Unpopular opinions

[QuentinQuonce]

Johto is the other go to for a legends game, but I think that would be way harder to make work as the geography across the region is fairly similar, and would be harder to divide up into interesting regions.

Eh. Even there, you've got a lot of interesting ways to shake up the geography.

• Make Ruins of Alph/Ecruteak City instead of Goldenrod City the centre of the region
• Olivine City is a poor little fishing village rather than a big port
• Combine the Whirl Islands into one big island, as was mentioned in HGSS
• Remove the Lake of Rage from the map (or simply have it be a tiny little river), as it was stated to have been formed from a crater created by a Gyarados rampage that filled with rainwater, and have the whole Mahogany/Mt Mortar region be much wilder and uninhabited
• Dragon's Den would simply be a little-known cave in the mountains where Dragon Tamers train in secret, not a well-known settlement
• Maybe New Bark and Cherrygrove don't even exist at all yet?
• Depending on how far back you go, you could show the story of the Slowpoke ending the drought in Azalea Town and the establishment of the Slowpoke Well
• Ilex Forest could be much larger and untamed, and have an interesting Celebi event attached to it
• In general the land could be way more undeveloped; Dark Cave might not fully exist, and the routes around Tohjo Falls might be larger and more expansive

I don't necessarily want to see all these things, just saying there's a lot of potential there.

 

[Valoo]

Eh. Even there, you've got a lot of interesting ways to shake up the geography.

• Make Ruins of Alph/Ecruteak City instead of Goldenrod City the centre of the region
• Olivine City is a poor little fishing village rather than a big port
• Combine the Whirl Islands into one big island, as was mentioned in HGSS
• Remove the Lake of Rage from the map (or simply have it be a tiny little river), as it was stated to have been formed from a crater created by a Gyarados rampage that filled with rainwater, and have the whole Mahogany/Mt Mortar region be much wilder and uninhabited
• Dragon's Den would simply be a little-known cave in the mountains where Dragon Tamers train in secret, not a well-known settlement
• Maybe New Bark and Cherrygrove don't even exist at all yet?
• Depending on how far back you go, you could show the story of the Slowpoke ending the drought in Azalea Town and the establishment of the Slowpoke Well
• Ilex Forest could be much larger and untamed, and have an interesting Celebi event attached to it
• In general the land could be way more undeveloped; Dark Cave might not fully exist, and the routes around Tohjo Falls might be larger and more expansive

I don't necessarily want to see all these things, just saying there's a lot of potential there.

I meant more that Johto’s geography just isn’t that interesting and there’s very little variance. It’s definitely not impossible to make work, but it’s difficult to look at the map and come up with multiple biomes that would work for an open world/legends style game without feeling repetitive.

 

[Ironmage]

Being not a fan of Legends gameplay, I only have one opinion on hypothetical sequels:

A Legends: Necrozma should take place primarily, if not entirely, in Ultra Space. Nothing they could do with an ancient Alola would be remotely as interesting.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

I meant more that Johto’s geography just isn’t that interesting and there’s very little variance. It’s definitely not impossible to make work, but it’s difficult to look at the map and come up with multiple biomes that would work for an open world/legends style game without feeling repetitive.

Again, disagree but it depends what they're willing to do with it. Pre DPP the icy area was always just a cave rather than an open snowfield so you can pretty much stick any biome wherever you feel like. Toxic swamp somewhere in Johto? Sure, why not. Volcano in Mt Silver? Yeah, go on.

Being not a fan of Legends gameplay, I only have one opinion on hypothetical sequels:

A Legends: Necrozma should take place primarily, if not entirely, in Ultra Space. Nothing they could do with an ancient Alola would be remotely as interesting.

This 100%

 

[Coronis]

Being not a fan of Legends gameplay, I only have one opinion on hypothetical sequels:

A Legends: Necrozma should take place primarily, if not entirely, in Ultra Space. Nothing they could do with an ancient Alola would be remotely as interesting.

Plus just bring back Ultra Necrozma already you silly GF people.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Plus just bring back Ultra Necrozma already you silly GF people.

Omg this is wild, Game Freak responded to you!

Hide

 

[Coronis]

Omg this is wild, Game Freak responded to you!

Hide

View attachment 562955

You almost had me you wascally wabbit.

 

[RocketSurgery]

I think there’s definitely ways to do ancient unova. There’s plenty of different biomes and landmarks, and they don’t really need to be in a neat circle like LA.

Assuming it’s split into separate areas like Hisui, could easily have a snowy area (Twist Mountain, Dragonspiral Tower), desert area (Relic Castle), and coastal area (undella bay, abyssal ruins). Then could go to the southeast for the basic starting area (with Pinwheel forest) or centre it around Lostlorn Forest or Abundant Shrine. The northeast would work as something similar to the highlands, with Opelucid and Village bridge conceivably existing.

The best way to do Legends Unova would be to do it Hisui-style with one hub town and a few settlements scattered around, and have everyone think they just made up a past Unova decoupled from the actual history of the NY region. Then, near the climax of the game, the player comes across a large decrepit statue of Pikachu buried in the sand...

 

[KalosianPorygon]

About types, if one type desperately needs a buff right now... other than Bug, I would pick Psychic. I swear, it needs to hit more than two types super-effectively and have at least one more resistance.

Dragon type was busted but stats are a big reason why it was so threatening. Stats of both Pokémon and moves. All but two pseudo legends being Dragon Type (all with strong offensive stats) bloated the type with threats. There were also Kingdra, Flygon, and Haxorus, all with BSTs of 500 or higher. I'm going off of memory here but I think the only two fully-evolved Dragon types as of Gen 5 with a BST below 500 were Altaria and Druddigon? That's goofy. Latias and Latios were two other 600 BST legends allowed in OU. Outside of an OU meta, Game Freak had just made two straight generations with Dragon Types as box legends (with a few extra forms for good measure), not to mention Rayquaza.

The BP of Outrage and Draco Meteor was also absolutely part of the reason for the Dragon Type's dominance. But it was coupled with attack stats usually working from 110 base, at minimum. That doesn't help.

Nailed it.
Stats do matter. Mawile has a great defensive type (Steel/Fairy) and Intimidate, yet it is considered a shitmon outside of Mega. Why? Because of its stats. Same with a lot of less viable Intimidate users. Some have good typings, some have good movepools, but all have not-so-great stats that make these hard to use well in higher tiers.
Iron Hands, meanwhile, is an example of a strong Pokémon who's great because of its stats more than its Ability, as pointed out by Samtendo09:

I know Iron Hands’ a powerful threat in VGC but…

WHAT.

I mean, it’s one thing to make a physical Electric-type Pokémon to work in VGC. But it’s another to be one of the best of the format despite having no effective Ability thanks to Pincurchin being useless and Miraidon not available!

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I do generally like hazards being powerful (and it's a reason I prefer singles). The introduction of Boots in gen 8 (alongside a lot of competitive focus on bootleg Spikeless Skarmory) led to me not enjoying the battles nearly as much (even in Natdex). So I can't deny there's an amount of schadenfreude on my part about the hazard situation in gen 9. You wanted Boots to stick around as a commonly used item? Well here you go!

I don't mind the Heavy-Duty Boots at all. Immunity to hazards is useful to several Pokémon, and it also has a drawback of, get this, using the item slot, so you have to choose between something like a damage boost versus damage prevention.
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I’ve said it a few times before, ugh I hate these threads turning into shit about competitive - I specifically only use this Pokemon subforum here since I’ve moved passed competitive.

Hide

Of course I understand that this is a competitive Pokemon website and posts with some competitive aspects are going to end up here - I just really don’t like having to go through multiple posts or posts with indepth competitive analyses about them to find the ingame discussions I’m looking for

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Being not a fan of Legends gameplay, I only have one opinion on hypothetical sequels:

A Legends: Necrozma should take place primarily, if not entirely, in Ultra Space. Nothing they could do with an ancient Alola would be remotely as interesting.

Ultra Space's blue-skinned folks made me ask soooooooo many questions. To start with the basics:

1. What is their culture, their society? How is life in these buildings you can't enter?
2. How do they raise Pokémon?
3. How did they discover Ultra Beasts, like the Cosmog line, or Necrozma?
4. When did they first meet us, if ever?
5. Do they regularly check alternate universes?
6. Were they related biologically to humans? Can they mate humans?

In short, I would like to learn more about the Ultra Recon Squad, their society, and their history.

 

[Axiemeister]

About types, if one type desperately needs a buff right now... other than Bug, I would pick Psychic. I swear, it needs to hit more than two types super-effectively and have at least one more resistance

i agree with psychic needing one more resistance (i vote fairy), but alternatively to another type being weak to it, i think steel should lose the psychic resistance, which would put psychic on the same level of ghost and dark. it's ironic because steel was created partly to balance psychic in gen 2 and now psychic is too undertuned.

 

[Sultan]

i agree with psychic needing one more resistance (i vote fairy), but alternatively to another type being weak to it, i think steel should lose the psychic resistance, which would put psychic on the same level of ghost and dark. it's ironic because steel was created partly to balance psychic in gen 2 and now psychic is too undertuned.

No, that would just make offensive Psychics ridiculous, since most have Fairy coverage for the Dark types. If Steel lost its resistance to Psychic, the only combos that resist Psychic/Fairy coverage would be Steel/Psychic and Fire/Psychic, not a lot of mons for a coverage combo that is so common on fast Pokémon. If anything, Dark and Ghost have become a bit too powerful without the Steel resistance, having Steel keep the Psychic resistance is fine. Psychic is pretty balanced for now, most Psychic types have good coverage and they benefit from most Steel types lacking reliable recovery so they can be worn down; remember PsySpam is/was a viable strategy. The only real problem is that Ghost has nearly the same place in the typechart but is just more overtuned

 

[Axiemeister]

No, that would just make offensive Psychics ridiculous, since most have Fairy coverage for the Dark types. If Steel lost its resistance to Psychic, the only combos that resist Psychic/Fairy coverage would be Steel/Psychic and Fire/Psychic, not a lot of mons for a coverage combo that is so common on fast Pokémon. If anything, Dark and Ghost have become a bit too powerful without the Steel resistance, having Steel keep the Psychic resistance is fine. Psychic is pretty balanced for now, most Psychic types have good coverage and they benefit from most Steel types lacking reliable recovery so they can be worn down; remember PsySpam is/was a viable strategy. The only real problem is that Ghost has nearly the same place in the typechart but is just more overtuned

well, if they took the offensive AND the defensive suggestion i mentioned, psychic/fairy coverage would be handily resisted by... psychic-types, much like psychic/fighting is right now. i do agree that, without that, it does make the combination too good for how accessible it is for mons of both types

 

[Ironmage]

Dark feels like it's a bit torn as to whether it should be resisted by more. It has a lot of moves that have conditional damage (e.g. Pursuit, Assurance, Lash Out, Power Trip, to an extent Sucker Punch), where it makes sense to have a lot of neutral hits because they have a separate 'minigame' going on to determine if they hit hard. On the other hand, there's nothing stopping an offensive mon from just using Dark Pulse, Crunch, or a (former) signature move like Darkest Lariat or Kowtow Cleave.

 

[Samtendo09]

Dark feels like it's a bit torn as to whether it should be resisted by more. It has a lot of moves that have conditional damage (e.g. Pursuit, Assurance, Lash Out, Power Trip, to an extent Sucker Punch), where it makes sense to have a lot of neutral hits because they have a separate 'minigame' going on to determine if they hit hard. On the other hand, there's nothing stopping an offensive mon from just using Dark Pulse, Crunch, or a (former) signature move like Darkest Lariat or Kowtow Cleave.

Don’t forget Knock Off during Gen 6-8 for “just use this move instead”, and the cass is for Dark-type Pokémon that still have it.

Water have a similar situation from Gen 5-8 with Scald, where despite a lot of options for Water-type special attackers like Brine, it quickly degenerates into “just spam Scald, lmao”, as too many Water Pokémon can use it despite 80 BP and 30% chance of burning combined.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Dark feels like it's a bit torn as to whether it should be resisted by more. It has a lot of moves that have conditional damage (e.g. Pursuit, Assurance, Lash Out, Power Trip, to an extent Sucker Punch), where it makes sense to have a lot of neutral hits because they have a separate 'minigame' going on to determine if they hit hard. On the other hand, there's nothing stopping an offensive mon from just using Dark Pulse, Crunch, or a (former) signature move like Darkest Lariat or Kowtow Cleave.

Given that Dark's whole thing is underhanded tactics and cheating, it's interesting there aren't any Dark moves that work like Freeze-Dry and hit things they shouldn't super-effectively, or turn neutral hits into super-effective ones. It's not hard to imagine the flavour for that sort of move being "the user sneakily subverts expectations to always hit super-effectively" or something to that effect.

 

[Ironmage]

Given that Dark's whole thing is underhanded tactics and cheating, it's interesting there aren't any Dark moves that work like Freeze-Dry and hit things they shouldn't super-effectively, or turn neutral hits into super-effective ones. It's not hard to imagine the flavour for that sort of move being "the user sneakily subverts expectations to always hit super-effectively" or something to that effect.

Now that you mention it, I'm surprised it took all the way until gen 9 for there to be a Dark-type with Tinted Lens.

 

[Sonikku A]

I feel Bug and Steel should resist Dark.
Fighting resists dark and it's connected to the Kamen Rider cultural ref, yet Bug oddly doesn't despite being the more direct hero type for that connection. Bug is still SE too, yet most aren't really aware due to how poor move options were till later

Steel it's more due to how unfair how gimped Psychic is. It gets me cuz Fairy being SE on Dark was cuz Bisharp's presence Gen 5 comp, yet...they remove a resist? And then buff Knock Off? Baffling

Also Shadow Tag no longer tagging shadows (Ghost types) will forever be dumb to me

 

[DrPumpkinz]

Don’t forget Knock Off during Gen 6-8 for “just use this move instead”, and the cass is for Dark-type Pokémon that still have it.

Water have a similar situation from Gen 5-8 with Scald, where despite a lot of options for Water-type special attackers like Brine, it quickly degenerates into “just spam Scald, lmao”, as too many Water Pokémon can use it despite 80 BP and 30% chance of burning combined.

At least in the case of Scald, the move played into Water's general theme of "offense and defense simultaneously". Post-buff Knock Off still sometimes plays into Dark's theme of "cool utility stuff" when used by defensive or special-attacking mons, but most physical-attacking mons (especially Dark- and Fighting-types) just use it as "big damage what remove items"

 

[Castersvarog]

Thinking about it, Psychic sort of feels similar to how Dragon type is.
Where the type itself isn’t considered all that good because the focus of ghost & dark/fairy types respectively holding them back, but because they have so many strong Pokémon if you buff the type it could easily lead to things getting out of hand.
Like how removing Steels resistances to Ghost and Dark allowed their usage to increase heavily the past few gens with Mons like Dragapult, Calyrex, Kingambit and Flutter Mane. The same could easily happen with psychic types like Lele and Dusk Mane/Dawn wings if they removed an offensive resistance.

 

[StompyStomps]

Chi-Yu would be an amazing goldfish

 

[Fracterra]

Chi-Yu would be an amazing goldfish

Yes, and my Favorite Pokémon is Salazzle

 

[QuentinQuonce]

And if my grandma had wheels she'd be a wagon.

 

[Coronis]

And if my grandma had wheels she'd be a wagon.

Rock me grandma

 

[Fracterra]

My Pokemon Mainline Game Tier List
I will willingly play the games in “I’m ok with their existence”, and BDSP is ment to be in “I’m ok with their existence.”

 

[Worldie]

View attachment 564955
My Pokemon Mainline Game Tier List
I will willingly play the games in “I’m ok with their existence”, and BDSP is ment to be in “I’m ok with their existence.”

If i were to do such list it's only have 2 rows, a "Fine game with flaws" with the latest release, and a "Why would I play this old game instead of the last one" with all the others.