Elfgore said:
I do agree with her on too many HMs.
Nintendo needs to get off their ass and implement HM items, like in zeta/omicron. Having a machete, jetpack, rocket boots, inflatable lapras etc to use HM abilities without being forced to take them on a pokemon is *so* much nicer. It allows the devs to keep the HMs as a series of progress checks to streamline world exploration while also using more of each type of barrier. Typically towards the end of a pokemon game, there's very few things that need to be Cut, because it's a pain in the ass and nobody near the endgame is going to be walking around with cut. But they'd be able to have more cuttable stuff, rocks to smash, etc if you could just use HM items. In Z/O, the HM items weren't mandatory (obviously, since you could still use the HM moves on pokemon) but they were an added perk for out-of-the-way exploration, as many were found in optional rooms or route paths.
One other thing Z/O introduced was the idea of IV stones - talk to npc and max out an IV. At the end of Z/O campaign, there was another NPC that would set an IV to 30 instead (which was perfect for getting specific hidden power types). In the past, nearly every competitive player used action replay (or, later, pokegen/pokesav) to create "legit" max pokemon, as the effort required to get one actually legitimately was completely insane - literally thousands of eggs, hundreds of thousands of steps, praying to RNG that this next one will be max IVs in the stats you want. And god forbid you try to use hidden power - that easily doubles the amount of eggs you'd need to hatch. That kind of awful, soul-draining grind is the main reason pokemon PvP is a shitfestival - there should really be an option (even if they lock it until endgame) to alter IVs. Make it cost gold, make it cost an item you can farm. Just don't make it purely random on spawn and tell players to hatch thousands of eggs.
Honestly, after how many great ideas were introduced in Z/O, I find it really hard to go back to the "main" pokemon games and suffer through how little they've actually changed. Daily grind quests and shirts that cost $200,000 does not a great game make. I was a competitive battler in state-wide tournaments during the R/S/E and Fr/Lg era, so gen 3 getting a new release should make me excited, but... it just doesn't. What they add isn't what pokemon *needs*, it's mostly just useless bullshit. Mega evolutions, dailies, RNG breeding... zzz. Give me HM items and *maybe* I'll buy a pokemon game again, nintendo.