Looking Back

[Varhii]

With the future Pokemon games looking like they'll never call themselves home on the 3DS again, I think it's time to look back at all the Pokemon games that came out during the 3DS's lifespan. In this time we've received numeorus main series games along with a handful of spin-offs I'll list them here:

Main Series:
Pokemon X and Y
Pokemon OmegaRuby and AlphaSapphire
Pokemon Sun and Mon
Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon

Spinoff:
Pokemon Rumble Blast
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity
Pokemon Art Academy
Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon
Detective Pikachu

Nintendo eShop:
Pokedex 3D
Pokemon Dream Radar
Pokemon Bank
Poke Transporter
Pokemon Battle Trozei
Pokemon Shuffle
Pokemon Rumble World
Pokemon Picross

Overall, I think for the main series of games. we were mainly stuck in limbo. Pokemon X and Y didn't have all the content people both in and out of the company initially wanted which left it feeling more like a proof of concept. ORAS, while being solid remakes, has people who prefer Pokemon Emerald for various reasons. Pokemon Sun and Moon felt like it really needed and enhanced 3rd version that never game as it felt that Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon was made to have some sort of income that year as they worked on stuff for the switch. For the spinoffs, there are really only two big notable ones in my opinon. Detective Pikachu due to how it's becoming a movie I'm excited for and Pokemon Super Mystery dungeon for helping to bring the games back to what people remember them for. Overall, I hope Pokemon on the switch fares better and doesn't have the main series games mostly feel like unfinished products they had to release.

What are you guys's thoughts?

 

[Psychoreality]

Pokemon on the 3DS will always be important to me... but none of the games are as good as Black and White 2 or HGSS. There is a lack of postgame content which, for many core fans, was the biggest draw of the DS era of Pokemon. However...

Sun and Moon are the greatest RPGs in the Pokemon franchise.

Not the best Pokemon games, not even the best core Pokemon games. However, as a story-driven JRPG, the game's story and characters are the best in series history IMO and there is some real emotional weight behind the game's ending. I sure wish there was anything else to do beyond the credits, but the story in vanilla (not Ultra) Sun and Moon is excellent.

Super Pokemon Rumble (as the PAL version was called) is also an excellent game, and my favourite in the Rumble series. Hopefully we get Rumble Switch at some point after Sword and Shield drops so all 850+ Pokemon can be represented. I'd probably be more willing to buy that than Sword and Shield proper, lol.

 

[Dregran]

I was satisfied with Sun and Moon. The islands felt different enough and the Pokedex finally felt like it was the right size without being too messy (like it was in XY). Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon just seem like strange things to do. Very similar to Sun and Moon and most of the features and scenes aren't as amazing the second time around. It was a good alternate story, but I didn't have the same sequel feel that B2W2 did.

 

[seaturtle]

I think it's also important to remember that (despite having come out years earlier), during the 3DS era you could play any of the non-Gen 3 games on one console. That's insane!! Not all of the games came out during the 3DS's lifespan, but the backwards compatibility and VC releases made it incredibly easy to get into the Pokemon series.

I'm satisfied with Gens 6 and 7, although I don't think they were as good as 4/5 were by any means. XY was pretty and a good introduction to the 3DS, but without a third version that expanded on the game + fixed core problems I don't think it can stand up to games like B2W2 or Platinum. ORAS was a fun game for me as someone who doesn't really love RSE, and while I like it loads more than XY it still feels a little lackluster.

SM were amazing games to start off with, but after getting through the initial hype the game feels very one-way to me, and replaying it is hard. USUM are definitely better games, and while I like the added lore with Necrozma and the better gameplay, they fell flat compared to Emerald or Platinum. I love the Alola region, between the new Pokemon and the Alolan forms I think there was a lot of good potential. I'd put SMUSUM over XY and ORAS, but again I don't think they're better games than Gen 4/5 had.

Pokemon Shuffle is a fun game to waste time on, and other small games like Rumble Blast are fun too. As far as PMD goes, GTI sucked but PSMD is the #2 game in the series so I'm content with that right now.

 

[Flo]

Sun and Moon are the greatest RPGs in the Pokemon franchise.

the entire PMD franchise would like a word please sir

in regards to main series, x and y were a massive step back from b2w2 in pretty much every way, and would have benefitted heavily from a third game

oras were soulless cashgrabs because they knew the fams would eat hoenn up.

sumo was a passable jrpg for 2006 but the lack of any content anywhere in the game shot itself in the foot
usum are trash lol

GTI is also bad, but it's a bad pmd game which makes it still average
SuperPMD is good, but it simplifies and streamlines so many functions that it removes the very grassroots feel of early PMD games

everything else was either passable to garbage

the 3ds era was a transition period because pokemon was wanting to move to a home console but the wiiu sucked and the fanbase was portable. the switch solves all these problems so hooray. sumo especially was trying to be a console rpg but also be a fun pokemon game, and ended up failing at both.

 

[~Kilza~]

I played Y, OR and UM for my 3DS games, and here's my quick thoughts:
-XY is bad compared to the rest of the Pokemon games. Definitely my least favorite main series games by far, and it was definitely tough to replay Y for AzuriPlays awhile back.
-ORAS was decent. I prefer the original RS games over ORAS, but what can you do.
-USUM were great. I think I benefited from having not played SM, because I know some of the main complaints I've seen from people who've played both are basically "oh the games are too similar", and "oh the story isn't as good". Yet I enjoyed the gameplay and thought the story for USUM was good, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I guess the main thing is that the 3DS main series games definitely got better as they went along, so with any luck Sword and Shield continues this trend on the Switch.

 

[Pendraflare]

I've said multiple times that I'm a big fan of USUM, although that is admittedly some because I tend to enjoy the added challenge and features. And as for XY, similarly I like the massive amounts of variety and possible team options that they feature which is what's allowed me to enjoy playing through them. I've played both games plenty of times, XY in particular, haha. They're both among my favorites in the series.

SM I won't deny are good games, but I haven't completed a full playthrough of them since Ultra released, and for reasons that you can probably see. I may sell my copies of the original, haha. Or at least my secondary Sun copy. As for ORAS, they aren't games that have seriously stuck with me in the long run. They were cool at first, but an Alpha Sapphire challenge in early 2017 was my last play of the game until my recently started co-op with SAF. I guess I've just realized I'm not a fan of Hoenn in general. Meh.

 

[shhmew]

wall incoming bc i feel so strongly about 3DS pokemon games. you can tell i'm off from work today.

tldr: XY are really the only 3DS pokemon games (main series) i loved a lot. SM comes second only because it had a very cute story.

i guess it's an unpopular opinion, but XY are some of my favorite main series games ever. I lamented the loss of sprites, but the direction toward 3D was very bold and super exciting to play through. the region was beautiful and they did an excellent job with immersion with not-so-functional-but-still-fun-and-cute additions such as amie, roller skates, and introducing customizable player chars... plus dam the PSS was near flawless... it did not have the best postgame (i mean i loved the looker quest but i get why ppl complain), but damn going thru the main story is such a smooth and enjoyable experience for me and i've played through it several times. and yes i know the story and characters are laughably bad but to me that's part of the charm. Team Flare is one of my favorite evil teams just because it clearly wasn't taken seriously and their lame dialogue make me smile. XY was also the first game i got into breeding and even wonder trading for hours and hours and riding my bike back and forth never got old. i still miss doing it. I have around 2000 hours total in all files I've played of X and it holds such a dear place in my heart. amazing games and idc what anyone else says.

ORAS, however, was a huge disappointment. it piggybacked off of XY's 3D capabilities so obviously it is a lot smoother with nice improvements like walking in all directions and Soaring. but the gameplay itself is not very fun for me. It is a little too close to ruby/sapphire for me i think except the characters have more personality, it is very much just a remake with the same small selection of pokemon and very very inconvenient placement of obstacles that you need HMs to progress. (XY made HMs so much less intrusive so ORAS felt like a step back even though it was really just staying true to the originals.) My favorite part of ORAS is the dexnav. It at least makes the small selection of pokemon more fun to use and is probably the only reason i would have fun if i went back and played it again. But even still, the experience was pretty bland for me, the delta episode is just a collection of fetch quests with "wowie u can ride on dragon isn't that cool?" and "look at this quirky female isn't she cool?" (can't hate on her battle music tho that track is FIRE.) you even had to push through the delta episode to get to the actual postgame content which bugged me, especially in replays. once you beat the delta episode there is basically nothing to do except the battle maison copy pasted from XY, the typical breeding/battling/completing pokedex if you're into that, and hey you can go get like every single legendary which sounds awesome until you learn it's just flying to tiny boring areas with no personality and encountering them in a very anti-climactic fashion. also everyone says this but it would have benefited so much from a postgame battle frontier. i understand it's a ruby/sapphire remake and not emerald, and i know exactly why they didn't put it in, but it would have given us so much more to do, at least. as it stands the games feel quite empty and soulless to me and it's sad.

SM is alright. Its story is the thing that stands out to me the most. Instead of some crazy dramatic "save the world" type thing with you being a hero, you end up meeting / helping a friend, with a touching story between her (& her personal growth, i love her character development) and her family... the stakes are less high and i loved that direction. i know some people didn't but it made me feel a lot more attached to the characters which is important to me. even the mascot legendary is a CHARACTER in the story who you come to love. i adore that. the region itself is ok, very pretty but i didn't like the four islands thing as much as i thought i would... it makes the region feel massive initially but you can run a loop around every region in a few minutes, it's like a ton of artificial space. i did not like that all that much. the gameplay was ok, i dont have a lot to say about it. the removal of HMs is cool but ride pokemon was still an awkward concept, summoning random pokemon that you don't even own and being forced to wear a dorky ass outfit instead of the clothes/hair you picked out. i really missed the bike. and the roller skates for that matter. I can't play through SM anymore really, because my favorite part was the story, and now i already know what happens in the story so it's just kind of a drag to get through. it's sad.

USUM had the same ok gameplay (maybe some minor improvements but also some minor downgrades that definitely stick out to me more like Rotom bugging you CONSTANTLY!!!!!!!!!!!!11!!111!). And then it took the same characters and completely changed up the story, making the stakes a lot higher as usual, and everything felt quite cliche. I felt zero investment in the story this time around and i don't even remember most of it or how necrozma tied in, cuz i did not care. So basically it took my favorite part of SM and ruined it. and otherwise it was very very similar to SM which ofc i already played thru. it tried to enhance immersion i think with things like being able to interact with some pokes in the overworld (was so cute but wasn't much to it) and mantine surfing, but it never did much for me. The only reason I put as much time as i did into USUM was because 1) I got way into the photo thing lol i loved taking pics with my pokemon (even if it got kind of irritating sometimes) and 2) I was playing alongside bf where we would battle each other regularly with our in-game teams. he would whoop my ass a lot bc i was using cute **** like an unevolved mime jr but hey my oricorio did p good ;3. that was quite fun, despite the fact PSS was gone and connecting to friends (especially with multiple friends) was an ABSOLUTE PAIN. shoutout to spending like 40 mins trying to connect with 3 other people for a forum event. Anyway I got to the end of this game but did not even finish it so I can't talk about the post game/RR stuff but to be honest with you all i just do not care about it. USUM was the only main series game i didn't finish within like a week or two of owning it bc i just didn't want to. i just didn't care. i still dont. and this is why USUM is my least favorite main series game to ever come out. i am sorry. but im also not sorry.

wew ok that's enough about the main series games. the only spin offs i played other than like bank/transporter were Super Mystery Dungeon and Pokemon Shuffle.

Shuffle was fun for all of a few months. I enjoyed it SO much until i basically hit a point where i really had to pay money to continue. And I tried very hard to play for free as much as I could, spending WEEKS to get past certain checkpoints. And the worst part is, if you do spend money it's only on expendable power ups that may or may not get you thru like 1 fight. so spending money did not even feel smart or worth it. this game ended up just being a Huge Painful Chore and as soon as I realized that I stopped playing it. That's really all i have to say about that. trozei was better.

Super was a very solid mystery dungeon game. i basically feel the same way about it that most mystery dungeon fans do. it was fine, especially after the sunken expectations that followed Gates, I didn't expect Super to have so much content after that but you can tell it had a lot of love put into it. With nice 3D art to look at, too. I loved that you could travel to different areas and I loved that you could still "recruit" all the pokemon - even if I didn't really like the method of doing so in this game vs past games. the Looplets & emeras were also a very clever addition. overall had lots of fun with this game. The story was good as always and I loved the twist at the end, right before the credits. BUT, the stuff that happens after the credits is kinda lame and ends so awkwardly. idk. Also, in the postgame, the fact that your teammates can still be "unavailable" some days really really really put me off. I like having consistent teammates and it forces you not to...for some strange reason. that is really the only reason i stopped playing lol. overall though i still really enjoyed it and i think it is definitely a respectable entry in the mystery dungeon series which is saying a lot since explorers of sky is so dear to me.

if anyone actually read thru all this. dam. thank u. i feel like i released a lot of bitterness in my heart w this post

 

[Dragonite]

How has nobody remembered to talk about the most important entry on the 3DS, the Dream Radar? That thing was great. It also had a bunch of problems like being really hard to play if you have one or more wires sticking out of your 3DS, and the gyroscope getting weird after like two minutes of gameplay, and it being a total idle game, but man did I have fun with it when it first came out.

I complained about X and Y a little while ago, which I think was quite enough of that.

I liked ORAS, they weren't my favorite and I don't see myself replaying them as often as some of the other games but they were pretty good. The visuals and audio were pretty much what I expected, Wally was every bit as insufferable as was in the originals, and the aqua quintuplets were a funny joke that I'm glad they only pulled twice because it probably would have gotten old after seven or eight showings. Soaring was kinda fun, the part where Steven was just like HEY HERE'S A FREE LATI BY THE WAY, SEE YOU AROUND I GUESS was kind of dumb though. The Delta Episode was interesting although it was mostly just running around and talking to an NPC somewhere, the spectacle at the end made up for it though.

Primal Groudon and Kyogre were just total power creep which is dumb but the legends have been doing that since about gen 3 so why would they stop now.

Sun wasn't bad but it wasn't as memorable as other games have been. Not sure why. I spent like 40 hours doing in-game stuff and I can only remember, like, five of them. Currently doing a reverse speed run of Ultra Moon, meaning I get a few hours of it once a year when one of my cousins visits, so that's not going to be finished any day soon. I've heard mixed results about USUM from other people though, so I don't really have very high expectations for it.

 

[Neb]

Main Series:
Pokemon X and Y
Loved these games when they came out, but I’ve found replaying them to be really boring. The large gap between the first two gyms and the nonexistent postgame make these my least favorite games in the series (not counting Diamond and Pearl)

Pokemon OmegaRuby and AlphaSapphire
Decent remakes, but not as good as Heartgold and Soulsilver. Those games stuffed so much into such a small cartridge. Here, they removed Emerald’s additions and revamped the story. Still a fun game though.


Pokemon Sun and Mon
Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon
Aside from the performance issues and slow intro, I don’t see any major issues with these games. I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up like Sinnoh and have a dedicated following in several years.

USUM don’t add much, but they are definitely the definitive version of Gen 7. The expanded Pokédex, postgame, and difficulty make these my favorite Pokémon games on the 3DS.

Spinoff:
Pokemon Rumble Blast
I played this game when it came out and couldn’t remember any of it. It’s such a forgettable title.

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity
The town managing mechanic was actually a lot of fun. Other than that, nothing about this game is above average.

Pokemon Art Academy
A fun little time waster.

Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon
I returned my copy after a few weeks. The story didn’t grab me, which is the main appeal of the Mystery Dungeon series.

Detective Pikachu
As much as I love mystery games, this title ever interested me.

Nintendo eShop:
Pokedex 3D
A cool, but overpriced application that has never been updated. You’re better off looking up this information online.

Pokemon Dream Radar
It’s a shame this application never got updated. Imagine catching newer Pokémon and transferring them into the mainline games.

Pokemon Bank
The steep subscription price is worth it for the excellent U.I. alone

Poke Transporter
I pray Gamefreak makes an offline version of this so people can transfer Pokémon after the servers inevitably shut down. The U.I. is really solid.

Pokemon Battle Trozei
This spin off deserves more attention. It’s a really fun take on the match-3 formula.

Pokemon Shuffle
Why did they release this on the 3DS again? It fits phones so much better.

Pokemon Rumble World
Couldn’t be bothered to play this game for more than five minutes. The gameplay is even more watered down than the previous Rumble games.

Pokemon Picross
I’m sure this game is fun, but I just don’t like Picross.