General Discussion

I really like most Pokemon games! I think a lot of people aren’t happy with where the series has gone, but I’ve learned to appreciate that I’m not the target audience anymore. A lot of children really love the new games and I’m happy that they’re enjoying something that brought me lots of joy :D

My least favorite game has to be Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon because they were so unnecessary :( It really felt like a cashgrab because the game didn’t differ much from Sun/Moon

What's with everybody upset at Let's Go? It's just gen1 remakes yet again, but I must admit I never played one of them before [emoji=banescale scared size=1] The art is cute, they actually let us have follow Pokemon(!) and while the capture system is different it's really not that bad on handheld mode. I liked it, especially the fact that I could just fill my boxes with the same Pokemon and have a small army lol Also it lets you RIDE a PERSIAN have you ever wanted to RIDE AROUND KANTO ON A GIANT CAT 10/10 game just for that, fulfills my Cat Riding Needs. ----- Worst: Gen8 with Sword/Shield. Expect an incoming essay, I really wanted to like these. Played them three times, just saw missed potential. I also recently replayed gen7 which was...why didn't people like that one at first!? Gen7 is the best modern Pokemon game imo. They didn't need to make the seperate Ultra games but LIGHT DRAGON who would say no to a light dragon come on. But when it comes to gen8 the differences between 7 and 8 were VERY clear and it shows all the stuff 8 just doesn't have. [b]Pokemon:[/b] We love the actual Pokemon, right? Pretty much all the generations got some good ones. Gen8 is no different. I like them, no complaints, the starters evolved well. Legendaries are the weird ones. They're a duo of legendaries, yeah, like all of the others. But instead of having different ones such as Giant Deer and Giant Bird it's just...wolf. Who doesn't love wolves? But since Sword Wolf is just so much cooler (and stronger) than Shield Wolf then that skews the playerbase towards one side. I got mine as a gift from people who don't play Pokemon and only picked which one looked cooler on the box. I didn't even know about the other changes until later on [emoji=banescale laughing size=1] [b]Gimmicks and stuff:[/b] heehoo pokemon be big boy This is...something. It's not bad. It makes your Pokemon bigger. The issue with it is A) it can't be used everywhere like gimmicks in previous games B) You always know when to use it: when the other person does. It got boring fast C) [i]The advertised changing forms are almost impossible to get in a normal playthrough.[/i] The AI is not helping me catch a G-max whatever. I'm not going to go crazy trying to catch one if I already have a nice normal form towards the end of the game. [i]Why in the world isn't the gimmick that if you level up a Pokemon with Dynamax candies all the way to full then they get that extra form?[/i] I didn't have Online and therefore no JUMBOPOKEYS for me. I don't remember how they did it in X and Y with megas but I feel like it was easier to ACTUALLY GET ONE. [b]Appearance:[/b] I'll make it quick. Wild area, dumpster fire that was made in a day. Animations? [emoji=glasses size=1] Can't find them. Follow Pokemon, which were in Let's Go? NOPE. They did it in the DLC but from what I saw of it they messed that up too. [b]Characters:[/b] uhhh yeah they're all wasted potential. all of them. Except the rivals, almost nothing happens with the majority of them, which is a shame. Most of the games don't do much with them, but at least in gen7 you get a feel for them as you go along. You can even find some of their houses! [size=1]Why can't I find Nessa's house and steal her stuff Pokemon I want to steal everything she owns[/size] If you don't read the league cards then you have no clue. The characters won't mention it. They're giving you cards that explain their personalities and who they are. As for rivals... the [i]hand holding[/i] from Hop is literally horrible please stop I do not like you. He wants to be a Pokemon Master but he's an Ash Ketchup with good connections. Even worse since he has the team but no clue how to use them at all- and he obviously knows what type advantage is since he comments on it EVERY SINGLE TIME. We are not friends. Stop trying to battle me and getting swept with my first Pokemon. Find a new career please. (The other rivals are good. I like them. They don't handhold you through everything and then are so bad at Pokemon.) [b]Champion:[/b] I've seen this man get swept with a Magikarp, a turtle, a team of level 20 Pokemon, a snom... he's just so built up to be a super powerful dude and then he's just average. This would be fine if you didn't build up how good he was first!! Again with gen7 I had some tight battles there, especially towards the endgame- no starter sweeps after the early parts. Your prized champion is not that good. As for him as a character- we see so much of him that he's actually developed. He's fine, just built up wayy too much so that the final battle is disappointing. [b]The Plot:[/b] It's bad. It's so, so bad. The plot stagnates until the end where every plot important thing is just thrown at you at once with TWIST VILLAIN that we already expected. This isn't a spoiler. The game has an antagonist, guess who! The evil team is just this game's way of doing roadblocks and they're not even too interesting. They're around to try to get in people's way? I want to see more of that- not just us, but see them bothering some other challengers, holding people back. You could take one of the earlier models of a challenger (yes, there were more of them we never see) and then show them getting so far back due to the roadblocks that they drop out. Just do SOMETHING. They're not intimidating, the "team leader" is a dude doing his job, the town they're in is a basic straight line. THAT'S WHY YOUR TOWN IS DYING. You cannot have a town that's just a straight line with a hospital and a wall- that's not a town that's a dark alleyway. And yes, that's the plot for a large amount of it. Stuff shakes, but you're told not to bother with it. After the Dark gym there's a giant event with Dynamax Pokemon appearing but you get to see nothing but a PNG image of it. Imagine if gen7 did that- you never know about Nihilego until it literally threatens the world and even then the legendaries just beat it up for you? This game has NO plot beats that matter except for "do the usual gym stuff" with characters they're not even developing properly to make us like them apart from "oh neat design". And then the Giant Tower of Confusing Plots happens where every plot thing happens right at the same time. There's the entire Rose Tower sideplot where the reason for going there is so weak that they could have just cut it [i]but then we wouldn't even get a plot.[/i] He's late to dinner. He's probably lost. Even so, the simple explanation that would cut short that entire section is "He's in a meeting and will be there soon." I like plots in my games, but not excuse plots like this where there's absolutely no reason for us to get into the cool plot stuff. And then the final battles just come out of nowhere after what's basically an Elite Four- oh boy we're fighting a dragon thing! I remember the wolves doing 90% of the damage and then leaving (yes, you don't get to catch the legendary until the POSTGAME. You get the THIRD legendary before the ONE ON THE BOX). Then you catch em and now you have a Pokemon legendary. The whole thing is just slammed at us and gives us no feeling because it comes out of nowhere and we had no experience with this before. If we saw and fought the Dynamax rampage or went to check out the first earth shaking and saw the antagonist doing Sketchy Stuff- that would give us more of a reason to care about the finale. It's just...pretty bad. tldr; Characters have no personalities except from cards, Hop sucks, champion isn't that good, legendaries do half of the finale for you, evil team where?, can't even get the G-max form changes that were advertised to you. Tempted to buy the DLC since I heard it's actually not that bad. VERY hesitant since the rest of the game is...this.

Honestly... probably Sword/Shield.

I've played the games since I was a kid, even starting with the first games and working my way up. I see people say they hate the original games because the balance is off or they just find them boring, but my god, at least you could do something in those games.

I feel like with Sword/Shield, you're so limited. I don't know if anyone actually liked this kid, but that Hop, Pip, or whatever that heck that dude's name is who you're "friends" with, is just so annoying. I'm so used to the earlier games where everything is on your own. You have a little bit of a tutorial to go through at the beginning of some, and you have your rival, but jesus, it felt like this kid was holding your hand through everything. As someone who is practically a veteran with playing Pokémon games, I found it really hard to take the place of this person whose friend thinks I know absolutely nothing. And continues to act that way toward me, even if the main character has clearly learned stuff.

I really felt like this would have been a great game for someone new to Pokémon, but then my boyfriend played it (who had never played a Pokémon game ever) and even he was angry about this kid. Like sorry to hurt your feeling dude, but this is MY journey. Go do your own thing and leave me alone... I rarely ever get mad at things in a game, but this had me heated. Just seeing him standing in the way of me on my next journey brought dread to me. I just did not wish to deal with this guy.

Oh and the animations, UGH. I wanted to avoid every single Dynamax battle because I just can't stand long animations. The ones that are a quick display of a move are fine, but these seemed to go on forever. Also the map seemed so small...? And honestly, I seemed to have RUSHED right through this game. It was like day 2 and my Pokémon were already level 80 and I was ready for the big battles, which had me scratching my head wondering where was the rest of the story... Perhaps I've been spoiled by Heart Gold, but I kind of regret spending as much as I did to get this game..


I felt like 50% of this whole game was a movie. I'm fine with having little parts of the game having little episodes to push the plot like in other games, but goodness, I'm so sick and tired of games being turned into movies where actual gameplay is less than 75% of the whole game, or gameplay is constantly being halted so you can sit there and watch cutscenes instead of experiencing things yourself.


I was really excited for this game because oooh, canine Pokémon, but I was really let down.

I like all the main games and spinoffs I've played but if I was forced to pick, itd be

Pokemon Dash

[quote name="JoweeTheRaposa" date="2021-01-26 15:22:37" ] All the 3D games, imo. Ever since the jump to 3D, Pokemon became way more gimmicky, boring, and linear. There is a lot that has lead up to this (like the fact that Masuda thinks kids don’t want to play games that require effort due to “phones”). However, I would be rambling here all day about why modern Pokemon is just simply not entertaining to me if I wanted to elaborate, and I am too tired for that rn. So, I will just leave it at that for now. [/quote] Seconding this. Pokémon's been in decline since XY (and I'd argue since BW too but to a much lesser extent). The new games are still fun (except SUMO imo, but it's been a long while since I last visited Alola and I may change my opinion if I replay it), but they don't have the same charm the older ones did.

I want to say the Let's Go games looked to be a huge let down. Never got past the demo, and frankly, should be half what they initially charged for them. The catch mechanic felt super cheap.
Sword and Shield are not far from "worst," imo. Gigantamax seemed... ok.
To this day, I wish mega evolutions stuck around. Alolan and Galar variants of mega evolves would've been better by a far cry.

Sword and shield hands down. The 3ds titles are all pretty weak, but this is the culmination of them all.
I have never had the inability to finish a pokemon game before this gen, and ive played every one except US/UM. It just...really isn't a fun game and I had to force myself through it. Even at its best I cant remember a single thing happening outside of like, 3 music scores and the fairy town and forest (that was way too small) that actually had me smiling. Camp was a step forward, but somehow also less interactive than Amie and buggy to the point I couldn't use it (all my pokemon would get stuck on each other :c ).

I can criticize them up and down with all sorts of things this gen for hours, like their attitudes toward writing for kids, splitting the team during a mainline game, lying about removing pokemon for animations that don't exist, etc. but judging the game for the game only: this is probably the worst just based on gameplay, direction, and design with the resources available to it (like technology, cartridge space, and how many people supposedly worked on the game). Second worst would be XY imo, but they innovated a lot more with it so there was more to like about it.
Idk coming from Lets Go that did everything better, this was a huge letdown and I actually regret buying it.

That said I adore Lets Go! I actually really liked the catch mechanic and had a lot of fun with it and still play it from time to time. My biggest complaint about Lets Go is that there is no real post game (same issue as G1), and that you cant ride alolan Persian like you can kantonian. Most of its drawbacks are drawbacks with the region, and even though id hate to see Kanto again, I really want a Lets Go Jhoto with the starters as your buddy.

E/I really really wanted to like Shield (I love Zamazenta, big fluffy pupper) but I was so so incredibly disappointed that I won't touch any mainline games after this, remakes or not. Not until I can watch real gameplay and reviews about it at the very least, I cant in good conscience support releasing half-hearted broken games no matter how much the franchise means to me.
This well and thoroughly broke my trust with the company, especially when games like Dragon Quest 11 are on the same system.

Also want to note gen4 as it is not a 3ds game and the worst in the 1st 5 gens for me. There was so much backtracking in those games that it took away from the innovation and I remember being infuriated by it when they came out. I wish they'd bring back a lot of mechanics from it though. The underground was probably my favorite part, especially since it improved upon secret bases from the 3rd gen and I really miss putting stickers on pokeballs.