The DS era of the franchise was the absolute peak in quality that won't be matched for a while if ever
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Pokemon X/Y are better than Pokemon Sun/Moon, I said it
- Thread starter Deleted member 249
- Start date
Sun/Moon:
has a much better art style
better soundtrack (X/Y was so forgettable)
Better Story/Characters (I think S/M story is a bit overrated, but it's still leaps and bounds better than X/Y)
Better Region (Kalos is the blandest region we've got so far)
Better difficulty
It's all around just better in every way except the PSS --> Festival Plaza Downgrade
Pokemon X/Y is garbage tier, and S/M is decent (though both are dissapointing to varying degrees, neither stands up to any of the DS games)
has a much better art style
better soundtrack (X/Y was so forgettable)
Better Story/Characters (I think S/M story is a bit overrated, but it's still leaps and bounds better than X/Y)
Better Region (Kalos is the blandest region we've got so far)
Better difficulty
It's all around just better in every way except the PSS --> Festival Plaza Downgrade
Pokemon X/Y is garbage tier, and S/M is decent (though both are dissapointing to varying degrees, neither stands up to any of the DS games)
^ this fellow is correct.
Haha, I meant going forward, similar to how BotW kinda expands upon the original Zelda's sense of figure it out yourself adventure.
I stopped at ORAS but I remember enjoying X/Y. I loved the PSS system and other features it brought to the game, along with things like EV training made easier. It had a lot of ambitious ideas and gave us Mega Evos which I liked.
I don't keep up with Pokemon anymore but if there is one thing GameFreak proved again and again is that they are terrible at preserving or reiterating elements of past entries. If there's a drastic change in staff, maybe.
I'll go further and happily admit that Gens 6 and 7 are among my favorites in the series history, probably just behind 3. I absolutely loved XY and while the constant railroading in SuMo was annoying, I really liked all of the characters and their journey. It's easily the most enjoyable supporting cast in the series.
I say that too.
XY did so many amazing things and is the only set of new designs I've liked overall since gen 3.
Cool region. Cool Dex. Non invasive story that lets you get on with the actually interesting parts of pokemon. Plus some of the best features of all time i.e PSS, Friend safari etc.
Gen V was a disappointment. Gen VII was a mistake. Gen 6 is that sweet spot.
XY did so many amazing things and is the only set of new designs I've liked overall since gen 3.
Cool region. Cool Dex. Non invasive story that lets you get on with the actually interesting parts of pokemon. Plus some of the best features of all time i.e PSS, Friend safari etc.
Gen V was a disappointment. Gen VII was a mistake. Gen 6 is that sweet spot.
X&Y made me feel empty. Not from sorrow just...it was a really nothing game in the series. It has good music but it's really forgettable.
Sun and Moon had memorable characters that made me actually care about them and they did more unique things with the world.
Sun and Moon had memorable characters that made me actually care about them and they did more unique things with the world.
They just don't make any sense. It should have just been a permanent evolution. Not a digivolution. They added nothing to the SP.
I agree, but mostly because I got totally bored with sun/moon after a couple hours. I finished X/Y because it felt like a fresh experience, but it wasn't my favorite in the series primarily for difficulty reasons (the lack of it). It's been ages since I played either game though, not holding onto this opinion too strongly.
My personal favorites in the series are black/white and gold/silver pretty equally a think, with ruby/saphire coming in second.
No, endgame isn't a compelling argument for me at all regarding the quality of a pokemon game if the casual experience has nothing of substance.
My personal favorites in the series are black/white and gold/silver pretty equally a think, with ruby/saphire coming in second.
No, endgame isn't a compelling argument for me at all regarding the quality of a pokemon game if the casual experience has nothing of substance.
Being a permanent evolution is a lot more shallow when it comes to battles and would be harder to balance. Having to give up the held item slot, not knowing which Pokémon on the enemy team will mega evolve, and other factors play a big strategic role.
I think out of all the mainline Pokemon games X&Y is just...truly lacking. The story is barely there, the map was barely there, the side content was next to nothing. The rival was the blandest of all. The characters don't have you feeling anything for them. Everything you could say is great about a Pokemon game is not in this entry.
If anything it really is like Sonic Forces. Not really offensive but it's cookie cutter and it feels like they didn't try much at all. There's a lack of heart put into this title, it certainly feels empty and rushed.
If anything it really is like Sonic Forces. Not really offensive but it's cookie cutter and it feels like they didn't try much at all. There's a lack of heart put into this title, it certainly feels empty and rushed.
Yeah, my suggestion is not a great solution either. Just made more sense in the universe. If I was ever threatened by a Mega, I just used my own Mega. So there wasn't really any strategy.
I have a bit of an irrational soft spot for X/Y but really all those games excel at is replayability because of the massive regional dex. Sun/Moon on the other hand have a pretty engaging story with the best cast of characters in the series. The online system is also better in gen 6 than 7 but I don't interact with that stuff enough for it to make enough of an impact.
Good writing isn't just about dialogue, it's about character progression, and whether the story is paced well and actually makes sense as we progress from one plot point to the next. You could do the same thing with SM as you said about BW and reduce it to Lillie rambling about "lol Nebby get in the bag" and make it a point to say that's the opposite of good writing.
1) My problem with Sun and Moon is that character "development" (if we can even call it that) is completely artificial and hollow. Why? Because it's completely centered around the MC. There's no agency for characters like Hau and Lillie to grow into their own since if you removed MC from the story, they would be the same from the beginning to end.
Whereas in Black and White, what you call N and Cheren rambling on about "truth and ideals" (which isn't actually the case. N is the one who talks about it yes), is them talking about their motivations and worldview. The difference is that their worldview naturally changes over time without the need for MC to artificially change them. Bianca starts out as an idealistic character with a very naïve view of her motivations and the world around her, until she hits a roadblock where her father does not want her to travel. She starts out interested in battling, before ultimately transitioning into being more of the explorative type and eventually becoming Professor Juniper's Assistant. Cheren on the other hand, is someone who views the Champion as a desirable title and does everything he can to work his way to that goal, whether it'd be focusing on acquiring powerful pokemon, knowing all of the battling concepts, and so on. It isn't until Alder asks him why he wants to be a Champion, that he starts to realize that his motivation was pretty hollow and only for the sake of being a Champion.
2) The story as a whole in SM has quite a few problems. First, there's the pacing issue that contributes to gameplay being interrupted every single time just to tell you what you already know (and this extends to the instances where you need to go to a certain location to trigger a story event). You can argue that Gen V doesn't have that problem because the DS wasn't 3D in the same way that the 3DS was, but that doesn't change that the story-telling was snappier and easier to digest without feeling like a complete pacebreaker.
SM is certainly the best Pokemon story I've played. I'd argue it's the only "good" one in terms of writing. Most stories are kinda blank including BW1, but though BW1 pushes further here it's a rather edgy story that has not aged well with time.
I can't even agree or disagree because the 1-2 of X/Y and Omega/Alpha's release was enough to put me off the mainline series again. The pacing, the way they treat you, the performance, movement, dialogue, difficulty... almost everything rubbed me the wrong way. I swear I'm not a crazy old man for thinking that Emerald was a much tighter focused, better paced and better playing game than the remakes.
If you're talking about competitive its pretty easy to guess which pokemon will mega evolve from a team composition (since you can only have one people always use the same 4-5 OP ones)
outside of competitive is completely meaningless
having an entire team composed of strong pokemon (instead of a gimmick one) with several different items is far more strategic
???
How is it edgy? Do you even know what edgy means or are you just using it as a buzzword?
This seems reductive, Lillie's and Hau's development was very organic and centered around the theme of family which also affected most other main characters. Obviously Lusamine's motivations for getting obsessed with UBs because her husband disappeared researching them and driving her kids away, Guzma making his own family in Team Skull since his parents used to beat him, Plumeria being the big sis of the grunts, Gladion not fitting in with them, Hau having to prove himself to Hala, Kukui and Burnet, Nanu and Acerola, as you can see almost everyone is related to someone and that affects their role. Lillie learns to be independent through taking care of Nebby and realizing that if she wants to save her mother she's gonna have to stop running away. The MC's function is to beat the people causing troubles via Pokémon battles.
Honestly it was all very layered and if I tried to go too much into details here it'd take me forever, but I'll admit that I could have been more specific when talking about my problems with BW's writing.
Whew that is the truth huh. With the exception of Diamond/Pearl, which are still better than Gen 6 and 7, all the DS Pokemon games were phenomenal. Perfected everything the series had been building up towards.
Then XY came and sprinted in the complete opposite direction, with SuMo going even further.
Ultra Sun was my first and is my only Pokemon game to date, so I cannot comment on the comparison. As a standalone, however:
- I personally do not see the handholding complaint. I mean, to me it seemed like standard tutorials in many modern games. Maybe this is something only obvious when being compared?
- I really enjoyed the story, although I did also just watch the S&M anime series, so I kinda knew a lot of it already and was already familiar with the characters.
- Loved the music! The battle theme still gets stuck in my head from time to time.
- I'm not an online competitive player, so I sidestepped that portion, but the festival plaza was neat.
- There was also a TON to do in post game.
- As for the interrupts and unskippable cutscenes, it was only an annoyance when I kept having to reload a tough area. Otherwise, did not bother me.
- I personally do not see the handholding complaint. I mean, to me it seemed like standard tutorials in many modern games. Maybe this is something only obvious when being compared?
- I really enjoyed the story, although I did also just watch the S&M anime series, so I kinda knew a lot of it already and was already familiar with the characters.
- Loved the music! The battle theme still gets stuck in my head from time to time.
- I'm not an online competitive player, so I sidestepped that portion, but the festival plaza was neat.
- There was also a TON to do in post game.
- As for the interrupts and unskippable cutscenes, it was only an annoyance when I kept having to reload a tough area. Otherwise, did not bother me.
Sun and Moon is one of the slowest and most gated jrpgs. Its cumbersome story doesn't even have the production values to back it up.
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All your points are valid but seeing as S/M has an overall more challenging playthrough, prettier graphics, and the story/characters are wayyyy better the main playthrough was more enjoyable to me. But X/Y does just about everything else better, has had way more of a positive impact on the series, and I'd say has a marginally better Pokemon offering. If SwSh takes the best elements of both games and has a slightly more robust post-game it'll be fantastic.
Natural Harmonia Gropius, A child raised by Pokemon manipulated to do an evil guy's bidding.
Weird Ferris Wheel scene.
Ghetsis theme in the style of One Winged Angel.
The intro the game being just...whatever this is taking itself too serious.
It certainly is edgy among Pokemon stories.
Sun and Moon is the low point of Pokemon and it's a gotdamn shame that we haven't gotten a game that had the same quality as Black/White 1 and 2.
That being said some of the characters in Sun and Moon are great, like Guzma, Lusamine, and Lillie.
That being said some of the characters in Sun and Moon are great, like Guzma, Lusamine, and Lillie.
Gonna have a big disagree on the idea that XY aren't only marginally better than SM on this at all. And even if the frequency of the interruptions is slightly lower, the writing and structure of the story they were trying to tell was awful. This isn't even to mention the complete cardboard cutout characters, from your rivals, to Lysandre, to Dianthia. At least I was entertained when I was interrupted in Alola (the first time through, anyway).
Absolutely agree with this on all fronts.
I think this is a matter of individual taste? Especially for the bolded, as I don't play like that at all (I stick with a single team through the whole game). Though I don't think an extra +150 to SM's ~300 regional dex would hurt at all, I still found there to be plenty of new Pokemon I wanted to make into teams. I agree that some Pokemon are frustrating to find, but for me that's a lot more to do with certain rates rather than locations or methods. I actually quite liked the SOS mechanic and the ways that they made some encounters exclusive to them were quite clever I think. Rates def could have been higher there though.
Pretty much agree on all of these as well. I could have stood for Super Training to be speed up a bit to get EVs maxed, but overall I enjoyed that minigame more than getting EVs in battles. I find the PokePelago solution to be entirely acceptable though. EXP grinding is awful in SM though, but I think XY really isn't that much better. ORAS with its secret bases was incredible for this and should be a series staple for that reason, among others.
I don't really agree that XY has that much over SM in QOL. Outside of the atrocity of the Festival Plaza, I find the menus in SM to be a fair bit better. Being able to throw a Pokeball directly from the battle screen with X was a great idea as well. Z-move animations should absolutely be toggle-able separately from other move animations.
I don't really give XY credit for a new type because that and the resulting type chart shakeup are things that get implemented from the top-down. There were some great new Pokemon of that type and I really like the type in general, but I don't necessarily hold that in my mind as something inherent to XY's novelty. Amie was great but I think Refresh was a great expansion with the grooming elements, even if the (frankly dull) minigames are gone. I think giving XY significant credit for riding Pokemon as a new thing is kind of dubious. Aside from Lapras, the places you can do so are restricted areas, and in the case of Rhyhorn and Mamoswine, the controls are incredibly sluggish. I consider those sequences some of the worst in the game. The proper ride system in SM is leaps and bounds ahead of what amounted to a (poorly executed) proof of concept in XY.
I think you're leaving out a few things that SM brought to the table such as, as I mentioned, an actual realization of riding Pokemon in the overworld, PokePelago, SOS battles (which I really like for shiny hunting purposes), and Totem battles. Another that I think goes overlooked is the addition of "special trainers" on various routes that you fight after you've cleared the rest, who actually use held items and appropriate strategies.
Ultimately I think, despite some of the head-scratching things they did, SM pretty much dwarfs XY for me. I'm coming at this from my own play style, though, which is to play through the game with a set team of six, then spend my postgame hunting shinies. Both games have similarly pitiful single player content beyond the credits, though at the very least SM has the UB missions. I also find both equally repulsive in replay value, as the main games are the definition of a slog. I've played both thrice, one time with each starter and the corresponding teams I built. But for that "first time through" experience, SM was fun enough while XY was the first time I've ever finished a Pokemon game and thought "that wasn't very good."
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This. I really don't like either gen. If I had to pick a game it would be ORAS but not even by much (also because I like Hoenn)...
Fam, I couldn't agree more. I love XY the same I love Pokémon Silver.
Coming back into the series after a hiatus prelaunch of XY and playing those game felt freeing. The PSS added the difficulty I needed when the main game was feeling too easy.
I would breed a competitive perfect IV team, EV train them, put them in Pokémon Bank, restart the game, and go on a journey with that team with the PSS turned on saying I am accepting battles. It was legit and felt good battling with my young team online and losing most of that time only to start winning as my Pokémon started getting to higher levels and learning better attacks.
The 80$ I spent on X and Y and it saved me so much money as I didn't buy another game after it launch up until about a year and a half after.
Over 3 thousand hours played in its life time.
Vs
Sun/Ultra Moon just under 200 hours played. Mainly because I got into Shiny breeding.
Lusamine is cool in Sun/Moon and that's it.
XY had its problems but I found a massive amount of fun in those games.
Sun/Ultra Moon just aren't fun games to just play. There's no PSS and it's hard getting 6v6 vs randoms because of that. To start a new journey is to go threw that entire hand hoody dialog. I do not like Hau as a rival or character. Like kid, you just got your ass kicked in a battle stop smiling so damn much. ALL YOUR POKÉMON ARE FAINTED! Show some frustration!
I'm not saying the friends in XY were written good but they didn't bother me. It was a group and each member of that group did their own thing in game and I liked that about them. I just wish they were written better and given more screen time.
Just my two cents.
Coming back into the series after a hiatus prelaunch of XY and playing those game felt freeing. The PSS added the difficulty I needed when the main game was feeling too easy.
I would breed a competitive perfect IV team, EV train them, put them in Pokémon Bank, restart the game, and go on a journey with that team with the PSS turned on saying I am accepting battles. It was legit and felt good battling with my young team online and losing most of that time only to start winning as my Pokémon started getting to higher levels and learning better attacks.
The 80$ I spent on X and Y and it saved me so much money as I didn't buy another game after it launch up until about a year and a half after.
Over 3 thousand hours played in its life time.
Vs
Sun/Ultra Moon just under 200 hours played. Mainly because I got into Shiny breeding.
Lusamine is cool in Sun/Moon and that's it.
XY had its problems but I found a massive amount of fun in those games.
Sun/Ultra Moon just aren't fun games to just play. There's no PSS and it's hard getting 6v6 vs randoms because of that. To start a new journey is to go threw that entire hand hoody dialog. I do not like Hau as a rival or character. Like kid, you just got your ass kicked in a battle stop smiling so damn much. ALL YOUR POKÉMON ARE FAINTED! Show some frustration!
I'm not saying the friends in XY were written good but they didn't bother me. It was a group and each member of that group did their own thing in game and I liked that about them. I just wish they were written better and given more screen time.
Just my two cents.
I have several issues with SM (USUM is better but doesn't fix the most glaring issues), but XY is far, faaaar worse. I'm just gonna repost what I wrote in another thread a while back:
I was like this until Sun/Moon which I liked far less than any of the other mainline games. I thought S/M felt like an absolute chore to play.
I really didn't like S/M so I'd have to agree. I absolutely couldn't stand the island challenges replacing gyms. Or Hau, I can't stand that guy. The Z moves were something I disliked too and as someone that actually liked megas, it was sad that they were put on the sidelines for Z moves. The Alolan forms more often than not were actually just stupid but as far as the original pokemon, I quite liked them. Golisopod is probably one of my favourite pokemon ever.
That being said I value S/M so little that just the Prozd Lysanderoth video has given me more entertainment than S/M.
That doesn't really mean X and Y are great though. We all know the real 3DS champ is ORAS.
That being said I value S/M so little that just the Prozd Lysanderoth video has given me more entertainment than S/M.
That doesn't really mean X and Y are great though. We all know the real 3DS champ is ORAS.
I had a lot of fun with Sun and Moon's story the first time through, but it is an agonizing slog to play through again. It's why I can't finish Ultra Sun. It's the same shit, and the main reason it's so hard to play through again is because the long drawn-out unskippable cutscenes and constant removal of the player's control to go this way or do that thing or listen to this NPC monologue. It's dreadful.
X & Y at least still had the snappy progression that the sprite-based games had where things were less detailed and things happened faster as long as I was mashing the A button, and it was easy to replay it because of that.
Oh, and wild Pokemon calling for help brings SM/USUM down quite a bit. I just want to catch the damn Pokemon!
I forgot to mention the Battling aspects. Alola Pokemon SUCK! Why is everything so god damn slow? So many great designs all ruined because of crappy stats. Meanwhile, Kalos introduces the monsters known as Mega Evolutions, and has some above average to devastating standard Pokemon as well. It's freaking ridiculous how undercooked Alola's Pokemon were. Even most of the Alolan forms of Kanto Pokemon are underwhelming (not that there were a lot of good Kanto Pokemon to begin with, but still). The only things that truly stand out in the region are the Ultra Beasts, and I hope this isn't the last we see of the concept.
Goddamn, and who the hell cares about that stupid amusement park that disrupts your game just to connect to the online modes? What in god's name made Game Freak decide that the P.S.S. had to go? It was objectively their best online solution yet.
X & Y at least still had the snappy progression that the sprite-based games had where things were less detailed and things happened faster as long as I was mashing the A button, and it was easy to replay it because of that.
Oh, and wild Pokemon calling for help brings SM/USUM down quite a bit. I just want to catch the damn Pokemon!
I forgot to mention the Battling aspects. Alola Pokemon SUCK! Why is everything so god damn slow? So many great designs all ruined because of crappy stats. Meanwhile, Kalos introduces the monsters known as Mega Evolutions, and has some above average to devastating standard Pokemon as well. It's freaking ridiculous how undercooked Alola's Pokemon were. Even most of the Alolan forms of Kanto Pokemon are underwhelming (not that there were a lot of good Kanto Pokemon to begin with, but still). The only things that truly stand out in the region are the Ultra Beasts, and I hope this isn't the last we see of the concept.
Goddamn, and who the hell cares about that stupid amusement park that disrupts your game just to connect to the online modes? What in god's name made Game Freak decide that the P.S.S. had to go? It was objectively their best online solution yet.
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Agreed 100%. The tutorials and cutscenes and frequent interruptions in S/M were worse than Skyward Sword. I didn't survive more than 5 hours into either game.
X and Y were fucking amazing and received really well at release. I don't understand the backlash they seem to have been getting the last year or two.
X and Y were fucking amazing and received really well at release. I don't understand the backlash they seem to have been getting the last year or two.
One has Hau and the other does not. That difference alone makes one better than the other.
(Prefer X/Y but to be fair my memory of it super vague).
(Prefer X/Y but to be fair my memory of it super vague).
You say a lot of things, that doesnt make them true. Especially since Ultra SUMO blew XY out of the water.
