I think I don’t like Pokémon anymore
TLDR: I think that I don’t like Pokémon games anymore because the battle system literally puts me to sleep, I can’t be bothered to “catch them all” all over again, and there’s just nothing else about the mainline games (not even the story or anything) that makes them interesting for me. Anyone else?
Disclaimer: If you love Pokémon, then I’m very happy for you. Seriously. This isn’t a rant about the games being bad (not even the modern ones). I’m not casting judgment on the quality of the games nor the people who buy and play them. This is 100% about my astonishment at how much my personal taste for video games has changed.
I decided to share my thoughts on this matter with all of you here to see if anyone has had a similar experience.
I only got into Pokémon in the year 2000, I think. I still managed to play Red, Blue, and Yellow before Gold, Silver, and Crystal released. Out of these six, the only one I never owned was Gold. But on top of that, I played the ever-loving heck out of Stadium 1 and 2. There is a non-zero chance that I invested more than 1,000 hours into all of these games combined. I even got my mother hooked on the Stadium games. It was wild.
Then gen III rolled around, and while I did get a GBA, I somehow never managed to buy a single new Pokémon game. My guess is that I was too busy fawning over all of the crazy, weird, and fun games that I was playing on the Gamecube, two of which I spent a lot of time on: Animal Crossing and Sonic Adventure 2: Battle. So, I totally missed out on Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, FireRed and LeafGreen. I also never played Colosseum or XD: Gale of Darkness.
I returned to the series on the NDS, with Diamond, which was a lot fun (at least I don’t remember anything negative about it), but that was close to the beginning of a period in my life where I played almost no video games, let alone Pokémon.
This may sound silly, but what I enjoy about Pokémon (or at least, what I enjoyed about gen I and II), was the adventure. Does that make sense? I loved exploring the world, befriending six “cute” creatures (I always was more interested in carrying the more animal and pet-like ones in my party), becoming the very best, like no one ever was, defeating bad guys, and learning more about the lore surrounding certain legendary Pokémon.
Side note: I did try to catch them all, but Celebi completely eluded me.
It wasn’t until like... I think, 2023? That I went back to the series and played Emerald (through cough cough “alternative” means), and forced myself to plow through the game until I beat the League. And I mean “forced”. It wasn’t like the game was bad, and I enjoyed the adventure to some extent (though the story didn’t quite “grip” me), but the grinding ground my gears (pun intended).
Yes. I had to grind. I can’t remember what my team was and at what level they were (I think around 55 each) when I reached the League, but I remember grinding at the exit of the Victory Road to raise their levels because my first attempt failed. (It’s definitely, at least partly, a skill issue. lol) I had, however, been grinding a little bit before each gym already, and whenever I did, I had to listen to podcasts or YouTube videos in the background or whatever, because I would literally fall asleep while doing it. lol
Most recently I tried HeartGold. Before that, I tried FireRed and White, and with neither of them, I managed to get past the third or fourth gym before I just couldn’t deal with the tedium anymore and gave up.
Fast-forward to this month of April.
I’ve decided to focus on GCN games, since there are many that I never had the chance to play. I replayed Metroid first (needed to scratch that itch) and had fun. Yesterday I finished Paper Mario TTYD, which was a dream come true. Been waiting 20 years to play it. I absolutely loved it.
But today I tried Pokémon Colosseum.
And... I think that I want to give up. lol
I just can’t anymore.
I think that I have become an Old Person™. lol Like, something about the battle system just literally puts me to sleep. I’m not kidding you. I was playing the game today, and whenever I had to battle, I began to feel Drowzee (pun intended).
I played for a little over an hour and then checked Bulbapedia, only to look at the list of “snatchable” Pokémon and think to myself: “Do I think that the ‘adventure’ in this game will be interesting enough to keep me grinding through all these many battles?”
My hearts tells me no. I don’t think that it will.
So, after all these years, I have to sadly conclude that I just don’t like Pokémon anymore. I can’t deal with the battle system. It’s too tedious for me. I also can’t deal with the grind of catching and raising them. Neither the adventures nor the stories catch my interest anymore. It feels all too repetitive, like I’m playing the same game over and over.
But do you know what the irony is? I have replayed Crystal a few times over the years—maybe a handful. It feels easy to pick up somehow. I still grind, but the grind doesn’t grind me down. And I am willing to bet that I could pick it up today and play it all the way to the end without getting tired. It must be the nostalgia. I don’t know how else to explain it otherwise.
I don’t think that my machine can handle playing gens VI to current through “alternative means”, so those are completely out of the question for now, but I have been following the franchise close enough that I feel skeptical that even those would entertain me.
So, I guess that’s it. I don’t like Pokémon anymore. It’s just a game but it somehow feels so tragic. lol
And I’m not sure what other GCN game to pick up instead. Any suggestions? Here are the ones that I have played so far:
- 1080° Avalanche
- Animal Crossing
- Burnout
- Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
- The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
- Luigi's Mansion
- Mario Party 4
- Metroid Prime
- Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
- Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
- Pikmin
- Resident Evil 4
- Sonic Adventure 2: Battle
- Star Fox Adventures
- Super Mario Sunshine
- Super Smash Bros. Melee
I’m mostly interested in 3D, third-person action adventure games—basically singleplayer games where you take control of a main character. I’m open to try out other genres though.
I was a Pokemon fanatic as a kid, had all the games, caught them all, the whole thing. A few years back I picked up Pokemon Moon and was bored to death by it, don't think I got even a quarter of the way through, and I left it there. After a while I got into ROM hacks, of which there are many excellent ones for Pokemon. I downloaded all the most famous ones and started going through them. Now pokehacks tend to fall on one of two ends of the difficulty spectrum: they either try to be about as challenging as the mainline Pokemon games (which is to say, really easy for a non-10 year old), or they're stupid difficult.
It was while playing these hacks that I realised how... Incredibly boring the game is. Essentially, you do some busywork, fight a gym leader, do some more busywork, fight a gym leader, rinse and repeat until you've beaten the game. If you watch Pokemon streamers and the like playing through ROM hacks and Nuzlockes and such you'll see that they pretty much just fast forward through the games until they get to the boss, then start playing the game. Because all the middle stuff, the navigating through routes, fighting trainers along the way, all of that amounts to being a reason for the player to grind. If the game is well-tuned your team should be about the level it needs to be by the time you get from one boss to the next. But even with the mainline games you'll often end up being way overlevelled or underlevelled, meaning you either cruise through everything or have to step back and do more busywork for a while.
Even the super challenging ROM hacks aren't that fun IMO, because in the end you're barely even playing a Pokemon game anymore. You decide on a team beforehand, you EV train your mons until you have the exact competitive team you need, and you throw yourself at battles until you're through. In the end it's less a game and more a puzzle, the goal of which is to increase your statistical odds of beating a certain boss until you can do it in a bearable number of attempts (which I suppose is exactly what the Pokemon catching mechanic ends up being as well). A lot of people like that, I can see the appeal, but it's not for me. Nuzlocke is kinda fun for a blind playthrough, but even it gets boiled down to this same gameplay loop once you figure it out. Most people who play a lot of Nuzlockes will have level cap rules (e.g. "No pokemon past level 30 before this gym" or something) and will just use rare candies to get to that level cap, because the alternative is grinding for an hour.
One of my favourite pokehacks was Firered: Rocket Edition, in which you play as a Team Rocket member, and it's so good because it overhauls the entire catching system. You don't catch: you steal your opponent's Pokemon after beating them instead. I think that's great. By essentially reducing Pokemon down to expendable, easily-obtainable resources, you're able to have a much more malleable playstyle throughout the game. Normally when playing Pokemon you get your six party members, maybe shuffle a few around, replace some here and there, and in the end you probably only really use maybe 15, 20 Pokemon tops by the end of the game. One part of this is practicality, it's a pain in the ass to train a newly-caught Pokemon up 30-something levels in the endgame unless it really has something good to offer, so mostly you don't. And perhaps it's silly, but roleplaying as a neutral-evil, uncaring gangster makes it a lot easier to get rid of Pokemon than when you're playing as a normal trainer, growing and bonding with your team over your Pokemon journey. All in all, it was a really fun hack, play it if you're bored of the normal Pokemon formula.
Ultimately I enjoy the core battling system of Pokemon, but I like it in the same way I like chess, you know? I plan out my strategy beforehand, I see what my opponent has in store, and I push whatever advantages I can find. You just can't really do that as well in a singleplayer game, just like how playing a chess computer isn't all that fun. It either completely kicks your ass or it's far too easy. Or more often, it's reasonably difficult until all the sudden it does something extremely stupid and immediately crumbles because it's trying not to win. Pokemon Showdown is in my opinion the best way to play Pokemon nowadays, since it is basically just the 1v1 style of Pokemon distilled.
Like you said, the fun of the games came mostly from the adventure, from the role-playing part of the RPG. The world, the characters, the feeling that you're becoming the best like no-one ever was, all of that was just incredible to experience as a kid. But now we're older and we can see how all the pieces fit together. Some of my disillusionment with the games definitely comes from "meta-ing the fun out", so to speak. When I was 9 and my Feraligatr clutched a critical hit against Lance's Dragonite, it was incredible because my Pokemon was the strongest thing ever and that dipshit Caleb's Ninetales wouldn't stand a chance next recess (I'm pretty sure he just traded it in from his big brother's save anyways, no way he's skilled enough to get a Pokemon to level 92). Now it's just "oh nice, a 1-in-5, glad I got that attack EV raised". The magic is gone. But that's life, I guess. Damned kids and their innate sense of wonder at the world. I'm gonna go yell at a cloud now.
Also shoutout to Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, the best thing to ever come out of the Pokemon franchise. Explorers of Sky my beloved, please get remastered soon.
I couldn’t have said it better. This basically sums up everything that I wrote in my complaint and I I’m so tired of this turn-based RPG, even though I’ll gladly play other ones. I recently finished Paper Mario TTYD, and arrived at the final boss just leveled out enough that it was a real challenge, but not impossible.
Another truth bomb right here. You’re reading my mind. Wow. Also, that hack sounds super fun!
oof Wow. 1,000,000% this.
Oh, is the Mystery Dungeon series something you’d recommend?
I'm not the person you replied to, but from the bottom of my heart I can recommend Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky. It's the single best Pokemon game, and in my top three games of all time. It's a shame it's not a mainline game because those pale in comparison to the music, vibe and especially story of MD:EOS. The amount of love put into this game compared to the attention is criminal imo.
Note that all Mystery Dungeon games are more or less the same game, just with some different characters etc. Explorers of Sky is just the most popular version, the "end" version, if you will. Also as a heads up, this game is old by today's standards, and e.g. the battle menu is very bare bones and takes some getting used to because it's really really simple looking, nothing fancy like in most pokemon games. I have not played the Nintendo Switch "remakes" of the game but please download an emulator on the computer and play the original Explorers of Sky.
Just dive into it blind and find your own combinations of moves/items/strategies/party compositions and you will have a really fun time. The game is definitely in the category of "easy to learn, hard to master", and the controls will become second nature so you can press three keys even without looking and execute moves just by finger memory. Also there is a ton of extra content in the form of backstories, i.e. you can play as every major character in the game in a side chapter and experience their backstories, but it's not necessary to progress or anything.
Dang. That really makes me want to try it out. I’ve always been interested in it. Thanks for the recommendation.
I have one final tip for you that's really concrete, for when you start your first dungeon:
You do attacks by pressing ["menu button"->"moves"->choose attack] from there. The "default headbutt" is not the only attack you can do, and it's not even an attack, just something you can do when you're out of moves.
There isn't really a tutorial other than one dialogue window per new game mechanic, so what happened to me as a child is I went through the first dungeons only using the "default attack" and it took a while. That was brutal.
Also you can speed this up, for example if you want to do the same attack again on your next turn, simply spam the menu button (on my emulator i had it on "c"). It will automatically do the same "path" through the menu that you did last time.
I really hope you don't sleep on this game, good luck!
I've played Red Blue Yellow Black White Diamond Pearl Saaphire Heart Gold Soulsilver. Didn't finish Sun. I watched my kid play the latter titles, X Y Moon Ultra Moon Sword Scarlet, and legend of Arceus.
My favourite Pokemon title ever is called Ooblets.
Hear me out.
The Pokemon anime is all about Ash and Pikachu travel the world right? But in the actual games, your favourite Pokemon just stays inside its ball all the time and doesn't get to see the world. They come out for war, only to get beaten up. The cutest ones are the most useless ones. They have no lives of their own, no friends, no autonomy. And you caught them from the wild and tore them away from their families and natural habitat! The force breeding programs, the EV training, the discarded newly hatched are "optional" sure but are they really.
Not so Ooblets. There are wild ones, but you don't get those, you get home grown ones, if you choose to bring home a seed. If you think this one just isn't cute and you don't see it ever being loved as part of your team that's cool don't take the seed. If you wanted one for a short time only but don't truly love it, allow it to dance and play and work at your farm while you travel the world, or release it into the nature reserve where it has friends. The ones in your party, you can buy a cute car for them. Buy cute costumes for all your Ooblets. The ones on your farm, you can buy them a cute house each. NPC Ooblets wander off and do their own thing all the time.
The game loops is sort of like a draft card type, it can be a little grindy, but we're adults now and there's clearly a few types of Ooblet that lets you min-max to victory quickly if you so wish. Your starter is just that, a starter, and you can get the other ones later at your own pace without missing out. The cutest ones are still contributing members of your team right to the end.
And then the main story. It's wacky, it's charming, it's fantastic. The characters are qookie in really diverse and fun ways. I still remember the final "dungeon" and what fun it was.
Like I said, hands down my favourite Pokemon title. It's everything Pokemon should have been, and with each new title being released I see Gamefreaks straying farther and farther from the glory that is Ooblets.
Haha! This is adorable. What a find! Thanks for sharing!
Dang, the way you described it made it sound really interesting. I’ll definitely learn more about it!
It's on Steam, it's cheaper than Arceus, and it's an indie title made by two people. :) Gamefreaks doesn't need your money. Gamefreaks doesn't deserve your money.
I mean, trying to decipher the heart of the post here - you're playing through a lot of games that were made before like 20 years of game design corrected poor pacing decisions and other game design missteps. If you're actively upset that you don't like Pokémon and want to try the more widely-loved games, look for newer games, different mediums, or especially fan hacks IMO. Official Pokémon is at its best now when they get the appeal is sort of spread out as a vehicle for diving into the individual pieces of the IP - the Pokémon themselves and living in that world, some specific Pokémon, deep dives into the core gameplay. Maybe try a Nuzlocke run, or Pokémon Showdown if you're competitive. And if you're just tired of Pokémon... Don't play it! Give it a break.
I grew up with it being my favorite IP since I was like 5, and then by X/Y I was in the same place. Tutorial after repeated tutorial, same plot, and that Gen they had such little confidence in the Pokémon that they focused on Mega Evolutions. I tried Sun/Moon, bailed out quick. Skipped Sword/Shield entirely. Found myself in the same place being burnt out on Game Freak's formulas.
Then Pokémon Legends: Arceus came out. You're running around, throwing Poké Balls directly at the Pokémon and riding then while they're climbing up shit, and exploring, until you run into a battle and then it dives into gameplay. It's segmented into levels rather than a truly open world, but despite its technical limitations I love it. Reignited my love for the series. I've got two Lopunnies, a Scolipede, and a Tinkaton tatted on my arm. (I want mooore.)
People who grew up on Pokémon seem to get it more than Game Freak. Toby Fox is contributing to the Pokémon soundtracks and supported probably the single best section of any Pokémon game. There are shows and movies just diving into slice of life, because some people really don't care about the battling. PLA is the game people thought of when they were five. Fan hacks like Emerald Rogue have taken control entirely away and made gameplay or narratives that don't have to wear kid gloves, and which have entirely redefined what the GBA engine can do. If you do really want to keep on with playing the series, try some other takes on it rather than the mainline series.
Much more importantly - holy shit, add F-Zero GX to that GameCube list! That game ages like wine. Also add Resident Evil or REmake, the remake of 1. RE4 is necessary playing, but REmake is such a great contrast to it in terms of different angles of pacing that create similar but contrasting effects of horror and thrill. Mikami is a fuckin genius.
I don't think OP is complaining, and probably not even with the franchise itself. I read it as more a lament that we're old now and the magic is gone.
It's like revisiting a favourite restaurant we went to as a kid and discovering our tastes are now too refined for it: it's nothing special just a regular local greasy spoon. Which is exactly what this diner needs to be and thank goodness it's still around and pancakes are still $5 and the locals still love it.
It's just the slight sadness that we can't step back into the same river twice. (I think)
This.
I'm about to turn 37, so I was the prime age for Red & Blue and the Anime. Didn't get either game though (was on Game Gear), but watched plenty of the show. Didn't get a Pokemon game when I had a GBA or DS or 3DS either - not really sure why as I always liked the characters. Tried a couple of the games on emulators, but never got into any of them.
Then one day last year, my 3 year old suddenly is interested in Pikachu. She has had this one Hallmark Itty Bittys Pikachu since she was a baby (along with like 150 other ones - collect them all!), but that's the only connection I'm aware of. But it sticks, and it's not even me getting her stuff. My wife was the one who let her pick out a Pikachu shirt (my wife suggested other stuff, but the 3 year old has firm opinions). My wife comes home with my 3 year old who has picked out a Pikachu stuffed animal. My wife comes back with my 3 year old who has picked up a Pokedex book through Gen 8. Meanwhile, I'm slowly acquiring Mega Construx Pokemon for my office, because I like enjoying things with my kids.
Christmas rolls around, and I decide to go for it. Do a voucher pair on Switch and pick up New Pokémon Snap and Pokemon Violet. Commit to only playing them when my kids are there. They LOVE it! They love watching me catch and battle. And Violet has so many QoL things the old games didn't have (simplified, is more like it), that I find I'm enjoying this way more than when I tried to play a few on them on emulators.
Now, my 37th birthday and my kid's 4th birthday are both Pokemon themed. Reflecting on your post and this thread, I think you've got to be a kid to really see the magic. Or, in my case, be with a kid experiencing it.
I wish. I really do. My wife and I can’t conceive (no worries, you didn’t trigger me), and I sometimes wish I had kids so I could experience video games with them and be a child through them again. That would be a lot of fun. If I did, then I’d probably also go for the newer, “simpler” games.
Sorry to hear that, and thanks for the grace in your reply. Hoping for magic, in whatever form that takes, to show up in your future!
Even then, while I feel that at times, I believe the independent restaurants down the road figured out how to keep the recipes fresh and are worth a try when you crave it.
That's not a standard local greasy spoon, that's a hole in the wall underrated gem :) I jest, I actually agree. Every little place that sticks around that like probably has some types of recipes where they super excel at.
Oh, I totally agree. I’ve tried Coromon recently, which I really liked. Need to get back to it. I’m also excited for Monsterpatch.
It’s one of the saddest things to me that I don’t get to try out Legends: Arceus because I can’t afford a Switch. Maybe someday. I should have mentioned this one in the original post. I was thinking about it. It’s the only recent “mainline” game that makes me feel that itch to actually want to play it.
oof Truer words have not been spoken.
Can you tell me more about this?
So true.
I have considered fan hacks. What’s a good website to explore some and find out which ones are the best/most popular?
I often consider it, but is it really for me? I would only be interested in the Story Mode, but I hear that you need to play regular races also to earn the points (or something) to unlock Story Mode missions, right?
That’s another one that I was considering. I have to be honest. I played RE4 borrowed from a friend when I was maybe 15 or so. I’ve never been into horror, and I sullied my pants from beginning to end. lol But I loved the story and the gameplay was genuinely fun. I’ve been curious to try out more RE. If I’ll pick up another one, then I’ll follow your advice on this.
Thank you so much for all the suggestions!
Switch emulation isn't terrible, for what it's worth! Hell, people have probably figured out how to make the games run better than Game Freak. They're pretty ass from a technical perspective.
That said, there are a lot of random hacks and fangames I like that mix up the gameplay - Emerald Rogue or Pokerogue for standard gameplay but a lot of randomization, Pokemon Unbound is a popular one for a standard kind of Pokemon story and game (kinda edgy at times) with a lot of features. Pokemon Infinite Fusion is great for a really crazy-ass hilarious implementation of Pokemon where any two Pokemon can fuse. People like Rocket Edition as @ConalFisher
mentioned. I'd just google around about hacks and try one that sounds appealing.
re Toby Fox, the very last part of Scarlet/Violet is a plot-relevant dungeon; they got Toby Fox (who already made a perfect Pokemon fight theme) to make the dungeon music and final boss music for the last area. The whole thing feels very tight in contrast to the rest of the game, and a sign of what the team could do if they just gave the devs more damn time to pour into it.
I'd just try F-Zero, I'm not really a racing game freak despite being a car guy - but F-Zero's presentation and feel are utterly gripping. It's difficult, but there's (sorry) zero friction between the gameplay elements and its implementation; you learn from every little mistake and it all feels fantastic. Runs smooth as silk and looks beautiful even today.
My M1 Mac Mini can’t handle it.
Thanks for all the good ROM hack suggestions!
Might I ask when you last tried? AFAIK ryujinx has made some solid strides under the ryubing fork. Also, it will stutter a bit while it builds the shader cache and it takes a while for it to profile/optimize runtime code, so performance should improve as time goes on.
https://github.com/Ryubing/Canary-Releases/releases/tag/1.3.32
Last year, I think. I really wanted to play New Horizons, which is the only entry I never owned. My M1 was running it below 20 fps.
Is this repository a backup of Ryujinx? I thought Nintendo wiped it off the earth. Wow.
The short version is Nintendo made a deal with the main developer of ryujinx who also happened to control its online presence (github repo, website, discord,...). This deplatformed ryujinx and scared off some other developers, but there isn't anything legally encumbering the codebase.
The community reorganized under the ryubing fork, and has done a lot to improve/further the emulator. Recently, Nintendo started throwing around DCMAs on github in the lead up to switch 2 launch, and so they moved to a selfhosted gitlab instance but still publish releases to github.
They have a hard line against supporting pirates in their discord (actively facilitating/supporting piracy opens a door for Nintendo legal to walk through), so if you're acquiring roms through alternative means I'd stick to searching their discord history rather than outright asking for help.
Edit: main site is https://ryujinx.app/
Wiki pages here https://git.ryujinx.app/ryubing/ryujinx/-/wikis/pages
Man, thank you so much for all of these resources! This was very informative too.
Even if you're going back to your old favorite games, you're not the same person you were, so it makes sense that something that grabbed you about the original games may not work for you all these years later.
If you're revisiting the GameCube, and you like adventure games, Zelda: The Wind Waker has to be on that list. Twilight Princess was also released on Wii, but I played it on GameCube, so that's my point of reference.
Played those two already, multiple times actually (see my list above). I like revisiting them. They’re easy to pick up and always fun to play. I also prefer the GCN version of TP.
My bad. Was looking for Zelda, not Legend of Zelda. Reading is hard.
I've heard good things about Baten Kaitos if you're down for a JRPG.
I absolutely agree about Pokemon being about the adventure and exploration. On top of everything else different with PL:A, that was what engaged me. In comparison, the new one looks like a snooze fest even with new combat. I couldn't care less about exploring a pokemon city-scape as the entire setting. Otherwise, for me, the gameplay is deep enough for a phone game but that's it. I didn't find I needed to grind in any of the Pokemon games though, building a good team and trainer battles between gyms was enough. Newer iterations have a generous XP share system too.
I have found recently that I do quite enjoy a good creature collector (that's a Steam tag you can search by btw) rather than Pokemon specifically. I quite enjoyed Coromon, it felt like a proper Pokemon sequel and went more where I wanted the franchise to go after gen 3 over whatever they did for gen 4. Moonstone Island was a neat merge of Pokemon, Slay the Spire, and Stardew Valley. I've been pretty into Digimon lately too, Digimon World 1 is awesome.
Oh. Man. Tell me about it. I was so disappointed when I saw the setting. It feels like something out of The Hunger Games, honestly. You’re just trapped inside inside this gray, circle-shaped city, battling trainers and whatnot, instead of exploring a vast, open world, with a large variety of landscapes and biomes, where Pokémon live in their natural habitats.
I did play it, and I enjoyed it quite a lot. Unfortunately, I stopped, for some reason, after Voltgar. I need to make another serious attempt. I liked that it “fixes” so many gameplay quirks that annoy me about Pokémon. I can’t think of any specific example now, but I agree with you. I felt exactly the same. “This is where the series should have gone.”
In terms of Gamecube games, you've already played a lot of the good ones. I have a few extra recommendations if you can get your hands on them. My tastes in games sometimes might dip into the esoteric and weird, so keep that in mind with some of these, but I think the majority of these stand up to time. Also, these are in no particular order, just as they popped into my head.
Pikmin 2 (in my opinion, way better than the first Pikmin. There's no maximum time limit so you're free to explore at a leisurely pace)
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem
Beyond Good And Evil
Timesplitters: Future Perfect
Chibi-Robo!
Tales Of Symphonia
Viewtiful joe
Metal Arms: Glitch in the System
Billy Hatcher And The Giant Egg
Killer 7 (very weird rail shooter, but if you like out there stuff I highly recommend)
Prince of Persia: Sands Of Time
Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones
Super Monkey Ball 2
Mortal Kombat: Deception (has a substantial story mode and the fighting gameplay is the most fun I've had in a Mortal Kombat game)
Alien Hominid
Geist
WarioWare, Inc.
XIII
Cubivore (Very hard to find physical copy)
Wario World
I-Ninja
Beyond that, the Gamecube had a lot of shovelware games. Most of anything that was based on another intellectual property (e.g. Scooby Doo, James Bond) just did not measure up. If you have any questions about these particular games let me know and I'd be happy to answer.
This person knows what they're talking about. Eternal Darkness may not be one of the best games ever, but it's certainly one of the most interesting pieces of software in the Gamecube library.
Heavy "eldritch horror" themes throughout, like there's a sanity system and everything.
I will also recommend this, but I'll say that: much like SUPERHOT, treat it more like a puzzle game than a shooter. And don't be afraid to play on easy, the game is hard as shit.
The sanity system was so much fun and very surprising for teenage me! And I loved how the story unfolded.
Thank you for all of these suggestions! I had some of them in mind already.
Can you tell me more about Tales of Symphonia? Without spoiling it, can you tell me how much you enjoyed the story? It’s an RPG, right?
Yes, Tales of Symphonia is an RPG, and I loved it. It's not turn-based like the old Final Fantasy games - the combat is dynamic and you can pick from a range of characters to play as well based on the fighting style you prefer.
The story is really well done. It has some similar themes to some Final Fantasy games but also some really unique beats that make it lots of fun to play. I was fairly invested initially and then it takes a few big twists that really up the ante and pull you deeper into the story. Well worth playing, in my opinion.
I was going to come here to mention Tales of Symphonia. Probably my favorite RPG behind the Kingdom Hearts Series. The real time fighting is great and the story was top notch for my younger self.
I grew up in the peak of Pokemon but we were poor and couldn't afford a Gameboy. I was only able to get new Pokemon cards by doing excessive chores for enough to buy a booster pack (5$ took like two weeks to earn) or winning them off kids (thanks for crying to the teacher and getting Pokemon banned at school when I won your foil Blastoise, Norm). So I never really got into the games until much later in life.
I played Red and Yellow at one point and really enjoyed them, eventually getting FireRed and LeafGreen on PC (still poor! My dad worked in tech and was able to bring home older PCs but obviously not old GB/GBAs lol). I probably tried Crystal and a few others but never found them as engaging as Red/Yellow (I didn't like Blue for some reason).
About ten years ago I gave Black/White a shot - I think I made it through Black and enjoyed the somewhat darker story, but the grind and "same same but different" mechanics just didn't appeal anymore. And around then was when I heard people talking about "shinies" and "ICs" or whatever and for some reason that just killed any remaining enjoyment for me in the franchise. Maybe it was just the thought of there being even more grinding on top of the grinding that soured me to the thought of touching them again or the fear that shinies would become too popular and GameFreak will make them mandatory or something.
I did throw whatever the latest one was (Sword maybe?) into a switch emulator but after about 30 minutes I found myself incredibly bored.
Anyway, all that reminiscing having been said, Skies of Arcadia on the GCN might be something for you to enjoy. It's a port of the Dreamcast version but with all the online stuff included and the VMU games stripped out. It's a JRPG but very different from Final Fantasy or Secret of Mana. Still turn based battles, but there is a lot more emphasis on exploration and base building, a pretty engaging story, a fun cast, unique mechanics, etc. There is a bit of end game grinding but it's not excessive, at least as far as I can remember (last played through about 3 years ago).
I also really enjoyed Timesplitters 2, though that's a first person shooter so might not be up your alley. I'm not a fan of most shooters but that one was really engaging and a ton of fun solo or with a friend.
ooh Thanks for the recommendation. I was considering playing this one someday.
I heard great things about it. Maybe I should give it a shot.
Teenaged me LOVED Skies of Acadia :) you'll have fun.
Should have been there when POGs were banned for gambling. oh the memories.
Many games have a "depth cap" or whatever you want to call it, and pokemon's is pretty miserable. I dumped it after blue because yeah, it's not really a fun gameplay loop. 99% of the combats are a formality if you get remotely decent at the game, or just decide to grind mercilessly. In short your options are "get really good at the game, and then find it boring, or spend a bunch of time to grind past the game, which is also super boring".
It's a common problem with RPG especially, and it's why the rom hack community for them is so huge. Partly due to their popularity on older hardware as well, but mostly because a lot of people dedicated so much time to learning them, and then got rewarded with "oh turns out being remotely good at this is boring as hell". My personal favorite is BNW for FFVI, which takes a game I loved and really gives the characters standout roles and balances the combat greatly.
I also don't think it's an "old man" thing so much as finally deciding that repetitive tasks aren't for you. Especially when the sense of adventure is gone and the system feels rote. It blows my mind that so many people have tried to make pokemonesque games, but instead just copy the exact same boring formula.
Of note, while not GC or anything else from that era, there was a recent release of Cassette beasts which I heard good things about, but I've also not played it. Might scratch that itch without being annoying, might just double down on the things other people like about the genre.
Hey thanks for this recommendation. I've played dozens of Chrono Trigger ROM hacks but never thought to seek out any FFVI ROM hacks for some reason. I'll definitely have to try it out!
I read your tldr and only skimmed through your post, just fyi - but have you tried Pokemon Go?
I haven't played any Pokemon games since probably around ~2000 when I was gifted a Gameboy, but I do know about the battle system. Pokemon Go's battles are not different I think, if anything they are more simplified? But it has the real life aspect which is the main thing for me. It's very rng heavy too. But at the same time, it feels really good when you get a rare one with perfect stats. Leveling and powering it up takes weeks and months, but it's super satisfying when you finally max it out
Quite a bit, and actually since it first released all those years ago, believe it or not. I’m getting flashbacks telling my parents (was still living with them) that I was going to leave the house at night to walk over to the other side of the street to play the game. lol Ultimately, it wasn’t for me. It bores me.
*weeps in rural Canada
I didn enjoy Pokemon Go very much when I lived in a city. My spouse and I were part of the release craze oh so many years ago, and we would alternate between who stays home with the sleeping baby and go goes out in the dead of night around the block with both phones. It was wild.
This is wild. Haha!
We lived in a rather (perceived as) sketchy part of a poor postal code at the time, but yeah the park at night has homeless people sleeping in the corners, and then buncha people huddled around a monument swiping their glowing phones lol.
I've given up on Pokemon years ago. If I had played every game since the first one I picked up, I probably would have sticked with it a bit longer.
Honestly, they kind of feel like mobile games - the ones with tons of microtransactions and collectables. They are focused a lot on collecting and strengthening your team, and the story is just as throwaway as any low effort mobile game, if only a bit more coherent.
I played Pokemon Legends: Arcaeus, and that one was actually pretty good, relatively. The story was still very dull, but the more active gameplay really helped put more color into the experience. That's the thing about Pokemon: it really only takes a little bit of effort to get out of the formula to make it instantly more engaging. There are many "pokemon clones" out there that I find more interesting and they don't really change much. Cassette Beasts comes to mind - though to be honest I didn't get very far in that game either.
Can you tell me more about it? I remember wishlisting it on Steam. Is it fun?
Not who you asked, but I can recommend it! I still need to go back and finish it, but it's pretty refreshing. Instead of raising monsters, you and your party members transform into them. So you're only grinding your level, not each individual creature. Party members also level up when they're not in your party, so less grinding.
What I really like is the story. I went in blind, and was pleasantly surprised to learn it's an isekai-type scenario with people coming from various worlds. So it's a society of people who either ended up there randomly or are descended from previous people sent there, and they've been gradually building this society for years.
Man, talking about it makes me aware I really need to boot it up again. I think there was also a recent update? Anyways, highly recommend! It's definitely refreshing.
To be honest I can’t remember much about it! I did find it more interesting than Pokémon, but not by much.
Depends on how much you're willing to emulate older versions of Pokemon or how deep down the rabbit hole you want to go, but I've been having fun (watching, not playing, to be fair) runs of IronMON / Super Kaizo IronMON runs of Pokemon.
Basically it uses a randomizer that randomizes all the loot, monster stats, what monsters you find where, etc. and there are different levels, but it's basically a complicated set of strict/difficult rules for a run, to make it a huge, nearly impossible-feeling challenge. The super kaizo version especially is wild. As an example, part of these difficult runs is attempting to beat the entire game with only one pokemon at a time (as far as fighting goes). So it involves scouting for better pokemon, and the super kaizo has required pivot at Safari... etc. It gets wild!
Here's an overview of everything and all the different rulesets/options/etc. It's pretty neat!
https://gist.github.com/valiant-code/adb18d248fa0fae7da6b639e2ee8f9c1
But even outside of all the extra rules and challenges, you can use the randomizer on its own. It's standalone. The challenges/etc are just extra things people have done for fun since the randomizer makes it possible. Randomizers can often make games that get stale fun again by completely changing how you have to approach your strategies. Sometimes you can just set up a randomizer, choose the options you want, and get an all new game experience from there :)
And, I realize, this ultimately may not be something that interests you, but I figured I'd post it because there might be someone that would get a kick out of it!
Yes! Absolutely. Thank you for sharing. That randomizer looks interesting.
You should check out the game Golden Sun.
I feel the same way tbh, it's very repetitive and without a good story there isn't a lot of payoff imo. (bear in mind i only read the tldr), hoping that legends z:a or whatever its called might pull me back in but dang, it all just felt so slow, and my memories of having really strong pokemon in previous gens also didn't help as I find myself frustrated by having to use the same boring move over and over again. I really like Pokemon as a franchise, and I still think even the newer designs are very well done. It's just the game doesn't really feel like its for me anymore and thats okay!!
I'm a big fan of Mamamoo, and they did a short version of a Pokemon theme in a fan greet a few years back. I was just wondering if many Pokemon fans outside of Korea had seen it. Mamamoo can be complete off the wall crack-heads, but are always great singers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWMrnQngSeM
Sorry for the off-topic jaunt here, but I rarely see Pokemon fans.
Haha! This was a wild thing to watch. Wow. I don’t even know what to say. So, Mamamoo is a K-pop band? This was funny, and weird, and awesome, but yeah, they’re great singers! Thanks for sharing!
I found myself falling off of Pokemon at Sun and Moon. The game was just so slow paced and constantly stopping me for cutscenes. I missed the early games where dialogue was fairly minimal and you spend more time playing.
Additionally I really dont like the 3D graphics. X and Y was pretty nice and I was impressed at the time, but I feel theyve stagnated after that. The models dont seem like they are really being updated and lots of my favorite pokemon just don't look as good. My Nidoking for example looks really tough and badass in its 2D sprites, but in 3D they round him out too much and he just looks pudgy.
But above all I fell off because of the loss of a complete National Dex. I spent a bunch of time getting a full living pokedex in Gen 5 and I felt disappointed I couldnt carry that forward to Sword and Shield.
I can get the burnout. I will forever be a Pokémon fan and will get all the games, but I don't feel quite as passionate about the gameplay these days. The newer games do have ways to quickly level up Pokémon via EXP candies and applying EXP to the whole party, but the exploration just doesn't feel as rewarding as older games. And grinding in the older games is, as you described, pretty tedious. Though grinding is decent for when I want something to do while listening to video essays.
I'm just sad on your behalf that you never got to play Colosseum or XD, since those were my favorite of the series. They're the only spin-offs that still followed the core gameplay mechanics, just with an awesome dark story. The settings are also pretty cool, The Under will forever be one of my favorite settings in video games. Though if you ever want to try Pokémon again, there's a ton of spin-offs for the DS that don't use the battle mechanic. The Ranger series is a particular favorite of mine, though that's probably best with an actual DS since you need to draw loops on the touch screen to capture Pokémon.
That aside, you should try out Sonic Adventure DX if you haven't. That one also has a Chao garden! Meanwhile I haven't played this one myself, but Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg might be something interesting to try? I just remember my cousin had it, and it seemed to be some sort of 3D platformer about a boy hatching giant eggs. I plan to try it out myself someday.
A lot of the challenge runs I watch on YouTube do something to bypass the grind. Most often, they impose a level cap, usually the highest level of the next gym leader. Then they mod themselves a bunch of rare candy. Maybe you would enjoy that play style?
Great time to get into Elder Scrolls.
lol Maybe. I’ve never like those kinds of games. Always been a Nintendo guy. But tell me more about it and how I could play it on my M1 Mac Mini. I’m willing to give it a shot.
I'm not a Mac girl, so I did a bit of digging. There are a few videos on YouTube that have steps to play Elder Scrolls Online on an M1 Mini. You can 100% get Skyrim on Switch. I also checked if you can run Steam on an M1 Mini - Google says yes, but you would know best! And if that's the case it will open up the Oblivion remaster that's being announced today (which is one of the reasons why it's a great time to jump in!)
That said - if it's not your type of game, I get it! I recommended it because the games generally have good replayability, sprawling worlds, and if you like a bit of grind (just not the same grind over and over for 20 years) Elder Scrolls Online has a lot of achievements and item/set collection tasks that can be done. Skyrim has a skill system to work through, which is a lot of fun to play with and max out. I'd recommend to check out a stream to see if it's your thing before actually snapping it up though (especially for ESO) - and it should be going on sale in June for Steam Sale/new content drop, as a heads up!
Here's the YouTube video I found that describes playing ESO on a Mac M1. He goes through some trial and error which is probably a good process to observe before deciding to jump in.
Don’t have one.
duckduckgoes
Dang. That’s an insane coincidence!
Thanks for the video! I’ll check it out!