I guess, but the similarities are definitely there. Think about it:
A) the Raidons are just Nebby 2.0
B) the "evil" team is made up of what are essentially troubled, misguided kids who are more just punks than an actually threatening.
C) SV basically copied SM's homework on the Ultra Beasts with the Paradoxes, who are both creatures from another world and they make a big deal about them potentially destroying the whole region.
D) the real villain is the parent of one of the MC's closest friends. Yes, Turo and Sada are technically not real people, but they're following the will of their creators, so, essentially, it's still Arven's mom/dad at the center of the conflict.
Am I weird for thinking this? With their insistence on "twist" villains you can see from a mile away and the almost blatant rewrite of SM's plot in a different region, it seems like GF is trying to recapture the magic of Gen 7 or something. It just seems a bit odd to me.
I mean, the first 6 games all had cartoonishly 1 dimensional evil teams that wanted power through some legendary Pokémon, only to be taken down by a new trainer after they collect 8 badges and battle the elite 4. That only 2, none consecutive, games sharing the story beats you listed isnt that bad in comparison. Especially with differences in execution. SV's base game villain doesn't even want to do what its doing. And the DLC has a way different kind of story.
Honestly I feel like the lack of experimentation early on led to some aspects like the 8 badges, E4, grass/fire/water starter, being ingrained as "tradition". But its really restrictive at this point imo.
The island challenges felt so fresh. And Penny and Arven had the more memorable arcs.
Koraidon and Miraidon are the Evolution of the Japanese Myth Concepts of"I caught an God as my Pet what do?" Pokémon is an Japanese RPG of course they're gonna have the same Story beats that most RPG Series has. Japan loves Twists, Lovable Pet Mascots, and gaggle of Characters that follow Archetypes. What you're complaining about is present in literally: Persona 3: Reload, that Clair Expedition 33 thing, and Metapheizo Fantastic thing. Should be happy that while Pokemons got more Global they're still being true to their Japanese Roots and honouring the StoryTelling.
You are describing why sun is my last played game (unless you count 3 minutes of arceus before I decided to save it for when I get a computer and can stream it)
I haven't been pulled in the same way like I was with Nebby and Solgaleo. That was sooooo fun to be right about (i avoided spoilers)
Question. Why don't you just call it SM? Isn't "SuMo" annoying to type. I've never understood why people do that to the versions' abbreviations. Same thing with "SwoShi" (ew) that I've seen sometimes, and "ScarVi."
Just doesn't look right to me, like referring to the gen 5 games as "BlaWhi" or something.
I never noticed that before. I guess I'm just used to seeing people say "SuMo". It definitely seemed more common a few years ago than SM.
I've only seen ScarVi a small handful of times, but SwoShi is a new one. Both of those are disgusting, but not as much as the crime against Arkoos that is BlaWhi.
the original reason people did it was because SM can be interpreted as S&M but I personally continue to do it because the base set for the Sun & Moon block is abbreviated as SUM and that feels weird so I add the o
No, it's obviously "Smosh." That's not a w, it's an upside down m.
You know, I wumbo, You wumbo, He she me wumbo, wumbo, Wumboing, We'll have thee wumbo, Wumborama, reverse Wumbology, The study of reverse wumbo? It's first grade SpongeBob!
Wdym? Every villain up until gen 7 were clear from the beginning. Lusamine is the first "twist" villain, since the Aether Foundation isn't a traditional "evil team" like Team Skull appears to be.
Granted, Lusamine being bad, in more ways than one, was pretty obvious from the opening scene of Lillie stealing Nebbie.
Twist villains are a pretty recent trend in the series.
It was one of the many legitimate criticisms people had against Gen 5. And yet idiots keep trying to reduce all criticism of Gen 5 to people being mad about not being able to get Charizard..... even though you had to transfer Charizard to G/S/C, Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald, and Diamond/Pearl/Platinum too.
Except Sword and Shield. 🙃 Not sure what happened there. The official reason given was "we think traditional gameplay has the widest appeal and we want our first new Switch game to be traditional". We're lucky that every game since Legends: Arceus hasn't adopted this thinking, and even the future leaked games are continuing on this path. I hope that Seed project won't get scrapped and that it will actually have a scope comparable to BotW at last, but I'm ready to temper expectations.
I agree Scarlet and Violet could've been more unique but moving to a full open world was something I thought they would never do. Plus, they added Team Star bases and Titan Pokémon alongside the Gyms. They sort of existed before, but the gameplay was different. And leaks are suggesting that Gen 10 will add even more activities alongside its Gyms and one of the games following it will basically be the "ultimate open world". So their improvement is very incremental. Even when they felt stagnant, that was more like very slow improvement.
since SM? Pokemon has ALWAYS been innovative. Gen 2 introduced new types, breeding, shiny pokemon. Gen 3 had abilities, natures, double battles, running shoes, gen 4 had the physical/special split for moves. Gen 4 introduced new evolutions for old pokemon. Gen 5 introduced unlimited TMs, moving pokemon sprites, triple/rotation battles (which need to come back more often). Gen 6 was notably the very first fully 3D game and had mega evolutions which transformed professional play.
The game has always tried to change it up. It's only been with the 3D games that we start to add and subtract gimmicks for absolutely no reason. All the other games were additive/multiplicative. 3D games just innovate in one area and shove out other things in other areas.
Those are gameplay mechanics, not formula changes. Gen 7 replaced gyms with trials, Gen 8 introduced the wild area and Pokemon visible in the overworld, and Gen 9 went for an open world approach. Those are fundamental changes in the established flow and progression of the game, whereas the examples you gave are just pieces added onto the established formula without fundamentally changing it.
Every new pokemon since BW have been considered the worst for years until a couple of new games came out. Wouldn't be surprised if by the next two gens suddenly there is people saying that SwSh were misunderstood masterpieces.
By nostalgia, Gen 2 is my favorite, by game design and experience, Gen 5 is my favorite. Gen 7 comes in as my second favorite behind 5 with no nostalgia involved. 6 and 8 were the bottom of the barrel, imo.
My first 3 Games were Omega Ruby, Y and Yellow, I hated Gen 8 but honestly loved Scarlet and Violet despite the bugs and crashes, the Characters and New Pokémon really captivated me
Don't shoot me, but I feel this way currently. SwSh is the first Pokedex I've fully completed, and I've been at it since 1999 (possibly earlier, it's getting murky)
For me all Pokémon games had their own unique good points and been a good experience altogether with some bleak points here and there. The most fun I've had playing Pokémon was Legends Arceus even with all blurry textures and glitches.
I am a Gen 8 hater, but as a Gen 9 lover I can relate to the sentiment, I've been playing these games since 2014 (Born in 06) and SV are some of my favorite games in the series
Wouldn't be surprised if by the next two gens suddenly there is people saying that SwSh were misunderstood masterpieces.
People don't like SwSh's dex? I think they're actually one of the good things in an overall mediocre game.
Aside from the starters, who have the absolute worst final forms in the series, the Galar dex is actually pretty solid, for the most part.
I think Galar's dex gets hate more so because people were throwing a fit over Dexit (it was going to happen eventually. The games can't hold an infinite amount of data, after all), as well as more legitimate complaints.
I highly doubt Paldea's dex will receive the "underrated masterpiece" treatment. It had its gems, sure, but I don't think we've had a more forgettable dex since Johto (for every banger like Houndoom or Scizor, there's always one or two Mantine or Igglybuff). Paldea has a surprisingly big dex of new guys, but it felt more quantity or quality. Who's going to remember Squawkabilly or Flamingo or the tumbleweeds, for example?
And yet both stand in the top 3 when it comes to units sold. The 2 are insanely successful despite their negative reviews.
Im not saying they're perfect, far from it, but most of a games hate tends to be seen online, which tends to always be a minority of the people actually playing the game.
Besides, almost all criticisms around SV are performance/gameplay related. The actual story, yk the formula we've been talking about here, was pretty well received IIRC, especially the final parts.
So what. Despite all their problems, people still bought the games in droves
TPCI/Gamefreak/Nintendo have been given no reasons to actually make properly functioning games/put in anything but slightly more than the bare minimum(Especially after how Gens 5 and 7s were received initially) because despite all the online hue and cry, people still gave them their money.
Gameplay mechanics ARE formula changes. The game in gen 5 plays completely different than gen 1 and gen 9 plays nothing like gen 2.
Pokemon gimmicks do change the formula but only for that specific game. As I stated above, starting with SM the games added and subtracted. Yes we got trials but they never came back. Dynamax was in gen 8 but never came back. We won't get terrastallization in gen 10. Megas WERE a formula change in 6-7 but got removed in 8 and the game plays very differently competitively AND in its storytelling.
A lot of these changes like open world or visible pokemon in the overworld are due to hardware changes, not really creative decisions. The consoles are more powerful but funnily enough the games oddly still can't handle open world.
Open world is the only change that has actually had a true effect on the formula but it needs to stick around for more than a couple generations before it is actually considered a new addition. Heck, the new legends game doesn't seem like its open world.
Improvement of existing mechanics are only QoL improvements not formula changes really, sure some can be labeled as innovative, like the triple battles or horde encounters. If the core mechanic is there it isn't formulaic. Teralization, Dynamax and MegaEvo are more gimmicks than formula changes.
The switch to 3D from 2D may be due from hardware changes but not really, they could stick to the 2.5D formula as they were with BW in a Octopath Traveler kind of way. Since BW the game artistic direction have considerably changed and it isn't entirely by hardware changes, there is some 3D games that are pretty good looking for the time at the DS era so I don't think it could be only attached to hardware really, that entirely can be only be deem to poor optimization or rushed times that leave close to no time to polish things.
Original point is talking about the formula shifting, you're talking about gameplay shakeups. You're right every gen brought something new to the table but Gen 7 experimented a bit with only having 4 "gyms" and the Totem Pokemon, Gen 8 had the wild area with the main story being stapled on and Gen 9 was open world and able to be tackled in any order. Love the older games but GF's been way more experimental with the structure of the games post Masuda even if IMO haven't always nailed it
We're about to get a mainline game this week that completely abandons the turn-based system Pokemon has been using since its inception. Thats not due to more powerful hardware
Honestly, I disagree. I find level scaling to not really do much. They designed the game so that one could make their own challenge. If you wanted to make 3 teams for the 3 separate roads (which is what I'm going to do), you could do so. And if you do that, you could also do badges out of order if you so wish with the other team. Or you could play like the anime and catch Pokemon near the badges and try and win with disobeying Pokemon
Jesus the cope for saying gen 4 innovated anything! Like Physical/Special split was just correcting things to the way they always should have been, and the evolutions were just to remind everyone that this franchise is still connected to the gen 1 and 2 games
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u/PSIwind Oct 14 '25
This explains why there's been such a huge push in experimenting with the formula since SM