after thinking a bit tho is it just me or does this seem to be a slight trend in modern gaming
of course, my reference pool is crazy limited because i'm the most casual of casuals, but i collect Kirby games and I noticed something similar happening there: 2011's Return to Dreamland introduced super-abilities (idr if that was the proper name for them), and then they weren't in the 2013 spiritual sequel Triple Deluxe in favor of Hypernova, and then that wasn't in 2016's spiritual sequel Planet Robobot in favor of the robot suits
and in ace attorney, the second game introduced series mainstay psyche-locks which continued to the third game (consistency there), then was (mostly - one great exception in the last case) shelved in favor of Apollo's Perceive mechanic (Apollo Justice - 2007), which lost the spotlight to Athena's Mood Matrix (Dual Destinies - 2013), which lost the spotlight to the Divination Seances (Spirit of Justice - 2016). Even in the spin-offs: in Investigations Edgeworth had his Logic power which was novel enough and all the character really needed, but then in Investigations 2 he gets Logic Chess as well.
so is it just me or do long-running game series in general seem to want to show you NEW AND INTERESTING THINGS moreso than developing older things in the modern day?
But there's a difference with those games and Pokemon discarding & replacing mechanic.
With the Kirby and Ace Attorney those all are gimmicks which roughly serve the same purpose but in different ways. While you may prefer one power/method over another, it's not like you're missing out on anything as the games were designed around those mechanics. The games are self contained and with little to no multiplayer, or at least the multiplayer doesn't use those mechanics which is the case for Kirby.
But Pokemon is different. For one thing the removed mechanics are not replaced by something which are equal to it. We have nothing that helps us search for nearby Pokemon like the PokeNav did. Nothing in Sun & Moon are replacing Pokemon Contests, or at least not as equally if you want to bring up the Battle Royal. While SOS Battles may have replaced Horde they completely tossed out Inverse (and Sky Battle to a lesser degree, though Inverse is especially missed) which really mixed things up by simply reversing the type chart. There's no Diving or Soaring which were fun ways to explore the Hoenn Region (just think about diving or soaring in Alola). Finally, though its not removed, Mega Evolution is almost being shunned (no new ones, Mega Stones missing, and those in the game having a high BP price) while Z-Moves are only a loose replacement being a super attack instead of a super form change. And that is a MAJOR difference, because Pokemon isn't self contained, there's an active competitive part of Pokemon and the shunning of Mega Evolution where before it was a big deal has caused a major shift in the meta (especially with those missing Mega Pokemon now that we can transfer our Gen VI Pokemon over).
I think the Elemental Monkeys are okay too, individually.
It's just that they were never seen individually. In BW, whenever you saw one of them, you could bet your house that the two others would follow suit. If one trainer in one area used one of them, the next one or two trainers you encountered would have the other two. They all appeared in the same areas in the wild. They were all in Small Court/Big Stadium. Morimoto had all three. I was almost surprised that neither of the Unova Champions used them too. Rather than being three different Pokémon, they were like three different Formes of one Pokémon. Their shtick was appearing together, and they did so without fail. Other than that, they were mediocre battlers and rather bland to face.
But they had another annoying aspect too: I don't remember Unova's random route trainers being that varied, especially in BW1. Apart from Team Plasma, trainers tended to use Pokémon found in the grass in the route, meaning that both wild battles and trainer battles pit you against the same Pokémon. The one exception on the trainer side was usually the Elemental Monkeys. They were the only Pokémon to break up the local monotone, the go-to alternative when the designers wanted to sprite up the battles. Local Pokémon or Elemental Monkeys, that's how the trainers rolled. And whenever you saw one, the two others would follow without fail. To be fair, you'd occasionally see Emolga too, that thing was also everywhere. But mostly, the Monkeys appeared as predictable breaks in the monotone of the routes, somehow being even more monotonous than the monotone they were breaking up.
True, the Elemental Monkeys do have an individual identity crisis. Like I remember when I found one in XY I instinctively looked for the other two without even checking a guide to know they were there. I also remember a few notable battles, especially rotational/triple, where all three were used. Heck, even in the anime this was the case with notable appearances by them, the Pan's via the Striaton Triplets and the Simi's in one of the battling tournaments by a random set of triplets (though Simisear oddly debutted on its own). This was sort of lampshaded by GF themselves in BW2 where the reason the Striaton triplets resigned as Gym Leaders is because they wanted to become stronger individually and as not as a group of triplets.
I would still like the idea that if they made any more Elemental Monkeys that they should be a set of three, though maybe do vary them up. Too late to make them the same Pokemon like Oricorio, but they could make any future ones (and even the existing ones) individual by having them appear separately in appropriate environments (or someplace where it would be convenient for a player to get one of that type).
I hate pikachu. I think he is annoying, totally not cute/cool/badass or anything positive you can find.
Wha... what? What did I do? Like, okay, I guess I can be opinionated at times and write lengthy posts...
I am not fan of the yellow color however I love electric-types, even the yellow ones (jolteon was practically my luckcharm in gen I). But I can't stand pikachu and his smiling face. His design doesn't make him stand out.
I wouldn't be so harsh toward his evolution Raichu but he looks more like a big yellow common rodent than a really cute/cool/badass pokemon.
The definition of cuteness would be more a pokemon like clefable or eevee but definitly not pikachu or even pichu.
OH, you mean the Pokemon. Phew!
Actually I know a lot of people who aren't fond of Pikachu (many of them like Raichu more which is probably why, though Raichu is now getting some love via Alolan Raichu. Still should have gotten a Mega).
Pikachu personally doesn't bother me, he's an okay mascot though I just wished that they wouldn't always use it as a jobber in the anime (or forget it has the Static Ability unless they decide to make it a plot point).
Though funny you mention Clefable being it was originally going to be the mascot of Pokemon was chosen before deciding Pikachu was a better option since yellow is a more neutral color and its design not leaning toward any gender.
There's that - they would have been way cooler and more creative as a single 'mon - but from a design perspective it's also annoying. The first gym in BW was the type advantageous against your starter - that's a cool idea and I like it. But then since there's only three Pokémon you can catch and two of those suck, when you're handed an Elemental Monkey it just makes the whole concept seem very pointless and autoplay. Use this monkey to win because there's little to no other way to. I get the idea is to teach type advantages and disadvantages but this is just so lazy.
I don't mind it, since there is another way to win: just use the other com mons to beat the monkey. May take more than one or two hits but Patrat, Lillipup, Purrloin, Munna, and Audino could take on their Elemental Monkey in a neutral bout. Personally, my problem stems with their being TWO tutorial Gyms, though Nacrene Gym's is "downplayed" (aside everyone and their mother telling you to go outer area of Pinwheel Forest to get a Fighting-type).
Still hoping they'll try letting us choose the order of Gyms like they did with the Elite Four, granted would probably involve a lot of planning in how would they let us explore the region without getting too overpowered & how would story progression work (I have some ideas but GF are the ones who need to think of them).
Tbh, I think the anime's contest festivals were really nice and miles better than gym battles. The May vs Drew battle at the Indigo Plateau is still one of my favourite battles ever.
I was devastated when they scrapped the whole concept in Best Wishes. Had they kept Contests it would've taken me at least more than the 1st episode to drop the series.
While I wouldn't say they were better than normal/Gym battles (it's all on how the writer wrote out the battles, many of my favorite battles were during the Sinnoh League), when done right the Pokemon Contests were tense. First they need to get through the Appeal round which let the animators use a Pokemon's move in unique ways and often was a nice visual display. Than came the battle round with the multiple win condition: knock out, draining opponent's points to zero, time running out and having the most points left. Unlike Gym Battles, theoretically you wouldn't quite know who won since all participants were competing for a Ribbon/the Ribbon Cup & Top Coordinator title thus everyone had a stake (unlike Gym Battles where the Gym Leader was just judging if the challenging trainer was strong enough to win/earn their badge, only the challenger had anything to lose or gain).
However that doesn't mean they didn't have problems. A lot of the time the point system was used more as an excuse to declare someone a winner for story convenience. There were moments where either time or someone's points should have ran out but the battle kept going just so the writers could skew the results in the trainer they wanted to win (usually May or Dawn). Also they would play loose and fast with how many points would be lost and for what reason, once again making it feel like like there were no rules and all of this was for naught as the writers were just going to choose the trainer they wanted to win anyway without making it feel rightfully earned sometimes.
