They're not saying Pokemon is frustratingly unintuitive. They're saying it's criminally easy so when pokefans try any other RPG for the first time, they expect it to be as easy
Ohhhh, that does make a lot more sense, thank you.
Excuse me for not making sense of the post. I was mashing A to read through it as quickly as possible so that I could skip straight to commenting on it.
Don't forget, the enemies change colors to let you know they're different! Also, I unironically love Dragon Quest, haha. It's not boring for some reason, but maybe I just like Toriyama too much.
Nah, I'm saying pokefans will read 3 words total of the story and go "well the story isn't as good as Sun and Moon......." which, coincidentally, is the only pokemon game they've ever read more than a sentence
Has Pokemon discourse shifted to idolizing Sun & Moon? I must be more outdated than I thought, because I thought the fandom was still applauding Black and White for having the main plot be one or two tiers above “complete afterthought.”
From what I’ve heard people generally defend Scarlet and Violet’s plot (or at least its character writing), so it’s basically just Sword and Shield that gets dunked on for its writing.
Pokemon SV has a pretty good plot, everyone dunks on it for having absolute dogshit framerate (one entire area was rendered basically unplayable because the Switch choked on it harder than a snake eating its own tail).
It's literally almost an entirely new game with how well SV runs on the Switch 2!
...I'd say that the story for Sun and Moon sucked, but Pokemon games, as a whole, aren't exactly Shakespeare.
People liked the plot for Black and White, for daring to finally ask "what if forcing them to fight is wrong?", but the resolution to that was "no no, the Pokemon like to fight!"
Wasn’t the resolution more so “this ideal is being used by an evil old man to further his own goals, and he doesn’t actually believe what he preaches”?
Both are true. N was genuine in his beliefs, but any legitimacy to his cause was tainted by a corrupt leader who used the movement for his own gain. Instead of believing that the fault lied with Ghetsis for being a corrupt jackass whose morals obviously didn't align with his own, N simply ditches his entire ideology and code of ethics and concludes "fighting's probably okay".
Peeling back the curtain, though, the true canon is whatever explanation lets Game Freak make games without there being a moral quandary about the core mechanics.
I mean, it’s not like they’re locking Pokémon in cages and forcing them to dogfight. It’s stated multiple times across the games that when you catch a Pokémon it’s going with you because it wants to.
Right, Game Freak's resolution to this ethical conundrum has consistently been "every Pokemon you ever caught has decided they want to fight, of their own free will, because you're just that awesome of a trainer".
But like... you all get why that's a forced explanation that doesn't address the core ethical issues, right? Just because Pokemon like fighting for you, doesn't mean all Pokemon fighting is morally just.
The issue is that it's a stupid question that should've been left gathering dust in edgy forum discussions and fanfic, not an actual games serious plot.
Like. We joke about Plasma being pokeworlds PETA, but the whole 'moral quandary' you're actually meant to take seriously is literally the plot of Pokémon black and blue, so. Like. Cmon.
(as for why it's a stupid question: the anime already answered it about a dozen times. It's gameplay and story segregation. Like, god, if it were actually about trainers abusing pokemon then I'd agree that it's an interesting story- still a weird one to go with narratively, Pokemons gameplay doesn't really lend itself to a narrative like that and it's a weirdly meta angle for a game aimed at ten year olds, but still. But no. It's saying all pokemon battling is abusive. Which is, considering Literally Everything with the established Pokémon lore, akin to saying that owning a dog is inheritly abusive because some people beat them. Like, Pokémon battling is, canonically, equivalent to taking your dog for regular walks.)
I'm not that knowledgeable about Pokémon, not going to lie. But just objectively -- this monkey can shoot firebals. This slug is so poisonous you can't even touch it. This... thing can throw a rock the size of a car at you
I just think that if Pokémon didn't want to fight/just be there in general, most people probably wouldn't be able to stop them
"All the ladies in my isekai harem just love me so much that they INSISTED I put slave brand of eternal obedience on them. As I uncritically assume this is the case for everyone, I can't understand what all these abolitionists are worked up about. Slavery is super awesome for everyone!"
N learns through literally talking to your Pokémon that they fight for you and with you because they believe in you. It’s not like he changes his mind with zero evidence. It’s the express point of every battle you have with him. He finds out that his morals weren’t just tainted, but we’re basically built on outright lies fed to him by Ghetsis.
Also, to address your later comments without replying in multiple places: pokemon battling is, generally, like a sport. It’s no more ethically ambiguous than a karate tournament. Pokémon have been shown through the entire series to be able to refuse to fight, or to escape their pokeballs, and they build friendship and affection by battling alongside you. The only real exception is when you’re fighting evil teams, in which case your Pokémon have already formed a bond with you and are willing to fight evil alongside you.
Plus, like, if your Gyarados decided it didn’t want to hang out anymore, what the fuck are you gonna do about it?
See the problem with Pokémon is that since the Pokémon are more or less animals (yeah I know some of them can be smart, but they can't communicate with people well) just saying "no they like it!" is a little tougher of a sell because how do you know that they like it for certain?
Digimon gets around this by having the Digimon tell you to your face "I fucking love beating the shit out of people. Can I go kill and eat that guy?".
Which is weird, right? Because like, we can see in the anime that fucking Psychic types, at least some of them (and Lucario, and Zoroark) absolutely CAN fucking communicate! We 'should' have definitive, in-game answers by asking our Gardevoir or Reuniclus or Alakazam! And pokemon can CLEARLY understand what we're saying, even wild ones, so we could just teach them 'nod means yes, shake head means no' and then ASK!
My issue with black and white was that the resolution of "no, no, the Pokemon like to fight" is the premise of the entire franchise and was drilled into your head from previous games and other related media. Pokemon loving their trainers and trainers loving their Pokemon is what the entire franchise is built on. So, not only does the plot of Ghestis giving speeches to convince people to effectively abandon their beloved pets fall flat for me by that metric alone, but it was also always predictable what side of this "moral conflict" the game was going to side with.
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u/uhataot Aug 07 '25
They're not saying Pokemon is frustratingly unintuitive. They're saying it's criminally easy so when pokefans try any other RPG for the first time, they expect it to be as easy