#hoeddeok-rkgk

[crystalelemental]

What do you wanna see the postgame in Pokemon you want? I feel like it's kinda tricky to figure out myself when I replay the postgame content in numerous times.

Okay this might go for a while, because the short answer is "I don't think I know anymore."

Part of the issue is defining what count as "postgame." Like, is Kanto Redux in Gen 2 postgame because the League is the finish point, and Red is optional superboss content, or is that part of main game? Is the second half of Unova optional postgame content, or is it main game because you technically never finished your League quest? Some situations, like the Emma and Anabel quests in Gens 6 and 7, feel pretty decisively postgame, as do things like Delta Episode. But what counts and what doesn't is up for some debate, and I'm...not really sure where I draw the line. I've referred to everything in the second half of Unova as postgame, but now I question that decision.

More to the point, postgame runs into two specific problems in both story and gameplay areas.

Gameplay is probably best explained by Bopper's Gen 2 video. In it, he expresses that a major selling point of Pokemon is the emphasis on continued growth and development, talking about how moves being learned late or late appearing Pokemon give players something to work toward, and keep the game fresh and interesting. And to be honest, this tracks. As someone who's owned cheat devices most of his Pokemon career, you do try to hack in final teams right at the start and they get stale really fast. Having something to work toward is part of the fun.

Postgames tend to run into the problem of not having anything left to specifically work toward. The difference between Crystal's Kanto Redux and Platinum's battle island is that in Platinum, my team is done and has learned everything. As a result, that island doesn't really offer anything particularly fun. While I've been a proponent of Gym Leader and League rematches in the past, they also have the issue of...not doing anything different. Red as a new final conflict requires a different approach from facing off against Lance and the League, but Cynthia 1 and Cynthia 2 go down to exactly the same strategy. There's less to work toward, so the island feels entirely boring to me. It's a complete slog.

While there are opportunities to switch up the team, sometimes that comes a bit late, and isn't exactly...engaging. It works in a game like Crystal because of how type matchups work, where Misdreavus can be caught and immediately blank Red's Snorlax, or Tyranitar countering half of Red's team. Or in Emerald, Mawile can hard counter Steven's entire team with careful play. But later games don't have that opportunity. It's just lower level stuff, sometimes weaker stuff, with no real gameplay benefit.

Which leads to the main thing. This is a Monster Collecting game. Its postgame is effectively completion of the dex. Which is something Pokemon is uniquely terrible at. A game like Nexomon (which is excellent and should be played) lets your postgame be hunting down everything, which is all available in that one playthrough. But Pokemon has version exclusives that demand two games, and internet connection, and with Switch paying for online connectivity. In addition, while Nexomon has a ton of Legendary status mons, it also gives a ton of Golden Nexotraps for assured captures to simplify the process. Meanwhile, Pokemon gives you one (1) Master Ball, then gives you a gauntlet of like a dozen Legendary Pokemon that are wretched to catch because of how annoying their systems are. Monster collecting in the most popular Monster Collecting Videogame is terrible by design. It's never been good, and they're never going to make it good. Though I guess they tried with Galar's Dynamax Adventures and Paldea's fights with main legends. Though they both still do the stupid catching thing in other ways, like the Galar birds and Treasures of Ruin.

I think ideal gameplay actually gives you something to work toward, but also Pokemon really just needs to improve how it operates with catching everything. Which I think it has. To its credit, Galar and Paldea do make it easier to complete the dex by making near everything available. But that's also predicated on dealing with the awful raids and dens, which is somehow worse.

The other element, story, is where things get dicey, and I'll use a comparison to explain. In Nexomon, your postgame events are...honestly the most story intensive segments. They're really good, and my personal favorite parts. More critically, they're continuations. Nexomon 1 follows up the main story of defeating Omnicron with your story of destroying his soul so he can't regenerate (spoilers I guess). Neoxmon 2 follows up all the heavy stuff that happens with a bit of a departure, but only in the sense of setting up the connection between things that happened and things that are about to happen. It's all excellent, and the postgame story is the hook. Granted, alongside new boss fights and challenges and developments that are engaging too. Shame about how the hunt for Tyrants goes, but I digress.

Gen 2 and Gen 5, while they offer postgame, tends to be very light and disconnected on story. There's not as much relevance. Even with things like XY and SuMo and the Paldea DLC, which are much heavier on story, they have...literally no significance to the main event. Like okay, you can argue the thematic relevance of Emma as a character, or that the UB hunt is related to Lusamine's actions, but like...it's really not that connected to what was going on before. Teal Mask is just 100% disconnected, and when they do connect in the Mochi Madness thing, it kinda sucks ass and they wrote Carmine out of it entirely like assholes. I will never forgive that.

I can't say Pokemon's ever really had a great story-centric postgame. It completely lacks in that area, and tells the story it wants to tell centrally. Not that Pokemon's ever been that intense on story. So this is an area it can't really work for. But the ones that do stand out...also run into issues. XY and SuMo have great events with Looker, Emma, and Anabel...but the actual playing of those segments isn't great. And going back to the initial question, does Teal Mask count as postgame if you can do it, entirely, from nearly the start of the game?

The final issue is one of...well, the Battle Facilities. I hate them, personally. I have no investment in playing literal cheating AI at reading minds. Gimmick frontier stuff like in Emerald and Platinum can be fun, but stuff like the normal Battle Tower sucks. Add to it that legendary Pokemon don't count, and there's also very little benefit to gathering legends. You don't really get to do much but stomp the League with the box legends, and...then what? Do a bunch of extra stuff? Run battles that don't allow them? What's the point of having the postgame without those benefits? Galar fixes this a bit by letting anything into Tower, but it's a small concession more than a proper fix.

Honestly, I don't really know what this all adds up to. Part of it is desperately wishing Pokemon had better capture mechanics, because god do the current ones suck. Part of it is thinking that postgame should be a little quick, because usually my complaint is it goes on too long. But I really don't even know what I'd expect anymore. I think that, to some degree, postgame in Pokemon works while the generation is current, but falls off in importance on replays. It's why Daybreak made Legends Arceus worse.

[0dotexe]

Oh, gods this is a long post but hey thanks for the tag friend. This is just a handful of music that I could listen to forever.

Now the real list: 1. Hozier - NFWMB (Pitched up) 2. Halsey - Gasoline 3. Muse - Undisclosed Desires 4. Tame Impala - This Boat I Row 5. Celldweller - Louder Than Words Wild Card: Hourly Animal Crossing Music

Tagging isn't usually my style, but if you guys want to do it, go nutz. @drsp00n @paoofthestars @hoeddeok-rkgk @nickolox @haonqq @dhdingo

when u get this, list 5 songs u like to listen to, publish. then, send this ask to 10 of your favorite followers or moots (positivity is cool)

Ooooo hmmm, currently the ones ive been listening to would be

Hot to go, Laplace's angle, eat you, trigger of love, and family line(it's good for angst)

@not-a-vegan3 @propawganda @sunsetcougar @h3li0n @naturewivesmybeloved @anonymouscheeses @polubrony @darkmasterofcupcakes @omvimo

[beardedmrbean]

i was thinking to make something funny with doge so i came up with fat blunt one. my buds really loved it :)

Submitted by @hoeddeok-rkgk

Buds, lol

Doge looks so pleased with himself

[orenjibot]

@hoeddeok-rkgk replied to your post “I WANT TO DRAW BUT IM TOO TIRED TO DRAW AAAA”:

me @ household stuff putting me work than drawing </3

​UWAA I DIDN’T HAVE A LOT OF CHORES TO DO TODAY BUT IT WAS BC I WOKE UP EARLY TO WATCH EUROVISION WITH SOME FRIENDS!!

Then I went to live stream compass a bit on youtube so I’m really tired haha

[pcerise]

hatsune miku for @hoeddeok-rkgk

im experimenting with different methods for these requests, hope you like it!

[nickolox]

yo i picked your crew.

tags i feel no good at this but here goes.... @paoofthestars @0dotexe @hoeddeok-rkgk

get tagged neeerds

Starting a picrew chain because I'm bored as hell

here is the picrew :)

And a not entirely accurate Luigi <3

A silly goofy fact for you all<3: All of my shirt collars give or take a few shirts are chewed up like that lmao

I'm tagging (but if you want to join go ahead<3): @fvcking-stupid-666 @dawntones & @acetheidiotinacloset

[crystalelemental]

I think that’s a big problem with Gen 5 in general. A lot of people know about the issue of “evolution level too damn high,” but a lot of them are also two-stage evolutions that could have been much more reasonable with a middle stage to work off of. Mienshao and Bisharp, Braviary and Mandibuzz, they all evolve super late but their pre-evo kinda sucks too much to be worth training in the EXP scaling generation.

Oddly, Gen 5 feels the most like a fan game overly concerned with difficulty as its defining trait. This is not a good thing.

[crystalelemental]

Sorry, I’m looking at the post and the way I phrased the first sentence may have been confusing. I was agreeing with you. Marnie is flat and uninteresting, and while she had potential it absolutely doesn’t land. Nothing you said was stupid, you’re fine, I just have a lot of prior thought about Marnie specifically because of my Galar-loving wife.

[crystalelemental]

That much is true. The AI thing is…I feel like it can’t last forever, but it’s still not great. I had to talk to work colleagues about why this doesn’t work, which is a relatively good sign I think. If it’s anything like NFTs time-wise, it’s around the time normies start knowing about it at all that the bubble bursts.

[nickolox]

@hoeddeok-rkgk you innocuously reblogging a post about copyright and derivatives did this to me

fuck you (/jokingly)

tfw just sent in a giant essay of an ask to a person I found literally an hour ago. because their blog interests me That much.

[crystalelemental]

Unrelated with pokemon, Your reblogs with Madoka Magica got me into it. I've heard most of anime watchers warned me when I was a young lassie.

Some misunderstood watchers went to generalized the premise. I feel something is wrong with them, so I want to give a chance to watch and finished it.

All I have to say it, this magical girl show blows out of the water! it's incredibly well written with worldbuilding, characters and concepts! I loved the show now and I have yet to see the Rebellion movie.

For now, I need to sit back and chill what Madoka Magica hitting me rent free. It was so so bittersweet and had me crying couple of few times already! I love it, I understand the fans now...

I am now obssesed with Charlotte/Bebe the Sweet Witch and I have two plushies of them. Worth the purchase 10/10

Oh! Nice, glad you got into it! It's been a long time since I really engaged with Madoka, but I do still really like the show. I was extremely attached back in the day. A little nervous about this upcoming sequel movie, but if it's bad I can pretend it's not real I guess. I'll live.

Anyway, funny you mentioned not having watched Rebellion. That's honestly the part that took it from a show I really liked to a full-blown obsession. I could not get over Rebellion, it was so good. I own the blu-ray and the CD and had a custom plush doll made over it. I literally made everyone I knew watch it. Like, obsessed. So I'm very curious what you'll think of it.

[crystalelemental]

So, I think to some degree it’s less a problem of poor structure for a basic run, and more a problem for replayability. Something a lot of games have, but not as core structurally as Gen 5.

I complained before about postgames in Pokemon generally not being very good, because you have your Pokemon fully built and are just stuck trudging through areas trying to level for the league rematch or whatever. And in thinking about this, I realized part of the problem is that this would have been much more engaging on a first playthrough when the generation was fresh. If you’re still trying to catch everything, still finding new stuff to do, this is great. But when you know those twists and turns, you know the whole dex, it’s a lot less engaging because you’re not looking at thorough exploration, you’re looking to be done. Sevii Islands are great the first time because this is how you get a bunch of Johto mons back in Gen 3. The second time through, when you’re just doing a casual runthrough? Not as much. Because you don’t care now.

Gen 5 is very similar, despite having more to do. Many Pokemon aren’t fully evolved until postgame, but this makes getting there more frustrating. That’s something you can approximately tolerate the first time through when you’re doing all the exploration, but the second time it’s tedious. Uniquely, scaled experience creates a situation where basically the whole game is like this. Progress feels extremely slow despite it being one of the faster playthroughs. Without story it may be faster than anything, and even with it was the shortest run time for me barring OG Blue.

The buildup of the entire game is neat as a challenge approach when it’s the modern Gen, but the instant time moves on, a lot of this just is not worth doing again.

[crystalelemental]

And that’s my problem with Volcarona. It’s Hydreigon again. Stupid high level to evolve, basically useless as Larvesta, needs attack before evolving where its stats are all special. It’s not good.

[crystalelemental]

*flashbacks to the manga where he blows up a boat for being too noisy*

Yeah, hopefully.

[crystalelemental]

Thank you, I spent an unreasonable amount of time on it, so I’m glad you enjoyed. And no worries on the fics, they’re not going anywhere, but I do apparently crave validation on my creative pursuits so I’d love to know what you think if you do read any of them.

[crystalelemental]

I’m glad it was. I hold a great deal of hate in my heart, but I know that can be tiring to hear all the time so I at least try to be amusing about it.

The S-tier is going to be so long. Seriously I’m going to have so much to say on so many fronts.