Just some thoughts on the times as other characters.

[Saraphimwolf]

So I've been here from much earlier on and have played a good number of the versions of Rejuv, and I do love the story quite a bit. But one of my biggest things I have never cared for is when your placed into the shoes of one of your friends. I'm sure for some they really enjoy this as it let's us expirence bits of the story from their perspective but for me I just really never cared when I'm forced to use a pokemon team I myself did not craft. Now I'm no elite pro player, in fact I happily use some pokemon who might not ever be played in proffessional tournaments. But I still like using the pokemon I like. Over the years I have done my best to step outside my comfort zone and expand the pool of pokemon I like to use, so that every playthrough ins't same team different gen kind of deal.  

 

But anyways, I'm just saying, after having played Rejuv so many times, I honestly feel a sense of anxity every time I know a different character scenario is coming up. I was wondering if maybe the developers might consider a skip option for these sections for those who have played the game before. Maybe give a warning message that if you haven't played before it really shouldn't be skipped as there are important story beats within them. And while alll of the playing as another character scenes are fine in terms of the story I must admit one strikes me as not making much sense. SPOILERS BEYOND HERE IF YOU HAVEN'T BEAT PAST ADAM'S BADGE:

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When you play as Aletia during her story of her ventures to the player and she is back in Sheridan. To me, it makes absolutly no sense that the battle isn't a total stomp.  Alieta is a character driven to work hard to get stronger and some how her team is still lower leveled then Texan, a character who has proven he doesn't give any care to work at all. Like, shouldn't his team stay the same level as when you first fight him? Or maybe even only slightly stronger if he is actually doing him gym leader duties? I can't imagine he puts any kind of effort into actually training them.  Anyways, that's just my thoughts on this whole thing.

[Lucifer Morningstar]

Personally, I enjoyed the challenge of learning to strategize with a preset team but at one point you do receive something called 'interceptor's wish' which allows the choice to use your own team as other characters. 

 

6 hours ago, Saraphimwolf said:

shouldn't his team stay the same level as when you first fight him? Or maybe even only slightly stronger if he is actually doing him gym leader duties?

 

While it is strange that Texan leveled up past his gym cap, didn't he express a burning desire to get back at Aelita? So perhaps that motivated him to create a seperate, higher-level team just for her?

[SoulN7]

I understand why someone would not like that, it's sometimes better having a built team and its backups in order to "make strategies" in some fights instead of an already built one with no chances of changing it. Aside from battles, I think it's nice in general the character swap mechanic, since you can see bits of story with eyes of others. It's even better now since they added Interceptor's wish to even short battles. I would suggest a password which lets you use IWs effects even at the start.

[Saraphimwolf]

4 hours ago, SoulN7 said:

I understand why someone would not like that, it's sometimes better having a built team and its backups in order to "make strategies" in some fights instead of an already built one with no chances of changing it. Aside from battles, I think it's nice in general the character swap mechanic, since you can see bits of story with eyes of others. It's even better now since they added Interceptor's wish to even short battles. I would suggest a password which lets you use IWs effects even at the start.

I haven't gotten to this Interceptors wish thing yet...or maybe I missed it? ( I'm almost to the pyramid )

[SoulN7]

You'll see not much later from it, at some point, take some popcorns.

[Lucifer Morningstar]

On 11/30/2023 at 10:37 AM, Saraphimwolf said:

I haven't gotten to this Interceptors wish thing yet...or maybe I missed it? ( I'm almost to the pyramid )

 

Soul mentioned there is a password to use the IW before it's officially given but at the point you're at you don't really need it, you're pretty close. 

[Saraphimwolf]

Ok so let me start off with saying that I love Rejuvination. It was the pokemone fan game that got me into pokemon fan games. I played it before I even played Reborn. And I know the Dev team put a lot of love and care into the story and it's characters and world, but I just...can't get over the fact that I just really don't care for the parts were I have to play as the other characters for an extended amount of time. I don't know why I don't care for it this much as I have had plenty of other games were I liked playing side characters over the main one. I like Tails more then Sonic, Luigi over Mario, and so on. But I just can't seem to feel that way here. I'm not sure if it's because Pokemon games have always felt like they were my journey rather then just playing as some character that already has a defined personality/life, or whatever but I just find my brain shutting off and not careing at all what happens when I'm forced into the shoes of the other characters. Even with Interceptors wish, letting me use my mons. I dunno if it's something on a deeper level? I mean, I've alwasy kinda felt like a side character in real life myself so maybe being the main character in Pokemon helps me in some ways? I dunno. 

 

Sorry for the rant, just kinda couldn't stop thinking about it. ( I'm at the part were the three teams were made to find the different keys ). I just kind want to get back to my character. Also didn't really care for Erin's input on when using the Interceptors wish, felt like I was being scoleded for not wanting to use a team that wasn't one I made.

[Lucifer Morningstar]

I am sorry that you are feeling this way. 

If you're struggling with this aspect of the game so much perhaps Rejuv isn't for you. 

[Scrublord6410]

On 11/29/2023 at 8:42 PM, Lucifer Morningstar said:

Personally, I enjoyed the challenge of learning to strategize with a preset team but at one point you do receive something called 'interceptor's wish' which allows the choice to use your own team as other characters. 

 

 

While it is strange that Texan leveled up past his gym cap, didn't he express a burning desire to get back at Aelita? So perhaps that motivated him to create a seperate, higher-level team just for her?

As far as I'm aware, just like in other games as background stuff, but they have different teams for each badge so they can be battled in any order by the people challenging the league.

[dudeguyman]

8 hours ago, Scrublord6410 said:

As far as I'm aware, just like in other games as background stuff, but they have different teams for each badge so they can be battled in any order by the people challenging the league.

When you fight Venam, Valerie, Amber, Adam, Melia (a Normal gym leader with Azumarill, Aegislash, Mimikyu, Togekiss, and Hydreigon, btw), Ryland, and Saki for the badge you fight their serious team, there's nothing left for interpretation there, Adam even goes as far as rigging the random field selection, and the only confirmed instance of a trial team is Crawly's, but his serious team isn't much stronger, and to even get there you have to beat Rorim B., which I can guess was serious (he has the same mons when he gets mind controlled by Odessa's Manaphy), but he's just not too much of a battler. Since Texan just wanted to kick MC and Aelita out of Sheridan Village, I doubt he went out of his way to give them a fair chance by using a trial team, if he could have stomped them he would have, especially since it wasn't even a battle for the badge, so, whatever league rules there are for it (apparently not many, see Melia's case) simply would not apply.

Texan is simply a more complex character than a lazy asshole in search of money and fame.

[Cyphre]

I believe that even considering the general explanation of "leaders adjust their teams to your badges/levels" there is simply no effective way to explain pokemon level discrepancies besides game logic. For this you would need random trainers sprinkled around with lower or higher level pokemon, which would work in an open world Pokemon game, but not linear one. There are some attempts in the game occasionally (like saying Keta's Lucario was holding back) but Rejuvenation need to either have an explanation for it, or just drop the matter entirely and explain it with just game logic. 

 

On a personal note, i'm still mad about a Bobsled club or whatever in Axis high with a bunch of Mega ring schoolers, even Damien and Alexandra had issues getting those, what the hell. 

[ClaraTheCriminal]

2 hours ago, Cyphre said:

I believe that even considering the general explanation of "leaders adjust their teams to your badges/levels" there is simply no effective way to explain pokemon level discrepancies besides game logic. For this you would need random trainers sprinkled around with lower or higher level pokemon, which would work in an open world Pokemon game, but not linear one. There are some attempts in the game occasionally (like saying Keta's Lucario was holding back) but Rejuvenation need to either have an explanation for it, or just drop the matter entirely and explain it with just game logic. 

 

On a personal note, i'm still mad about a Bobsled club or whatever in Axis high with a bunch of Mega ring schoolers, even Damien and Alexandra had issues getting those, what the hell. 

Hell, according to Chapter 2, Mega Rings are apparently Garufan Artifacts/Tech? So that did feel a little weird to me, but it is what it is

 

Also, we love Normal Leader Melia.  At least Noel only had the Clefable

[SoulN7]

At this point, the Mega Ring is more a gameplay mechanic than having some lore stuffs, since around the time you get your first stones, boss battles and major characters have Megas, included

Spoiler

your MC, Melanie, Florin, etc. (side note: Aero's terajuma team too have the Salamencite. Yeah. Very unbalanced.)

Still, I agree to what Cyphre said, despite the gameplay mechanic, those were mere students, not some researchers or seasoned trainers.

 

Also, Clefable is a bit justified, since it was a Normal Type before Gen VI, while Melia had only Snorlax. Still, a really good Normal Type Leader with Hydreigon and Aegislash.

[ClaraTheCriminal]

Yeah, the Terajuma Teams are funny like that

[Tsungi]

Something a bit arbitrary is that they talk about this or that person being strong but because levels are a gameplay construct it's mostly something you have to take their word for. I think they tried to account for that with each gym leader having a specific win rate rather than a "power level" as it were, but even that's a bit nebulous when you consider a lot of them are going to be someone's first challenge. Venam complains about kids using their rattata to fight her and a little girl in Grand Dream City talks about how hard fighting Lavender's Abra is with her Trubbish, so they definitely adjust their teams to align with whoever's challenging them. Their "real" teams have to be just as context sensitive because if Valarie has a pack of level 100s for a trainer with 17 badges that'd be completely unreasonable to fight in Terajuma. Excepting cases where they expect you to lose like Madame X and the Deathwings, of course.

[dudeguyman]

11 hours ago, Tsungi said:

Something a bit arbitrary is that they talk about this or that person being strong but because levels are a gameplay construct it's mostly something you have to take their word for. I think they tried to account for that with each gym leader having a specific win rate rather than a "power level" as it were, but even that's a bit nebulous when you consider a lot of them are going to be someone's first challenge. Venam complains about kids using their rattata to fight her and a little girl in Grand Dream City talks about how hard fighting Lavender's Abra is with her Trubbish, so they definitely adjust their teams to align with whoever's challenging them. Their "real" teams have to be just as context sensitive because if Valarie has a pack of level 100s for a trainer with 17 badges that'd be completely unreasonable to fight in Terajuma. Excepting cases where they expect you to lose like Madame X and the Deathwings, of course.

Valerie also lost a 3v3 with Melia and her Level 40 team in Blacksteeple Castle, and she definitely wasn't holding back, since the stakes were having food on the table.

Also, there are other instances of the game using levels to convey strength other than it telling you: "you gotta lose": the Charizar Venam steals from Tesla is level 75 when the level cap is 60, Nancy's team at Blacksteeple Castle, when the level cap is 40, is level 65. There's also the Gooink quest, and that you're told over and over again that the trainers of East Gearen City are notoriously weak. Still there are some inconsistencies, for example, where did Angie find the time to train her team from level 50 to level 85 while she was an ice pop? And wasn't she supposed to be about as strong as VIvian to begin with? So, I'd say that levels are about 95% game logic and 5% power scaling.

Edited December 8, 2023 by dudeguyman