#Black/White were far superior plot-wise imo

[sage-nebula]

Pokemon Sun/Moon games please?

@yoshi12370, you also requested this, so I”m just going to tag you here! And also, oh boy, let’s see if I can keep this to five, because to be entirely honest I’ve been thinking about my dissatisfaction with Sun/Moon’s plot a lot recently (especially with everyone is gushing about how it/its characters are “the best the series has ever had!!1!” which … no).

Justice. For. Gladion. This is honestly one of my biggest sticking points, because I’m still so aggravated with the way he was treated by the game’s narrative.To begin with, he was hardly in it. Although he is introduced on the second island, his introduction is brief, and he doesn’t show up again until much later in the plot to give a cryptic warning, and then when Lillie and Nebby go off to Aether Paradise with Plumeria. Now, most of the characters in this game were neglected, and if he was simply another character then—while I would be disappointed because I like him—I would be more inclined to sigh and let it go. The fact is, however, that he should have had more of a role because he is Lillie’s brother and Lusamine’s son. He should have been just as important to the plot as the two of them, and he isn’t, to the point where it’s actually rather easy to forget that he’s even a part of that family considering the fact that he’s completely cut out of the picture after the events on Aether Paradise. Hell, even when Lillie shares her memory about dancing in the rain, Gladion isn’t mentioned at all. She recalls no memories of her brother whatsoever. Even a little mention there would have given a nudge that, hey, he was once part of this family as well—but we didn’t get that, on top of not seeing him throughout the plot. Considering his role in this family, it’s unforgivable.And it’s especially unforgivable in the climax. Don’t get me wrong, not having him show up more throughout the game is just as much of an issue, considering the fact that there are so many gaping holes in his story. For instance, he’s an “enforcer” for Team Skull, but what is it that he enforces? Team Skull doesn’t have any power in Alola whatsoever. They are, understandably, treated as a joke by the populace. Clearly he isn’t enforcing any sort of regulations or power, because they have none. He’s also not keeping the Skull grunts in line, because they openly disparage them, and he doesn’t even live in Po Town. Instead, he lives on a completely different island in a motel room. Given the fact that Team Skull is dirt poor and the fact that the motel manager tells us that Gladion paid two years of rent in full and is running out of money (presumably to buy food), we can also assume that Team Skull isn’t even paying him for whatever it is he does. So why is he employed by them? What is he getting out of it, and what does he do? We don’t know, because the game doesn’t bother to tell us. (Well, we do know that he wants to get stronger, so perhaps he battles—but again, we don’t know why he’s battling for them, if he’s battling with them or against them, et cetera. None of this is elaborated upon at all.) So all of that is an issue, but the fact remains that he’s not allowed to be a part of the climax, despite the fact that Lusamine abused him just as much as she abused Lillie before he left, and continued to berate and verbally abuse him when he finally returned during the Aether infiltration (and sicced Guzma on him to boot—nothing like abuse by proxy!). Gladion isn’t allowed to call her out, confront her, or even be there to support his sister. He’s not allowed to be there despite saying that he feels some measure of (misplaced) responsibility due to the fact that she is technically their mother. I get that the game wanted to give Lillie her big moment, and I’m glad she got to have that, but I’m upset that she was the only one who got to have it, and that Gladion’s abuse is so casually swept aside (and that he’s forced to go back to Aether Paradise to “clean it up” even though he had no believable reason to do that, and it’s clear that they forced him to do so just to get him out of the way). Hell, Gladion had far more of a reason to be there at the climax than the player did! If anything, it should have been Gladion and Lillie playing the flutes, a sibling duet in order to open up Ultra Space to go after their horrible, abusive, excuse for a mother. I also wish the game would have been even more explicit about the abuse Gladion suffered (which is implied to have been shifted to Lillie once he left, meaning he got the brunt of it before he did), because people still dismiss it and call him “emo,�� and that really upsets me as someone who comes from an abusive background and reacted similarly to how he did. So seriously, justice for Gladion. He needs more of a role in the plot. He definitely needs a role in the climax. He and Lillie both need to confront Lusamine, together, and he needs to go to Kanto with Lillie to travel with her and show her the ropes of being a trainer (and also just to reconnect with her after their two-year separation). That would be a far better ending.

Lusamine needs to die. She should have died in the climax. Killed off for real, no take-backs. Aside from that …I’m upset at the rampant abuse apologism throughout Sun/Moon’s ending. The implication that she was the way she was because of neurotoxins, or “well she was nice to Lillie once so clearly she can be redeemed”—bullshit. My own mother was abusive to me and employed many of the same verbal/emotional abuse tactics Lusamine did (as well as some physical ones that we’re never told Lusamine did), and yeah, sometimes she was nice. Sometimes she showed kindness. That’s what abusers do, that’s what the abuse cycle is, that’s how they keep their victims where they want them! They show kindness sometimes so that the victim thinks “they really do love me, they’re just having a bad day/I made them angry/it’s this other thing that went wrong.” And hell, it fucking worked! Gladion says straight up that he told himself that Lusamine’s behavior was caused by his father’s disappearance so he could get through it. He specifically says that’s what he told himself so that he could get through it, meaning a.) that’s not necessarily true, and b.) he was trying to convince himself that his mother did love him, she did, she just had external factors that were driving her out of control. Particularly if she had rare moments of kindness with him like she did with Lillie, that would make it easier for him to convince himself that there were factors beyond her just not loving him, and thus make it easier for her to maintain control over him for as long as she did. (Which was a long time; he might be calling her “Lusamine” and “the president” by the time we meet him, but that letter found in his motel room has him apologizing for escaping his abusive situation, good lord.) Furthermore, we know that the rain dance situation was a rare moment of kindness because Lillie talks about how she was shocked she didn’t get punished, and kept waking Lusamine up because she couldn’t believe she was allowed to sleep in that bed. It was out of the ordinary for Lillie, that’s why she remembered it so clearly. Lusamine was an abuser from start to finish, and the game’s constant harping on healing her, redeeming her, helping her get better, and how her abused children felt responsible for caring for her was abhorrent. And honestly? While I’m on how absolutely repulsive that was, it’s especially repulsive to me because it was shoved down our throats that Lillie and Gladion had to help Lusamine after everything she did to them. Ghetsis was awful, yes, but the Unova games never made an attempt to tell us that he should be redeemed, or that N had a responsibility to him. N did come back to try and stop him in B2W2, and did try to talk some sense into him, but it was made apparent that N’s felt responsibility was in stopping Ghetsis from committing more evil, not taking care of and looking after him. It was never portrayed in such a way as, “Ghetsis abused N, but N still owes responsibility to him.” In the Alola games, however? Despite the fact that we see more on-screen abuse from Lusamine than we saw from Ghetsis (and more realistic abuse, too! She straight up pulls a line straight from my own abusive mother’s mouth!! I had to put the game down for a second I was so affected!), we’re still force-fed the “oh it wasn’t her fault” and “she can be redeemed” and “her kids are looking after her, don’t worry!” It’s vile. It’s straight up vile. I loathe it. So all of that said? She should have died. Nebby should have obliterated her after the Mother Beast battle. If they really wanted to, they could have still had that Regina George line that she gives to Lillie, all “when did you start becoming beautiful?” (bitch she was always beautiful, stop giving her backhanded compliments, and don’t ever talk to me or my daughter ever again), but then she should have legitimately died. I know that would be taking it a step farther than usual considering we don’t typically kill off characters in these games, but we talked about mass genocide last gen, we’ve talked about death in this gen, and they did straight up murder Lysandre’s ass in the anime. They could and should have killed Lusamine. Lillie and Gladion should have been free, and I would have been much happier. (Seriously, the relief I felt when I thought she had died, only to be crushed when I read the words “oh, she’s fine, just unconscious.” Ffs, kill her off! Vaporize her! Grind her into dust!!)And yes, I’m fully aware that Japanese culture plays a lot into familial responsibility, and honoring your parents, et cetera. Believe me, I know. But that doesn’t make it free from criticism, and it’s not as if Game Freak didn’t know that these games would be localized for a western audience. So while I’m sure that their cultural values did come into play, and while I do acknowledge this, it doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to be bothered by or criticize it, particularly since quite a lot of Lusamine’s behavior was reminiscent of my own abusive mother’s. (And also? Alola isn’t even a Japanese region, it’s an American one, so if anything, western values do play some role in it, too. It’s a complicated issue, but nonetheless.)

Pretty much the entire cast was under-utilized, to the point where the only one who had legitimate development was Lillie. Everyone else either had rushed or no development whatsoever, and barely impacted the plot. However, the main ones are:- Plumeria. Plumeria was barely in the plot, which is the second biggest damn shame next to Gladion’s minimal presence. To involve her more, I would have had her play an actual role in the Aether infiltration, namely in order to call Guzma out on his horrid treatment of Team Skull. While Guzma has a history of abuse himself (his behavior really speaks of someone who was abused in childhood and never received help), that doesn’t excuse how he treats the Skull grunts now, particularly since those he acts abusively around (by screaming, trashing the place, gloating about “beating down” Gladion, et cetera) are children, while he is a grown man. Plumeria is said to be Team Skull’s “big sis” and it’s clear that she cares about them. Therefore, she should have confronted Guzma at Aether Paradise with regards to him selling out the Skull grunts to the Aether Foundation, should have called him out on how horribly he treats them, and should have battled him, perhaps even for the title of Skull boss. Seeing Plumeria take charge and get shit done would have been amazing, and would have made her presence in the plot actually worth it, rather than completely wasting and not developing her character at all.- Burnet. Just like I love Plumeria, I also love Burnet, but again, she has a grand total of one scene in the plot, and that’s not enough. It’s especially not enough when you consider the fact that her specialization is in the different dimensions and creatures within them, which is directly tied to Sun/Moon’s main plot. We see Kukui all over the place even though his specialization has basically nothing to do with the main plot, and that … that’s a damn shame. Like, no shade on Kukui, but it’s a shame. So I would have involved Burnet more as well, including giving her a confrontation with Lusamine over both the Ultra Beasts/Ultra Space and her treatment of her children. - Hau. Hau was pretty much a static character throughout the game, and his presence in the plot was, again, very minimal. We get hints that he has more to him—living in Hala’s shadow, his father disappearing, brief disappointment when he loses right before the League, and his discomfort around Gladion due to how Gladion is constantly dragging him—but it’s not enough. I would have liked for Hau to have an actual character arc about building his own confidence and learning to be comfortable with himself, rather than just showing up for a friendly match, few jokes, and malasada lines. Again, I love Hau, but he should have had more done with him—he should have been a better realized character.- Wicke. Wicke is so boring. Her dialogue is bland, and her role in the plot basically amounts to “nice maternal figure who doesn’t actually do anything but low-key drag an abused boy by calling him ‘sheltered.’” Her character needs to be completely reworked to be more interesting. Also, make her somewhat villainous like Faba? Yes please.Really, all of the characters need expansion, but those are the ones that I keep coming back to whenever I think of all the wasted potential. There’s so much wasted potential.

I would have liked Lusamine’s focus to be less “OMG BEAUTY MINE MINE MINE” and more about scientific beauty. The Aether Foundation—which, mind you, should have been evil from conception to end, I hate that they were just ~*~temporarily~*~ evil, fuck that noise, I’m still counting them as the real villains, idgaf—has a very sterile, scientific feel to it. Even if we don’t go the straight up alchemy route (#disappointment), they’re creating chimeras and running space-time experiments. Lusamine is the president. I know that the game threw in an NPC saying it was her grandfather who created the Aether Foundation (of course), and also that it was Mohn who carried out the bulk of the original experiments (of course, this is all very typical of Pokémon, unfortunately), but in my view we should excise her grandfather, and hell, excise her husband (it’s not as if he’s terribly important anyway, we could do without him—and no, we don’t need him to explain the twins, because if Johto Rival doesn’t need a named mother, then Lillie and Gladion don’t need a named father), and make it about her and her fascination with science. Because here’s the thing: They can keep Lusamine’s interest and love for beautiful things while also making that interest and love clinical and scientific rather than obsessive and a stereotypical brand of feminine evil. Formulas can be beautiful to a scientist. Ultra Beasts could be beautiful to her in a fascinating way. To her, it can be less about beauty in the form of love, and more about the beauty in control, the beauty in flawless experimentation, the beauty in power and having her plans come to fruition, the beauty of science. Rather than Lusamine’s motivations being reduced to either “she wants to love things” or “she’s obsessed with beauty” or “she’s obsessed with finding her husband,” it could be all about her scientific experimentation, quest for power, and other motivations that are, quite frankly, typically given to male characters but are for some reason denied female characters for, gee, some reason we just can’t figure out. Having Lusamine still retain her manipulations and deception and playing that into her exceedingly high intelligence would have been far more interesting. Hell, if they wanted to model her after another character, GLaDOS is right there. I’m just saying. 

I strongly dislike how the player was touted to be this amazing gift from the heavens without doing anything to actually deserve such praise. The Pokémon games are, of course, set up with the express purpose of enabling the player to Be The Very Best Like No One Ever Was™, but ordinarily it either happens as a bout of happenstance (the player is usually just in the right place at the right time, and is only given just enough thanks for whatever it is they did—and sometimes less than they deserve, tbh), or it’s literally written in as a bout of potential destiny that someone (/coughcough N /coughcough) chose to make a reality. Here, however, it felt like the trainer wasn’t really doing anything but completing a few really easy “challenges” (the Island Trials were not nearly as complex or involved as I would have liked them to be; I really enjoy the concept, but I want them to be more like Zelda’s temples in the future if they’re brought back), and then being practically worshiped by every single character for literally no reason, including and especially Lillie, even if you’re a jerk to her in your dialogue choices. It was excruciatingly aggravating by the end of the game, to the point where I actually disliked having to sit through cutscenes of Lillie gushing over the player character. Those were scenes that would have been much better if she was instead bonding with the brother she had been separated from for the past two years, you know? I don’t need praise heaped upon me, especially when I’ve barely done anything. I’m just a person, and not even a very interesting one. Please, take the laurels off me, pass the focus over to the twins, and let me enjoy a story in which they both get the focus they deserve, instead of having me take Gladion’s portion just so that the game can try and make me feel special. So yeah, this is a huuuuge issue that would need to be fixed, but less hero worship for the player, harder challenges, and more focus on characters who aren’t the player (and are thus actual characters and deserve the focus far more therefore). That would definitely be an improvement.

[bigklingy]

In case anyone wanted to know my (brief) thoughts on Fates.

So I got a comment on a Fates video asking if I ever did a “review” of some kind. I thought I might as well copy-past my reply here. Heres my dot-point thoughts on FE Fates. Just... try to be civil. I know everything about this game tends to spark flame wars. Gameplay: -In general, MUCH better than Awakening, especially pair-up. Skills are also nice, being less luck-based and more about flat stat boosts, and personal skills should be in every future game. -Class balance is a bit better. Generals and Snipers got much-needed improvements. Only class I'd call "overpowered" is Master Ninjas. (If they didn't have Poison Strike they'd be fine, but with it they beat both frail units AND bulky ones) -Unbreakable weapons are fine, and for the most part there's still strategy in weapon choice, perhaps even more so. But there are a few problems. Higher-level weapons have drawbacks too large, and Knives are almost completely inferior to Shuriken. Map Design: -Birthright, decent. Conquest, fantastic, nearly perfect. Revelation, bad. -Dragon Veins are a nice gimmick, especially when bosses use them too. -It’s hard to describe (and not really related to map design), but the world map in Birthright and Revelation feels lifeless and boring compared to the ones in Sacred Stones, Awakening and Echoes. Difficulty: -Birthright is a bit too easy. Its Hard should have been harder. Characters range from good to game-breaking. -Conquest is a bit too extreme in its difficulty. Conquest Hard is barely different from Conquest Lunatic. If they'd toned-down Hard to be more of an in-between of Normal and Lunatic, I'd like it better. Character balance is very good overall with the possibly exception of Camilla. -Revelation is all over the place. A few isolated maps are hard, the rest are as easy as Birthright. Many characters are TERRIBLY balanced on this route though.

-I like how higher difficulties aren’t just numerical stat boosts to enemies. Adding enemies, changing equipment, changing objectives, or even changing deployment locations. Please do more of this in future games.

-Lunatic mode is way better than Awakening’s. Less cheap luck-based difficulty. Though its exclusive skills are dumb. Supports/Pairings: -Gaining classes through supports adds depth. -A+ supports are confusing and clumsy. Opposite-sex siblings should be able to A+. You should not be allowed to A+ if you get no classes out of it. (e.g. Azura and Sakura) -Children feel awkwardly shoehorned in and should have been explained better. Paralogues are nice, but none of them have any story relevance. This game either should have had a time-skip or no children at all. -While children aren't as broken as Awakening, and Offspring Seals are great, we're back to FE4 style "some pairings aren't viable at all from a gameplay standpoint". Magic-focused mothers suffer greatly from this, as there are very few magic children. This is more a personal thing, as I pair more for story than gameplay. -I feel like the "every character can marry the Avatar" system hurt some characters/plot points this time. I personally think Gunter, the Hoshidan siblings, Midori, Percy and possibly Soleil should not have been able to marry them. -Before you ask, no, I don’t think Scarlet should have been able to marry Ryoma. I actually don’t like that pairing much. I do think she shouldn’t have been able to marry the Avatar on “that route” though. -Male Avatar can't marry a Gen 1 female without erasing one child forever. -Same-sex marriage totally inferior to straight marriage from a gameplay standpoint, erasing one/two children forever. Spoilers ahead. Also, mostly negativity ahead. Story: -All three routes aren't great.

-WE DON’T EVEN HAVE A NAME FOR THE CONTINENT.

-I am in a VERY small minority that thinks Birthright is worse than Conquest. It adds a ton of random, pointless deaths just to try and give it as much tragedy as the other routes. The final stretch of chapters I found unsatisfying. Sneaking inside the enemy castle so conveniently only evil people get killed is less epic than a full-scale invasion. And it makes Birthright the objectively morally-superior route when they were supposed to be avoiding that. Corrin's characterization is the best of all three routes though. -Controversial opinion: I'm not bothered THAT much about Conquest, it might actually be my favourite of the three. (But that's not saying much) But it suffers from contrivances just to cause tragedy, and the villains often "undo" anything positive Corrin does and can't be rebelled against until it's too late. The siblings shouldn't have been kept in the dark about their father. Corrin not killing things gets hard to believe, and all the "it's not black and white" speeches fall hollow when IT ACTUALLY IS. I disagree with Nohr being 100% evil though. I think the only evil Nohrians are Hans, Iago and Garon. Chapters 21 to 24 are some of my favourite moments in any FE game, though that might only be because the map design is so good. -Revelation is weird. It's the most "complete" route with the best ending, and lets you use everyone. But the plot often hinges of characters being idiots. Corrin here is imo the worst of all three versions, coming off as really stupid at times. The main villain has no backstory if you don't buy the Hidden Truths DLC. -I think Corrin should have been blood-related to the Hoshidan siblings. They not being breaks one of the themes of the game and feels like waifu/husbando pandering. It also requires weird plot contrivances. (Both Sumeragi and Mikoto must have been cheating on/with eachother at the same time??) -Character-wise, they're... okay. I feel like less characters are exaggerated stereotypes compared to Awakening, though they're still present. (Arthur, Peri, Odin) But none of the characters truly grabbed me as amazing. -The children aren't nearly as good characters as they were in Awakening, with only one or two not boring me to death. -Hans and Iago, on all three routes, are irredeemably terrible. Generically evil for no reason. -Controversial opinion: I kind of like Garon. But sort-of ironically. I find him hilariously over-the-top and fun. And he actually has a backstory unlike Hans and Iago. -The final Rev villain is a step up from Grima, but still not that great. (And with Grima's expanded backstory in Echoes, Grima might actually be better than him now) -Mikoto is killed way too early, she barely makes an impact. I like her on Revelation though, as I consider the phantom version of her an exaggeration of her flaws, thus.... giving her some. -Corrin is the worst Avatar so far, and possibly the worst Lord in the series. A lot of their character suffers from player-pandering and the plot bending over backwards to absolve them of any direct guilt in anything. Birthright Corrin is okay though. DLC: -From what little I've played, it's not as good as Awakening's. Hidden Truths is good though. -Grinding DLC suffers heavily from the scaling. At end-game, the only people who can kill the enemies in Boo Camp... are those strong enough to not need the exp anyway. That kind of defeats the point. I like that it's not effortless, but they went a bit too far. Overall: -Conquest has some of the best gameplay in the series by far. I hope future FE games follow its example in map design. -They tried to do a better story than Awakening, but it ended up even worse. Please hire the writers of Echoes to write future FEs from now on. -I like Conquest considerably more than Awakening for its gameplay alone. Birthright is better than Awakening gameplay-wise, but I found Awakening “deeper” overall. Revelation has more characters, but it’s got some big issues.