(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

I've complained before, but the way gender choices work in Pokemon will never cease to annoy me. Early games, whatever, you're 8 pixels tall, who cares about limited options. Then XY happened and they allowed actual customization. Which is great, except they then limited your customization choices based on arbitrary gender BS. Guys get only short hair options, girls MUST carry a purse, etc. And that basically continued until Scarlet/Violet, where they eliminated most clothing customization and all skirts, but still used gendered terms of address for the player for basically no reason.

*though the fact that in every generation the girl is more optimal for speedrunning, but it's for a different reason every time, will always make me laugh.
 
I've complained before, but the way gender choices work in Pokemon will never cease to annoy me. Early games, whatever, you're 8 pixels tall, who cares about limited options. Then XY happened and they allowed actual customization. Which is great, except they then limited your customization choices based on arbitrary gender BS. Guys get only short hair options, girls MUST carry a purse, etc. And that basically continued until Scarlet/Violet, where they eliminated most clothing customization and all skirts, but still used gendered terms of address for the player for basically no reason.

*though the fact that in every generation the girl is more optimal for speedrunning, but it's for a different reason every time, will always make me laugh.
Honestly even ignoring the gendered clothing options, on top of that the options for the guys were just.
nothing

less per style in general, but also the styles selected are not great. You couldn't even wear shorts in XY.
 
On the clothing subject, I would point that this game is made by a company in the country with the stricter "everyone must dress and look the same" rules for young people.

While not really a excuse (there are other japanese IPs who nail the customization), it's not exactly hard to believe that they do struggle in coming up with ways to make their player characters (expecially male ones) look different.
 
The art of parallel learnsets have been ruined with how the latest generations have been treating learnsets. I will demonstrate with the creation trio.

Pre-SWSH: Look at these well aligned learnsets where everything has a parallel.
View attachment 532872

SWSH: This is completely misaligned now and even all the shared moves aren't even learned at the same time anymore. The signature moves are out of sync too because of SWSH ordering everything by power so Dialga has Roar of Time last but Palkia doesn't. At least it can't get any worse.
View attachment 532871

BDSP: Bulbapedia didn't actually update this section for BDSP, but basically they moved Roar of Time and Spacial Rend down to 40 like DP so they had their signature moves in the first battle again and moved everything else up to compensate. Giratina's Shadow Force was moved to 49 as well so it would barely have it when you fight it at level 70.

PLA: This was actually pretty organized again, though they still misaligned one move with Giratina. I would have just aligned Dragon Claw/Dragon Pulse/Earth Power, put Shadow Claw with Iron Tail/Aqua Tail like it used to be, and then matched Shadow Ball with Flash Cannon and Hydro Pump for it to fully match.

View attachment 532875

SV: We are back to the old bad SWSH learnset, but somehow it got worse because Palkia no longer learns Dragon Claw at level 40, but Dialga still does. Palkia doesn't learn anything else at level 40 now, but it still gets Dragon Claw through TM, so you can relearn it from HOME if you're transferring in from SWSH or BDSP or PLA anyway. What's the point?

View attachment 532876

Oh my you have NO IDEA how much this bothers me. And them being careless even after Dexit is jarring. I understand curating a copypaste of well over 1000 moveset tables ought to be a chore, but, come the fuck on, don't halfass it.


EDIT: Speaking of which, Black and White Kyurem's approach. Scary fucking face turning into Fusion Bolt and Fusion Flare was dumb. Glaciate was the move intended to be a failure at proccing a Fusion move, as you could cleary see in the Pokedex 3D animations. Freeze Shock and Ice Burn were if anything closer to Bolt Strike and Blue Flare in concept. And it is not like trying to learn a move upon form change was new, as Rotom had been doing that since Platinum.

So, yeah, Kyurem is a mess when fusing, move-wise.
 
On the clothing subject, I would point that this game is made by a company in the country with the stricter "everyone must dress and look the same" rules for young people.

While not really a excuse (there are other japanese IPs who nail the customization), it's not exactly hard to believe that they do struggle in coming up with ways to make their player characters (expecially male ones) look different.
I mean the problem with the games is not everyone looks the same. There's actually a ton of clothing options in aggregate across both genders.

My problem is the men clothing are just boring. Which seems less a cultural issue and more shrugging at the idea of men's fashion.
 
My problem is the men clothing are just boring. Which seems less a cultural issue and more shrugging at the idea of men's fashion.
Which to be fair... is a cultural issue (imo). If you've been around other medias (you probably have) you'd notice that one of the common ways to trashtalk asian young males is that they all look / dress the same.
Which while stereotypical isn't exactly that far from the truth.

My point being... I'd not be surprised if GF actually struggles to even come up with "different looking male clothing".
 
Which to be fair... is a cultural issue (imo). If you've been around other medias (you probably have) you'd notice that one of the common ways to trashtalk asian young males is that they all look / dress the same.
Which while stereotypical isn't exactly that far from the truth.

My point being... I'd not be surprised if GF actually struggles to even come up with "different looking male clothing".
I'm saying that's probably a problem not exclusive to Japan so at some point it ceases to be a cultural issue and more a general design-ethos issue
 

Karxrida

Death to the Undying Savage
is a Community Contributor Alumnus
I'd say what annoys me a bit despite Pokemon being this global franchise, there is still no voice acting for the main series titles..
I personally don't think lack of voice acting is inherently an issue. The series doesn't strictly need it and TPCi would probably half-ass it anyway,

But I do think it's really fucking stupid that Game Freak animated several scenes as if they did have voice acting, such as the SWSH intro. It's really jarring seeing the sweeping cinematography screaming "this is something being narrated over" only to hear text box clicks.
 
I personally don't think lack of voice acting is inherently an issue. The series doesn't strictly need it and TPCi would probably half-ass it anyway,

But I do think it's really fucking stupid that Game Freak animated several scenes as if they did have voice acting, such as the SWSH intro. It's really jarring seeing the sweeping cinematography screaming "this is something being narrated over" only to hear text box clicks.
I remember seeing a theory between the initial announcement of SwSh and E3 that there would be voice acting because we hadn't seen a screenshot with a textbox at the time, and I thought "Why would they remove text boxes if it were fully voiced? What happens if a deaf person wants to play?" and sometimes I think they were right for the wrong reasons. Like there was originally supposed to be voice acting and it was taken out (because they thought it wasn't needed and/or wouldn't be good enough like you said) and that's why the intro feels like it should have a voice narrating over it and it doesn't. And the reason the post-SwSh games don't have anything like that was because they decided voice acting (besides the grunts in LA's case) wouldn't work much earlier in development.
 
I remember seeing a theory between the initial announcement of SwSh and E3 that there would be voice acting because we hadn't seen a screenshot with a textbox at the time, and I thought "Why would they remove text boxes if it were fully voiced? What happens if a deaf person wants to play?" and sometimes I think they were right for the wrong reasons.
Subtitles, how do they work?

 
It kind of annoys me that we still don't have official ingame soundtracks on Spotify. Sometimes I just want to listen to ingame OST such as gym leader and champion battles while jogging or traveling in public transportation. I'm not really a fan of the fanmade soundtracks while listening on YouTube means that I have to keep that app open which is restricting.
 
Group13.png


This. Rhydon oozed "fully evolved" and "'mon that would have gotten a stat boost and a Mega in XY". Rhyhorn oozed "middle stage". Rhyperior oozes "Mega Rhydon", specially after Mega Aggron became a thing with a very similar design philosophy.

A Rhyhorn preevo could have worked as a Budew, an early game 'mon, an alternative to Geodude; something more workable than Pichu/Cleffa/Igglybuff/Azurill.

And, of course, Mega Nidos would had been awesome.
 

Coronis

Impressively round
is a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
View attachment 535424

This. Rhydon oozed "fully evolved" and "'mon that would have gotten a stat boost and a Mega in XY". Rhyhorn oozed "middle stage". Rhyperior oozes "Mega Rhydon", specially after Mega Aggron became a thing with a very similar design philosophy.

A Rhyhorn preevo could have worked as a Budew, an early game 'mon, an alternative to Geodude; something more workable than Pichu/Cleffa/Igglybuff/Azurill.

And, of course, Mega Nidos would had been awesome.
Too much ooze for me.

:swalot:
 
It kind of annoys me that we still don't have official ingame soundtracks on Spotify. Sometimes I just want to listen to ingame OST such as gym leader and champion battles while jogging or traveling in public transportation. I'm not really a fan of the fanmade soundtracks while listening on YouTube means that I have to keep that app open which is restricting.
Pro-Tip: Request the desktop site if your Phone's Browser allows it. I do it on iPhone and it stops the video from pausing/not-playing if you minimize the Browser for other apps (though need something like Control Panel or a Play-Button on Earbuds to start it again). I use it to listen to Podcasts or Game Playlists while playing Pokemon Go on a Park walk or such.
 

Samtendo09

Ability: Light Power
is a Pre-Contributor
View attachment 535424

This. Rhydon oozed "fully evolved" and "'mon that would have gotten a stat boost and a Mega in XY". Rhyhorn oozed "middle stage". Rhyperior oozes "Mega Rhydon", specially after Mega Aggron became a thing with a very similar design philosophy.

A Rhyhorn preevo could have worked as a Budew, an early game 'mon, an alternative to Geodude; something more workable than Pichu/Cleffa/Igglybuff/Azurill.

And, of course, Mega Nidos would had been awesome.
Maybe if Baby Pokémon were treated as their own stage rather than adding up (which makes Baby + 3) then it wouldn’t be an issue for Rhyhorn to get a Baby Pokémon.

Then again, 4-stage is something even GF is unwilling because it can cause a very severe slippery slope, both power-wise and lore-wise.
 
The issue is giving Rhydon an evolution that literally was a 10 boost to 5 of its stats, to the point a good IV Rhydon has better stats than a bad IV Rhyperior.

And, well, "baby" Pokemon is a meaningless distinction. Elekid had stats beyond that of Pikachu, Munchlax has a stat total comparable to Butterfree, Porygon or Lickitung, Marill has lower stats than most "baby" Pokemon, Ralts has stats comparable to the weaker "baby" Pokemon.

Evolution stages are pretty much nonexistant in the games, beyond the experience yield formula, and, personally, I don't think they should be given importance. It is bloat from the TCG.

EDIT: Megas worked very well with circa-500 BST 'mons, but people unaware of stats turned their nose at "uncomplete families", despite, well, far better mileage than evolutions:

1689612949558.png


No seriously, plenty of people going "Pinsir and Heracross should have evolved", or "where is the LAPRAS evolution" really grind my Klinks lol

(Or people complaining about Geeta having Gogoat, as it was seen as a weak Pokemon... despite having stats on a fully evolved Grass starter's ballpark)
 
Last edited:

QuentinQuonce

formerly green_typhlosion
Kind of sucks that if you want the dex entry for shiny Meltan in Home (or any other game) you're basically forced to waste one since it can't evolve anywhere except in Go, where it can never return to. Not so much a major issue since if you get a crap shiny in Go you may as well just transfer it, but I hope future games do allow the species to evolve eventually. I suppose if Go ever ceases to exist they'll pretty much have to.
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 2, Guests: 11)

Top