Chit-Chat: Player saved the game.

[Hikamaru]

I once did it in Ruby, and to be honest the battles didn't look as good.

 

[Wicked3DS]

I'm not a fan of using 3D, it bothers my eyes and I don't think it looks all that great anyway.

 

[Seth Rollins]

No, I can't, it just hurts my eyes :(

 

[Megan]

Never really used the 3D feature, because I'm using the oldest model of the 3DS, where the 3D isn't really at the point where it's acceptable and I'm in general not a fan of 3D options in games, especially when the game lags even when the 3D is turned off.

Spinoffs? Besides me wanting a hugh explorative open world game, with a lot of choices the player can make and incredible worldbuilding and stuff (which is never goiing to happen, sadly), there's not much that I care about spinoffs. PMD died for me with GTI, Conquest was never released in our country, not a fan of puzzle games, Colloseum and DX looking rather meh, etc.

Well, I played a little bit Pixelmon, but since it's just a mod for MC, that's probably not going to count as a spinoff {XD}

 

[Megan]

When GTI came out, I watched Marriland play it and since he seemed to have some fun with it, I figured, I might as well give it a try. Especially since I hadn't touched a PMD game since Blue Rescue Team, I figured, it could be a chance, to get back into the series. What followed was the most painful gaming experience I ever had (and I've played games like I Wanna Be The Guy).

As such, I'm far from hyped in terms of SPMD. I just care not even enough about it, I don't even know if it's playable on the old 3DS. I don't know, though; maybe I'll watch some people play it, but I'm definitely going to think things through, before I even consider buying the game.

 

[Circuit]

If you want a fun spin off game, Colosseum and XD are the best spin-off games Pokémon has. Like, PMD was fun and all, but it will never top the experience that is Colosseum. That game just did so many things right, in some ways I prefer it to the original Pokémon games.

Though I am highly considering getting SPMD when it comes out. That looks pretty damn good, and I look forward to seeing what it offers. First thoughts though: why are we still stuck walking in straight lines. Where's the 2 dimensional walking that we got in X/Y?

 

[Megan]

As far as I know, in PMD you could walk in any directions, as long as you're in one of the hub worlds and even in dungeons there was a way to walk diagonal, if I recall correctly. If anything, we should wonder, why it took the main series so long to allow for diagonal movement.

 

[Hikamaru]

If anything, we should wonder, why it took the main series so long to allow for diagonal movement.

I guess it's because they needed to wait for the right amount of memory and that's why we had all the time for 6th Gen to finally implement it. But it's good because it gives more of a realistic feel to the games, but at the same time 5th Gen did that with its seasons mechanic.

 

[Megan]

I guess it's because they needed to wait for the right amount of memory and that's why we had all the time for 6th Gen to finally implement it. But it's good because it gives more of a realistic feel to the games, but at the same time 5th Gen did that with its seasons mechanic.

I don't think the lack of memory was the cause of not putting diagonal movement into the game. I mean games like Crystalis (NES) and Chrono Trigger (SNES) already had said feature and both of them did have even less memory available. {XD}

 

[Wicked3DS]

I never play spinoffs, I just never really had any interest in them at all.

 

[Hikamaru]

Do they really ignore fan opinions? I remember when a pure flying type was pretty much in demand and was the hyped thing before Gen V was a thing and introduced Tornadus, which gives the impression that GF might consider some fans' thoughts. :x

I think you might be right in that sometimes Game Freak take fans into account when designing or implementing certain stuff, but then of course we have the features that only stuck around for one game that the fans absolutely loved, such as trainer customization or what people claim is the only "good" battle facility to exist, Emerald's Battle Frontier.

 

[Wicked3DS]

but then of course we have the features that only stuck around for one game that the fans absolutely loved, such as trainer customization or what people claim is the only "good" battle facility to exist, Emerald's Battle Frontier.

Pokémon following behind you is a good example of this. This was very well received and has not returned in another game. Fail, Game Freak, Fail.

 

[Hikamaru]

Pokémon following behind you is a good example of this. This was very well received and has not returned in another game. Fail, Game Freak, Fail.

I guess the reason behind why walking Pokemon never came back was due to the ever-growing number of new Pokemon and rendering overworld models for all of them would take up loads of memory.

 

[Megan]

I kind of have the feeling, Nintendo's priority in terms of fanbase interaction lies within their home fanbase, japanese players. The games they release have a hugh priority in terms "has to work for the japanese fans", while the rest of the world just comes second.

As such, GF focusing more on what japanese players want, which isn't so much out of the question. Combine that with those fans being a lot more into competitive PvP interaction (as opposed to western players, who seem to be more into the adventure aspect of the games), that could explain, why the games seem to be more and more directed into competitive play.

 

[Megan]

I don't care too much whether the games are more designed for competitive or not, because I play the games for the gameplay and not the story, anyway. Then there's the fact that I only got into competitive when gen 6 came out, but as I'm a little bit of a perfectionist, I felt a little bit pushed too much into repetitive SR for some legendary that I want to create one set of, which is why I decided that playing on simulators might be the better choice, at least for me. {XD}

 

[Megan]

I managed to get some decent results out of my attempts to SR the legendary beasts and there are still a couple mons that I'd consider getting a good one of (namely Cresselia, Landorus and Latias), but as much as SRing is a real chore, SRing without Master Balls is even more annoying. I just don't want to waste all the time and effort anymore, but I do respect people who actually spend weeks just to get one Pokemon that has the correct IV spread+Nature and all. {XD}

 

[Wicked3DS]

They need to stop catering to the competitive scene and focus on making actual good games. I want something a little more substantial than we got in X/Y.

 

[Megan]

I wish NPCs were a little bit more integrated in the game world. As it stands now, the Day-Night cycle is probably going to stay, so why not let NPCs do different things depending on what time of the day it is? I mean, in general: why not let NPCs do something?

An example, just to show what I mean:
There's this forest and in this forest is a house that's inhabited by a wood cutter. At daytime, he's doing what he's supposed to do: cut wood. Talking to him leads to him telling you, why he's doing what he's doing ("Winter is coming, so I still need to prepare more wood", etc.)
When it's night, however, he's sitting in his home and talking to him results in him telling you stories about the forest, some of them even baring hints that you can use in order to discover secrets and that ultimately can lead you to, let's say, a certain legendary that inhabits said forest.

Sounds a lot better than a tutorial that explains you, which button to press in order to open the menu, doesn't it?

 

[Circuit]

It's not really that hard to think of a new plot each time. They've only needed to create six/seven different games so far, if they changed the plot each time. Writing it seems however, is the lowest priority on GFs to-do list. As such it's been massively over-looked, and is potentially going to stop me buying the next set of games that come out. I want to see Pokémon turn into something like Colosseum/XD permanently, where each time you have a distinct story to play through. Perhaps mix Colosseum with the original games' plot, and you'd have something more interesting.

And I totally agree with R.F. on his NPC point. NPCs really are flat, and add very little depth to the game outside of the few characters you interact with. The technology is there, GF and Nintendo just need to use it.

 

[Megan]

You know, I've been thinking about the Pokedex and I came to the conclusion, that this thing doesn't make any sense at all (and I'm not even talking about some of the entries). When we get the Pokedex, it's empty and our job is it to fill this thing with data. However, when we get a Pokemon that doesn't belong to the region, it just doesn't get its data unless the Pokedex got upgraded to the National Dex.

That kind of implies, that the Regional Pokedex already has all the data for all the Pokemon that you can encounter in said region. But then the question is, why it's not showing it and more importantly why it's neccessary for the player to find all the Pokemon and gather the data, when it's already in the Pokedex, and just not shown.

For future gens, I think, it would be cool, if we could just get the National Dex, but ordered in such a way that it fills itself dynamically.The first entries are all for Pokemon that are obtainable in the region, the game is located in and everything else comes afterwards. There could also be different sorting options that allow it to sort for certain generations, etc.