34 thoughts on “Pokemon and Bad Game Design: The Issue of Overlap”
I'm always going to try unorthodox strategies, whether it be Pokemon or Yo-kai Watch, but the difference is that one has strictly better options that completely rule out any reason to use anything worse, while the other can let almost anything work and have a unique playstyle if you know what you're doing. I really enjoy both scenes, but I think it's obvious which one lets me be more creative with how I play it.
Only thing about this video that sprouted me into commenting is ….. wtf is this tier list at 3:43 ???! Who is the psychopath that put MILOTIC in C rank, the same rank as stuff like Articuno, Lapras, Lunatone or Scizor and a tier below freaking Smeargle ? 💀💀💀 I generally am very receptive to seeing other's opinions on ADV OU but damn, this one is getting too spicy for me
I don’t think that every Pokémon not having a unique niche is entirely a bad thing. It definitely would be better from a utilitarian perspective, as having a lot of monsters in your game that are just bad compared to others is kind of waste of design. But when there are so many Pokémon and they all do different things and have variety in what sets they can run, I feel it becomes a bit too much too keep track off when playing. I don’t know, as someone who is bad at the game and gets stuck on the lower ladder where people use weird, unviable stuff anyway, I find myself getting frustrated a lot because I don’t know what to do against half of it. I found myself having more fun playing Gen 1 than the newer gens because there is only like 10 good mons, another 10 or so meh ones, and everything else is so outclassed they might as well all be Delibird. I think that more centralized metas can be more fun (and competitive) at times, as long as there isn’t like one Pokémon or one team dominating everything, obviously.
I was playing DQMonsters TW while watching this and seeing DQMonsters recognized as a game with so much customization (or even recognized) made my entire day. Monsters is so fun, I love when I end up making a Dark Slime (monster with passives that increase darkness damage) and give him skillsets that only contain healing abilities because I needed a better healer. If someone wants Pokémon merged with oldschool RPGs, I genuinely reccomend to try those games. They don't have much overlap either, since you can give monsters virtually any moveset you want. However, do keep in mind you may need to use certain methods, since they never release outside of Japan nowadays. Thank you, sir, very cool.
As for the video itself, what I like about the sheer number of Pokémon is that it makes casual gameplay really fun. Certain monsters combinations can help you tell a bit of a character's story or personality (Oleana from Sw/Sh is a neat example), and when played with friends in something like Pixelmon, it makes it so everyone can have the mons they like without a care in the world because we don't care about winning every game, just beating the challenges we make for ourselves.
However, you're right on the competitive side. Pokémon meta is complete chaos.
I feel like this video is trying to say powercreep is bad, rather than overlap is bad. Overlap is inevitable, especially with 1000 different Pokemon, you are bound to encounter overlap, and ESPECIALLY without making unique moves and abilities for every single one of them.
There are also interesting cases for overlap, like how Golem and Rhydon are essentially the same except Rhydon gets a better movepool, while Golem has better availability and Explosion, or how Doduo is flat out better Spearow, except you can get Spearow earlier than Doduo.
I also feel that some Pokemon are there not so much for a meta perspective, but just for lore. This is ESPECIALLY prevalent throughout Johto, where you have Pokemon that are there to showcase new mechanics and have zero meta uses, like Yanma, Ledian, and Sunflora.
Also, Floatzel is an awful initial comparison to Poliwrath. While yes, we have now defined Poliwrath as a Sweeper, it is not apparent at first glance that Poliwrath is strictly inferior to Floatzel – because Floatzel clearly has worse defensive stats. Feraligatr and Paldean Tauros illustrate power creep on Poliwrath better.
Lastly, some Pokemon like Onix, Cranidos, and Miltank are just designed to be "bosses" to overcome in your adventures. They were purposefully designed to be mediocre in metagame usage, but they were tough to overcome with weaker Pokemon.
I want to make a monster collector myself that takes into account the competitive scene, my plan is to have every fully evolved monster have a bst of about 450 so that even if there are better monster choices it's not because their base stats are overall lower
So a couple notes: I know pokemon as a franchise is just not the games, but to me it feels weird to quote the anime, and then reference the karen quote. Like idk, I always saw them as different things to me
And I disagree that competitive metas shits on the themes of the series about companionship, I think it kinda reinforced them if anything. Finding how a weak pokemon can be strong in certain niche cases, be either for the games or competitive, makes me appreciate competitive more, and I can also grow more attached to a mon once I find out how to use it well. Some mons are better and more consistent than others, yeah, but I don't even think the games ever denied that lol. The karen quote itself acknowledges that, is more so about how neglecting pokemon like silver did, and blaming it on its strength is the issue. Ya could say the part about winning with your favorites is contradicted, but even then A. Is not really as prominent of a theme in the games as "don't neglect your pokemon just because of its strenght", B. Even in high competitive, ya can make tipically considered bad or niche Pokémon work under the right circumstances. Which brings me to the next point:
I do agree Pokémon overlap/being outclased is a issue for balance in the meta, but the thing is, pokemon games is not just the main metas. So even pokemon that are outclased, like gen 3 myghtena, can be useful for nuzlockes and such, where ya are more limited on the options to pick. I always found it useful anyways lol.
Lastly, I don't think the games ever said every mon is unique? Ya flashed the karen quote when saying that, but I didn't took that statement as something about uniqueness at all. It does say every mon has strenghts and weakness tho, but that's different imo. Also ya might call stuff like saying a pokemon is more unique because of its design shallow, and I partly agree, but also, I don't really fault anyone for it. A pokemon design and lore are still key aspects of it.
Like idk, I don't really agree with most of what ya said
this is the reason i like smogon, pokemon is pretty awesome competitively when action is taken to attempt to balance it out, creating plenty of interesting metagames with most pokemon getting a chance to shine in lower tiers
I only play casual playthroughs and I just use pokemon that I like, not going off stats or move pools. Only ones that I find cool, or unique. I've never had problems in casual playthroughs of the game, but I do understand the competitive scene. Luckily there's all sorts of metas people can do that'll allow their pokemon to shine.
The last time they really did anything to existing pokemon Gen 7 (Drought Torkoal and Drizzle Pelipper anyone?), and most of the stat buff attempts in Gen 6 went to nowhere (even in the lower tiers) cough Roserade's Def cough Staraptor's Sp. Def cough if anything, it only makes the odds of them being OHKO'd a little bit more random
Nowadays they just throw moves at any existing pokemon like darts and hope it sticks and makes an impact (unless the mon is so beyond repair that it barely makes a difference), without buffing any of their stats nor give them a new ability (other than Gallade or the Hisuian mons, or replacing Hail with the superior Snow so that it's actually a weather); All whiling nerfing some mons that are considered over-powered directly or indirectly (Amoonguss by making fellow grass-types immune to powder moves, Thundurus via the Prankster, Swagger, and T-Wave nerfs, certain Megas like Kangaskhan, Gardevoir and Salamence whiling those lasted, Aegislash's stats and signature move, Mimikyu's Disguise ability, the terrains cause of the Tapus alone, Protean/Libero ability, Grassy Glide cause of Rillaboom alone, Zacian's stats and ability, and sadly Zamazenta's too, Urshifu's Wicked Blow, and singles stalling as a whole), only to also contradict that by giving both Incineroar and Grimmsnarl Parting Shot, gave Spectrier Draining Kiss and Psychic, and even gave Urshifu Swords Dance on top of leaving Unseen Fist untouched
To be fair, Karen was likely referring to in-game. While some Pokemon are better than others, you can win in-game with just about any Pokemon, especially in generations 1 and 2.
Really, the problem with overlap stems from the expectation of new Pokemon every generation. Pokemon are inevitably going to be left behind.
Hey it would be cool if you could cover "Monster hunter: stories" meta game in the future (there are two stories games btw). It is also a monster collecting game and hase really interesting game mechanics that can get really complicatet. I personally really like the game and throm what I have played it seems pretty balanced, but i would love to hear your opinien about it!
Being a competitive monster taming analizer, I would like to see what is your take in competitive temtem, being a game much more similar to pokemon than yokai watch but fixing a lot of the issues that you stated in this video. Great work btw, keep up the good job!
I hate how similar pokemon become when there are so many small ways to make them unique. Flash Fire is always stuck on fire types, which means they are always pit against eachother. When you could give Flash Fire to something like Gourgiest, whose theme of a jackolantern works really well with the ability. There are a lot of mons that need massive rehauls, but a decent amount just need a few tweaks.
After playing TemTem it really have me a wake up slap to how dull Pokemon games can get, and while they have all the money in the world to be developed. That disgusting game calendar of a new Gen every 3 years probably causes Game Development Morale to be very low. Compared to stuff made by smaller IP's
This is such a great video detailing about Power Creep. I totally agree, every generation it becomes harder and harder to validate every Pokemon as unique and optimal. The recent generations of 8 & 9 especially in my opinion have been the main culprit of Power Creep, like look no further than Calyrex Shadow and Chi-Yu. Gamefreak either A) needs to change up how they go about introducing new mons and balancing or B) fix up past mons and try to somehow bring them up to speed on the formula used now to create monsters. Obviously balancing won't solve anything but it would make the past gen mons super weak and irrelevant and throw away with each power creep in the recent generations. Again, I loved this video and this was such a great analysis of the power creep in Competitive Pokemon!
Once I though that could be cool a fangame where pokemon were more specialized , for example giving them just one skill and between 4 and 10 moves (with upgrades) , maybe also in double battles and with decisions like give to most of the tanky mons access to follow me for make more enfasis on the impotance of use different roles. Probably I wont never do it , but still I think that if its well made could be cool
Most the talk about using Pokémon you like etc isn't talking about competitive just the anime and people like karen the base game where it's possible to use your favorites because it's easy lol
I'm surprised you never mentioned Shin Megami Tensei in this video, given how much Yo-Kai Watch draws from it. Of course, Yo-Kai Watch is pretty much a small niche series outside of Japan whose once-aggressive ubiquity caused fatigue in its domestic market.
Pokémon just has a broader appeal and had much better timing. Pokémon stood out at its release time, and all of its competitors are now stuck in its shadow. Tem-Tem may have better gameplay, but it's a homely game whose monster designs pale in comparison to Pokémon's. Digimon had the best chance of being on equal footing with Pokémon, but it failed to so for various reasons.
ppl talk abt Sejuns Pachurisu and completely forget how pacha was hand picked due to its specific strengths alongside the rest of Sejuns team as well as the meta
I'm always going to try unorthodox strategies, whether it be Pokemon or Yo-kai Watch, but the difference is that one has strictly better options that completely rule out any reason to use anything worse, while the other can let almost anything work and have a unique playstyle if you know what you're doing. I really enjoy both scenes, but I think it's obvious which one lets me be more creative with how I play it.
Only thing about this video that sprouted me into commenting is ….. wtf is this tier list at 3:43 ???!
Who is the psychopath that put MILOTIC in C rank, the same rank as stuff like Articuno, Lapras, Lunatone or Scizor and a tier below freaking Smeargle ? 💀💀💀
I generally am very receptive to seeing other's opinions on ADV OU but damn, this one is getting too spicy for me
I don’t think that every Pokémon not having a unique niche is entirely a bad thing. It definitely would be better from a utilitarian perspective, as having a lot of monsters in your game that are just bad compared to others is kind of waste of design. But when there are so many Pokémon and they all do different things and have variety in what sets they can run, I feel it becomes a bit too much too keep track off when playing.
I don’t know, as someone who is bad at the game and gets stuck on the lower ladder where people use weird, unviable stuff anyway, I find myself getting frustrated a lot because I don’t know what to do against half of it. I found myself having more fun playing Gen 1 than the newer gens because there is only like 10 good mons, another 10 or so meh ones, and everything else is so outclassed they might as well all be Delibird. I think that more centralized metas can be more fun (and competitive) at times, as long as there isn’t like one Pokémon or one team dominating everything, obviously.
I was playing DQMonsters TW while watching this and seeing DQMonsters recognized as a game with so much customization (or even recognized) made my entire day. Monsters is so fun, I love when I end up making a Dark Slime (monster with passives that increase darkness damage) and give him skillsets that only contain healing abilities because I needed a better healer.
If someone wants Pokémon merged with oldschool RPGs, I genuinely reccomend to try those games. They don't have much overlap either, since you can give monsters virtually any moveset you want. However, do keep in mind you may need to use certain methods, since they never release outside of Japan nowadays.
Thank you, sir, very cool.
As for the video itself, what I like about the sheer number of Pokémon is that it makes casual gameplay really fun. Certain monsters combinations can help you tell a bit of a character's story or personality (Oleana from Sw/Sh is a neat example), and when played with friends in something like Pixelmon, it makes it so everyone can have the mons they like without a care in the world because we don't care about winning every game, just beating the challenges we make for ourselves.
However, you're right on the competitive side. Pokémon meta is complete chaos.
this vdeio is dumb
oh scratch that
THIS VEDIO IS SCUM
I feel like this video is trying to say powercreep is bad, rather than overlap is bad. Overlap is inevitable, especially with 1000 different Pokemon, you are bound to encounter overlap, and ESPECIALLY without making unique moves and abilities for every single one of them.
There are also interesting cases for overlap, like how Golem and Rhydon are essentially the same except Rhydon gets a better movepool, while Golem has better availability and Explosion, or how Doduo is flat out better Spearow, except you can get Spearow earlier than Doduo.
I also feel that some Pokemon are there not so much for a meta perspective, but just for lore. This is ESPECIALLY prevalent throughout Johto, where you have Pokemon that are there to showcase new mechanics and have zero meta uses, like Yanma, Ledian, and Sunflora.
Also, Floatzel is an awful initial comparison to Poliwrath. While yes, we have now defined Poliwrath as a Sweeper, it is not apparent at first glance that Poliwrath is strictly inferior to Floatzel – because Floatzel clearly has worse defensive stats. Feraligatr and Paldean Tauros illustrate power creep on Poliwrath better.
Lastly, some Pokemon like Onix, Cranidos, and Miltank are just designed to be "bosses" to overcome in your adventures. They were purposefully designed to be mediocre in metagame usage, but they were tough to overcome with weaker Pokemon.
I want to make a monster collector myself that takes into account the competitive scene, my plan is to have every fully evolved monster have a bst of about 450 so that even if there are better monster choices it's not because their base stats are overall lower
So a couple notes:
I know pokemon as a franchise is just not the games, but to me it feels weird to quote the anime, and then reference the karen quote. Like idk, I always saw them as different things to me
And I disagree that competitive metas shits on the themes of the series about companionship, I think it kinda reinforced them if anything. Finding how a weak pokemon can be strong in certain niche cases, be either for the games or competitive, makes me appreciate competitive more, and I can also grow more attached to a mon once I find out how to use it well. Some mons are better and more consistent than others, yeah, but I don't even think the games ever denied that lol. The karen quote itself acknowledges that, is more so about how neglecting pokemon like silver did, and blaming it on its strength is the issue. Ya could say the part about winning with your favorites is contradicted, but even then A. Is not really as prominent of a theme in the games as "don't neglect your pokemon just because of its strenght", B. Even in high competitive, ya can make tipically considered bad or niche Pokémon work under the right circumstances. Which brings me to the next point:
I do agree Pokémon overlap/being outclased is a issue for balance in the meta, but the thing is, pokemon games is not just the main metas. So even pokemon that are outclased, like gen 3 myghtena, can be useful for nuzlockes and such, where ya are more limited on the options to pick. I always found it useful anyways lol.
Lastly, I don't think the games ever said every mon is unique? Ya flashed the karen quote when saying that, but I didn't took that statement as something about uniqueness at all. It does say every mon has strenghts and weakness tho, but that's different imo. Also ya might call stuff like saying a pokemon is more unique because of its design shallow, and I partly agree, but also, I don't really fault anyone for it. A pokemon design and lore are still key aspects of it.
Like idk, I don't really agree with most of what ya said
this is the reason i like smogon, pokemon is pretty awesome competitively when action is taken to attempt to balance it out, creating plenty of interesting metagames with most pokemon getting a chance to shine in lower tiers
You can easily use just the pokemon you like in any playthrough it doesn't apply to competive which I feel is understandable and makes sense
I only play casual playthroughs and I just use pokemon that I like, not going off stats or move pools. Only ones that I find cool, or unique. I've never had problems in casual playthroughs of the game, but I do understand the competitive scene. Luckily there's all sorts of metas people can do that'll allow their pokemon to shine.
The last time they really did anything to existing pokemon Gen 7 (Drought Torkoal and Drizzle Pelipper anyone?), and most of the stat buff attempts in Gen 6 went to nowhere (even in the lower tiers) cough Roserade's Def cough Staraptor's Sp. Def cough if anything, it only makes the odds of them being OHKO'd a little bit more random
Nowadays they just throw moves at any existing pokemon like darts and hope it sticks and makes an impact (unless the mon is so beyond repair that it barely makes a difference), without buffing any of their stats nor give them a new ability (other than Gallade or the Hisuian mons, or replacing Hail with the superior Snow so that it's actually a weather); All whiling nerfing some mons that are considered over-powered directly or indirectly (Amoonguss by making fellow grass-types immune to powder moves, Thundurus via the Prankster, Swagger, and T-Wave nerfs, certain Megas like Kangaskhan, Gardevoir and Salamence whiling those lasted, Aegislash's stats and signature move, Mimikyu's Disguise ability, the terrains cause of the Tapus alone, Protean/Libero ability, Grassy Glide cause of Rillaboom alone, Zacian's stats and ability, and sadly Zamazenta's too, Urshifu's Wicked Blow, and singles stalling as a whole), only to also contradict that by giving both Incineroar and Grimmsnarl Parting Shot, gave Spectrier Draining Kiss and Psychic, and even gave Urshifu Swords Dance on top of leaving Unseen Fist untouched
To be fair, Karen was likely referring to in-game. While some Pokemon are better than others, you can win in-game with just about any Pokemon, especially in generations 1 and 2.
Really, the problem with overlap stems from the expectation of new Pokemon every generation. Pokemon are inevitably going to be left behind.
snartle pfp aint no wayay
Hey it would be cool if you could cover "Monster hunter: stories" meta game in the future (there are two stories games btw). It is also a monster collecting game and hase really interesting game mechanics that can get really complicatet. I personally really like the game and throm what I have played it seems pretty balanced, but i would love to hear your opinien about it!
This just reads like that one showdown player who complains about lando T being allowed in ou, or a vgc player saying that all vgc teams look the same
Pokémon needs to diversify into other game types. Like what they made a gesture towards with Legends Arceus
The pokedex entry regarding polirath is a fast swimmer is explained by his ability swift swim.
What's fucked up about rhydon and golem is that rhydon isn't even a fully evolved mon 😭
Being a competitive monster taming analizer, I would like to see what is your take in competitive temtem, being a game much more similar to pokemon than yokai watch but fixing a lot of the issues that you stated in this video. Great work btw, keep up the good job!
"Pokemon and Bad Game Design": Oh you're gonna piss off the pokemon fanboys with this one, especially the competitive players.
I hate how similar pokemon become when there are so many small ways to make them unique. Flash Fire is always stuck on fire types, which means they are always pit against eachother. When you could give Flash Fire to something like Gourgiest, whose theme of a jackolantern works really well with the ability. There are a lot of mons that need massive rehauls, but a decent amount just need a few tweaks.
After playing TemTem it really have me a wake up slap to how dull Pokemon games can get, and while they have all the money in the world to be developed. That disgusting game calendar of a new Gen every 3 years probably causes Game Development Morale to be very low. Compared to stuff made by smaller IP's
This is such a great video detailing about Power Creep. I totally agree, every generation it becomes harder and harder to validate every Pokemon as unique and optimal. The recent generations of 8 & 9 especially in my opinion have been the main culprit of Power Creep, like look no further than Calyrex Shadow and Chi-Yu. Gamefreak either A) needs to change up how they go about introducing new mons and balancing or B) fix up past mons and try to somehow bring them up to speed on the formula used now to create monsters. Obviously balancing won't solve anything but it would make the past gen mons super weak and irrelevant and throw away with each power creep in the recent generations. Again, I loved this video and this was such a great analysis of the power creep in Competitive Pokemon!
The thumbnail is a masterpiece, 3 famous YouTubers' thumbnail styles and random fanart all thrown together into the perfect storm of Internet. 😂
As for the whole "Nintendo gave this to Pokémon when Game Freak wouldn't" thing, you could make an entire video on all the times that happened.
How long did it take for a Pokemon fan to dislike, I wonder
Once I though that could be cool a fangame where pokemon were more specialized , for example giving them just one skill and between 4 and 10 moves (with upgrades) , maybe also in double battles and with decisions like give to most of the tanky mons access to follow me for make more enfasis on the impotance of use different roles. Probably I wont never do it , but still I think that if its well made could be cool
You believe in pokemon anime logic a little too much. You cant beat me with this team idiot, theres no such thing as power of friendship…
Most the talk about using Pokémon you like etc isn't talking about competitive just the anime and people like karen the base game where it's possible to use your favorites because it's easy lol
I'm surprised you never mentioned Shin Megami Tensei in this video, given how much Yo-Kai Watch draws from it. Of course, Yo-Kai Watch is pretty much a small niche series outside of Japan whose once-aggressive ubiquity caused fatigue in its domestic market.
Pokémon just has a broader appeal and had much better timing. Pokémon stood out at its release time, and all of its competitors are now stuck in its shadow. Tem-Tem may have better gameplay, but it's a homely game whose monster designs pale in comparison to Pokémon's. Digimon had the best chance of being on equal footing with Pokémon, but it failed to so for various reasons.
This video is good but I would like some more vids on yokai watch.
ppl talk abt Sejuns Pachurisu and completely forget how pacha was hand picked due to its specific strengths alongside the rest of Sejuns team as well as the meta
Who cares