• Ever thought it'd be cool to have your art, writing, or challenge runs featured on PokéCommunity? Click here for info - we'd love to spotlight your work!
  • Dawn, Gloria, Juliana, or Summer - which Pokémon protagonist is your favorite? Let us know by voting in our poll!
  • Welcome to PokéCommunity! Register now and join one of the best fan communities on the 'net to talk Pokémon and more! We are not affiliated with The Pokémon Company or Nintendo.
    Register

Weirdest game design choices?

Bijhan

    • 20
    Posts
    7
    Years
    • Seen Feb 22, 2024
    What do you think are the most odd or baffling game design choices in the main series of games?

    For me, I found it baffling how many generations had to come out on DS/3DS before they actually allowed you to drag-and-drop Pokemon in a truly sensible way. I'm re-playing HeartGold right now, and the inability to use the stylus in a simple and intuitive way, requiring a lot of button inputs, is really frustrating.
     
    I genuinely forgot Game Freak even bothered with stylus integration if I'm going to be honest. :x
     
    Last edited:
    Why they thought it was a good idea to switch to Festival Plaza when the PSS was so good and easy to use.
     
    Probably Gens 6 & 7 for me. Gen 6 felt empty. Like they had ideas they just dropped so you expect things to go one way and nothing.

    Gen 7 felt like the whole game was just chill and a vacation from the series. I get Alola was a vacation region but idk it just felt like a filler game to me. Even down to the point it had no real evil team. Granted this is more opinion over anything.
     
    Frankly, that there were no proper car routes anywhere in the first games. It makes sense in Alola that there's not too much car routes since they are on islands - yet there actually are more roads there than in the other regions?!?

    I get that people travel around per pokémon a lot... Except they didn't really seem to do that much either, before Alola. Bikes or on foot, it was! How was goods transported? A mystery.
     
    SorveteQuente said:
    Removing the following Pokémon from HGSS
    Click to expand...

    I can see the reason for this being that they simply don't feel like adding the sprites.

    With Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee only having the original 151 Pokemon, and suddenly the following Pokemon feature returned.
     
    The oddest thing I can think of is probably that in FRLG it was impossible for Gen I Pokémon to evolve into their gen II evolutions before obtaining the National Dex. I'm fine with not having the possibility of breeding them because the daycare is only reached later, but not being able to evolve them was incredibly weird. Just like not putting the time feature in those games and preventing you from evolving Eevee into Espeon or Umbreon.
    I would say the same thing for not having cross-generational evolutions in LGPE; while disappointed, I could understand not having non-gen I evolutionary lines, but not having cross-generational relatives makes no sense, especially when Alola forms and Mega Evolutions are in.

    Also, having certain features in some games and not having them in others is weird or at worst annoying. The VS Seeker is really a thing that should have in every game since it was introduced, just like gym leader rematches. I especially find this annoying considered they randomly scrap these QoL improvements and yet they bother introducing evolution-inducing held items just for trading or incenses, or whatever gimmick evolution just to somehow "justify" evolving a Pokémon through trade or breeding a baby Pokémon when it was not possible in the prior generation(s). Also, gimmick evolutions on their own imho qualify for these weird design choices. Many of them at least make sense, but others like game-dependant ones, Inkay which evolves by having the 3DS held upside-down, Feebas's beauty-dependant one, and those that evolve while trading with certain items imho don't. One of my hopes is that in a future generation they'll cut the number of those, giving them normal level up evolutions (or at least friendship- or time of day/weather-dependant ones).

    DPP's poor integration of the touch screen could also count, but especially DP are clearly built following what they already had with the GBA games so that it's understandable that they focussed on making it work on the DS's "normal" screen first, and thinking about how to best use the touch screen later.
     
    I always had a bit of a gripe with the pattern that seems to exist where for every cool feature introduced in a new game, they take one away that was included in its predecessor. For example, that the Day/Night system in GSC wasn't carried over to RSE. I'm still salty about that =( or that seasons were included in Gen 5 never to be seen again. Such a shame.
     
    Avara said:
    I always had a bit of a gripe with the pattern that seems to exist where for every cool feature introduced in a new game, they take one away that was included in its predecessor. For example, that the Day/Night system in GSC wasn't carried over to RSE. I'm still salty about that =( or that seasons were included in Gen 5 never to be seen again. Such a shame.
    Click to expand...

    I mean seasons kinda make sense since for the most part isn't Hawaii the same?
     
    I don't have a ton to add, but I just wanted to pop in and say I love this discussion :D
     
    Who thought trading Pokémon if they hold certain items was a good idea?
    Who thought Mythical Pokémon were a good idea?
     
    You must log in or register to reply here.
    Back
    Top