so that IGN review on pokemon

[Something Amyss]

Well I spot a lie right there. Diving was never 'really neat'.
IGN being paid off by Team Aqua confirmed.

XD

Maybe Team Aqua is holding their favourite Pokés hostage?

Honestly, I don't even remember. I did this back in 2011/2012 when I had a lot of spare time. Just started checking out the history of some the reviewers, and honestly there was a lot of inconsistency. They'd like one game yet when a similar game came out, even if it was considered generally superior, people dissed it. Stuff like that. I chalk it more up to limited time frames and the need to plow through games quickly and sloppily to get the review out more than that they might've been bribed.

With zero to investigate upon specifically, this is a weak claim and not worth considering.

Again, its not a matter of the publication, its a matter of the reviewers.

Which misses the point of the statement. With the site's consistency across reviews, and especially in line with other publications, it sees horribly unlikely that you would see an inconsistency across individual reviewers. According to Metacritic, they are about 3% off from being a perfectly lubed weathervane.

To put this another way, if your claim of reviewer inconsistency were to be tested as a model with real, predictable capacity, I would offer the hypothesis that we should see a significantly less consistent between games than we do, or more appropriately than would be statistical norm. We don't see this. While it doesn't disprove the underlying belief, it does put it into question.

Without specific examples, there's not much to go into, either, just tenuous claims of patterns that may or may not exist. But my point was that I would actually expect to see less consistency from the publication if the individuals were inconsistent. To say what you did is to ignore what I said. It'd be one thing if you had a reason it was wrong (And "they hire a lot of people" is not one, since you're talking about patterns amongst similar games, which should show up in the overall scores of similar games), but you just ignored the premise of the line you were rebutting.

As for the actual point, it'd be one thing if you at least had a single piece of evidence, like the smoking gun of the hypotheticals you proposed, but I can't find examples of this at all. Maybe, maybe if I followed dozens of reviewers across their careers, I might find something. But then, the fact that this score comes with legit criticism about a game that Pokémon fans have been making (Hell, Lieju says that some of these date back to the original Gen III games, though I sat 'em out) for years doesn't help the idea that this was a well-founded statement.

That's it's based on claims that another party can't verify makes me wonder if it's even remotely true. Hell, that this author seems to demonstrate consistency[footnote]based on a google search for the author of this review and looking at her other work for IGN[/footnote] doesn't help, either. Are you working backwards from a conclusion?

 

[Something Amyss]

So really the only reason IGN is getting hate for a legitimate complaint is because the fanboys can't stand a review criticizing their precious pokemon (it wasn't even a bad review. Have these fanboys even seen the IGN scores for previous pokemon games? They're all like 9s!!)

Well, you can rationalise away the high prior scores if you're already working from the assumption that someone's out to get you.

I agree that the HM system is still really bad. My way to fix it? Give each Pokemon a 5th HM slot. The fifth move cannot come into play for battling, and it allows you to use the full team you want, without having to keep depositing a team member for a HM slave.

As for the water complaint. Just use super repels! They are cheap enough to buy like 30 without breaking the bank. Plus, Hoenn is known for two things: water and trumpets. Take one away, and Hoenn loses its very soul!

HM slot works, or just make them items, as the homebrew Alpha/Omega does. Or make the moves more useful, or...there's a lot of ways to fix this one.

As for water being a big part of the region, that's fine.

So retool the water!

People hate escort missions. If you made that a core mechanic, it wouldn't invalidate the complaints. People hate sewer levels. If you were to make a game that's all sewer levels, it would still be a problem. People hate water in Pokémon. Making a region based on water and not addressing the problem doesn't make the complaints less legitimate--especially in a remake, when they've had years since the game came out.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I'm not suprised given that is my complaint toward Ruby and Sapphire in the first place. So in hindsight the game is just an visual update but in saying so I don't see how they could of gotten around the two problem. Maybe making HM as an explorer move only or added 2 more move slots that are for HM only, not too sure about the surf, make it faster and less encounter rate?

 

[w23eer]

Seriously though, I recall these exact complaints back when gen 3 originally came out.

That was my first thought too. I would've found it wierd if they didn't criticize those things.

Y'know, I'm actually sort of glad I read the IGN review. I was excited for AR/OS since they were announced, and in hindsight I must admit that my rose tinted nostalgia glasses was clouding my expectations. I forgot about the excessive surfing and GOD THE DIVING.

Still not gonna miss it though. Gen 3 is still my faveorite Pokemon game in terms of roster.

 

[Lieju]

Seriously though, I recall these exact complaints back when gen 3 originally came out.

That was my first thought too. I would've found it wierd if they didn't criticize those things.

Y'know, I'm actually sort of glad I read the IGN review. I was excited for AR/OS since they were announced, and in hindsight I must admit that my rose tinted nostalgia glasses was clouding my expectations. I forgot about the excessive surfing and GOD THE DIVING.

Still not gonna miss it though. Gen 3 is still my faveorite Pokemon game in terms of roster.

It's my least favourite gen, and I was disappointed by it.
So I didn't really get the hype for the remakes. Maybe some people jumped in at that point or something.

 

[Dragonbums]

I find it ironic how when IGN docks points out of a game for having "Too much water"- where the whole point is to be half land half water- you have people defending it and calling those who disagree pokemon/nintendo zealots. With the latter simply making water jokes, calling ign stupid, and moving on with their lives.

Meanwhile Polygon not only gets shat on for docking the same amount of points for Bayonettas sexual display, but people also came together to make op Bayonetta 2 to have said site blacklisted from nintendo.

Huh.

 

[Savryc]

I find it ironic how when IGN docks points out of a game for having "Too much water"- where the whole point is to be half land half water- you have people defending it and calling those who disagree pokemon/nintendo zealots. With the latter simply making water jokes, calling ign stupid, and moving on with their lives.

Meanwhile Polygon not only gets shat on for docking the same amount of points for Bayonettas sexual display, but people also came together to make op Bayonetta 2 to have said site blacklisted from nintendo.

Huh.

That's what the gaming community is now. No middle ground, no shades of grey. There is only the "Objective (There are no quotation marks big enough) Truth" and the publisher/developer/franchise/etc zealots. Obviously who falls into what category is dependant on the individuals own brand of fanboyism and zealotry.

 

[42]

I'd say it's a valid thing to complain about, there's a ton of Surfing in Gen 3 and having to deposit a team member to get Surf (ah, the old Pelliper HM whore) out is irritating.

I imagine it's even more grating with the new movement options (if they're still featured), because you lose all that lovely circle pad movement.
IMO, this would've been a great time to implement a running shoes equivalent while surfing, or perhaps just some kind of personal hovercraft-bike-thing to replace it altogether.

you've literally just given me the Pokemon HM whore i was looking for. Thank you kind friend.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

I do agree with her on too many HMs.

Nintendo needs to get off their ass and implement HM items, like in zeta/omicron. Having a machete, jetpack, rocket boots, inflatable lapras etc to use HM abilities without being forced to take them on a pokemon is *so* much nicer. It allows the devs to keep the HMs as a series of progress checks to streamline world exploration while also using more of each type of barrier. Typically towards the end of a pokemon game, there's very few things that need to be Cut, because it's a pain in the ass and nobody near the endgame is going to be walking around with cut. But they'd be able to have more cuttable stuff, rocks to smash, etc if you could just use HM items. In Z/O, the HM items weren't mandatory (obviously, since you could still use the HM moves on pokemon) but they were an added perk for out-of-the-way exploration, as many were found in optional rooms or route paths.

One other thing Z/O introduced was the idea of IV stones - talk to npc and max out an IV. At the end of Z/O campaign, there was another NPC that would set an IV to 30 instead (which was perfect for getting specific hidden power types). In the past, nearly every competitive player used action replay (or, later, pokegen/pokesav) to create "legit" max pokemon, as the effort required to get one actually legitimately was completely insane - literally thousands of eggs, hundreds of thousands of steps, praying to RNG that this next one will be max IVs in the stats you want. And god forbid you try to use hidden power - that easily doubles the amount of eggs you'd need to hatch. That kind of awful, soul-draining grind is the main reason pokemon PvP is a shitfestival - there should really be an option (even if they lock it until endgame) to alter IVs. Make it cost gold, make it cost an item you can farm. Just don't make it purely random on spawn and tell players to hatch thousands of eggs.

Honestly, after how many great ideas were introduced in Z/O, I find it really hard to go back to the "main" pokemon games and suffer through how little they've actually changed. Daily grind quests and shirts that cost $200,000 does not a great game make. I was a competitive battler in state-wide tournaments during the R/S/E and Fr/Lg era, so gen 3 getting a new release should make me excited, but... it just doesn't. What they add isn't what pokemon *needs*, it's mostly just useless bullshit. Mega evolutions, dailies, RNG breeding... zzz. Give me HM items and *maybe* I'll buy a pokemon game again, nintendo.

woah didn't hear about this, downloading it now, I've only just started and I'm liking what I see, 3 save files? fucking christ about time.

 

[MerlinCross]

I'd actually give my own thoughts on this, BUT I skipped out on the games the first time around so I have no idea what they mean by "Too much water".

Does that mean there's like 6+ routes that are nothing but water?

 

[VanQ]

It makes sense that there's so much water, because there needs to be a balance between it and land.

That's like, the entire theme of the game.

In a series about rock-paper-scissor dogfighting, game balance is kind of an issue.

He's not talking about combat balance. He means the world map. Hoenn is roughly 50% landmass and 50% ocean. It has more surfable ocean than any other Pokemon game before or after it and that was its main criticism then and now. However, the theme of the game was based around Team Magma/Team Aqua fighting one another to use legendaries to expand the landmass/ocean respectively.

It was a criticism of the game that was always used by people that either couldn't understand that it was that way because it suited the story and theme prefectly and those that didn't bother to use Repel when surfing. And that's they're choice if they don't wanna drop some of their plentiful in game cash on a cheap Tentacool repellent, it just was a waste of their own time.

 

[SD-Fiend]

I'd actually give my own thoughts on this, BUT I skipped out on the games the first time around so I have no idea what they mean by "Too much water".

Does that mean there's like 6+ routes that are nothing but water?

Well if you go specifically by number of routes that register as a "water route" 17 of 34 routes are either pure water meaning it's half and half number wise. I can't really tell you how they would compare size wise though.

 

[Fishyash]

I haven't played ORAS yet (played the originals though), but by the looks of this thread (haven't read the review yet) they have kept the water section of the game the same mechanics-wise.

Honestly, I like the idea of a water-heavy section in the game. RSE failed in their execution though. There are two reasons for this: Surf speed and the ridiculous HMs.

I don't know if the surf speed is any faster in ORAS. If it is, then good, but if even if it's the same speed as in X/Y it's not fast enough unless they condensed the water section, which I guess they didn't.

Surf is pretty much the only powerful HM move in any pokemon game. It's a very good move, and it's really annoying seeing that they added two INFERIOR water type HMs along with surf, and they're all required to reach the end of the game. Your party is essentially reduced to 5 slots to use an underpowered pokemon that can use the HMs. 3 offensive water type moves that only do damage, you wouldn't put so many moves on a WHOLE TEAM, even if you did, you'd just teach surf to 3 of your pokemon. I would've thought they would change the water section of the game to remove the requirement of dive and waterfall, and by not doing so they kinda fucked up.

As I said, the size is fine, I prefer it being wide and expansive, kind of like an ocean. It would be better if you could surf faster though, rather than reducing the size. It takes off time while keeping the area expansive.

The random encounters complaint is stupid. After Lillycove you should be holding so many super/max repels your bag should be spilling them out. Same goes for battles, they are very easy to avoid since the area is so big.

So yeah, the problem isn't the AMOUNT of water really, they just need to handle it better. Obviously GameFreak realised that the water mechanics are interesting but get old and frustrating REALLY quickly, so in their most recent games they took out most of the water. It's clear they don't really know how to make the water more engaging and fun to traverse.

Overall it's a shame they didn't really fix the problems with the game like they did in the remake.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Never been a fan of the water sections. You never see trainers coming, and you're stuck fending off Tentacools 90% of the time. "The Zubat of Water" as someone posted earlier.

 

[MerlinCross]

Never been a fan of the water sections. You never see trainers coming, and you're stuck fending off Tentacools 90% of the time. "The Zubat of Water" as someone posted earlier.

Eh the trainers never bothered me more than usual, though some of them seem to have long sight ranges. And later games kinda messed around wit Tentacools but they were just replaced with whatever 'Zubut of the Water' was in the game.

My actual complain/nitpick/whatever you want to call it isn't the assessment that there's too much water and all the problems that revovle around it. It's the image.

It's in the bottom line/summary of the title which, without reading the article, makes it easily mockable and funny. It's still funny after reading the article but that is much more "My opinion of this is funny". Maybe they could have worded it differently in the bottom line. I mean it'd be like me saying "There's too much Walking" as a bottom line in a Skyrim review(which is true but again, worded differently maybe).

 

[smithy_2045]

eh, doesn't sound that bad to me. Too many water sections with too many random encounters can be irritating and it's perfectly legitimate to complain about them if they negatively affect your experience of the game. For once, IGN seem to be in the clear as far as I'm concerned.

Have just realized though, we now have a new 'gate' scandal, surely;
IGN-gate
Poke-gate
7.8-gate
Kallie-gate
Plagge-gate
Review-gate

and so on and so on

Should be "7.g8".

 

[The Bucket]

I find it ironic how when IGN docks points out of a game for having "Too much water"- where the whole point is to be half land half water- you have people defending it and calling those who disagree pokemon/nintendo zealots. With the latter simply making water jokes, calling ign stupid, and moving on with their lives.

Its all well and good to make a half water based region part of the story; but that doesn't excuse not tackling the problem that surfing sucks in Pokemon, along with all the other boring pointless HMs like Dive. Ditto with type variety; having a lot of water type opponents to fight might make sense from a story perspective, but gameplay wise it ends up hurting balance a lot.

 

[Fishyash]

No. This complaint is not stupid. As a veteran you'll maybe do that. As a newbie to the series you don't. People assume they need to face all those random encounter to keep to Pokes strong enough, or they want to see new Pokes or they simply don't know that repels exist.

Also, lets not assume that people enjoy a popup window every 200 steps (super repels = best value) asking if you want to use another. I fucking hate it. I just enjoy the fact that I don't have to activate them manualy, this doesn't mean that this doesn't suck ass.

Another bloody comment that reeks of: "I did not find this bad. So this complain is stupid." Why do you assume you're in the position to dictate which complaints are allowed and which are not?

It's a stupid complaint because GameFreak implemented a mechanic that negates random encounters. Repels may be cumbersome, but it's a compromise. If you don't like the popup window, you can give your lead Pokemon a cleanse tag, which will reduce the encounter rate of wild pokemon. They purposely made it so that there is no perfect way to avoid wild pokemon.

It's a simple matter that even new players understand. If they are frustrated with wild encounters, the repels are in the game. To assume that it will hurt you in the long run (which it donesn't) to use them is basically stating that you don't trust the developers enough to use one of their mechanics.

Bottom line is there is a very good aesthetic reason to include such a big water region in the game, which has been explained in the thread already. When making game worlds the aesthetics is the most important part of creating said world. The mechanics behind how the world works are secondary, and THAT is where GameFreak failed, in both RSE and apparently ORAS.
The encounters are not one of those reasons.

Also, I'm not dictating anything, let alone assume I'm in the position to dictate opinions (as if that's possible lol). I simply disagree with the complaint enough that I consider it stupid. Your comment reeked of "I find surfing bad. So surfing is not fun." How is that any different? Or better yet, what exactly is wrong in stating your opinion in such a way?