Pokemon Uranium is not a very good game.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Pokemon Uranium is not a very good game.

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

Vorpal Cat posted:

Nuclear type, Pokemon Uranium adds the Nuclear type. I shouldn't be surprised but I am. I mean not only is it entirely unnecessary, but they worked on this game for years and that's the best new type they could come up with?

Fan games seem to love adding new types for whatever reason. Brown, a pretty interesting gen 1 romhack, and it's sequel Prism, a crystal romhack which also made the rounds roughly the same time as uranium, added five of them. It decided to go granular rather than edgey, at least. Sound, Gas, Wind, "Abnormal" (which basically only existed for Porygon), and Wood (which no, did not replace Grass. Bellsprout became Grass/Wood). Also brought in fairy.

e: woops

rannum fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Feb 18, 2017

# ¿ Feb 16, 2017 03:25

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 05:13

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

EclecticTastes posted:

Uh excuse me Drifloon doesn't kill them he drags them directly to the afterlife. Sort of like how in Monopoly you go straight to jail without passing Go. So there's just a bunch of alive kids stuck in the afterlife. I mean okay maybe they starve to death later but, whatever, details.

Also Sun and Moon gets way the hell darker than Colosseum and XD. It's not as edgy, but talk to anyone in one of the two graveyards, or do the Eevee sidequest in the post-game. poo poo gets morose.

SM handles it better due to generally better writing (the machamp in the graveyard, for instance) and how its put in side quests or the pokedex. And the grimmer entries in the dex feel more like black comedy (SM gengar). e: and the series as a whole, let's not forget all the stuff in gen 1 (cubone, pokemon tower, cinnabar labs, etc)

Similar to how Colosseum/Gale of Darkness, while having a more edgey aesthetic are still lighthearted in terms of character design and general personality. Yeah you have weird trashy under city as you go around stealing pokemon but also the villains include a goofy mayor, a disco dancer with a team of ludicolo and like two different idols.

Contrast with: a nuclear meltdown intro cutscene

# ¿ Feb 18, 2017 00:43

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

Gyra_Solune posted:

Well what are your specific complaints with it?

Mostly for perspective, the only people I know talking about it are the people who recommended it to me, who are very deep into competitive Pokemon, and like, the game's actual forums, so yeah I haven't seen what primary criticisms of it are like! As I said I didn't play very far because I just stopped playing games in general really.

Also I'm kinda sad the Dark type stopped being about being sneaky and cheaty and honorless and started being more I SHALL BLAST YOU WITH A LASER OF DARKNESS because that sorta stops making sense, like, it's obvious why Fighting types can lay the smack down on a sneaky bastard but what does that have to do with The Evil Dark Edgelord Of Nightmare Hell

Dark is still about being sneaky & cheaty & honorless. Last 2 gens introduced dark moves about : punching someone in the throat to get them to shut up, grabbing someone and swining them through every other pokemon, a move literally called "power trip", & insulting the opponent as you switch

Meanwhile edgelord Yveltal's signature move, Oblivion Wing, is flying

# ¿ Feb 18, 2017 02:28

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

Lord Koth posted:

I could be wrong, but i'm guessing this is best exemplified by Fairy. I'd really love a reasonable explanation for how they came up with what it resists and what it's super-effective against. As opposed to, "Well, they're three types that only have 2 weaknesses each, so let's just go with those three," which seems to be the reasoning. Weak to Fire, Poison and Steel, and Strong against Dark, Fighting, and Dragon, seems like such a random assortment of typings.

Poison & Steel are apparently fairy weaknesses in some stories. Fairy isn't weak to anything else, fire just resists it for...reasons?

# ¿ Feb 18, 2017 02:45

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

Wait why did they keep HMs AND the HM rule.

Isn't the general idea behind romhacks & fan games like this that you try to improve on things that people didn't like? Like the whole HM thing? Seemed like that would be the first thing on the chopping block considering how gen 5 pushed them aside as mostly optional and that's the one they're most interested in emulating here.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2017 04:25

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

KataraniSword posted:

At the same time, those roadblocks were thematically consistent - actual gates that, in-universe, you have to reach a certain level of progress to pass. Better yet, the people in charge of them told you what you needed to do to get past them.

We didn't have things like this, nor did we have eternally broken bridges that would be fixed "Soon^TM", with soon being "as soon as you've beaten the game".

This is the hand's down absolute best roadblock in the entire series and "trainers searching for items on a stoutland" just can never compare.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2017 18:59

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

get that OUT of my face posted:

The unique Pokemon in Uranium look uninspired, but they've got nothing on the ones in Quartz. The starting three Pokemon are all different colored eggs, and also there is this ugly bear that somehow has the ability to charm the gender opposite of its own.

I don't remember the storyline from Quartz, though, and I know it had better design decisions.

there was definitely a sort of charm to Quartz' brand of nonsense. Might just be because of nostalgia? Man that's an old hack now, huh?

The plot was not-team magma using quartz to inflate the sun.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2017 08:07

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

The way you phrased that bit about visiting the lab seems odd.

Is Fly also post-game or something?

# ¿ Feb 24, 2017 19:00

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

It's nice that the stat screen outlines IVs and EVs all in one place. Is that a uranium thing or just the pokemon essentials package? still nice.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2017 20:26

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

mandatory lesbian posted:

i actually like baashun, it's kinda cute...

also

this is literally charizard's head right, like i can't be the only person that sees that

it probably is, wouldn't be surprised if most of the pokemon were working off some base sprite. all the trainers absolutely are, and far less subtly, at least.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2017 22:44

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

ohmygorgon posted:

I really am fascinated how some of these designs are Frankenstein'd combinations of older Pokemon parts. Like how Sponee looks like Joltik combined with Igglybuff. I guess it is less literally stitching the sprites together and more a matter of trying to emulate the artstyle as well as the fact that there are only so many ways you can design a Pokemon based on an animal like a spider before you start seeing similarities, but some of these feel particularity blatant in what they are ripping.

And of course, like rannum said, the trainers are less subtle about being rip offs, with Davern's pre battle cut-in being "inspired" by Rorak's as a clear example.

I have been having a great time identifying which cut in sprites are edited from which gen 4/5 era cut ins.

Theo's is just Iris' which is why he holds a pokeball, does the tongue thing and a wide amount of dead space and the reason that the first leader's face seemed so weird in how it was set up is because half the face is covered in her base, Cress

I guess they didn't want to put a lot of time into the trainer designs, but they could at least splice the bases or something.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2017 00:04

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

I assumed Oak (Elm, Birch, etc etc etc) just already wrote out all the information available and "filling out the pokedex" works like the anime where it gives explorers a funucational goal

# ¿ Mar 7, 2017 17:53

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

The Golux posted:

Geez, give the poor cat Vine Whip or Absorb or something! I guess Leafage wasn't a thing yet, but that's why it was invented.

Little late but this is not ENTIRELY true; some of the CAPs have previous forms (Tomohawk does, for instance). They're all final forms though, and Krillowatt's a standalone.

The Garlikid/Pok�mon Translator thing could be neat in a good game but I will be shocked if this game pulls it off well.

Garlikid's entire shtick seems ripped from N, just changed "guy who can speak with pokemon" to "science to speak with pokemon who uses other pokemon". I'm guessing every time we run into him from now on will be using 2-4 of the local pokemon, there will probably be a scene where he rags on the professor, etc
The real question: will garlikid raise his garlic castle around the pokemon league and challenge us as champion

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 23:00

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

Seyser Koze posted:

I only played the original Red/Blue (and didn't have the patience to get past my first Zubat in either of those), but didn't the starters in those only have their basic tackle/scratch moves at the beginning as well?

Yeah. Until XY, all starters only had a basic attack and some stat up/down attack (Growl, Leer, Withdraw etc).

But XY-on made sure to give all of the starters their special move and not arbitrarily leave one without it.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2017 01:25

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

Zore posted:

Mewtwo being manmade is an anime thing. In the games Mew gives live? birth to it in South America which is all kinds of out of whack with later stuff.

Mew gave live birth, but only after DNA experiements to alter it. From RB's dex entry

quote:

It was created by a scientist after years of horrific gene splicing and DNA engineering experiments.

and then judging by the rest of the Pokemon mansion I assume they did other experiments on it post-birth.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2017 20:45

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

I am continually surprised at the smaller things like not being able to come back here for any reason. I mean sure there's radiation pokemon later on, or a way to form change them or something, and getting a bunch of pokemon that don't listen to you is less than ideal but still. Especially since it's apparently a pretty important place to the plot's background!

# ¿ Mar 16, 2017 03:24

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

PMush Perfect posted:

How soon we forget "Piloswine only evolves if it levels up knowing a move completely unsuited for both its current and its new stats, that doesn't even match one of its types"? The only possible hint is that it learns that move by move tutor, but why would you ever take it, considering it can learn Rock Slide by TM?

I love Mamoswine, but "levels up while affected by a status" is at least something you could easily stumble onto by accident.

Tangela & Yanma both learn it naturally and if you see those evolve into a cave man and a meganula, you might be able to piece together that piloswine becomes a mammoth, see ancient power, and go "well..."
The fact it only gets it by breeding, move tutor or move reminder is dumb, though. None of the other pokemon that evolve by level up with move do this.

Inkay is absurd, but I will always point at Feebas for its specific brand of ridiculousness. Putting aside the nonsense involved in catching one, to evolve it you need to nearly max out its beauty stat. Which is annoying at a base level because it doesn't immediately stand out; even if you see Milotic you're probably more likely to think it evolves like Magikarp into Gyarados. Certainly not the beauty condition you may have never looked at. But then you need to be careful about it! If you don't have high enough quality stuff, its very easy to max out the amount of pokeblocks/poffins you can feed it, resulting in a feebas that can no longer evolve. And on top of that, if the nature isn't one that enjoys the blue pokeblock/poffins, it wont get as many beauty points, meaning its possible to just not get one at all.

Both of those last things have happened to me. Its a good change that ORAS made it so you can feed them as many as you want.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2017 07:04

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

PoptartsNinja posted:

OFS talked about that.

It's because the starters are apparently two-stage trash with mega evolutions.

Except they're not really trash? Taking a look at the wiki they have 530-550 BST, that's higher than several actual starters' final forms.

Considering you get them at level 27 that's a pretty sizable stat different compared with the rest of the pokemon, I imagine.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2017 22:27

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

Pyro Jack posted:

The Starters just having one evolution kinda pisses me off there. That isn't interesting or unique, that's just bad game design since it makes the Starters basically weaker compared to the actual Starters.

They're on par or stronger, so it's actually a dumb balancing mechanic especially since you get them at level 27.

Starter final stats always vary a little, but the gen 5 starters for instance are all 528 while the gen 6 & 7 starters are 535. Gen 1 had a slight range from like 520 to 535. And so on

The non-mega forms are 530 on the grass starter to 550 on sheep's starter. Balance!

# ¿ Mar 21, 2017 22:46

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

PoptartsNinja posted:

Who gives a poo poo about their end stats? The starter being a two-stage pokemon is a terrible decision from a gameplay standpoint.

The starters in official games level up where they do to give the player a reasonable power spike right when their starters start trailing behind in power and let the games start throwing out stronger encounters. They then evolve again later to give them another stat boost to make them viable for endgame threats. Starters are starters because you can count on them being reliably strong without destroying the challenge curve.

OFS talks about this in the update, too. For the past 11-13 levels or so the starter has been completely useless to him. It doesn't really matter that it gets its final stats early if leveling stickleg dogfish is a complete chore because it's too weak to take on the middleweight threats it's expected to encounter in the late teens to late twenties. When people call out Uranium on bad game design, this is one of the reasons why.

I misread your post about the end result being weaker, rather than the bad design of having a weak starter during its midteens and going against the whole shtick of starter pokemon. Which I agree are bad! I was at first more looking at the bad design of giving you those stats at your late 20s on a starter rather than a gimmick like magikarp/feebas/wimpod.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2017 02:15

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

Dragonwagon posted:

Since we're all gushing about Sage, my favourite from their designs is Hyekuza, the Bad News Pokemon.

Also Trenchula, because that's an A+ quality pun.

You can tell the people behind this cared about emulating the official style because it's a spider with 6 legs.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2017 00:48

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

YggiDee posted:

All the Pokemon spiders have six legs! How have I never noticed this before.

Well double checking, Ariados & Galvantula are debatable on if the legs on the back/the "feelers" on the front are legs, I guess. And Joltik doesnt but its more a tic than a spider.

Dewpider's 6 legs are great because I didn't realize it had 6 until seeing the bubble was held in place by them, just like real diving bell spiders.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2017 01:54

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

mandatory lesbian posted:

everyone got so distracted by the terrible gamer girl own that we forgot to take time to spit on the weird ball helmet orb's final evolution of a horse

also why does it lose rock type when it's pre-evo already didn't really have any rock type signifiers either, that whole line is so stupid

No part of this line makes any sense. weird smug head becomes a...deer? a dog?? and then a.....horse??? is that a horse? And before I thought, ok, maybe the skin is the rock portion of it? But the skin is exactly the same in the final evolution!

Its like they realized, wait, we have no pure steel type, uhhhhhhhhh ok just remove the final version of this line's other typing

# ¿ Mar 24, 2017 21:11

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

I like the day care's egg nest roof/sign. It's cute and adds a nice bit of flavor to it.

Is that a uranium original or part off the pokemon essentials package

# ¿ Mar 27, 2017 02:36

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

Paul.Power posted:

Aren't all the branches of it (most of which we don't get to go inside because apparently cut content) supposed to be different types of renewable energy? I remember reading something about that in the art gallery.

Like there's a geothermal plant in there somewhere and that was going to be where Volcanion came from.

Yeah there was three different plants doing different things out in the desert but you only ever go into one of them. One pre-release screenshot had pretty distinct like lava pools, iirc.

I get the feeling the lava plant was repurosed for SM because god drat does someone on the staff love it so much. There is like no reason to go up to the power plant but this did not stop them from putting unique, informative flavor text on everything inside explaining how it works. I

# ¿ Mar 27, 2017 22:18

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

Bogart posted:

I remember liking the Diamond/Pearl dynamic because they were just two comedian fuckups, Male Protag and Barry, who were trying to make it big but Platinum, Lady Protag, thought they were her bodyguards and they were just like okay

It also had probably the least deviation from the plot of any of the series before or after. Just a nice focus on the group and villains, more or less.

Special is so bizarre because it both wants to follow the games to the absolute letter but then also do its own way that doesnt really work

the HGSS arc is probably the most extreme in how over the course of like 40 chapters it includes most everything HGSS included but does so in a way that felt like it read likea check list of items. The e4 & leaders show up as basically cameos. The pokeathalon is there but doesn't really matter. The villain has a 2 page spread of them just listing off and showing all of arceus' forms. All the pokemon who can evolve now do so almost instantly. It's stuff included because its there in the game and we can't NOT show it in as 1:1 with the game as possible.

And then Celebi brings forth Pryce from his time dimension prison to fight Dialga because he was immune to time distortion,.

It never feels natural and just makes the weirdness of the original stuff stand out more. All the series do this to varying degrees.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2017 22:04

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

SSNeoman posted:

oh my loving god

angel wings, dragon type, named after an angel, bog standard serpent dragon body

every single time with these dunsparce evolutions, i swear

# ¿ Apr 4, 2017 21:47

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

Dexie posted:

Just for 'fun' I decided to hit up Deviant Art and see if I could find anything interesting as far as Dunsparce evolutions go, something that's not the usual HURR ANGELIC DAGRON nonsense.

http://meme772.deviantart.com/art/Dunsparce-Evolution-93147138
http://destiny137.deviantart.com/art/Dunsparce-Evolution-281420477
http://nyrallia.deviantart.com/art/Dunsparce-evolution-586448900

I kind of like these? They aren't great, but they're different than the usual worn out ideas for Dunsparce evolutions.

They should keep their eyes closed though.

They're ok, certainly worse options if you want a bipedal variant of dunsparce, and yes not being a ~super cool dragon angel~ helps, but I feel everyone deviates from what makes dunsparce so doofy and great. Big fun tsuchinoko with a drill tail and silly wings. I know pokemon likes to do cute/doofy -> cool, but sometimes you gotta keep it silly. Its probably one of the designs where just being a slightly bigger, detailed version of its evolution (like tangela to tangrowth) would work best.

i will say that dunseraph looks better than the mess that is corsoreef.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2017 23:30

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

Gyra_Solune posted:

the surf ninjas are great, and legit a good way to make a water route more memorable than 'it is a water route with swimmers who use fish'. it's a stupid idea but it's a fun stupid idea and they poke it with the exact amount of frequency to make sure it doesn't overstay its welcome. one encounter to suddenly bring the idea, one to establish 'yes, this is a thing that happens here', one to conclude the concept, and then they just go away.

they don't do surfers enough anyway. have they...have they EVER done surfers on water routes? it seems so obvious and yet i can't recall them, just swimmers.

...they do have surfers in Alola right? surely they have surfboarding in the region based on the place that like invented the sport

Nope, still just swimmers/triathletes and divers. The only surfer is Brawly and that's just a thing he does rather than really come into anything; also it might be anime only.

We do have skiiers and snowboarders, however.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2017 19:43

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

DP are 11 years old and no longer sold regularly, that is plenty of reason to remake it now regardless of if the 3ds can still technically play them.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2017 22:42

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

Schubalts posted:

A legendary you can get an infinite amount of, without trading with anybody.

I feel like most legendaries also aren't quite on the level as, uh, this.

Like Marshadow is insane but it's also an event pokemon and doesn't have 5 stabs

# ¿ Apr 19, 2017 19:33

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

I am so irrationally mad at whimsicott the cotton pokemon turning into a blooming cherry blossom tree

Just use Cherrim! god

# ¿ May 29, 2017 20:58

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:

This works in Fallout, but not here. Is it because the low-key memos are more horrifying when they're over a hundred years old in decayed buildings and about the day-to-day of the military-industrial complex? Or is it because Pokemon has no place having low-key memos from the dead?

ORAS kind of did this with Sea Mauville and it worked better, though that also had the upshot of everyone writing those notes not being dead. Presumably.

# ¿ Jun 16, 2017 23:39

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

Vinylshadow posted:

I was blind-sided by the Dragon-user anime character

I wonder if he's from Tandor...

If anyone is supposed to represent "rando challenger" it's gotta be this guy. He is mentioned nowhere else in the game and doesn't even show up somewhere in the post game like Kahili does in her hotel.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2017 02:28

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

Meanwhile the main games added trainers to the backgrounds so now scaling, which was already wonky in gen 6 probably due to what I assume are game engine reasons, is very out of whack when you have wailords being comparatively tiny or zygarde perfect being about the size of a child and not a gundam.

Hopefully the switch game will go more towards the stadium/PBR style where big boys were b i g b o y s

# ¿ Aug 14, 2017 23:56

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

The only dumb thing related to legends in FRLG I can think of is that Entei/Raikou can Roar which, rather than send them roaming again, removes them from the game. Suicune was based on Crystal, so it didn't get Roar and avoids this problem.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2017 21:57

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

XavierGenisi posted:

Is FR/LG that bad? I ended up skipping it after giving up on pokemon in the middle of playing Sapphire (and not returning until HGSS), so I know basically nothing about it.

It's fine. I always thought it was a bit stiff and it was weird how it blocked off ANYTHING that wasn't in the original 151 (as mentioned earlier, chansey & golbat refuse to evolve) until you beat the game and did a sidequest to get the national dex.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2017 03:10

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

Adam's stupid for the gengar reasons and tying it to a ~legendary sidequest~ is silly but high tier kickstarter backers getting into the games beyond just a name in the credits isn't that unusual. He could have been the rival or something and been much more obnoxious. so it didn't phase me as much as "randomly and with one single chance get one of two level 90 pokemon who are daft punk references for some reason" and "heatran is in a trio now! heatran is not in the game"

# ¿ Sep 6, 2017 22:11

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

Manatee Cannon posted:

to be fair, roaming legendaries are still worse

It is really telling that even gamefreak seems to have realized this after gen 4's roaming disaster considering BW1 had one roamer per version and only appeared on one of three routes depending on time of day, BW2 had none what so ever, XY had 1 (depending on starter) that was bad since you needed to see it 11 times but then it went back to a cave to roost, ORAS turned the roaming lati into a gift, and then SM had none.

The fact uranium doesn't have a roamer is honestly surprising to me!

# ¿ Sep 7, 2017 02:01

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 05:13

rannum: Nov 3, 2012

Last Celebration posted:

EV/IV are dumb fan names though, of course Nintendo's not gonna use them. But yeah, the official websites even outright tell you what the best Pok�mon for EV grinding are though for X/Y and even went into competitive strats for the RBY remakes.

Incidentally, EVs are officially referred to as "Base stats" which threw everyone for a loop when super training came around since no one paid attention to vitamin descriptions.
And apparently what we call base stats are "species strengths" though I have no idea where that originated.

# ¿ Sep 12, 2017 01:55

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Pokemon Uranium is not a very good game.