to it than "grassy area town with fun facilities".
There's ecruteak, with its distinctly japanese architecture and history.
Driftveil's urban growth from a port/industrial city to a tourism hotspot and the place of the PWT.
Lacunosa, showing its customs not only in its people, but also in its layout.
Urbanistically, santalune city feels like a real town, I was dumbfounded after seeing it for the first time.
Or camphrier town, acting as the small settlement outside of the former castle of the king of kalos, it tells much.
You can read kalos's history in lumiose, too, despite being all modern buildings and narrow alleys, that perimetral wall doesn't lie. some shit went down there. That, and the sheer scale of the city.
Or cyllage city, with its twisting roads and the bike path surrounding it, there's more there than "coast city".
Or coumarine city, a two-part commercial harbor and city in a cliff, though I'll never understand why the city is not in the cliff facing the ocean, instead of facing inner kalos.
Laverre city seems very interesting too, though a little overboard withe the fairytale town thing.
Of course, GF still has a lot to improve, shalour city is a shame, and vaniville town is still two god damn houses... they got it right with aspertia... see what I mean about them experimenting and throwing away the good stuff with the bad?
Your examples are solid but the things that you saw in those, I also see them in Hoenn (and I already gave an example that may be a reason for them being there: Australia's diversity): Rustboro was a city whose main employer was Devon Corporation and the city reflected that with the employees buildings; Dewford was indeed just an island in the ocean but that was the purpose, I think that the town's sign even mentioned it; Slateport was a busy city with a deep connection to the sea, explained by an old woman near the shipyard, and that open aired market was just awesome; Mauville was the typical Celadon and Goldenrod, no point in hiding it and New Mauville was just Kanto's Power Pant all over; but then we had three location whose "history" was connected to Mt. Chimney - Verdanturff was a quiet place where the volcano's ashes didn't get there, Lavaridge was the hot baths location and Fallarbor was a comunity of farmers that tried to live on that weird soil; Fortree was a city build on trees that, despite (I guess) not being explained why, it may had something to do with the heavy rain on routes 119 and 120 and so it made sense to build a city on trees, but like some residents said, there were problems with Bug-type Pokémon entering their homes and that way of living made them have a deeper relation with Pokémon.
In Sinnoh, very few of these connections were explained: only Roark's city, Sunnyshore, Snowpoint, Eterna.
Veilstone is a commercial sea gate and yet it has no harbour; Floaroma, or whatever it name is, is just a town full of flowers with no apparent connection to the Valley Windworks nor the Fuego Ironworks (which, by the way is some well hidden factory...); the city where Contests are held has some kind of religious building without an actual explanation (I guess it has something to do with Arceus but who knows?).
All that is true, and it happened already, it was called FRLG, but it happened back in the third generation.
The thing is, if you do remakes, as they did, you are bound by the existing story (even if you improve it a little as in HGSS, it's not enough), which was bad; if you do a new game in old regions (or sequels), as leaf ranger was suggesting (ex: BW2), you are bound by the same old pokemon, since you can't add brand new pokemon to an old region, even with a new story. Adding an old region GS style seems to be a solution, but GF proved that they can't justify it through an interesting story.
If a new game's (new game=new gen) plot took you back to kanto/hoenn/sinnoh/etc, I would love it, and it would be long and probably interesting, but the regions having the potential to improve over time is not a compelling enough motive to use them again.
Yes you can. If you add new types to older Pokémon because of new discoverires then you can add new Pokémon to older regions with the explanation of undiscovered, just like in real life there are new species being found, just not in large numbers like the ones needed in my sugestion and that's one of the main reasons why I like to see the regions' connection to one another explained - to allow for future possibilities like mass outbreaks or migration, it's not an entirely reasonable explanation but it might be one that's better accepted.
If i'm derailing the thread, I apologize, I'll excuse myself now.
I don't think that we are derailing the thread since we're still considering Masuda's words but, if this discussion mainly based on previous generations has upset someone then I too apologize.
Bolt the Cat said:Leaf_Ranger said:Just look at Sinnoh, namely Canalave and Celestic: Canalave is nothing more than two streches of land connected by a bridge and in Celestic, if it weren't for those ruins and the shrine, there was nothing else that drawn attention.
You could say the same thing with a lot of areas in Hoenn. That's enough for them not to feel cliche.
In Celestic at least, I was hoping for more explanation, legends or stuff about the ruins and perhaps Mt. Coronet from its people.
Leaf_Ranger said:Oh, and don't forget the Battle Area, something that if I recall correctly it's not in Sinnoh but no one explains where exactly the f*ck are we, clap, clap, clap, great idea to just shoot some random area into the game to add a little mistery and sense of tropicality - aside from the different trees it was just a filler with something similar seen in Hoenn.
It's based on an island that's part of Russia, so I imagine it's either part of a separate region or associated with that region. It's just closer to Sinnoh, that's all.
Leaf_Ranger said:Also, don't forget Petalburg Woods. It may have just been a difference in name but at least it wasn't another bushy area called "forest".
Names do not keep an area from being cliche, it's just as generic as the rest of them.
When it comes to exploration and feel, yes, it's the same as Ilex and Viridian but at least, and that's what I meant, they did break the cliche of naming it a forest. I was thinking that that would be a small step towards more innovation (again, the jungle or deep swamp stuff) but they returned to the forest stuff in IV, V and VI.
Leaf_Ranger said:I wonder how long will it take for GF to come up with a jungle full of mazes or some big swamp maze.
I'm still waiting on that jungle area, we've never really seen one.
Leaf_Ranger said:We saw change in looks. Yes, it still was small (almost nothing) but that is also Kanto's own fault since it was originally too small, and so not much can be done when what's there is almost nothing. Imagine what would have been if they added more stuff, so there may be a point in revisiting older regions, if it's to improve.
The lack of plot did have a significant effect on its length and depth, though. Imagine if we went through Hoenn or Sinnoh that way, you could breeze right through them in no time.
Yes, you're right but I was thinking of revisiting older regions but with the plot and exploration of new ones, not just revisit something by adding it to another region that's new. In my original idea, it would be Hoenn, Sevii and Orange, but each one of them with full plot and exploration, not something that is shortening as you go along like what happened with Johto -» Kanto in HG/SS.
Leaf_Ranger said:Cohesion! If one doesn't have some sort of link then all it is doing is adding regions that stand like islands in an ocean that will become saturated.
"1-Howcome this species is also found in X region?
2-Oh, I don't know. I thought it was a good idea to just place it in this region that is billions of miles away from everything and having the same colours.
1-Great, then I'll be catching that other species.
2-Sorry, but you can't.
1-Why not?
2-It's not native, the climate is different and we're far far away from everything.
1- But then, why is the first species here aside from you wanting it to be here?
2-....Now then, move along, you have a journey ahead. Go on and don't think too much. This is a game after all."
I don't see how this is necessary whatsoever, it's not like they can just include every single Pokemon that fits a particular environment, that would make things too imbalanced and take all of the fun out of it. The idea behind regional dexes is to give you a sampling of Pokemon to play around with in the main game to keep you from getting overwhelmed. Of course some of your favorites aren't going to show up, but what fun would that be if they did?
Like I've said above in reply to professorlight, one of the main reasons is to make things easier to explain or accept when trying to justify revisiting an older region while including new Pokémon and evolutions to older Pokémon.
I'm not concerned with favourites, I do realise that some may appear and some may not but if there's some kind of plausible reason then it's easier to explain and accept it.
Leaf_Ranger said:That's the thing, how can I try new Pokémon when they are few of them? I'm not upset about movepools, but like I've said they aren't reason to train, for example, another Victrebel and so I'll go train another Poison Pokémon, no matter what movepool it has. What do I get? Only Dragalge (and Skrelp)! It's Honen all over again with Gulpin
He didn't say use new ones, he said use different ones. If you don't want to use Victreebel, use some other older Poison type you've never used before like Drapion or Crobat.
That's the thing again, after so many generations Ive tried and trained almost every Pokémon, like Crobat and Drapion. I've trained a Crobat in LG and a Drapion in HG, so going to Kalos and seeing those there might be dissapointing. Right now, I try to create stories and characters to justify training Pokémon that I dislike but even so it'll come to a point when there's nothing else to train. Except for third versions like Emerald and Platinum, my game time always exceeds 900 hours with only 200 being for the game's plot so you can imagine how many can be trained in 700 hours.