so that IGN review on pokemon

[VanQ]

It makes sense that there's so much water, because there needs to be a balance between it and land.

That's like, the entire theme of the game.

In a series about rock-paper-scissor dogfighting, game balance is kind of an issue.

He's not talking about combat balance. He means the world map. Hoenn is roughly 50% landmass and 50% ocean. It has more surfable ocean than any other Pokemon game before or after it and that was its main criticism then and now. However, the theme of the game was based around Team Magma/Team Aqua fighting one another to use legendaries to expand the landmass/ocean respectively.

It was a criticism of the game that was always used by people that either couldn't understand that it was that way because it suited the story and theme prefectly and those that didn't bother to use Repel when surfing. And that's they're choice if they don't wanna drop some of their plentiful in game cash on a cheap Tentacool repellent, it just was a waste of their own time.

 

[SD-Fiend]

I'd actually give my own thoughts on this, BUT I skipped out on the games the first time around so I have no idea what they mean by "Too much water".

Does that mean there's like 6+ routes that are nothing but water?

Well if you go specifically by number of routes that register as a "water route" 17 of 34 routes are either pure water meaning it's half and half number wise. I can't really tell you how they would compare size wise though.

 

[Fishyash]

I haven't played ORAS yet (played the originals though), but by the looks of this thread (haven't read the review yet) they have kept the water section of the game the same mechanics-wise.

Honestly, I like the idea of a water-heavy section in the game. RSE failed in their execution though. There are two reasons for this: Surf speed and the ridiculous HMs.

I don't know if the surf speed is any faster in ORAS. If it is, then good, but if even if it's the same speed as in X/Y it's not fast enough unless they condensed the water section, which I guess they didn't.

Surf is pretty much the only powerful HM move in any pokemon game. It's a very good move, and it's really annoying seeing that they added two INFERIOR water type HMs along with surf, and they're all required to reach the end of the game. Your party is essentially reduced to 5 slots to use an underpowered pokemon that can use the HMs. 3 offensive water type moves that only do damage, you wouldn't put so many moves on a WHOLE TEAM, even if you did, you'd just teach surf to 3 of your pokemon. I would've thought they would change the water section of the game to remove the requirement of dive and waterfall, and by not doing so they kinda fucked up.

As I said, the size is fine, I prefer it being wide and expansive, kind of like an ocean. It would be better if you could surf faster though, rather than reducing the size. It takes off time while keeping the area expansive.

The random encounters complaint is stupid. After Lillycove you should be holding so many super/max repels your bag should be spilling them out. Same goes for battles, they are very easy to avoid since the area is so big.

So yeah, the problem isn't the AMOUNT of water really, they just need to handle it better. Obviously GameFreak realised that the water mechanics are interesting but get old and frustrating REALLY quickly, so in their most recent games they took out most of the water. It's clear they don't really know how to make the water more engaging and fun to traverse.

Overall it's a shame they didn't really fix the problems with the game like they did in the remake.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Never been a fan of the water sections. You never see trainers coming, and you're stuck fending off Tentacools 90% of the time. "The Zubat of Water" as someone posted earlier.

 

[MerlinCross]

Never been a fan of the water sections. You never see trainers coming, and you're stuck fending off Tentacools 90% of the time. "The Zubat of Water" as someone posted earlier.

Eh the trainers never bothered me more than usual, though some of them seem to have long sight ranges. And later games kinda messed around wit Tentacools but they were just replaced with whatever 'Zubut of the Water' was in the game.

My actual complain/nitpick/whatever you want to call it isn't the assessment that there's too much water and all the problems that revovle around it. It's the image.

It's in the bottom line/summary of the title which, without reading the article, makes it easily mockable and funny. It's still funny after reading the article but that is much more "My opinion of this is funny". Maybe they could have worded it differently in the bottom line. I mean it'd be like me saying "There's too much Walking" as a bottom line in a Skyrim review(which is true but again, worded differently maybe).

 

[smithy_2045]

eh, doesn't sound that bad to me. Too many water sections with too many random encounters can be irritating and it's perfectly legitimate to complain about them if they negatively affect your experience of the game. For once, IGN seem to be in the clear as far as I'm concerned.

Have just realized though, we now have a new 'gate' scandal, surely;
IGN-gate
Poke-gate
7.8-gate
Kallie-gate
Plagge-gate
Review-gate

and so on and so on

Should be "7.g8".

 

[The Bucket]

I find it ironic how when IGN docks points out of a game for having "Too much water"- where the whole point is to be half land half water- you have people defending it and calling those who disagree pokemon/nintendo zealots. With the latter simply making water jokes, calling ign stupid, and moving on with their lives.

Its all well and good to make a half water based region part of the story; but that doesn't excuse not tackling the problem that surfing sucks in Pokemon, along with all the other boring pointless HMs like Dive. Ditto with type variety; having a lot of water type opponents to fight might make sense from a story perspective, but gameplay wise it ends up hurting balance a lot.

 

[Fishyash]

No. This complaint is not stupid. As a veteran you'll maybe do that. As a newbie to the series you don't. People assume they need to face all those random encounter to keep to Pokes strong enough, or they want to see new Pokes or they simply don't know that repels exist.

Also, lets not assume that people enjoy a popup window every 200 steps (super repels = best value) asking if you want to use another. I fucking hate it. I just enjoy the fact that I don't have to activate them manualy, this doesn't mean that this doesn't suck ass.

Another bloody comment that reeks of: "I did not find this bad. So this complain is stupid." Why do you assume you're in the position to dictate which complaints are allowed and which are not?

It's a stupid complaint because GameFreak implemented a mechanic that negates random encounters. Repels may be cumbersome, but it's a compromise. If you don't like the popup window, you can give your lead Pokemon a cleanse tag, which will reduce the encounter rate of wild pokemon. They purposely made it so that there is no perfect way to avoid wild pokemon.

It's a simple matter that even new players understand. If they are frustrated with wild encounters, the repels are in the game. To assume that it will hurt you in the long run (which it donesn't) to use them is basically stating that you don't trust the developers enough to use one of their mechanics.

Bottom line is there is a very good aesthetic reason to include such a big water region in the game, which has been explained in the thread already. When making game worlds the aesthetics is the most important part of creating said world. The mechanics behind how the world works are secondary, and THAT is where GameFreak failed, in both RSE and apparently ORAS.
The encounters are not one of those reasons.

Also, I'm not dictating anything, let alone assume I'm in the position to dictate opinions (as if that's possible lol). I simply disagree with the complaint enough that I consider it stupid. Your comment reeked of "I find surfing bad. So surfing is not fun." How is that any different? Or better yet, what exactly is wrong in stating your opinion in such a way?

 

[The Bucket]

No. This complaint is not stupid. As a veteran you'll maybe do that. As a newbie to the series you don't. People assume they need to face all those random encounter to keep to Pokes strong enough, or they want to see new Pokes or they simply don't know that repels exist.

Also, lets not assume that people enjoy a popup window every 200 steps (super repels = best value) asking if you want to use another. I fucking hate it. I just enjoy the fact that I don't have to activate them manualy, this doesn't mean that this doesn't suck ass.

Another bloody comment that reeks of: "I did not find this bad. So this complain is stupid." Why do you assume you're in the position to dictate which complaints are allowed and which are not?

It's a stupid complaint because GameFreak implemented a mechanic that negates random encounters. Repels may be cumbersome, but it's a compromise. If you don't like the popup window, you can give your lead Pokemon a cleanse tag, which will reduce the encounter rate of wild pokemon. They purposely made it so that there is no perfect way to avoid wild pokemon.

It's a simple matter that even new players understand. If they are frustrated with wild encounters, the repels are in the game. To assume that it will hurt you in the long run (which it donesn't) to use them is basically stating that you don't trust the developers enough to use one of their mechanics.

Bottom line is there is a very good aesthetic reason to include such a big water region in the game, which has been explained in the thread already. When making game worlds the aesthetics is the most important part of creating said world. The mechanics behind how the world works are secondary, and THAT is where GameFreak failed, in both RSE and apparently ORAS.
The encounters are not one of those reasons.

Also, I'm not dictating anything, let alone assume I'm in the position to dictate opinions (as if that's possible lol). I simply disagree with the complaint enough that I consider it stupid. Your comment reeked of "I find surfing bad. So surfing is not fun." How is that any different? Or better yet, what exactly is wrong in stating your opinion in such a way?

The problem is that the only compromise offered completely negates any random encounters. I personally enjoy battling as I travel across land, the reasonable encounter rate and different opponents breaks things up nicely. Traveling through water is just awful though, you cant move a square without having to fight and the enemies are way too samey. Its bad enough in regular pokemon games, but with how much water is in the region, you will spend a lot of time chugging Repels and not battling at all because its better than the alternative

 

[Something Amyss]

He's not talking about combat balance. He means the world map.

And if they were unrelated, you'd have a point. In Pokémon, they're not.

So you don't.

Edit: Also, I already covered the water issue that people ostensibly "couldn't understand," so....

 

[Reed Spacer]

So, i checked out the IGN review on the latest Pokemon games, and I gotta say.......

seriously Too much water? what kind of negative is that?


thoughts on it?

Bonus Round: Post game content confirmed, speculations?

Personally, I believe there have been too many Pokemon games.

I'm not bashing; I just mean literally too many.

 

[bug_of_war]

Completely off topic...does anyone know when (and how) the shiny beldum distribution event starts?

 

[SD-Fiend]

Completely off topic...does anyone know when (and how) the shiny beldum distribution event starts?

Right now apparently. It ends sometime in January of next year.

 

[Grumpy Ginger]

Seems like sites these days can't win if they give games all round eights to tens they're mocked for being soft due to wanting to keep advertising dollars (rightly so). If they criticize a game that hasn't been deemed to be in the canon of shit games you'd better find a bunker and fast.Not saying their criticism was good or bad but this whole thing has been going like clockwork recently, Bayonetta 2 "cough, cough".

 

[MerlinCross]

And if they were unrelated, you'd have a point. In Pokémon, they're not.

So you don't.

Edit: Also, I already covered the water issue that people ostensibly "couldn't understand," so....

This is just me trying to understand. So this could work if there were to many caves in one of the games, or too many forests; this is because not only the problem of having to go through said areas on their own, but due to the limiting factor of the pokemon in those areas(Let's say mainly rock ground for caves, and grass bug for forests for the sake of it).

This means you are limited to using those pokemon as those areas are common, OR you get 2 strong pokemon that sweep over the area.

 

[Something Amyss]

This is just me trying to understand. So this could work if there were to many caves in one of the games, or too many forests; this is because not only the problem of having to go through said areas on their own, but due to the limiting factor of the pokemon in those areas(Let's say mainly rock ground for caves, and grass bug for forests for the sake of it).

This means you are limited to using those pokemon as those areas are common, OR you get 2 strong pokemon that sweep over the area.

Well, it's certainly part of the issue. The other part has to do with traversing them. Forests, at least to my recollection, don't force battles no matter where you walk. Caves do, and they've been bitched about before, but we've never had a game that's half cave, and you don't need a special technique to enter a cave (generally). But a similar issue would be present in these scenarios, just not the complete scenario. The tiles are still a problem, with or without the pokés, and that's what VanQ was getting at.

So there's multiple related issues here:
-People hate water tiles
-People hate Surf/Dive
-People don't want to have to use repels every X steps
-Water tiles mean water Pokés means water trainers

And there's Team Aqua in one half of the set, which further skews the balance. This isn't strictly a map issue, but it wouldn't be an issue if there wasn't already a heavy water emphasis in the game. As it is, I bought Omega Ruby in hopes Team Magma would balance things out a little.

If there was a rock-themed game with a ton of caves and an enemy team that was rock themed, we probably would see the same sort of complaints, but even then, I don't think anyone hates caves quite as much as water (though I'm not overly fond of either).

EDIT: Just to add that I get the "theme" deal. But if your theme is based around a maligned mechanic or feature and you don't change the way it works, there's a problem.

Since Gen I, "surf" has always struck me more as something you NEED to do to get certain things, not really something you generally want to do. So when you make it necessary for roughly half the map....

Captcha: Dogs and cats living together. I...

 

[Dragonbums]

I find it ironic how when IGN docks points out of a game for having "Too much water"- where the whole point is to be half land half water- you have people defending it and calling those who disagree pokemon/nintendo zealots. With the latter simply making water jokes, calling ign stupid, and moving on with their lives.

Its all well and good to make a half water based region part of the story; but that doesn't excuse not tackling the problem that surfing sucks in Pokemon, along with all the other boring pointless HMs like Dive. Ditto with type variety; having a lot of water type opponents to fight might make sense from a story perspective, but gameplay wise it ends up hurting balance a lot.

But as others have pointed out there is a way to very easily bypass running into 10 million luvdisks and tentacools in the span of 30 minutes. Which is ala the repel item, which costs very little by the time you hit that point.

Is that to say the reviewer didn't have a point in pointing out the flaws in surfing? No. Your right- there are some improvements that can b made to it. (and keep in mind ORAS is better in this field because AT LEAST you can do other things in the water like undersea diving.)

However the observation I was making is that most of the people who found the review stupid, went on to make "Too much Water" or "This person is secretly part of Team Magma" jokes and move the fuck on because everyone else gave the game good reviews anyway. Where as the latter who did agree with the review make good posts explaining why they agree and things Pokemon should of done to rectify that. Everyone moves on.

Another review IGN makes that has them become punching bag of the week until something else comes along.


The latter couldn't be said about Bayonetta 2. Person thought that the upfront sexuality of Bayonetta 2 was annoying, over the top, and offputting, thus taking enjoyment out of the game for him.

I can't even really say what the people who agreed did because most people who were neutral to the review were too busy defending the authors right to be able to post a differing opinion and score of the game without having GGers and the Internet Hate Machine basically have the man fired for a valid critique of the game. (and this is coming from someone loves the Bayonetta franchise. )

Whilst the latter not only wanted to voice how much they hated the review, but they banded together to form a campaign movement to demand Nintendo to blacklist Polygon over a single fucking opinion that gave the game a 7.8/10 because bless your heart your critique and dock points out of a game for being "too sexy" because your just being a politically biased SJW (somehow this warped into sexism.), but everyone who had an issue with the "too much water" critique in ORAS are nothing but Pokemon drones?

I'm not directing this at you, but this is the wider trend I've seen in regards to one man review who had a different opinion than anyone else.

 

[Dragonbums]

I find it ironic how when IGN docks points out of a game for having "Too much water"- where the whole point is to be half land half water- you have people defending it and calling those who disagree pokemon/nintendo zealots. With the latter simply making water jokes, calling ign stupid, and moving on with their lives.

Meanwhile Polygon not only gets shat on for docking the same amount of points for Bayonettas sexual display, but people also came together to make op Bayonetta 2 to have said site blacklisted from nintendo.

Huh.

Funny thing: I thought that the Polygon Bayonetta review was fine.

Please don't do such sweeping statements if a good chunk of people posting in this thread, defending IGNs review did literally the same with Polygon.

If I was talking about the Escapist in regards to this review I would of explicitely said so. In this instance I'm talking about the wider internets' reaction to this review and Bayonetta 2's review on Polygon.

 

[renegade7]

I didn't like how much water areas there were in RSE either. You can't get through them quickly by running or biking, and there's random encounters throughout, and more significantly it's the SAME THREE GODDAMN POKEMON FOR LIKE 20 ROUTES SHOWING UP EVERY 8 STEPS.

Hoenn has some of my favorite geography in the Pokemon series, but unlike the land areas, the water areas were just so monotonous and dull. And unlike the land areas, where every location is only a few screens away from somewhere you can fly to, the entire eastern half of the region only has three cities and a huge expanse of monotonous, unchanging ocean.

If they had just done something to break up the monotony, like make a more diverse mix of Pokemon or added some kind of terrain or created some equivalent to tall grass but for ocean that you could go into if you absolutely HAD to encounter a million Tentacools and Wingulls, then it would have been much more interesting.

 

[Brian Tams]

Like, do they even understand basic themes?
The relationship between water (Symbolized by Kyogre), Land (symbolized by Groudon), and sky/tranquility (symbolized by Rayquaza) and how they're balanced together (not to mention what happens when that balance is disrupted by humanity) was pretty much THE whole point of the game.
The large bodies of water needed to offset the bodies of land (which usually dominate pokemon games). It is, honestly, the only pokemon game I've played that has at least attempted to look unique next to the other ones in the franchise, with all the island hopping.