My last post got slogged since the grammar was horrendous and I said game freaks are bad developers. The last post shows I can't brain good when I is just woken up.

My last post should have been, modernize pokemon.

There have to be ways of making this a modern game without messing with the mechanics. The games have been around since 1998 and it's barely change.

Is there really nothing pokemon fans don't want to change?

Like the grinding. How about being able to grind with online battles? More experience given by wild Pokemon battles, so I don't have to spend hours leveling. I know I'm on the outside of this now. But I would definitely play pokemon again if the grinding was seriously cut down.

There is no grinding in Black/White 2. I did not once have to grind, ever. Although if you wanted to grind, you totally could, because that game has a tower that has infinite trainers in.

Did you play Black and White? There's a pokemon in shuffling grass on almost every route that gives you around 10x normal experience. They also changed the experience system so lower levelled pokemon get more of a boost against higher leveled enemies.

If that's true then thats definitely a big step. What was the online functionality of black and white?

@Kenobi said:

The games have been around since 1998 and it's barely change.

Perhaps because they don't need to?

They fixed TM's. Now they need to fix how completely frustrating the HM system is. They should be passively available, or have their own slots, or something. Having to delete a useful move to replace it with some bullshit HM like Cut or Rock Climb is ridiculous. Not being able to re-delete one of those HM moves when you're done with it to re-replace it unless you go to a move deleter is insane.

Honestly, the only system they really need to look at is the HM system. Its an old, outdated way to prevent the player from going somewhere they dev doesn't want them to go at that time. In Red/Blue they were part of the story and bit more difficult to get. (Like getting strength or Surf), now they're just given to you at random moments really.

One issue that people would say is that while most are not very good moves, some are. Particularly Surf and Waterfall...But maybe its time to say good bye to that move. The all time great, Surf.

Other than that and making the online features more robust, the pokemon games don't need a lot changed. That core battle system is So good, it doesn't really need changing.

I was going to get Black 2 or Black but when the X and Y news cane out I was going to leave it but from what I've read here, shit I need to get Black 2.

I can't believe it's still a fire/grass/water trio for the starters. Even if it looks like they may all be dual-typed pocket monsters, they should scrap those three types for this generation of starters.

Linearity should be looked at. Make the last two gyms have differently-leveled Pokemon depending on which one you fight first, for example. More sidequests before the main quest is over would be good as well.

The series has far too many legendary Pokeman.

I would like to see a skyrim first person open world Like game with Pokemon I have very fond memories of the couple first games but they got old after a while. The one with the big giant fire bird on top of the tower was really good

@Doomed said:

I can't believe it's still a fire/grass/water trio for the starters. Even if it looks like they may all be dual-typed pocket monsters, they should scrap those three types for this generation of starters.

To be fair, can you name any other weakness triangles like fire/grass/water?

@Video_Game_King said:

@Doomed said:

I can't believe it's still a fire/grass/water trio for the starters. Even if it looks like they may all be dual-typed pocket monsters, they should scrap those three types for this generation of starters.

To be fair, can you name any other weakness triangles like fire/grass/water?

Psychic/Dark/Fighting?

Jetpacks are pretty modern! Give all the pokemon one of those.

Have -four- starter Pokemon.

@M_33:

A little Googling around has suggested that wouldn't work, at least not as well as the default. Flying/Fighting/Rock could work, though.

@Sticky_Pennies said:

They fixed TM's. Now they need to fix how completely frustrating the HM system is. They should be passively available, or have their own slots, or something. Having to delete a useful move to replace it with some bullshit HM like Cut or Rock Climb is ridiculous. Not being able to re-delete one of those HM moves when you're done with it to re-replace it unless you go to a move deleter is insane.

This. It's an irritating system that arbitrarily forces players to either have undesirable movesets or keep a number of HM slaves. I think making them passive abilities is a good work around: simply have a Pokemon that is capable of using the HM in your team and you're good to go.

@Video_Game_King said:

@M_33:

A little Googling around has suggested that wouldn't work, at least not as well as the default. Flying/Fighting/Rock could work, though.

I'd say just different secondary-types would be a good start. I liked that Torterra was Grass/Ground or Empoleon was Water/Steel. It'd be nice if they could try out more variety that way rather than just the standard Fire/Fighting we seem to get every time now.

Still, would it be so bad if the starter Pokemon weren't part of a weakness triangle. The whole "rival getting Pokemon that has an advantage over yours" has never really been a challenge anyway.

@FlarePhoenix said:

Still, would it be so bad if the starter Pokemon weren't part of a weakness triangle.

Then how else would the game teach you about weaknesses? Think of it as a small introductory lesson to an important system.

@Video_Game_King said:

@FlarePhoenix said:

Still, would it be so bad if the starter Pokemon weren't part of a weakness triangle.

Then how else would the game teach you about weaknesses? Think of it as a small introductory lesson to an important system.

It doesn't teach you about weaknesses anyway. Even though your rival picks the Pokemon that is strong against yours, you both only have normal attacks in the first battle. It isn't until the second battle with the rival when their starter has moves that are strong against your starter. By that point, you've probably picked up on the strengths/weaknesses mechanic from other battles.

@FlarePhoenix said:

@Video_Game_King said:

@FlarePhoenix said:

Still, would it be so bad if the starter Pokemon weren't part of a weakness triangle.

Then how else would the game teach you about weaknesses? Think of it as a small introductory lesson to an important system.

It doesn't teach you about weaknesses anyway. Even though your rival picks the Pokemon that is strong against yours, you both only have normal attacks in the first battle. It isn't until the second battle with the rival when their starter has moves that are strong against your starter. By that point, you've probably picked up on the strengths/weaknesses mechanic from other battles.

The first gym in B/W changes depending on what your starter is. By the time you get there your main offensive moves are of your starter's type, so that's where weaknesses become really important. The first battles against the friend characters are just general battle tutorials.

@Sparkul said:

@FlarePhoenix said:

@Video_Game_King said:

@FlarePhoenix said:

Still, would it be so bad if the starter Pokemon weren't part of a weakness triangle.

Then how else would the game teach you about weaknesses? Think of it as a small introductory lesson to an important system.

It doesn't teach you about weaknesses anyway. Even though your rival picks the Pokemon that is strong against yours, you both only have normal attacks in the first battle. It isn't until the second battle with the rival when their starter has moves that are strong against your starter. By that point, you've probably picked up on the strengths/weaknesses mechanic from other battles.

The first gym in B/W changes depending on what your starter is. By the time you get there your main offensive moves are of your starter's type, so that's where weaknesses become really important. The first battles against the friend characters are just general battle tutorials.

Well yeah, and they could easily do something like that regardless of what types the three starter Pokemon are.

@Doomed said:

I can't believe it's still a fire/grass/water trio for the starters. Even if it looks like they may all be dual-typed pocket monsters, they should scrap those three types for this generation of starters.

Linearity should be looked at. Make the last two gyms have differently-leveled Pokemon depending on which one you fight first, for example. More sidequests before the main quest is over would be good as well.

The series has far too many legendary Pokeman.

It's actually pretty cool when they mix that up, I really liked Pokemon Colosseum for Gamecube, where you started with an Espeon and an Umbreon (though I realize I may be the only person on the planet who was into it.) While I agree that starting you with like, a Dark or Dragon pokemon could be cool, I don't think the traditional type triangle would be applicable.

Though maybe they should just move away from that all together. Maybe they should focus more on story and put you in control of a named character... like a good dramatic origin story of Lance (OK, I don't actually want that, it's just the first thing that popped into my head.)

Thinking about all this Pokemon... I should just track down a copy of Pokemon Colosseum and play that again instead. It's been like... 8 years.

@FlarePhoenix said:

@Sparkul said:

@FlarePhoenix said:

@Video_Game_King said:

@FlarePhoenix said:

Still, would it be so bad if the starter Pokemon weren't part of a weakness triangle.

Then how else would the game teach you about weaknesses? Think of it as a small introductory lesson to an important system.

It doesn't teach you about weaknesses anyway. Even though your rival picks the Pokemon that is strong against yours, you both only have normal attacks in the first battle. It isn't until the second battle with the rival when their starter has moves that are strong against your starter. By that point, you've probably picked up on the strengths/weaknesses mechanic from other battles.

The first gym in B/W changes depending on what your starter is. By the time you get there your main offensive moves are of your starter's type, so that's where weaknesses become really important. The first battles against the friend characters are just general battle tutorials.

Well yeah, and they could easily do something like that regardless of what types the three starter Pokemon are.

I feel like you're pushing for them to avoid this just to stand by your original statement. There's no real reason why they couldn't change the starters, but there's even moreso no real reason why they would or should.

B/W had steps in the right direction. Starters aside, there's a lot going on in that game that makes it sleeker than the bloated Diamond and Pearl: Simplifying the map into a circle, combining Poké Marts with Pokémon Centers, making different versions of the game more meaningful, immediately giving the player their starter and their first two battles before they even leave their bedroom, inundating the player with Pokéballs right out of the gate. These are just the things I noticed just now after playing for 5 hours.

Also, the decision to only let the player see the new Pokémon was a great idea. I hope they do it again.

I think it's time they move away from having four attacks per Pokemon, that's right folks. I'm talking about five!

I never felt like the game was too grindy because I liked to have overpowered pokemon by making sure I fought every trainer I saw.

@Enigma777 said:

I think it's time they move away from having four attacks per Pokemon, that's right folks. I'm talking about five!

Innovation.

Oh, just want to remind everyone that all these changes have to make sense for 8-year-olds. Because that's who these games are made for.

@TooWalrus: For the record, I thought Pokemon Colosseum was A-OK when I played it in the mid '00s. It's not ultra-high quality or anything, but as a restrained, focused pokemon game with more focus on narrative and junk I liked it a good deal.

On topic: They will never modernize pokemon because people like us who remember the first generation of games aren't the target audience. The intended audience for pokemon games are children who were born around the time that Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald came out, and people my age who play it because they're in college and have a bunch of friends to semi-ironically play with.

I think that if you're grinding you're doing it wrong. That eliminates the challenge from the gym battles, and Pokemons gameplay is at its best when you have to think tactically to win the battles. In fact I play with excessive use of repels. I do wish they would streamline the breeding process, maybe have multiple stalls you could put a set of Pokemon in, replace the text menu with a touch screen one, make it easier to breed for a specfic nature. The whole EV system could stand to be streamlined as well, maybe Pokerus should quadruple effort values instead of doubling them, this information should be explicitly surfaced in the game as well. Also I've always wanted a character creator, because their initial designs usually suck.

Man I haven't played a Pokemon game since Ruby. I've always thought the next step for Pokemon would be to go MMO. X/Y is probably the first Pokemon generation to get me excited in a long time.

@CrazyBagMan said:

@FlarePhoenix said:

@Sparkul said:

@FlarePhoenix said:

@Video_Game_King said:

@FlarePhoenix said:

Still, would it be so bad if the starter Pokemon weren't part of a weakness triangle.

Then how else would the game teach you about weaknesses? Think of it as a small introductory lesson to an important system.

It doesn't teach you about weaknesses anyway. Even though your rival picks the Pokemon that is strong against yours, you both only have normal attacks in the first battle. It isn't until the second battle with the rival when their starter has moves that are strong against your starter. By that point, you've probably picked up on the strengths/weaknesses mechanic from other battles.

The first gym in B/W changes depending on what your starter is. By the time you get there your main offensive moves are of your starter's type, so that's where weaknesses become really important. The first battles against the friend characters are just general battle tutorials.

Well yeah, and they could easily do something like that regardless of what types the three starter Pokemon are.

I feel like you're pushing for them to avoid this just to stand by your original statement. There's no real reason why they couldn't change the starters, but there's even moreso no real reason why they would or should.

You're trying to make it sound like I'm making a bigger deal out of this than I really am. If they don't change the starter types, it's really no skin off my nose, but I'm just saying there isn't a reason they couldn't. I mean it's not like it hasn't happened before: Pokemon Yellow gave you an electric type (Pikachu) and your rival a normal type (Eevee).

@Video_Game_King said:

@M_33:

A little Googling around has suggested that wouldn't work, at least not as well as the default. Flying/Fighting/Rock could work, though.

I'll take rock.

No, I'd have to agree that a new set of starters would be decent start in shaking things up. The past... how many games (?) have had a starter fire Pokémon which evolved the fighting second typing. One of my favorite games remains Yellow for letting you start with a Pikachu (which actually makes the early game more challenging due to it being severely weak to the early rock/ground types).

But obviously there's something about the formula I still enjoy. To be honest, Black and White 2 is the first Pokémon game I stopped playing for an extensive period of time (and never once thought to include it in a game of the year list for last year, come to think of it). I think that's been mostly due to the crazy number of distractions they added in the online connections, though. I still love actually playing it.

Why can't they give starters 3 evolutions instead of 2; and instead of a fixed evolution path offer branching evolution paths for the starters.
like:  
Snivy > Grass > Grass  
or   Svivy > Grass > Grass and Dragon 
or Snivy > Grass and Rock > Grass and Steel. 
 
I know 2 evolutions are a standard but  get creative like lets say the third evolution requires DNA from the Legendary pokemon (from boxart).

Remove randomly triggered encounters.

That's one thing that can afford to be modernized.

@Kenobi said:

My last post got slogged since the grammar was horrendous and I said game freaks are bad developers. The last post shows I can't brain good when I is just woken up.

My last post should have been, modernize pokemon.

There have to be ways of making this a modern game without messing with the mechanics. The games have been around since 1998 and it's barely change.

Is there really nothing pokemon fans don't want to change?

Like the grinding. How about being able to grind with online battles? More experience given by wild Pokemon battles, so I don't have to spend hours leveling. I know I'm on the outside of this now. But I would definitely play pokemon again if the grinding was seriously cut down.

I really hate when people say "modern" in relation to games.

What the heck is that supposed to mean?

Firstly, games don't evolve. They're trendy. Just life your pants don't "evolve". They drift in and out of fashion as any vintage clothing store will attest to. In the same way, game mechanics drift in and out of fashion. My brother and I wouldn't touch a non-two player game in the NES era. Then that fell out of fashion as the emphasis went to graphics, and consoles couldn't support two player. Then suddenly "co-op" was all the rage again in the Halo era. The same thing goes for Xcom and turn based strategy, which is all the rage right now.

So what trend should pokemon pick up on to sell more units? No idea.