Coming to think of it, Mohn is a terrible father/husband isn't he?

Lost in otherworldly portal and whatever, he managed to come back and despite being on an island where kids can freely access multiple times a day with a single flying Pokemon, he never made any attempt to go back to his family.

azurelorochi said:

Coming to think of it, Mohn is a terrible father/husband isn't he?

Lost in otherworldly portal and whatever, he managed to come back and despite being on an island where kids can freely access multiple times a day with a single flying Pokemon, he never made any attempt to go back to his family.

Amnesia's a bitch. And it seems pretty permanent, judging from Anabel.

azurelorochi said:

Coming to think of it, Mohn is a terrible father/husband isn't he?

Lost in otherworldly portal and whatever, he managed to come back and despite being on an island where kids can freely access multiple times a day with a single flying Pokemon, he never made any attempt to go back to his family.

Yeah, not his fault lol. Kinda hard to go back to your family if you don't remember you even had one.

It's still one of those things where I want to kick the game for not giving me the option to say something, though...

I mean, you know a guy named Mohn, and then you get told that Mohn is Lillie's Dad and a wormhole researcher, but you don't get the option to so much as ASK about that... Just like you don't get the option to try offering to set Lillie up as a Pokemon trainer so that she has to go to Kanto to start her journey on her own...

They're just idiot ball restraints so people who can figure out where things are going can't act on them.

NWSiaCB said:

It's still one of those things where I want to kick the game for not giving me the option to say something, though...

I mean, you know a guy named Mohn, and then you get told that Mohn is Lillie's Dad and a wormhole researcher, but you don't get the option to so much as ASK about that... Just like you don't get the option to try offering to set Lillie up as a Pokemon trainer so that she has to go to Kanto to start her journey on her own...

They're just idiot ball restraints so people who can figure out where things are going can't act on them.

I just think it trivializes the Aether plotline, how they spent all that time and money into research and even getting their president poisoned by an extradimensional being when you could've jut said "Hey I know this blonde guy name Mohn who lives on an island not too far away! I can take you there right now, even!"

And yeah, Mohn should've either gotten his own post-game event or at least do something during the UB event.

azurelorochi said:

I just think it trivializes the Aether plotline, how they spent all that time and money into research and even getting their president poisoned by an extradimensional being when you could've jut said "Hey I know this blonde guy name Mohn who lives on an island not too far away! I can take you there right now, even!"

And yeah, Mohn should've either gotten his own post-game event or at least do something during the UB event.

Honestly, I found that Pokemon didn't really understand how to have a dramatic climax.

OK, great, kid, you just stopped an international organization and a crime ring collaborating to link our dimension to one of cosmic horrors from beyond the edge of space and time by having a final, climactic showdown in the home dimension of the alien beings, themselves! Then, say goodbye to the only people who actually had a cohesive plot as they literally sail off into the sunset so as to prevent any further payoffs for the only plot anyone cares about. But now for the TRUE dramatic finale: Defeat the same handful of walk-on part doofuses you've already beaten before to get a virtually meaningless title we've been handing out in every generation thus far.

Becoming Alola Champion doesn't even have an apparent impact upon the player character's daily life. They still live at home with a mother who still hasn't unpacked and still have Hau barging in and acting like their friend in spite of the player character never doing anything to indicate the feeling is mutual. Outside of some quests becoming active, nobody notices or significantly treats the player character any differently.

Wrapping up the Aether and Skull plotlines, meanwhile have actual impacts on the way people in the areas those groups affected live.

NWSiaCB said:

Honestly, I found that Pokemon didn't really understand how to have a dramatic climax.

<other words>

I'm not sure how you would fit any kind of story with a dramatic climax into a game about a teenage kid capturing cute animals and traveling around the world..

...but I ~guess~ you could if the teenage kid turns out to be the "chosen one" with uber-powers capable of singlehandedly fighting off gods, repeatedly saving the world from literal annihilation, his cute animals turn into an animal girl waifus harem and everyone in the world supposedly hates him but treat him as an ordinary random person on the street cause who were we talking about again?

But THAT will never sell, amirite?

NWSiaCB said:

Stuffs

Well my actual issue is the fact that is when a villain make such a big deal of everything to accomplish their goal, it just feels extra stupid that the entire plot could've been solved so easily and so cheaply. It has nothing to do with Champion and post-game and whatnot.

I think having Mohn not doing anything with the main plot just is a huge missed potential. Here's to hoping the 3rd game would tie this up, or maybe not, because you know, Kalos didn't have any closure either.

MMaestro said:

I'm not sure how you would fit any kind of story with a dramatic climax into a game about a teenage kid capturing cute animals and traveling around the world..

...but I ~guess~ you could if the teenage kid turns out to be the "chosen one" with uber-powers capable of singlehandedly fighting off gods, repeatedly saving the world from literal annihilation, his cute animals turn into an animal girl waifus harem and everyone in the world supposedly hates him but treat him as an ordinary random person on the street cause who were we talking about again?

But THAT will never sell, amirite?

The problem I have with it, however, is that being the Alola champion is just so meaningless. I never got why we were supposed to do the challenge, other than that it would be fun, and we could have access to all the islands and their pokemon if we did. There was no real goal to it past that, and there's no dramatic stakes in completing the challenge or becoming Alola champion. Even if you lose, they just pat you on the head, encourage you to do your best, and let you try again, anyway, so there's literally NOTHING at stake. There's even a part where Guzma straight-up asks you what you're even going on the challenge to do, and I'm like... "Well... the plot says I have to...?"

It's like how in all those movies about sports, they have to manufacture some reason why the other sports team is evil, and the main character's girlfriend/mom/pet cat will DIE if they don't win the championship. They need to actually inject some outside condition to make you root for the guys wearing the red jerseys instead of the black Team Evil jerseys.

They HAD this great plot arc and climax already there, though. Then they decided it was enough with that silly distraction of saving the world from cosmic horrors silly sideshow, it's time to GET SERIOUS, and have a no-stakes rematch with some random friendly villagers you've already beaten in a similar contest.

Or rather, it feels like the development team really wanted to make this great dramatic story, but corporate told them, NOPE, they HAVE to end it in exactly the same way as all the previous games, so the massive anti-climax was some sort of way of subversively getting back at corporate for it.

NWSiaCB said:

The problem I have with it, however, is that being the Alola champion is just so meaningless. I never got why we were supposed to do the challenge, other than that it would be fun, and we could have access to all the islands and their pokemon if we did. There was no real goal to it past that, and there's no dramatic stakes in completing the challenge or becoming Alola champion. Even if you lose, they just pat you on the head, encourage you to do your best, and let you try again, anyway, so there's literally NOTHING at stake. There's even a part where Guzma straight-up asks you what you're even going on the challenge to do, and I'm like... "Well... the plot says I have to...?"

It's like how in all those movies about sports, they have to manufacture some reason why the other sports team is evil, and the main character's girlfriend/mom/pet cat will DIE if they don't win the championship. They need to actually inject some outside condition to make you root for the guys wearing the red jerseys instead of the black Team Evil jerseys.

They HAD this great plot arc and climax already there, though. Then they decided it was enough with that silly distraction of saving the world from cosmic horrors silly sideshow, it's time to GET SERIOUS, and have a no-stakes rematch with some random friendly villagers you've already beaten in a similar contest.

Or rather, it feels like the development team really wanted to make this great dramatic story, but corporate told them, NOPE, they HAVE to end it in exactly the same way as all the previous games, so the massive anti-climax was some sort of way of subversively getting back at corporate for it.

Well you're basically complaining about two separate things.

1. Becoming the $PERSONOFIMPORTANCE$ has always been meaningless. Welcome to ~40 years of video games. I know its hard to believe but Nintendo wasn't the first one to make a game where players do meaningless shit like... "Well... the plot says I have to...?"

2. As far as I was concerned, the cosmic horrors silly sideshow was the dramatic ending and everything after that was, "OK we all know you're just here to Pokemon so lets do the Elite 4-dance".

NWSiaCB said:
(Valid stuff)

and

MMaestro said:
(Equally valid stuff)

But really, if we're gonna look at the meaningfulness (or meaninglessness) of our actions as players and Player Characters, let's look at Red. In his own game, he (presumably) catches 'em all (including the Three Legendaries) and becomes Pokemon champion, only to end up waiting on a serene mountaintop to finally be challenged by the latest champion. Over a decade later and he's out travelling the world with his friend and rival, Green (a.k.a. Buttface).

Pokemon protagonists have been doing some pretty amazing things over the years, whether it be foiling Team (insert team name here)'s schemes, stopping megalomaniac World-ending plots, or battling and (possibly) capturing what amounts to Ancient Deities of mythical status. Or, at the very least, they survived a perilous journey of derping around in tall grass and managing to not get eaten by the local flora and fauna.

But when all's said and done, that's it. Done. Life goes on.

Makes you wonder what Chicken-chan will be doing ten years (and probably 6 generations) from now. Maybe some random, nameless kid walks up to her and challenges her to a battle, right? ha haha