The GTS and WiFi: How it's changed Pokémon

[Master Rudy]

I think it's about time that GD gets a nice discussion topic. Lord knows it's a bit inactive as of late

In any case I've found it intresting to see how Gen 4 and the DS have changed the Pokémon series. Years ago in order to trade/battle you had to know other people that also played in order to do so. As some people here know this had a potential to be problematic. From my experience playing the games in late middle school/high school had a way of getting the assholes in a group to label someone an outcast which is downright sad. I always went the route of saying nearly any game could be fun and enjoyable. Pokémon as we all know has a depth and complex nature that many people tend to overlook since all they see on the surface is a "kid's game." Granted I'm sure that some people in my high school did play but were like me and didn't go out of the way to make it public. With some of us in our 20's now we can look back and say it's silly and dumb but let's face it: how many of us had big enough problems in high school without giving the real idiots more stuff to give us hell over. Bottom line was due to a lack of people I knew who played I left RSE and the Red and Green remakes untouched until years later.

When the newer generation came out I think it wound up changing things for the better as far as being able to trade and battle went. The DS with it's WiFi features allowed you to be able to battle anyone online as long as you had their friend code. The GTS also allowed you to trade with anyone as well. The best part of it all was that people were no longer limited by region either. Anyone who's tried linking together a Japanese/English cart together knows what I mean. In short I think all the online features of the newer games have gone ahead and made Pokémon a much more accessable and fun series for any age group. It's simple enough for the younger crowd but can get pretty complex as far as older players a concerned.

As far as this topic goes feel free to discuss how you feel the DS games have changed the games compared to the older generations. This can be anything from finding new people to battle, how your view of the series has changed over the years, ect.

Also if you want to do this for fun here's an idea. As we all know in the older Pokémon games you were limited to pretty much trading with people in just your local area. As a way of showing just how much reach one simple game now has, access the globe in the GTS and share the places you've traded with ^_~

Home:
Kentucky, USA

Places I've connected to:
Virgina, USA
California, USA
Chiba, Japan
Tokyo, Japan
Nara, Japan

[Austrian ViceMaster Alex]

I think the GTS and WiFi have done some good things for Pokémon especially bringing people from different regions together and enable them to battle and trade their Pokémon. Of course there's yet a lot of space for improvement.

When battling or trading Pokémon with a letter it's incredibly annoying that you can't use your own battle phrases or even write those stupid in-game letters properly cause Nintedo is afraid of swear words being used. You can only battle with people you know either, so it's not possible to just find a random battle partner (unless you play Battle Revolution), nothing goes without a friend code.

Another problem though it's not Nintendo's fault is the partially ridicoulous offers you get at the GTS. Who in his right mind would trade a Suicuine for a level 100 Buizel? Some people are just plain stupid. Also it would be nice if you could select more different countries in the GTS, have you ever noticed how many people are supposedly from Afghanistan?

Also, what's with the face you can only look for Pokémon in GTS that you've seen in-game? That's a pretty bad idea in my book and doesn't help you catching them all either.

WiFi battling needs more 6-on-6 combat too, 3-on-3 is just boring.

[Master Rudy]

You make some good points Alex. So far my biggest gripe with the GTS is the very thing you mentioned. You can't even ask for a paticular Pokémon unless you've seen it in the main game. I've noticed that what you've seen in link or frontier battles don't get added to the Pokédex.

As for battles the whole quote thing gets me too. I can understand why Nintendo did it that way. However the whole "fill in the blank" sentence thing just doesn't cut it for me. It's almost impossible to come up with something decent sounding that also has the correct grammar.

In any case it is a step forward. Following Nintendo's horrible attempt at doing online with the Gamecube it at least seems that the Wii and the DS are a step in the right direction in that department. If they can look at the Pokémon games on the DS (not to mention some of the Wii games as well) and go over what went right and wrong then next time around for Gen 5 I think we'll be looking at a much more polished product when it comes to the online features.