7th Gen I genuinely think USUM would've had better reception if they were sequels instead of third games

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    I've been giving this some thought.

    A lot of the reason why people seemed disappointed in every generation after 5 is because Gen 5 is the first and only generation to date with a sequel. With B2W2 being a sequel and not a third game, this essentially gave Game Freak more breathing room to add in more exciting content as far as story and even additional features are concerned, whereas with third game there's the problem of having 90% of the game recycled.

    I just kinda want to rant this out but I think it's an interesting observation nonetheless; sequels should've been a regular thing after Gen 5, but for some strange reason Game Freak went back to the traditional formula of making third games. If this is going to be the case, B2W2 might as well be a third game and not a sequel, but I digress.

    What are your thoughts?
     
    Probably.

    But Pokemon has done this from the start.

    And even when they don't, they always just remake the same game anyway.
     
    It was greedy and dumb of them to hold back some features in SM and make a third version esque game and split it into two versions for extra moola.
     
    strangerhypno said:
    Really?

    Before gen 5, 3rd versions were sold as a single game

    Gen 5, there were good sequels released

    Gen 6 had no third version game, only RS remakes

    Gen 7 returned to a third version game but they sold it as two games. And SM was already not that great.
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    Despite being a 'sequel', BW2 was essentially just that. Apparently they disguised it well enough.

    And true, I will give you that in Gen 6. The Hoenn remakes almost felt like a step backwards, but only because they had to cater to the limitations of the games they were remaking.
     
    Enpatsu Shakugan said:
    Despite being a 'sequel', BW2 was essentially just that. Apparently they disguised it well enough.

    And true, I will give you that in Gen 6. The Hoenn remakes almost felt like a step backwards, but only because they had to cater to the limitations of the games they were remaking.
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    B2W2 is close to being a dual third version game, but at least they added in enough new areas and new content, and a different but simpler story than BW. USUM doesn't even add new battle facilities.
     
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    The bigger point I was getting at is that most people's entire hype towards USUM was mostly expecting it to be as good as B2W2 was, especially given that it was the last main series Pokemon game to be released on the 3DS family.

    Now, Game Freak isn't the only party to blame here, although they definitely share a decent chunk of it. I think some of the fanbase also shares the blame to some degree for getting their hopes way too high and being unrealistic about things.
     
    pastel said:
    Now, Game Freak isn't the only party to blame here, although they definitely share a decent chunk of it. I think some of the fanbase also shares the blame to some degree for getting their hopes way too high and being unrealistic about things.
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    I think that this is the key point here. Game Freak kind of keeps following this same old bad release cycle and people are getting tired of it, but at the same time, from the day USUM was revealed, people had this bizarre idea that these were going to be S/M sequels.

    When there was nothing to indicate that they were.

    And then still continued to believe so even when it was even more abundantly clear that they weren't, or at the very least, were disappointed that their unfounded assumption wasn't true when it became abundantly clear.

    And then also made the assumption that if they were sequels, that they would be as good as B2W2, even though that would not necessarily be the case.

    People really should've stopped getting their hopes up for this series after XY.

    Enpatsu Shakugan said:
    Despite being a 'sequel', BW2 was essentially just that. Apparently they disguised it well enough.
    Click to expand...
    B2W2 really aren't disguised 3rd versions. 3rd versions typically change or add little, whereas B2W2 gave us a whole new plotline and made far more additions and changes than any 3rd version ever has.
     
    It's still a lot of asset reuse, though, but it's the best job they did revisiting a region.
     
    Having TWO games acting as a third version is a very bad idea. Its a lousy effort to make more money. It's 99 % the same game so why sell it as TWO seperate games? I would understand if it was ONE game (aka Platinum .. ) but two?.. Such a rip off
     
    USUM is not even in the equation for me because I don't own that game. I was never a fan of Sun and Moon and didn't just decide suddenly to dislike Alola when it was revealed that USUM would be a third version game. Though I can understand why the presentation was confusing to players because like janejane6178 and strangerhypno pointed out releasing two versions of a third version did not have a precedent.

    However, even taking us back another year before the sequels there were underlying issues I had with the initial game, I thought pacing could have been improved, I was dizzied by the graphics and would have been happier to have received new megas and gyms instead of only z-crystals and trials, it made me feel the game was splitting off into something that felt almost like a spin-off game. I wanted to love gen 7, I think I've been pretty open and liked all of the gens 1-6, some more than others of course but this just felt like a different game and left me biting my nails worried about what on earth gen 8 might look like.

    One of the drawing points that almost tempts me to get USUM some day would be to see good old Ghetsis return in the rainbow rocket episode to punch Lillie in the face, taking her hostage like I hear he does! Yay, good job Ghetsis, I'm so proud of him! I was so sick of acting as this girl's personal chauffeur around Alola. Pretty design but she's not someone I wanted to follow-- didn't inspire me the way Siver, Steven, Cynthia or N did. Sorry, this just wasn't my region.

    Gen 7 probably would be more popular if it had a sequel in the sense that it would be a chance to widen the audience. Not everybody liked the original Black and White game--though I always stood by them, but the sequels represented an opportunity tell a whole new story. I don't see that BW2 is a third game version disguised as a sequel. It has an entirely different plot set years later with another protagonist having new experiences with different people in different roles. It just takes place in the same region.

    Yes, I would be more anxious to play USUM if it was a whole different story because the writing was part of what I didn't respond to in SM, so this would be a chance to wipe the slate clean and start again. You don't necessarily have to like BW to enjoy BW2, they are extremely different games. However, I doubt if you really loved SM that you would suddenly go from liking gen 7 to hating it because it didn't have a sequel. If this was the case we would dislike every gen but 5, and I like most of the generations, especially the third version games like crystal and emerald.
     
    VisionofMilotic said:
    USUM is not even in the equation for me because I don't own that game. I was never a fan of Sun and Moon and didn't just decide suddenly to dislike Alola when it was revealed that USUM would be a third version game. Though I can understand why the presentation was confusing to players because like janejane6178 and strangerhypno pointed out releasing two versions of a third version did not have a precedent.

    However, even taking us back another year before the sequels there were underlying issues I had with the initial game, I thought pacing could have been improved, I was dizzied by the graphics and would have been happier to have received new megas and gyms instead of only z-crystals and trials, it made me feel the game was splitting off into something that felt almost like a spin-off game. I wanted to love gen 7, I think I've been pretty open and liked all of the gens 1-6, some more than others of course but this just felt like a different game and left me biting my nails worried about what on earth gen 8 might look like.

    One of the drawing points that almost tempts me to get USUM some day would be to see good old Ghetsis return in the rainbow rocket episode to punch Lillie in the face, taking her hostage like I hear he does! Yay, good job Ghetsis, I'm so proud of him! I was so sick of acting as this girl's personal chauffeur around Alola. Pretty design but she's not someone I wanted to follow-- didn't inspire me the way Siver, Steven, Cynthia or N did. Sorry, this just wasn't my region.

    Gen 7 probably would be more popular if it had a sequel in the sense that it would be a chance to widen the audience. Not everybody liked the original Black and White game--though I always stood by them, but the sequels represented an opportunity tell a whole new story. I don't see that BW2 is a third game version disguised as a sequel. It has an entirely different plot set years later with another protagonist having new experiences with different people in different roles. It just takes place in the same region.

    Yes, I would be more anxious to play USUM if it was a whole different story because the writing was part of what I didn't respond to in SM, so this would be a chance to wipe the slate clean and start again. You don't necessarily have to like BW to enjoy BW2, they are extremely different games. However, I doubt if you really loved SM that you would suddenly go from liking gen 7 to hating it because it didn't have a sequel. If this was the case we would dislike every gen but 5, and I like most of the generations, especially the third version games like crystal and emerald.
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    I like your posts=]
    I think that after having such brilliant and unique games as BW2 (First time having a sequal) I would have expected GF to think of a better idea than having ANOTHER third version (TWO of 'em actually..)
    And I DID get Ultra Moon and it feels like a huge wate of money.. the whole time I waited for a new stuff and it was just 99 % the same game as the original SM!
     
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    janejane i understand you're seemingly not the biggest fan of gen 7 but it doesn't help if you constantly reiterate it in every thread without contributing anything else with all due respect.

    That said though VisionofMilotic has raises some rather interesting points. I personally didn't mind the plot, but I can see how it would annoy people being around Lillie for another game without changing things up a bit.
     
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    I think VisionofMilotic sums it up the best. Had US/UM been a B2/W2-like sequel as opposed to a third version that was split in two, it would have been received better. While it still added new features and the typical Move Tutors, it wasn't enough to make up for most people's disappointment with 7th Gen as a whole.
     
    I feel I should be very clear with this:

    Ultimately, I don't mind if anyone isn't really a fan of these games. I certainly like them; I have a wide variety of concerns, but each and every single one of us will ultimately have difference experiences and different opinions. I'd really love to have conversations and gain some insight as to why people have more negative experiences than positive ones. Really, I just feel it's unhelpful to bash games for the sake of bandwagoning on the hate (really, the hate bangwagon is just obnoxious in itself). Gen 7 (and USUM in particular) really seems to be a "you either love it or hate it" set of games and while I personally feel that the hate might've been a bit on the excessive side (even if some of it is justified) threads like this one are made for the entire purpose of discussing what could've been.

    ---

    Honestly, re: the concerns with gen 8 -- there's every reason to believe Gen 8 would share similar aspects with gen 7. The first two games of Gen 8 would feel rushed and incomplete while Game Freak would release what is most likely a sequel to tie things up together. That's just the Game Freak way of things; whether they're going to change their "formula" (so to speak) or not we'll see, but after Game Freak missed their opportunity to design USUM as more of a sequel than a third game, I have to say that I don't have my hopes very high.
     
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    Eh, idk. USUM has a user score of 9.0 on metacritic based on 509 ratings which surely tells you that they're generally well-received games despite what a lot of people say. It's a good thing to revisit old concepts imo. If they continued to produce sequels for every generation thereafter, people would get bored pretty fast and crave something else. That's probably why there hasn't been a remake for every generation since third gen.
     
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