I like Charmander as much as the next large adult baby, but Bulbasaur needs more love.
I'm curious if any of y'all are dorky enough to have a favourite starter, if so, which one? (Obviously Rowlet is the best one so why am I even asking? :stalin-garrison: )
Absolutely.
So, I like to do gimmick runs of pokemon games where I'm limited to pokemon that are or will become one type. Most recently, I did a Ghost run of Sword and Shield. To prep for that, I decided to run through just enough Sun to be able to put a Rowlet into the Bank and use it as my starter.
It took like 45 minutes with all the cutscenes to get to a point where I could actually upload Rowlet, it was ridiculous.
Yep, I've tried to start a couple Nuzlocke runs of Sun just for the hell of it, and I always give up before I even finish the first island. That was the last Pokemon game I bought. Just put me right off the series and seeing how they handled the Let's Go games and SWSH kept me off.
Sword and Shield aren't the best pokemon games, but they're better than Sun and Moon IMO. If you're intentional about creating a really big party and constantly swapping pokemon in and out of your active party in order to get around the really annoying thing they did where you can't turn the EXP share off, it actually can get pretty difficult and very fun in places. My most recent run, I intentionally did the final Gym with my underleveled B team and it was really hard, I loved it
The EXP share thing was one of the nails in the coffin for me. It was fun leaving it on and rotating between 12 Pokemon the first time I did a Y run, but that's not something I want to do every run. I like having the team building restraint of only using 6 to try to cover all my bases. The temptation to pick all the Pokemon with type advantages to take on boss trainers is just too high for me otherwise.
That's why I like doing it in combination with the kind of run I described above- sure, you can use 12 pokemon, but all of them have to have Fairy or Ghost or Bug or whatever as one of their types. It gives you variety while not really allowing you to completely get rid of all your weaknesses.
(fyi. Fairy types are some of my favorites, but the Fairy run wasn't great because it feels like all of them except like Galarian Weezing are glass cannons, not a lot of variety. Bug was a lot of fun, though)
Or apply some Nuzlocke rules and only allow one catch per Route/Area
Fairy was a cool addition, minus the unnecessary nerf to Bug. Would have also been cool to see Ice, Grass, and Rock get thrown a (preferably defensive) bone like they did for Dark and Ghost losing their Steel resist, though.
I may find my way back to the franchise in a few years if it looks like they're putting more serious effort into improving it instead of just making their deadline, but for now I'm just sitting it out. I've been trying a few other mon games and I have a backlog I need to work on before I waste my money on something that I know will frustrate me.
Bug has actually gotten some pretty serious buffs in Gen VII and VIII, surprisingly. There's new bugs like Vikavolt, Golisopod, Orbeetle, Centiskorch, and Ribombee (Ribombee especially is fucking incredible) that don't peak in strength early the way that a lot of earlier gen Bugs did, Leech Life got buffed to something like 70 power (which is INSANE, pretty sure it was like 20 before), and some new, strong Bug moves like Pollen Puff and First Impression got added. Bug might be in the best spot it's ever been in.
Oh, also, can't foret about :snom: it's a good new Bug with a very good evolution.
I get you, though. I can understand feeling a bit burnt out in the series at this point.
leech life is 80 power. Its now the strongest health stealing move tied with oblivion wing which is legendary exclusive. Its just as powerful as most good attacks.