Reasons to Stay Optimistic About Pokémon

[Samtendo09]

I don't think people complaining about Dexit really care about using their favorites in the main game. its more of a post-game / second-playthrough thing.

When XY and SM came out, using Pokemon outside the ones available in the main game was basically impossible since bank transfer wasn't initially available. As such, they had to make use of new Pokemon native to the games they were playing. Bank transfer / trading is nice when doing a second playthough since you can use cool mons that you don't usually have access too in main game, For my second playthough of ORAS, I used a shiny Honedge and Rotom that I got from a giveaway here on Smogon and it was a blast. In HGSS, I would often trade / hack Pokemon like Elekid, Rhyhorn, and Magby in the game so I could se them for the entire playthrough and that was also fun.

That being said, with Sword and Shield released, using any Pokemon you want is extremely easy due to the way the wild area & raids works As such, external stuff like a second console or breeding to get a specific mon in a different game and transfering it to Bank / Home isn't really required.

For post-game though, not getting to use some of my favorites from past-games, like Eelektross, Crabobinable, and Gliscor is a huge bummer. Some days, I wanna mess around with them in the league / battle tower, but I can't and it sucks. Same applies to some of my favorite Mega Evolutions like Mega Scizor. Another gripe I have is that Pokemon like Scizor and Zeraora still need to be transferred from another game in order to have access to their best moves like Toxic, Knock Off, and Roost & aren't able to remember these moves if you forget them. Same principle applies to BDSP, where Zapdos is kinda garbage since it doesn't have Hurricane (except in the Battle Tower since those guys are cheaters).

Now I started to see why that is such a big deal for several people, but the transfer through HOME in general, not just the Dexit problems, clearly isn’t all that streamlined and caused way more problems than Bank did. If Dexit is going to stay, then of course the gameplay, story, and other thigns like the post-game needs to improve fast, as well as making sure many Pokémon doesn’t misses their best moves and forces transfer to make their full potentials.

 

[PokePoindexter]

Ugh... Dexit... the textbook definition of something where the thing itself annoys me but the people complaining about it annoy me even more. I get a lot of the reasons why they complain and agree with many of said reasons (e.g. HOME being overpriced), but it's the frankly self-entitled veneer behind the ones I disagree with that gets under my skin big time, especially when it overshadows the far more comprehensible reasons one could have for liking or disliking a given game.

I mean, if it's that big of a deal breaker for you if your favorite mon isn't in SwSh, then one could just as easily use that same logic to justify hating games that came out prior to the ones it was introduced in as well. Think about this: my favorite Pokemon is from Gen 5. I would love to be able to take a Volcarona with me to catch Mewtwo in the Cerulean Cave, defeat Red atop Mt. Silver, witness Rayquaza calm Groudon and Kyogre, or tear through the Battle Arcade. And yet... I can't. So should I hate gens 1-4 as a result? According to this sort of logic, I should. Hell, I'd also love to be able to use some of my other more recent favorites such as Alolan Ninetales and Dragapult in the PWT, but I can't, so are B2W2 terrible games because of that? Again, if I were to apply this logic, they are.

Honestly, it's probably the right call for Game Freak to just move on from SwSh without adding the rest of the Dex. A lot of players already have, and aside from Max Raid or Ranked Battles, it's admittedly pretty hard to find a reason not to (I went back once this past month just to get the Shiny Galarian Articuno). PLA already has new content and Gen 9 is already looking better than 8 (and I'm saying that as someone who personally enjoyed SwSh a lot more than many others out there did), so you may as well just focus on those games rather than try to hook SwSh up to a proverbial life support system with mons people will have less than 9 months to obtain and use before they're rendered obsolete.

 

[Ironmage]

I mean, if it's that big of a deal breaker for you if your favorite mon isn't in SwSh, then one could just as easily use that same logic to justify hating games that came out prior to the ones it was introduced in as well. Think about this: my favorite Pokemon is from Gen 5. I would love to be able to take a Volcarona with me to catch Mewtwo in the Cerulean Cave, defeat Red atop Mt. Silver, witness Rayquaza calm Groudon and Kyogre, or tear through the Battle Arcade. And yet... I can't. So should I hate gens 1-4 as a result? According to this sort of logic, I should. Hell, I'd also love to be able to use some of my other more recent favorites such as Alolan Ninetales and Dragapult in the PWT, but I can't, so are B2W2 terrible games because of that? Again, if I were to apply this logic, they are.

How much you're willing to excuse for weaker hardware is going to vary, but...yes?

I'm usually playing older games at this point because I already have them, and thus it doesn't cost me any money. I'm not considering them to be worth an $80 Canadian asking price either (which, if I understand correctly, the older cartirdges have reached and in some cases surpassed). When I'm playing Emerald and partaking in a good enough postgame to mitigate the small amount of mons, the first thing on my mind is usually "man, I wish I could use some stuff from later games (power-up punch in the Arena is a standout)." So despite them having significant features that the newer games don't, lack of mon selection is also the largest drawback older games have. If yesterday had instead announced a port of B2W2 with compatibility for gen 6+ mons, I would have been more excited for that than any other mainline game in the past five years, because it would remove the main reason why I haven't yet gone fully for the PWT. ICLA should totally get on that.

 

[Suspicious Derivative]

I mean, if it's that big of a deal breaker for you if your favorite mon isn't in SwSh, then one could just as easily use that same logic to justify hating games that came out prior to the ones it was introduced in as well. Think about this: my favorite Pokemon is from Gen 5. I would love to be able to take a Volcarona with me to catch Mewtwo in the Cerulean Cave, defeat Red atop Mt. Silver, witness Rayquaza calm Groudon and Kyogre, or tear through the Battle Arcade. And yet... I can't. So should I hate gens 1-4 as a result? According to this sort of logic, I should. Hell, I'd also love to be able to use some of my other more recent favorites such as Alolan Ninetales and Dragapult in the PWT, but I can't, so are B2W2 terrible games because of that? Again, if I were to apply this logic, they are.

I don’t agree with your logic here, because (for me at least) this is not really the case. Using your example with Volcarona, I am fine with it (or any other Pokemon from Gen 5-8) not being usable in Gen 1-4 simply because they didn’t exist back when these games were created. I have no issue with being unable to use Volcarona in Gen 1-4 because I never could in the past and I will never be able to use it in those generations in the future. We have never been able to transfer new Pokémon back to the past, only forward to the next generations. Sure, there are times I wish I could use Pokémon/moves/items/Abilities from the newer generations in the older generations, but I have just accepted that I can’t, and that’s okay. If I am playing Gen 4, then I am restricted to everything that existed in Gen 4, and that’s fine. If I want to use newer things, I can just play the newer generations. So, I don’t hate the older generations for not having things that were introduced in the newer generations.

One problem with dexit and Gen 8 is that some of our favorites are locked out even if others from the same generation are not. I can use Volcarona in S/S just fine (but only after the Isle of Armor), but I can’t use Serperior because it is dexited, even if it technically should be possible for the developers to add it to the games since over 100 other Gen 5 Pokémon are in the games. That is one of the issues for me (and many others). When we play a new generation but are unable to use certain things (Pokémon in this case) that we could use in the previous generation.

Sorry if this came off as unclear, not sure how to explain it better. But this is how I feel regarding the example you posted.

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Since I haven’t posted in this thread before, I might as well add something to the subject at hand.

While I think the games have been on a decline in recent years, I still like them. But my interest in Pokémon isn't as high anymore, which is also a contributing factor. There has been 7 main series games for the Switch, but I have only played two of them: Sword and Legends: Arceus. While they both have some flaws, they are still fun and enjoyable to play.

I still have reasons to look forward to new games as well. The biggest one for me is new Pokémon. I always like seeing new Pokémon and it is the number one reason I am always looking forward to new generations or new games within a generation which feature new Pokémon unless they are released just 10 months after the previous main series game. New games/generations also tend to add some new gameplay features which I appreciate. Notable ones from the newest generations are Mints and Hyper Training.

One thing I really liked about S/S was how they had DLC instead of a third/alternate version, thus building upon the base game instead of releasing a new game which is 80-90% the same. And as other people have pointed out, if you don’t like the newer games, you can always go back to the older games and play them instead. I have been replaying Black during the past few months, and it has been a blast. I am planning to continue with Black 2 sometime soon. I also have a project in the works which involves many games from Gen 3-7. So, despite the series going slowly downhill, I am still mostly optimistic about Pokémon.