Why do you like Pokemon?

[Zeldias]

I'm not asking this to bust anyone's ovaries/balls. I just don't understand what's appealing about the series and feel that I need an outside perspective.

I first played Pokemon Blue in like the 6th or 7th grade and found it banal as fuck. I basically gave a friend of mine a list of Pokemon to raise and he joyfully played through the game for me and filled out the roster, at which point I admired the Pokemon and gave him the game. Later, I thought Pokemon Stadium would be fun because I misunderstood it to be a fighting game. I had a fiancee' that loved Pokemon Snap but I couldn't even believe that it was sold as entertainment given what you do in it. I then dipped back into the main series and found that it was the same rock-paper-scissors style game with more Pokemon.

Then I heard about Pokemon Conquest before I went to EVO and got hype. Surely my FGC compatriots, with their generally ruthless obsession with picking apart game mechanics and systems would pick up a fun game, right? Fuck no. I expected Nobunaga's Ambition, but with Pokemon and Trainers, but what I got was Pokemon with extremely light SRPG elements and some occasional capture-the-flag.

Now, with all the hype surrounding Pokemon X and Y, I'm just confused. What is the appeal? I like turn-based games, so that doesn't put me off, but the character-building is non-existent other than occasionally sticking a specific move on a Pokemon. There's never a reason to not evolve a Pokemon to my knowledge, so there's no choice for interesting and divergent stat advancement there. The battles basically just size up to "You're electric? Then I use a ground-type. You're a bird? Better not use my bug-type," and so on, which like I said, strikes me as RPS.

I don't mean to knock people's fun because Satan knows that the way I play Etrian Odyssey (or whatever Wizardry knock-off I can find) is basically with a stat calculator and a MS Excel spreadsheet (not to mention most people I know hate the idea of Wizardry games practically on principle). I'm frankly happy that people have Pokemon to enjoy. I just don't understand how they enjoy it.

I think I'm gonna find a walkthrough of the most recent one (I generally hate Let's Plays because I hate the commentary, especially for mainstay Nintendo games) to see if I can't enjoy that. I just don't see what's fun about it. It's not even like Monster Hunter where you raise a Suezo or something and give it a training regiment and deal with it's personality.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

The only plausible explanation I ever found out was pure collector's joy. You can beat any game using the same 6 Pokemon line-up from start to finish (give or take the occassional exchange). The challenge is, well, catching them all. Which is nigh impossible by the way, because some Pokemon evolve by trading with other players, some Pokemon can only be "caught" once or thanks to a rare real-life event, some Pokemon just don't show up in the one game you're playing and some Pokemon just haven't been invented yet. So it's Satan's ironic punishment that we must catch them all, except there'll always be 100 more to catch every few years.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

I just enjoy training and evolving my Pokemon. I couldn't give a fuck about catching em all I just want a few good ones. I'm one of the few people who actually enjoys grinding. I find it kinda relaxing.

 

[Racecarlock]

Well, this is a game meant for kids, so of course the elemental weakness thing is going to have to be easy to figure out.

Character building? Really? I mean, how much do you expect out of a creature that can only say it's name? What matters is the cool elemental battles. Sure, on screen they don't look that exciting, but in the mind, they're amazing.

 

[sextus the crazy]

The only plausible explanation I ever found out was pure collector's joy. You can beat any game using the same 6 Pokemon line-up from start to finish (give or take the occassional exchange). The challenge is, well, catching them all. Which is nigh impossible by the way, because some Pokemon evolve by trading with other players, some Pokemon can only be "caught" once or thanks to a rare real-life event, some Pokemon just don't show up in the one game you're playing and some Pokemon just haven't been invented yet. So it's Satan's ironic punishment that we must catch them all, except there'll always be 100 more to catch every few years.

Really? I can't think of a single person I know who's into pokemon who gives a rat's ass about collecting.

OT: Because the gameplay is so fun. It can be a simple RPG for kids or to de-stress, with enough hidden depth for high level competitive play. Plus, the monster designs are pretty appealing.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

...the monster designs are pretty appealing.

Yes, they keep making them better and better don't they?

 

[ShinyCharizard]

...the monster designs are pretty appealing.

Yes, they keep making them better and better don't they?

Haha I think the designers at Gamefreak took a little too much LSD when they came up with that one (and a few others)

 

[Dragonbums]

...the monster designs are pretty appealing.

Yes, they keep making them better and better don't they?

And once again we go back to the same conversation we had in a similar Pokemon thread that bascially amounted to how unfair it is to judge an entire generation as being complete garbage by rehasing the same 5 bad designs out of a batch of 100+ good ones, and claiming that the new Pokemon sucks.

 

[Dragonbums]

I play Pokemon for the monsters and the competitive metagame on wi fi.

I loved the heck out of generation 5 and generation 6 is shaping up to be my next favorite generation as well.

Nobody really plays Pokemon for plot. Think of the game as baby's first step into highly competitive turn based strategy games.

And typing advantages stop getting simple when you start to factor in things like what moves that particular pokemon has.

For example, while you know without a doubt that grass Venasaur has an advantage over a water type like Starmie, it doesn't guarantee a win for you. In fact, due to Starmies high speed, and it's ability to learn ice type moves like ice beam- against Venasaurs slow speed and not so hot Special Defense, you will find more often than not Starmie will come out on top in battles.

 

[Resetti's_Replicas]

The human psyche is wired in such a way that milestones and achievements trigger the reward center. So it's just natural that people are going to go crazy over a game that has 150 Achievements.

 

[Dragonbums]

...the monster designs are pretty appealing.

Yes, they keep making them better and better don't they?

Haha I think the designers at Gamefreak took a little too much LSD when they came up with that one (and a few others)

According to John Turner (the creator of this particular Pokemon)

It was based on a popular type of dessert in England.

captcha: make every day like sunday

Do you think this is funny captcha?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

And once again we go back to the same conversation we had in a similar Pokemon thread that bascially amounted to how unfair it is to judge an entire generation as being complete garbage by rehasing the same 5 bad designs out of a batch of 100+ good ones, and claiming that the new Pokemon sucks.

Fair enough, let's take the high road.

1) Poliwag, Poliwhirl and Poliwrath meet Politoed.
2) Did we not have enough turtle Pokemon with Shuckle and Torkoal?
3) Furry Spinarak and Ariados.
4) Magnemite, Magnetron and their 3rd evolution. Replace orbs with gears.
5) There's Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan. Again.
6) Oh look, six palette swaps of Aipom.
7) And another palette swap of Teddiursa and Ursaring.
8) Pidgey, Pidgeotto and Pidgeot. Again.
9) Furry rodent useless normal types? Did we not already have Sentret and Furret?
10) Sandshrew and Sandslash.
11) Bellosom, no questions asked.
12) Spearow and Fearow over again.
13) Take Paras and Parasect. Replace their fungi with chests.
14) Because we didn't have Stantler already.
15) Suspiciously similar to Larvitar, Pupitar and Tiranitar.

That's 35 very un-original Pokemon. Not counting the 9 grass/fire/water starters and their evolutions, the three legendary water/fire/electric types and the two super ultra mega birds lifted off Ho-oh and Lugia. Also, the piles of poisonous garbage? Grimer and Muk. So that's 51 Pokemon - over half of Gen V - you've kinda already seen before, just with some swaps and switcheroos applied for good measure.

According to John Turner (the creator of this Vanilluxe), it was based on a popular type of dessert in England.

What, ice-cream is a rare English delicacy now?

 

[Dragonbums]

And once again we go back to the same conversation we had in a similar Pokemon thread that bascially amounted to how unfair it is to judge an entire generation as being complete garbage by rehasing the same 5 bad designs out of a batch of 100+ good ones, and claiming that the new Pokemon sucks.

Fair enough, let's take the high road.

1) Poliwag, Poliwhirl and Poliwrath meet Politoed.
2) Did we not have enough turtle Pokemon with Shuckle and Torkoal?
3) Furry Spinarak and Ariados.
4) Magnemite, Magnetron and their 3rd evolution. Replace orbs with gears.
5) There's Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan. Again.
6) Oh look, six palette swaps of Aipom.
7) And another palette swap of Teddiursa and Ursaring.
8) Pidgey, Pidgeotto and Pidgeot. Again.
9) Furry rodent useless normal types? Did we not already have Sentret and Furret?
10) Sandshrew and Sandslash.
11) Bellosom, no questions asked.
12) Spearow and Fearow over again.
13) Take Paras and Parasect. Replace their fungi with chests.
14) Because we didn't have Stantler already.
15) Suspiciously similar to Larvitar, Pupitar and Tiranitar.

The things you listed above are the exact same thing every generation since the first one has been doing, and something Pokemon fans have long since caught on to.

On that note, you are really stretching far with the accusations of palette swapping.
The designs of all of these Pokemon in no way shape or form could possibly be mistaken for it's previous generation counterparts.
You are basically saying "this is a spider and this is a spider, so clearly the newer ones are rehashes of the old ones.) Which is kind of a stretch.

You just found a pattern of how they go about thinking up the base concept of Pokemon in general.
This does not overall determine any lack of creativity. Keeping a base pattern helps keep the team from basically going all over the place, and having a mess of a generation that doesn't really have any sense of unity to them.

It's also helps them from being totally lost on what would constitute a good Pokemon

What, ice-cream?

There are many variations to ice cream that deviate from your average Ben and Jerry's in a tub.

For instance- there is fried icecream.

Similarly the way an icecream is presented to a consumer can separate it form the norm. Many people speculate that it's more a mix between regular ice cream and ice cream soda.

EDIT: It is basically based off of this this http://www.effingpot.com/food.shtml a "99" ice cream that is particularly soft and comes with a cadbury "flake" that is basically a long stick of chocolate. Which kind of fits in perfectly with what Vanilluxe looks like.

 

[Miss G.]

I'm not asking this to bust anyone's ovaries/balls. I just don't understand what's appealing about the series and feel that I need an outside perspective.

Anyone can say that about any games they don't get. I don't get shooters, 1st person POV of any kind, or MMOs, but obviously if I don't enjoy them, asking a bunch of strangers isn't gonna help anything since my mind's already made up and they're just not to my tastes.

Now, with all the hype surrounding Pokemon X and Y, I'm just confused. What is the appeal?

You're confused that fans of a series are hyped for the next entries in their favorite series? Since you asked, for me, it's the game (Gold version) that got me into gaming, it was and still is a bonding experience between my sister and I, some of the best friends I've ever had were met through love of the games and everything they inspire, and I enjoy playing it.

I like turn-based games, so that doesn't put me off, but the character-building is non-existent other than occasionally sticking a specific move on a Pokemon. There's never a reason to not evolve a Pokemon to my knowledge,

Certain hold items like Eviolite (50% increase defense and special defense of non fully evolved mons, in some cases leaving them with better defenses than evolving at all e.g Eviolite-equipped Sneasel has 82.5 defense compared to it's evolved form Weavile's 65) and species-specific hold items like Pikachu's Light Ball (2x attack and special attack leaving it a stronger mixed attacker than Raichu with only slightly less speed, which can be easily rectified), and the ability to learn moves at lower levels are a few good reasons to not evolve something.

so there's no choice for interesting and divergent stat advancement there.

Your mons gain effort values (EVs), which aren't shown and so must be meticulously tracked (they're making it easier for newbies and veterans alike to track them in X & Y) added to their stats with every pokemon you beat, thus there is character customization of your monsters depending on which EVs you want them to gain in any stat you want to tweak and what natures they have since those dictate positive, negative & neutral gains in stats. e.g. I want to boost my team to be able to tank Special attacks so I battle against, say Tentacools, because they give EVs in that stat. Properly done, you'll a see massive difference between EV trained pokemon vs mons trained by people who just did whatever during their play through. Then there are moves, natures, passive abilities, strategic breeding, Pokerus, EV training items, Vitamins, Berries etc that play very heavily in the meta game than during the main story, where a match can be won or lost because of one point in stat differences between mons that are EV trained to their utmost potential.

The battles basically just size up to "You're electric? Then I use a ground-type. You're a bird? Better not use my bug-type," and so on, which like I said, strikes me as RPS.

You don't need anywhere near as much strategy in the main game as you would in the meta against other players and yeah, the formula has basically remained the same at its heart, but the games are by no means stagnant. Your scenario of 'you're a bird, better not use a bug type' hasn't been a set thing for over a decade, especially with all the good buffs bugs have gotten in recent years. If you use a bird against my bug, I have several options available to me like laying entry hazards, holding items or having passive abilities that hurt you if you attack me/reduce super-effective damage to my mon/give me priority to OHKO you first, or using a move that grounds flying types for a set amount of time, or using a move that let's me sucker punch your mon and get out of dodge before you can even hit me and your main defensive advantage (if your primary type is also not resistant to Bug) is gone. And the same goes for other type match-ups.

It's not even like Monster Hunter where you raise a Suezo or something and give it a training regiment and deal with it's personality.

Starting with gen 6 you pretty much can do that very thing, even more so than previously since the welcome addition of personalities, natures etc back in gen 3.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

And once again we go back to the same conversation we had in a similar Pokemon thread that bascially amounted to how unfair it is to judge an entire generation as being complete garbage by rehasing the same 5 bad designs out of a batch of 100+ good ones, and claiming that the new Pokemon sucks.

Fair enough, let's take the high road.

1) Poliwag, Poliwhirl and Poliwrath meet Politoed.
2) Did we not have enough turtle Pokemon with Shuckle and Torkoal?
3) Furry Spinarak and Ariados.
4) Magnemite, Magnetron and their 3rd evolution. Replace orbs with gears.
5) There's Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan. Again.
6) Oh look, six palette swaps of Aipom.
7) And another palette swap of Teddiursa and Ursaring.
8) Pidgey, Pidgeotto and Pidgeot. Again.
9) Furry rodent useless normal types? Did we not already have Sentret and Furret?
10) Sandshrew and Sandslash.
11) Bellosom, no questions asked.
12) Spearow and Fearow over again.
13) Take Paras and Parasect. Replace their fungi with chests.
14) Because we didn't have Stantler already.
15) Suspiciously similar to Larvitar, Pupitar and Tiranitar.

The things you listed above are the exact same thing every generation since the first one has been doing, and something Pokemon fans have long since caught on to.

On that note, you are really stretching far with the accusations of palette swapping.
The designs of all of these Pokemon in no way shape or form could possibly be mistaken for it's previous generation counterparts.
You are basically saying "this is a spider and this is a spider, so clearly the newer ones are rehashes of the old ones.) Which is kind of a stretch.

You just found a pattern of how they go about thinking up the base concept of Pokemon in general.
This does not overall determine any lack of creativity. Keeping a base pattern helps keep the team from basically going all over the place, and having a mess of a generation that doesn't really have any sense of unity to them.

It's also helps them from being totally lost on what would constitute a good Pokemon

What, ice-cream?

There are many variations to ice cream that deviate from your average Ben and Jerry's in a tub.

For instance- there is fried icecream.

Similarly the way an icecream is presented to a consumer can separate it form the norm. Many people speculate that it's more a mix between regular ice cream and ice cream soda.

And how is "going all over the place" a bad thing? Here you are designing pocketable monsters and can't you really go past the same 5 or 6 basic designs over and over? Yes, Galvantula is a furrier, yellower Ariados. Yes, Beartic is the same size and shape and genus as Ursaring. They've been tracing over the same molds and characters designs for years. Everybody knows that. I just find it amusing someone would talk anything but trash regarding "Pokemon designs" at this point. They're either constantly rehashing the same models (yes, they do swap palettes and textures) or coming up with some incredibly idiot designs. Vanilluxe is made of ice cream on an ice cream cone. Yes, I know there're all sorts of yummy ice creams. Yes, I'm sure the dude that made him loves ice cream. It still looks fuckin' ridiculous. I can't wait for a bangers and mash Pokemon in Gen VI.

 

[Dragonbums]

-snip-

And how is "going all over the place" a bad thing? Here you are designing pocketable monsters and can't you really go past the same 5 or 6 basic designs over and over?

They are not the same basic designs. They are all based of the most common form of animal, and considering how some the biggest critique of 5th gen Pokemon I have seen all over the forums is that they are "trying too hard" by drawing inspiration from lesser or unknown Pokemon gives off a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" vibe to all of this.
For instance, while woobat may be a bat, it is based off of the Honduras bat http://cdn2.arkive.org/media/F5/F5FE00C5-D58D-47C3-9BA3-97D558B36A31/Presentation.Large/Honduran-white-bats-roosting.jpg
You can go pretty far in the imagination when you start basing Pokemon off the same base animal, but different species of said animal. And some of those things look insane.

Yes, Galvantula is a furrier, yellower Ariados. Yes, Beartic is the same size and shape and genus as Ursaring. They've been tracing over the same molds and characters designs for years. Everybody knows that.

How exactly, do you know that they trace form the same mold? Where did you get that? Can you give me a source? Aside from the fact that different bear species have the same build anyway with slight variations to fit their environment(with exceptions to the Indian bear.) For coding purposes, Pokemon can only get so large. Especially when you have 600+ models/pixel monsters to put in game, not including the human characters, and all the other CGI models. That's a lot of stuff to put in game.

I just find it amusing someone would talk anything but trash regarding "Pokemon designs" at this point.

Really?
I guess you have some superior refined tastes in what constitutes as good Pokemon design. Or rather, good monster design in general.
Perhaps Gamefreak could use someone like you on the team. Since you clearly have a clear vision of what makes a good Pokemon set.

They're either constantly rehashing the same models (yes, they do swap palettes and textures)

Once again, what proof do you have of them "rehasing" models. And what proof do you have that they do palette swaps?
Especially considering, you know...the fact that up until the latest release they have been basically doing animated pixel art not 3D modeling for the Pokemon sans the home console games.

Textures? Once again, they can't "rehash" textures in pixel art without people noticing en masse. They do this all by hand.

or coming up with some incredibly idiot designs.

In any game that revolves around coming up with a fuck ton of monsters you can expect to see some bad apples.

Vanilluxe is made of ice cream on an ice cream cone. Yes, I know there're all sorts of yummy ice creams. Yes, I'm sure the dude that made him loves ice cream. It still looks fuckin' ridiculous. I can't wait for a bangers and mash Pokemon in Gen VI.

Great, because I'm pretty sure since the creation of Muk and Electrode, there have been some stupid as shit designs since the Holy Grail that is generation 1.

 

[Spambot 3000]

I like the turn based strategy behind it, it has one of the best gameplay mechanics in that regard I reckon. Never been to fussed about 'gotta catch 'em all''. In fact, if you're still into that collecting stuff and you piss and moan about how they are making too many - well that's because it makes new levels of strategy to the battling side of it. Either accept that there's a harder task of getting a %100 collection or jump ship to battling because it doesn't seem possible for one to survive without stomping on the other.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I guess you have some superior refined tastes in what constitutes as good Pokemon design. Or rather, good monster design in general.
Perhaps Gamefreak could use someone like you on the team. Since you clearly have a clear vision of what makes a good Pokemon set.

Let's not drop to the bottom-of-the-barrel argument of "I suppose you could do it better", yes? It's uncalled for, it's not part of what I'm attacking and it's not part of what you're defending.

I should hope to think that they're not on automatic pilot about releasing new batches of hundreds of Pokemon every few years. I should hope they do this because they have some new ideas about Pokemon design. But they consistently fall back on the same ten or twelve models. Speaking of which, a model is a model, nobody talked about 3D or pixel art. And when I say texture I mean "skins". Case in point.

Here we have Ariados.

A wild Galvantula appeared.

A combo of tracing, palette swapping and adding some touches to re-dress the original drawing. They didn't even bother to change the position of anything for the sprite - same framing, same angle, same everything.
This is just one example.

Again, same everything, just some palette swapping. Beartic is also slightly more pear-shaped than Ursaring.

Throw a Van Halen wig on any pre-existing Pokemon: boom, new Generation.

Also, about the starter Pokemon... they could try a little harder, couldn't they?
Water-based three-step evolutionary frog family? Where have we seen that before? That's right, the generation directly before this one. And look, a fire fox. Because fire foxes are such a novel idea after 15 years of Vulpix, right?

Now I'm sure there're some good designs hidden here and there, but 90% of the time it's just filler looking like more of the same. Again, you treat Game Freak like they MUST release new Pokemon every now and then, and because of this necessity you're willing to overlook the fact that most of the time they're just re-using old models. I say they don't HAVE to release new Pokemon all the freaking time unless they've got some good ideas going on.

 

[shrekfan246]

My problem with the new designs is just that they all look horrendously overdesigned. Look at all those swirls and twirls and wisps and extra bits jutting out at odd angles and eugh, the Pokemon look like they had a run-in with Tetsuya Nomura; And while I like Nomura's character designs, I can't deny that he often overdesigns his characters and the style just isn't good for a bunch of cute collectible monsters that are put in pitched cock-fights.

The complaints about "classic" Pokemon designs being uninspired are just as valid as the complaints about "new" Pokemon reusing old assets, but to be honest I can enjoy more of the first three Generations of Pokemon because their aesthetic designs are simply less busy.

Anyway.

The appeal is that it's a simple game to get into with a lot more depth beneath the surface. Simple as.

It's about collecting fantastical creatures, raising and training them, and pitting them against other creatures. And for the fanatics it has some of the craziest min-maxing potential of probably any RPG on the market. It won't appeal to everyone. Lord knows I couldn't enjoy Black/White at all.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

My problem with the new designs is just that they all look horrendously overdesigned. Look at all those swirls and twirls and wisps and extra bits jutting out at odd angles and eugh, the Pokemon look like they had a run-in with Tetsuya Nomura; And while I like Nomura's character designs, I can't deny that he often overdesigns his characters and the style just isn't good for a bunch of cute collectible monsters that are put in pitched cock-fights.

The complaints about "classic" Pokemon designs being uninspired are just as valid as the complaints about "new" Pokemon reusing old assets, but to be honest I can enjoy more of the first three Generations of Pokemon because their aesthetic designs are simply less busy.

Anyway.

The appeal is that it's a simple game to get into with a lot more depth beneath the surface. Simple as.

It's about collecting fantastical creatures, raising and training them, and pitting them against other creatures. And for the fanatics it has some of the craziest min-maxing potential of probably any RPG on the market. It won't appeal to everyone. Lord knows I couldn't enjoy Black/White at all.

Now that you mention Nomura, the last Pokemon kind of reminded me of that one Heartless.