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Unova Battles: Lacking depth?

Aquacorde

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So recently I was thinking/talking about Ash's battle style- and the battle styles in general- in the Best Wishes series and came to the conclusion that they're really rather one-dimensional. It's become a rarity that terrain influences the battle in some way and there's been a lack of improvision involving the use of Pokémon's moves as far as I can tell. We've seen glimpses of terrain use [Subway Battle; Striaton, Mistralton and Icirrus gyms] and dashes of strategic move use [Electro Ball deflecting Stone Edge, Tag Battle Combos], but for the most part I feel as if the battles have been turn-by-turn/attack-dodge-attack-defend, very much like the games. Where's the creativity gone? It's always been the best part of battles in the anime and improvision on the fly is exactly Ash's battle style. Why do away with it?
 
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  • Seen Aug 29, 2013
I think more than anything it is an overall lack of substance. I didn't really find myself in a climatic situation, which left the battles underwhelming. To sum it up the battles and to a greater degree Don Tournaments which a lot of battles in BW were conducted were quick (as there was a lot of one on one) and they were detracted from by dialogue, and the league was detracted by Axew getting lost AGAIN, then several gym matches had a reliance of evolution to get Ash by. Couple all this together and the battles are poor.
 
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Yes I agree with you. The current battles are really lacking some taste. Looks like the upcoming Dekorora will also contain not much excitement due to the fact that it features Exploration more just like the title suggests
 

Pinkie-Dawn

Vampire Waifu
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Wouldn't that be a good thing though? Many fans have complained about the anime not following the game's mechanics such as turn-based battles and no terrain influence other than weather to gain a player's advantage. Nobody wants to see another "aim for the horn" moment or a "thunder armor" method on an anime that's suppose to be based of a video game.
 

BrandoSheriff

Has a tendency to figure things out
776
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16
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All of my yes.

Compared to the Sinnoh saga, which had awesome battles all around, the Unova saga battles seem sort of bland. It does have its moments of climactic battles, but not too much. The League arcs usually pull out all the stops with battles, leading to epic battles all around. The Unova League arc felt like a longer tournament episode, which this saga seems to rely on more than others to show good battles. In other words, the battles were slightly boring. There wasn't really any sense of satisfaction from seeing Ash win against his rivals, especially Trip, who they killed off extremely early.
 

Aquacorde

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12,453
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Wouldn't that be a good thing though? Many fans have complained about the anime not following the game's mechanics such as turn-based battles and no terrain influence other than weather to gain a player's advantage. Nobody wants to see another "aim for the horn" moment or a "thunder armor" method on an anime that's suppose to be based of a video game.
"Aim for the horn" was just a complete screw up. Thunder Armor though, however OP or whatever it was, was a creative strategy. Like Aqua Ring to repel electric attacks or bouncing Water Gun off rocks to score an indirect hit. Terrain should be a major part of anime battles because that would affect, you know, real creatures doing the same. Because the anime is meant to make the game world come alive. If we go with what you're saying, the anime would basically be just like watching people battle on Showdown. And that's boring as watching paint dry. I honestly don't think I've ever seen someone complain about there not being turn-based battles in the anime before. That's just not how it works when you have an active real-time battle. That's appallingly boring. Why would anyone want that?
 

zdude18

Lone Wolf
169
Posts
11
Years
i somewhat agree that they arent very creative but what makes me more mad is how delayed the attacks are now. like when pikachu uses quick attack and thunderbolt it has to charge up now. like what the heck? those moves should go quickly. now its easy to dodge. ridiculous
 

Aquacorde

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Ohhhh yes. That's certainly another thing. The fancy stock animation that makes so little sense in the context of the battle. When Pika used Iron Tail on Elesa's Tynamo and had to time it just right... it would have been REALLY GOOD except for the fact that time stopped for a full four seconds while Pika charged up Iron Tail and did a show-offy flip. That clip was so unnecessary and just totally dragged me out of the battle.
 

Pinkie-Dawn

Vampire Waifu
9,528
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"Aim for the horn" was just a complete screw up. Thunder Armor though, however OP or whatever it was, was a creative strategy. Like Aqua Ring to repel electric attacks or bouncing Water Gun off rocks to score an indirect hit. Terrain should be a major part of anime battles because that would affect, you know, real creatures doing the same. Because the anime is meant to make the game world come alive. If we go with what you're saying, the anime would basically be just like watching people battle on Showdown. And that's boring as watching paint dry. I honestly don't think I've ever seen someone complain about there not being turn-based battles in the anime before. That's just not how it works when you have an active real-time battle. That's appallingly boring. Why would anyone want that?

There are, actually, and that's why the webshow "WTF Pokemon" existed, to point out not only the plot holes and lazy writing, but also the logical mistakes the anime has made that weren't present in the actual games, and real life in general, such as terrain and the dodge command. There was also once a social group in BMGF, that was against the anime for not following the games properly in both story and game mechanics, before it and the rest of the social groups were removed according to a friend of mine from BMGF.
 

Aquacorde

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Oh no, how terrible. An adaptation taking some liberties. Dreadful. Look, though, the Pokémon Anime has never followed the games. The anime has been about Ash Ketchum's journey to become whatever a Pokémon Master is, not about the player character's quest to become the champion and defeat the regional menace. People can complain about what they deem to be "lazy writing" all they want, and a portion of the accusations are probably true, but not following the games certainly does not equal lazy writing. It actually is more creative writing, because they are not just taking the games an animating them. They are coming up with a mostly new story and very different characters.

Turn-based battles should never be a thing in the anime. Sparring is not turn-based. Brawling is not turn-based. Why should a Pokémon battle be? If they made an anime out of some fighting RPG like Breath of Fire and animated the battles, would you complain that they didn't show things on a turn-by-turn basis? That'd be dumb. To keep the battle alive in the minds of the viewers, battles should involve creative tactics that respond to the opponent and the terrain and other factors in real-time, not pausing to analyse and select the next super effective move.
 

Necrum

I AM THE REAL SONIC
5,090
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11
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Turn-based battles should never be a thing in the anime. Sparring is not turn-based. Brawling is not turn-based. Why should a Pokémon battle be? If they made an anime out of some fighting RPG like Breath of Fire and animated the battles, would you complain that they didn't show things on a turn-by-turn basis? That'd be dumb. To keep the battle alive in the minds of the viewers, battles should involve creative tactics that respond to the opponent and the terrain and other factors in real-time, not pausing to analyse and select the next super effective move.
Turn based combat is supposed to be a slowed down version of real time events anyway, so it really would make no sense to follow that in an anime.

I gotta say, the few battles I have seen in Unova weren't much different than those of older episodes, so I don't think it's fair to say they lack depth. They seemed perfectly appropriate to me and overall feature a more realistic view of a Pokemon battle, if there is suck a thing.
 

zdude18

Lone Wolf
169
Posts
11
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if you watch an early sinnoh battle and compare it to an early unova battle, the differences are quite clear. probably the only creative moves a pokemon has done so far in to my watching is oshawott blocking things with its scall chop and bouncing water gun off of walls. but thats about it
 
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If you guys had watched the Donalite Arx carefully you would have seen one first episode they did make a Poke using a weather advantage to unlock his ability. I meant about that Seismitoad Stephan faced against. But after that episode I never saw anything much like it
 

Aquacorde

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No yeah that happened but... it was really weird? Like I know we've got some great ability showcase out of Unova, but that one... the trainer somehow called up rain and made his Seismitoad make use of Swift Swim? And it barely affected the battle anyway beyond giving it some speed. What about Pokémon slipping all over the muddy ground and whatever?
 

Aquacorde

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Yes, I am? I want terrain to have a logical impact on the battle. I want the field to get muddy and Pokémon to trip over in holes and there to be less explosions.
 

BrandoSheriff

Has a tendency to figure things out
776
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Yes, I am? I want terrain to have a logical impact on the battle. I want the field to get muddy and Pokémon to trip over in holes and there to be less explosions.

This definitely needs to stop. Almost all important battles have some sort of explosion resulting from two opposing attacks colliding, and after the smoke clears, both Pokemon end up fighting to get up first, or one is standing, and the other fainted.

I'm starting to get tired of seeing those. xD
 

Aquacorde

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Hoo yes. There is no reason water+fire should not equal steam. Fire+electric should not equal explosion. Punching a water attack should not cause an explosion. It doesn't work like that and when you have so many dramatic explosions it ceases to be dramatic and is simply unnecessary.
 
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But I personally like this idea of Pokemon Battles in the anime. This makes battles ore interesting to watch.( Here comes the scene of Ash's Krookodile against Brycen's Beartic in my mind)
 

ShadowMirror

Ready for the Battle
179
Posts
11
Years
I think that they are focusing to much on the evolutions/pokemon coming out of the pokemon/getting good angles on the moves, than the battles themself. in the sinnoh saga i loved how Ash got Chimchar to use Flame Wheel and Flamethrower at the same time, AWESOME!!!
 
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