this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2024
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These days even the kids have a balanced team because of the EXP share.
Sometimes I think it’s really ruined the new games, but then I remember they’re made for children so it’s obviously going to be balanced for them.
Exp share is great, grinding for level is boring. I can't do level grinding like i can as a kid, only got somewhat an hour a day to play games.
My Steam Deck has been monumental in letting me play games as a busy adult. I leave the thing in sleep mode. Hit the power button and I'm back to my game in 2 seconds. I need to stop, I pause it and hit the power button and set it down. No prep, no worries about save spots. No pairing controllers or finding a place to set up my laptop or anything else. Just "boom". Back in or back out of the game. I've played more the last year than I have in the previous 5 years combined.
As a father of a 3 year old and being a lifelong filthy casual (mostly portable gaming, SNES, PS2), my steam games were just rotting not being played on my crappy PC. After getting the steam deck though I'm finally able to play 5 year old games on sale but dammit I'm still playing again.
My backlog is huge, so I have a massive amount of pc games I've never gotten around to playing. Right now I'm playing assassins creed IV. That came out in 2013. Just finished the binding of isaac rebirth from 2014, and before that I was playing borderlands 2 and Tomb Raider from 2015.
I did spend the $3 for Vampire Survivors. That was strangely addictive.
Yeah, personally I just don’t see the appeal of Pokémon without the grind though.
Not saying that it’s wrong to use the EXP share, but it’s just not for me. Which is okay, but also a little sad that a game I used to love isn’t for me anymore.
I wouldn't mind the exp share, but I just don't like the work involved now. Too many counters for too many types of Pokémon to worry about now. It was all good when there was just the 15 types and only around 150 pokemon. Now there's more types, a lot more pokemon, and a lot of them are mix types and it just got annoying.
Starting to feel the lack of time for grind myself, but there's a better answer. I can't remember which gen did it, but you were able to toggle exp share on or off. So you could choose if you wanted to grind. I'd like to see that come back.
I really want a good pokemon spiritual successor targeted at adults. Like I hope it's still cute and wholesome, just balanced for adults, and without so much hand-holding.
I've heard Palworld is really good, but also that it's more like Arc than Pokemon.
I felt like my team was a little restricted by what I could find in the first two areas of the story, but TemTem is a generally good game with all double battles.
There are a lot of monster catching games, mostly aimed at old fans fed up with the current state of pokemon. One I played and really enjoyed is called cassette beasts. You can scale the difficulty so that enemy levels scale based on your level, it's also moddable so people can add new monsters, modes, etc.
I wish the Monster Rancher series would return. Not sure how you'd do the "collection" aspect tho. Not many CDs/DVDs around anymore. Maybe something with qr/barcodes. Or image recognition. Regardless, I always felt that game series had a slightly older demographic.
Monster Rancher has made a return!, in a sense.
"MR1&2DX" a "Remaster" is on Steam, Switch, and iOS. This came out in 2021. (It's mostly the same game, just with a searchable CD Database/Song List instead of physical media, upscaling, both JP and English monsters in the same game, Enemy monsters raisable, extra freezer slots, fast forward, instant loads etc. a bunch of QoL stuff).
Also there's Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher (This one is on Switch only) that came out in 2022... a Crossover franchise of raising Ultraman Kaiju that plays like a mix of both MR1 and MR2
And LINE: Monster Farm, came out in 2023. A JP only gacha game, though there's some hopium that it will be released in the west eventually.
There's a huge Monster Rancher community and Discord that even holds public tournaments with varying formats and stat-cap limits. It's a lot of fun!
Holy shit thanks!
I love the new exp share. I have a one year old now, there is now chance I'd ever have the time to train up a team otherwise.
I would love an adult-balanced pokemon, whether it be a difficulty slider or full game. Closest is ROM hacking and indie games. Nuzlocking doesn't quite scratch the same itch.
I remember playing Red over and over as a kid. Eventually I stopped being interested in grinding levels and would just rush to Cinnabar Island so I could MissingNo dupe rare candies.
Even then I wouldn't balance, I'd just throw them all on my favorite Pokemon of that run and get them to 100.