Tokyo Dracula actually takes place in the future, all of the games that have come out since are technically prequels; they haven't gotten to Tokyo Dracula in the main series yet.
I feel like the removal of features that were exclusive to Day or Night-time in the games was a move aimed to accommodate more people's schedules so I'm not sure if that would make a return. I would appreciate it though, I really liked that stuff.
I think a compromise could be that the game has its own time cycle like open-world games instead of basing it on real time. I agree with the point that having it based on real time meant I never got a chance to catch morning Pokemon. Having its own time means that while you might miss it, you don't have to wait until the next real-time day for another chance. It was a neat concept but not very well executed. Having skipped all the generations after Ruby until X/Y it was very refreshing coming back to the series seeing all the improvements (for example, gaining exp even when catching Pokemon, not sure if that was a thing before X/Y).
With 3DS Red supporting Pokemon Bank, I think I'm more tempted to get Sun when it comes out and transfer all my Pokemon over, although it depends on whether or not they have evolved the formula further from X/Y or would it be the same game just more Pokemon and new locales. If it's the latter, I'll stick with the ones I have already.
Also, ORAS is actually incredibly unfriendly in regards to accommodating people's schedules. Certain legendaries were only available for one hour a day, and if you adjusted your system clock, all of those legendaries would be unavailable for a full 24 hours after the adjustment. This wound up being frustrating for multiple reasons, not just the complete disregard of a person's life, as if you are having especially bad luck getting one of the legendaries to stay in an Ultra Ball, you might not even manage to catch it within the hour. Then you're forced to wait a full day before getting a chance at it again. and you can forget trying to catch them in ordinary Poke Balls (which some people do for aesthetic reasons.)
That said, I do have a fondness for the Day/Night cycle as it appeared in Gold and Silver, maybe more out of nostalgia than anything else. I remember going out at night and catching a Spinarak and being so excited that I caught something I couldn't catch during the day. If the available times for catching Pokemon are wide enough I wouldn't have an issue with it. Maybe within the four distinct times the game recognizes (morning/day/evening/night) each Pokemon could be available for two or them instead of one, with a couple of exceptions for Pokemon they want to keep especially rare. Also, they could keep some form of the DexNav around so that if you've already encountered a specific Pokemon you can use the DexNav to find it regardless of what time it is.
I'm pretty excited about a new gen, though the absence of Pokemon Z makes me really hope you're right about the game including Kalos in it. I kind of wanted to explore that region further than X and Y allowed.
As someone who enjoys Magic but can't stand Hearthstone for various reasons, this seems totally reasonable.
It is a little lame that they blindsided so many people; if they were going to rip off.. er, I mean, "build on" ideas from all aspects of MTG including the multi-format structure, they maybe should have either done it from the start or at least let people know that would be a thing. I'm maybe being rude about the way the game plays by calling it a rip-off, but really, all of the things the game does right are things that MTG has been doing for a long time, this change is just one of many that follow that example.
I mean, I understand why they'd follow in MTG's footsteps. It's an extremely successful game that has been alive and flourishing for some 20ish years. But MTG has also been doing this "standard rotation" thing for a long ass time, as a means to fix exactly the same problems Hearthstone is trying to fix. Maybe it isn't that much of a stretch to be a little bummed that this structure wasn't implemented when the first expansions came out.
I mean, MTG has its rocky moments in history, too. I'm sure the initially release of the Standard format in MTG was met with angry outcry. That said, it works, and Blizzard knows it works, and they don't exactly have any shame when it comes to stealing... er "building on" ideas from MTG. Blindsiding their fans and player base was totally avoidable.
All of this said, my criticisms of this move are incredibly biased; I have a seething dislike for Hearthstone and I don't actually have a legitimate reason to be frustrated by it; disliking the gameplay alone shouldn't warrant the emotion that wells up when I am presented with the game in discussion. So apologies for being a total dickweed.
@bisonhero: Don't even get me started on Sticker Star. Between those two games (Dream Team and Sticker Star, and oddly this is a mash-up of both universes) I was kind of feeling like the dream is dead in regards to Mario-based RPGs. And I'm still hesitant about picking this one up because of that.
I want them to make another game in the vein of Thousand Year Door. Would buying this be a vote with my dollar towards more Paper Mario stuff in general, and this be a good thing to do? Or would buying this be a vote with my dollar to keep shoehorning Paper Mario into games that are decidedly not where I want him?
I'll guess that's not that much of a deciding factor for me in my purchasing decision, but I really want an new, rad Paper Mario game.
Oh man, you and I have wildly differing tastes as far as these games are concerned. Not that that's unacceptable or anything! But Xillia is near the bottom for me (only edged out of being my least favorite by Phantasia) Symphonia is handily number one and Abyss lands somewhere in the upper middle of my list, as I actually found a number of things about that game to be quite endearing; though most of the good things about it don't really kick in until about 1/4 or 1/3 of the way through the game, which is not something I expect most people to get through. But Abyss does have some legitimately good character moments and the protagonist has an actual character arc, where in most of the Tales games they kind of stay exactly the same. I also never played Xillia 2 and instead have Legendia somewhere on my list.
Maybe I'll make my own list, though I'll wait a few weeks so as to not steal your thunder. It'll probably have a pretty different tone, as I have a legitimate fondness for these games that goes beyond just being comfort food, but hey, everybody's different!
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