What are your unpopular opinions in pokemon?

Sort of agree with autos - personally much more interested in artist sketches. Original art is way cooler than the auto or the artists’ cards themselves.

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Agreed. I haven’t bought it yet, but it just feels like a game that was made for GameCube. I know graphics aren’t what makes a game fun but literal Wii games have looked far better than this. I am not even going to mention how much better breath of the wild looked.

Someone had submitted the same mtg card several times to bgs getting different subgrades every time and going from a 9 or 9.5 overall grade to a 10. Grading companies 100% are not consistent enough to warrant 0.5 grades because they cannot consistently grade that accurately which is why I think 0.5 grades are a joke.

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I like HGSS over DP and Platinum for sure

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Original art is waaay cooler but there’s no comparing them. Apples to oranges.
The cost of original art is above what many can afford whereas autos are often free on up to 30.00.

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Hence, RoboGrading (AGS). They got a ways to go but it’s undoubtedly the way of the future.

There are only two 4th gen eras: Stormfront and the sets that are not Stormfront.

The near universal “Arceus is enjoyable and a fresh new take that the Pokemon games needed but the graphics could have been better and it could have been more polished” reviews is the best thing that could have happened to this game. Think about it: when they (inevitably) release the next game of this type but WITH amazing graphics, everyone who bought this game will buy the next one AND people who didn’t buy Arceus because it wasn’t quite the game it could be will also buy the next one.

9001 IQ play by Nintendo.

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Not specifically related to Pokemon but certainly relevant- if you can look at a card and determine if it’s in good shape or not, you are just as authoritative on its as condition as PSA. So are all the graders at every other grading company. And PSA slabs are ugly. They are not worth the premium over any other grading company.

Grading in general isn’t worth it, but that might not be so unpopular.

secret wonders is cool but its not because its 4th gen thats for sure

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When you critique your own card, you unconsciously have personal bias. The fact of the matter is, you are paying for a third party service that objectively scores your card, without considering your personal feelings on the outcome.

You may believe that it’s not worth it for your situation to grade your cards. However, the PSA brand boasts the higher percentage market control, typically in more cases than not also garners a higher sales price and has an exceptional loyal customer base.

If you don’t like grading cards, believe PSA isn’t worth it to you, and think their cases are ugly, that’s your choice. Although you can’t deny grading in general isn’t worth it, when it clearly is.

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It’s worth it from a monetary standpoint in certain situations.

Also, my feelings aren’t strong enough to make me blind. A scratch looks the same whether or not I like the card. The centering can be objectively measured. Light bounces off edge wear and into your eyes the same way no matter how you feel about it.

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I hate what’s happened to PSA but, at least the slabs don’t detract from the cards appearance. CGC could learn something

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We all have bias but I think the point of grading is it uses one standard that everyone uses. That standard may be shit in some cases but regardless its the same.

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Couldn’t agree more. The PSA label does exactly what it needs to do and nothing more. I don’t need the label to be a piece of art - I have the card that i chose to grade to fulfil that purpose.

This is one of the reasons I can’t stand ACE grading.

Saw this mentioned earlier in the thread, so I figured I would comment on it: we need to stop comparing every single Pokemon game to Breath of the Wild, which some people consider the greatest game ever made. That is a ridiculously high standard. People did this with Sword and Shield and BDSP (which I can’t comprehend because general Pokemon games are absolutely nothing like Zelda) and now they’re doing it with Arceus. Pokemon was never, ever compared to Zelda until Sword and Shield. Now all of a sudden, every game that comes out is contrasted with BOTW. It doesn’t make any sense.

I also don’t see where @kurodu is seeing all of these positive reviews. I’m seeing a ton of negative reception to the game, largely because people are hating on the graphics.

In my personal opinion, the whole “the graphics aren’t good” (I think the Arceus graphics are fine) and “it isn’t BOTW” is a product of groupthink. Hating on Pokemon games (particularly the graphics) has become the cool thing to do. Even if Pokemon releases a game where the graphics are even better than BOTW, people will still poke fun at the graphics because it’s what their minds have been trained to do. This started around the time of Sun and Moon and has only gotten worse with some of the most ridiculous complaints like people actually boycotting the games because of the absence of voice acting (seriously?).

People will say “I know we don’t play Pokemon for the graphics BUT the graphics should be better” and then turn around and spend hours playing Minecraft. More evidence in my mind that it’s groupthink more than anything else.

Like, it’s funny how much everyone complained about Sword and Shield, but yet the games have sold 23.9 million copies to this date, placing them behind Red and Blue as the second-best selling games in the franchise. People whined and moaned about the trailers and the previews, but yet they went and bought the games anyway lol.

People in general just want something to complain about.

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@mjs61290, I think its obvious pokemon games are rushed or have significant less work than compared to other nintendo games which makes sense since all pokemon merch (which is what its all about lets be honest) revolves around a new pokemon game every 2 years or so. I think pokemon games are perfectly deserving of criticism. If theyre gonna make them AAA 60 dollar console games, the product should reflect that, which it doesnt. The original pokemon games were revolutionary and took iirc 6 years to make so its sad to see what its become. Also yes people will complain and yes it sells well because a lot of the people are complaining arent the ones buying it. And even if you do buy it, you cant criticize a game you bought? Please.

Also as a side note a pokemon game doesn’t NEED amazing graphics, it can be stylized, but the arceus game is clearly a result of poor effort. It looks exactly like a wii game that shoulda came out over 10 years ago because it was undoubtedly rushed.

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BotW set the bar extremely high for the switch right out of the gate. The game became the most successful mainstream open-world experience Nintendo has ever put out - it was a launch title after all, and sold extremely well. Zelda games were never like BotW either, so comparing the two is apples to oranges. But it told consumers the Nintendo Switch could take what’s known and transform it into something new and exciting, just like BotW did to the Zelda franchise. Hence why everything is compared to BotW, and the term “BotW moment” was created.

Mario, Fire Emblem and Smash Bros got their BotW moment, and Kirby is getting its BotW moment. SONIC of all things is getting a BotW moment too. Pokemon just got its BotW moment with Arceus, and to me its painfully obvious they borrowed heavily from the actual design of BotW. Everything from the art style, sound and music direction, UI setup, even down to the marketing for the game made this clear. Your player character wakes up without their memory, “ninjas” randomly appearing in the overworld and attacking you, the ride Pokemon function is akin to the champion’s powers function in BotW, bag storage needs to be unlocked, mineable ore and trees are the only spots for resources, wisps are literally Korok seeds and the hints for Unown are a twist on BotW’s hints for memories…normally one would chalk these similarities up to nothing more than coincidences or necessary game design, but there’s just too many parallels for that to be the case. Arceus intentionally and blatantly copied BotW’s game design, so of course people are going to compare it to BotW. And the game unfortunately falls flat on its face at every comparison, so of course you’re going to see bad reviews. What Arceus gets right is what it doesn’t copy from BotW - the catching/battling gameplay and the Pokemon. Everything else is just…poorly made.

SwSh only started to receive large amounts of criticism when Gamefreak announced the national dex was cut. I was watching that livestream, and as soon as the words were spoken, the chat went ballistic. The devs stated the dex was cut to provide “higher quality animations” and “balancing”, so naturally people looked right at those alleged animations. When the animations turned out to be the exact same since XY, all the hate came crashing down. While other series were improving on the switch, for many people it felt like Pokemon was regressing. Whether you agree with that or not is irrelevant, because we are talking about other people’s opinions. I was critical of the game but bought it anyway. I enjoyed it but would not play it again. Out of my friend group I’m the only one who enjoyed it. Everyone else found it too lackluster and because of that, a majority of my friends refuse to buy Arceus.

We could sit and debate why then SwSh sold so well, but here are the facts: the Nintendo Switch is the best selling Nintendo console, and best selling Nintendo system beating out everything except the DS. Red/Blue were the very first Pokemon games, and SwSh were the first Pokemon games on the Switch. If sales were to indicate how good a game is, then Red and Blue would be considered the greatest Pokemon games of all time. The greater community however believes Emerald, Platinum, HGSS, and BW2 are the top 4… and the sales for these games are in the bottom third of all mainline Pokemon titles. If sales equate to how well a game is made, whether that be story, content, graphics/art direction, gameplay…any one of these games would have sold much higher OR would instead be considered much worse games. Fan reception is a good measurement of how good a game is, and the latter four titles have all been received extremely well by fans compared to SwSh. Actually, there’s really no comparison.

I agree though that most Pokemon fans can’t be pleased, and complain just to complain. But sometimes there is solid reasoning behind a complaint, and its not just a “hive mind” when a lot of people disagree with you. Nothing wrong with that either, we are all entitled to our own opinions and that’s a beauty of humanity.

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Legends Arceus is certainly not perfect. But to suggest that the graphics are comparable to Wii graphics is ridiculous. Maybe not you specifically @wooltchi, but a lot of the people I see complaining about graphics haven’t seen the game run on Switch for themselves. I’m thinking this criticism is coming from people who have only watched gameplay on Youtube. With the sheer amount of compression that Youtube puts videos through on upload, it does a huge disservice to gameplay content in terms of graphics portayal. What people see on Youtube is NOT what Legends Arceus looks like on the actual Switch. I’m actually very shocked that people are complaining about the graphics so much, and agree that it’s a product of groupthink and typical, internet, echo chamber complaining. I would say Legends Arceus is not only great looking, but one of the most innovative Pokemon games ever made, aside from the originals. They have literally reimagined what a full-feature Pokemon game can be, and set the innovative groundwork for ridiculously rich and immersive gameplay going forward. Sorry, but I love the game, and am very excited for the future. At this point, a return to the traditional formula of classic Pokemon games would honestly be disappointing to me, unless they were released alongside corresponding “Legends of” games. THAT’s how good the game is. To miss out on a game this good just because others think the game looks bad is a huge misstep for anyone.

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@kromaticlanturn, while I cant speak about graphics on switch as compared to a youtube video, I will say the only reason this game is innovative is because of how far behind modern pokemon games are. I’ll be impressed when they actually ditch the archaic turn based combat.