[X] My Assistant

[ShrapnelStars]

Generation 5 is slowly but surely passing behind us, and I figured now would be as good a time as any to begin talking about what went well, what didn't, and what should be improved, cut, or expanded upon from Generation 5 into Generation 6, as well as brand new things that you might want to see in the next generation, from Pokemon to moves to mechanics and even plot.

Remake of 3rd Gen or not, it's time is still drawing nigh, especially given the quick turnaround between BW and B2W2.

I loved Gen 5 and all the revamps it added. While I know the decision was unpopular with some, I loved the fact that, for the first game at least, the Pokedex contained only new pokemon. That's something that I'd like to see again because, for me, it made the world feel completely exotic and new. Also, I love discovering new pokemon, so having a Dex be 50% filler means that there's less for me to look forward to.

PokeStar Studios was an adorable and extremely addicting battle puzzle sidequest that I would love to see come back, either integrated into the plot or as just the movie studio again. The few movies that relied on random crits were frustrating, though, so I'd rather not have a repeat of those. The battle backgrounds introduced in the movies were amazing, and some even changed mid-battle (The flying/broken furniture in the house, the breaking twisted prison cell, the sky opening up to space with shooting stars and spinning black holes, etc.). I'd like to see those for some of the regular battles, which I personally feel they'll do anyway.

I liked the first game's HM usage: saving HM's for spots with rare Pokemon and items instead of blocking the critical path. A compromise would be allowing them to block the critical path in some places, but having permanent removal of the blockage once taken care of, like the new Strength blocks.

Even better, replace HM's with Licenses, and here's what I mean by that: obtaining X badge, or X number of badges grants you a License to have your Pokemon do certain overworld tasks. All you have to do is have a Pokemon that could potentially do such a task in your party, thus removing the need to eat up a move slot for overworld actions. Here's an example: You're a newish trainer with a happy little Scrafty. You and Scrafty think you're perfectly capable of drop-kicking 10 ton boulders out of the way to move on in your quest, but hey! It's against the law to randomly kick massive boulders out of the way! You could hurt yourself, your Pokemon, or someone else casually strolling by! If you've gotten X badge, that's proof that Gym Leader Bob has shown you two how to properly move boulders without injuring yourself or others. Well, now you know, and you've grown as a trainer and can share that knowledge with your other Pokemon, and your official License from Gym Leader Bob to move boulders is proof of that! Another variation is that Pokemon at either level X+ or with and attack stat of X+ can move boulders with ease.

For pokemon, I'd like to see some more of the undone type combinations. There are some interesting possibilities waiting around to be made. (Bug/Dark, Grass/Electric, Fighting/Dragon, etc.) I can't wait to see some new abilities, as well. I really liked the experimentation with evolution methods from Gen. 4, even though most of them were spent on all those super-evolutions of old Pokemon. I'd like to see some new methods, provided they don't make players pull their hair out to execute. I'm imagining something like defeating a certain number of a certain type/species of Pokemon or something like that. (Or is that too stupid? >.<)

For animal designs, I'd like a revisit to the Owl, Kangaroo, and Octopus, as well as a Killer Whale and an Alpaca. Those are some of my favorite animals. I'd love a Cuttlefish, too, but that can be merged with the Octopus, honestly.

For moves, I'd like to see a few more physical Electric moves, a few more offensive Grass moves of both classes, more special Dark moves, and a physical Psychic move with 100 accuracy, to be honest. Zen Headbutt's nice, but I'd like another widely distributed option that possibly has another bonus effect. I'm not a competitive player by any stretch of the imagination, but I normally play with Special Pokemon. Gen 5 added some Physical ones that I really like using, so I decided to play around with some other Physicals, and that's one spot that I felt needed a little bit of love, especially since I love Metagross so much (always have) and have lost a few rounds at the Battle Subway because Zen Headbutt had either missed, or he was too slow to make the foe flinch. I use Hammer Arm on him, too, so the flinch bonus is pretty much useless.

I love the depth that's been added to the Rivals and villains. I loved Cheren and Bianca, and while I didn't like N in the first game, I was surprised when I warmed up to him very quickly in the second because of all of his character development. I loved Hugh's story, too, and his variation on the standard Rival template. I'm really glad the Rivals have become more sympathetic and lovable in the past few Gens. I know it probably sounds silly, but I'm always worried that they'll lapse back to the douchebag rivals from Gens 1 and 2, or the effectively nonexistent rivals of Gen 3. That, coupled with the fact that recurring NPC's outside of the villains weren't that common, made the worlds feel lonlier. The Curtis/Yancy sidequest in B2W2 really warmed my heart, and I hope the writing in Gen 6 keeps on that path.

Overall, I feel like I've only had a taste of the tip of the iceberg, and I'm really excited for more along the lines of what's been offered recently. What are your thoughts? What new ideas do you have? What do you want to see more of or less of? What do you want buffed or reduced?

[Nasra]

A strong physical fire-type move would be nice. Pretty sure the only thing currently is Fire Punch/Flame Charge.

[Yamper]

A strong physical fire-type move would be nice. Pretty sure the only thing currently is Fire Punch/Flame Charge.

Flare Blitz.

Ehhhh we need Kangaroo Pokémon. Maybe a Koala Bear
It's been a couple years already, huh? Damn... that went fast. I wonder when they'll release sneak peaks etc. I wouldn't mind some new typings too..

Grass / Dragon, Fire / Poison etc. Also, I want the Fire starter to not be part fighting :|

[ShrapnelStars]

Grass / Dragon, Fire / Poison etc. Also, I want the Fire starter to not be part fighting :|

Seriously. I know they want to do that whole Journey to the West theme, but I wish they'd stop eating up starter slots with it.

Fire Koala starter, maybe? :D

I hope they kill the recoil on Wild Charge, too. 90 power isn't strong enough to warrant it, IMO.

EDIT: A guy on Youtube that I watch pokemon LP's of, Slowflake, had a pretty interesting theory that Gen 6 rumblings should be starting in 2013, and that Genesect was released as early as he was so that he wouldn't get drowned out when the the Gen 6 leaks started.

This post has been edited by Indoor Survival: Nov 7 2012, 07:09 PM

[Tytannial]

I agree with Samoo for the Grass/Dragon and Fire/Poison types. Especially Grass/Dragon. Electric/Dark would be a nice combination too.

Oh, and more variation on the starter types would be nice, too. A 4th Fire/Fighting starter in a row? No, sorry.

Oh, and seriously Game Freak, can you just give Flare Blitz to Flareon already? He has no attack he can use its 130 base Attack stat for, except for Fire Fang. Espeon got Magic Bounce, but Flareon got nothing, and it's there since 1st Gen. It's annoying. :/

The License idea for HMs is great! I'm not a fan of HM Slaves, and I don't like giving my team a sub-par move just to travel (Defog, Flash, I'm looking at you. :/ ) At least Surf and Waterfall are decent.

A Dark-type Gym, maybe? It's the only type we never saw with a Gym Leader.

[Snom]

I want the Pokewalker back =[

[Yamper]

I forgot to mention this. I really want the Poké Radar to return ormaybebeingabletovisitallregionsingeneration6maybe?

[SilverLugia456]

I agree with sam it would be nice to visit other regions in future games, I mean they did it for Johto to Kanto but that was it, after that they just stuck with the respected regions for each generation.

As for me also maybe some new type combinations it would be interesting to also see some new moves.

And also after reading some interviews the creators of the game also say that the pokemon games are losing some of their light heartiness that they use to have back when the very first games came out like yellow, Blue and Red. So I hope in the future they don't lose enough where the games go in a completely different direction.

[colourcodedchaos]

I'd very much like to see some more interesting dual-types. Oh, and an elaboration on the Elgyem story. There are other worlds with Pokémon on them and that sounds like one HELL of an endgame. Think about it - there already are legendaries with the ability to manipulate spacetime, so opening a portal to another world with its own collections of Pokémon would be awesome beyond belief.

[Letan]

Most of the improvements I want are pretty much game mechanic-related things, but the biggest one on my list is improved and more purposeful online connectivity.

Gen IV established this really well with the GTS and being able to battle and trade people as long as you both exchanged friend codes. Platinum also added minigames, which were cool the first few times, but seemed redundant after a while. Gen V disappointed me with this because there really wasn't that much of a significant improvement to online capabilities. Random online battles are cool I guess, and there's the GTS Negotiations that I've never even tried, but that's pretty much it. Not to mention that Gen V added the C-Gear, which at this point seemed more like a slap to the face than anything due to being limited to local wifi. That works in parts of Japan and other places with high population densities, but you frequently can't find anyone in other places.

The Dream World kind of added another way of connecting to people online, but the majority of it is done through a website and even then, it took them a year to make an easy way of adding your actual friends to your Dream Pals list. Connectivity between friends is limited to just watering berries and exchanging items, that's it.

In no way do I want the entire game to suddenly become a handheld MMO, but Gen IV showed how great online connectivity is to the franchise. There just needs to be more connectivity between players over the internet. Being able to see statistics of friends on the main menu would be neat, just like how Borderlands 2 shows you the current level and quest of your friends. Imagine something like that but with showing their party, playtime, number of badges, pokedex completion, etc. Something else would be great is an exchange system between friends that doesn't require a lobby system like it currently has. Say you want to trade a friend a Pokemon, or maybe an item, but you don't know if they're even online or not. You just open up whatever interface there is for trading and send them a request. The next time they play their game, or if they're currently playing and connected online, they'll receive a notification saying that you'd like to trade, battle, swap items, whatever. They're then taken to an interface where they see what you'd like to trade and you can place your offer. This would just go back and forth with offer confirmation and the trade being done almost like how the GTS handles it, where you can walk away from your game, turn it on again, and suddenly have an incoming Pokemon. As for handling battles that way, I have no idea.

Secret Bases are something that I wished would make a return, and they'd be great with online. Maybe if they were structured in a system like the Sinnoh Underground that replaces what the Dream World website currently does, where you can obtain items and catch Pokemon. You could see your other friends that are currently online, maybe even see people online within your geographical region. It wouldn't be a pure MMO since it'd be split off from the main game and its respective region, it'd just be a hub that compliments the main game.

Now, I'm doubting all of this would happen and it's a huge problem with Nintendo not keeping up with industry standards. Nintendo itself hasn't done a great job of implementing online into games until recently, and only with a handful of games. Monster Hunter Tri on the Wii is probably the best online system on a Nintendo console, but the problem is that MHTri is just one game. Look at how every other current generation console handles their multiplayer and it just looks embarrassing. A good 60-70% of games on other consoles have some element of online play, and aren't restricted to a cumbersome Friend Code system. Nintendo's restriction of online connectivity through exchanged Friend Codes is what's hurting online play for games on their platforms, and all it really does is just add a layer of annoyance more than anything. Look up any game on a current gen Nintendo system that has online play, and most likely there'll be one or several online communities dedicated to exchanging Friend Codes for that game. The people on those sites are still total strangers, and you're still connecting with them, so why slap on this redundant need for exchanging Friend Codes?

At least the WiiU is seeming like it's less restrictive about connecting strangers together online. Not to mention that the WiiU port of MH3U is going to bring back Tri's great online, and there's also that new Dragon Quest that's basically an MMO. Hopefully this is a sign of good things to come for online play.

The tl;dr version of this is that Game Freak should add more online connectivity between friends, as well as strangers, and Nintendo really needs to step their game up with online connectivity and just kill off the Friend Code system altogether. I dunno how feasible any of this is on the 3DS, considering that the localizations of MH3U for the 3DS are all still limited to just local online play. I doubt we'd see a Nintendo handheld with frequent online connectivity until the next generation, which makes any of this happening in 6th gen seem unlikely.