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User interfaces and touch screens?

CliCliW

I have a Ph.D in Horribleness.
435
Posts
11
Years
So I'm just wondering, which touch screen styles and user interface styles were your favourites in the Pokemon series? Which Poketch apps did you use the most? What would you change or improve on? Were there any niggly things about them that annoyed you?

Personally, my favourite so far was in Heart Gold and Soul Silver. I loved the fact that the touch screen served as your pause menu and you could simply touch it rather than having to actually pause the game. It was just so useful!

D/P/P's Poketch was pretty useful too. Depending on what I was doing I liked to keep the Pokemon Health screen open, just to keep tabs on everyone without having to change. It was definitely the most useful in terms of what you needed. You wanna see daycare guys, just find the app. You wanna find items, just change to the app. It was a pretty decent setup.

Black and White's however. I hated the C-Gear. I rarely have internet functionality for them so it was pretty useless for me and served as a waste of a touch screen. GF could have done a lot more with it if you ask me. I did like how you could register a set list of key items that came up as a list on pressing Y (I think it's Y anyway. I get confused with X and Y buttons...). The itemfinder screen was pretty cool once you got it, but it was a pain to constantly have to reactivate it every time you paused the game. I also liked the bag's ability to sort itself out alphabetically - it's very useful for the overly organised people!

So I'd like to hear other people's opinions on which interfaces, be they touch screen or otherwise, people preferred.

As always, apologies if this thread is in the wrong place. Moderators please feel free to move it to the correct section if you feel it belongs elsewhere!
 

Perriechu

i make this look easy tik-tik boom like gasoline-y
4,079
Posts
14
Years
Heart Gold and Soul Silver definitely were my favorites. I just liked it how you barely had to use A, B, X and Y for anything and that everything could be pretty much done from the touch screen menu. I kinda wish that they had brought it back for BW/BW2 because the C-Gear was pretty pointless imo; they could have had the C-Gear be accessed from the Key Item menu and kept the touch screen for the menu tbh.

I didn't really like DPPt so I wasn't really bothered about the menu.
 
7,741
Posts
17
Years
  • Seen Sep 18, 2020
I don't like any of the touch implementation and don't use it. I miss the Gameboy start menu, especially for the lack of animation; and now one can't even press start to bring it up, despite the fact the button isn't used for anything else!
 

BakingBluePotatoe

The Red Death Alchemist
2,281
Posts
16
Years
I for one LOVED the touchscreen menu in HGSS. Heck, even the Poketch was pretty cool, since it had so many useful apps... Platinum's Poketch was superior to DP's since it let you go in both directions, and included and app that was event-only for the other 2 games.

As for Gen 5's CGear... Uhg. Hate it. Waste of a touch screen, especially since it's extremely rare for me to find anyone playing Pokemon where I currently live...

From what I've seen of Gen 6's screenshot's it looks like it has the same idea Gen 5 had... I am dissapoint. I for one hope the touch screen can be customised to have what you want.
 

Sydian

fake your death.
33,379
Posts
16
Years
I really loved HGSS' interface. Things were so easy and having your registered items right on the bottom screen was great too. One of the few good things about DPPt though is the Poketch, especially since many of those apps were useful. I still prefer HGSS' bottom screen, but DPPt is really close behind it. I hate gen V's C-Gear and I think it's useless and a waste of a bottom screen.
 

Elaitenstile

I am legend
1,908
Posts
11
Years
  • Age 24
  • Seen Feb 27, 2015
Possibly the HGSS screen was superior to the other versions, and the user interface of the bag was extremely catchy.
The Pokétch app was very interesting, and my favourite must've been the Berry finder. It was just damn useful.

Other than that I think BWs Dowsing Machine was really useful.

The C Gear I cannot say about much, since no-one really plays Pokémon near I live.
 
50,218
Posts
13
Years
My fave was always the 5th Gen Dowsing Machine, it was much more easier to use. Also, HG/SS's touch screen interface wasn't too bad either considering you could make Running Shoes activate without even holding B.
 
4,181
Posts
10
Years
Going back and forth between the touch screen and the buttons was always a drag in my opinion, as such I didn't like forcefully having to use the touch screen in any situation.
 
8,571
Posts
14
Years
I absolutely loved that the bottom screen on HG/SS was the menu, rather than having it be mostly unused outside of battle. I really wished that we would've got a hybrid between the HG/SS and D/P/Pt bottom screens heading into the 5th gen- having a Poketch-esque thing replacing the Pokegear, so I was quite disappointed that we ended up getting the C-Gear, which I basically never used (I had the Dowsing Machine almost permanently on my bottom screen). Hopefully we can still have some sort of hybrid in the next games, though, since the menu at the bottom was just too convenient (and bring back the permanent running shoes, please!).
 

Shrew

is a Shrew
838
Posts
10
Years
HGSS's touch screen was the best. The C-gear was just made to look pretty with skins and customizable shapes and colors.

Imagine the interface from HGSS... But with an icon that referred to the new XY interface. Clicking it would switch to a screen that shows nearby people and whatever else new features it has. This icon would light-up if nearby people were detected, essentially as a notification. Furthermore, another icon to immediately switch to your key items, similar to the Y-button menu in Black/White.

As for the Poketch features, I think most of the useful apps could just be used as touch screen key items, such as the Dowsing Machine or a new Berry Finder. Whether or not a person finds them useful could be reflected through whether they're registered.

Edit: Also, what the heck was Gamefreak thinking getting rid of the auto-running shoes feature? I thought they would add it back in BW2, but nope! Holding the B button down is tiresome. :(
 

T!M

Four Category MoTY (VG) Winner
1,422
Posts
15
Years
Outside of the PokéGear intreface in the games. My favorite thing that could be done on the bottom screen was A. Digging (D/P/pL) and B. The Brick Break Event in the PokéAthalon (hG/sS).

But if I did have to choose one particular thing that enjoyed the most in terms of whatever gear you had in whatever game you were playing was the Notepad in D/P/pL. I always drew a nice little picture and left it there while I played the game. Usually a rough sketch of a PokéBall. Lol.
 

SaniOKh

Too old for this stuff
592
Posts
17
Years
I am not that big a fan of touch screens in general, and use buttons as much as I can. So the HG/SS GUI is not really for me. I also very rarely play with others, so the C-Gear is pretty pointless for me as well.

I'd say the one time I found the bottom screen useful was in D/P/Pt. I would set it to show my current team's status and never touch it again. I used it to tell whether I should hit the Pokémon Center or not.
 
483
Posts
11
Years
  • Seen Oct 2, 2020
The touch screen in HGSS was sort of handy, but it also illustrated the shortcoming of touch screens. Yes - it was nice that you could navigate it easily by touch, but since everything had to have its own button, there are only six items listed per screen, which is a pain in the butt. More than I like the touch screen, I hate scrolling through multiple pages of screens trying to find the item I want. I'd much rather have a list, and if that means no touch functionality, that's fine.

DPPt's Poketch was pretty handy, but I only use a couple of the apps - mostly the dowsing machine, which is a bit more hassle than it needs to be.

The best app, IMO, is the fifth gen Dowsing Machine, since it's automatic. It's just a shame that there weren't any other good apps in the fifth gen - aside from the Dowsing Machine, the C-Gear is just generally useless clutter.
 

Andrew

Ah Yeah 아예
270
Posts
10
Years
I think HGSS had the best one. It made it super easy to access everything quickly and was well designed.

I like the Poketch as well, but it was fairly limited in its uses. The best part was being able to check your team easily without going through the menus. It was nice, but I liked having all my options available quickly like I did in HGSS.

I rarely use the C-Gear, and it's not very useful to me. I feel like they sort of wasted the touch screen with the C-Gear.
 
5,281
Posts
14
Years
  • Age 29
  • Seen yesterday
Definitely HGSS for usefulness. I liked how I didn't have to keep switching between stylus and ABXY all the time. Although the Pokétch was good too - I liked the dowsing machine and daycare apps, HGSS was definitely the best. I can't really remember much positive about the C-Gear (don't think I've played Black since 2011), so that's probably the worst one.
 
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