Pokémon Corner: Crystal Version

[Tai_MT]

Man, don't even get me started on the really stupid "Friend Code" crap.  That is the worst system ever devised for adding people to a friends' list.  Seriously, I have to add you, then send you e-mail or something, and then you have to add me as well.  There's no "I add you, you get a message asking for a friend request, you click OK and now we're friends".  Oh no, that would be toooooooo freakin' easy!  Instead, we have I want to add you, so I have to go online to find your friend code or call you and ask you what your friend code is, which is a random set of digits.  After that, I have to add in your number on whatever device I'm using and then go looking for my own Friend Code to give to you.  Then, I give you my number and finally we have to wait until we're both online at the same time for the system in place to verify us both as friends.

How can anyone using that system in a test environment go, "Yep, this is a great idea!"?  How could they not be as hopelessly frustrated by it as a casual player like me is?  It's only exacerbated by the fact that Nintendo has so many multiplayer games that actually cannot be played online at all.  Mario Party?  Nope.  Wii Sports?  Nope.  That 4 player Super Mario brothers?  Nope.  Anything you can download that's multiplayer from the E-Shop?  Nope, can't play that online either.  After all, who would want to play Super Mario World online with friends if they could?  Or some of the old Mario Party games?  I mean, it's not like the people who played those games as kids wouldn't want to play them again as adults with their friends who probably moved away.  It's not like internet connectivity on those games would boost sales or anything.

In any case, it's quite telling that all the fans of Pokémon have so many really cool and great ideas for the franchise and Nintendo just does nothing with it.  We even have people who have created a Pokémon MMO, because how long have fans wanted one?  It's glitchy, buggy, and laggy as crap, but how many continue to play it regardless?  It has so many good user interface features, despite all it's flaws even!  But, here we are, in 2014 with Pokémon X and Y, which is just kind of a rehash of the last Pokémon games.  Players have asked for a 3D game of Pokémon.  Some players have asked for an FPS like 3D game of Pokémon.  There are even players out there asking for Pokémon Snap 2 (I have no idea why, there wasn't much replayability in the first one, and it was pretty short)!  There are players who want to play as Gym Leaders in Pokémon.  There are players who want to play as Team Rocket, even!

What do we get instead?  Hopelessly broken "GTS" as a means of online connectivity.  A simple system that could've been fixed with a few minor user interface options.  A simple system that could be fixed by adding some kind of oversight.

I mean, we can deposit a Pokémon and ask for a specific one in return...  But we can't search for a Pokémon while saying what we would give in return.  We don't even have options for "trade evolutions".  As in, you only want to make the trade to evolve the Pokémon and then you want it back.  No, you have to make two separate trades and hope the person you're trading with isn't a jerk and just take your mon.  Why isn't there a system in place for "Trade Evolution" in which it makes the trade once, then trades it back, then saves, and you both get the Pokedex credit without the hassle?  We don't even have options to trade "Exclusives".  As in, you just want to trade your X Exclusive Pokémon for the Y Exclusive Pokémon.  There are hundreds of ways to streamline the trading process.  Why did nobody think to put these things into the system?  Do none of the programmers actually play Pokémon?  I mean, anyone who has ever traded online can tell you why these options would be useful for players.

EDIT:  Some trainers are so cruel.  I just did a Wonder Trade and got a Swirlix that some trainer decided to name "disappoint".  Or do I maybe get too attached to the little digital critters?

 

[hyde9318]

Yep yep yep, I agree with pretty much all of that. We are on the same page here, lol. Nintendo feels that they can just ride on their old titles and keep all the fame that they used to have. The problem is that their old titles are just that.. old. How many "New" Super Mario Brothers do we have to tread through until people realize they literally just got the same exact thing as before with a different graphic style. Tell me, what major changes has the main Mario series gotten since Super Mario World? And people complain cause Batman fights the Joker too much, they should really be concerned with how many time Mario fights Bowser....


I know the Pokemon games are very much one of my favorite series out there, but even I can admit that we really don't get many changes in between games. They add like one or two major additions each time. Black and White added semi-3D overworlds and animated battles. X and Y added fully 3D overworlds and better Multiplayer. Now, I understand that games should be close in content between sequels because they shouldnt be completely different... but i hate that Nintendo acts like we are idiots and dont notice that they arent really doing much. Pokemon will always be a franchise that I will love, but it is turning into Call of Duty (new one every fall, very slight graphical change, same gameplay, one or two new features).

 

[Chaos Avian]

Hmmm, funny you should talk about that. It may not be Pokemon related directly, but it does give you an issue to what you're talking about. How everything is the same and unchanged as times go on.

 

[Tai_MT]

I've been griping on that issue for a long time, ha ha.  I often abandon "sequels" when they get too "samey".  If they release a Dead Space 4, I'm not gonna get it.  I'm going to rent the newest Final Fantasy before ever deciding to buy it.  I honestly try to play a lot of "innovative" games.  I stumbled across Portal that way.  I stumbled across Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress that way.  I stumbled across Turok 1 that way (it stopped being any good after the second game).  I stumbled across Brink that way (yes, I like Brink and many of its actual innovations... it's not a typical FPS and a lot of people hate it because it's not.  I actually love it for all the reasons others hate it).

But, let's take a look at a lot of these new "sequels".  How many of them have "story" as the driving point?  None.  How many of them even have a coherent story to begin with?  Not many.  To be honest, I think that tells us that we have a lot more young children playing these games than we have adults or mature players who care about more than the next fix of Five Hour Energy and Booze.

Hell, the promise of "Innovation" is what caused me to preorder two copies of Destiny and then make plans to do a Midnight Release of the game and buy a third copy before the other two get to me via shipping and handling.  The promise of Innovation is why I bought Titanfall.

I just don't have time or ambition anymore to play games that aren't very innovative.  I want innovation.  The blithering idiots of the world who can't even return their carts to the cart bins in the parking lot of stores do not.  Unfortunately... stupid people outnumber normal and smart people 8-1.

 

[Chaos Avian]

Unfortunately sales and numbers talk more, and the gaming community have always been a divided social mess... yeah the addition of blithering snot nosed kids don't help either.

 

[Harmill]

Pokemon games started out as annual installments, though. Here are the NA release dates:

Red/Blue: September 28, 1998

Yellow:  October 19, 1999

Gold/Silver: October 15, 2000

Crystal: July 29, 2001

---- Here is the first c-c-c-combo breaker for annual releases -----

Ruby/Sapphire: March 19, 2003

FireRed/LeafGreen: September 9, 2004

Emerald: May 1, 2005

Diamond/Pearl: May 5, 2007

Platinum: March 22, 2009

HeartGold/SoulSilver: March 14, 2010

Black/White: March 6, 2011

Black/White2: October 7, 2012

X/Y: October 12, 2013

When I think back on my own outlook on "sequel syndrome", I only ever found myself getting sick of it because I felt like all of the sequels were for game series I cared little for. However, when I see a series that I DO love start getting sequels at a quicker pace, I don't have that same bitterness. There are some games that have a formula that I just really love (Pokemon, Suikoden, Disgaea) and I would LOVE for them to get yearly releases. The thing is, the variety of JRPG series has shrunk over the years (or at least, it has appeared to), and so there are less games to keep the genre "fresh" in between each installment of Pokemon or whatever other series you love.

If I feel like playing something "innovative", then sure, I'll have an urge to try something else. But really, I'm quite fine to play my Pokemons, and my Disgaeas if their developers and publishers are willing to continue making them. I yearn for the ones that DON'T get steady releases that I wish to see more sequels from (Suikoden, Star Ocean, Dragon Quest).

EDIT: Oh, and I guess I should mention that I DO welcome new IPs into the JRPG scene, but the genre hasn't seen any new franchises that catch my attention. I would love for a new JRPG IP to be announced for next gen consoles, but I'd be just as happy if they announced a sequel (such as a new Wild Arms like they've been hinting at recently).

 

[Touchfuzzy]

I don't think the gameplay is the issue with Pokemon. I'm just tired of the story. "Collect 8 gym badges while occasionally getting sidetracked by some evil team trying to do *insert evil thing here*, then fight the elite 4 and the champion".


That was why I didn't finish White the last time I started it. I had just played Soul Silver and it felt like playing the exact same game with the exact same mechanics with the exact same story.


I know they've said the gym badge + Elite 4 + champion thing was always going to stay, but I really think there is room for more in there, even keeping that.

 

[Tai_MT]

You know what they could do to spice up the next one, Fuzzy?

You need eight gym badges to challenge the Elite Four.  However...  There are 16 Gyms you can visit.  This would leave the world up for "open trekking" by the players.  We could all find our own ways to the Elite Four.  Even better?  The Elite Four changes depending on which 8 badges you obtained first.

Seriously, there are ways to spice up the formula.

Maybe even give us 6 starters instead of 3.  Usual Fire, Water, Grass...  Then throw in some that break the "triangle".  Maybe an electric type.  Maybe a normal type.  Maybe a bug type.

Lots of ways to spice it up.  You know, if Nintendo cared.  I for one, would love to see them tweak the formula a little bit.  You know, like Metroid Prime did when it jumped from 2D sidescroller to FPS.  The formula remained the same, but exploration was expanded to actual story with logs and other stuff to scan for lore.

Anyway, that's my two cents.

 

[Harmill]

I would welcome changes to the story. I've always wondered why Gold/Silver is the only generation to give you two regions (or better put, a post-game region). It was such a fantastic improvement from Red/Blue that it's a shame we haven't been able to traverse multiple regions in more recent installments.

Another thing I've missed is the more competitive rival. Blue, Gary, whatever you want to call him, actually served as a rival, and not simply a friend. He also accomplished far more than any other 'rival' has done. No champion was as satisfying to fight as Blue was. And Gold/Silver's rival at least had a strong desire to beat you, too. But after that, they were all "Oh, you're so awesome! I'll never be able to beat you! Here's a gift!".

But what keeps me interested in a new installment is a new region and new Pokemon. Those are pretty much the only necessities. Scratch that, I could do without new Pokemon, but a new region would keep me coming back. I know that many are sick of new Pokemon, but I'm still in favour of them. It would be nice if they could do something to spice up the story, but I'll still gladly play the next game if there's a brand new region to explore with new Pokemon to catch. I'm somewhat impartial to the idea of remakes, though I do find myself excited for Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire. The main thing is that it'll make certain Pokemon easier to get within your X/Y games, and I guess I wouldn't mind replaying through the Hoenn region if only because it's been so long since I last set foot there.

 

[Touchfuzzy]

I'm not against new pokemon, but I do think they should drop the "you don't see a single familiar pokemon until the postgame" stuff. I'd like to see some familiar favorites mixed in as I play through the game instead of only seeing a bunch of stuff I'm unfamiliar with.


Just not ****ing zubats.

 

[hyde9318]

No, I love Zubat actally. I like him cause every time they take him out, they just replace him with a derp version. No Zubat? Wubat then....

 

[Tai_MT]

The best part about Zubat is it can actually evolve into Crobat, which is a pretty useful team member.  Zubat are also nowhere near as annoying as the "Ratata Derps".  These are Pokémon meant to replace the super common Rat Pokémon (that looks more like a mouse) in every version to date...  And they're freakin' EVERYWHERE.  Bidoof, Patrat, Sentret, Zigzagoon, the list goes on and on.  Or, you know, the endless parade of "Normal/Flying" types they seem to want to give us every single generation.  But now, we have the dreaded "Unevolving Pikachu clones" in every new version.  Plusle, Minun, Dedenne, Emolga, etcetera.

While we're on the subject of Electric types...  How many Electric Types even have a second evolutionary form anymore?  It seems to me that almost every Electric Type either evolves once or not at all anymore.  I mean, you have Pikachu, Mareep, Electabuzz, Magnemite, and Shinx.  Everything else evolves once or not at all.  I think the next Pokémon games, Electric Types could use a little love.

 

[NPC]

Even then, only Mareep and Shinx started out with three evolutions, and adding only Magnemite without baby pokemon.

 

[hyde9318]

Yeah, Gamefreak tends to go in waves with their favorite types. First generation or two, they favored Psychic heavily, making them pretty indestructible. Then they introduced Dark to balance it, but then started favoring other types. And when there is a favorite, there is a least favorite. Think back to exactly how long it took for Bug and Poison types to actually be taken serious. Like, really the best pokemon in each of those types for a long time were only powerful because of their secondary typing (Scizor, Nidoking, Heracross). For god's sake, a majority of the Bug type group for generations was the typical Caterpie clone that came out every generation (and steadily got worse in terms of usefulness, btw).


BTW...

This time next week, due to Gamespy shutting down all their services, the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, which is run by Gamespy, is shutting down. As such, multiple Pokémon titles are to be hit by it. Since this was announced back in February, there has been some confusion as to what will be affected. To help with this, we have created this image to tell you what is going to be unavailable. -Serebii Facebook

 

[Mon Dez]

I would love to see an all around Pokemon game that has all the current regions up to date with customizable bases, clothing options, Pokemon Contests, and Battle Frontier. It would create a pretty interesting challenge on creating a 100% completion. 

I don't know how much data is needed for such a thing, but it'd be a money thrower for me in terms for the adventure and meeting every Team from Team Rocket to Team Magma and all the Gym Leaders in the old glory days to the Universal Elite Four.

 

[Tai_MT]

Mon Dez, something like that could generally be solved by a pretty good MMO version.  You could have every region as a "starter region" and players would pick where they wanted to start.  After that, they would play through the game as normal.  Once they beat the Elite Four in that region, they could be given a "pass" that would allow them to travel to one of the incomplete areas where they would choose another starter and do it all again (each badge you collected in the new area would allow you to use Pokémon you captured in the previous region up to a certain level, instead of a full lock out).  Likewise, completion each region could net you nice permanent rewards like 5% more EXP for all your mons per battle or an increased 3% chance to see a Shiny.

I would do it like this:

Completion of second Elite Four gives 5% extra EXP.

Completion of third Elite Four gives 5% extra Pokeyen.

Completion of fourth Elite Four doubles happiness rate of your Pokémon.

Completion of fifth Elite Four gives 3% extra chance to see a Shiny.

Completion of sixth (and final!) Elite Four doubles EV's obtained.

You could even give out small prizes for completing each of the Dex's.  Things like maybe making it easier to catch Pokémon from that region, or making Pokeball catch rates increase.  Maybe even improving the odds of more rare Pokémon showing up.  Heck, for players who completed every single slot of the National Dex, I'd allow them to purchase Master Balls (which, I would make unsellable and untradeable to other players)

Heck, just for fun, I'd even throw in an achievement list for this kind of MMO and make sure every achievement gives you some kind of reward (easy ones might give you a Potion, harder ones might net you Nuggets or rare evolutionary items).  Honestly, I'd go nuts if that ever came to be reality.  I'd even drop a $15 a month subscription fee to play it, if it were like that.

You could even use some of the money from the subscription fee to do new content for the MMO.  Things like new areas to explore, new things to do with your Pokémon, maybe even limited time events that allowed you to catch the "Event" Pokémon or special versions of other Pokémon.  The possibilities are pretty limitless!

Heck, you could even design "real life" Battle Towers in the game that human players fight each other in!  You could even hold tournaments every single week or month if you wanted!

It's fun to dream...

 

[Mon Dez]

@Tai_MT

That's a wonderful idea! I would love to see Nintendo implement something like that, but alas the world is cruel to show us that we cannot have nice things.

 

[Tai_MT]

Yeah, I wish I was rich and had an actual game programmer's degree.  I could perhaps pitch the idea to them or maybe buy the license from them in order to create it.  The people who make Pokémon now are really weird in that they don't seem to play Pokémon or interact with their community at all.  They seem to think they're programming for young children when most of their fanbase is actually a bunch of adults now.  You could actually make a Pokémon MMO with all those features and charge $15 a month for it.  In fact, it probably wouldn't even be that costly at all to create.  Likewise, it might cost 1/10th the price of WoW for a pretty sizable amount of profit.

All you would have to do is make it a "new experience" of Pokémon.  Have some "Character Slots" (I would suggest only 4, let players purchase more if they wanted them) in the game.  Put in a "cash shop" and a "rental shop".  Cash shop items might be things like Timed EXP boosters, character slots, clothes not available in the normal course of the game.  Rentals could be for the same thing as what is in the cash shop, except temporary.  You could even have "skins" for Pokeballs, Pokedexes, and Trainer cards in there (along with the option to permanently buy those skins if you wanted).  The best part about the rental shop is that you could give out the Rental Items as rewards for some of the achievements or include them for various other activities (like coming in third place in a tournament or something).  The rentals would be a way to give players a taste of the pay side so that they might be incentivized to just pay for a permanent feature if they liked it.  I would also include the "Pay Currency" as something you could trade with or earn while you play.  Perhaps you could drop $1 of that currency for every 15 mons you collected in your Pokedex.  Include another $1 for every 250 battles they win.  Drop $25 of it whenever the Elite Four was beaten for the first time (in each Region).  You could even include a rental "Rematch" device that would last for X amount of days and allow you to rematch trainers or gym leaders.  Maybe you could even buy a permanent version of that device.  Maybe you could even buy a "Legendary Rematch" device so that you had more chances to catch the "one time only" Pokémon, if you missed out on them and didn't have them in your Dex.

I mean, the possibilities are absolutely astounding for how you could manage such a thing.  Let the people who don't have credit cards log hours playing the game in order to earn the "Pay Currency" for some of the benefits.  Let those who want to spend money (or have credit cards) pay for the things they absolutely must have or use.  I mean, if you beat all the Elite Four and captured all the mons, you're sitting on close to $200 in Pay Currency.  You're looking at something like several hundred hours of play to reach that $200 as well.  Sure, you'll get your first few dollars of Pay Currency pretty fast, but it does slow down as you accumulate mons and work your way to the Elite Four.  A normal player on their way to the Elite Four would only amass something like 3000 fights or so.  Though, they might mass more if they grind.  Still, that's only 12 dollars in Pay Currency.

I mean, you could charge decent amounts for some of the stuff...  I'd charge like $5 for an hour long EXP Booster (50% more EXP).  I'd charge $15 for a new character slot (achievements and everything else that would earn you rewards are account tracked instead of character tracked... including rewards from Pokedex completion.).  I'd charge $3 for a 1 week skin rental (regardless of what it was a skin of).  I'd charge $10 for a permanent skin unlock.  I'd probably have variable charges for clothing options depending on how elaborate they were or if they were "limited time only" items.  Likewise, if a "limited time only" item was released, everyone would get a free 1 week rental of that item in order to entice them to maybe purchase it at the end of that week, since they would never see it again.  I might even charge for "player housing" and "hidden bases".  Everyone would be issued one of those things as a "basic model", but then could spend some of their Pay Currency to "upgrade" it.  I would also take care to make sure that these places weren't "just for decoration" either, but had some other uses in game (Like such as the Super Training we have in X and Y, you could have rooms for that in your home, or sections of your secret base for that.  Things of that nature).

Man, with all these ideas I have for how to do a Pokémon MMO, you would've thought Nintendo would've jumped on this years ago to pad their bottom line.

 

[??????]

The only way that we will get a game with such features (anytime soon) will be if a fan game was made to include such ideas...

 

[Tai_MT]

For a fan game to include all of those, it would have to make it past the planning stages and not get slapped with a C&D by Nintendo.  Whichhhhhhh.... would never happen.  If you don't protect your copyrights...  Well, anyone can do anything with them.