[tnecniv]

I find it interesting that you dislike the combat in the originals but like Pokemon Stadium which only features combat (and horrid mini games).

Also I’m not really sure what exploring you’d want to do in those early games. I guess if you wanted to explore, I’d be annoyed by the constant fights, but that never occurred to me. The point of leaving a town was to get into a fight for one reason or another. That style of random fights outside of towns was also a staple of a lot of top down RPGs at the time.

I haven’t played a pokemon game in 20 years, but I think you might have been barking up the wrong tree a bit. Outside of the combat, there isn’t much to do. If you don’t like the combat, then it’s just not your game.

[maxbond]

I mentioned exploring because I had a similar conversation a few weeks ago, and a friend mentioned they liked the exploration in the game. Maybe what I should have said was that moving around the game world was painful, but moving around the game world should be exciting and interesting (in my subjective view - again, totally possible that this just isn't the game for me, I mean no disrespect). Eg, the caves full of puzzles and such felt like a chore. But the puzzles should have felt intriguing and challenging. But I didn't feel like I was moving the pieces of a puzzle around, I felt like I was moving through molasses made of Zubats.

The fights in RPGs don't take you to another UI, play a long animation, just so you can try to run away from the fight. The wild pokemon are just constant. Way too constant to be interesting. It just felt like the game was trying to slow my progression with busy work - there's no challenge in pretty much anything expect the final fights, so why I should I bother? RPGs drop you right into the combat, so it doesn't break the flow and feels exciting.

Pokemon Stadium was more fun for two reasons. There wasn't any grind, you could get right into the combat. (I don't recall if there was a campaign and I don't recall the mini games, I just played free play.) And I wasn't fighting brain dead trainers who had no strategy, or yet another level one Pidgey; I was fighting my friends and family members. When I won it was because I played well, when I lost it was because they played well. It felt more like Smash Bros.

If there weren't so many wild pokemon and if the trainers steadily gained in strength instead of being totally flat until the difficulty rose like a brick wall, the game would be much better, in my opinion. Maybe instead of a model where you're constantly assaulted and need to be repel, you could be lightly peppered with wild pokemon unless you used an expendable to attract them.

That's just my game design criticism, if someone is enjoying Pokemon I wouldn't want to rain on their parade.