×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Forum - View topic
This Week in Games - Cirno Is Stronger Than AI




Note: this is the discussion thread for this article

Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
That Little Rapscallion



Joined: 31 Jul 2023
Posts: 33
PostPosted: Fri Aug 18, 2023 12:56 pm Reply with quote
I'd prefer if Pokemon went back to 2D. The series hasn't been the same since it jumped to 3D.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
BadNewsBlues



Joined: 21 Sep 2014
Posts: 5940
PostPosted: Fri Aug 18, 2023 10:38 pm Reply with quote
That Little Rapscallion wrote:
I'd prefer if Pokemon went back to 2D. The series hasn't been the same since it jumped to 3D.


Taking it back to 2D wouldn’t exactly be a universally liked thing considering how divisive the 2D games were following GSC.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Villain-chan





PostPosted: Sat Aug 19, 2023 3:51 am Reply with quote
Seeing as i don't have Skyrim and don't plan to play it and haven't played it, guess that means I can comment about it :lol:

I agree with the last statement. That said, if you read the full response he gave (which is in the article u linked too) then am not sure how u can see what he said as positive... the fact he said they are continuing to operate on the same schedule they've been doing and that the conversations are about and I quote "how we can continue to do this" meaning sure, eventually it won't be feasible unless they scale back the games and even that will prolly only buy em so much time, but the fact remains, they aren't looking to change, not based on the full response he gave anyway. Heck, if u went onto twitter u'll see fans stating the obvious, stop yearly releases and if u read enough replies, u'll see plenty see what I saw, GF does NOT get it and just wanna continue in their set ways without listening to the fans. Sure, there's talks at GF, maybe these will have a positive effect on the games, but, at this time I highly doubt it. Whats it going to take for it to happen? Another bugged and hard to enjoy your time with the game becus of the lag, bugs etc. becus the game was rushed out the door unfinished? How about 2? 3? When does it stop? and if GF was so concerned about polished products and such, then SV wouldn't have released in their state, but whether it be becus of share holders, or becus of whomever, the reality is whomever is in charge only cares about 1 thing, cold hard cash... so I don't expect positive change for a long time to come, if ever...

The games can be enjoyed, but like almost every Pokemon game, there is almost always a lack of content (unless u wanna catch them all each game...) and there is always some nitpick or more u can see in the game where it could've been better. I'd also like to add, your comments about Pokemon fans don't apply to me and that regardless of whether fans have grown up with the series or not, everyone can prolly point to a valid criticism with the games. I do agree though that there are some fans and "fans" out there that for some reason, haveta point out the ice cream cone (Actually, if u read the dex entry in one or mroe of the games for Vanillish I believe it was, that or Vaniluxe if not, its an icicle spear, ya know, the kind that hang from a roof top in the winter/cold months) or the keys or insert whatever inanimate object now made an animated living "object". Where was the hate for Magnemite or all the other ones? I believe what it boils down to is in the case of "fans", its just trolls, and in the case of fans, the actual ones, its their preferences showing.
Back to top
ThatMoonGuy



Joined: 13 Oct 2017
Posts: 364
PostPosted: Sat Aug 19, 2023 4:58 am Reply with quote
I will preface this by saying that I do, indeed, own more than one edition of Skyrim on Steam and that I haven't actually played Pokémon past the 3DS era.

With that said, i feel like people overblow the flaws in Pokémon a bit. Time after time, fans make a huge ruckus over some change, they say that the franchise is dead and what not... Just for the games to do huge numbers. Remember "Dexit"? Yeah, it was silly and oh so much effect.

I would like Pokémon to be a more complete game and to shake up the formula, though. Opening the world was an interesting choice as it gives a feeling of a "journey of discovery" that Pokémon always evoked for me. The core of the games seems pretty solid, they really just need more polishing but even so I still feel like they are legitimately good games.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
King Chicken



Joined: 13 Aug 2022
Posts: 91
PostPosted: Sat Aug 19, 2023 5:20 am Reply with quote
ThatMoonGuy wrote:
I will preface this by saying that I do, indeed, own more than one edition of Skyrim on Steam and that I haven't actually played Pokémon past the 3DS era.

With that said, i feel like people overblow the flaws in Pokémon a bit. Time after time, fans make a huge ruckus over some change, they say that the franchise is dead and what not... Just for the games to do huge numbers. Remember "Dexit"? Yeah, it was silly and oh so much effect.

I would like Pokémon to be a more complete game and to shake up the formula, though. Opening the world was an interesting choice as it gives a feeling of a "journey of discovery" that Pokémon always evoked for me. The core of the games seems pretty solid, they really just need more polishing but even so I still feel like they are legitimately good games.


I just want something like Black 2's challenge mode that made the game slightly harder by adding more Pokemon to trainers and higher level. And not locked behind beating the other version and linking them together. Honestly, I think most people's complaints about the difficulty would be fixed if they just level-synced all battles like they do certain wifi battles and the old battle tower stuff. Every trainer or Gym leader uses Level 50 Pokemon and yours gets synced to 50 too. But I suppose that's what fangames and hacks are for these days.

It didn't help that the anime itself went downhill after XY as well. It's like everything Pokemon related just completely lost my interest all at once with it's timing. I used to be a huge fan of the DP, BW, and XY anime era and games back in the day.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
ThatMoonGuy



Joined: 13 Oct 2017
Posts: 364
PostPosted: Sat Aug 19, 2023 6:28 am Reply with quote
King Chicken wrote:
I just want something like Black 2's challenge mode that made the game slightly harder by adding more Pokemon to trainers and higher level. And not locked behind beating the other version and linking them together. Honestly, I think most people's complaints about the difficulty would be fixed if they just level-synced all battles like they do certain wifi battles and the old battle tower stuff. Every trainer or Gym leader uses Level 50 Pokemon and yours gets synced to 50 too. But I suppose that's what fangames and hacks are for these days.

It didn't help that the anime itself went downhill after XY as well. It's like everything Pokemon related just completely lost my interest all at once with it's timing. I used to be a huge fan of the DP, BW, and XY anime era and games back in the day.


I'd actually argue that the best way to make the game harder would be by improving the AI. Levels by themselves, in Pokémon, don't really make the game neessarily harder, just grindier. But if you make the opponents more able to predict the players move and play around that, with switches, item use and so forth, the game actually becomes much more strategic. Not to bring Bethesta RPGs into it too much but the way Bethesda handles difficulty is just inflating numbers which, personally, always felt very weak to me. Pokémon doing the same is even worse since it's turn based and not action, which at least forces you to calculate things a bit more in the second-to-second gameplay.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Villain-chan





PostPosted: Sat Aug 19, 2023 6:43 am Reply with quote
ThatMoonGuy wrote:
King Chicken wrote:
I just want something like Black 2's challenge mode that made the game slightly harder by adding more Pokemon to trainers and higher level. And not locked behind beating the other version and linking them together. Honestly, I think most people's complaints about the difficulty would be fixed if they just level-synced all battles like they do certain wifi battles and the old battle tower stuff. Every trainer or Gym leader uses Level 50 Pokemon and yours gets synced to 50 too. But I suppose that's what fangames and hacks are for these days.

It didn't help that the anime itself went downhill after XY as well. It's like everything Pokemon related just completely lost my interest all at once with it's timing. I used to be a huge fan of the DP, BW, and XY anime era and games back in the day.


I'd actually argue that the best way to make the game harder would be by improving the AI. Levels by themselves, in Pokémon, don't really make the game neessarily harder, just grindier. But if you make the opponents more able to predict the players move and play around that, with switches, item use and so forth, the game actually becomes much more strategic. Not to bring Bethesta RPGs into it too much but the way Bethesda handles difficulty is just inflating numbers which, personally, always felt very weak to me. Pokémon doing the same is even worse since it's turn based and not action, which at least forces you to calculate things a bit more in the second-to-second gameplay.
Pokemon games have actually gotten harder over the last few gens. Better move sets for opponent's mons, better strategy. Actual boss chars. Heck, USUM had the hardest boss fight in the entire series and was rightfully dubbed "the destroyer of nuzlocks" but ofc, there is always a way around any strat and as you get older you begin to learn a lot more strats and work arounds to things. Look at Whitney in GSC/HGSS as a great example, if u played those games young, u likely got owned.... several times esp if u chose Cyndaquil as ur starter XD but as one gets older she's not hard anymore. Thats becus u'r older now, ya learned to do more than brute force ur way through and u also learned what she can do to better play around her.

As another example of the games getting harder, I often limit myself in vareous ways to make them more challenging, sometimes its just, not evoing a mon, I did that with the grass starter in SV and not only was my starter getting 1 shotted, sadly they we also not able to KO in 1 hit a lot of the time, even when i was several lvs above the opponent. I did the same with fire starter in USUM and I ddnt have nearly as hard a time. Meeeean while in BDSP they artifically made the E4 and champ harder becus they gave their mons IV and EV trained mons... while we had none... thats not a good way of raising the difficulty and Lets Go did the same except in this case it was via candy... this mean u had an Eevee with super effective hitting mvoes taking 2-3 atks to KO a SINGLE enemy mon from a trainer... eventually around Fusia city I said screw it, this is more frustrating than fun, so i started having to use candies on my mons just to make the game more fun and balanced becus it was a slog for a fgood while there... again, raising candy lvs/IVs/evs ain't the way to go and it doesn't make for a more enjoyable fight.

I do agree that SV shoulda had raises the wild and boss and trainer mons to ur lvs, not exactly matching ur lv though but still, with 18 bosses that woudn't have been feasible esp in a satisfactory way. Paldea is too big for its own good and too many bosses, thats a good and bad thing though. Anyway, the best way is as u said, a better AI and we've seen that through the last few gens. But like I said better moves, more mons for bosses, but add in too many and then u over lv urself, its a tricky balance and not so simple to solve. That said we should have a difficulty lv select we can adjust on the fly like a lotta games have these days. Shouldn't be stuck on a difficult, needs to be adjustable at all times (Except in battle ofc)
Back to top
Rednal



Joined: 07 Jul 2008
Posts: 132
PostPosted: Sat Aug 19, 2023 4:38 pm Reply with quote
Honestly, I think the best thing Pokemon could do would be to hire additional developers and split teams so that each game gets about five years of development time. With staggered teams, the could still release titles every three years and not upset their actual pacing, but the games themselves would have more time to get polished up and reach their full potential. However, even though they earn All The Money, they seem extremely reluctant to hire the number of people creating a well-made 3D world requires. I know expanding a team comes with its own issues, but the serious performance issues and obvious limits are really inhibiting them from implementing some of the MANY ideas people have had.

For example: If you can "go to gyms in any order", be honest about that. Give them teams and levels based on how many gyms a player has beaten, so people can have fun trying out different orders and seeing how the lineups change.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
FinalVentCard
ANN Reviewer


Joined: 28 Oct 2018
Posts: 504
PostPosted: Sat Aug 19, 2023 6:22 pm Reply with quote
That Little Rapscallion wrote:
I'd prefer if Pokemon went back to 2D. The series hasn't been the same since it jumped to 3D.


King Chicken wrote:

I just want something like Black 2's challenge mode that made the game slightly harder by adding more Pokemon to trainers and higher level.


See, that's the thing that always bugged me; the Gen V games were pretty forward-thinking in all they offered. You didn't need to go to a Pokémon Center to trade or battle anymore (which people didn't seem to notice even WITH the communication features taking up real estate on the freaking touchscreen), and there was a completely unique regional dex so you didn't have to spend time catching another bloody Ratata or Zubat (people who complained about Woobat, I swear...). The 2D sprites were also legitimately amazing, especially with the B2/W2 games where they had idle animations during fights. Those sprites were definitely pushing the limits of the DS, too, Kyuurem and his fusions definitely had to be finagled to fit within the limitations for the sprites. And I do think trainers were a bit smarter in Gen V, a lot of them really liked going for the Confusion/Paralysis combo so you couldn't just bumrush them.

It was extremely disheartening to see everything Game Freak did with Gen V, only for people to just poo-poo it because "there were too many Pokémon games on the DS" or because they just needed Pokémon to go 3D or to bring back the original Kanto Pokémon. Well, we got what they wanted with X/Y: 3D models, and a ton of Mega Evolutions for Kanto Pokémon (including two bloody Charizards, because we totally needed those). We could have had it all, man...

Rednal wrote:
Honestly, I think the best thing Pokemon could do would be to hire additional developers and split teams so that each game gets about five years of development time.


The thing with adding more devs is that it's not always the silver bullet people think it is; you now have that many more people you have to coordinate between, with way more overhead. Game Freak has always run pretty lean, and they definitely could stand to learn more how to manage a game with a bigger scope, but also there is such a thing as having too many cooks in the kitchen.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
utenagoddess



Joined: 07 Feb 2023
Posts: 12
PostPosted: Sat Aug 19, 2023 8:09 pm Reply with quote
ThatMoonGuy wrote:
I'd actually argue that the best way to make the game harder would be by improving the AI. Levels by themselves, in Pokémon, don't really make the game neessarily harder, just grindier


It's not so much the level challenge so much as you can steamroll through all the games with one over-leveled Pokemon when most trainers cap out around Level 60. At worst, you need a few other mons in your party to have a few turns to revive and heal your main one if it dies. The reason the only challenging bits are the areas like the Battle Frontier is because you can't do that. All that is to say I don't mind if the main game is easy, but I miss the areas like the Battle Frontier. They were the main thing I liked in each game.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Zimmer



Joined: 08 Jul 2015
Posts: 182
PostPosted: Sat Aug 19, 2023 11:57 pm Reply with quote
One thing I hope to see from the Lollipop Chainsaw remake is more crossover costumes.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
AiddonValentine



Joined: 07 Aug 2006
Posts: 2213
PostPosted: Sun Aug 20, 2023 6:37 pm Reply with quote
FinalVentCard wrote:


The thing with adding more devs is that it's not always the silver bullet people think it is; you now have that many more people you have to coordinate between, with way more overhead. Game Freak has always run pretty lean, and they definitely could stand to learn more how to manage a game with a bigger scope, but also there is such a thing as having too many cooks in the kitchen.


Not even just too many cooks, but just throwing bodies at a problem risks burning even more people out. Like how Naughty Dog burned through so many animators that they had to recruit from the film industry or 2K just throwing fresh hires into L.A. Noire to get it out the door. A lot of the time it doesn't ease burdens, it creates new ones.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
oilers2007



Joined: 23 Sep 2022
Posts: 93
PostPosted: Mon Aug 21, 2023 3:08 am Reply with quote
Zimmer wrote:
One thing I hope to see from the Lollipop Chainsaw remake is more crossover costumes.


I hope they can have the old costumes back at least.

What newer ones could they use? Zombieland Saga?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
NeoStrayCat



Joined: 14 Sep 2011
Posts: 612
PostPosted: Thu Aug 24, 2023 5:40 pm Reply with quote
Jean-Karlo Lemus wrote:
Castle of Shikigami 2 is getting a second shot in the US! Video Games Plus will be releasing a physical edition of the game in "Q2 2024," while Europe will be seeing a special edition version of the game from Red Art Games. I must remind folks that this new version likely won't include the classic recordings from the original PS2 release...

Amazon and Best Buy have also now put pre-orders for CoS 2 for the Switch, so its not just a VGP exclusive or something like that. Also, while yes, "that" English dub won't be included on the Switch port, at least the PC/Steam version exists so you can mod/swap the dub voices onto it.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Page 1 of 1

 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group