Poll: Pokemon is actually strategy and not an RPG ?

[zamble]

If that was the case, then all RPGs would also be strategy.
It requires thinking ahead in all RPGs.
Tell me one RPG were you can go meander about mindlessly and beat the game easily.

Pokemon!!
I once, just for proving it was possible, played all of FireRed with the starting charmander, without ever changing it or teaching new moves to it... I just deleted old moves and replaced by the ones it learned naturally. Isn't it mindless enough?

That's pretty much impossible, or you're making an invalid point.
I find that you would have a whole bunch of trouble beating brock, misty, giovanni and the elite four.
That, or you trained other pokemon.

Nope. So I tought before doing it. All of those gave me a little extra work, but keep in mind that, as I trained no other pokemon, Charmander Level raised very fast. I could beat Brock only because by that time it had just learned Metal Claw. The others were hard, too, I thing I had to retry Misty, but doable the same way. Remember, high levels! It was always way higher than the enemies, even tough I didn't do many random battles, I just fought every trainer I saw.
No way to prove it, though...

 

[Monkeytacoz]

does it really matter?

 

[Xaryn Mar]

To me it is still a collectible card game like Magic.
Have tried the gameboy versions and was not impressed. The card game is more fun and requires a bit more strategy.

 

[Punisher A.J.]

RPG.

Devil Survivor is an RPG/Strategy, not Pokemon.

Agree.... when you use flamethrower on every enemy you encounter and win because you just use the first pokemon you get... it starts lacking stategy.

 

[koeniginator]

If that was the case, then all RPGs would also be strategy.
It requires thinking ahead in all RPGs.
Tell me one RPG were you can go meander about mindlessly and beat the game easily.

Pokemon!!
I once, just for proving it was possible, played all of FireRed with the starting charmander, without ever changing it or teaching new moves to it... I just deleted old moves and replaced by the ones it learned naturally. Isn't it mindless enough?

That's pretty much impossible, or you're making an invalid point.
I find that you would have a whole bunch of trouble beating brock, misty, giovanni and the elite four.
That, or you trained other pokemon.

Nope. So I tought before doing it. All of those gave me a little extra work, but keep in mind that, as I trained no other pokemon, Charmander Level raised very fast. I could beat Brock only because by that time it had just learned Metal Claw. The others were hard, too, I thing I had to retry Misty, but doable the same way. Remember, high levels! It was always way higher than the enemies, even tough I didn't do many random battles, I just fought every trainer I saw.
No way to prove it, though...

I can believe the beating of Misty, Brock and Giovanni, but I think you're lying with the elite four.

 

[ZeroDotZero]

If it's a strategy game, it is a very poor strategy game.

You'd be suprised.

It's just about the world's biggest strategy TBS game. The RPG is just a filler I think. I play it competitively, trying to get the best Pokemon with the strategically best moves and types.

 

[Tel_Windzan]

From what I could tell when I played Pokemon is that it was an RPG that tried to have strategy bits added to it, which came about because of the various types a Pokemon could appear in. However, I felt that when I started to play the game, the only strategy I could think of was to deliver the most amount of damage in the shortest amount of time.

The reason why is that for the first 2 generations I think, the battles were fought in a one verses one match, so the best strategy I could do was have my Pokemon with the best moves it could have and probably have some type based attacks to make it efficient in fighting whatever it was that I was fighting. I never hardly keep the moves that let you decrease your opponent's status or even ones that increase my own Pokemon because I felt that was wasting one move I could have used to deliver some damage to the other opponent.

Now, when they introduced the two-way battle system in 3rd generation and onward, I thought that some more strategy could be worked into Pokemon. However, those two-way battles only happen rarely, so I keep with my usual strategy to defeat my enemies.

Thinking about it a bit more, I guess one strategy part that Pokemon had was in designing your team of Pokemon so that you have at least one that can easily beat any other Pokemon you run into, but that is just about it, I think.

 

[Abedeus]

RPG.

Devil Survivor is an RPG/Strategy, not Pokemon.

Agree.... when you use flamethrower on every enemy you encounter and win because you just use the first pokemon you get... it starts lacking stategy.

Or game when you see a monster with Fire attacks and you automatically use Water skills. In 95% of the cases, you will one-hit KO him.

Devil Survivor? Aww man, it's Heroes that had babies with... I dunno, a jRPG?

Or hell, Megaman Battle Network is more of an RPG + Strategy than Pokemon. It has a lot more thinking and action than Pokemon, but also a lot more strategy and customization.

If it's a strategy game, it is a very poor strategy game.

You'd be suprised.

It's just about the world's biggest strategy TBS game. The RPG is just a filler I think. I play it competitively, trying to get the best Pokemon with the strategically best moves and types.

I can bet that MMBN games have a lot more strategy involved (especially human vs human) than Pokemon games.

 

[ZeroDotZero]

If it's a strategy game, it is a very poor strategy game.

You'd be suprised.

It's just about the world's biggest strategy TBS game. The RPG is just a filler I think. I play it competitively, trying to get the best Pokemon with the strategically best moves and types.

I can bet that MMBN games have a lot more strategy involved (especially human vs human) than Pokemon games.

In competitive matches between people who play Pokemon strategically, it really does become all about strategy.

 

[Amnestic]

If that was the case, then all RPGs would also be strategy.
It requires thinking ahead in all RPGs.
Tell me one RPG were you can go meander about mindlessly and beat the game easily.

Pokemon!!
I once, just for proving it was possible, played all of FireRed with the starting charmander, without ever changing it or teaching new moves to it... I just deleted old moves and replaced by the ones it learned naturally. Isn't it mindless enough?

That's pretty much impossible, or you're making an invalid point.
I find that you would have a whole bunch of trouble beating brock, misty, giovanni and the elite four.
That, or you trained other pokemon.

Nope. So I tought before doing it. All of those gave me a little extra work, but keep in mind that, as I trained no other pokemon, Charmander Level raised very fast. I could beat Brock only because by that time it had just learned Metal Claw. The others were hard, too, I thing I had to retry Misty, but doable the same way. Remember, high levels! It was always way higher than the enemies, even tough I didn't do many random battles, I just fought every trainer I saw.
No way to prove it, though...

I can believe the beating of Misty, Brock and Giovanni, but I think you're lying with the elite four.

It's not hard to single-pokémon the game, if you keep five in reserve for potion/revive/max-revive on the rare occasion that your main does go down.

It's a bit of a struggle at first, but once you get to the Elite Four you're basically one/two shotting their pokémon with the first move.

 

[General Vagueness]

It's neither. The genre is "Monster Trainer".

I wish I hadn't picked "strategy with some RPG" now because I forgot about this. AFAIK Monster Rancher came up with it, Pokémon and Digimon made it popular, and it's now been copied in a lot of different ways to different degrees in a whole bunch of games and aside from the actual monster training there are a few things that pretty much run through all of them so it's pretty much a genre unto itself.

 

[Gyrefalcon]

Pokemon has obviously always been considered an RPG, but when you consider the core gameplay it is actually more appropiately a strategy game. Why? Because in reality the only RPG aspect of the game is raising your Pokemons' levels to evolve, learn new moves, and EV training to specialize them towards a certain stat. And you should realize that this comes to an end once you hit level 100. Or more importantly, those who battle others in Diamond/Pearl/Platinum like to level the playing field by forcing all the Pokemons' levels to 50 or 100. So in this case it is purely strategy due to the fact that you must decide which Pokemon to have in your team, what their moveset is, what order you will use them, and how will you respond to your opponent's moves. Of course Pokemon can be considered an RPG, but I see it as more of a strategy game with an RPG core gameplay mechanic.

So what do you consider Pokemon to be?

The battles are strategy and the game may be linear but compare it to Final Fantasy Tactics: Either you are in a cut scene or you are in a battle or menu screen. That's it. Now compare it to Oblivion: You can move freely across the board, revisit any site you have previously been to and by talking to people you can unlock subquests. Pokemon does more of this in the normal game-play. I would keep it as an RPG but acknowledge the strong strategy elements in the battles.

 

[Gyrefalcon]

It's neither. The genre is "Monster Trainer".

I wish I hadn't picked "strategy with some RPG" now because I forgot about this. AFAIK Monster Rancher came up with it, Pokémon and Digimon made it popular, and it's now been copied in a lot of different ways to different degrees in a whole bunch of games and aside from the actual monster training there are a few things that pretty much run through all of them so it's pretty much a genre unto itself.

It's a sub-genre just as zombie movies are to horror. Monster trainers aren't alike either. If you look at Monster Rancher games you do not have freedom of motion like you do in Pokemon. You are locked on the ranch unless an event is coming and you specifically attempt to attend whether a battle or "searching" ruins. So your question is still valid as to which major gaming genre it fits in.

 

[Abedeus]

If it's a strategy game, it is a very poor strategy game.

You'd be suprised.

It's just about the world's biggest strategy TBS game. The RPG is just a filler I think. I play it competitively, trying to get the best Pokemon with the strategically best moves and types.

I can bet that MMBN games have a lot more strategy involved (especially human vs human) than Pokemon games.

In competitive matches between people who play Pokemon strategically, it really does become all about strategy.

Not much strategy when your Pokemon has an inherent vulnerability.

About single-player - I defeated Red in Pokemon Silver when my Pokemon were about 50-60. His highest monster was almost... 85? I had no monsters invulnerable to his attacks, nothing like that, except for Hunter against Normal attacks.

A lot of Revives, Hunter for melee monsters. I just jumped from one revived monster, revive another, jump to it after the before guy died and so on... And waited until his Charizard ran out of elemental attacks.

Is that called strategy? Single-player campaign from Pokemon is hundreds of times easier than Megaman Battle Network's Underworld areas or Secret Area from Megaman Battle Network 3. For instance, in SA you have 3 levels, where you must defeat some of the hardest bosses in the game in packs of 3, all in S rank (under 9-25 seconds...), then defeat the second hardest boss (gah... even I couldn't do it, he's just too hard). Then you have the nr.1 enemy in the game.

Oh, and you can't log out. It means that if you health drops after a fight, you are forced to heal yourself with items, in combat with extremely difficult normal enemies OR run back to the point of entry.

Player vs Player? You must have a set of 30 chips that have a chance to work against... well, anything that the OTHER player prepared for you. You might even run into a situation when you have a build that makes the other player's build stronger (for instance, you have a Grass Stage panels, and the other enemy uses chips exploiting Grass panels for damage or effects). Then you must adapt and counter him anyway. Skills, tactics, speed. And you don't have too long to think, both players have a close window of time during which they choose chips from the screen.

But I'm not even sure you played both series to compare them.

 

[end_boss]

The genre for Pokemon is "Pokemon".

It's definitely not strategy, though, because of the fact that there is very little strategy invoeld except for remember things like "Blue beats Red, etc", "What attack does most damage or hits most often?", and "How does I catch Snorlax?"

If I recall, almost every Pokemon game tells you at the beginning at the Tutorial House, about how you should not make a Pokemon's moce roster only offensive techniques. I lol'd. What a load of bull that is!

In other words, you will never lose as long as you get the Turn Advantage, Type Adventage, and FIRIN MAH LAZER Advantage.

I used to feel this way until I heard my friend, a die-hard Pokemon fan, talk about the kind of stuff he does. I won't bore you with the details, since you obviously have very little interest in it, but there are definitely certain strategies that can come into play that you may not see at face value.

 

[Jonesy911]

The term 'RPG' itself indicates that there will be some strategy in there

 

[Guy32]

The only strategy involved is knowing what types are good against what, and that doesnt even matter once you're like 15 levels above the enemy. I played pokemon a lot as a kid and not once did I choose to have one of those crappy stat changing moves. you just hit the opponent 'til he dies.

 

[zamble]

If that was the case, then all RPGs would also be strategy.
It requires thinking ahead in all RPGs.
Tell me one RPG were you can go meander about mindlessly and beat the game easily.

Pokemon!!
I once, just for proving it was possible, played all of FireRed with the starting charmander, without ever changing it or teaching new moves to it... I just deleted old moves and replaced by the ones it learned naturally. Isn't it mindless enough?

That's pretty much impossible, or you're making an invalid point.
I find that you would have a whole bunch of trouble beating brock, misty, giovanni and the elite four.
That, or you trained other pokemon.

Nope. So I tought before doing it. All of those gave me a little extra work, but keep in mind that, as I trained no other pokemon, Charmander Level raised very fast. I could beat Brock only because by that time it had just learned Metal Claw. The others were hard, too, I thing I had to retry Misty, but doable the same way. Remember, high levels! It was always way higher than the enemies, even tough I didn't do many random battles, I just fought every trainer I saw.
No way to prove it, though...

I can believe the beating of Misty, Brock and Giovanni, but I think you're lying with the elite four.

Really, Misty and Brock were the hardest part. Giovani was piece of cake, really. The dragon-user, forgot his name, of elite four, got me scared, but was beaten the same way.
This is by no means a great merit of mine, I'm just saying the game is easy, I didn't have to think much, you know...

 

[ajb924]

The genre for Pokemon is "Pokemon".

It's definitely not strategy, though, because of the fact that there is very little strategy invoeld except for remember things like "Blue beats Red, etc", "What attack does most damage or hits most often?", and "How does I catch Snorlax?"

If I recall, almost every Pokemon game tells you at the beginning at the Tutorial House, about how you should not make a Pokemon's moce roster only offensive techniques. I lol'd. What a load of bull that is!

In other words, you will never lose as long as you get the Turn Advantage, Type Adventage, and FIRIN MAH LAZER Advantage.

Ninja'd with the genre bit.
And I LOL'd at the advatages you needed.

OT: I think it has it's own genre. I mean sure, you could take it to a strategic level, but the truth is, you don't need to. So basically, I agree with the dude I quoted.