Unpopular opinions

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

This is honestly a sobering point: There are many games even now people never even any%, much less 100%

RPGs are extremely guilty of this, for as you said, due to predatory practice of guides

Pokemon seems to have wanted to steer away from it since Gen 2, having guides more for extraneous optional mons and items than legit barriers. For as memed as the Braille puzzle is in Gen 3, it's not needed to beat the game

Of course version exclusives are shitty practices themselves till this day, but that again only matters for optional mons

That said, Kanto's bigger issue is how boring it is for landscape diversity compared to later. None of the remakes really fix this (Sevii is postgame). Gen 2 is similarly guilty, though aesthetic of rural areas helps, same for HGSS's autumn theme. Kanto's urbanism is too lightly done nor unique enough across towns

Gameplay wise it's still passable, and arguably better for team building and level curve than Johto. But it's blah to look at

And that's a massive reason why FRLG sucks.

I don't fault Kanto for being this bland, it was designed for the Game Boy, not even the GBC.

It did not age well though. It was showing it's age badly by Gen 3, now, it looks even worse.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

Because they had guides.

God.

I hate. This. Argument. Used all the fucking time for retro gaming. IT'S BECAUSE MFERS WERE PAYING A SHIT TON OF MONEY TO PHONE LINES!

This was the PEAK of the gaming guides! Buy this magazine, subscribe to Nintendo Power, call our phone line to get tips and tricks! That is how kids got through games like Zelda and Pokemon, because

I think your argument is off by about 10 years.

The Legend of Zelda on the NES hailed from an era where you weren't even remotely expected to beat the majority of the video games that you owned. Pokemon Red & Blue absolutely did not belong to that same era.

I also think it's too reductive to reduce this aspect of 20th century game design to a negative "guide-dependent" argument in the first place. One thing that's kind of been lost to time is how single player games used to also be social experiences. Like, real-life, analog social experiences. If you got stuck in part of a game, one of the first things you'd do is talk with a friend and ask what they did to get past it. This is more or less the real definition of a "metagame"--the game outside the game. Collaborating on an adventure could actually add something of value to the experience, make it feel more immersive. It was fun to share secrets and strategies that you found with others. There was a case to be made that the need for the player to create maps for something like Metroid or Phantasy Star in order to keep from getting lost wasn't "busywork," but a substantive consequence to make the experience more meaningful, and sharing those notes with friends was enjoyable, made it feel like you were accomplishing something bigger through the act of working together. It was a huge part of the appeal of games like Myst, which were incredibly cryptic and sparse on purpose, and which using a guide for would completely kill the appeal of the entire game. When modern Dark Souls fans talk about the value of collaboration and community strategizing to beat difficult bosses, it's sort of cut from the same cloth of what I'm taking about. (And as an aside, it's also part of the reason why I often find Souls fans to be insufferable. They tend to have no perspective of video game history and will gush nonstop about how "revolutionary" some component of it is when it's just derivative of something that's been around for 3 or 4 decades. You can draw a very clear through-line from Tower of Druaga to From Soft's catalog. But that's all beside the point.)

Anyway, I dunno how best to articulate that Pokemon Red & Blue really wasn't all that difficult to figure out when it was new, especially compared to the older stuff I just mentioned in the previous paragraph. It has very little resource management compared to so many of its predecessors, no equipment/weapon/armor component, and battles that are strictly 1v1 at all times instead of involving an entire party's worth of actions for each turn with all of the tactical team/attack synergy that such systems could offer. It is nearly maximally a "baby's first RPG" as an RPG of its time could be. Part of the whole reason why it was one of the first Japanese RPGs to catch fire in the mainstream American gaming populace was because it was more approachable than most! The link-cable trading/battling component of the game also made it much, much more relevant to the communal nature of video games than anything else I outlined above. Pokemon has been a "press the A button to win" game since its inception; some players just had to grind more to get it done because of their inexperience with RPGs at the time. I was there. Not only did I not need a guide for it, but I could almost beat the game on a single session, and the only reason why I couldn't at first was because my first exposure to the game was from borrowing a friend's cartridge and being absolutely forbidden from saving over his progress, so I basically just approached it with a speedrunner's mindset to squeeze out what I could before either the batteries died or I had to quit and do something else.

It's why I usually find it a little funny whenever somebody bemoans how "dumbed down" the franchise has gotten over time. Yeah, sometimes there's some truth to that and sometimes I also have gripes with specific changes, but, like, part of the reason why you feel that way is because you also just didn't have a very good frame of reference when you were 7 years old or whatever.

Kanto is not obtuse by 1990s RPG standards.

 

[Coronis]

I think your argument is off by about 10 years.

The Legend of Zelda on the NES hailed from an era where you weren't even remotely expected to beat the majority of the video games that you owned. Pokemon Red & Blue absolutely did not belong to that same era.

I also think it's too reductive to reduce this aspect of 20th century game design to a negative "guide-dependent" argument in the first place. One thing that's kind of been lost to time is how single player games used to also be social experiences. Like, real-life, analog social experiences. If you got stuck in part of a game, one of the first things you'd do is talk with a friend and ask what they did to get past it. This is more or less the real definition of a "metagame"--the game outside the game. Collaborating on an adventure could actually add something of value to the experience, make it feel more immersive. It was fun to share secrets and strategies that you found with others. There was a case to be made that the need for the player to create maps for something like Metroid or Phantasy Star in order to keep from getting lost wasn't "busywork," but a substantive consequence to make the experience more meaningful, and sharing those notes with friends was enjoyable, made it feel like you were accomplishing something bigger through the act of working together. It was a huge part of the appeal of games like Myst, which were incredibly cryptic and sparse on purpose, and which using a guide for would completely kill the appeal of the entire game. When modern Dark Souls fans talk about the value of collaboration and community strategizing to beat difficult bosses, it's sort of cut from the same cloth of what I'm taking about. (And as an aside, it's also part of the reason why I often find Souls fans to be insufferable. They tend to have no perspective of video game history and will gush nonstop about how "revolutionary" some component of it is when it's just derivative of something that's been around for 3 or 4 decades. You can draw a very clear through-line from Tower of Druaga to From Soft's catalog. But that's all beside the point.)

Anyway, I dunno how best to articulate that Pokemon Red & Blue really wasn't all that difficult to figure out when it was new, especially compared to the older stuff I just mentioned in the previous paragraph. It has very little resource management compared to so many of its predecessors, no equipment/weapon/armor component, and battles that are strictly 1v1 at all times instead of involving an entire party's worth of actions for each turn with all of the tactical team/attack synergy that such systems could offer. It is nearly maximally a "baby's first RPG" as an RPG of its time could be. Part of the whole reason why it was one of the first Japanese RPGs to catch fire in the mainstream American gaming populace was because it was more approachable than most! The link-cable trading/battling component of the game also made it much, much more relevant to the communal nature of video games than anything else I outlined above. Pokemon has been a "press the A button to win" game since its inception; some players just had to grind more to get it done because of their inexperience with RPGs at the time. I was there. Not only did I not need a guide for it, but I could almost beat the game on a single session, and the only reason why I couldn't at first was because my first exposure to the game was from borrowing a friend's cartridge and being absolutely forbidden from saving over his progress, so I basically just approached it with a speedrunner's mindset to squeeze out what I could before either the batteries died or I had to quit and do something else.

It's why I usually find it a little funny whenever somebody bemoans how "dumbed down" the franchise has gotten over time. Yeah, sometimes there's some truth to that and sometimes I also have gripes with specific changes, but, like, part of the reason why you feel that way is because you also just didn't have a very good frame of reference when you were 7 years old or whatever.

Kanto is not obtuse by 1990s RPG standards.

You weren’t? Thats..kinda sad

 

[Leif98]

not gonna reply to everything individually (can you even do that in the same post?) but to add to some of the stuff from the recent pages:

Mt. Coronet is both great and frustrating at the same time. Great because it's a really neat blueprint for a more expansive landscape design that makes exploring fun, rewarding and challening, bad because it's the best example of how stupid Gen 4s HM overabundance was. (it also really bugs me how long they tried to mantain something that was inspired by Dragon Quest 1. And only 1. Because it was annoying there too)



As for the discussion about pathfinding and old games taking longer to complete...I got stuck on Vermilllion City as a kid because I was too stupid to realize you had to go East from Cerulean. Which is (despite my dislike for the region) very much not Kantos fault and related to me being an idiot back then.

I think the perception on this is just warped since as kids and teenagers you have far more time, so being stuck on a certain part of a game for days if not weeks was not an issue. I remember never getting past 50 Stars in Mario 64 before I turned 10, yet at 13 I 100%ed it because I became more involved with gaming in general. (also experience making me better at playing) You have more time, less games, and in a lot of cases (Pokemon especially) a friendship network where you exchange on how to progress at certain parts.
Nowadays I get frustrated when I'm stuck for more than half an hour (Edit note: very much not true for Pokemon), and often catch myself looking up little stuff, especially in older RPGs (also missables) because the time I can spent has simply been cut down by having to work and do annoying "adult" stuff. (being more experienced also means I never really get completely stuck so I guess it balances itself out a bit at least...) NES era games tend to be a lot more unforgiving in terms of obscure design (the first 2 Zeldas are generally seen as guide games), but I do think it persisted in lesser form in some way (though mostly optional, as being mentioned by others above)



As for Kanto/FRLG... I would not say FRLG sucks, but it definitely feels to safe. Kanto as a whole is just bland, and while not as egregious as Johto the path splits still create a few problems (which in turn should tell us that, with the way levels in Pokemon work, non-linearity is not working too well if you don't make sure you design around it). The path from Lavender to Fuchsia is super easy with lots of low levels, the water routes are generally weak too, Silph Co. is a joke, yet the cycling road and both Sabrina and Koga have much higher levels if you don't do the other parts first (they are still not hard due to bad mon selection (and in RBYs case bad AI) but it can be an issue.)

I hope I didn't miss any typos, this post is longer than usual

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

not gonna reply to everything individually (can you even do that in the same post?)

Yes, you can.

I think the perception on this is just warped since as kids and teenagers you have far more time, so being stuck on a certain part of a game for days if not weeks was not an issue. I remember never getting past 50 Stars in Mario 64 before I turned 10, yet at 13 I 100%ed it because I became more involved with gaming in general. (also experience making me better at playing) You have more time, less games, and in a lot of cases (Pokemon especially) a friendship network where you exchange on how to progress at certain parts.
Nowadays I get frustrated when I'm stuck for more than half an hour (Edit note: very much not true for Pokemon), and often catch myself looking up little stuff, especially in older RPGs (also missables) because the time I can spent has simply been cut down by having to work and do annoying "adult" stuff. (being more experienced also means I never really get completely stuck so I guess it balances itself out a bit at least...) NES era games tend to be a lot more unforgiving in terms of obscure design (the first 2 Zeldas are generally seen as guide games), but I do think it persisted in lesser form in some way (though mostly optional, as being mentioned by others above)

To me, what instantly turns me off a game is when it's one of those massive, 40+ hour games, especially when it has a lot of grinding.

I already work too much to have a hobby that requires tedious padding.