Pokémon Black & White

[markderoos]

Isn’t that cave there to try and pursuade you to use repels?

[Julius]

9 minutes ago, markderoos said:

Isn’t that cave there to try and pursuade you to use repels?

So what you’re saying is that Poké Mart is a universal brand, and, having a monopoly on pretty much everything, they drew out more Pokémon in Chargestone Cave because their sales criteria for repels weren’t being met? 

Pokémon just went up a notch in terms of realism  

[markderoos]

Not only that, Tom Nook’s running that Mart.

Pokemon X Animal Crossing confirmed for Switch!

[Glen-i]

Congrats on the Shiny, @Hero-of-Time. Every good Pokémon fan remembers their first random one. Mine was a Numel on Pokémon Emerald.

Probably worth noting that you're less likely to get into an encounter if you walk instead of run/cycle.

[markderoos]

1 hour ago, Glen-i said:

Every good Pokémon fan remembers their first random one. Mine was a Numel on Pokémon Emerald.

Mine was a Sealeo in Pokémon Ruby. I wasn’t aware that shinies existed at the time. You can imagine how freaked out I was when I encountered a purple Sealeo. I think I’ve encountered a few shinies before without knowing because of the less distinctive differences with their non-shiny counterparts and me not taking notice of the sparkling stars.... 

[Hero-of-Time]

14 hours ago, Glen-i said:

Probably worth noting that you're less likely to get into an encounter if you walk instead of run/cycle.

I tend to run everywhere. I don't think i've even used the bike in this game.  

Quick team update.

While I have other Pokemon with me I wont bother listing them due to me not really needing them. I've reached that point now where my starter is so OP that it can just take on everything by itself. It's pretty much swept the recent gym battles by itself.

I finished the 6th and 7th gyms last night, which were both incredibly easy due to the reason I stated above. However, I do love the design of the gyms in this game. Being fired out of cannons, riding roller coasters, walking through honey/jelly walls, they all have a distinct look and feel to them and are actually fun to try and navigate.

Just the last badge to obtain now. Hopefully I will get some time on the game this evening and find my to the final gym. I'm still loving the game. 

[Dufniall]

14 hours ago, Glen-i said:

Congrats on the Shiny, @Hero-of-Time. Every good Pokémon fan remembers their first random one. Mine was a Numel on Pokémon Emerald.

Shiny Gligar in Pokémon Gold!

[Hero-of-Time]

This will probably be my final update before I finish the game as i'm now on Victory Road. I should have finished it by now but i've been playing Detroit, Sega Mega Drive Collection and also went on a bit of a trophy hunting spree.

My team is...

I needed to bring in a fire type to take on Cheren and his Serperior. Even though my Samurott is 20 levels higher than it, it still managed to do a crazy amount of damage with Leaf Blade. The fact that it kept healing every turn with Leftovers didn't help matters either. I could have kept a hold of Pansear and just levelled that up but it's final form looks like an absolute idiot. Look at him!  He's camp as Butlins.

Simipour isn't much better. Simisage is the only decent one out of the 3 of them.

The 8th gym was great, just like the rest of them. I loved having to work my way around the giant statues and flip all the switches. Samurott once again pretty much handled the majority of the fights.

I think i'll do a bit of levelling on Victory road in prep for the Elite 4. The final 3 on my team could really do with being higher levels and unlocking their final forms. From the sounds of it, it looks as though I may be encountering a legendary Pokemon before the game is over. If that is the case then i'll probably be dropping one of the six that I currently have.

[Glen-i]

Spoiler

Nobody tell him that he's already missed two Legendary Pokémon.

 

[Hero-of-Time]

I finally got around to finishing the game last night.

Reshiran was a piece of cake. I just lobbed my Master Ball at him.  

I loved how you could pick and choose which of the Elite 4 you wanted to fight. Each of them having a little bridge to get to them was a nice touch and I especially loved the design of Marshal. Just look at how awesome he is.

I managed to sweep the Elite 4, N and the final boss by using my starter. He was level 70+ by the end of the game and I was just using a combo of Aqua Tail, Water Pulse and Razor Shell. Anytime it fainted, which only happened twice, I used a back up Pokemon to absorb a hit in order to revive Samurott. It was pretty easy. It was a nice surprise not having to take on one of my rivals. I figured one of them would show up after the Elite 4 but it never happened. Oh, and I loved the end credits theme.

It was a great game and certain one of the best mainline Pokemon games I have played in a long time. It was certainly much better than Sun,/Moon and X/Y. 

While i'm here, last week I listened to the latest episode of Frame Trap and Huber was explaining why he has issues with the Pokemon series and one of his gripes was how he can sweep the game with a single Pokemon (usually his starter) and the game becomes pretty boring and easy. I certainly found that to be the case with this game (the easy part not the boring part) and many Pokemon games I have played in the past. He mentions how you have to set up certain rules for yourself in order to get around this but it shouldn't be up to the gamer to have to create these kinds of rules to have fun or create a challenge. It was an interesting discussion between him and Ben.

 

 

 

[Dcubed]

Black/White is so damn good! Easily the best in the series (along with its sequel of course).  The pacing, the story, the new mechanics, the music; everything is just pitch perfect!  

 

It was brave, bold decision to soft reboot the series, but they did a brilliant job! It's just a shame that the two gens following on from it have just failed to recapture the same magic.  They just don't have the same bite, despite introducing some good new mechanics along the way.

[markderoos]

2 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

He mentions how you have to set up certain rules for yourself in order to get around this but it shouldn't be up to the gamer to have to create these kinds of rules to have fun or create a challenge.

While I get what you mean and I also prefer the game to be a little/lot more challenging, I wouldn’t think adjusting the game that way would be a smart move.

New and mostly very young fans will always be a key part of the franchise’s successes. Adding extra modes like normal/hard/etc could be interesting. Hardest mode could incorporate stuff from the Nuzzlock challenge for example.

[Goron_3]

A great way of making the game much more challenging is to go to Options and make it so that you can't switch Pokemon before your opponent sends out their next Pokemon. Much better.

I wonder if the game needs some kind of dynamic difficulty?

[Glen-i]

1 hour ago, markderoos said:

New and mostly very young fans will always be a key part of the franchise’s successes. Adding extra modes like normal/hard/etc could be interesting. Hardest mode could incorporate stuff from the Nuzzlock challenge for example.

Funny thing is, Black 2/White 2 does have a harder difficulty mode. It buffs Trainer's Pokémon Levels, gives them hold items and improves the AI.

Unfortunately, it's locked behind a stupid requirement that means you need a friend with Black 2 to even play it.

Congrats on finishing Gen 5 @Hero-of-Time, it's a game that I think was a bold step in a series that is criticized a lot for playing it safe.

Which makes it an absolute shame that as far as games that start off a generation go, Black/White is the worst selling of the whole series.

In a way, I feel that this started Game Freak's current trend of doubling down on the nostalgia factor of Pokémon games these days. And once X/Y and Sun/Moon beat Black/White, the writing was on the wall. Pokémon fans don't want much change.

Best case scenario, Let's Go is being made because Game Freak is gonna give the risky Gen 5 mantra another crack and they want to help with any losses Gen 8 might get because of that.

...I hope.

EDIT: @Goron_3 makes a great point about Set Mode. While it probably wouldn't have made a difference to the way Hero-of-Time played it by using only one Pokémon, it does make a noticeable difference if you use a team of 6.

Edited July 2, 2018 by Glen-i

[bob]

Couldn't they just add a higher difficulty setting and just bump all the enemy Pokémon up a few levels?

[Glen-i]

4 minutes ago, bob said:

Couldn't they just add a higher difficulty setting and just bump all the enemy Pokémon up a few levels?

They did, along with other tweaks to make it more difficult. No-one cared. So it never came back. Like almost everything Gen 5 did.

[bob]

They did, along with other tweaks to make it more difficult. No-one cared. So it never came back. Like almost everything Gen 5 did.

Interesting. I wouldn't mind playing Black or White if they re-release it on the Switch.

[Glen-i]

3 minutes ago, bob said:

5 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

They did, along with other tweaks to make it more difficult. No-one cared. So it never came back. Like almost everything Gen 5 did.

Interesting. I wouldn't mind playing Black or White if they re-release it on the Switch.

Should point out that it's the sequels (Black 2/White 2) that have the harder difficulty option.

And in a stupid move, you need a friend who's finished Black 2 to even play it.

[bob]

Should point out that it's the sequels (Black 2/White 2) that have the harder difficulty option.
And in a stupid move, you need a friend who's finished Black 2 to even play it.

I'm starting to see why nobody cared and why they didn't continue with this feature.

[Glen-i]

Just now, bob said:

4 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

Should point out that it's the sequels (Black 2/White 2) that have the harder difficulty option.
And in a stupid move, you need a friend who's finished Black 2 to even play it.

I'm starting to see why nobody cared and why they didn't continue with this feature.

Yep, absolutely idiotic to lock it behind that. So close and yet so far.

I'm reminded of when my younger sister got a DSi for her Birthday. So I decided to get her Pokémon Black for Christmas. For some reason, despite never actually playing Pokémon before, she actually came with @Dcubed and me to a midnight launch and got her copy signed by Masuda. He doodled a little Tepig on hers.

So naturally, she chose Oshawott as her starter. Cuteness trumps everything with an 8 year old girl.

It took her quite a while to make her way through the game. I'd give her little tidbits like "try not to bunch up same types" but I mostly left her to discover everything herself.

I'll never forget how excited she was to tell me she caught a Reshiram and how hard the final battle was. She called that particular trainer a "big, mean, stupid head" which is appropriate, I guess.

Anyway, anecdote over. Here's one of my favourite tracks from this game.

So good, it got an amazing remix in Smash 4.

(I also really like the Zekrom/Reshiram battle music, that's my favourite Legendary battle music.)

[Ike]

10 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Last week I listened to the latest episode of Frame Trap and Huber was explaining why he has issues with the Pokemon series and one of his gripes was how he can sweep the game with a single Pokemon (usually his starter) and the game becomes pretty boring and easy. I certainly found that to be the case with this game (the easy part not the boring part) and many Pokemon games I have played in the past. He mentions how you have to set up certain rules for yourself in order to get around this but it shouldn't be up to the gamer to have to create these kinds of rules to have fun or create a challenge. It was an interesting discussion between him and Ben.

Having not heard the discussion so I don't know what was brought ut, but it seems that most people miss that the games are aimed at younger players who might play this as their first RPG or even game (excluding mobile games nowadays I suppose...), they aren't actually easy to get when your younger.

Especially since there's now what, 807+ish Pokemon? Many with multiple forms, Alolan forms, Mega Evolution, Z-Moves, they've introduced abilities, hold items. 3D makes things harder as it's more difficult to move in compared to the original 2D games. Granted not all Pokemon are made available but it's still a lot.

IV and EV's, whilst made easier are still fairly difficult to get your head around as a younger player. And you've got the whole breeding system.

Not to mention various other features they add in, as well as the expanded communication methods. 

Gen I & II probably felt harder because a lot of people did play them when they were young and also because they were unbalanced and broken.

Ultra Necrozma in US/UM was kinda jerk move having such a large difficulty spike during the story, at least Mega Rayquaza was post-game (something that also needs to make a come back, US/UM was a start).

If you want to power level your starter, you can, and the game allows you and it's been like that since Gen I, really they should have made it so any Pokemon over a certain level won't obey you not just traded 'Mons, I think it's a bit unfair to say the game is too easy because of it. You can grind a team 6 and make the game easier. That's fine if you want to do that, play it however you want. Just don't complain about it. A lot of people don't like the new Exp. Share, but I do. I've been playing since, Red, I'm tired of having to grind my Pokemon. I just want to get through the story most of the time and start building competitive teams that I never use. Gen V even introduced Audino who gives you a ton of EXP to grind with.

Obviously having a hard mode available from the start and not some weird unlock requirement would be ideal for both worlds, I think Gamefreak are too worried younger players may accidentally select hard mode and not enjoy it and have it put them off, that's why I think they implemented the way they did. Oh, and selecting hard mode turns off some of the hand holdy tutorial stuff.

Now that Let's Go! is a thing and aimed a newer/casual players, I'm kinda hoping Game Freak will make the mainline games a bit harder, although they probably won't.

That's my 2 cents/rant. Obviously these are just my opinions &/ speculations, not saying you can't play the game the way you want or anything in case anyone took it that way.

But yes, Gen V was excellent and is one of my favourites. Series fatigue hit with B2/W2 so I never finished that one. Same with US/UM. I'm glad we're getting Let's Go this year and the new game next year.

Also a side not and not that it matters, Zekrom and Reshiram have a pretty high cate rate due them 1. being the box 'Mon, 2. being a forced encounter. You could chuck a Pokeball at full health a and catch it.

 

[Hero-of-Time]

I get that the games are made for a younger audience ( hence the mostly terrible storylines filled with the same friendship garbage ) but there's nothing wrong with giving players an option at the start of the game for a higher difficulty modes and added challenge. Hell, I'd even take an option to skip the tutorials on how to catch a Pokemon.

I think the amount of Pokemon in the game is pretty irrelevant due to being able to use 1 or 2 and blast your way through the game, which is the issue that Huber brings up. Why use other Pokemon when your starter can sweep entire teams, even when it's at a type disadvantage?

The EV/IV system is something most players will never touch or even look into. It's there for the hardcore crowd who want to min/ max their teams for competitive play. I image most kids haven't a clue about it.

What's baffling is that GF are constantly using Gen 1 Pokemon as a hook to get older players back into the newer games. Most of these people are now in their 30's and are quite capable of playing a video game.

As for the Reshiram, I have no intention of playing the game now that the credits have rolled so the Master Ball was the quickest way to end that battle. There was no need to keep it.

[Ike]

My point I was trying to make was, that the games may be daunting to new/young players when you put everything together. I get overwhelmed starting a new Monster Hunter. You can ignore most of it and get through the story without any problems, sure.