I hate the fact the "timetravel" exploit exists and became well known on Sword&Shield.
I actually enjoyed raids, even with randoms, even just for the sake of killing time. But at this point, it's become almost impossible to ever join one, or host a raid that isn't for a gigamax. Nearly every raid that shows up in the Y-comm is actually fake as it gets deleted right away since it's someone using timetravel to softreset.
And now I'm hearing that people found a way to spoof Shiny Pokemon, many Raid Battles are now Shiny which means my Shiny Gigantamax Grimmsnarl might not be as special as I thought it might have been. :(
Then 5 came, and he notoriously drops in IQ, starting the "Pikachu reset" meme, and despite being constantly chastised by Iris, he just....takes it?
6 suddenly he's a good trainer, but then he has no personality other than :D or slight annoyance. Basically a generic Shounen main protag
7 and I'm assuming 8 are the same
I feel like the shift in both attracting newcomers to the series and attracting the pro players caused the writers to no longer care about the character. Just the battling ability, and how to poke fun at it or not
Basically I want the anime to no longer have Ash, unless he's written properly again. Which isn't likely
First off want to say I agree with most of your points (Ash seemed to be at his peak in Gen 4 but then Gen 5 reset a lot of things for him). Just wanted to mention a few things:
1. Ash didn't "just take" Iris's remarks, the two argued A LOT. Almost every time Iris called Ash a "little kid" was a cue for Ash and Iris to butt head for a few seconds. Not sure if they were trying to recreate the Ash & Misty dynamic but it obviously didn't work cause Misty was an experience trainer and her criticisms were trying to help Ash and Ash was just a stubborn kid. However Iris really never did that, she just called Ash a "little kid" strictly to insult him and maybe trying to build herself up. Meanwhile, Ash is the experience trainer and has acted more maturely in previous gens so his sudden attitude reversion is noticeable. Not that Ash didn't get into fights with May or Dawn, but most of those fights were just personality clashes if I recall and not one trying to outdo the other which Iris is attempting. Overall with Gen 5 I don't think the writers knew what to do cause they were different games then what we've had up till then being more plot focused and taking place in a region based outside of Japan.
2. Ugh, Gen 6 Ash however felt a complete reverse in the other direction. And not for a good reason, the reason Ash was made very passive was because they wanted him to look good in front of Serena. So this time around the whole group never argued and you could just feel how they took the life out of the group dynamic and singled them into their role instead of having some additional dimensions. Like I think the only time the group had a major argument was when Squishy (the Zygarde Core that was travelling with them for a while) went missing and Bonnie wanted to go looking for it in the middle of the night but Clemont refused as it was too dangerous, Bonnie eventually breaking down and agreeing. That whole moment stood out to me because it actually had strong emotions as it was two characters we knew having a moment where their personalities conflicted and show they had depth to them. Another standout was the "mirror world" episode where, when travelling through the Reflection Cave, Ash was taken into a mirror world where he & companions had the opposite personalities and the mirror group felt more interesting as Mirror!Serena was shrewd, acting a bit like Iris thinking about it. Which, here is an unpopular opinion: I like Iris more than Serena. Sure, Iris is a brat, but she had personality. Also, since Iris and Ash have seen the best and worst side of each other, I think that had made them better friends. Serena however has only ever seen the best side of Ash, she's never seen his moments at his dumbest or immature so how would she respond to that?
3. Because of that I then think Gen 7 Ash is maybe a better step in the right direction. He's essentially been reset again like he was in Gen 5 though you do get a feeling he kept some of his maturity this time around. He's a bit passive but he's also passionate.
4. For Gen 8 we'll have to see what they do as they have an entirely new setup with Ash & Go on a world adventure instead of exploring all of one region.
I've played every Pokémon main series game, and I can safely say that Sword and Shield are the worst of the bunch. What's more, they even killed my expectations for the next games. The transition to console was always the shining beacon of hopes and high expectations. Now we're there, and it sucked big time. There's no other beacon on the horizon as far as I can tell.
I agree with everything you said, though there's something here I just want to comment on.
1. Personally I still think USUM is the worst games. SwSh may be undercooked, but as annoying as that is there's still a chance GF can turn things around. However USUM took a perfectly good story and butchered it while then trying to cram additionally story elements they had no room to fit and all this probably took away from them making new locations or additional story content that would flesh things out. Yes, it's tiring that GF are still having the first two games of a generation being bare bones with us only hoping they add things onto it with a third version/second paired games. However that still means GF has a chance to turn around with SwSh but for USUM it's too late.
2. Not sure if it happened on this thread but on other threads there have been arguments about GF should stop doing yearly releases. Now a lot said it's not GF's thought as Nintendo needes games for their consoles and the Pokemon Company was pushing them for the anime and merch... but now that we're a good way into Gen 8 I've come to realize something: GF is no longer under any obligation to do yearly releases. The last few years have been yearly releases because there was a batch of things that happened all at once: first was Pokemon's 20th Anniversary, then was the failure of the Wii U, and so then the Switch was being heavily pushed. For the 20th Anniversary they rushed production of Sun & Moon, then due to poor Wii U sales/pushing the Switch probably had Nintendo demanding GF to make a game for the Switch asap. That probably made them have to develop USUM and Let's Go at the same time, USUM meant to celebrate Pokemon's last time on a Nintendo Console (this the Rainbow Rocket episode has us battling all the old villain team leaders) while Let's Go temporarily satisfying Nintendo's demand. However Nintendo still wanted the main series shift over to the Switch so they rushed SwSh. But now that we have Sword & Shield on the Switch and the Switch is itself successful, there's no pressure anymore from Nintendo or any anniversary that's giving GF a deadline. As for the Pokemon Company, the anime has gone a different direction by having a world tour angle meaning they don't need to be matching up to the games. And the merchandise excuse I had a hard time buying as there's plenty of things Pokemon Company can do with merchandise that they don't need a new batch of Pokemon every few years.
Long story made short: there's no reason GF now can't go back to their old schedule or releasing a new main series game 3-4 years like they used to, giving players time to settle with the new games while giving them time to flesh out the next games. If this year GF announces the next Pokemon main series games I would be really worried. GF can now and should take this year & much of the next to work on the next game, especially if its the Sinnoh remakes as they'd have to remake that region in 3D.
Who am i kidding we're all sheeps and are buying them anyway, me included.
Mareep or Wooloo?
This doesn’t quite have to do with an unpopular opinion, but more of an uncommon prediction- I don’t think we will be getting improved versions of or sequels to Sword and Shield. Between the repeated lackluster sales performance of enhanced versions and giving eternatus way more attention than the third legendary usually gets in the initial games of a generation, the signs to me seem to point to a remake of some sort and then simply moving to the next generation.
At this point maybe GF should consider just doing outright expansion packs. Would save them time and money and let them work on other projects be it the next Pokemon game or a side project one of their employees have thought up. It's been working for World of Warcraft for years and Final Fantasy 14 has seen massive success from it, heck Kingdom Hearts 3 is getting a large expansion pack which include new story elements and super bosses. Dragon Quest, Japan's favorite JRPG franchise, now has a definitive edition for its latest entry, DQ11.
What we know is that Home will allow you to transfer Pokemon from old games into SwSh, what we don't know (but most do assume since it's logical judging by the changed descriptions for most non-functional moves) is that these Pokemon will not have their movesets altered when being transferred in. As such, the current state of "unbloated" learnsets is only until Home releases, and that's exactly the same situation we had prior to Bank's release in Gen 6 and the update for Gen 7 compatibility, not something to credit Dexit with.
Considering the "removed" moves are technically in the game but they just don't have any traits to them aside giving out the message "this move can't be used", I don't think HOME will remove the moves. It might ask if it can, but I would be surprised if it removed the moves without asking for your permission.
I actually think the core gameplay loop has completely stagnated.
It's difficulty for me to engage with the games anymore since no real changes have been made to the combat since the Physical/Special split in Gen IV. Constant 1v1 fights with limited movesets do not make for riveting experiences outside the context of PVP, where you are against an actual person instead of simplistic and predictable AI that cannot strategize and is so easy to exploit it's not even funny.
I would like to see two ways the battle system be improved:
1. Let us use more moves. A strict 4 moveset has got to go. It's archaic and it just means many moves go unused even though they're not bad just not as good as another. Now I'm not suggesting they just let you have the Pokemon use every move it can learn, but rather put in new mechanics that opens up options. Like maybe have a way for a moveslot to hold multiple moves that either build up upon each other (like Ember > Flamethrower > Heat Wave > Fire Blast) or store moves that are similar to one another (like the Slash variants or Weather changing moves). For about a year or two now I've been listening to Dungeon & Dragon sessions and I think they could take the idea of a "single-use" slot like spellcasters have: each Pokemon have these 5 additional single-use slots they can store any move they can learn on. That way the main moveslots can be used for moves you intend on using multiple times while the single-use slots for moves you only plan on using once or twice but don't want to dedicate an entire normal moveslot for.
2. Instead of holding one item, let a Pokemon hold onto multiple items. Not a lot, maybe like 3 or 4 and at the start of each turn you have the choice to choose which item would be "active". Pokemon has so many situational held items that they don't get used cause Life Orb, Choice Items, Assault Vest, Weakness Policy, handful of Berries, etc. are just better to use under most circumstances. But if they can hold more than one item, maybe someone would put a Big Root on their Grass-type and switch over to it on the turn they decide to use Giga Drain, or give a Pokemon a Wide Lens because they may decide for a turn they want an inaccurate move to hit rather then extra power, etc.. Would even be useful in-game as you can now have your Pokemon holding the Amulet Coin/Lucky Egg/Soothe Bell/etc. yet still have a handy item to use. Some more Berries may even start getting used.
Heck, fun fact? When it came to his league rematch, for some reason I thought that was going to be Doubles too and I was prepping and strategising SUPER hard for his team... and then it was singles and it was more or less a breeze.
That's because he was more focused on changing the weather than actually battling.
Though since I have been talking about Doubles generally involving more strategy, one more possibility I'd like to throw out there: instead of a more traditional system, asking you if you like Singles or Doubles more could be a good idea to implement different difficulty levels into Pokémon. Since Doubles are currently mostly presented as a big competitive strategic thing, you could easily make it so that Single battles could be given to "those who are new to Pokémon", and Double battles could be given to "experienced trainers looking for a challenge", rather than just making route trainers' Pokémon a couple levels higher or lower.
That's what I think they should do, or rather instead of making it a permanent choice have it be an option you can change anytime in the options menu (I personally think they could even go further, like also have an Inverse Mode that makes all battles Inverse Battles).