Quote: DarkCynder_543Quote: DeathOfADreamPokémon Sun and Moon (and USUM) aren’t that bad. In fact, I love Moon and I love UM so far. The way some folks talk about them, you’d think they were the biggest scourge on the Pokémon franchise. I dunno how unpopular of an opinion this is but I’ve seen a lot of people whine about these games when they’re far from being the worst Pokémon games. Out of the ones I’ve played, I’d argue that XY was worse, and I don’t see it getting any worse than XY.
cut
When I found out that S/M actually gets a lot of hate I was very surprised. It's honestly one of my favourites. I liked how it changed a lot of things rather than having the usual. I do get the hate for the Ultras though. Unfortunately unless the pokemon games follow the exact same formula as first gen, the general fanbase won't have anything to do with them. Its why X/Y is so popular. I will forever be salty about this.
I'm also surprised about the Lilly hate too. I prefer Gladion myself, but Lillie was a very well done character. Heck I love the family in general and they are my favourite pokemon characters.
Since you said about it being surprising on why SM get hate thought I'd list some of my thoughts. It's not too much to do with following the same formula as gen 1 as there is just issues with the games. You're still free to disagree, just wanted to share an opinion from the other side to provide a different perspective. I also find it interesting you say about X/Y being popular, when I mostly see it get **** on and referred to as one of the weakest entries. At least on dS anyway.
-Festival Plaza is rather a massive step backwards from Gen 6's PSS. Being able to wander around the story while having online open and available to trade freely was nice. It made it so you weren't just stuck standing in one spot twiddling your thumbs if waiting for a friend to come online or just wanted to be available for random people to trade/battle you. Now, you have to be in the Plaza to be online and there doesn't seem to be a hell of a lot to do to make it worth being locked there. Hell, just scrolling around to find a friend when they come online to arrange a trade/battle seems so much harder than before.
-The amount of Gen 1 pandering sucked, notably with Alola Forms. Just 1 Alola form Pokemon from another gen would've been nice rather than them all being Kanto.
-How rare so many of the new Pokemon seemed to be. Why is it that so many of the new Pokemon to Gen 7 seemed to be the ones locked behind a rarity of 10% or lower? Having entire evolutionary lines locked behind SOS battles was just icing on that rotten cake to make things an extra pain in the ass for those wanting to complete the dex. Seriously, you should not be able to go the entire game without even seeing as many Pokemon as is possible to in SM.
-The story doesn't really feel that strong, frankly. Mostly this is the fault of many major characters having a plot hole or general writing flaw about them that seems like the story just wasn't proofread.
- Lillie's entire character development happens in dialogue only. Her actions never change resulting in her being a bit of a hypocrite. She tells you she hates battles and seeing Pokemon hurt, but then makes "this one exception" every time you or Hau are involved in a battle and never shows any real disdain for what she's seeing or that the battles are going on. When you meet her & Nebby, she promptly tells you that he's this BIG secret, then next day is parading him around main street on Melemele with nearly every other major character, trial captain, and kahuna knowing she has him, and those who don't getting introduced because story.
- Gladion rebels against his mother by working for his mother... He rejects her and tries to go stronger to stop her and the Ultra Beasts by working for Team Skull, who effectively seem to be the laughing stock thugs of the island who are actually working for Lusamine. Gladion is even the one who tells you that Lusamine's partnered up with Guzma, so there's no excuse for him not knowing.
- Speaking of Guzma, his whole thing is that he seems to want to be recognized and respected for his strength; to establish a name for himself. Yet, he ends up as Lusamine's minion. Sure, this is supposed to be because she claimed she saw his skill and respected him so he went with the only person who respected him, but it still makes little sense for him to want to be anyone's subordinate when he's wanting to be the big man on top leaving his name in the history books.
- Kukui is probably the worst professor in Pokemon, in that he just ****s off on most of his duties to stalk some kids around for the most part. Sure, he establishes the League in Alola, then self-proclaims himself as champion until you come along, even though he has no real qualification for such other than being the region's professor. Though that doesn't necessarily make him a good trainer... Almost makes you question how much you really earned the title after him.
- Hau in general seems more interested in eating than being a trainer and is probably a worse trainer than Ash as a result. Doesn't help that's he competing with Gladion for the rival role and as a result ends up strung along for the island challenge to be the occasional battle when Gladion just isn't available even though he doesn't entirely seem to care about it at times.
- Lusamine I can't really remember any major problems right now other than the fact we don't see her real personality. She spends the entire game brainwashed then gets whisked away while unconscious once saved. Not too much of a problem though compared to the others here.
-Megas getting almost completely abandoned in favor of Z-Crystals despite being treated like some major mechanic in Gen 6 then being part of the basis for the whole divergence in the timelines/dimensions is just weird and kinda crappy. It makes Z-Crystals feels even more gimmicky than they are by setting up the notion they'll be abandoned come Gen 8. It was extra ****ty in that at least half of the Mega stones were locked behind serial code events which have all ended by this point making them limited availability.
-The large amount of hand-holding in the game made it feel even easier than past games to the point of no real challenge. Even ignoring the fact that the game now tells you what moves are effective or not, it's pretty bad in the story. The entire first island acts as a massive tutorial which gets to be a drag to trudge through after a while. Walking down main street with Lillie and having to enter every shop and hear about it is just downright painful. Having literal roadblocks thrown about with a guy there to tell you "no, go back and do this first" is poor design. The game should have a figurative roadblock that lets the player wander off in the right direction and explore the answer, like any good RPG does. Not tell you to turn around to specifically do something before you can proceed. Many of these roadblocks are placed after you should logically have done what you need to anyway making them unnecessary and the cutscene of opening them just an annoyance.
-The lack of a national dex is still just baffling.
-RotomDex is the most annoying thing and actually made me hate a Ghost Pokemon. Having a more interactive Dex that can talk with you is something. Having it double as your map when it never shuts up is just frustrating. I swear, every time I wanted to look at the map, he had something to say, and there is no way to get him to speed up his dialogue like everything else. Pressing A won't skip ahead, opening the menu just makes him restart his current speech. Seriously, he gets real annoying fast.
-Really a matter of opinion on this one, but Ultra Beasts just complicated everything in a way that just wasn't for the better, imo.