freebies

[Mab]

So here's a thought. Seems to me like the newer games, specifically Gen V/VI, seem to be a lot more liberal with giving away free Pok?mon to the player without any form of battle. Black and White 2 gave you the Zoroark and 1 or 2 others which really wasn't bad, but then, X&Y gave you the Kanto Starters for some stupid reason and also your rival in the post-game giving you yet another Kalos Starter, and ORAS gives you a damn Latios/Latias for some reason.

Do you think this is a trend that will continue into the future? The older games didn't hesitate to give you an occasional gift but it seems like the newer games love to give important Pok?mon as total handouts. What do you think of this?

 

[Lunar]

I think they'll definitely continue to give away free Pokemon to players, like Ben said it makes the games easier and allows us to use some Pokemon that we perhaps wouldn't use otherwise. I personally liked having a Kanto starter in XY but the free Latias/Latios in ORAS was a bit OP.

 

[NotThatOneAgain]

In RBY you could basically get into an office, walk up to the top-floor, snag the Ball containing an Eevee and then sneak out the same way you came. Ash is not only a good trainer and a Hero against Team Rocket, he's also a clever thief!

 

[esperance]

You forgot to mention the starters you can get each time you beat the Elite 4 in ORAS :p

I can easily see this trend continuing in the future. Like Ben said, it's a gimmick to excite new players. I only worry that because of this there will be fewer and fewer genuinely rare Pokémon.

 

[Mister Coffee]

I really don't mind the games progressively handing over more pokemon for free as the franchise continues. I am actually totally okay with OR/AS handing over the Lati's for free, but the only reason why I was okay with it was because it made sense in the plot for the Lati's to join you on your destined quest as the chosen trainer to quell the rage of Groudon/Kyogre.
So if the games want to hand powerful Legendary pokemon, I will be okay with it, so long as they don't do it for every Legendary pokemon, and so long as it is used as a plot device within the story.

I also don't think that giving away free rare pokemon in the game is destroying the rarity, mostly because, the rarity of most pokemon has already been destroyed due to the online trading features of the most recent pokemon games. Thanks to the GTS and Wonder Trade, I get incredibly rare pokemon quite easily, sure it's still sort of hard to get most event distributed Legendary pokemon, but everything else takes little to no effort to acquire.

 

[Megan]

I think simply giving away mons in the games doesn't really do them justice. Afterall, each and every mon in the games was designed with a certain purpose. That kinda goes for event legends as well. Obtaining an item that gives you some backstory and allowing you to catch your legendary yourself is something else entirely than just downloading (or just talking to some NPC) and simply obtaining it from some random in a Pokemon Center.

 

[Altairis]

I don't really use the freebies but eh... the only one I really appreciated after a little bit was the Zorua in BW2, because I really wanted to use it and they insisted on making the Pokemon not accessible in the wild, and the Latios/Latias in ORAS because it implemented the Soaring mechanic easily. I was a bit confused as to why we just GOT them at first, buuut I appreciate it now.

But, the Lucario in XY? Nah. Seems too easy! And it's already evolved. We didn't need to do anything.