I will play devil's advocate and say maybe they don't want to put anything too demanding in an RPG that can be enjoyed by kids and people with motor issues, but the lack of customizability in controls and difficulty makes me no none of this was an accessibility thing.
Let's be honest, the gaming industry treats even adults like idiots. Take the new God of War with its excessive verbal hints for every puzzle as example
I despise that statement of calling it a kid’s game. It’s certainly a different era and not the same as when I was a kid growing up with gen 1, but the good part of Pokémon is that it’s also a challenge to kids. It shouldn’t ever be dumbed down so much.
Best part of playing Pokémon at 6 was learning reading comprehension without realizing you were learning it. That and how to use a dictionary to find what the words meant. Miss those days.
A real justification that I’ve seen seen used multiple times is that GF is trying to make the game more accessible to those born with mental disabilities… I’m all for accessibility, but that’s quite a stretch to believe
I'd agree with the Medali gym test, it was fun to do atleast. However, I feel like we're underestimating what ten year olds can do. If 7 year old noob me can get through the team rocket base, I'm sure a ten year old can do better.
I actually guessed this correctly on the first try! I couldn't believe it and went on google to see if there's only 1 solution. Turns out there was, and I just got really lucky :0
I can't figure it out! Who tf do I ask for it! I found the guy who tells you the garnish, but nobody else seems to exist! I really hope they didn't dumb this game down for children...
I felt so confused om this one. All other minigames were so on your nose and easy I legit just turned off my brain and thought I bugged out by not being able to talk to the guys in the restaurant (after the lemon answer at the bar i was convinced I had to step up where the arena is to talk to npc)
My favorite part about that one was summoning Miraidon from right next to the olive and getting launched. Unfortunately this only works during the gym test, but you can summon your leading Pokemon in the olive for some more fun.
And I believe in GF's capabilities. They have been able to give us fun stuff in the past. I've played almost all of their games, even the non-pokemon ones like Drill dozer and (Rhythm Knight, I believe?). I feel like some executive is putting on too much crunch time on the employees and following way too closely to mobile game philosophy in terms of difficulty.
When have the gym puzzles ever been remotely difficult? 90% of them were always some version of making a path to the final leader. I at least appreciate Gens 7, 8, and 9 actually adding variety in mechanics even if they're still easy.
They don't HAVE to be difficult, but they need to feel like a little bit more challenging to be engaging, y'know? I remember the Ice type gym in gen 2 fondly because of the ice- sliding puzzles. HGSS even made the gym puzzles in the bug type and dragon type gym even more fun. I actually had to THINK before movin, albeit it doesn't take too much to figure out.
Honestly, the Lt. Surge puzzle is kind of the only bad one and feels a bit cherry-picked, here. None of the other gym leaders in the first 4 gens really sucked to my memory.
yes lol all those were much better than what we have in SV, nobody is expecting actual puzzles but i'd prefer to just go straight to the gym fight instead of whatever the fuck those gym tests were supposed to be
Not going to defend those monstrosities. I wouldn't even call them puzzles. I'm not even advocating for tough puzzles, but I want to have a bit of fun in solving them, like I did with Alph ruins, the braille, ice path, etc.
At least it was fun and didn't feel like a chore. I much prefer battling trainers in a pokemon gameover doing some dumb chore that had nothing to do with pokemon and accomplishes nothing but wasting time. Those gym chores were beyond irritating to me.
There is a difference between "easy" and "braindead" though. The switches in Lt. Surge gym were dumb easy to find, but at least it was requested to think a bit before acting for not battling the trainers, or to battle them.
Saying it’s a kid’s game is by no means to excuse the game’s shortcomings which is everywhere. They were kids games in the past and still are. Doesn’t mean they should make a shittier game because of that
Honestly, not a kid anymore, failing hard to do the olives/insects 2nd challenge on TV while my friends were watching and us laughing at both my lack of skill and the weird physics of that balloon was one of the best pokémon experience I shared with my buddies 😆
You’re honestly right the only one that I feel like was difficult was the challenge for the normal gym. But I’m honestly pretty dumb so maybe that’s why it was difficult for me.
the only one where it seemed like they even tried to do something interesting was for the normal gym, everything else felt like stuff they added a week before the game released
I really hate how games like Pokémon dumb things down "for kids". When I was a kid I beat the Lion King game for the Sega when I was like 7 years old. Kids today are just as good if not better at games.
It feels like they ran out of time putting all the effort into the open world and make it in 3 years or just less. They put a lot of effort into pokemon just look at some the details like scales on some pokemon.
The where’s Waldo ass minigame I didn’t think was bad and did get a little creative but it didn’t fit at all with the scene. You’re on some streamer’s stream and have to entertain the audience and you do that by... looking at security footage to find some guy?
I mean that one was the hardest for me purely because Im an idiot. I ordered the rice balls thinking they'd give me another clue. After that I walked around the city a few times looking for the odd one out until I gave up and went to wing the recipe and then I saw rice balls as an option and then I figured it out.
I was so happy when I learned that purposely failing ionos gym test had her send trainers to fight you, felt like I was actually doing a proper gym for once
When I was a kid I played plenty of games in english and japenese on emulation without understanding shit... And that never stopped me. Issue is that Nintendo is convinced that the attention window of a kid are so short, that they must remove every kind of frustration that would make the kid quit the game.
The main issue with the DDR one was that it went on too long. When I had the first battle I was like oh good it's over oh shit they are making me do the minigame a bit more
The thing is that they don't even need disposable income to play a different game anymore because of free mobile games and that's what Gamefreak is worried about. Whether that is a valid fear or not is up for debate but that is what they are worried about
The whole 'it is for kids' argument always makes me pause. Like, I started gaming around 2 or 3 years old, and my first console was the NES. Now, game design back then wasn't very good and the difficulty was artificial a lot of the time to pad the game, but I was still able to enjoy those games.
Not about the mini games, but more the gym leaders themselves - I'd love to eventually see them step away from the type-basing that they all have because you can basically go "cool, water type, so I'll just bring a grass type pokemon and one shot everything". My idea for a fix? Gym leaders with a THEME. For example, a leader who's theme is construction. Their team could consist of electric, rock, ground and steel pokemon any you could potentially find out through your exploration of the region just how much their theme leans to one typing or another just to give you a better chance at getting a party ready
Ngl i adored the mini games in the Stadium games, they were so much fun and took more effort to get good with than the puzzles/mini games I've been seeing. Let me jump hurdles as a purple rat again plz n thank
They give you a minute and 25 seconds to do the ice slope thing for the ice gym. Did it in like 20 seconds but felt like the brakes were on the whole time
This is the only thing I really don’t like about the new Pokémon games is the lack of puzzles/dungeons and fun mini games and this I’ve noticed since Gen 7.
Every time the “it’s a game for kids, you’re an adult now” excuse comes up, I remind them that they didn’t pull any punches when we were kids and made us read braille to catch the regi trio. Cynthia sure as hell didn’t hold back, I restarted my Diamond when I was a kid and designed my team to take her down because she was giving me so much trouble. I don’t want these games to be insanely difficult, I simply want them to be more engaging. The gym tests were all just awful, I’d rather them just be a mini tournament. Just give us a randomly seeded tournament for each gym, make it feel like a sport. Then spend some time designing good puzzles for dungeons, something which I also think this game lacks as I haven’t seen much yet.
Looking at people defending this practices, I'm starting to think that the difficulty of those mini-games are accord to the intelligence of the fanbase.
Adults complaining about a game made for kids. I love Pokémon since it can into my live when I was 6 but at some point I had to accept that the games are easy because they are meant for younger people. It may be easy for most of us but it’s not for the targeted audience
I agree completely, I was texting during the Ice Gym trial so I was running into literally everything and even completely stopped at one point, and still beat it with 20 seconds left.
I didn't like these gym trials. I did the first one with the giant bean and while it didn't really appeal to me, it was the best out of all the gym trials. Some of them are truly pathetic. Then there's a pointless elite four trial where you answer questions lol, this one really ticked me off.
The interview gave me unnecessary anxiety lol. I have terrible short-term memory, so when she said she wanted to repeat a previous question I was sweating beads.
My argument is when I was a kid, I probably only “beat” 25% of my games. Some games I couldn’t get past one part and still played them over and over until I got to that part, and I wasn’t bummed. Kids don’t need to beat games they have so much fun just running around the world. When did we start caring that kids could easily walk to the end of a game, especially when there’s such a loyal adult fan base. And they don’t have to make it so kids can’t beat the game, but just a little challenge would be nice, even for kids. Videogames used to be tough and kids loved them
Yeah I see people sometimes mention on here how their 6 or 7 year old isn't old enough for a real RPG and its like.. I was playing RPGs before I was 5. And those were NES RPGs, which are the least helpful games ever. Your kids can handle Pokemon >_>
One thin could be that Game Freak wants to make it playable for EVERYONE. You know that some children don't speak english, because there are countries that doesn't primarly speak english. They give enough time for those children to figure out what to do. Nowdays Pokemon games give you very simplified instructions so that you don't even have to read the dialogue. The reason why I, a 22-year-old, played Platinum through only few years back is because when I got that game when it first came out, I didn't understand what the npc's were saying and didn't know that I had to teach Cut to someone in my team to progress. When you don't know english, it's very hard as a foreigner to play games especially as a kid.
Don't you choose your language at the beginning of the game? Anyway, this would be a language barrier/ localization issue not a difficulty issue. Game freak, the Pokemon company, and Nintendo can afford to translate the game into your language and if they didn't then shame on them. Pokemon's original language is Japanese
Yeah. You and a lot of other people are gonna have to accept that these games aren't for us anymore, unfortunately. I guess earlier games were for kids as well but that's when we were kids and Pokemon was still finding it's footing in games. It's just we grew up and Pokemon did not. Sucks but it is what it is.
I love the gym mini games. They’re entertaining and it’s nice to stay a bit from tradition. The gun leaders fights are the same but every gym in the entirety has a form of “mini game”
I appreciate GF breaking certain traditions, but I wish they explore the new boundaries a bit more. If they want to make mini-games out of it, I want them to go far as they can with it!
Legends arceus from what I understand was pretty difficult right? It was one of the only ones I didn’t get a chance to play. Maybe we will get more games like that later on.
People underestimate kids like I mentioned before, the gym challenges sans the Normal gym are all insultingly easy, even for a kid. Calling them challenges is an insult to challenges. None of them are in the gym, none of them have a theme related to the gym (not that the gyms have any personality to them)
I think it boils down to the game just being unfinished. The bugs and timers are the things you would look into on a playtest and then make adjustments after you have those notes. I'm pretty sure the game just didn't get to that point in development.
I actually enjoy how easy it is to get through, especially if you just want to be done with the challenge and get on to other parts of the game (I’m just in it to fill out the Pokédex, maybe find a couple new favorite pokemon, then I’m going back to playing gen 6 and 7 to finish a living dex there)
Yeah totally totally 😅 I suck minigames and puzzles and the fact they gave me ten minutes to make a sandwich was a godsend im 19 and literally I failed at making sandwiches the first few times
I think you're overestimating a lot of people. Idk how many people I've met now who have told me that games like Skyrim are too difficult. One couldn't even make it through the initial dungeon you enter after leaving Helgen. I've met countless people who have difficulty getting through the tutorials for a lot of games. So when it comes to Pokemon being too easy, I think you're underestimating people's stupidity
Y'all forgetting you're grown ass people playing a game for kids. If you wanna complain about its difficulty, do a nuzlocke. That's what I did with sword and it was great.
If you actually read what I said, I wasn't even talking about the main game. A nuzlocke only solves half the problems; I still have to play the boring mini-games to get to the gym leaders.
Kids could solve all the old puzzles, too, and they still had a good amount of challenge in them. I’m someone who LOVED Scarlet/Violet, and you gotta stop using this as a cheap excuse to shield the game from criticism.
I actually don't like complicated puzzles in pokemon games. I always dreaded the ice gyms in the older games lol. They could be a little tougher than the current kindergarten level nonsense we currently have.
These games are made for children, not teens/adults. I know a lot of us wish the games would mature with us, but that’s not where the money is so it’s simply not going to happen. The games are meant to challenge us. They are meant to be fun for kids.
yeah I'd say they're pretty silly or boring, but not insulting. Insulting is when a game gives you a complex puzzle and tells you the answer if you mess up a couple times
I remember the good old days of taking on Milo’s gym where you roll the wooloos, sure it was easy, but later gyms got more difficult such as ice gym mine sweeper.
I didn't like SwSh's gym puzzles a lot, but at least they pretended to give you something to do. In SV it feels like the leader completely forgot to have something ready so he gives you the first meaningless bullshit thing that he can think of and won't take longer than a minute
I preferred facing off trainers in gyms with actual gym leader themes. Instead it is the same looking gym with a childish “challenge” that is irrelevent to becoming a strong trainer. It seems they half assed things since there were 3 different paths to take.
Even as a g rated game it’s mini games and even the school tests were just lazily made. No critical thinking needed. The hardest mini game is probably building a sandwich without it collapsing.
Preach, brother. You’re absolutely right. Not only are these ‘mini games’ too easy but half-assed as well. They feel like mindless student projects. Saying iTs A kIdS gAmE doesn’t excuse poor game design nor the outdated graphics and performance. I thought at least gym challenges are supposed to be a challenge. But GameFreak always finds a way to insult the intelligence of their playerbase.
what I don't get is why video games are now easier than ever. Back in the day if it was difficult you had to figure that shit out or ask around, now we have YouTube. You'd think they'd make it challenging asf for fun and anything you can't figure out on your own, you can just look up yk
It is a hard thing to get right. I am not defending Gamefreak here a lot of them were far too easy. Yet in the same game I have now seen countless people complaining you cannot terrastalize every single fight to make fights easier
Not to mention the mountain sledding game! I was excited to do that one at first until it finished. I don't remember how long the timer was but I cleared it easily and I took my good sweet time going down.
It has the same target audience as Red / Blue and I remember spending hours as a 10 year old getting through that cave where you had slide across the ice. Kids aren't stupid. Let them have a challenge. Overcoming an obstacle is what makes games fun. Otherwise just watch a let's play.
I remember the Sunglora one. I was about to go into the maze to look for one, but I realized... they almost certainly didnt put one in there. So went and looked elsewhere. I was right~
The skiing/snowboarding mini game was just ridiculous.. You get 1 minute and 30 seconds to get down the slope, and you can clear it in 25 seconds..
I will play devil's advocate and say maybe they don't want to put anything too demanding in an RPG that can be enjoyed by kids and people with motor issues, but the lack of customizability in controls and difficulty makes me no none of this was an accessibility thing.
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Its a kids game but also take galarian yamask to this specific spot while below 39 hp and level it up and also theres no npc who tells you to do that
We did all that without or with very limited internet too on our giant Gameboys and their 4 double a batteries
I did it without knowing how to speak or read English and i did the rock tunnel in Pokémon Yellow without flash
Let's be honest, the gaming industry treats even adults like idiots. Take the new God of War with its excessive verbal hints for every puzzle as example
I despise that statement of calling it a kid’s game. It’s certainly a different era and not the same as when I was a kid growing up with gen 1, but the good part of Pokémon is that it’s also a challenge to kids. It shouldn’t ever be dumbed down so much.
Heck. We beat the Dark Cave without flash.
Best part of playing Pokémon at 6 was learning reading comprehension without realizing you were learning it. That and how to use a dictionary to find what the words meant. Miss those days.
I don't know about you guys but I think I was actually better at games when I was a lot younger.
A real justification that I’ve seen seen used multiple times is that GF is trying to make the game more accessible to those born with mental disabilities… I’m all for accessibility, but that’s quite a stretch to believe
tbf as a kid, i was a moron i never completed any pokemon game because i never understood the game
The secret dish order was a nice puzzle I felt like, but the game is balanced around 10 year olds playing it. :P
I accidentally skipped that puzzle with absolute God tier luck. I was just tryjng to find out where to begin and I guessed the recipie. RIP
10 year olds are super smart and play lots of video games. Way more than I did at that age
If 10 year olds could solve Koga’s gym back in the 90s without easy access to guides, they can do it now with access to YouTube.
I solved the thing from start to finish in ten minutes or so, battles (and battle animations) included.
my 10-year-old is bored to death with the puzzles in SwSh because they’re way too easy.
Yes, but the minigames are insulting even to 10 year olds.
I'd agree with the Medali gym test, it was fun to do atleast. However, I feel like we're underestimating what ten year olds can do. If 7 year old noob me can get through the team rocket base, I'm sure a ten year old can do better.
Except for maybe that dish order puzzle it feels more like it's balanced around 3 year olds playing it.
I legit guessed it first time. I phased out gathering clues and got to the restaurant and guessed the options. No idea how I did it
I actually guessed this correctly on the first try! I couldn't believe it and went on google to see if there's only 1 solution. Turns out there was, and I just got really lucky :0
This is the only one IMO that I truly enjoyed. Thought that was clever
That's literally the intended audience, so that's who the game is balanced around.
I wouldn't even say 10yo. More like 8 year olds with how lax everything keeps getting.
I can't figure it out! Who tf do I ask for it! I found the guy who tells you the garnish, but nobody else seems to exist! I really hope they didn't dumb this game down for children...
I felt so confused om this one. All other minigames were so on your nose and easy I legit just turned off my brain and thought I bugged out by not being able to talk to the guys in the restaurant (after the lemon answer at the bar i was convinced I had to step up where the arena is to talk to npc)
Right that one was a lot of fun actually, I didn’t mind most of the challenges honestly but some we’re definitely better than others
that olive one was so cursed
The most cursed thing was listening to those most un-olive noises an olive could make
Lol I cheesed that one by making it go over the fence by using the ramps
My favorite part about that one was summoning Miraidon from right next to the olive and getting launched. Unfortunately this only works during the gym test, but you can summon your leading Pokemon in the olive for some more fun.
convinced an intern made that as some sort of test and they just threw it in for shits and giggles
I liked that one!
The olive one was so bad I haven’t picked up the game since
I do hope this is something they improve on going forward. They definitely felt more like a chore than a fun part of the experience.
And I believe in GF's capabilities. They have been able to give us fun stuff in the past. I've played almost all of their games, even the non-pokemon ones like Drill dozer and (Rhythm Knight, I believe?). I feel like some executive is putting on too much crunch time on the employees and following way too closely to mobile game philosophy in terms of difficulty.
they're not gonna improve on anything.
Dude the entire campaign was a chore. I haven't played in a few gens and just got to elite 4 today. I'm extremely disappointed.
The olive roll was embarrassing
I found out via Reddit that you can apparently fight the trainers for a shortcut?
I’m just wondering why that was the challenge for a bug gym
So I tried the challenge you can do after the gym. I will admit that I struggled with it for half an hour before giving up and have not returned
When have the gym puzzles ever been remotely difficult? 90% of them were always some version of making a path to the final leader. I at least appreciate Gens 7, 8, and 9 actually adding variety in mechanics even if they're still easy.
Nope! Nothing but trash here.
Me getting all of Fantina's questions wrong on purpose because I'm a completionist who wants to beat all the gym challengers:
They don't HAVE to be difficult, but they need to feel like a little bit more challenging to be engaging, y'know? I remember the Ice type gym in gen 2 fondly because of the ice- sliding puzzles. HGSS even made the gym puzzles in the bug type and dragon type gym even more fun. I actually had to THINK before movin, albeit it doesn't take too much to figure out.
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Honestly, the Lt. Surge puzzle is kind of the only bad one and feels a bit cherry-picked, here. None of the other gym leaders in the first 4 gens really sucked to my memory.
yes lol all those were much better than what we have in SV, nobody is expecting actual puzzles but i'd prefer to just go straight to the gym fight instead of whatever the fuck those gym tests were supposed to be
Not going to defend those monstrosities. I wouldn't even call them puzzles. I'm not even advocating for tough puzzles, but I want to have a bit of fun in solving them, like I did with Alph ruins, the braille, ice path, etc.
At least it was fun and didn't feel like a chore. I much prefer battling trainers in a pokemon gameover doing some dumb chore that had nothing to do with pokemon and accomplishes nothing but wasting time. Those gym chores were beyond irritating to me.
There is a difference between "easy" and "braindead" though. The switches in Lt. Surge gym were dumb easy to find, but at least it was requested to think a bit before acting for not battling the trainers, or to battle them.
You will roll your olive and you will like it young man!
When the minigame started for the psychic gym and it wasn't even the most basic rhythm game i was so unbelievably pissed
Saying it’s a kid’s game is by no means to excuse the game’s shortcomings which is everywhere. They were kids games in the past and still are. Doesn’t mean they should make a shittier game because of that
It’s a kids game, but not a baby one. People don’t seem to be able to differentiate
We can't have even a hint of difficulty in the game, or else we'll lose our players to freemium mobile games!
I am liking the new game so far, but at this point I’m starting to feel like PoGo might be kind of the most complete Pokemon game lol
You mention the level-scale issue but that could easily fix the issue you’re having with mini-games.
Honestly, not a kid anymore, failing hard to do the olives/insects 2nd challenge on TV while my friends were watching and us laughing at both my lack of skill and the weird physics of that balloon was one of the best pokémon experience I shared with my buddies 😆
My wife also sucked at the olive roll, so don't feel too bad. I just wish they were... not chores.
Just gimme stupid slide puzzles like Snow point gym. They're easy but at least they're fun to go through.
You’re honestly right the only one that I feel like was difficult was the challenge for the normal gym. But I’m honestly pretty dumb so maybe that’s why it was difficult for me.
That's one of the few tests I thought was okay! Couldn't find the blue bird clue for a while!
the only one where it seemed like they even tried to do something interesting was for the normal gym, everything else felt like stuff they added a week before the game released
I really hate how games like Pokémon dumb things down "for kids". When I was a kid I beat the Lion King game for the Sega when I was like 7 years old. Kids today are just as good if not better at games.
It feels like they ran out of time putting all the effort into the open world and make it in 3 years or just less. They put a lot of effort into pokemon just look at some the details like scales on some pokemon.
The where’s Waldo ass minigame I didn’t think was bad and did get a little creative but it didn’t fit at all with the scene. You’re on some streamer’s stream and have to entertain the audience and you do that by... looking at security footage to find some guy?
Yeah literally every one of the gym challenges were awful
The secret dish one was the only one that wasn’t cringe imo
I mean that one was the hardest for me purely because Im an idiot. I ordered the rice balls thinking they'd give me another clue. After that I walked around the city a few times looking for the odd one out until I gave up and went to wing the recipe and then I saw rice balls as an option and then I figured it out.
The dumbed down where's waldo was especially insulting.
I'd rather fight a gauntlet of trainers than play these awful minigames, I really really miss the old style of gyms.
I was so happy when I learned that purposely failing ionos gym test had her send trainers to fight you, felt like I was actually doing a proper gym for once
When I was a kid I played plenty of games in english and japenese on emulation without understanding shit... And that never stopped me. Issue is that Nintendo is convinced that the attention window of a kid are so short, that they must remove every kind of frustration that would make the kid quit the game.
If I can beat red in HGSS at 7 years old then kids today can take on far more difficult games because I was a total dipshit lol
They just felt like a chore and it was not enjoyable. I'd rather fight trainers of the gym like in the older games.
The gym tests are annoying. I came to battle, not wander around town looking for sunflowers or push an olive into a goal.
Yeah I’d rather them just go back to standard battles in gyms than random ass trials.
I agree.
The main issue with the DDR one was that it went on too long. When I had the first battle I was like oh good it's over oh shit they are making me do the minigame a bit more
Have anyone tried to play soccer with friends where the bug gym test were held?
They are exactly my 5 yo’s speed. That’s all I need.
Severe step back from island trials.
The thing is that they don't even need disposable income to play a different game anymore because of free mobile games and that's what Gamefreak is worried about. Whether that is a valid fear or not is up for debate but that is what they are worried about
i thought they were neat : )
And it's fine if you do! It's my silly little opinion, after all!
The whole 'it is for kids' argument always makes me pause. Like, I started gaming around 2 or 3 years old, and my first console was the NES. Now, game design back then wasn't very good and the difficulty was artificial a lot of the time to pad the game, but I was still able to enjoy those games.
Exactly! I don't even want them to bring back old puzzles or make it hard, just make it fun!
Honestly, when have any Gym challenges/Island Trials been difficult? They just feel like excuses to throw trainers our way.
Eh, I actually liked how quick they were to get through, I just wanted the gym badge.
Fair enough. I don't mind if it is quick, but if it isn't fun, it feels like I'm doing chores instead.
Not about the mini games, but more the gym leaders themselves - I'd love to eventually see them step away from the type-basing that they all have because you can basically go "cool, water type, so I'll just bring a grass type pokemon and one shot everything". My idea for a fix? Gym leaders with a THEME. For example, a leader who's theme is construction. Their team could consist of electric, rock, ground and steel pokemon any you could potentially find out through your exploration of the region just how much their theme leans to one typing or another just to give you a better chance at getting a party ready
Ngl i adored the mini games in the Stadium games, they were so much fun and took more effort to get good with than the puzzles/mini games I've been seeing. Let me jump hurdles as a purple rat again plz n thank
I couldn’t believe one of the “gym tests” was placing the winning bid at an auction. Really bruh?
They give you a minute and 25 seconds to do the ice slope thing for the ice gym. Did it in like 20 seconds but felt like the brakes were on the whole time
Nobody ever complained about a pokemon game being hard, but they keep getting easier "for the kids"
This is the only thing I really don’t like about the new Pokémon games is the lack of puzzles/dungeons and fun mini games and this I’ve noticed since Gen 7.
At lest the games did have that one really neat dungeon at the end.
I haven't had to help my 5 year old with a single one of them and he's 5/8 gyms now. I thought for sure he'd at least get the olive stuck in a corner.
Every time the “it’s a game for kids, you’re an adult now” excuse comes up, I remind them that they didn’t pull any punches when we were kids and made us read braille to catch the regi trio. Cynthia sure as hell didn’t hold back, I restarted my Diamond when I was a kid and designed my team to take her down because she was giving me so much trouble. I don’t want these games to be insanely difficult, I simply want them to be more engaging. The gym tests were all just awful, I’d rather them just be a mini tournament. Just give us a randomly seeded tournament for each gym, make it feel like a sport. Then spend some time designing good puzzles for dungeons, something which I also think this game lacks as I haven’t seen much yet.
The devs think kids actually are that stupid. That's why they removed stuff like the battle frontier.
when I was a kid I had to fucking learn morse code to get the regis
Looking at people defending this practices, I'm starting to think that the difficulty of those mini-games are accord to the intelligence of the fanbase.
Adults complaining about a game made for kids. I love Pokémon since it can into my live when I was 6 but at some point I had to accept that the games are easy because they are meant for younger people. It may be easy for most of us but it’s not for the targeted audience
I agree completely, I was texting during the Ice Gym trial so I was running into literally everything and even completely stopped at one point, and still beat it with 20 seconds left.
I didn't like these gym trials. I did the first one with the giant bean and while it didn't really appeal to me, it was the best out of all the gym trials. Some of them are truly pathetic. Then there's a pointless elite four trial where you answer questions lol, this one really ticked me off.
The interview gave me unnecessary anxiety lol. I have terrible short-term memory, so when she said she wanted to repeat a previous question I was sweating beads.
I couldn’t believe my eyes with Iono’s. I’m usually bad at those types of games. I get it’s for kids but damn
Iono's Gym "Challenge" is a less fun form of Where's Waldo
My argument is when I was a kid, I probably only “beat” 25% of my games. Some games I couldn’t get past one part and still played them over and over until I got to that part, and I wasn’t bummed. Kids don’t need to beat games they have so much fun just running around the world. When did we start caring that kids could easily walk to the end of a game, especially when there’s such a loyal adult fan base. And they don’t have to make it so kids can’t beat the game, but just a little challenge would be nice, even for kids. Videogames used to be tough and kids loved them
Yeah I see people sometimes mention on here how their 6 or 7 year old isn't old enough for a real RPG and its like.. I was playing RPGs before I was 5. And those were NES RPGs, which are the least helpful games ever. Your kids can handle Pokemon >_>
One thin could be that Game Freak wants to make it playable for EVERYONE. You know that some children don't speak english, because there are countries that doesn't primarly speak english. They give enough time for those children to figure out what to do. Nowdays Pokemon games give you very simplified instructions so that you don't even have to read the dialogue. The reason why I, a 22-year-old, played Platinum through only few years back is because when I got that game when it first came out, I didn't understand what the npc's were saying and didn't know that I had to teach Cut to someone in my team to progress. When you don't know english, it's very hard as a foreigner to play games especially as a kid.
Don't you choose your language at the beginning of the game? Anyway, this would be a language barrier/ localization issue not a difficulty issue. Game freak, the Pokemon company, and Nintendo can afford to translate the game into your language and if they didn't then shame on them. Pokemon's original language is Japanese
There’s literally a language select when you boot up the game
Everything about Pokémon is so easy nowadays. There’s some difficulty but they usually hold your hand the whole time.
Yeah. You and a lot of other people are gonna have to accept that these games aren't for us anymore, unfortunately. I guess earlier games were for kids as well but that's when we were kids and Pokemon was still finding it's footing in games. It's just we grew up and Pokemon did not. Sucks but it is what it is.
Yeah... but hey, atleast I can complain about it like an old cronie on Reddit, right? :')
the fucking auction one for the water gym was straight up insulting
I kinda liked it, but I can see where you're coming from. Just chose the lowest option!
I love the gym mini games. They’re entertaining and it’s nice to stay a bit from tradition. The gun leaders fights are the same but every gym in the entirety has a form of “mini game”
I appreciate GF breaking certain traditions, but I wish they explore the new boundaries a bit more. If they want to make mini-games out of it, I want them to go far as they can with it!
Finding Clive was great
Clive? You mean Mr.Walksabout? Surely you're not suggesting that they're the same person?!
I follow an italian streamer who speaks about pokemon, and he did that trial literally smashing the pad against the table or gnawing it.
Since sun and moon they’ve been making it specifically for kids new to the game 😑
Atleast sun and moon had a fun surfing mini-game. Or was it USUM only?
Legends arceus from what I understand was pretty difficult right? It was one of the only ones I didn’t get a chance to play. Maybe we will get more games like that later on.
But it didn’t really feature gyms or puzzles to do said battles. You just did the quest, fought the noble and that was it.
People underestimate kids like I mentioned before, the gym challenges sans the Normal gym are all insultingly easy, even for a kid. Calling them challenges is an insult to challenges. None of them are in the gym, none of them have a theme related to the gym (not that the gyms have any personality to them)
Most of them were really boring but some of them were actually kinda fun like the dish and then ionos was fun and I'm a sucker for the photo mode
I didn't mind em but I can see others feeling differently. I'm a dummy so I found them juuust right lol
I think it boils down to the game just being unfinished. The bugs and timers are the things you would look into on a playtest and then make adjustments after you have those notes. I'm pretty sure the game just didn't get to that point in development.
The entire game is insulting.
I liked the olive one. I was hoping the rest of them would be like that too.
I actually enjoy how easy it is to get through, especially if you just want to be done with the challenge and get on to other parts of the game (I’m just in it to fill out the Pokédex, maybe find a couple new favorite pokemon, then I’m going back to playing gen 6 and 7 to finish a living dex there)
Yeah totally totally 😅 I suck minigames and puzzles and the fact they gave me ten minutes to make a sandwich was a godsend im 19 and literally I failed at making sandwiches the first few times
I think you're overestimating a lot of people. Idk how many people I've met now who have told me that games like Skyrim are too difficult. One couldn't even make it through the initial dungeon you enter after leaving Helgen. I've met countless people who have difficulty getting through the tutorials for a lot of games. So when it comes to Pokemon being too easy, I think you're underestimating people's stupidity
Probably fine for kids... you know... the primary market for pokemon.
Pokémon isn’t even a kids game anymore. It’s a picture book
The sad thing is up to D/P the games were explicitly said to NOT be kids games, but for everyone.
they’re games for children lmao
Y'all forgetting you're grown ass people playing a game for kids. If you wanna complain about its difficulty, do a nuzlocke. That's what I did with sword and it was great.
If you actually read what I said, I wasn't even talking about the main game. A nuzlocke only solves half the problems; I still have to play the boring mini-games to get to the gym leaders.
A children's game has puzzles children can solve? How offensive.
Even Zelda is made for children. And I'm not talking about botw, but even Phantom Hourglass, Ocarina of time, Link's Awakening, etc.
Kids could solve all the old puzzles, too, and they still had a good amount of challenge in them. I’m someone who LOVED Scarlet/Violet, and you gotta stop using this as a cheap excuse to shield the game from criticism.
You mean in the game made for literal children
Children are not fucking braindead.
Did… did you just call X and Y the first easy games? Literally every game is piss easy, the difficulty hardly changes.
I actually don't like complicated puzzles in pokemon games. I always dreaded the ice gyms in the older games lol. They could be a little tougher than the current kindergarten level nonsense we currently have.
These games are made for children, not teens/adults. I know a lot of us wish the games would mature with us, but that’s not where the money is so it’s simply not going to happen. The games are meant to challenge us. They are meant to be fun for kids.
I personally didn’t mind it.
I don't agree with you completly. Yeah, the puzzles were a bit on the easy end. But isn't it more important how fun the puzzles are?
Insulting?
yeah I'd say they're pretty silly or boring, but not insulting. Insulting is when a game gives you a complex puzzle and tells you the answer if you mess up a couple times
hey quick question, anyone know how to get a revaroom with parting shot?
It's got to be balanced for children who only have a basic reading ability to do.
I remember the good old days of taking on Milo’s gym where you roll the wooloos, sure it was easy, but later gyms got more difficult such as ice gym mine sweeper.
I didn't like SwSh's gym puzzles a lot, but at least they pretended to give you something to do. In SV it feels like the leader completely forgot to have something ready so he gives you the first meaningless bullshit thing that he can think of and won't take longer than a minute
Rika's test at the Elite Four was amazing...
You overestimate Gen Alpha
I've seen children play elden ring better than I could ever hope. They can handle a slightly harder Pokemon.
Bring back the strength puzzles from Gen 3.
I preferred facing off trainers in gyms with actual gym leader themes. Instead it is the same looking gym with a childish “challenge” that is irrelevent to becoming a strong trainer. It seems they half assed things since there were 3 different paths to take.
Narrower timeframes or margins of error would not make those minigames more fun though
I beat every team star base in less than 2 minutes, ultimate power fantasy
Even as a g rated game it’s mini games and even the school tests were just lazily made. No critical thinking needed. The hardest mini game is probably building a sandwich without it collapsing.
the giant fucking olive????????????????????????????????? why?????
Preach, brother. You’re absolutely right. Not only are these ‘mini games’ too easy but half-assed as well. They feel like mindless student projects. Saying iTs A kIdS gAmE doesn’t excuse poor game design nor the outdated graphics and performance. I thought at least gym challenges are supposed to be a challenge. But GameFreak always finds a way to insult the intelligence of their playerbase.
what I don't get is why video games are now easier than ever. Back in the day if it was difficult you had to figure that shit out or ask around, now we have YouTube. You'd think they'd make it challenging asf for fun and anything you can't figure out on your own, you can just look up yk
It is a hard thing to get right. I am not defending Gamefreak here a lot of them were far too easy. Yet in the same game I have now seen countless people complaining you cannot terrastalize every single fight to make fights easier
This is definitely made for little kids. All the themes are about problems you had as a kid. I bet I'd love this if I was still young.
I feel like TPC is acutely aware the majority of their player base is probably 20-30 or even older, but they just don’t give a shit.
The whole game feels insulting
Not to mention the mountain sledding game! I was excited to do that one at first until it finished. I don't remember how long the timer was but I cleared it easily and I took my good sweet time going down.
It has the same target audience as Red / Blue and I remember spending hours as a 10 year old getting through that cave where you had slide across the ice. Kids aren't stupid. Let them have a challenge. Overcoming an obstacle is what makes games fun. Otherwise just watch a let's play.
The Gym tests are absolutely dire honestly.
I remember the Sunglora one. I was about to go into the maze to look for one, but I realized... they almost certainly didnt put one in there. So went and looked elsewhere. I was right~
As far as I can tell, its impossible to not get three stars at the sandwich making game:
Most of them aren't tied to gym challenges though
I actually like making sandwiches, but the timer is completely useless, I don't know why they even bothered with it.
Ok yeah most of them have been really easy for me (only on gym 6 though) but the stupid OLIVE MINIGAME was SO HARD