Topic: A Comprehensive Pokémon Thread

[/lurk]

Did you get yourself a Gastly?

[Inkling]

Oh, there's no way I'm going to go wander around in a cemetery I have no connection to.

I did catch a growlithe in my church's parking lot.

[PatMan33]

Oh, there's no way I'm going to go wander around in a cemetery I have no connection to.

I mean it's not a problem to just go to any old cemetery, there are no rules against that. It's not like some super walled off garden. It's just not a public park, either.

[Celdur]

http://nichegamer.com/2016/07/11/nintendo-stocks-increase-by-23-after-pokemon-gos-release/

[PatMan33]

State of the industry summed up.

>Nintendo releases top-tier games for years on consoles and enjoys steady stock decline.
>Nintendo makes a copycat piece of **** game for a cellhone and the stock sees huge gains.

Gamers deserve exactly what they get. Thank god most of my favorites are on older systems.

[Great Distance]

copycat piece of **** game

ur just jelly

No, I mean, this is a huge step forward for AR gaming. Besides, who hasn't ever dreamt of actual, real life Pokemon? This is as close as it gets! Outside of actual gene-manipulated critters, which would probably kill you if we are realistic.

This game has been downloaded by TONS of people, it is getting people outside and moving and meeting new people. Pokemon Go is fighting obesity and loneliness, both things that affect video gamers more often than other groups. How the hell is that a bad thing? This is precisely what the world has been needing ever since the invention of video gaming!

[PatMan33]

copycat piece of **** game

ur just jelly

No, just hyperbolic.

But it is Ingress with Pokemon painted on top and it is scraping the bottom in terms of gameplay. I phrased it this way to draw the contrast between the quality of Nintendo's regular offerings, which have been unceremoniously ignored or crapped on for years. I know Pokemon GO is a good, fun game.

But comments like: "Pokemon GO is the best Nintendo game in years!" being uttered with a straight face and completely serious.

Really? Come on. Really?

[Krakow Sam]

State of the industry summed up.

>Nintendo releases top-tier games for years on consoles and enjoys steady stock decline.
>Nintendo makes a copycat piece of **** game for a cellhone and the stock sees huge gains.

Gamers deserve exactly what they get. Thank god most of my favorites are on older systems.

Obviously you're the exception but the majority of people buying stocks in technology companies are not gamers. The people responsible for the rise in nintendo stock are not people who didn't buy gamecubes or didn't appreciate pikmin. They're businesspeople motivated by turning profit who have noticed a massive increase in the use of pokemon-related hashtags and search terms on social media and are gambling on the fact that nintendo will make a lot of money off the back of the phenomenon.

[PatMan33]

Obviously you're the exception but the majority of people buying stocks in technology companies are not gamers.

You should read the minutes from Nintendo's shareholder meetings. It's bad.

"I DON'T UNDERSTAND THE CONSTANT FOCUS ON VIDEO GAMES. WHY IS NINTENDO STILL MAKING VIDEO GAMES WHEN THERE ARE BETTER MARKETS OUT THERE TO BE IN??"

Once I become more financially stable I will become a shareholder in Nintendo. I'm exactly the type of person they need. And one of these years I'll go to that meeting in Kyoto.

[Krakow Sam]

Oh also, without having played it I will tell you that I personally suspect Go is the best pokemon game to come out in years.

Reason being, it provides something new besides a few extra gimmicks. I stopped buying and playing pokemon games after black and white because I was just sick to death of these repetitive, iterative sequels and remakes. Anything that injects new life into the franchise is positive.

Also, remember all the other stuff nintendo made that people said was just a cheap gimmick. The DS, the Wii. Honestly a lot of the critics were right and most of the uses for the touch screen or motion controls were perfunctory, but both of those systems were a big success for nintendo.

[Inkling]

Go doesn't really feel like a pokemon game, though.  It feels like a game by someone else with a nice coat of pokemon paint on top.  Which isn't to say it's bad, just that it isn't pokemon.

I looked into Ingress a bit a while back and it did seem interesting, but I never tried it.  I guess a lesson here is that even if your game has solid mechanics or innovative ideas, you have to have a hook to get people into it.

And even though Ingress and other games have done pretty much everything Go does, it's still been a fairly untapped niche.  Kinda like how there were plenty of knock-down-the-castle games before Angry Birds came along.

[PatMan33]

Best? Nah.

Different? Yes.

Pokemon definitely needed to change things up. I mean this became abundantly clear to me after I played Pokemon Red, waited 13 years, then played Platinum and they were the same game. And as a phone game GO is definitely neat. Again, I am a big fan of Ingress and what it does. It's pretty cool and like fighting dragons in the back yard when you were a kid. But as a game it offers a very narrow slice of gameplay options.

It's just different. I wouldn't even try to compare the two, necessarily. Sort of like comparing a Mario World game to a Paper Mario game. Yeah, they have a lot of that same stuff going on, but they're different.

I'll give you the point about the Wii's motion controls not being used well. The DS example is flat out wrong though. That system leveraged the touch screen, the microphone, the dual-screen, and even the clamshell design (in a couple instances) to accomplish things that cannot be done on other systems. Moreover, the 3DS line has a whole subset of games unique to that system thanks to Street Pass.

I think Street Pass is one of Nintendo's best ideas in a decade. It's so freaking cool and allows for tons of neat kinds of games.


**EDIT**
Ink, on Ingress...

GO is literally Ingress. We had GO and Ingress up at the same time last night on two phones and all the hotspots and everything were identical. I mean, same company made them both so it makes sense.

[Great Distance]

Warning - while you were typing 5 new replies have been posted. You may wish to review your post.

Eh, I'll read your replies after I've posted.

I don't think you can really compare the gameplay, because the premise is completely different. Getting your ass outdoors to see new places and people IS the gameplay.

Sure it isn't the best game ever in the traditional sense. Sure it was copied straight over the premise of Ingress. Who the hell has played Ingress anyway? So many people are familiar with the Pokemon franchise, so people choose Pokemon over Ingress because of familiarity and nostalgia. And it is FREE to download on your PHONE which you probably already own, and that is why it is such a huge hit. Not a lot of people want to buy a Nintendo 3DS just so they can play one Pokemon game on it.

Okay, so maybe Nintendo makes a lot of great games, and Pokemon isn't the only game you should play on the DS. You know what? I don't give a ****! Pokemon is what I grew up with. There is something about collecting and training these critters that no other game can do for me. And the exploration was also always a big part of the experience, now it's just happening outdoors, which is even better to be honest. I love the outdoors.

And really, the latest actual main series Pokemon game I played just didn't do it for me (Black and White). Some of the new Pokemon designs are really awful, which really takes away from the joy of exploration. The world design largely made no sense. The story just kept getting in the way. I just speeded through the whole game like it was some kind of a chore to get over with. Probably large part of it has to do with me now being a grownup with adult responsibilities without time to enjoy gaming, which coincidentally also makes a game like Pokemon Go much more suitable for me. Gets you out in the real world? Check! Has real life benefits to playing? Check! Does not require a huge commitment? Check!

Now I haven't played the latest main series game, but some of the things they are doing like mega evolutions sound completely over the top and stupid. This is starting to feel less like Pokemon and more like a Generic Japanese Game with Mechas and talking trash bags and ****. In my opinion, Pokemon Go is completely the right direction to go with this franchise. Now if they could make the game function even better, that would be awesome! As for the main series, I'm starting to think it has lived past its time. They're going to run out of new dumb gimmicks that pop up every generation eventually, and there are only so many trash designs and variations of the same old damn storyline you can make.

Pokemon Go is a step in a completely different direction than the main games. In my opinion it is right in leaving those dumb gimmicks behind, and doing something actually innovative.

[PatMan33]

Probably should have read the replies. :3

Glad we all (mostly) agree.

[emmet]

Pat you need to stop obsessing over whether people are liking the right things.

This is now our second thread about how people don't enjoy things the same as you and how that's bad.