- Joined
- May 31, 2015
- Messages
- 27,967
Since Gen 3, Legendaries have been the main focus of each game's story. Do you consider this to be something that should continue, or would you prefer to go back to the Gens 1-2 route of them essentially being optional challenges?
I have a mixed view of the Legendary focus, though I'd probably go with the former as there doesn't seem like many ways in which the boxart Legendaries could tie to the game's story in an integral way. Gen 3, despite its flimsy story due to the evil team's nonsensical motives, at least had Kyogre/Groudon embody the flaws of their goals and Gen 5 brought things to another level by the Legendaries being a battle between truth and ideals. Gen 6 also sort of had this with the focus on life and death X and Y's plot had. However, the same can't be said of the other Legendaries. Gen 4's Legendaries only tied to Team Galactic or the plot's themes in being a plot device to up the tension and despite the interesting background of Solgaleo, Lunala and Necrozma, they didn't really tie explicitly to the plot or character motives. I haven't played Sword/Shield, but the Legendary wolves seem to be in a similar camp to Gen 4's Legendaries.
There's also the question of where to go from here? Gen 3 had a conflict between the land, sea and sky. Gen 4 had time, space, antimatter and the origins of the universe itself as well as the origins of knowledge, emotion and will. Gen 5 had the conflict of truth and ideals. Gen 6 had the embodiments of life and death as well as the ecosystem balancing both. Gen 7 had the sun and moon (well, their emissaries) but even in those generations, you had a lot of lesser Legendaries that often provided little beyond a gimmick (Eon duo, Heatran, Swords of Justice, Tapus, etc.). Gen 8...had a wolf that gained a sword/shield and despite Eternatus having more going on, all it amounted to was a loose explanation of this generation's main gimmick in a manner pulled off far less interestingly than Gen 6 and 7's similar uses of the Ultimate Weapon/meteorites explaining Mega Evolution or Necrozma explaining Z-Moves. Gen 8 seems to embody the inevitability of the franchise losing steam in its ideas for expanding the lore, which may continue if the focus on Legendaries and trying to find an excuse for their existence keeps going.
It also doesn't help that the newer games have made obtaining plot-integral Legendaries far too easy, particularly in Gens 6 and 7. Hell, ORAS even hands you one of the Eon duo without any effort. This really diminishes the value of a Legendary Pokemon that should be one of the greatest challenges to achieve in the game.
I have a mixed view of the Legendary focus, though I'd probably go with the former as there doesn't seem like many ways in which the boxart Legendaries could tie to the game's story in an integral way. Gen 3, despite its flimsy story due to the evil team's nonsensical motives, at least had Kyogre/Groudon embody the flaws of their goals and Gen 5 brought things to another level by the Legendaries being a battle between truth and ideals. Gen 6 also sort of had this with the focus on life and death X and Y's plot had. However, the same can't be said of the other Legendaries. Gen 4's Legendaries only tied to Team Galactic or the plot's themes in being a plot device to up the tension and despite the interesting background of Solgaleo, Lunala and Necrozma, they didn't really tie explicitly to the plot or character motives. I haven't played Sword/Shield, but the Legendary wolves seem to be in a similar camp to Gen 4's Legendaries.
There's also the question of where to go from here? Gen 3 had a conflict between the land, sea and sky. Gen 4 had time, space, antimatter and the origins of the universe itself as well as the origins of knowledge, emotion and will. Gen 5 had the conflict of truth and ideals. Gen 6 had the embodiments of life and death as well as the ecosystem balancing both. Gen 7 had the sun and moon (well, their emissaries) but even in those generations, you had a lot of lesser Legendaries that often provided little beyond a gimmick (Eon duo, Heatran, Swords of Justice, Tapus, etc.). Gen 8...had a wolf that gained a sword/shield and despite Eternatus having more going on, all it amounted to was a loose explanation of this generation's main gimmick in a manner pulled off far less interestingly than Gen 6 and 7's similar uses of the Ultimate Weapon/meteorites explaining Mega Evolution or Necrozma explaining Z-Moves. Gen 8 seems to embody the inevitability of the franchise losing steam in its ideas for expanding the lore, which may continue if the focus on Legendaries and trying to find an excuse for their existence keeps going.
It also doesn't help that the newer games have made obtaining plot-integral Legendaries far too easy, particularly in Gens 6 and 7. Hell, ORAS even hands you one of the Eon duo without any effort. This really diminishes the value of a Legendary Pokemon that should be one of the greatest challenges to achieve in the game.
