Watch out for Ghosts...

113

I started a living dex project in Gen VI that I actually really enjoyed doing until I realised I'd have to play through XY and ORAS three times apiece to get everything...availability is not one of Game Freak's strong suits, unfortunately.

Honestly the playerbase can be awful at times to trade with as well...I shudder just thinking about the GTS sometimes.

114

Yeah... doesn't help that they're making trades harder to begin with :rowlhmph:

115

I have absolutely no idea what they were thinking of with Gen VIII's abysmal password system either. They had online connectivity down to a fine art with Gen VI's PSS, and it's just gotten...worse. I didn't think it could be any worse than Festival Plaza!
In all fairness to Game Freak though, they're not alone in this: Nintendo have no clue how to do online connectivity in general. As bad as SnS' password system was, at least they're not at this level yet.

116

I haven't done any trading in forever. It just seems like it's getting a pain to do any of it now. I'm with you guys the older games seemed a lot easier to trade on.

117

Yeah I have to agree with that. I enjoyed how all you needed was an internet connection. Sort of crappy that you have to now buy a switch, buy a few games, and then have to pay to even do anything on the internet. Like, why make it something like that?

118

They are trying to get any and all money out of you in some way shape for form.

119

You could still trade locally I suppose.

120

It's still going to be a pain because of everything it feels like you have to go through JUST to trade.

121

Exactly and the amount of items that you need to trade with the Pokemon seems unnecessary. Though I will say that the cutting of the Pokedex is a good thing if you're wanting to get the shiny charm. Could you imagine having to catch all 800+ Pokemon to then get the shiny charm?

122

Even if all the Pokemon to date were present and accounted for in Sword and Shield they still coulda had the requirement be Galar Dex completion over a National Dex.

123

That is true, but you never know with how people are wanting the games. People were pretty upset that not all the Pokemon got in, but it also makes sense. I mean....look at it in real life. Do you expect a polar bear to be in the Sahara desert? Or a rattlesnake in a river?

124

Too bad it didn't actually work like that in reality. Would you expect a Pokemon based off a Bulldog - a very British dog - to be in a region modelled after Britain? There's nothing wrong with thematic regional Pokedex, but they should actually be thematic, not just done based on what is popular.

Dexit was only a thing because TPC didn't give Game Freak enough time to copypaste all the 3DS models into the games anyway.

125

Exactly so the pokemon of the regions shouldn't be a popularity contest. More of a does it fit the region and if not then the pokemon won't get added to that game. Doesn't mean it is forgotten or will never be put in another game.

126

The thing is, that isn't a valid reason to not code Pokemon into the game - post-launch SnS has demonstrated very clearly that it's a time factor that prevents them from doing this, and now that they've done it with SnS (or at least, mostly done it) there's no reason whatsoever that they can't do it with future titles on the Switch. Hell, the 3DS models were future-proofed to prevent that kind of thing from happening in the first place.

I do agree that the regional dex should be suitably thematic because it breathes more life into the region, but I definitely don't agree that means it's OK to not have the Pokemon coded into the game at all. It's not about things getting forgotten, it's about preserving continuity and player choice, which are very important aspects of the franchise to many people that can easily co-exist with any artistic design choice in what is actually available in the wild of that region. Don't make it available in the wild if it doesn't fit, sure, but don't make it completely unavailable for transfer if someone really wants to use it.

127

I can see where that is coming from, but in the end it isn't really our games. Sure we can ask for some Pokemon to be in it, but a lot of times it is in with the new and not so much the old. Sure the old gets mixed in, but it is starting to seem like the games are a lot more story based in my opinion. So it does make sense for the limiting amount of Pokemon and not allowing some for story reason. If any Pokemon was allowed then it would mix up the story plot and wouldn't convey the story as they intended.

128

That's...neither here nor there, when you think about it. Game Freak is in the business to make money, and they will best do this by making a product that appeals to consumers. Whilst the sales of SnS would suggest they succeeded, you can't just completely ignore the backlash that this caused, because they definitely didn't, and I don't think they will moving forward, either. Saying the developers owe us nothing, whilst technically true, is excusing bad practice and bad faith. It's not really relevant. You can either buy the games or not, but that's always been the case, and that doesn't mean that you shouldn't make your voice heard if you're not happy. Sometimes it has a positive effect. Whether the ripples caused by dexit will have that kind of effect by improving future titles remains to be seen though.

Sorry, but...what story? Recycling Gen III's narrative since Gen III notwithstanding, Gen VIII had a very deliberately minimalistic narrative - more often than not you were told to "let the adults handle it" whilst you were funnelled directly to the next Gym. Compared to Gen VII, which was cutscenes every five minutes whilst Lillie permanently attached herself to your hand, it was almost open world. Also, it doesn't really make any sense at all when you consider that the Pokemon the player uses has absolutely no effect whatsoever on the narrative. If you were outright forced to use specific Pokemon for plot reasons all the time then I would agree with you, but player choice in team building has always been a driving factor in the Pokemon titles. If players are no longer going to be able to do that for narrative reasons then the narrative is going to have to justify that by being much more present than it has ever been, and player choice in team building will need to be removed entirely, which definitely won't happen outside of the spinoffs. So I don't see how this can be used as a justification for not coding all Pokemon into the game. This is ignoring the postgame factor too, where things are often unconnected to the main part of the game, meaning there is no need for restrictions on what can be used and what can't.

129

I know people like working on getting a complete Dex or even a Living Dex of some sort. Pokémon that people worked on raising like to use them in newer games. Not everyone does everything in the games. I know in the older games I didn't really take part in the Contests unless I had to for part of the story.

130

I've never touched the minigames in Pokemon, haha. I have a general aversion to minigames as it is, and I always found things like contests to be...trying. Not particularly engaging because the rewards never really did much.

131

Minigames can be fun, I spent a lot of time in Sinnoh's Underground mostly just because it was that, fun, and getting some neat loot was a welcome bonus. But in regards to minigames, that's pretty much it for me.

Dawn said:

The thing is, that isn't a valid reason to not code Pokemon into the game - post-launch SnS has demonstrated very clearly that it's a time factor that prevents them from doing this, and now that they've done it with SnS (or at least, mostly done it) there's no reason whatsoever that they can't do it with future titles on the Switch. Hell, the 3DS models were future-proofed to prevent that kind of thing from happening in the first place.

I do agree that the regional dex should be suitably thematic because it breathes more life into the region, but I definitely don't agree that means it's OK to not have the Pokemon coded into the game at all. It's not about things getting forgotten, it's about preserving continuity and player choice, which are very important aspects of the franchise to many people that can easily co-exist with any artistic design choice in what is actually available in the wild of that region. Don't make it available in the wild if it doesn't fit, sure, but don't make it completely unavailable for transfer if someone really wants to use it.

Click to expand...

The argument was they wanted to have a new meta and to give the new Pokémon more of a chance or something, was it not? I can see the advantage for competitive play in that regard. There are lots of cool new Pokémon and you don't want to have everybody use, say, Groudon and Xerneas all the time because it's really strong.
...and then all these legendary Pokémon from all over the Pokéverse become available in SwSh after all, so I'm kinda ???? What was the point??

132. That was one of the reasons provided at one point, yeah...and then that went out the window with the patches that added a ton of Pokemon back in. The problem with that as a reason as well is that there is nothing stopping them from just doing online competitions with those rulesets - they frequently do competitions with specific rulesets as it is, so a "Galar Regional Dex only" tournament could have been effected through this rather than deliberately forced by being coded into the games. At the time it could have been used as a valid reason if they'd stuck to it, but with the DLC it's been rendered invalid like every other reason they've given for it.