I am playing Pokemon Violet at the moment and it is a total bore. I have played the game so many times and I just want to run around catch Pokemon and battle.
I do not need another tutorial about what a Pokemon center is. Or a tutorial to tell me that I need to use a Pokeball to catch a Pokemon.
Can we get a “I’ve played this game 100 times” mode where it just saves the tutorials and lets us play the game?
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Honestly, this might be a bit of a hot take coming in. But I don’t think the lengthy tutorial is the actual issue when it comes to modern Pokemon games. Plenty of games have very slow openings, monster hunter is the first that comes to mind.
I think the issue is that the game doesn’t actually have any depth behind the initial tutorial. Once you know how to battle, catch, and level up, what more is there? Barring competitive play, the basic mechanics are the entire game.
Legends was a breath of fresh air, because you did have to explore and learn about the world and Pokemon in order to succeed. Even if it was incredibly minimal.
If anyone is still reading this, my recommendation for a game that scratches the deep mechanical and monster collecting itch would be Monster Sanctuary. The story is thin on the ground, and the designs themselves can lean on the simpler side. But my god, I haven’t seen an equal when it comes to team building or strategy. Genuinely fantastic.
Thanks for the recommendation. I haven’t played Pokemon in over a decade, and from what I’ve read here that probably will not change. However, Monster Sanctuary may be worth checking out.
I cannot recommend it enough. It’s a metroidvania and exploring for all the cool monsters is so much fun. It’s cheap and indie too, and gets genuinely tough right near the end. But it tests your ability to team build, rather than to just grind. New monsters will basically be at the level of your current squad, regardless of where you got them.
Now that you mention it. I think this is it. I’m not excited to play the game at all because after an hour, I feel like I’ve sheet seen everything the game has to offer. I caught some cool Pokémon, what else is there to do? Although I’m interested in the Diamond remake, I guess the classic style was better in some way.
Exactly my point. The first pokemon games you play generally feel so much more exciting because of the novelty of the world. Exploring the world, finding cool little secrets, it’s genuinely fun that first time round.
For all the complaints about Pokemon tutorials, they are a minority of the actual issues. But a good representation of the fact that Pokemon refuses to break “tradition”. Think about the world design of Pokemon. Like, genuinely think and compare each of the maps and regions. And they’ll honestly start to blend together. Even Alola, which imo had the best designed world, aesthetically, blends in to the rest of the world.
And the issue is, when they DO break the mold. It’s fucking fantastic. Area Zero, the Megalopolis from Su/Mo, the Distortion World. All fantastic zones that are relegated to the 11th hour and then barely brought up again.
Once you’ve explored one Pokemon game, you’ve probably explored them all. And that’s pretty egregious considering the main draw of Pokemon is exploration.
I just started playing Violet for the first time last night. I noticed the opening “tutorials” of Sword/Shield took like 90 minutes to get through, and that hasn’t changed much here. And I’m not looking forward to taking biology exams or whatever, I really hope that’s optional content. I just want to battle my way to the Pokemon League!
Yeah! Just let my go to explore. I thing I’d be ok just walking around catching Pokémon and not battling.
Look I’m drunk I don’t understand what you’re talking about. I live in Japan, but pokemon has always been a mystery to me. There’s the Pikachu, there’s pokemon Go. It’s just a game. I also don’t understand this Lemmy business, I’m trying
Welcome, random elderly relative from facebook
Kids these days with their tikky toks and pokemon and consarnit they ain’t got a lick a common sense
Just go back to reading books and drinking from the hose like the old days, dangit!
When I was a kid I was super into pokemon. I loved playing the games and they stood out to me for one reason: they were challenging. My first game was Black, and I got stuck on the first gym leader for a few days, but when I figured it out it was immensely satisfying. I would hit roadblock, I would struggle, and eventually I overcame it. Then my friend introduced me to Pokemon Mystery Dungeon and it got even harder. I honestly think that the final dungeon of Explorers of Time made me smarter or something. It forced my dumbass child brain to think outside the box and find solutions on my own.
Then Pokemon X and Y released, and it was the most stupidly easy game ive ever played. And it kept getting easier after that. Add onto that the worsening quality and I stopped caring about Pokemon. My friend who is really into Pokemon hasnt bought a new game in years, he only plays Romhacks or replays the old games.
That’sa good point. There is no challenge to the modern game. I already have a bunch of level ten Pokémon and I didn’t even do anything other than catch a few Pokémon.
Because they give you a Exp Share right off the bat, and it shares exp with ALL your pokemon. So theres no point to actually training.
If you guys are interested in romhacks/fangames/Pokemon games with a little more meat and difficulty to them, I heartily recommend Pokemon Infinite Fusion. It’s based on FR/LG, with a slightly different story (but it’s still essentially Team Rocket doing Team Rocket things), with the big difference being that you can fuse Pokemon. Every Pokemon in the game is fuseable, giving you a MASSIVE possible amount of combinations. You can play it classic mode, like a regular Pokemon game, but there’s even a randomised mode which changes it up so every wild encounter and trainer battle uses randomly fused Pokemon. It’s great fun!
As for whether modern Pokemon games hold your hand too much, I dunno. I do recognise they’re made explicitly for children, so I can’t tell you how much is too much. In fact, I remember as a child being stumped enough that I quit playing Diamond halfway through because I thought the gyms were ‘too hard’. I still enjoy the newer games (I don’t care what anyone says, I loved SwSh) but I don’t let their shortcomings get to me as I recognise they’re children’s games.
Re fangames, I’d also recommend Pokemon Insurgence. It has a darker story than most Pokemon games, but it’s also more difficult as well. It has challenge run options in-game if ya want to run a Nuzlocke or something like that.
I have heard very positive reviews of Casette Beasts, which appears to cater to the Pokemon crowd. I’m not so much into that genre, but has anyone else tried it? It’s on Game Pass as well.
Cassette beasts is great. I’ve been watching my wife play it and it’s what we’ve been looking for in a pokemon game. There’s an interesting story with more engaging gameplay. And the soundtrack is really good.
I absolutely adored Cassette Beasts and cannot recommend it enough. The soundtrack alone is incredible.
Knowing GameFreak/ the Pokemon Company, if they were to make that mode they’d have it unlock after completing the post-game and if you had both versions (kind of like Black and White 2 easy and hard mode)
I was not aware of the hard mode. Is that what you had to do to unlock it?
What was changed in hard mode? If it’s better enemy AI, I’m interested.
Here is the bulbapedia wiki on it
You have to beat the champion to get it, then you can switch your own difficulty or give a copy of the key to another DS. However you can’t replay the story line on Hard/Easy Mode on the same DS because wiping your save also erases the key.
Better Enemy AI is in there.
Thanks, I’ll look into a cheat or hack to get it to work right away.
Gamefreak clearly isn’t interested in evolving their formula very much. Each game is designed to be approachable for young children who are potentially playing Pokemon for the first time. So yeah, there is a lot of hand holding.
I’ve found myself hoping the same thing though, that maybe the franchise would grow up with me, but it doesn’t look like it is going to happen. I expect that we’ll have to mash the A button through the Pokemon catching tutorial until the end of time.
It would be nice if this gigantic studio (in terms of profit) could make more than one game. Or make it in a way that players of all skill levels can enjoy.
This is what Temtem and Nexomon are for.
I’d like a hard mode and a way to toggle exp share off.
Dragon Quest 11 does what you probably want in Pokemon.
It’s an easy RPG, but before you start a new game you can check boxes like “no shop buying”, “RNG hates you with shypox”, “no XP for beating under leveled enemies”, etc.
I love it because you can customize difficulty to tweak it to your liking without fiddling with mods, and does more than just slapping a x2 in every variable and punching out for the day.
I played it and thought it was a good game but never felt the need for additional difficulty. Maybe because it was my first Dragon Quest game.
Pokemon has gotten insanely easier. Constant healing by friendly npcs, exp share from the start, rival picks a pokemon that is weak against yours… Remember when Gary was waiting at the end of a big cave and all your Pokemon were nearly dead? XD
Ha, I wonder what DQ11 Draconic Quest like options you can add to Pokemon.
Weaknesses and resistances x 2?
Pokemon knocked out are automatically released?
Game auto saves after every finished battle and no manual saving?
Sell items for less?
The exp share is generous. Especially giving experience after catching a Pokémon.
I think issue is Pokémon games are still made primarily for children with age between 6 to 12. There are a lot of older people who grow up with it and some of them righteous feel like they are left behind.
If that were the issue, the older games wouldn’t be more fun than the newer ones, but they are.
I personally agree that they are, but I recognize that that’s nostalgia. My 11 year-old’s favorite is Sword/Shield. He tried some of the older ones but couldn’t get into them. I think the oldest one he’s enjoyed was X/Y.
It seems like such an obvious quality of life improvement to introduce a difficulty-like mechanic that asks the user if they are familiar with the series. That way, there could be two tracks to the start of the game: the standard hold-your-hand tutorial for newbies and children, and the streamlined version that skips a lot of the dialogue that explains what pokeballs are or whatnot. While I thought Scarlet/Violet wasn’t the worst offender of some of the recent series, this series HAS been going for decades now and I’d like to see them reflect this in their intended audiences. There is a large child fanbase but there is also a large amount of adults who play after having grown up with the games.
I’m just replaying gens 1-5 over and over. I’ve had a few friends recommend RomHacks, and I’m thinking about trying some after finals.
Maybe that’s what’s best. I’d never thought about rom hacks, but I bet there are a ton of good ones.
yeah from what i’ve heard most of them pretty much skip the whole tutorial as anybody playing a romhack has almost certainly played another pokemon game first
Do you have any romhacks that you recommend?
the two i plan on starting this summer are pokemon glazed and pokemon reborn - going in blind, these are just what i’ve been told by friends are the best
Thanks! They both look great. I ll do a deeper look but I think I am going to give pokemon reborn a try.
I’ve played both PLA and SV and my impression from both was that the tutorial dragged on for way too long. Even as a new player, that shit should not be lasting for over an hour. Also way too many text boxes that don’t change anything based on what you pick. Just let me play the game please.
I just finished playing through Pokemon Infinite Fusion and had a great time. I played on hard difficulty and it was a good challenge. Lots of content with a fun central mechanic. I also played it on my Steam Deck so I got the handheld experience. It was a little buggy at times(though I guess that is expected with pokemon now 🙃)
