This reeks of "back in my day..."
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Pokemon's #1 problem is its utterly insipid writing
- Thread starter Huge Succeeded
- Start date
This reeks of "back in my day..."
I think it means something around the lines of "There are a lot of AAA games whose gameplay makes me think less than a Pokemon game" but the discussion here is for the writing of its story, not gameplay, so I'm not sure why he said that.
It also has a double meaning of "look how edgy I can be" I think.
You don't even have a Playstation do you?'
This post is so fucking stupid that's the only plausible explanation I can think of.
PreyingShark
Member
I consider Gen 1 to be the easiest Pokémon games by a significant margin so I have no idea what's going on anymore.
DarkConfidant
Member
Post-Pixar, this argument doesn't hold.
Also, Nintendo knows that plenty of adults, if not especially young adults who grew up in the 90's, but Pokemon as well.
Regardless, the thread author has already countered this point in the OP.
Theognosis
Member
Pokemon is one of the few series that has remained true to its roots. Its focus has always been on gameplay and adding fillers such as cut scenes and unnecessary text/dialogue will only ruin its appeal.
Maybe but he's not wrong it's a terrible excuse, Inside Out is aimed at kids and it was one of the, if not the best written movies last year.
It didn't ruin it with black/white. RBY had pretty great writing imo...
I don't understand how improving story is equivalent to adding filler
If anything XY is a departure from tradition because the story was a cookie cutter mess. I honestly half expected Z version just because it seemed like they left XY wide open to be made into ... anything at all
Theognosis
Member
If people are looking for literary masterpieces, they shouldn't be playing Pokemon. Or any other video game for that matter.
Huge Succeeded
Banned
You're not wrong. I fucked up bigtime prematurely posting this thread. I had intended it to be longer and I intended to bring more/better examples. (replaying ORAS right now and the strangeness of the writing stuck out enough times that I figured it'd be simple.) I would probably have toned down the tone of the post too by the time I was done, lol.
Ludicrous handwaving from this one. You wanna talk about pretentious crap?
Exterminieren
Banned
Depends which Gen I games you're talking about. Yellow adds a truly horrendous difficulty spike halfway through the journey.
bizzarewars
Banned
After playing Yellow pretty recently, it seems like the games have definitely talked down to the player more as the series progresses. It seems to me like X and Y and ORAS were the worst offenders in this department. Although the writing in Pokemon games is probably the last thing I care about in the games, I definitely agree that more work should be put into giving the player a little more credit.
You're probably taking what they're saying too literally. I don't think they're gonna be able to provide examples of the game being like "I'll go nice and slow, so even you can understand."
Saucycarpdog
Member
I wish the games had the Pokemon cartoon shows 2 dimensional characters. Would be an improvement over the 1 dimensional characters in the games.
WrenchNinja
Member
when pokemon tries to be deep it just feels weird
Xion_Stellar
People should stop referencing data that makes me feel uncomfortable because games get ported to platforms I don't like
I will still like Pokémon regardless of what I'm about to say but it does feel like Generations VI made the issues of the Pokémon game more apparent to me and as a result all of Generation VI felt shallow to me.
I would like to be proven wrong in the future regarding Pokémon but it's impossible for me to relate Nintendo with anything near being competent in writing a good story that doesn't fallback on subversive themes, genre troupes, or their very own franchise clichés.
Sure The Legend of Zelda has made great strides in the writing department and they did attempt to take a more serious approach to their writing in Metroid:Other M (even if that blew up in their face) but the type of games Nintendo makes don't require much of a story to be fun (or any story at all) so as a result in my opinion Nintendo doesn't have enough practice to write a good story outside their standard Nintendo affair.
Yes Pokémon has written problems but it's more apparent now to me than ever before because Game Freak is slowly adding more and more story to their games and it's hard to digest the story because it's all so shallow to me and their are not the only issues the franchise has in my opinion.
Sure let's waste nearly an hour to explain game mechanics through scripted events and character interactions again,sure teach me how to catch a Pokémon for the umpteenth time,sure give me another crew of single sided character that I'm supposed to care about and compete against.
Trainig Pokémon is too much to ask of you? Have an Experience Share that gives you all the glory without putting the effort,Legendary Pokémon are too hard to catch? Here we will give you one! (Latios/Latias in ORAS), let's not forget to hold your hand and tell you where to go or what to do through meaningless character interactions or story events at every turn because god forbid we would have you figure that out on your own.
Is this what Nintendo thinks kids are today? A bunch of dead brain,short attention span,lazy gamers that don't want to play games that require more effort than tapping away at a touchscreen? Because that's the feeling I got from the Generation VI games and as someone who has recently went back to play Pokémon Fire Red outside of reteaching me how to catch a Pokémon I didn't run into any of the problems mentioned above.
So yes Pokémon has problems in my opinion and writing is one of them.
I would like to be proven wrong in the future regarding Pokémon but it's impossible for me to relate Nintendo with anything near being competent in writing a good story that doesn't fallback on subversive themes, genre troupes, or their very own franchise clichés.
Sure The Legend of Zelda has made great strides in the writing department and they did attempt to take a more serious approach to their writing in Metroid:Other M (even if that blew up in their face) but the type of games Nintendo makes don't require much of a story to be fun (or any story at all) so as a result in my opinion Nintendo doesn't have enough practice to write a good story outside their standard Nintendo affair.
Yes Pokémon has written problems but it's more apparent now to me than ever before because Game Freak is slowly adding more and more story to their games and it's hard to digest the story because it's all so shallow to me and their are not the only issues the franchise has in my opinion.
Sure let's waste nearly an hour to explain game mechanics through scripted events and character interactions again,sure teach me how to catch a Pokémon for the umpteenth time,sure give me another crew of single sided character that I'm supposed to care about and compete against.
Trainig Pokémon is too much to ask of you? Have an Experience Share that gives you all the glory without putting the effort,Legendary Pokémon are too hard to catch? Here we will give you one! (Latios/Latias in ORAS), let's not forget to hold your hand and tell you where to go or what to do through meaningless character interactions or story events at every turn because god forbid we would have you figure that out on your own.
Is this what Nintendo thinks kids are today? A bunch of dead brain,short attention span,lazy gamers that don't want to play games that require more effort than tapping away at a touchscreen? Because that's the feeling I got from the Generation VI games and as someone who has recently went back to play Pokémon Fire Red outside of reteaching me how to catch a Pokémon I didn't run into any of the problems mentioned above.
So yes Pokémon has problems in my opinion and writing is one of them.
Riposte
Member
I think "good/bad writing" is one of the more vague, if not meaningless, statements people make about games.
Have the games really not gotten better after XY? I checked out at that point.
Neoleo2143
Member
Well it depends. Personally, I rather enjoyed ORAS, others did not. Sun and Moon is shaping up nicely from what I can see and is building off XY so I expect less of the issues of having to make and animate hundreds of model in the development cycle.
and what this has to do with Uncharted and TLOU? they are new IPs and having story is part of their roots
This is actually a callback to the (admittedly unusual) dichotomy between "Truth" and "Ideals" Gen 5 presented. I found it neat that Zinnia, a trainer linked to dragons, referenced it in Episode Delta. Especially considering ORAS is some ten years before BW. Those little interconnections are one of my favourite things about Pokémon stories. Game Freak has managed to created a live universe all these years. Even if not all stories end up great, every game has something to offer lore-wise.
AnkiRendan
Member
Pretty neat throwback. I skipped ORAS but I'm happy to see this.
I remember the Sinnoh library having some nicely written works of lore, creeped me out a bit too.
Ideally, the primary narrative would have simple, accessible dialogue, maybe even get more complex over time since both the player and the in-game avatar are 'growing',and the secondary lore you find in books or other quests or NPC's would be more complex and evocative, to encourage exploration and cater to older players who explore more.
This might already be the case, but I tend to skip most of the text in the main narrative anyway. Replay time!
Ideally, the primary narrative would have simple, accessible dialogue, maybe even get more complex over time since both the player and the in-game avatar are 'growing',and the secondary lore you find in books or other quests or NPC's would be more complex and evocative, to encourage exploration and cater to older players who explore more.
This might already be the case, but I tend to skip most of the text in the main narrative anyway. Replay time!
Huge Succeeded
Banned
Yeah... I bought a New Nintendo 3DS for those games. I have them all. And I made it through about 10 missions in Birthright before checking out completely. I heard Conquest is even worse where the writing is concerned, and I believe it. At least Awakening's story felt competent enough throughout, even if the story told therein felt just like a retread of Shining Force and a billion other dark dragon RPGs.
Could not agree more OP. Putting aside how "it's just a kid's game" is a poor excuse when you have titles like Child of Light (i.e. one's imagination to escape the responsibility one has in the real world and loss of innocence that comes with adulthood) and the Professor Layton games (I hope I shouldn't have to explain why) that manage to tell great stories while appealing to a younger audience, Game Freak has no excuse to tell the same story in each new installment with increasingly bad writing, let alone saying that things need to be kept simple as if kids are brain-dead and the media they consume is disposable or should be held to a lower standard. Ex: While I do admire Black & White for trying to tell a more compelling story, it only served to demonstrate how inept Game Freak are at writing anything more than a half-baked Dreamworks film and butchering an interesting premise i.e. the potential abuse of these incredibly helpful and powerful creatures.
Fates is an exception, not the rule...though Conquest is pretty stupid in terms of its story.
???
[Citation needed]
Fates is an exception, not the rule...though Conquest is pretty stupid in terms of its story.
???
[Citation needed]
The writing is more functional. I've never felt like it was talking down to me and I've played every one of them since Blue version. The writing is still largely on par to the original games. All you have to do is go back and play the the originals and see how sparse and simple the story is and compare it to the newer versions and you'll find the same qualities.
Simple story =/= stupid.
^^^ The games aren't meant to target the older children. It's aimed at the very youngest children first and foremost. Basic reading abilities are needed is said on every box because it's meant for a very young audience. These younger kids won't understand the stuff in Child of Light because they're watching Sesame Street.
Simple story =/= stupid.
^^^ The games aren't meant to target the older children. It's aimed at the very youngest children first and foremost. Basic reading abilities are needed is said on every box because it's meant for a very young audience. These younger kids won't understand the stuff in Child of Light because they're watching Sesame Street.
NHarmonic.
Member
So we should treat children like stupid beings?
I agree with OP. And for the people arguing "lol it's pokemon, only gameplay is what we need" then you should go and play showdown. Only battles
It's not that difficult to have a better story, B/W really delivered with the themes it brought to the table.
Hahaha
So true. The writing in Fates is really disappointing. I was hyped beyond belief for those games, I mean I literally spammed all over twitter how excited I was. And I have yet to complete one of the paths.
There's just so much wrong with it, it's not even funny. It's even quite sad considering they hired an writer for the story.
So we should treat children like stupid beings?
I agree with OP. And for the people arguing "lol it's pokemon, only gameplay is what we need" then you should go and play showdown. Only battles
It's not that difficult to have a better story, B/W really delivered with the themes it brought to the table.
As much as I liked B/W's story it got so in the way of everything and prevented me from doing what I was wanting to on my time most of the time. Forced fights before like every gym, forcing you into things and It didn't know when to stop. We could bring up Gold and Silver and how much better it handled a story without getting in the way most of the time. It doesn't need to be as bloated as B/W did it.
I wouldn't necessarily say that the writing is bad, although it certainly is simple due to being a game mainly aimed at young children, but I do think that what makes it seem that way is all of the front loading of text in the beggining of the game.
There are so many explanations about every thing you have to do before you are finally left to your own devices and it's presented in such a boring and slow way that it does start to feel a little condescending. An option to skip or make the beginning a bit faster would be appreciated.
The only other thing I see is that the NPC'S do sometimes seem like they say random things but I find it charming sometimes. I don't expect them to start dumping a bunch lore or telling me their life story but there are some in the more recent games that do start some sort of side quest like in X/Y where there is a lonely old man in Anistar city who ask you to lend him a pokemon that can keep him company since his wife just passed away. If you come back and check on him every once in a while you can see how he's doing which ultimately culminates to you stopping by one day and finding only your pokemon in its pokeball and a note thanking you for providing him a friend to keep him company in his final moments.
I think if more NPC'S had short little "quest lines" like that it might help in making the game feel a little less artificial. Still though I think for the most part the writing is fine, if a little too simple, and hopefully they do more things like this.
There are so many explanations about every thing you have to do before you are finally left to your own devices and it's presented in such a boring and slow way that it does start to feel a little condescending. An option to skip or make the beginning a bit faster would be appreciated.
The only other thing I see is that the NPC'S do sometimes seem like they say random things but I find it charming sometimes. I don't expect them to start dumping a bunch lore or telling me their life story but there are some in the more recent games that do start some sort of side quest like in X/Y where there is a lonely old man in Anistar city who ask you to lend him a pokemon that can keep him company since his wife just passed away. If you come back and check on him every once in a while you can see how he's doing which ultimately culminates to you stopping by one day and finding only your pokemon in its pokeball and a note thanking you for providing him a friend to keep him company in his final moments.
I think if more NPC'S had short little "quest lines" like that it might help in making the game feel a little less artificial. Still though I think for the most part the writing is fine, if a little too simple, and hopefully they do more things like this.
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This. Today's Politically Correct world thanks to the rise of the Internet has watered down rated All content.
SaintMadeOfPlaster
Member
Bad writing or not, is anyone buying Pokemon games for the story/writing?
I don't think you get it, OP. Are you self-conscious because a game aimed at children is making you feel like a child?
I don't think you get it, OP. Are you self-conscious because a game aimed at children is making you feel like a child?
OP, I completely agree with you but at the same time you have to accept pokemon isn't for you anymore like I did.
I started getting burnt out with the series starting with black and white, I beat the elite 4 in BW2 and then never touched the game again. I barely did 1/4 of XY, and I didn't even buy ORAS. Sun and Moon are doing nothing for me either.
Like that comic above, every game acts like you've never played pokemon before. Like you don't know what it is. Its so by the numbers, that I actually have no reason to be playing them.
I don't care about beating the elite 4 again, stopping a criminal orginization, having a father who is never around, etc. I don't care about catching all 700+ pokemon. I just don't care.
And nintendo doesn't care about me. They have millions of people who still buy these games, and they will not change anything unless they see sales go down.
I started getting burnt out with the series starting with black and white, I beat the elite 4 in BW2 and then never touched the game again. I barely did 1/4 of XY, and I didn't even buy ORAS. Sun and Moon are doing nothing for me either.
Like that comic above, every game acts like you've never played pokemon before. Like you don't know what it is. Its so by the numbers, that I actually have no reason to be playing them.
I don't care about beating the elite 4 again, stopping a criminal orginization, having a father who is never around, etc. I don't care about catching all 700+ pokemon. I just don't care.
And nintendo doesn't care about me. They have millions of people who still buy these games, and they will not change anything unless they see sales go down.
That reads like mediocre fansubs.
I agree with you on the NP and quest line stuff.
For the tutorial, I feel all they need is a different approach and implementation that doesn't interrupt your traveling. Like the moment you decide to leave town or when you get to the next town it tells you how to catch Pokemon. That's slow and takes away control just when you finally got control. The better way to handle it is to put the Prof. into a scenario where you meet up with him/her. One scenario done in older Pokemon games would be the Prof. got caught by a wild Pokemon and chased around, for example. But say it's not just any wild Pokemon, but the starter he was searching for to catch for the new trainers. In this scene he could send out a Pokemon and weaken it, then catch it (as opposed to just tossing a Pokeball and catching immediately). You're taken back to the lab where the Pokemon heals up and they briefly talk about how crazy that little event was and telling you how he caught it before you choose your first Pokemon. Of course this is one scenario, I'm sure more can be thought up.
That imo would be simpler and would be seamless with the cutscene happening without taking away your control later. It would also make sense for the Prof. to tell you this stuff sense they are the ones handing these Pokemon out to brand new trainers who know little about catching and raising Pokemon.
But if they do choose to maintain the way they handle tutorials in the first and second town then there should be an option to speed it up or even skip.
IDK really, I finished X and I'm in the middle of OR right now.
The story in OR seems inoffensive enough, I think there's even less tension than in X even.
Then again I bought X to explore the environment more than following a story or something.
It's non threatening and not very involved.
I discovered battling though...I could give less of a shit if the story was less than a footnote.
I finally get the whole feedback loop of breeding/raising/fighting.
I could start again and try to enjoy the story but I'd lose pretty much all the collectibles I can't transfer so meh.
And I liked the customization.
If they bring that back and don't fuck up the battle system I'm in.
The story in OR seems inoffensive enough, I think there's even less tension than in X even.
Then again I bought X to explore the environment more than following a story or something.
It's non threatening and not very involved.
I discovered battling though...I could give less of a shit if the story was less than a footnote.
I finally get the whole feedback loop of breeding/raising/fighting.
I could start again and try to enjoy the story but I'd lose pretty much all the collectibles I can't transfer so meh.
And I liked the customization.
If they bring that back and don't fuck up the battle system I'm in.
The Silver
Member
If they're gonna put a bigger emphasis on the story like they have since R/S/E then yes they should put forth the effort to make it good. Otherwise just keep it low key like the 1st two gens, there pretty much was no story besides randomly running in to Team Rocket cause they keep obstrucing your path.
What the hell?
orthodoxy1095
Banned
Yeah that would definitely help the game flow way better. I'm sure GameFreak knows by now that the Pokemon games also have a large audience of older teens and adults so hopefully they can implement something like this for future games. Maybe we'll be surprised by Sun/Moon? One can hope.
orthodoxy1095
Banned
Not once, they still are.
Look at the plethora of decent or great stories in TV, movies and even other games.
I don't, and that's at least partially because the writing is garbage. If Pokemon suddenly came up with an acclaimed story and started making waves, maybe I would dive back in.
But why are people arguing that you can't like something and want some aspects of it to improve? Those are hardly mutually exclusive.
I feel like it's kind of unfair to expect something really THAT impressive from Pokemon of all games.
I mean granted it's never the focus but seriously most RPGs have shite writing anyway.
It certainly could be better and I feel like the fault lies more with the localization team (or at least they're not helping).
It certainly shouldn't try to pull "serious business" stuffs when the second later you're actually in battle with your team mate being something like Greninja or Rowlet.
I mean the whiplash would be so severe you probably wouldn't be able to walk afterwards.
Better writing while not losing the fact that it's children story with animals with silly names can be done but it's hard so I'd say take any step in the right direction.
their focus is on something else anyway, it's cool to expect more but as long as they don't lose focus it's good imo.
To be fair, I'm still playing through all three FE paths for the sublime as fuck gameplay, but the story is bullshit across all regions.
Awakening had issues but it was solid IMO. At least the inclusion of party member kids made sense as far as the overarching story was concerned but Fates/if is just so bad.
Brawly Likes to Brawl
Member
They were making some interesting strides with BW1, but then they backpeddled on all of it right afterwards.