i think the main problem of pokemon rom hacks is that they do not meddle with the AI. Despite the first 3 gens being completely open source (with gen 4 and BDSP on the way), the games still use the original ai, and at most up the diffuclty to use the champion AI for every battle, but they never go past that, so the game never makes use of SWITCHING, arguably one of the most important mehcanics in the game (shadow tag is banned in comp for this reason), and a lot of challenge runs go down to how much you can cheese the AI with the shit you caught and hope rng doesn't screw you over
modern nuzlockes make me sad. they all feel so inorganic. the point of nuzlockes was to use pokemon you wouldn’t normally use and have things be unpredictable. now I see shit like calcs and repel manips, and it’s like they robbed any sort of authentic experience out of it. I think moving away from the comics people made to cramming an entire nuzlocke into one video was a mistake
I gotta mostly disagree, but I respect your opinion and understand it, I think the use of calcs and repel manipulation is part of the fun in nuzlockes, but not using them is also totally fine, calcs is just preparing and planning out the fights to come but it’s a bit overkill in a vanilla game, and repel abusing is just preparing an encounter, just like someone would for example skip a route to get a future encounter to guarantee a certain Pokémon in the route skipped, is just planning out and using the tools that the game gives you, and if someone doesn’t wanna do that it’s totally fine. The point of nuzlockes being in a single video is just that the people who make them started learning how to play the game better, not lose Pokémon in non important fights, and because of that just not have as much to say like in the past, like if someone did a nuzlocke series spanning on multiple videos where all they said was “I beat random trainer 1, I beat random trainer 2, I beat random trainer 3… all without losing a single Pokémon and barely getting damaged thanks for watching” isn’t fun, people are just getting to the point of the nuzlockes, important fights and when something happens in those random battles like a loss of a Pokémon or a close moment they normally mention it. And for your final point the loss of the comics, that is actually something I agree with, they were charming and creative but redundant today when you can just show the run in a video. (Sorry if it’s hard to read in some parts, my English isn’t the best)
It was happening for a very long time, it just that prior to the nuzlocking scene being cleansed by hardcore nuzlocke being introduced it was instead "super extreme randomizer nuzlocke of pokemon sun episdoe 1" Where they then cheat to get some crazy encounter at the start of the run so people will watch it. Vanilla nuzelocke were pretty much dead as a concept for at least 15 years.
Not as damning as you think. Mario (including Wonder and Odyssey), Kirby (despite the bonus modes which are fairly difficult), Fire Emblem, Sonic (largely to fix games but also add challenge), Zelda (ranges from multiplayer to randomisers), Resident Evil (randomisers), Smash (too many for me to name) and Devil May Cry (mainly for 2, 3, DmC and 5) all have an abundance of modded content that I've seen featured by challenge runners, skill players or speedrunners. Pokemon depends on it more to cross the finish line of making an interesting playthrough, but this is the modern YT climate to a degree even with games which are console locked. Not all roads will lead to Kaizo, but it is common for primarily single player games to look for more spice.
Personally find that all a Poketuber needs is to make a wacky character to roleplay as on their pokemon journey. It’s pretty funny. My personal favourites are Team Sky and Keegan J
I’ve said this before but Pokemon challenge runs are essentially gambling. Your choices and options are so limited that you have to rely on RNG to win. There is no skill in beating a Kaizo Ironmon Nuzlocke because you’re just resetting the game until you get lucky enough to find a Pokemon with good base stats and get good damage and crits rolls. All RPGs have that luck/gambling factor to them but in other games you don’t have to rely on RNG to win. In other RPGs your stats aren’t random. They give you characters with set base stats and say “You can play them as is or use these many different mechanics to create a unique version of the character no one else has ever made. You can even grind to max base stats if that’s what you want”. Pokemon says “Here’s a character but their defense base stat is low. No matter what you do that mon is going to have permanently bad defense forever”. If I play Dragon Quest or Shin Megami Tensei/Persona and my defense stat is too low the developers put in different ways to increase my defense stat. That I as a player have to discover on my own or ask for help from a friend or the internet. The RNG is minimized because the game gives you multiple solutions to having bad stats. Not just tough luck your defense is bad forever.
Nuzlockes weren't cool because of the _difficulty,_ it was cool because it felt like Pokemon... You catch the Pokemon you happen to run into, you name them, and train them up to beat the Elite 4 and become champion. If they die, its like losing a dear friend... It leads to people being able to tell amazing stories with the Pokemon they adventured with. But now... Pokemon Nuzlockes kinda forgot the whole appeal of the challenge. :/
I feel that this is one of the things most people already knew but didn't want to talk about because they didn't want to be a party pooper or they're coping about it, so it's good to hear somebody finally talk about it.
I like to think there's a universe where Fire Emblem was Nintendo's biggest RPG and not Pokémon. It just makes so much sense given that both franchises have a lot of appeal, but Fire Emblem actually improved over time.
I get really bored of the modern style pokemon nuzlocke for exactly what you brought up, everything is calculated and it became all about the challenge and less about the pokemon, cuz to me, the original nuzlockes were more entertaining because it was people losing creatures they grew attached to because they made mistakes or got unlucky, it had even a slight bit of emotion, becoming a story of unlikely odds and the players flaws, and fit the series message of becoming attached to your team, hence why the nickname your pokemon rule existed, but now it's just trying to be strategy when the game isn't designed for strategy, where they just give joke nicknames and rig the game ahead of time to only get good encounters.
I agree with you, and further, I find it frustrating that Pokemon acknowledges their aging fanbase, but still chooses not to implement any features for them. In fact, they tend towards removing features they like instead, like set mode. They choose not to be creative and come up with any new game modes or challenges. And worse it seems they've almost entirely dropped double battles and other such mechanics.
hmm while i generally agree with this take i will say that double battles are a poor example as the hardest challenge in the recent games was the s/v dlc bb league which consisted of only double battles think kieran
It's trully hilarious (for me) that the reasons why crab doesn't like nuzlockes and nuzlocke vídeos are exactly why i like them so much. And i can't even say he is Wrong for seeing those things as problems
Agency mention 👀 On a serious note though, I do think the argument here is a bit reductive. I play both mons romhack nuzlockes and fe lunatic/maddening, and the things like planning a 100% line for a difficult fight are precisely what make nuzlocking fun. I can see why not everyone would find that fun, but it certainly can be. From a spectator perspective, watching someone execute their 100% line, especially when it makes use of some clever mechanic or niche item is entertaining because of the implicit understanding that it took a lot of knowledge/creativity to find that strategy. The "9 option" argument I think falls particularly flat for me, since the options/decision-making for any fight actually begin before the fight itself, in the selection of team members, moves, and items. Just sharing a few thoughts. Great vid though. Was a fun watch.
When Soda brought up drama created my challenge runs I remembered my first playthrough of FE Engage when it first came out, I played classic and imposed a challenge on myself the if a unit dies, I must throw out all of the items in their inventory and if they have and emblem equipped, I would be unable to use that emblem till the next time the emblems were returned. And the drama that was created was Alear being my only unit left for like the last three levels because I'm not the best at fire emblem especially on my first playthrough
I always think I’m being too hard on pokémon and then I play something like Monster Sanctuary or MH:Stories that proves you can do something interesting with the formula 😭😭 nintendo it’s okay to experiment you’ll get your $60 either way I promise
I love Pokémon and play it all the time! Coincidentally, I generally like easy and simple games without much intensity. I prefer the aspect of using my imagination as I play to make it feel like an exciting adventure.
I've tried 3 Nuzlockes in my life and I never lost any of them, but never completed any of them because I lost interest within the first 3 gyms. The constant near mandatory grinding of shitters was boring, and the need to "plan" every fight, lest you risk a random mon fainting and sending you back to the grind dungeon, is mentally exhausting and grinds the game to a halt. The appealing aspect of a Nuzlocke to me is supposed to be gaining a new appreciation for pokemon you neglected, but all the rules and restrictions you place on yourself just kind of places you in an environment where experimenting and having fun is just going to get you punished, so I'd rather just run a game casually with a new unconventional team on my own volition without the bloat.
I love you Soda Crab, thank you for making my Pokemon fan friends hate me more by cheering on the more fabulous Fire Emblem franchise alongside me........
I think you make a good point - Pokémon really isn't designed around challenge, so trying to stretch it to make challenge runs is not going to be easy. However, I imagine that part of the problem with the RU-vid scene is oversaturation and lack of imagination. Looking to Fire Emblem as an example, I kinda think something like a draft race could work - get together a group of Pokétubers with system knowledge, and have them pick a team of things that only they can use, then speedrun. But everyone's so focused on a narrow range of existing challenge runs that it's just getting stale. On another note, I don't think I agree with that guy you quote, because for me, the optimisation is the fun part. I think there's a parallel with Fire Emblem there, too: LTC is something that fascinates me, and the core of LTC is planning, not execution. Like with the Pokémon runs you mentioned, every move has already been planned out ahead of time, and to me that doesn't take away from the breadth of choices that needed to be selected from in either case. Yes, Pokémon has fewer, but reducing it down to "there are no choices" just because the chosen option comes from pre-analysis and system knowledge is, imo, wrong. For what it's worth, I think the equivalent of the Kaizo Emerald run is probably New Mystery Lunatic+ 0% growths, which has now been done. I doubt anything is ever going to top that in terms of challenge in Fire Emblem. You're probably right that it doesn't solve all Fire Emblem in quite the same way, but it's still something that, imo, makes all other challenge runs pale in comparison.
Waking up to a new Soda Crab video? Today's gonna be a good day. Nuzlockes are certainly heading down a narrowing path. You can only increase difficulty so much before it's just pure insanity. Run & Bun is brutally taxing, Jan and Flygon had to take breaks because it was too stressful. It's insanely hard with all the different mons, items, and other things happening. But where does the creator, Drayano, go from there? Make another brutally hard game with a years worth of fights? Cool, that doesn't really change anything. Plus RU-vidrs are spending several months on these games and they usually only put out a couple main channel videos while they're doing it. Monetarily this can't be good for them. Nuzlockes will burn themselves out and the rules will have to change again. I'm waiting for the Slotlocke, where you can't switch out your pokemon during or outside of fights unless you use a move like flip turn or your mon dies. It's just adding more and more rules to make it hard. Also please don't tell me to go online. The pokemon company already does that by putting little effort into the difficulty of the base game or dlc. I do want to play online and be practically forced to use WolfeyVGCs meta for this format. Online feels more destructive than nuzlockes. Plus I have to pay even more to play online just to get stomped by Hiroshi who spent 100 hours perfecting a meta killer perish song team. Finally Pokemons most brilliant aspect is also it's downfall. It's simplicity. It's easy to pick up and learn so it's fun to get good at utilizing it's systems. It then becomes a problem when you find out you're fairly limited in the ways you can approach a fight. The biggest difference with Fire Emblem is the movement. Have you played Pokemon Conquest? That seems like a combination of both and I don't remember if you mentioned it.
Pokemon Conquest is a super sick game and I like that it has tons of content, but it's also very easy to trivialize, which is a problem, since it's a strategy game. Unlike the mainline series, I feel like I should actually have to think here on some level, but I still barely do. It's definitely in need of a really good rom hack or a sequel. I'd definitely play either if one ever gets made, the bones are there for a really outstanding experience.
I started playing Thracia 776 recently (ironman). Got my first game over on 4x. I already know that I will be hyped to replay the game. I am in fact, keeping a notebook to assist my knowledge gap between now and next playthrough
Thracia gotta be the worst fire emblem game to play blind for the first time. It becames way more manageble when you know what you are doing and when reinforcements will suddenly appear
This is the cope you get when you tell people any game is "too easy". They say it's easy because you use "x", "y", and "z" which are all mechanics that are part of the game and if only you played like this and didn't use "x", "y", and "z" and disable "a", "b", and "c" (all self imposed restrictions) the games would be the hardest games ever! For some reason people don't want to admit the game they play is designed for children to beat so they have to roid up the rules and restrictions to even get a modicum of challenge.
I played Pokemon blue when I was a wee little lad and absolutely loved it. I loved it so much that I started getting every game that came after it. It wasn't until Pokemon White that I came to the conclusion that they are all the same and there is no point in getting any future games.
I hate to be the guy to do this, but you kinda lost me in the intro because its a very subjective premise and one that I never really even thought to compare because I like both types of content, but like most people if you watch the same thing every day you get bored of it.
The title of this video is rather clickbaity Although to talk difficulty, this is more of a problem on game freak itself vs Pokémon as an IP. When you have a company that would like to remove features from past games in order to make them more memorable, then you realize you have an issue.
When FE12 Low percent runs appear "When the game is simple enough that every action a player makes can be planned to every turn and the only chance of failure exists in the game's randomness it's not good"
Aye. Even from a casual gaming standpoint, 3 Houses is so good for micro-decisions. Especially getting to the midgame gem lines. Also, the issue with Pokemon is that if it becomes difficult, right answers appear.
A lot of the criticism that gets leveled at Pokemon here also feels like it could be levied at fire emblem too, Fire emblem feels extremely formulaic as well now and its part of the reason I stopped playing the games. And the difficulty of Fire Emblem is self modulated as well even in the older games, if you really wanted you can just farm gold and exp in arenas and then the challenge is gone as well. While the stories are very different I also feel their quality has been dipping a lot as well, couldnt finish Conquest because the game didn't grip me and then so did Three houses. I also think Fire emblems "challenge runs" are also antitheical to the games designs especially since Waifu emblem became a thing.
While I agree that nuzlocks as a whole are boring to watch and will likely be going away in the coming years as more and more people grow bored of them, I don't think they will disappear completely as they can still be fun to watch depending on who makes them and what they're doing. I watch some nuzlocks not for the challenge but for the presentation or silliness that some RU-vidrs bring. While most nuzlocks are taken waaay to seriously and have the fun sucked out of them by planning every move to the point where RNG isn't even a barrier in some runs, there are still fun runs made by channels that use them to tell fun stories or just use them to do silly things. j0rts is a good example as he just released a nuzlock about an hour of making this video and it's pretty entertaining not because it's a nuzlock but because he isn't all that knowledgeable of Pokemon games ,so no planning which leads to mistakes, and he replaced every Pokemon sprite which pictures drawn by his girlfriend which she drew form descriptions made by AI.
I'll be honest, I do enjoy Nuzlockes. Hardcore Nuzlockes tickle my brain and I have fun with them, but I've never pulled out a Damage Calculator, because for me, like you said, it just solves things. It takes a ton of that moment to moment thinking I like about it. It makes me lose out on the drama. I still get attached to my little ones and zeroes, and by doing calcs, it takes away suspense for me. I enjoy the storytelling aspect of Nuzlockes and the imagination, and a lot of modern nuzlockes lose that for me. I tried doing a Hardcore Nuzlocke of Renegade Platinum, on stream, and I had fun with the battles but not with having multiple documents open to get the right encounters, look at gym leaders and plan the optimal strategy. The Fantina fight for example is solved there, and even though I didn't reach her, it felt like some expression was taken away because I knew there was one way that was best to beat her (Umbreon with Captivate). I'll still continue to play them, but may go back to vanilla so I can get back to the aspects I like. That being said, I've been playing more Fire Emblem in recent since my experience with it before was small before and it's a way better franchise. I played Awakening and Fates as a teen but didn't touch many other games. Beat both Blazing Blade and Path of Radiance recently, and I loved both of them. Working on Binding Blade now and I have the sworn goal of turning Wendy into a monster. Despite my small experience, I do love listening to Fire Emblem videos, it's such a cool franchise to discuss, and to get used to which units are bad so I can make sure I use them when I get to their entry.
My favorite point was the major/doctorate thing. I’ve played Engage Maddening so much I can probably beat it on muscle memory alone. I start my playthroughs at Anna’s recruitment because I’ve “solved” everything that happens before and there’s no variance in what I do up until that point. I’ve broken that game down so much it’s no longer gaming but going through the motions to keep the dopamine circuit going. …. And that’s how a pokemon you’ve never played feels like. You’ve played one, congratulations, you’ve played all of them and no pokemon will ever engage (huh) your brain in any meaningful way ever again. Meanwhile I’m completely useless at Conquest and would have a hard time beating in on hard mode, let alone Maddening. All of that to say I need to pick Conquest back up.
I like some of the points you made in this video, but I think the anti-calc stance is a bit... weird? I don't see running the calcs as being any different from reading the damage forecast (or counting up how much damage you expect to take over enemy phase before committing your move) in a Fire Emblem game. The difference is largely that FE shows you the odds up front (sort of, most FE games aren't 1rn), while Pokemon makes you use an external tool to see them. IMO, the planning process is part of the *appeal* of Pokemon nuzlocking. You plan the fights out ahead of time, and then get to demonstrate your slick maneuvering and how everything's come together. It's a similar appeal to, say, watching a slick LTC. "Ugh, there's no suspense here, they know EXACTLY which order these enemies are going to attack in!" doesn't make weapon breaking strats any less cool.
I'd also argue that most FE games are a lot closer to being "solved" than how you present them here. Most of the games in the series can be beaten by creating a unit who doesn't die and then slowly and meticulously wading through each map. We as players tend not to actually do that because competing side objectives and recruiting everyone makes our brains happy. Even Conquest Lunatic can be pretty easily trivialized by reclassing Camilla to Maid and lowmanning nearly every map with her; Sceptistar has a run demonstrating that on her channel. Even if you're not lowmanning, the gameplay loop of a lot of FE games does tend to devolve into calculating how many enemies a unit can take on an enemy phase, putting a good unit on a spot that fights as many of those enemies as they can handle (and ideally snipes something on player phase), ending turn, healing them up, and repeating the process. Even player phase focused games tend to fall into this pattern, they just happen to return "0-1 units" from that calculation instead of "2-5 units". The difficulty of FE thus comes less from whether or not you can *beat* the game (unless you misplace your lord and your run suddenly ends), but whether or not you can beat it smoothly and/or stylishly (and have fun along the way, etc.). How many side objectives can you complete? How many funny builds can you assemble? Can you minimize deaths? Are you eschewing boss abuse and the Tower of Valni? In this way, I think Nuzlockes have similar secondary objectives, such as beating the game with a minimal number of deaths, holding off on using setup moves, and using low tiers.
pokemon is easy except when you accidently bring a level 50 team to blubbery academy because you want to try a competitive team but forgot to level them up (yes i did do this)
I think a question that has to be asked is; is it okay for Pokémon to be what it is? To note be as complex or as nuances? I am not saying there is an objective answer but my answer to the question is that it is fine for Pokémon to be what it is. It's not great for fans past the age of 16 but it is okay.
Quality of the recent games aside, I think Pokemon is fine how it is, for what it is. I don't think Pokemon has to change much to be enjoyable. I just don't think it works very well in the context of a challenge run
@@SodaCrab that is true. I guess for me the conversation kinda ends when you realize that Pokémon will never be a good game to do a challenge run in or be challenging in the same way other series are. Once that is discussed and accepted I think there isn't much to do than just say "It is what it is. And that's fine."
I like the video, you make some good points, but I do want to say that challenge runs aren't the only content out there based on pokemon. as you mentioned there's a very active competitive scene which has no problems at all finding enough interesting and complex mechanics. the competitive scene us is also constantly changing, every gen has their own competitive scene even after all this time. and while I do agree that competitive pokemon is very reliant on outside tools, it is also still just as much reliant on the pokemon games. each generation brings new mechanics and interactions that shake up the competitive scene. But really there is another way of engaging with the games that I personally like. if you are a completionist there are few better franchises to play than pokemon. we have not yet reached the emerald kaizo peak in that sense simply because the peak is nearly infinitely high with things like shinies, ribbons, marks, high stats, etc. I do get why completionism is not interesting to some people, since the challenge comes from it not being difficult but from it taking a long time, but personally it has kept me interested in the franchise for a very long time.
I think using outside tools for competitive Pokemon is totally fair, since the game becomes a whole lot more interesting when you're playing against a human player that can make complex decisions and make predictions rather than a dumb AI that will always do the exact same thing. Calculating against a player is using a tool to help inform your decision, and they can do the exact same thing to you. Calculating against an AI just solves the fight for you
As someone who fell off HARD for about 2 years and just returned to it recently, I try to maximize these games' strengths and the reason I love Pokémon so much: teambuilding with meaningful variety. Like you said, from mom's house to the Hall of Fame is easy in every Pokémon game except maybe Emerald, Platinum and Ultra Sun & Moon. But I find the experience of placing goals and building your team towards these goals to be really satisfying. It's why I can stomach replays of S/V or love doing replays of Sw/Sh, even though I've been playing since gen 3 and do agree that map design peaked in the DS games. What 'mons will you get? Which roles will you fill out? Do you know when you'll get every TM and move you want? Held items? These are often scattered throughout the game, which gives me a little dopamine boost every time I achieve these objectives and try them out in gyms. It's a deckbuilder's wet dream, a "card game" RPG that distributes "cards" throughout the game, so you can experiment with them. But what REALLY ties these games together to me and why I dislike S/V is the Battle Tower/similar facilities. It's where I can FINALLY use legendaries and strong mons to meaningful effect, where teambuilding and raising choices matter the most, and introduces an addictive gameplay loop of obtaining BP and improving your team even more. BDSP has serious competition for being one of the best in the franchise to me because of how they nailed this. Introducing mints, ability capsule/patch and Hyper Training, along with breeding improvements from Gen 6 and 7, the hidden ability fest of Gen 5 and the many mechanical changes (Fairy typing, etc) made things so much more streamlined while still taking effort. However, it's of note that it becomes a 'guide game', meaning having Serebii or Bulbapedia open at all times to truly understand everything you're working for. Not only that, but the outside knowledge from places like Smogon and VGC is one of the main reasons I was actually able to do this. Fire Emblem is a fantastic game series, and it captures many of Pokémon's strengths while being baked in actually good videogames, as a whole. I'm a huge fan of FE3, the GBA games, Fates (yes) and Engage. Engage in particular I love so much; ignoring its FF4 tier story, there's so much mechanical customization and the game itself feels fantastic to play. But I don't feel like most FEs' mechanical depth matches Pokémon's - be it with self imposed challenges like Nuzlockes, the Battle Tower content or multiplayer (which I'm not really a fan of, having to pay and I kinda prefer going singleplayer in most games). There's just something about having the freedom to mold these creatures into roles and making each work within a team, minmaxxing every aspect of their being to be a better fighter that a weirdo like me just can't get enough of, when the game actually HAS a battle facility. The problem, again, is that the games are so, SO easy. Very rarely do they hint towards this mechanical depth,, SPECIALLY nowadays. I think S/V DLC does it? But they did such a mediocre job with the base game that I don't really care for buying it. Pokémon buries its biggest strength ten feet under and barely makes an effort to invest people who are not already invested.
And a quick note about self imposed challenges: I think it's wonderful that Pokémon has a mechanical flexibility to allow for them, and even think that Nuzlockes are fantastic for making the player work with something they don't. But I find the community's overreliance on them to be a bit weird. You CAN experience a Nuzlocke's mechanical variety and limitations without permanently killing your Pokémon, you just have to get out of your comfort zone and try out more stuff. Having a Pokémon permanently unusable, to me, defeats the purpose of experimentation. Unlike Fire Emblem, it's never a part of the setting or expected in any way. It feels too drastic to suddenly lose a member that was maybe one of your strongest. FE always has had limitations in place to try to push you to victory even with Permadeath: lord dying being a Game Over, prepromotes, the Gotoh archetype.. A Pokémon nuzlocke has to rely on the variety of encounters to suppress your losses, so the snowball effect can be much, much harsher. Anyway, I'll treat myself to the rest of the video. Your riffs on Pokétubers in the past were amazing, I couldn't stop laughing. Earned yourself a sub.
About calculating the chances for success, you're ignoring that Nuzlockes don't have everything guaranteed. Yes, some players map out encounters, but Pokémon is divided in two halves: teambuilding and battling. If you don't engage with teambuilding decisions, making it as simple as possible, then yes: Pokémon becomes incredibly simple and boring. The point of nuzlockes is to forcibly draw out the player's decision making through an artificial limiting of choice. The problem with Pokémon having so vast a choice pool is that building challenges for a specific player level becomes harder than in other games. That's why limiting yourself through nuzlocke rulings help, you're much more locked than usual. And frankly, you're making the nuzlockes seem much easier than they actually are. Yes, the more information you have the more you can prepare for it, but hardcore nuzlocke rulings make these games actually difficult. They are not as guaranteed as you're saying they are, people only succeed at them because of the available information and making the calcs. Making calcs might seem like an exaggeration, but it's what these games boil down to. The worse your position, the more you'll need to prepare to compensate for it. How can you do so with such a limited ruleset? That's the point of nuzlocking And lastly, yes, Fire Emblem dkes achieve this out of the box. But it is muuuch more predictable for the devs to balance it because there's less meaningful variety when compared to Pokémon.
I agree with your point, however, I do think there is still some merit to pokemon challenge runs, be they proper nuzlockes or solo runs. not necessarily in terms of yt content that you "optimize the fun out of", but moreso as just an alternate way to (re)play the game every now and then. for the average player, it's a completely different experience than a regular playthrough, so you have to rethink how to tackle new scenarios that simply don't occur on regular playthroughs. pkmn challenge runs content creators play challenge runs virtually day-in and day-out, so they don't experience that novelty, making the runs ultimately stale
22:25 Pretty sure if someone who solved the hardest fire emblems (all the ones that don't include accesss to infinite level grinding ect), then aside from needing to learn the slightly modified game mechanics on the other games they have solved vanilla fire emblem. The comparison of battle decisions is hardly applicable since a fire emblem battle is taking probably an hour or more to play well. A pokemon battles take maybe 5ish minutes. Fire emblem does have the advantage that battle having stakes is built into the design. Whereas pokemon has no stakes which is why restrictions were neccessary. Play through of based games either series by a comptent player is generally going to be dull as the players skill dwarfs the bases difficulty the game can provide in almost all cases. This is another favour for fire emblem though as the increased complexity on longer battle length has a tendency to cause less skilled players to make mistakes which will generate an intresting narrative. For pokemon the use of rare candies has erased the time pressure so generally it difficult for an intresting run to occur unless a modified more difficult game is being played.
I clicked for the Fire Emblem and Pokemon essay. I stayed for the Jet advert. On PKMN and its squandered potential, I haven't played one of the mainline games in a long time but think I could give them a pass if they either capitalised on the classic top down experience while being more open (Nexomon Extinction) or attempted to recreate some of the meta from competitive play with a focus on doubles. As a content creator or viewer, it may be on the dry side but that's not how the majority of most gamers experiences them whether it is an entry level game that four year olds could beat or something more like SMT or FE.
I have no idea why these 100% planned nuzlocke runs are so popular. Even for extreme romhacks like emerald kaizo, if you look up every fight and calculate damage rolls beforehand, what is there to be impressed/excited about?
you got that big number by multiplying the possible number of tiles eliwood could move (60) by itself a bunch. however, you made the same mistake I made at first and accidently did it one extra time. though I got a bit of a bigger number, because i accounted for if you waited and didn't move. wasn't until I did 60^6 and got a smaller number (46,656,000,000) of unique choices.
Yeah, I've never cared for Pokemon challenge runs. I tried nuzlocking Pokemon a few times, but I've always found it takes away from the appeal of the series. Pokemon isn't really meant to be challenging per say, though I do appreciate when it isn't brain dead easy like the modern Pokemon games. I like to have to think at least a little bit, but the lack of a challenge isn't really what steers me away from modern Pokemon. The problem is that its completely soulless and devoid of worthwhile content at this point as they continue to strip important features. I'm probably one of the few people that's okay with Pokemon being the same game over and over as long as it actually maintains the standard or God forbid actually adds interesting and worthwhile features, but Masuda's reason for not putting the Battle Frontier in ORAS really says it all. The games are just vehicles for merchandise at this point, whereas before it felt like there was genuine passion underlying a fun glorified advert. It's honestly sad to think about because I used to be a diehard Pokemon fan, but these days I'm pretty apathetic and left wanting.
I think youre overhyping fire emblem a bit and overhating pokemon... alot lmao. Dont get me wrong, I hate Pokemon too and love FE but Pokemon is not simple and the 20 FEillion different options in FE barely ever matter because there are 2 or 3 correct choices to do. If you stand infront of the castle with eliwood, ready to seize ur not going back 5 spaces, you just go up to the castle and seize. having those other options is quite irrelevant
I think this video highlights why I quit single player Pokemon as a whole. The main campaign just isn't interesting or compelling enough to complete without adding a whole bunch of restrictions to your gameplay. Even post-game stuff like the Battle Tower is basically just competitive Pokemon with various level of AI hax. At that point I'd just go to Showdown instead.
I agree with your sentiment towards pokemon, i am also largely burnt out of the series as a whole and the content being made on it is about as stale as things can get. I think the fire emblem comparison is not a good one however. its an argument based largely off of the time investment a given community has put into a specific game. given enough time, and effort is put into any one fire emblem game it can be optimized to the point of being "solved". just look at FE7 LTC runs where they have basically broken the game wide open, or even 3 houses where the gameplan is to just make everyone wyvern riders. A better comparison in my opinion would be to smash bros of all things. Its just a fun party platform fighter with fun characters and crazy items that keep things fun and light hearted. However the playerbase has decided that no thats not how you play the game anymore, its a competitive game now, no items, and only a handful of stages are allowed. much like pokemon to play smash bros now you seemingly need to play it the complete antithesis to what was intended, and once thats no longer enough you need to keep pushing it so far into that one direction that it isnt even the same game anymore. now dont get me wrong both ways of playing are perfectly valid ways of enjoying the game. its just now it seems like the antithesis is the default way of how things need to be, and since that is based largely off of hyper optimization of a game that just isnt that deep at the end of the day it gets stale, how many different ways can you tell the same story with different characters and it stay interesting? guess we will find out in the coming years Side note, great vid!
speaking of single player experiences good for people that think pokemon is too easy, shin megami tensei is absolutely perfect, if you want a emphasis on team building and playing with your own unique squad and choose their moveset, dont fret over the rumors of it being bullshit or for masochists, the games will absolutely give every tool necessary to defeat any challenge, even if you lose the conclusion will never be "damn got unlucky" theres always some out you didnt see, some tweak to either your team or your strategy that will make the next attempt in your favor aside from dds1 demi-fiend that guy is just an asshole, but thats one ng+ super-boss from one game in a franchise of about 70
challenge run videos have always been kinda meh to me, like sometimes they'll pique my interest but most of the time its all just the same stuff. Though, I do think that there's a lot of potential in leaning into the personalized nature of a pokemon journey by making mods and romhacks specifically catered to specific pokemon/team setups or even to specific content creators. But overall I definitely agree that pokemon fundamentally is an easy game and the challenge run market has to make up for it so much
()=extra thoughts []=titles sorry this got a bit long winded i totally agree with the whole calcs issue i hate it so much ive been trying to watch some first time nuzlockes of drayano hacks([renegade platinum] and [blaze black] and stuff) which imo is a nice bit of difficulty coming off of the main games and great for people who havent solved the series but like everyone is pulling out team makeups for each gym leader and calculators and is "candy pilled" ON THEIR FIRST EXPERIENCE and it just makes post kaizo nuzlockes so boring imo a big part of why i think [jaden animations] nuzlockes were so enjoyable and where early nuzlockes succeeded where most modern fail was the story telling aspect not the difficulty. a brief journey with the monsters you collect one the road to be the best with actual consequences for having them faint (a PERFECT example of this is the feelings invoked by watching the short video [Guard Broken - Nuzlocke animation by JoCat] THIS is how i felt when i first started nuzlockes this is what made them good imo the additional difficulty was only ever a aid to make the triumphs feel more important which doesnt work any more because we solved it) i think that the "joke" rule that lingers in most runs to this day encapsulates this train of thought perfectly "you must nickname your pokemon to grow more attached" people got so obsessed with climbing the highest peaks[emerald kaizo] and finding other peaks to stand on that they forgot that they where supposed to enjoy the act of mountain climbing itself. at this point i can only watch people who are new to nuzlockes/pokemon as a whole like [boy meets girl ] or blind nuzlockes from new games where at least i know there wont be a spreadsheet used yet but that aside this video this poses an interesting question then what do you think of pokemon spin off games that dramatically change those gameplay aspects the one in my mind as i right this is [Pokemon Conquest] which is a pokemon game that is mechanically similar to fire emblem as its a top down tactcal rpg (i would wager its based on it entirely and just given a pokemon flavouring but i dont have any facts on that rn ) it came out on the ds and has a massive post game and is about a warlord(pokemon trainer) conquering a region from nobunaga and zekrom i would love to hear your thoughts on the game considering the love of fire emblem and disappointment with the pokemon gameplay systems
7:07 My first ever FE game I actually played was Sacred Stones. I played normal difficulty since it was my first time, but I saw the permadeath mechanic and vowed to keep as many characters alive as possible. Not too long into the game, when it introduces recruiting enemies, despite what the game tells you, I didn't think recruiting Joshua was as simple as, "Have Natasha approach Joshua." So I waited a few turns to take other enemies...and Joshua walks up to Eirika and crits her. Game Over. I got so mad I never touched the game again. My first death was the one death you can't have. The fact that you said it "took you forever" to kill Eirika makes me feel like I failed miserably. But, I mean, it was a 25% chance...is Sacred Stones really that easy?
I was trying to intentionally get her killed on the first map for the footage, which is very much designed for her not to die. By "forever" I meant it took me a few minutes of resetting to get the RNG right. Sacred Stones is easier than a lot of Fire Emblem games, especially for people who have been playing for a long time and have GBA Fire Emblem figured out, but it's still a game that has some teeth, especially for new players. Definitely nothing to feel bad about, without guides it's totally fair to not realize how you're supposed to recruit every character!
I've also began falling off of Pokemon, although that's moreso to do with Nintendo's current wrathful conquest against emulation that's basically defeated the point in me even keeping that launch Switch around as a glorified ROM dumping board and the fact that I've become a full time PC gamer. I do like Fire Emblem (despite having never actually beaten it), but I recently got into Shin Megami Tensei and I have to say that it's exactly what I wanted out of Pokemon. It still has the recruitable monsters and elemental matchups that are Pokemon's core mechanics, but you also have eight moveslots, a hero unit whose stats you can customise, extremely challenging gameplay that is balanced around constantly switching up party members and an engaging battle system that's easy to learn but hard to master. I've only played Nocturne and the first game, but if I tried to take my terrible Nocturne strategies over to SMT4 then they'd likely fall flat. I'm still trying to make a FireRed ROM Hack though, but that's moreso because I enjoy programming. I ultimately feel that Pokemon needs to significantly overhaul its combat if it wants to provide an engaging singleplayer experience, but I'm not too sure how I could make that work.
I wish we had more tactical games besides conquest (mystery dungeon sort of had positioning and resource management matter). There's a GBA FE romhack called Pokemblem, but I feel pokemon would work better as a Tactics Ogre/Final Fantasy Tactics styled SRPG rather than Fire Emblem due to its combat system
What are your thoughts on Pokémon Conquest? I dunno if you covered it on your channel or played it before but It's apparently the idea of "Fire Emblem×Pokemon" even tho the game they're crossing over isn't actually Fire Emblem. I've wanted to play it but haven't gotten around to it yet
It’s not a hard game but the extra postgame probably makes it more interesting of a challenge. There should be a Pokémon Conquest x fire emblem Crossover but they’re sitting on a gold mine
There's a GBA FE romhack called Pokemblem and I never played it, but I think its just firered in GBA FE's game engine so you have thinks like positioning, terrain and action economy/team phases to think about
this make sense but had you tired a blind nuzlocke before? every pokemon is easy if you have selebi open duh, personally I got humble the fuck out in ultramoon after finishing moon back when they came out, I would kill for levelcaps in oficial pokemon games just so I can have a nuzlocke instead of dancing around exp share moving pokemons in and out my party(tho thanks god for scarlet and violet easy access to boxes finally)
Not very classy of you to get political at the end of the video, Soda Crab. Behavior like this is exactly why your viewers will all be voting for Edelgard von Hresvelg this November.
literally the only learning curve a pokemon fan had to ever go through was memorizing the Type matchups as someone who still plays the games it would be really great if the game asked me to use more than 2 braincells if you want a cool and great single player game on the switch go play Dragon Quest 11S it’s really great and just as charming as pokemon but it’s not baby easy or monster-collecting, just a gold ol fantastic rpg
