Pokemon is ULTRA overrated

[SuperEliteGamer]

Why would i choose it over other RPGs,that are more serious,have better stories,and gameplay?
The series doesn't have much appeal beyond it's fanbase.
It's very repettitive,very kiddy,never evolves as much as lots of ppl would like.
Everytime it's the same,you're a guy/girl going after an evil organisation,getting badges,and catching Pokemon.
How original!!
X & Y are already overrated by fanboys and others.
I don't see the appeal,unless you're obsessed with monsters and raising them,then i don't see the appeal outside of it's fanbase.
Last game i bought was Emerald.After that,it got too repetitive for me.

[The Adventurer]

As a competitive game it has amazing levels of complexities and depth.

As a single player experience you are probably right. But the majority of Pokefans aren't playing the game for its single player story.

So in that respect the franchise isn't overrated, because at this point it's very refined in doing what it does.

[bb_hood]

Why would i choose it over other RPGs,that are more serious,have better stories,and gameplay?
The series doesn't have much appeal beyond it's fanbase.
It's very repettitive,very kiddy,never evolves as much as lots of ppl would like.

They are games where the target audience are little kids. What would you expect?

[CDiablo]

As a casual Pokemon gamer, I actually didnt play my first pokemon until I was 28ish. I find that the game has an unreal amount of depth and can be quite challenging. I can only assume the competitive scene is super deep with people having all kinds of party builds. I skipped the last 2 versions and will be picking up the most recent version once I buy a 3DS. I do not know of any other game like it with a community as large as it is. I think a lot of people pick up the game and skip a game or 2 and come back to it because its a great game. Now I am no SuperEliteGamer but in your opinion what game offers an alike but better experience? I would give it a try. I dont RPG that often due to time restrictions, but I am interested to see another game where your party can be made up of 3 out of 500+ characters.

[Alpha2099]

Having only played the first two generations, I can't say much about the current line of Pokemon games. The old ones were fun when I was a kid, and even now I can go back and play those and have a lot of fun. But I don't have much interest in the newer ones. That's not to say they're overrated, just that I've outgrown it.

I did have a little spat with a friend the other day regarding Pokemon X and Y. He was enamored by the ability that you can physically call someone through your 3DS and talk to them while you're playing the game, with the caveat that you have to be standing still to talk. I really could not share in his enthusiasm, because if I wanted to talk to someone while playing Pokemon, I'd pick up my real phone and call them! I wouldn't use a 3DS to do it. So, in a general sense, I find that specific feature to be needless and overrated. But the franchise as a whole? Not overrated.

[CDiablo]

I did have a little spat with a friend the other day regarding Pokemon X and Y. He was enamored by the ability that you can physically call someone through your 3DS and talk to them while you're playing the game, with the caveat that you have to be standing still to talk. I really could not share in his enthusiasm, because if I wanted to talk to someone while playing Pokemon, I'd pick up my real phone and call them! I wouldn't use a 3DS to do it. So, in a general sense, I find that specific feature to be needless and overrated. But the franchise as a whole? Not overrated.

Seems like a cool feature. People that do not know eachother (especially in Japan) can hook up through local connections(streetpass?), wifi or messageboards in their games and dont have to give out their phone numbers. Seems cool enough, not to mention children that have friends at school can talk to their friends(while at home) without having to mess about with a phone.

[SuperEliteGamer]

They are games where the target audience are little kids. What would you expect?

True,but my point still stands.
Oh,and,i used to be a kid once upon a time,then i grew up.
There are lots of adult fans you know,and many of them keep buying the games in the hope they see changes,evolutions.
@That guy who said that about making a team of a few membersout of hundreds,that's true,but so what?
My own points still stand.

[bb_hood]

Oh,and,i used to be a kid once upon a time,then i grew up.

Still, other children DO exist and these are generally kids games. Maybe your expectations are a little high? I dont think you are gonna get any super-deep intense storyline or plot. Its pokemon, the game is mostly catching and fighting pokemon.

[JSoup]

A lot of people genuinely enjoy games that they find fun. Fancy that!

[SuperEliteGamer]

Still, other children DO exist and these are generally kids games. Maybe your expectations are a little high? I dont think you are gonna get any super-deep intense storyline or plot. Its pokemon, the game is mostly catching and fighting pokemon.

Yeah,sadly.Nintendo never does that.

[kupomogli]

I agree they're overrated.

When a journalist plays a game, they're usually judging the single and multiplayer experience, not just the single player, not just the multiplayer. I'm going to give the series another chance so I'll get it either one once I find them on sale for $20. The real push towards it is the graphics overall and I also like the idea of getting the new starters as a choice plus one of the original starters later in the game.

So anyways. A common complaint with every single Pokemon released the easy difficulty, the story itself which is generally bad and/or boring. Yeah, the replay value of the series is extended by leveling up your Pokemon to max level with EV and IV which has been removed from X/Y for a different gameplay upgrade mechanic, but that doesn't change that the single player campaign is poorly developed. Not talking about X and Y as I haven't played, but past Pokemon, when you're immediately overpowered shortly after you start the game, that takes a lot of the fun away and what's the point in putting more time into it. You walk in front of another random trainer to be like, great, another waste of time because I'm going to one shot this water Pokemon with my fire ability even though it's strong against it.

I played Blue a lot, got several 100 level Pokemon and played pvp with friends from school before using the Missingno glitch. It was fun, but played a friends copy of Gold and never picked it up. Sometime later I purchased Diamond to give the series another chance and struggled to get to the end game, but the game was so boring that I quit in the town immediately after getting the seventh badge. Gave up and really no longer cared about the possible pvp offerings. The pvp being the only reason I pushed to get as far as I was, because I wanted to quit a lot earlier.

So when journalists review the Pokemon games. I think the scores they give it is pretty bs because the overall games aren't very good at all.

While I'm at it, I want to also mention Ni No Kuni. This isn't a Pokemon title, but it's Level 5's version of Pokemon with the console version exclusive to the PS3. This game also scored pretty high. The idea behind it is good and outside of combat it's great, but the combat in this game, the main aspect of an RPG is pretty poor.

If anything, Pokemon and Ni No Kuni were already going to receive the scores they did because the hype behind them. The same with goes for other games that received high scores because they've had a massive amount of hype behind them but also had major problems with their gameplay. I like Shin Megami Tensei 4, but it had a lot of issues. Took around 10 hours to actually start the game, broken stat system, an already easy game that made it way too easy to make an unstoppable party. Persona 4 whether it's for PS2 or Vita is highly overrated. The gameplay is good, but 20% of the game you actually have gameplay outside of your social link gameplay, so 80% of the game is either story or going back and forth between the same areas, less than 15 screens, repeatedly to increase your social link. This is a game that received a 93 average on Metacritic.

There's no sense in listening to review scores. Watch or read reviews, read up on the gameplay, and watch videos then make up your own judgment before purchasing a game. Hype, popularity, whoever developed it, and money is what scores a game. Games aren't traditionally scored for the reason people actually play games. You know, the game itself.

[Haoie]

Still gotta give it props for popularising the whole mons genre.

[Rickstilwell1]

As a casual Pokemon gamer, I actually didnt play my first pokemon until I was 28ish. I find that the game has an unreal amount of depth and can be quite challenging. I can only assume the competitive scene is super deep with people having all kinds of party builds. I skipped the last 2 versions and will be picking up the most recent version once I buy a 3DS. I do not know of any other game like it with a community as large as it is. I think a lot of people pick up the game and skip a game or 2 and come back to it because its a great game. Now I am no SuperEliteGamer but in your opinion what game offers an alike but better experience? I would give it a try. I dont RPG that often due to time restrictions, but I am interested to see another game where your party can be made up of 3 out of 500+ characters.

Yeah Pokémon does have insanely high amount of characters to choose from. The closest I think would be the Suikoden games where you can use about 70+ characters in battle out of 108 allies you recruit including yourself. If you don't count unevolved forms, the original Pokémon was about the same count but if you do or play the sequels the difference becomes much greater.

I never played Dragon Warrior Monsters. I wonder if that's any better than Pokémon story-wise?

[JakeM]

Battles are awesome, not even the card game was as fun to me. Yes its kiddy, but thats good to me. If you want a similar game but for older people just play Shin Megami Tensei.

[The Adventurer]

The thing is, as great as (the core) SMT games are, it's NOT the same experience as Pokemon. You never grown an attachment to your demons the same way as you do your Pokemon, because they are far more disposable and lack customization. And the SMT games have no multiplayer competitive focus.

[kupomogli]

The thing is, as great as (the core) SMT games are, it's NOT the same experience as Pokemon. You never grown an attachment to your demons the same way as you do your Pokemon, because they are far more disposable and lack customization. And the SMT games have no multiplayer competitive focus.

I mentioned SMT, but I wasn't even mentioning this in my post. If you'll reread my post, I mentioned SMT4, Ni No Kuni, and Persona 4 are overrated with the averages they've received on Metacritic.

Also, in reply to your post, there's really not much of an attachment to your Pokemon either. You'll be attached to your starter Pokemon because you have them since the beginning of the game and end game they're some of the more powerful Pokemon, but closer to end game, if you happen to care for the competitive nature of the game, you won't have any sort of attachment to most Pokemon. There's what? 500+ Pokemon now, and I doubt people care about more than 1/5th of them.

And yeah the SMT games have no multiplayer, but they go for the single player experience and that's why there's no multiplayer. You don't judge a game that's not trying to push multiplayer because it has no multiplayer. A game that offers a large amount of gameplay and depth to its single player game but has no multiplayer, you look solely upon that of the single player. Pokemon might have a decent competitive multiplayer, but it's a competitive multiplayer focused game that has a single player that's complete shit. Mind numbingly easy, boring to play through, etc. You literally have to force yourself to keep playing at times in order to get through it. It's not until the end of a 20 hour or more venture through single player before you can even start with the competitive multiplayer, and even then, the competitive multiplayer aspect of Pokemon consists of EV and IV trained level 100 monsters, so even if you're a much better player, you can be overpowered by brute force because the person you're playing against has much better stats. Even if both of you have all level 100 Pokemon. So as much time you have to put into a single Pokemon to for it to reach its best stats, one major step of competitive multiplayer for Pokemon, also drags down the competitive multiplayer aspect a bit too. Apparently, Pokemon X/Y has super training which removes the EV/IV training.

[The Adventurer]

And yeah the SMT games have no multiplayer, but they go for the single player experience and that's why there's no multiplayer. You don't judge a game that's not trying to push multiplayer because it has no multiplayer. A game that offers a large amount of gameplay and depth to its single player game but has no multiplayer, you look solely upon that of the single player. Pokemon might have a decent competitive multiplayer, but it's a competitive multiplayer focused game that has a single player that's complete shit.

A, Pokemon's single player isn't 'complete shit'. Its not spectacular, and perhaps 'boring' for a certain type of gamer. But it does what it sets out to do, create a singleplayer framework to support the multiplayer experience. Actually its quite well refined at this point, after numerous generations. Also its my understanding that X/Y actively breaks out of the 'Fight Gym Leaders' progression model previous games have relied on. So who knows how more complex the story has gotten this go around. Probably not a bunch of people who haven't played the game.

B, I bring up SMT's lack of multiplayer not as a detriment to the games, but as showing the comparison to Pokemon to be faulty outside the superficial. Both franchises are made to do two different things.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

Why would i choose it over other RPGs,that are more serious,have better stories,and gameplay?

One does not play Pokemon for serious stories, and a different style of gameplay than what you would expect from a monster raising game. I don't think Pokemon should be played "instead" of more hardcore RPGs, but I do think that the main core Pokemon games are worth playing.

The series doesn't have much appeal beyond it's fanbase.

Reallllllllllllllllllly? Pokemon is the most casual RPG there is! Your statement couldn't possibly be more wrong.

It's very repetitive,very kiddy,never evolves as much as lots of ppl would like.

The mPokemon games are designed to be extremely accessible to anyone of any age. That means it has be simplistic enough on the surface to appeal to children, yet have optional layers of complexity to appeal to hardcore adult gamers. As for it being repetitive, that's the nature of the beast. It's the same thing with any game series - Mario, Zelda, Halo, whatever. You're doing the same things over and over in them. If you've got yourself a franchise, then repetitive gameplay is just part of what goes along with it.

Everytime it's the same,you're a guy/girl going after an evil organization,getting badges,and catching Pokemon.
How original!!

Don't expect this to ever change ever. The Pokemon formula is established and like it or not, it works.

X & Y are already overrated by fanboys and others.

Care to..I dunno, explain how you came to this lofty conclusion?

I don't see the appeal,unless you're obsessed with monsters and raising them,then i don't see the appeal outside of it's fanbase.

Exploration and discovery. Pokemon isn't about the end goal of saving the world or rescuing a captured princess like most RPGs. It's all about the journey and what you discover along the way.

As such, the formula is neverending. When one journey ends, another begins, and the next quest can be just as exciting. It's just like traveling to new places in real life.

Last game i bought was Emerald.After that,it got too repetitive for me.

And the ones before Emerald were not repetitive? See, if you're looking at Pokemon as a solely repetitive process with a weak, child-friendly plot, then you're doing it wrong. The plots are just there to be there; to teach morals to kids and nonsense like that. You play because you want to see the world, you want to explore the caves, the trails, the cities and beyond.

Maybe that's just not you. If not, then that's fine, go play something you DO like.

But just because Pokemon doesn't appeal to you doesn't mean it is "overrated".

[kupomogli]

B, I bring up SMT's lack of multiplayer not as a detriment to the games, but as showing the comparison to Pokemon to be faulty outside the superficial. Both franchises are made to do two different things.

And there was no comparison between the games until you brought it up.

[The Adventurer]

And there was no comparison between the games until you brought it up.

You know, except the guy immediately preceding my post bring it up.

Also its a pretty common comparison (especially when these dumb 'serious RPGs' vs 'kids RPGs' arguments crop up)

Care to..I dunno, explain how you came to this lofty conclusion?

"Something I don't care for is popular, therefore....", would be my guess.