Gaming trends that irk you

[Gnoman]

If you consider the setting as part of the plot? Yes. Absolutely. Duh. The fact that you think Pokemon is popular because of its gameplay is puzzling. People love the series because they enjoy exploring a fantastical world. They enjoy the idea of collecting and raising monsters. The series is decidedly not popular because pressing "tackle" 400,000 times in a row is somehow engaging. The gameplay is easily the weakest part of the series. Which makes sense, because at its core Pokemon is marketed towards 5-10 year olds. This is also why self imposed challenges are so popular for the series since the core gameplay simply isn't enough to challenge an adult.

That would be why there's extensive dissections on the mechanics (to the point where a mechanical discussion is unintelligible to the outsider because so many acronyms needed developing, guides on how to breed your Pokemon for Maximum Performance, and exhuastive discussions on strategies. From adults. This is totally something that makes sense to exist for mechanics that are terrible and unloved by all.

You're misrepresenting my point from "ATB systems in JRPGs were bad and the games were carried by their stories" to "all turn based games are bad". The second thing was never my position. I'm sure it's easier to argue against, but since it wasn't what I was saying I don't really see your point.

Let me rebut that with a direct quote. From you.

Honestly, the existence of the classic JRPG genre at all just proves that good stories can carry brain-dead gameplay.

That is, explicitly, a "all turn based games are bad" statement. Not an "ATB is bad" one. It is a statement that every jRPG game that ever was or ever will be has trash gameplay and are only carried by story. In that same post, you declared that anybody who doesn't agree with that statement is blinded by nostalgia goggles, because your opinion is The One True Objective Truth.


It is not Objective Truth. It is The Opinion Of Anteros. People would argue with you less if you stopped confusing the two.