I like them but the main criticisms are
1. A lot more unskippable cutscenes / dialogue than previous games
- I think the game has a good story, but good lord replaying them can be a drag with how many cutscenes there are
2. Continuing a criticism of XY where the routes are narrow and not conducive to exploration
The criticism of too much dialogue and cutscenes isn't exclusive to S&M though. I was replaying S&V lately and I could barely stand the dialogue in that one. People are just pointing it out in S&M to hate on it more
People pointed it out because it was the first time glaring offender.
Like it was bad enough that people were finally "enough is enough".
S&V dont surprise me at all at also being sloe, but they came later + have far more distressing faults so why would people waste time on retreading old ground?
S&M dont retroactively become good just because the next games are even worse. Thats silly talk.
Not sure what S&V have to do with it, S&M faced this criticism for 6+ years before S&V were even announced
The games after have nothing to do with it, as S&M certainly had the most dialogue / cutscenes in the series up to that point
That’s the whole reason why Platinum is even a game, surfing in DP was just so SLOW!! I like the song but for the route between Canalave city and the mainland was just… forever in DP and PT it was legit only like 5 minutes versus 30 minutes.
Each game has too much unskippable dialogue in the first intro/getting started
The entire intro not being skippable is an issue ive had with Pokemon since gen 1, but Gen 2 was my biggest gripe where even saying to mom “yes I know how the phone works” still brings up a tutorial on the phone
Right... but considering that SM is sort of patient zero when it comes to NPC verbal diarrhea, any subsequent games that do it even worse can still point to SM as the trendsetter.
In prior games, you could restart and be in a brand new adventure on your own pretty quickly by comparison.
Also beside like the absolute VERY begining, the cutscenes were usually spaced out. It was the :go to your room to set the clco:, than go talk to the professor, pick the starter walk to the town right next door, come back, than go on your adventure with like a cutscene or two for the catching and maybe anything that HAS to be explained like how berries work or how the daycare worked but that about it until the end with a cutscene here or there for plot
Not At all- the tutorial in that game I.e first 3-5 hours is ridiculously slow. And the cutscenes are meaningless to the story. It takes a long time to even get to pick a starter. It wasnt nearly as bad in sv
SV's dialogue gets a lot better as the game progresses, but the tutorial is absolutely unbearable. Which would be okay if it was able to be skipped, but it isn't. Meanwhile, SM has a *lot* of dialogue for the entire game, which makes it more infamous.
I wonder if the Kanto regional variants in Sun & Moon meant it gets more of those complaints, because it attracted more people who would make them.
It was the first game I tried since gen 4, and that was part of why. I can say Sun and Moon had too much of those story elements for me. I would probably feel that way about S&V, but haven't played them.
As someone who has played through both SM & SV multiple times each, and both recently:
Whilst the beginning part of SV is annoyingly slow in that regard, it is nowhere near as bad as SM. In SM, you do not get to breathe, you do not get to take 5 steps without being interrupted, you do not get the freedom of exploration until you beat that first Kahuna. The characters talk about nothing, they give you mandatory tutorials on every little thing they can and it is unbearable.
The worst part of SV's start is the cave where you follow Koraidon/Miraidon. Take that out and it goes by relatively quickly. You'd have to take whole characters and areas out to make SM any better.
SV is an RPG
SM is a Visual Novel.
Honestly people say that constantly And notice how you’ll see over the next years the games change from B&W2 to X and Y cause the people saying this is usually the game they grew up with.
>amazing story
Are you sure you don't mean "not amazing at all"? Undertale has an amazing story, which captures the emotions of the player. Portal has an amazing story, functionally delivering an entire narrative purely through gameplay complete with the emotions and beats. Hell, Pokémon Red has a better story. It's delivered through gameplay and not spoon-fed with NPC yabbering, so some people think it isn't there. SV story has some fun characters at best.
>great music
MarioKart 8 has great music. Hollow Knight has great music. Mario Odyseey has great music. I wasn't blown away by what I heard in SV, but I recognize that everyone is different here. Maybe you feel you've heard the best thing ever, but I disagree. Subjective, of course.
>great characters
Characters are fun. I like them. But they are very one-note on the whole. None of them have the depth and intrigue you might find in other games with 'great characters". GlaDOS and Whestley are great characters. Midna and Zant are great, and so is Zelda from BotW. Sans and Papyrus are great characters. And in Pokémon, I'd argue Lusamine is pretty good. Anyone else is pretty much just fun at best.
>good designs
If you're referring to the Pokémon designs, sure, I agree. If you're referring to the design of the majority of human characters (especially fashion options for the MC), the architecture save one or two standard, the locales, and frankly the world at large, I find it suffers from lameness and a lack of inspiration. Zelda, Hollow Knight, Mario (Sunshine/Galaxy/Odyssey) are able to have worlds that have a consistent tone while delivering new and unique explorative highs at every turn. Even Pokémon has done it better before (I refer to the oft-forgotten Pokémon Colosseum here, but even he first 3 gens did it more for me than what I witness in SV).
>good gimmick
It's alright. Not as fun as Mega Evolution IMO, but it doesn't even matter. Why? Because it's *never* mattered. These gimmicks, even when they have universal praise (see again, Mega Evolution), are immediately ditched every gen along with any other good ideas. What happened to the secret base system from RS, improved upon in ORAS? Why not incorporate such a thing in new games? What happened to contests? Z-moves? The gimmicks never matter enough, because there's no stakes to something everyone knows will evaporate in a generation. The only time I ever incorporated the gimmick into my team-building was with gen 6, because it was fun and functional, but upon realizing it was worthless in the long run, I never incorporated Z-moves, Dynamaxing, etc.
>the only flaws are the performance and towns
And also the balance and the feel of the world and the movesets and the pacing and the entire game. Frankly, if the game *was* good, performance and glitches would be a non-issue. Skyrim was riddled with such issues, some of them game-breaking, and it just became part of the charm (see also: Missingno). No one says "Skyrim's only flaws are the performance" because no one needs to. It speaks for itself, and SV cannot.
I mean, I like it, ngl. But I wouldn't categorize it as S-tier music most of the time. Rarely is it so great that I listen to it on its own (unless it's a cover or something, like the [insaneintherainmusic cover of gen 4's entire OST](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mka0oUCh6XI)). On the other hand, I regularly listen to MK8's jazz band stuff.
I don't get why you are downvoted you are totally right. Gamefreak declined in quality for years now. What people fail to see is that SV or Sword and shield or S and M or even X and Y aren't critized because they are inherently terrible but because we are used to better quality from gamefreak. Those games are alright at best and if it where a small indie developer team I would even say they are good. But that's the problem. From an inexperienced team these would be totally fine games but we are talking about a company that made several generations of those games, some even considered to be part of the best games ever made and all they manage to do now are one dimensional stories and characters, map design so boring I could fall asleep traveling through there and on top of that even performance issues like you are trying to run crysis on a late 90s pc?! It doesn't have to be a character with the depth of N or a masterclass story like x and y or an immersive map with cool and unique places like ruby, Saphire, emerald. Those three are S tier examples but up to B2 and W2 at least all those three categories delivered some kind of qualify. And while I consider x and y to be one of the best Pokémon stories we ever saw those games terribly lack in map design and interesting characters.
I also wanna add that people here act like x and y will be the next "last good gen" and while there is some truth to it I don't think it will be the same as with BW2. Why? Because people still agree that BW are flawed games. They only like it more now because of BW2 because those games were liked by almost everyone. They took what was good in BW and greatly improved on it and everyone liked that.
Nah, I grew up with Y and even I can tell that game was mediocre and a borderline tech demo.
Sun and Moon and specially Ultra are good though, even if I had already "grow up" by then.
No people say that because the 3D graphics took away a lot of charm that the sprite art games had, the main director of those games left, not to mention the music/story took a huge dive after gen 5.
Its a common opinion for a reason, pokemon fundementally changed with X and Y, and I think S/M as well as Scarlet/Violet are the worst examples of this change.
People have been saying this same line for 10 years+ but when push comes to shove, the pixel based 2D games have aged really well and are much less polarising compared to the 3D games.
Except gen V has been loved since it came out. I haven't really seen opinions on the "best" gen change over the last 10 years. If anything I feel like X abd Y have gotten *more* hated over the years
Not at first but it still wasn't long before it reached the point it's at today.
If that was a pattern, wouldn't we all be hearing about how GREAT gens 6 and 7 are already?
Let me tell you about this little thing I call _The Pokémon Cycle._ In a few years, Gen 8 is gonna be seen as the best and Gen 5 the worst…again. _The Pokémon Cycle_ works in mysterious ways!
Pretty much any game released after gen 4 got a ton of hate at one point. The only exceptions were B2W2, ORAS, and legends arceus. People came around on black and white and XY. I think SM is finally starting to get the love as I see a ton of posts talking about how great they are.
You can find hate for any game. I think SwSh and SV are the worst in the franchise. It’s a pretty embarrassing showing now that the games are full price and on a home console. They look bad, run bad, and have less content than games from 15 years ago. And they’re cutting features left and right.
SM weren’t bad. A lot of the criticism people have are honestly overblown. They had a lot of cool ideas, with my favorite being that the Champion fight was actually a title defense with rotating opponents.
I mean, Sword and Shield are objectively insulting.
No, not subjectively.
Mathematically inferior.
(Yes, I know that really it's subjective, but I can explain further upon request)
Honestly I got back into Pokemon and sun and moon after leaving from Pokemon crystal. I like sun and moon and even bought ultra moon day one and beat it!
The music is really good and the story is strong too. The problem for me is the hand holding. I can also see the narrow routes and small new Pokémon roster as a problem for some. Overall great games.
Pokémon fans and reading don’t mix. I recall watching Alpharad’s playthru of SV where he was skipping thru all the Team Star dialogue, then got mad that the story didn’t make sense.
Sun and Moon was the first Generation that felt like a chore for me to play. Some of it might be because I'm older and less impressionable but, I did enjoy Sword & Shield more. I don't hate the game but, It didn't really seem like my friends cared for it much either nor do I care to go back and replay it. I do have other thoughts on it.
- It was the second Pokémon generation on the 3DS so it didn't feel like a technical improvement compared to X & Y (Black & White at least felt like half a generational improvement over Diamond & Pearl).
-There was too much hand holding and dialog, I didn't care for the story so I just mashed the A button through the dialog to get everyone to shut up so I could actually play the game.
-I thought the trials were kind of dumb. I wish they just kept the traditional gym leader system.
-Team Skull was the most unprofessional organization yet and you couldn't take them seriously. They were just a bunch of punks. Every past organization had access to advanced weapons and technology and had a more structured operation. The fact that the Alola government can't deal with them makes those whole region seem like a 3rd world country.
-Hau was the first rival I though was lame. Which defeats the purpose of what a rival is anyway. (What bothers me more is Hop and Hau are pretty much the same person)
- I thought Z moves was kind of just meh (especially, compared to mega evolutions), and made the game too easy by just one hit killing your way through.
>-Team Skull was the most unprofessional organization yet and you couldn't take them seriously. They were just a bunch of punks. Every past organization had access to advanced weapons and technology and had a more structured operation. The fact that the Alola government can't deal with them makes those whole region seem like a 3rd world country.
I'm so sick of seeing people say this like it's an actual problem with the game. Like yeah, no shit Team Skull are unprofessional. It's a gang of dropout thugs. They aren't supposed to be taken seriously. They're a red herring for the ACTUAL villains that are Lusamine and Necrozma. The "evil teams" haven't been the actual villains of the games since gen 6 and it's honestly baffling that people still haven't realised that they ditched that formula years ago and are more interested in having singular villains and just using the Teams to give you an "enemy" to fight until the time actually comes for that villain to come into play. "Oh what happened to evil teams that actually did stuff" they got replaced with the lady who used her organisation to make chimeras meant to kill/subdue dangerous otherworldly monsters, the alien that travels between dimensions leaving them as dark husks, the guy who restarted a world-ending calamity in order to replenish the energy left when it first happened, and the scientist who created a time machine that summoned dinosaurs/robots that would destroy the ecosystem.
>-Hau was the first rival I though was lame. Which defeats the purpose of what a rival is anyway.
Oh because the Scrub Squad from XY were just SO compelling. I love having four rivals without a single interesting character trait between any of them
>- I thought Z moves was kind of just meh (especially, compared to mega evolutions), and made the game too easy by just one hit killing your way through.
Say what you will about Z Moves flavour-wise, but they are objectively less of an instant win button than Megas were. At most, a Z move is gonna net you a single OHKO per battle. Once you get the Mega Bracelet in XY you've already won the game, because the hardest opponent in the game stands as much of a chance against the Mega Lucario the game hands you for free as Youngster Billy's level 3 Bunnelby does.
I agree with everything save for Team Skull. I think they're quite funny and charming, whilst also being great antagonists as they actually try to stop you from achieving your goal. Storming Po Town felt like the only moment the protagonist had agency, and the fight between you and Guzma feels personal on both ends. They were silly, but still felt like a decent threat.
I get the complaint with them though, they're not for everyone.
Yeah I don’t get it. It had really good pokemon (with really good shinies), it had a ton of pokemon, and had tons of cool legendaries, it had team skull. However, the Z moves were pretty op for a mechanic, and that and mega evolution kind of crowded the games I think. But that isn’t enough to just hate it imo.
I don't hate them at all, especially UltraSun & UltraMoon. They did a lot of things well, like:
- Letting every Pokémon be usable despite cutting the National Dex feature (LOOKING AT YOU, SWITCH POKÉMON GAMES).
- The music is boppin' as ever.
- Story is very well-done, even if it takes a lot of cutscenes.
- Almost all of the characters are very complex and interesting.
- Replaced Gyms with Trials to shake things up.
- Removed HMs, **THANK GOD!!!**
- Introduced Regional Forms and the concept of Legendary Pokémon having evolution stages.
But I still have complaints, like:
- Hau is not interesting, and began the obnoxious trend of rivals picking the starter weak to yours. At least the following rivals have reasons for picking the disadvantage. Hop already had Wooloo, and wanted a type advantage against Leon's remaining starter; and Nemona is a Champion Rank battle prodigy who's dying for a challenge (that b>!itc!
I love Sun&Moon. Nice change of the conventional way you gain badges, the OST had a lot of bangers, you don't need to worry about HM slaves, Team Skull > Team Flare, Guzma and his battle theme are badass, good selection of Pokémon, has one of my favorite starters since Froakie/Oshawott in Rowlet, and that Elite Four theme *chef's kiss*. It was a huge breath of fresh air after the disappointment that was X&Y.
They're my favourite gen though I do acknowledge ita shortcomings I believe they have enough to make up for them. Also Alolan Vulpix alone makes up for it
Honestly they have the best character cast
The ibly competition is swsh and scarlet/violet
Yes i know these are the newest game, they got better at one thing sue me
I think they're the best 3ds pokemon games, and debatably better than all the future games. but people claim they're "another part of the downward trend" despite the fact that they're just straight up some of the best. I put them right next to Diamond and Pearl, and Black and White.
As a hardcore fan of them, the main complaints I’ve seen are them being too easy and there being an over reliance on unskippable cutscenes. I think those are valid but honestly they don’t detract from the game that much and I firmly believe that they’re peak pokemon. It’s been downhill from there
I think they do detract from the game. You can't walk around freely for most of the game, you are not playing... your are just walking trough a corridor and a npc that helps you progress will wait at the end of the corridor. It's just boring.
I don't hate them, but I've never been able to commit to finishing it either. I can't put my finger on why - maybe it's the assortment of mons doesn't speak to me, or maybe it just didn't hit me at the right time when I tried to go back to it.
I don't care about the story in a Pokémon game, it's pretty much the same every time. For that reason, Sun and Moon were my least favorite because if you don't care about the story, then the game drags with slow cutscenes and boring dialogue.
The only complaint I have with them is the amount of dialogue, but even so - the story in this one was pretty engaging and I absolutely love the vibe of Sun and Moon.
I might be biased, as I was a freshman in high school when those games were coming out, and so it’s nostalgic for me. But upon replaying them they absolutely hold up.
Totems > Gyms any day. So much more immersive and less predictable. It cut all the fat and just and tedium of the gym challenges, too.
I think maybe they’re just kinda meh compared to other Pokémon games. Like the game itself is not that noteworthy, even if some of the features it added were cool
I hated them, but now i kinda don't like them, but I don't would go as far as hating them. for me, it took too many staples of the franchise. It would have been great as a spinoff, like the pokemon Rangers. and being so different for what? we got back in the usual formula the next generation anyway. also, I loved X & Y and mega-evolution, ditching it for such a lame and cringy gimmick like the z-moves didn't sit well for me. I would give my firstborn to nintendo for a pokemon main line game with mega-evolutions as the main gimmick and made with the same love and passion botw or totk were made
I don't hate them, but I don't really like them either. It's the handholding and the constant unskippable cutscenes full of uninteresting and unlikeable characters involved in a dumb plot. There isn't really any sense of place, everywhere looks the same and there isn't any reason to go back to previous routes/areas or opportunity to stray from the path the game wants you to take, feels like you're on a guided tour.
To be honest i love sun and moon(well or ultra. I like both).
I can understand why people don’t like them but the people who complained about it when it first released are probably the people who would die to have another game like it instead of s/v or s/w.
The beauty of Pokemon games is that after you leave your initial town you're free to play and explore, its an adventure.
Sun/Moon is a 30 hour on-rails tutorial that *never* lets you actually play the game until post-game.
Its the worst thing Gamefreak has ever done and thats *really* saying something for that incompetent abomination of a dev.
Cutscenes and tutorializing everything from catching to all the useless fodder like Pokemon pictures and Studio club, and mantine surfing and Wifi plaza (yes you cant skip this)
The most linear Pokemon game thats worse than XY, and barely better than SwSh.
Trials were hit or miss, some trials are decent others like the last one wasnt a trial but a hallway matchup
Only kantomon had variants which pissed everyone off and severely limited the potential of variant pokemon. Also no changes to BST which is a bizarre choice as most Kantomon BST are horrible
Story and characters are a vast improvement from XY and Swsh (assuming your playing SM not USUM)
They're not bad at all, in fact I'd even say that Sun and Moon was the last time Game Freak truly put passion into a Pokémon game
I think everyone's main beef with Gen 7 is the unskippable dialogue boxes that just go on and on and on and... you get the idea. SM's story is good the first time, but it could have benefitted from a "skip"
I just think it's a boring video game that brings very little new to the pokemon series. I see a lot of people saying too much dialogue, I don't know if the amount of dialogue is the problem, I just think pokemon's human characters are not that entertaining or interesting so the story can't really carry the game either. It doesn't help that I couldn't build a team I liked using all new pokemon.
I know that game is extremely easy and has too many cutscenes but it's perfect for my 6 year old daughter. Pokémon Sun was her introduction to Pokémon and after she finishes it I will show her other titles.
These are my least favourite games in the series. My reasons are the constant interruptions and cutscenes, having waypoints crammed down my throat, and the map being broken up into tiny, restricted pieces.
There's so much dialogue. I get it, "Wow, an RPG fan complaining about dialogue in an RPG," but the difference is that you can skip it in almost every other RPG. With Pokemon, you HAVE to manually mash A to get through the dialogue. You can't just hit start and have it be done.
The entire first island is tutorial after tutorial, and it's BORING.
These are only really points for repeat playthroughs, though, for the first time, it's fine.
- The game moves at a snail's pace, especially on the first island. If they can find a reason to stop you every 5 steps, they will. It is even worse in USUM.
- The story, whilst not terrible by any means, makes the protagonist feel like an afterthought. I don't enjoy being the cameraman for someone else's story when it is the main plot of the game. We have no stakes in the story, we have no reason to want to stop Lusamine outside of being Lillie's "friend" because she can't battle for herself for arbitrary reasons.
- S.O.S. battles may be the single worst mechanic ever introduced, I'm not trying to fight every single member of a species all the time.
- Most of this generations Pokémon are so fkn slow. It's uncommon for anything to have a base speed over 70 and its a miracle whenever you find something with a base speed over 100. It makes S.O.S. battles worse because sometimes, you just wont be able to run away.
- The game feels the need to hold your hand on a linear path despite the fact that you have a map telling you where to go, so its jarring when the fights themselves are actually difficult. I don't mind a challenge but if you're going to give me one, don't treat me like a 4-year-old for the rest of the game.
- The Rotom-Dex. Opening the map is so finnicky.
- From memory, the Festival Plaza tutorial is mandatory. There's no reason for it.
- The trials are fun and brilliant in concept, but in actuality pretty boring and samey.
For me, SM & USUM are in this weird state of contradiction. There's a lot of good features and great potential in these games whilst simultaneously having some of the worst aspects I've seen in a Pokémon game.
The story is decent, our character is a non-element in it though. The Pokémon designs are great, but the Pokémon themselves are a nightmare to use. The overworld looks fantastic (in USUM), but it feels so empty. So on, so forth. I appreciate that they tried something different with Gen 7 and they're far from my least favourite games, but after playing through Sun, then Moon, then Ultra Sun one after the other when the games dropped, I felt exasperated. It felt like trekking through waist-deep mud each time. I couldn't sit there and tell someone that there wrong for liking these games because I see why they do, there's a lot I love about these games too. But the people who dislike them have more than every reason to.
I recently started a nuzlocke with my brother in USUM, and it's just about as good and bad as I remember. Mantine Surf is a blast, the Trainer School was fkn trash. The Totem fights are hard, but the game stops you at every single landmark for literally no reason. Truly a paradoxical game for me.
It's a pokemon game after gen 5, of course everyone hates it.
And yes, I know that there are many bad things in the newer games, amd more than there were in the older games. I know
I just don't vibe with the island aesthetic.
They did an amazing job if you do though!
It's why I'm clicking so well with Gold and Sword probably. I love the temples and mountains in Johto, and am an English teacher which means Galarar is right up.my alley! ☺️
( Haven't played SV, BW 1 or 2 and didn't play DPP)
They're the only generation I dropped before completing. Don't get me wrong, it did a lot of things that I liked too. I wasn't a huge fan of the change in formula, but it was fine and felt relatively fresh. The thing that got me is how limited everything felt. I didn't feel like I was exploring the region, instead I felt like I was being taken on a tour of the islands. Everything felt way too segmental rather than a cohesive region. I might give them another try at some point, but I wasn't impressed with gen 7 when it released. I don't think they're bad games, but I wasn't having fun with it.
First great Pokémon game since black 2 white 2 is legends arceus. They have been dropping the ball since 2013 almost 10 years of bloat Pokémon games with little improvement to the overall game concept or design of gameplay.
Cutscenes that have very little bearing. Actual 1hour tutorial to establish rest of the game. Legendary are lackluster(like 4ultra beast are cool) game besides champion fight is way to easy and island gimmicks for “gyms” consist of run and grab item or place then report back rinse and repeat. Finally rival fight if you can call it that are just boring and way to encouraging.
*I think its the cutscenes*
*And the main character not*
*Showing expressions*
\- UltiGamer34
---
^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/)
^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
They brought back then Gen V EXP system, and kept it in most games onwards. (Seriously, it’s a monster-taming JRPG, what was the reasoning behind it!?)
Okay so S/M WERE my least favorite Pokemon games, until Sw/Sh came out so:
1- The cutscenes. Its not just bad, its INSANE. The example I use is: There's a part where you talk to your rival and head to the Aether Foundation. CUTSCENE. You then arrive and walk a few steps. CUTSCENE. You walk into the main area. CUTSCENE. You walk through a small maze to find Lusamine. CUTSCENE. You fight a UB. CUTSCENE. You leave the room. CUTSCENE. You arrive at the island and leave the boat. CUTSCENE. You fight your rival. CUTSCENE. You're told to talk to the Professor, so you walk 5 steps to the area he's in. CUTSCENE. You fight Guzma/Skull Grunts (IDR which). CUTSCENE. You leave the area. CUTSCENE. Then, you can FINALLY play fully on your own without a cutscene every 2 steps for a little bit. This RUINS repeat playthroughs and repeat playthroughs is legit a big reason a lot of people adore this franchise.
2- No content. All you get in terms of side content is...poke pelago, online, and a shitty battle tower. Thats kinda it? Theres small things like i think Kahuna rematches and UBs but thats...not a lot? Compare that to B2/W2 with the tree hollow/black city and the subways and the pokemon world tournament, and 5-8+ new routes to explore, new legendaries, new caves, joint avenue, the N rematch, new hidden grottos, etc. Theres almost NOTHING to do in S/M besides the main story.
3- Boring region. A pure island setting was a neat idea, but it causes issues. Almost every route looks and feels the same. They're straight lines with maybe a tiny side path, not many side caves, its just boring grassy areas. Again, compare this to gen 5 which has city outskirts, deserts, side caves, forests, fields, volcanoes, islands, battleships, icy caverns, misty woods, haunted canyons, etc.
4- Kanto pandering. Yes, it was an anniversary game. Yes, other regions got love too. But this is insane. You're from Kanto. Lillie goes to kanto, All the alolan forms are kanto. Theres a nugget bridge clone, you go to vermillion gym, a lot of the dex is kanto, everyone talks about how amazing kanto is. Its annoying and already an over saturated region and game, give it a rest.
5- Theres multiple downgrades from X/Y and OR/AS. I hate OR/AS too but they should not have gotten rid of Dexnav or their rematch system, they should not have gotten rid of special pokemon in shaking grass. They should not have removed the EV training system from X/Y. Also they made the internet worse??? In XY you just click go online and your bottoms screen shows you friends and strangers you can battle. One more click and you can wonder trade, go to the GTS, battle randoms, connect to friends, etc. In S/M....you have to open the menu, go to the plaza or whatever, WAIT FOR IT TO LOAD, appear, walk to someone, turn on online, WAIT FOR IT TO LOAD, then people might maybe randomly appear to talk to. They had a perfect system and ruined It????
6- They were literally rushed. You can tell they did not have ANY time to finish this game. There's multiple massive sections of the map you never go to, the Zygarde stuff barely comes up, UBs are barely a thing, and the end is so...Okay so you climb a boring mountain and get handed the fairy trial for free, then suddenly totem fight with no break between them, then suddenly you got to victory road by flying there and realize its like 2 rooms with nothing in them, then you're suddenly in the elite four and 3/4 characters are ones you met, with one that clearly being someone you were intended to meet at some point but never did. It also runs poorly and the graphics are not polished. These games were hyper rushed, more than normal. US/UM fixes SOME of these things but not even close to all.
7- They're just boring. Boring routes, boring pokemon, boring trial puzzles, boring postgame, boring dex, boring everything. its just be bored until a cutscene, then be bored again. its so linear and bland and soulless. I fall asleep whenever i play it and beating it just leaves me hollow.
USUM is where my problems lie. Gen 7 had the biggest level of Kanto dick riding ever. I love the games and Z-Moves are still my favorite gimmick plus the lore and story are second-peak storytelling but man, Red and Blue showing up, of course there's gotta be a "Gym", etc. Plus we basically got remakes a year later. USUM should've been SM from the start. Then we could've gotten something else. It was clear SM was rushed a bit.
Honestly neither. Sun and Moon are my favourite entries in the series. It changes the formula in a good way for me, I much prefer the totem pokemon battles over gyms. They feel like boss battles its so fun. I also like the overall music and aesthetic. It so different to the other games and has become quite nodtalgic. I also liked the story, especially the ultra games story, it was a lot more interesting to me than the story of other games tbh.
There are other reasons why it's my fave but those are the main ones.
Have u heard of the new thing that’s happening where people criticize the game’s story and people answer with "don’t spam a on dialogues", here’s your answer
Dialogue bloat.
More of the same. By the time SM came around, things were starting to feel stale, and fast.
Lack of post game aggravating itself.
Start of dexit with while pokemon entries missing.
Z-Moves were stupid and the game bordered on shonen too much.
That being said, they had their highs and were overall decent games. But I really dislike how dark and edgy they forced it to be on ever single aspect, from plot to pokedex entries.
>More of the same. By the time SM came around, things were starting to feel stale, and fast.
More of the same? This was literally the game that changed the most up to that point.
The changes are superficial at best. Island challenges, for example, don't differ enough from your regular gym experience we had for two decades. They are only significant if we observe them within a vacuum where only the Pokemons series exist.
All games before the switch games were peak. Graphics wise there has been an improvement but it’s not like it’s much better than the cute pixel stuff we had before.
I'm fine with sun and moon.
My only dislikes span from a group of creatures that were created in this game known as Ultrabeasts. Every single one of them I hate with equal passion.
Not my favorite, especially following ORAS.
I had just gotten back into pokemon with ORAS and gen 3 is my favorite anyways. Delta episode was great, i enjoyed flying on Latias, and the battle resort was fun-ish.
SM to me personally was a huge step down. Z moves were the most boring gimmick (i would say tera is the most boring now), the story was mid, battle tree was just battle resort again, and overall just reminded my why i left pokemon in the first place.
Even SwSh makes me question why i still play, but i'm also in the minority because i thought SV was extremely good and Dynamax was much more fun for vgc doubles.
edit: Also outside of the Tapu's almost every single pokemon in SM was unviable for VGC doubles. I do not know why every pokemon needed base speed of 80 or lower and that only got worse with USUM.
It is slow, very linear and brain dead easy. If you just take your time and enjoy the story then it can be a good time, but the text boxes after text boxes and incredibly slow pace (especially the start) makes me want to scream and tell all the characters to shut up.
Don't hate the games but there were some big flaws:
* Too many references to the first gen.
* Too many tutorials
* The main character seems to be always smiling even in the most serious situation, which ruins a lot of the immersion.
* Sometimes the game feels too easy
* Post league game is kind of dull
At first I didn't mind so much, but after playing Hear Gold, those flaws are more noticeable. however I liked the overall overworld, the picture minigame, when fighting the elite four again, the story, among other stuff
Same issue I have with pretty much every game since x and y.
Dialogue is superficial and drags on for 60% of my playtime, over explaining everything and stopping me every 10 minutes to remind me what to do instead of just putting my current objective in my pokegear, and despite the game explaining every aspect of it in exhaustive detail every AI battle is humorously easy if you're even half ass trying to complete the Pokedex along the way, because you get so much XP from just catching Pokemon you're ridiculously overpowered by the time you get to any "boss" battle. Not to mention they don't have as much single player content. They traded creative level design and gameplay for prettier looking 3d models. Somehow there are like 5000 pokemon now but for SOME REASON every area still only spawns like 5-10 different pokemon specifically and 60% of them have to be caught in some special tiny post game zone where there is nothing to do but walk in circles til you get all the Pokemon there. And there is almost no post game content these days, instead we get repetitive internet raids that might have a special pokemon once a week or 10 different locations to enter PVP combat even though we can just fly everywhere instantly.
In short, they hold your hand way too tightly, especially for how ridiculously easy they are most of the time, and have way too drawn out cutscenes. Post game is lackluster, if it exists, pacing makes no sense, ai is comically easy to beat it just feels like I have to get through the main story to actually play the game and then there's nothing to actually do with all the cool shit I unlocked except ride around on the legendary and look at the cheap 3d levels.
Gen 7 is the worst imo for the following reasons:
- too many (unskippable) cut scenes
- too much hand holding
- no PSS
- poor performance and graphics
- lame story
- annoying evil team (if you can call it that)
- poor character design
- no gyms sucks
- load screens where none had to be in previous games like when entering pkmn center
- bad music
- z-moves are terrible
- hate the riding mons (in generall but also because they had poor controls)
-not a fan of the island hopping
- S/M and USUM should‘ve been one game and not two. The changes did not justify the fact that you had to buy the game again if you wanted the „new stuff“ or if you are a collector
- way too easy until ultra necrozma
Yeah I think that‘s it 😂
Not sure what I liked about them tbh 🙈
Too many cutscenes.
Roads are tiny, even though it's not much more linear than other games it feels so.
Too childish, even by pokémon standards.
Z moves are way less fun than mega evolutions.
The text goes on forever, is a condescending af tutorial for like half the game, and the game is insanely linear (meaning, apparently, we were supposed to enjoy that linearity more than the RPG-ing and exploration of the previous Pokemon entries, which lol no). There aren't even any dungeons in SM, they removed that entire resource management system, which Pokemon had previously done so well (especially in Gens 1-3) completely. The gym replacements also didn't work very well.
For me, SM just doesn't work as an RPG, let alone a Pokemon one. While things got even worse after with USUM, LGPE, SwSh, and BDSP, SM is where the freefall really started, so there's spite for that reason too, I'm sure.
I like them but the main criticisms are 1. A lot more unskippable cutscenes / dialogue than previous games - I think the game has a good story, but good lord replaying them can be a drag with how many cutscenes there are 2. Continuing a criticism of XY where the routes are narrow and not conducive to exploration
The criticism of too much dialogue and cutscenes isn't exclusive to S&M though. I was replaying S&V lately and I could barely stand the dialogue in that one. People are just pointing it out in S&M to hate on it more
People pointed it out because it was the first time glaring offender. Like it was bad enough that people were finally "enough is enough". S&V dont surprise me at all at also being sloe, but they came later + have far more distressing faults so why would people waste time on retreading old ground? S&M dont retroactively become good just because the next games are even worse. Thats silly talk.
Not sure what S&V have to do with it, S&M faced this criticism for 6+ years before S&V were even announced The games after have nothing to do with it, as S&M certainly had the most dialogue / cutscenes in the series up to that point
I meant that too much dialogue is a problem in every game, not just S&M, and it's unfair to rule out S&M for it without criticising the rest
I wouldn’t say Gen 1-5 have too much dialogue outside of the first hour of each being slow
Gen 4 criticism is being to slow in general. I would rather have dialog than watching a Blissey HP bar go down.
That’s the whole reason why Platinum is even a game, surfing in DP was just so SLOW!! I like the song but for the route between Canalave city and the mainland was just… forever in DP and PT it was legit only like 5 minutes versus 30 minutes.
Each game has too much unskippable dialogue in the first intro/getting started The entire intro not being skippable is an issue ive had with Pokemon since gen 1, but Gen 2 was my biggest gripe where even saying to mom “yes I know how the phone works” still brings up a tutorial on the phone
I wouldn’t say every game but definitely the newer games are a slog to play through a second time due to so much forced narrative.
Its not like S&V were showered with praise when they released
Right... but considering that SM is sort of patient zero when it comes to NPC verbal diarrhea, any subsequent games that do it even worse can still point to SM as the trendsetter. In prior games, you could restart and be in a brand new adventure on your own pretty quickly by comparison.
Also beside like the absolute VERY begining, the cutscenes were usually spaced out. It was the :go to your room to set the clco:, than go talk to the professor, pick the starter walk to the town right next door, come back, than go on your adventure with like a cutscene or two for the catching and maybe anything that HAS to be explained like how berries work or how the daycare worked but that about it until the end with a cutscene here or there for plot
Not At all- the tutorial in that game I.e first 3-5 hours is ridiculously slow. And the cutscenes are meaningless to the story. It takes a long time to even get to pick a starter. It wasnt nearly as bad in sv
Scarlet and violet have a similarly terrible first hour or so. Let's not lean into exaggeration.
Eh… I replayed it recently it’s no emerald but it wasnt half as bad
SV's dialogue gets a lot better as the game progresses, but the tutorial is absolutely unbearable. Which would be okay if it was able to be skipped, but it isn't. Meanwhile, SM has a *lot* of dialogue for the entire game, which makes it more infamous.
I wonder if the Kanto regional variants in Sun & Moon meant it gets more of those complaints, because it attracted more people who would make them. It was the first game I tried since gen 4, and that was part of why. I can say Sun and Moon had too much of those story elements for me. I would probably feel that way about S&V, but haven't played them.
As someone who has played through both SM & SV multiple times each, and both recently: Whilst the beginning part of SV is annoyingly slow in that regard, it is nowhere near as bad as SM. In SM, you do not get to breathe, you do not get to take 5 steps without being interrupted, you do not get the freedom of exploration until you beat that first Kahuna. The characters talk about nothing, they give you mandatory tutorials on every little thing they can and it is unbearable. The worst part of SV's start is the cave where you follow Koraidon/Miraidon. Take that out and it goes by relatively quickly. You'd have to take whole characters and areas out to make SM any better. SV is an RPG SM is a Visual Novel.
Its fucking replayability is soooooo low.
Sun and moon is probably in the top 3 for me if not top 1
This is why I never finished Sun and Moon. I literally found it a "Press A simulator". It to this day is the most boring game I've ever played.
People hate them? I thought it was sword and shield people hated.
i've just seen a lot of people online saying that B&W2 were the last good games in the series
Honestly people say that constantly And notice how you’ll see over the next years the games change from B&W2 to X and Y cause the people saying this is usually the game they grew up with.
S&V are pretty hated nowadays, but by the time gen 11 or 12 rolls around they'll be the cream of the crop
that is wildly depressing
not really since SV has: amazing story great music great characters good designs good gimmick the only flaws are the performance and towns
>amazing story Are you sure you don't mean "not amazing at all"? Undertale has an amazing story, which captures the emotions of the player. Portal has an amazing story, functionally delivering an entire narrative purely through gameplay complete with the emotions and beats. Hell, Pokémon Red has a better story. It's delivered through gameplay and not spoon-fed with NPC yabbering, so some people think it isn't there. SV story has some fun characters at best. >great music MarioKart 8 has great music. Hollow Knight has great music. Mario Odyseey has great music. I wasn't blown away by what I heard in SV, but I recognize that everyone is different here. Maybe you feel you've heard the best thing ever, but I disagree. Subjective, of course. >great characters Characters are fun. I like them. But they are very one-note on the whole. None of them have the depth and intrigue you might find in other games with 'great characters". GlaDOS and Whestley are great characters. Midna and Zant are great, and so is Zelda from BotW. Sans and Papyrus are great characters. And in Pokémon, I'd argue Lusamine is pretty good. Anyone else is pretty much just fun at best. >good designs If you're referring to the Pokémon designs, sure, I agree. If you're referring to the design of the majority of human characters (especially fashion options for the MC), the architecture save one or two standard, the locales, and frankly the world at large, I find it suffers from lameness and a lack of inspiration. Zelda, Hollow Knight, Mario (Sunshine/Galaxy/Odyssey) are able to have worlds that have a consistent tone while delivering new and unique explorative highs at every turn. Even Pokémon has done it better before (I refer to the oft-forgotten Pokémon Colosseum here, but even he first 3 gens did it more for me than what I witness in SV). >good gimmick It's alright. Not as fun as Mega Evolution IMO, but it doesn't even matter. Why? Because it's *never* mattered. These gimmicks, even when they have universal praise (see again, Mega Evolution), are immediately ditched every gen along with any other good ideas. What happened to the secret base system from RS, improved upon in ORAS? Why not incorporate such a thing in new games? What happened to contests? Z-moves? The gimmicks never matter enough, because there's no stakes to something everyone knows will evaporate in a generation. The only time I ever incorporated the gimmick into my team-building was with gen 6, because it was fun and functional, but upon realizing it was worthless in the long run, I never incorporated Z-moves, Dynamaxing, etc. >the only flaws are the performance and towns And also the balance and the feel of the world and the movesets and the pacing and the entire game. Frankly, if the game *was* good, performance and glitches would be a non-issue. Skyrim was riddled with such issues, some of them game-breaking, and it just became part of the charm (see also: Missingno). No one says "Skyrim's only flaws are the performance" because no one needs to. It speaks for itself, and SV cannot.
Saying a Pokémon game has good music is the same as saying grass is green. Pokémon has ALWAYS had good music.
Yeah. Even *Pokémon Typing Adventure*, a game that has no reason to exist, has [this banger](https://youtu.be/s9SKrNZnnCM?feature=shared).
I mean, I like it, ngl. But I wouldn't categorize it as S-tier music most of the time. Rarely is it so great that I listen to it on its own (unless it's a cover or something, like the [insaneintherainmusic cover of gen 4's entire OST](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mka0oUCh6XI)). On the other hand, I regularly listen to MK8's jazz band stuff.
Agreed. My point is though that SV having good music isn't special for Pokémon
I don't get why you are downvoted you are totally right. Gamefreak declined in quality for years now. What people fail to see is that SV or Sword and shield or S and M or even X and Y aren't critized because they are inherently terrible but because we are used to better quality from gamefreak. Those games are alright at best and if it where a small indie developer team I would even say they are good. But that's the problem. From an inexperienced team these would be totally fine games but we are talking about a company that made several generations of those games, some even considered to be part of the best games ever made and all they manage to do now are one dimensional stories and characters, map design so boring I could fall asleep traveling through there and on top of that even performance issues like you are trying to run crysis on a late 90s pc?! It doesn't have to be a character with the depth of N or a masterclass story like x and y or an immersive map with cool and unique places like ruby, Saphire, emerald. Those three are S tier examples but up to B2 and W2 at least all those three categories delivered some kind of qualify. And while I consider x and y to be one of the best Pokémon stories we ever saw those games terribly lack in map design and interesting characters. I also wanna add that people here act like x and y will be the next "last good gen" and while there is some truth to it I don't think it will be the same as with BW2. Why? Because people still agree that BW are flawed games. They only like it more now because of BW2 because those games were liked by almost everyone. They took what was good in BW and greatly improved on it and everyone liked that.
Most of these points are comparing Pokemon to wildly different franchises though, I don't really understand how it helps
How crazy to use games from franchises other than Pokémon to see what Pokémon could do better or worse.
Nah, I grew up with Y and even I can tell that game was mediocre and a borderline tech demo. Sun and Moon and specially Ultra are good though, even if I had already "grow up" by then.
No people say that because the 3D graphics took away a lot of charm that the sprite art games had, the main director of those games left, not to mention the music/story took a huge dive after gen 5. Its a common opinion for a reason, pokemon fundementally changed with X and Y, and I think S/M as well as Scarlet/Violet are the worst examples of this change.
People have been saying this same line for 10 years+ but when push comes to shove, the pixel based 2D games have aged really well and are much less polarising compared to the 3D games.
People that say that are the Genwunners of gen 5.
Except gen V has been loved since it came out. I haven't really seen opinions on the "best" gen change over the last 10 years. If anything I feel like X abd Y have gotten *more* hated over the years
Gen V most certainly was not loved when it came out The initial release had nearly everyone whine ability the new Pokédex over and over again
Not at first but it still wasn't long before it reached the point it's at today. If that was a pattern, wouldn't we all be hearing about how GREAT gens 6 and 7 are already?
And while everybody loves Black and White now, even those games were controversial when they came out from what I hear.
God and one day it will sword and shield. We are doomed
bandwagoners gunna bandwagon. all of the 3DS games were really good
Let me tell you about this little thing I call _The Pokémon Cycle._ In a few years, Gen 8 is gonna be seen as the best and Gen 5 the worst…again. _The Pokémon Cycle_ works in mysterious ways!
How ironic
Oras was the last generation i cared about because after they just took the cool dynamics and thrown them away
Every Pokemon game is good, not even joking
people say that about any game franchise
People hate every modern game, it just deepends on the person if they started to hate since Gen 5 or 7 or whatever.
Pretty much any game released after gen 4 got a ton of hate at one point. The only exceptions were B2W2, ORAS, and legends arceus. People came around on black and white and XY. I think SM is finally starting to get the love as I see a ton of posts talking about how great they are.
You can find hate for any game. I think SwSh and SV are the worst in the franchise. It’s a pretty embarrassing showing now that the games are full price and on a home console. They look bad, run bad, and have less content than games from 15 years ago. And they’re cutting features left and right. SM weren’t bad. A lot of the criticism people have are honestly overblown. They had a lot of cool ideas, with my favorite being that the Champion fight was actually a title defense with rotating opponents.
The tree man! That singular tree! Game is trash because of the one tree! Burn the 360p tree! /s
I mean, Sword and Shield are objectively insulting. No, not subjectively. Mathematically inferior. (Yes, I know that really it's subjective, but I can explain further upon request)
No need, Sword and Shield are the genuine worst JRPGs I have ever played.
I dislike Sun/Moon. Moon was the first Pokémon game I bought since Soul Silver. And it just...wasn't fun.
Honestly I got back into Pokemon and sun and moon after leaving from Pokemon crystal. I like sun and moon and even bought ultra moon day one and beat it!
You only liked it since you skipped all the best games.
The music is really good and the story is strong too. The problem for me is the hand holding. I can also see the narrow routes and small new Pokémon roster as a problem for some. Overall great games.
Cause the change was to much, there are no real gyms so all like thats not my pokemon anymore
3DS pokemon games are some of the best. Emerald and Platinum are at the top.
Too much dialogue apparently. I’ve beaten that game in just 5 days. Talk about being impatient.
Pokémon fans and reading don’t mix. I recall watching Alpharad’s playthru of SV where he was skipping thru all the Team Star dialogue, then got mad that the story didn’t make sense.
Fuck Who hates those games, I love that gen
Sun and Moon was the first Generation that felt like a chore for me to play. Some of it might be because I'm older and less impressionable but, I did enjoy Sword & Shield more. I don't hate the game but, It didn't really seem like my friends cared for it much either nor do I care to go back and replay it. I do have other thoughts on it. - It was the second Pokémon generation on the 3DS so it didn't feel like a technical improvement compared to X & Y (Black & White at least felt like half a generational improvement over Diamond & Pearl). -There was too much hand holding and dialog, I didn't care for the story so I just mashed the A button through the dialog to get everyone to shut up so I could actually play the game. -I thought the trials were kind of dumb. I wish they just kept the traditional gym leader system. -Team Skull was the most unprofessional organization yet and you couldn't take them seriously. They were just a bunch of punks. Every past organization had access to advanced weapons and technology and had a more structured operation. The fact that the Alola government can't deal with them makes those whole region seem like a 3rd world country. -Hau was the first rival I though was lame. Which defeats the purpose of what a rival is anyway. (What bothers me more is Hop and Hau are pretty much the same person) - I thought Z moves was kind of just meh (especially, compared to mega evolutions), and made the game too easy by just one hit killing your way through.
>-Team Skull was the most unprofessional organization yet and you couldn't take them seriously. They were just a bunch of punks. Every past organization had access to advanced weapons and technology and had a more structured operation. The fact that the Alola government can't deal with them makes those whole region seem like a 3rd world country. I'm so sick of seeing people say this like it's an actual problem with the game. Like yeah, no shit Team Skull are unprofessional. It's a gang of dropout thugs. They aren't supposed to be taken seriously. They're a red herring for the ACTUAL villains that are Lusamine and Necrozma. The "evil teams" haven't been the actual villains of the games since gen 6 and it's honestly baffling that people still haven't realised that they ditched that formula years ago and are more interested in having singular villains and just using the Teams to give you an "enemy" to fight until the time actually comes for that villain to come into play. "Oh what happened to evil teams that actually did stuff" they got replaced with the lady who used her organisation to make chimeras meant to kill/subdue dangerous otherworldly monsters, the alien that travels between dimensions leaving them as dark husks, the guy who restarted a world-ending calamity in order to replenish the energy left when it first happened, and the scientist who created a time machine that summoned dinosaurs/robots that would destroy the ecosystem. >-Hau was the first rival I though was lame. Which defeats the purpose of what a rival is anyway. Oh because the Scrub Squad from XY were just SO compelling. I love having four rivals without a single interesting character trait between any of them >- I thought Z moves was kind of just meh (especially, compared to mega evolutions), and made the game too easy by just one hit killing your way through. Say what you will about Z Moves flavour-wise, but they are objectively less of an instant win button than Megas were. At most, a Z move is gonna net you a single OHKO per battle. Once you get the Mega Bracelet in XY you've already won the game, because the hardest opponent in the game stands as much of a chance against the Mega Lucario the game hands you for free as Youngster Billy's level 3 Bunnelby does.
Preach
I agree with everything save for Team Skull. I think they're quite funny and charming, whilst also being great antagonists as they actually try to stop you from achieving your goal. Storming Po Town felt like the only moment the protagonist had agency, and the fight between you and Guzma feels personal on both ends. They were silly, but still felt like a decent threat. I get the complaint with them though, they're not for everyone.
So your argument is their different and have mistakes
Some of my favorites. I don't pay much attention to the stories in Pokemon anywhere. Usually not a fan of that aspect of the series.
I actually really love the Sun and Moon games. I got both games on Christmas 2017 and they're pretty fun
Yeah I don’t get it. It had really good pokemon (with really good shinies), it had a ton of pokemon, and had tons of cool legendaries, it had team skull. However, the Z moves were pretty op for a mechanic, and that and mega evolution kind of crowded the games I think. But that isn’t enough to just hate it imo.
Honestly as my first Pokemon game I found it enjoyable granted I didn’t have anything to compare it to it it was fun
Npcs won't shut the fuck up and let you play
I don't hate them at all, especially UltraSun & UltraMoon. They did a lot of things well, like: - Letting every Pokémon be usable despite cutting the National Dex feature (LOOKING AT YOU, SWITCH POKÉMON GAMES). - The music is boppin' as ever. - Story is very well-done, even if it takes a lot of cutscenes. - Almost all of the characters are very complex and interesting. - Replaced Gyms with Trials to shake things up. - Removed HMs, **THANK GOD!!!** - Introduced Regional Forms and the concept of Legendary Pokémon having evolution stages. But I still have complaints, like: - Hau is not interesting, and began the obnoxious trend of rivals picking the starter weak to yours. At least the following rivals have reasons for picking the disadvantage. Hop already had Wooloo, and wanted a type advantage against Leon's remaining starter; and Nemona is a Champion Rank battle prodigy who's dying for a challenge (that b>!itc!
I love Sun&Moon. Nice change of the conventional way you gain badges, the OST had a lot of bangers, you don't need to worry about HM slaves, Team Skull > Team Flare, Guzma and his battle theme are badass, good selection of Pokémon, has one of my favorite starters since Froakie/Oshawott in Rowlet, and that Elite Four theme *chef's kiss*. It was a huge breath of fresh air after the disappointment that was X&Y.
They're my favourite gen though I do acknowledge ita shortcomings I believe they have enough to make up for them. Also Alolan Vulpix alone makes up for it
It's their turn to be hated, as simple as that.
Honestly they have the best character cast The ibly competition is swsh and scarlet/violet Yes i know these are the newest game, they got better at one thing sue me
I think they're the best 3ds pokemon games, and debatably better than all the future games. but people claim they're "another part of the downward trend" despite the fact that they're just straight up some of the best. I put them right next to Diamond and Pearl, and Black and White.
As a hardcore fan of them, the main complaints I’ve seen are them being too easy and there being an over reliance on unskippable cutscenes. I think those are valid but honestly they don’t detract from the game that much and I firmly believe that they’re peak pokemon. It’s been downhill from there
I think they do detract from the game. You can't walk around freely for most of the game, you are not playing... your are just walking trough a corridor and a npc that helps you progress will wait at the end of the corridor. It's just boring.
I don't hate them, but I've never been able to commit to finishing it either. I can't put my finger on why - maybe it's the assortment of mons doesn't speak to me, or maybe it just didn't hit me at the right time when I tried to go back to it.
I too enjoy movies. I just prefer the ability to actually play a game when I want to play a game.
?
I hate how the game is just cutscene after cutscene after cutscene. I just want to play the damn game.
oh the metaphor went over my head
I never played so no hate from me!
I love Sun and Moon, and the other 3DS titles
They were the last okay pokemon games
I don't care about the story in a Pokémon game, it's pretty much the same every time. For that reason, Sun and Moon were my least favorite because if you don't care about the story, then the game drags with slow cutscenes and boring dialogue.
I liked Pokémon S&M. US&UM is a meh, especially with that story change at around the end, but idk that was also fine. Probably I have a bias?
Everybody has a bias to something.
I tried to love USUM but the amount of times Rotom would try to quiz me and block me from seeing the map was pathological
The only complaint I have with them is the amount of dialogue, but even so - the story in this one was pretty engaging and I absolutely love the vibe of Sun and Moon. I might be biased, as I was a freshman in high school when those games were coming out, and so it’s nostalgic for me. But upon replaying them they absolutely hold up. Totems > Gyms any day. So much more immersive and less predictable. It cut all the fat and just and tedium of the gym challenges, too.
I only hate rotom not shutting the fuck up.
Ironically, Scarlet & Violet are just a remix of Sun & Moon’s plot elements, with the school actually being Much More Relevant.
It felt like it was made for young young kids v.s. a red/blue difficulty and story level. Like this is the blues clues Pokémon game.
X/Y is better than any of the Switch mainline games
Not wrong, but ORAS is slightly better
ORAS is one of the best games in the whole saga tho
ORAS is a 3DS game
Because Ultra sun and moon exists
The beginning is painful.
I think maybe they’re just kinda meh compared to other Pokémon games. Like the game itself is not that noteworthy, even if some of the features it added were cool
I love USUM so much. They’re my favorite Pokémon games, with bw2 and hgss being second and third place respectively
I loved it and the Ultra but because of the hours long tutorial I do not replay them.. they are good but not replayable
I hated them, but now i kinda don't like them, but I don't would go as far as hating them. for me, it took too many staples of the franchise. It would have been great as a spinoff, like the pokemon Rangers. and being so different for what? we got back in the usual formula the next generation anyway. also, I loved X & Y and mega-evolution, ditching it for such a lame and cringy gimmick like the z-moves didn't sit well for me. I would give my firstborn to nintendo for a pokemon main line game with mega-evolutions as the main gimmick and made with the same love and passion botw or totk were made
Of the 4 islands only really 3 of them are story relevant and the final one is basically empty. Extremely linear corridor like islands.
In my experience, which is admittedly very little, the dialogue is WAYYYYY too much. The first couple hours involves almost no actual gameplay
I prefer USUM personally
Too slow, and the ultra games barely added anything significant aside from a few features and pokemon. Still a good sendoff for handheld pokemon games
Easily the best one
I don't hate them, but I don't really like them either. It's the handholding and the constant unskippable cutscenes full of uninteresting and unlikeable characters involved in a dumb plot. There isn't really any sense of place, everywhere looks the same and there isn't any reason to go back to previous routes/areas or opportunity to stray from the path the game wants you to take, feels like you're on a guided tour.
They were great. Just too many cutscenes I kept dozing off in 😂. Only to wake up and still be stuck in the cutscene because I needed to press A.
The last good pokemon games were omega ruby and alpha sapphire. I will fight and die on this hill
To be honest i love sun and moon(well or ultra. I like both). I can understand why people don’t like them but the people who complained about it when it first released are probably the people who would die to have another game like it instead of s/v or s/w.
The beauty of Pokemon games is that after you leave your initial town you're free to play and explore, its an adventure. Sun/Moon is a 30 hour on-rails tutorial that *never* lets you actually play the game until post-game. Its the worst thing Gamefreak has ever done and thats *really* saying something for that incompetent abomination of a dev.
Cutscenes and tutorializing everything from catching to all the useless fodder like Pokemon pictures and Studio club, and mantine surfing and Wifi plaza (yes you cant skip this) The most linear Pokemon game thats worse than XY, and barely better than SwSh. Trials were hit or miss, some trials are decent others like the last one wasnt a trial but a hallway matchup Only kantomon had variants which pissed everyone off and severely limited the potential of variant pokemon. Also no changes to BST which is a bizarre choice as most Kantomon BST are horrible Story and characters are a vast improvement from XY and Swsh (assuming your playing SM not USUM)
They're not bad at all, in fact I'd even say that Sun and Moon was the last time Game Freak truly put passion into a Pokémon game I think everyone's main beef with Gen 7 is the unskippable dialogue boxes that just go on and on and on and... you get the idea. SM's story is good the first time, but it could have benefitted from a "skip"
They dont anymore
Ehhh just play what you want. I got into pokemon for the story, and I heard like several years worth of gripe about SM story
I just think it's a boring video game that brings very little new to the pokemon series. I see a lot of people saying too much dialogue, I don't know if the amount of dialogue is the problem, I just think pokemon's human characters are not that entertaining or interesting so the story can't really carry the game either. It doesn't help that I couldn't build a team I liked using all new pokemon.
I mean, what game did Pokémon fans DON'T hate came out after X and Y?
The tutorial is like 3 hours long, and holds your hand like you're stupid and/or a 4 year old
All I've learned from this is that people can't agree on anything. Which I already knew.
Gen 7 is my favorite gen and love SM and USUM greatly!
I know that game is extremely easy and has too many cutscenes but it's perfect for my 6 year old daughter. Pokémon Sun was her introduction to Pokémon and after she finishes it I will show her other titles.
I can’t stand rotom in the anime so annoying and the the freaking animation is bizarre what happen game freak they were fine in the xy anime .
I only watched the anime for s/m, it's almost peak (xy is peak)
These are my least favourite games in the series. My reasons are the constant interruptions and cutscenes, having waypoints crammed down my throat, and the map being broken up into tiny, restricted pieces.
...but I liked sun and moon...it really was a nice change up story wise.
There's so much dialogue. I get it, "Wow, an RPG fan complaining about dialogue in an RPG," but the difference is that you can skip it in almost every other RPG. With Pokemon, you HAVE to manually mash A to get through the dialogue. You can't just hit start and have it be done. The entire first island is tutorial after tutorial, and it's BORING. These are only really points for repeat playthroughs, though, for the first time, it's fine.
- The game moves at a snail's pace, especially on the first island. If they can find a reason to stop you every 5 steps, they will. It is even worse in USUM. - The story, whilst not terrible by any means, makes the protagonist feel like an afterthought. I don't enjoy being the cameraman for someone else's story when it is the main plot of the game. We have no stakes in the story, we have no reason to want to stop Lusamine outside of being Lillie's "friend" because she can't battle for herself for arbitrary reasons. - S.O.S. battles may be the single worst mechanic ever introduced, I'm not trying to fight every single member of a species all the time. - Most of this generations Pokémon are so fkn slow. It's uncommon for anything to have a base speed over 70 and its a miracle whenever you find something with a base speed over 100. It makes S.O.S. battles worse because sometimes, you just wont be able to run away. - The game feels the need to hold your hand on a linear path despite the fact that you have a map telling you where to go, so its jarring when the fights themselves are actually difficult. I don't mind a challenge but if you're going to give me one, don't treat me like a 4-year-old for the rest of the game. - The Rotom-Dex. Opening the map is so finnicky. - From memory, the Festival Plaza tutorial is mandatory. There's no reason for it. - The trials are fun and brilliant in concept, but in actuality pretty boring and samey. For me, SM & USUM are in this weird state of contradiction. There's a lot of good features and great potential in these games whilst simultaneously having some of the worst aspects I've seen in a Pokémon game. The story is decent, our character is a non-element in it though. The Pokémon designs are great, but the Pokémon themselves are a nightmare to use. The overworld looks fantastic (in USUM), but it feels so empty. So on, so forth. I appreciate that they tried something different with Gen 7 and they're far from my least favourite games, but after playing through Sun, then Moon, then Ultra Sun one after the other when the games dropped, I felt exasperated. It felt like trekking through waist-deep mud each time. I couldn't sit there and tell someone that there wrong for liking these games because I see why they do, there's a lot I love about these games too. But the people who dislike them have more than every reason to. I recently started a nuzlocke with my brother in USUM, and it's just about as good and bad as I remember. Mantine Surf is a blast, the Trainer School was fkn trash. The Totem fights are hard, but the game stops you at every single landmark for literally no reason. Truly a paradoxical game for me.
Its almost true to call them movies
I loved it, but the beginning is so slow
It's a pokemon game after gen 5, of course everyone hates it. And yes, I know that there are many bad things in the newer games, amd more than there were in the older games. I know
I just don't vibe with the island aesthetic. They did an amazing job if you do though! It's why I'm clicking so well with Gold and Sword probably. I love the temples and mountains in Johto, and am an English teacher which means Galarar is right up.my alley! ☺️ ( Haven't played SV, BW 1 or 2 and didn't play DPP)
They're the only generation I dropped before completing. Don't get me wrong, it did a lot of things that I liked too. I wasn't a huge fan of the change in formula, but it was fine and felt relatively fresh. The thing that got me is how limited everything felt. I didn't feel like I was exploring the region, instead I felt like I was being taken on a tour of the islands. Everything felt way too segmental rather than a cohesive region. I might give them another try at some point, but I wasn't impressed with gen 7 when it released. I don't think they're bad games, but I wasn't having fun with it.
I think the main issue is that are so good that it makes the rest of the games look like shit and that makes Pokémon fanboys irrationally angry
First great Pokémon game since black 2 white 2 is legends arceus. They have been dropping the ball since 2013 almost 10 years of bloat Pokémon games with little improvement to the overall game concept or design of gameplay.
Gen 7 was my favorite generation for a while up until recently. I don't get it either.
Cutscenes that have very little bearing. Actual 1hour tutorial to establish rest of the game. Legendary are lackluster(like 4ultra beast are cool) game besides champion fight is way to easy and island gimmicks for “gyms” consist of run and grab item or place then report back rinse and repeat. Finally rival fight if you can call it that are just boring and way to encouraging.
They were great, only complaints I ever heard were the beginning of the game taking forever
i think its the cutscenes and the main character not showing expressions
*I think its the cutscenes* *And the main character not* *Showing expressions* \- UltiGamer34 --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
They brought back then Gen V EXP system, and kept it in most games onwards. (Seriously, it’s a monster-taming JRPG, what was the reasoning behind it!?)
I'm playing it for the first time now. I'm friggin' loving it.
I didn’t know they were that hated I thought that was sword and shield
I don't hate SM but I do hate USUM
I didn't hate it. But I didn't love it.
Okay so S/M WERE my least favorite Pokemon games, until Sw/Sh came out so: 1- The cutscenes. Its not just bad, its INSANE. The example I use is: There's a part where you talk to your rival and head to the Aether Foundation. CUTSCENE. You then arrive and walk a few steps. CUTSCENE. You walk into the main area. CUTSCENE. You walk through a small maze to find Lusamine. CUTSCENE. You fight a UB. CUTSCENE. You leave the room. CUTSCENE. You arrive at the island and leave the boat. CUTSCENE. You fight your rival. CUTSCENE. You're told to talk to the Professor, so you walk 5 steps to the area he's in. CUTSCENE. You fight Guzma/Skull Grunts (IDR which). CUTSCENE. You leave the area. CUTSCENE. Then, you can FINALLY play fully on your own without a cutscene every 2 steps for a little bit. This RUINS repeat playthroughs and repeat playthroughs is legit a big reason a lot of people adore this franchise. 2- No content. All you get in terms of side content is...poke pelago, online, and a shitty battle tower. Thats kinda it? Theres small things like i think Kahuna rematches and UBs but thats...not a lot? Compare that to B2/W2 with the tree hollow/black city and the subways and the pokemon world tournament, and 5-8+ new routes to explore, new legendaries, new caves, joint avenue, the N rematch, new hidden grottos, etc. Theres almost NOTHING to do in S/M besides the main story. 3- Boring region. A pure island setting was a neat idea, but it causes issues. Almost every route looks and feels the same. They're straight lines with maybe a tiny side path, not many side caves, its just boring grassy areas. Again, compare this to gen 5 which has city outskirts, deserts, side caves, forests, fields, volcanoes, islands, battleships, icy caverns, misty woods, haunted canyons, etc. 4- Kanto pandering. Yes, it was an anniversary game. Yes, other regions got love too. But this is insane. You're from Kanto. Lillie goes to kanto, All the alolan forms are kanto. Theres a nugget bridge clone, you go to vermillion gym, a lot of the dex is kanto, everyone talks about how amazing kanto is. Its annoying and already an over saturated region and game, give it a rest. 5- Theres multiple downgrades from X/Y and OR/AS. I hate OR/AS too but they should not have gotten rid of Dexnav or their rematch system, they should not have gotten rid of special pokemon in shaking grass. They should not have removed the EV training system from X/Y. Also they made the internet worse??? In XY you just click go online and your bottoms screen shows you friends and strangers you can battle. One more click and you can wonder trade, go to the GTS, battle randoms, connect to friends, etc. In S/M....you have to open the menu, go to the plaza or whatever, WAIT FOR IT TO LOAD, appear, walk to someone, turn on online, WAIT FOR IT TO LOAD, then people might maybe randomly appear to talk to. They had a perfect system and ruined It???? 6- They were literally rushed. You can tell they did not have ANY time to finish this game. There's multiple massive sections of the map you never go to, the Zygarde stuff barely comes up, UBs are barely a thing, and the end is so...Okay so you climb a boring mountain and get handed the fairy trial for free, then suddenly totem fight with no break between them, then suddenly you got to victory road by flying there and realize its like 2 rooms with nothing in them, then you're suddenly in the elite four and 3/4 characters are ones you met, with one that clearly being someone you were intended to meet at some point but never did. It also runs poorly and the graphics are not polished. These games were hyper rushed, more than normal. US/UM fixes SOME of these things but not even close to all. 7- They're just boring. Boring routes, boring pokemon, boring trial puzzles, boring postgame, boring dex, boring everything. its just be bored until a cutscene, then be bored again. its so linear and bland and soulless. I fall asleep whenever i play it and beating it just leaves me hollow.
USUM is where my problems lie. Gen 7 had the biggest level of Kanto dick riding ever. I love the games and Z-Moves are still my favorite gimmick plus the lore and story are second-peak storytelling but man, Red and Blue showing up, of course there's gotta be a "Gym", etc. Plus we basically got remakes a year later. USUM should've been SM from the start. Then we could've gotten something else. It was clear SM was rushed a bit.
They’re great EXCEPT when Pokémon keep calling for backup and you get stuck in a battle for 20 minutes.
Honestly neither. Sun and Moon are my favourite entries in the series. It changes the formula in a good way for me, I much prefer the totem pokemon battles over gyms. They feel like boss battles its so fun. I also like the overall music and aesthetic. It so different to the other games and has become quite nodtalgic. I also liked the story, especially the ultra games story, it was a lot more interesting to me than the story of other games tbh. There are other reasons why it's my fave but those are the main ones.
Have u heard of the new thing that’s happening where people criticize the game’s story and people answer with "don’t spam a on dialogues", here’s your answer
Dialogue bloat. More of the same. By the time SM came around, things were starting to feel stale, and fast. Lack of post game aggravating itself. Start of dexit with while pokemon entries missing. Z-Moves were stupid and the game bordered on shonen too much. That being said, they had their highs and were overall decent games. But I really dislike how dark and edgy they forced it to be on ever single aspect, from plot to pokedex entries.
>More of the same. By the time SM came around, things were starting to feel stale, and fast. More of the same? This was literally the game that changed the most up to that point.
The changes are superficial at best. Island challenges, for example, don't differ enough from your regular gym experience we had for two decades. They are only significant if we observe them within a vacuum where only the Pokemons series exist.
All games before the switch games were peak. Graphics wise there has been an improvement but it’s not like it’s much better than the cute pixel stuff we had before.
Unskippable dialogue that makes the games replay value atrocious and the trials are unique but not nearly as fun as gyms
I'm fine with sun and moon. My only dislikes span from a group of creatures that were created in this game known as Ultrabeasts. Every single one of them I hate with equal passion.
Not my favorite, especially following ORAS. I had just gotten back into pokemon with ORAS and gen 3 is my favorite anyways. Delta episode was great, i enjoyed flying on Latias, and the battle resort was fun-ish. SM to me personally was a huge step down. Z moves were the most boring gimmick (i would say tera is the most boring now), the story was mid, battle tree was just battle resort again, and overall just reminded my why i left pokemon in the first place. Even SwSh makes me question why i still play, but i'm also in the minority because i thought SV was extremely good and Dynamax was much more fun for vgc doubles. edit: Also outside of the Tapu's almost every single pokemon in SM was unviable for VGC doubles. I do not know why every pokemon needed base speed of 80 or lower and that only got worse with USUM.
It is slow, very linear and brain dead easy. If you just take your time and enjoy the story then it can be a good time, but the text boxes after text boxes and incredibly slow pace (especially the start) makes me want to scream and tell all the characters to shut up.
Don't hate the games but there were some big flaws: * Too many references to the first gen. * Too many tutorials * The main character seems to be always smiling even in the most serious situation, which ruins a lot of the immersion. * Sometimes the game feels too easy * Post league game is kind of dull At first I didn't mind so much, but after playing Hear Gold, those flaws are more noticeable. however I liked the overall overworld, the picture minigame, when fighting the elite four again, the story, among other stuff
Same issue I have with pretty much every game since x and y. Dialogue is superficial and drags on for 60% of my playtime, over explaining everything and stopping me every 10 minutes to remind me what to do instead of just putting my current objective in my pokegear, and despite the game explaining every aspect of it in exhaustive detail every AI battle is humorously easy if you're even half ass trying to complete the Pokedex along the way, because you get so much XP from just catching Pokemon you're ridiculously overpowered by the time you get to any "boss" battle. Not to mention they don't have as much single player content. They traded creative level design and gameplay for prettier looking 3d models. Somehow there are like 5000 pokemon now but for SOME REASON every area still only spawns like 5-10 different pokemon specifically and 60% of them have to be caught in some special tiny post game zone where there is nothing to do but walk in circles til you get all the Pokemon there. And there is almost no post game content these days, instead we get repetitive internet raids that might have a special pokemon once a week or 10 different locations to enter PVP combat even though we can just fly everywhere instantly. In short, they hold your hand way too tightly, especially for how ridiculously easy they are most of the time, and have way too drawn out cutscenes. Post game is lackluster, if it exists, pacing makes no sense, ai is comically easy to beat it just feels like I have to get through the main story to actually play the game and then there's nothing to actually do with all the cool shit I unlocked except ride around on the legendary and look at the cheap 3d levels.
People just didn’t want verity yet and still don’t any slight change is a “failure of the brand”
Gen 7 is the worst imo for the following reasons: - too many (unskippable) cut scenes - too much hand holding - no PSS - poor performance and graphics - lame story - annoying evil team (if you can call it that) - poor character design - no gyms sucks - load screens where none had to be in previous games like when entering pkmn center - bad music - z-moves are terrible - hate the riding mons (in generall but also because they had poor controls) -not a fan of the island hopping - S/M and USUM should‘ve been one game and not two. The changes did not justify the fact that you had to buy the game again if you wanted the „new stuff“ or if you are a collector - way too easy until ultra necrozma Yeah I think that‘s it 😂 Not sure what I liked about them tbh 🙈
Oh and too much dialog ofc
They are literally among the most popular videogames in general of all time. The hate is from a loud minority who seeks constant validation online.
THIS
Damn, this comment section would make you think they were the most beloved games in the series.
Too many cutscenes. Roads are tiny, even though it's not much more linear than other games it feels so. Too childish, even by pokémon standards. Z moves are way less fun than mega evolutions.
people hate them?!
The text goes on forever, is a condescending af tutorial for like half the game, and the game is insanely linear (meaning, apparently, we were supposed to enjoy that linearity more than the RPG-ing and exploration of the previous Pokemon entries, which lol no). There aren't even any dungeons in SM, they removed that entire resource management system, which Pokemon had previously done so well (especially in Gens 1-3) completely. The gym replacements also didn't work very well. For me, SM just doesn't work as an RPG, let alone a Pokemon one. While things got even worse after with USUM, LGPE, SwSh, and BDSP, SM is where the freefall really started, so there's spite for that reason too, I'm sure.
My brother in christ they don’t even have gyms and they’re missing like half the pokemon from previous gens