Intense Mod/Overall Game Critique/Review (Spoilers ahead)

[sharqking]

I would like to start that I know Intense mode will no longer be supported in 13.5, however i still want to give my opinion/suggest changes on it. I would also like to provide transparency from my end; I stopped playing Intense mode at the Souta fight (Gym 13), it was in patch 13.0.2, and I was limiting my encounters to Static Pokemon+1 wild pokemon per route/area (no breeding). And my finally preface is that I enjoyed pretty much every minute of agonizing teambuilding, trail and error and the just the overall story of this game. If it was for 1 very specific issue I had with the direction the encounters were going, I would be continuing my Intense run (and I still do plan to beat v13, and didn't stop playing at Souta, I just restarted.) This game is great and I enjoy it immensely, the creators have done an excellent job. On with my critique.

 

I'll start with the only reason why I restarted my run, Souta's Dragonite and Pidgeot. Although they may have not been the first Pokemon that had this, they both went beyond the normal limit of the game and had more then the maximum 510 EVs per Pokemon. This might seem like a minor gripe, and I'm sure there was a boss battle before that that also had above the limit of EVs, but I've also noticed that the game ramps up after each Gym battle, and I made a reasonable assumption that every boss/gym battle after this would have multiple if not all of their Pokemon with 252 evs in every stat. And that was kinda the final straw in difficulty for me, although to be honest it was moreso because I found this out midbattle after a couple hours of teambuilding when my damage calculation was off by like 30%. This is more of a personal issue as I really dislike when romhacks break the normal mechanics of Pokemon, but I also think that this is kind of a needless difficulty creep as the battles are already made difficult by opponents being above level cap, having field/item advantage, and usually having a higher quality of Pokemon.

 

I'll continue with Fields, which are so unique and add such an interesting dynamic to the game. I love the field mechanics, they are just fun, I can't really think of another way to describe it. Can they make some battles over-the-top? Absolutely, specifically Mt. Valor and Angie for me. But they also create unique situations, crazy gameplans, and bring usage to some really bad moves. I do wish some Fields weren't deadends/loops (like Forest field or Haunted/Blessed) and that there was longer field chains, and I wish there was a way to set up Fields and make them permanent when there isn't already a Field present. I do think Forest Field needs a new chain though, its one of the most common fields and is one of the least adaptable. Overall, fields are awesome, and I really like how you incorporate them.

 

Double battles with AI sucks. Thats just the nature of the game though, not really a design standpoint problem, AI allies just always feel bad. But what makes them suck a little bit less (at least to me) is that these are always the most interesting (and difficult) battles. The Mount Valor battle might possible be the best Pokemon battle I've ever played, seconded closely by the battle with evil Melia in the future. The stakes are high, the opponent is fierce, and you have to make sure that this dead weight of a Snorlax on your side actually gets something done. I thought I'd have more to say about this, but I don't. AI allies will always suck, but when the battles are super cool and tough, I guess it all works out.

 

Some specific gripes, there needs to be a PC or something to change your Pokemon somewhere on or before Valerie's ship in the bad future. Using the same team against Valerie as the one against Vivian when there teams are completely different is really annoying. I know there's the pile of pokeballs, I don't know if that was supposed to be it, but it never worked for me if it was (v13.0.2). There should be an indicator when a Pokemon is wearing a crest, or at least an indicator when a trainer has a Silvally crest. They are battle changing items, I think its fair to at least warn players that they exist, especially since the AI intrinsically knows if you have one. Lastly, don't invisibly heal my Pokemon right before a gym battle. I'm not sure if that's a purposeful counter to pre-statusing Pokemon or just so you don't accidentally go into a gym battle with weakened Pokemon, but it makes Guts/T-Boost Pokemon pretty much useless till late game due to the unavailbility of Toxic/Burn Orb. Alot of the non-gym story battles heal you before the battle as well (albeit more obviously) so it'd be nice to actually be able to use that strategy somewhere.

 

A quick list of things I'd like added: more crests; crests are cool and there is still plenty of bad Pokemon out there that don't have one. I also think each gym leader should have a crest pokemon, in both Normal and Intense difficulty (except maybe Venam, in which case Keta could have one for each battle), in addition to being available earlier. They are just a really cool addition, and they definitely make Pokemon stronger and should be showcased as often as they can. More Fields/ways to change fields; really just a bridge between the gaps in the already large amount of fields. Increased availability of seeds: according to the wiki, you can only get 4 of each seed throughout the game (at that time). They are another super cool mechanic that you don't really get to use because of how few you get. 

 

All in all, the game is great and I enjoy it immensely. 

[Dreamy]

Just a small note - there is actually an indicator for when a pokemon is using a crest; they'll have this symbol on their status bar:

[sharqking]

Oh, I didn't actually know that. I remember seeing that symbol though, thanks for telling me.

 

Sidenote: The being autohealed before a gym battle is either a new patch (13.0.5) thing or isn't on every gym leader. I thought it was only a recent strategy I tried (I got healed vs Keta second battle and Narcissa when pre-burning guts mons) but then I remembered in my original run I pre-poisoned my Dodrio vs Amber to Ohko some mons with facade. It is still annoying though, mostly because there's no animation or dialog that they are healing you.