Posted January 23, 2023
Back when I played Pokemon (over a decade ago) there were a few mechanics I never bothered to learn.
EVs, IVs, and other hidden values. You know what this game for children ages 6-10 needs? A competitive metagame, mass breeding programs, abandonment issues and worse. I understand the base idea but I'm not going to demean myself to such madness. Ties in nicely with:
Shiny Hunting: You know what else needs to be in this same game? A 1/8000~ chance of the creatures you collect coming in an alternate color. And in the earlier games, screw you, there is no way to make it better. Later games introduce methods which range from arbitrary and stupid "chain battle this many for increasing chance" to just plain illogical. "Breed two pokemon from a different country than yours."
Final Fantasy is fond of minigames. Many of them are completely optional, and ignorable. Right until FF6. Where it all became MANDATORY. From various party splits that ranged from logical to completely mad, to having to participate in an opera, Final Fantasy 6 is largely where it all began.
Now, Final Fantasy 9 has a card game, Terra Master. It's rather opaque. There's numbers that don't seem to mean anything, hidden properties, and all and all, it doesn't make for a good time. It is mandatory to play though a few rounds for a tournament, and there's the nice snag that when you lose, you lose a card. Which could be anything from losing a goblin that only had 1/1/1/1, to losing that rare collectable Airship Card.
Minecraft: Most anything after Gamepedia just turned into yet another branch of Fandom. Let's be blunt here: Minecraft is kinda terrible at explaining internal mechanisms. I was already losing interest after the hunger update back in 1.8, and it's been on a slow decline since.
EVs, IVs, and other hidden values. You know what this game for children ages 6-10 needs? A competitive metagame, mass breeding programs, abandonment issues and worse. I understand the base idea but I'm not going to demean myself to such madness. Ties in nicely with:
Shiny Hunting: You know what else needs to be in this same game? A 1/8000~ chance of the creatures you collect coming in an alternate color. And in the earlier games, screw you, there is no way to make it better. Later games introduce methods which range from arbitrary and stupid "chain battle this many for increasing chance" to just plain illogical. "Breed two pokemon from a different country than yours."
Final Fantasy is fond of minigames. Many of them are completely optional, and ignorable. Right until FF6. Where it all became MANDATORY. From various party splits that ranged from logical to completely mad, to having to participate in an opera, Final Fantasy 6 is largely where it all began.
Now, Final Fantasy 9 has a card game, Terra Master. It's rather opaque. There's numbers that don't seem to mean anything, hidden properties, and all and all, it doesn't make for a good time. It is mandatory to play though a few rounds for a tournament, and there's the nice snag that when you lose, you lose a card. Which could be anything from losing a goblin that only had 1/1/1/1, to losing that rare collectable Airship Card.
Minecraft: Most anything after Gamepedia just turned into yet another branch of Fandom. Let's be blunt here: Minecraft is kinda terrible at explaining internal mechanisms. I was already losing interest after the hunger update back in 1.8, and it's been on a slow decline since.