“Forced” is a bit inaccurate word to use for my reasons because I wasn’t trying to make SM look like the worst pokemon game ever. I have simply had a very lame experience with it in comparison to the previous 4 generations and I was trying to analyze and compare its differences to the other more recent pokemon games.

Region-specific forms to old pokemon are of course not restricted to alola alone, but in comparison to megas their potential is still not the same. ORAS was capable of having new megas to gen3 pokemon, but can you see Sinnoh having “Sinnoh forms” to gen4 pokemon? See that’s where the problem comes in. Most of the alternative forms have also done nothing to the pokemon competitively, aside from Muk, Marowak and Ninetales. There’s also considerably less alola forms than there were megas.

About the legendary: I wasn’t comparing Solgaleo/Lunala’s screen time in the game, I was comparing their involvement in the story. It’s not like you see Groudon/Kyogre a lot in the story, but the villains’ plan and in result the entire plot revolves around them. Same with Palkia/Dialga, Reshiram/Zekrom and Xerneas/Yveltal. In SM it seems that UBs have a bigger role than any other pokemon, and even their encounters have you just running around in bushes trying to catch them. Not very grand in comparison is what I was trying to say.

Species-specific z-crystals have been so far given only to pokemon GF considers “fan favorites”. Starters, Mew, Eevee, Pikachu has two now, and then there’s events like Snorlax and Marshadow which are already competitively viable pokemon. It’s not quite the same as making weaklings like Mawile, Absol, Manectric, Pinsir and Ampharos actually usable and interesting in battles. I know there’s much more to pokemon than just their competitive use, but I feel like it should still be considered along with other aspects. A whole new design is better than a ten-second animation.

I don’t think gen2 can be used as a justification, because it’s very old and had a lot of trouble fitting onto a gameboy cartridge to begin with. At least Koga, Bruno and Lance are characters from a different game and not gym leaders from the same one. And YES I do miss Drake whenever I see Hala’s boring face in the Elite four over and over again. XY’s E4 had the least screen time of anything ever yet I’d still battle them over characters we have already seen. They didn’t even get new clothes or haircuts - or anything - and that’s lazy design no matter how you look at it.

But I really do agree with you about the hand holding in SM. I’m not quite sure if it’s fair to compare it to a game that came out 20 years ago, but even when compared to Sinnoh the region is extremely linear. I can’t believe after the storytelling trainwreck that was Delta Episode they still had Ohmori direct an entire game.

I have an extra destiny knot I can trade, if you want it.

Why I like them: Because she looks and acts like your average generically sweet, passive, selfless JRPG heroine… and then it turns out that’s because she’s a dysfunctional mess with no sense of self-worth outside of the value she can serve to others due to being literally born and raised as a human sacrifice, and yeah actually that whole endlessly forgiving and self-sacrificing archetype is probably not a sign of a healthy person in general? And I like the degree to which the game actually makes clear that Colette’s lack of self-worth and martyr complex are a serious personal issue and not just her being ~too good and selfless~, etc.—especially in a plot where sacrificing a single person does in fact save the world (albeit in a temporary manner that prolongs the larger problem), it’d be pretty easy for that angle of her character to get entirely muddled up in her doing genuinely good things at extreme cost to herself. So I appreciate that her martyr complex and unwillingness to burden anyone with her own problems carry over into situations where they are absolutely, unambiguously not helping anyone, and actually actively cause trouble. Like, I’ve seen players get frustrated at “why would Colette even do this, that’s so stupid and pointless”, but that’s the point: it’s not the behavior of someone thinking clearly about doing the right thing, it’s the behavior of someone mentally ill enough to have internalized the belief that they’re doing wrong by living, and that kind of mental illness isn’t convenient or pretty and doesn’t stop existing even in situations where it’s clearly not functional.

Also, she personally named every single dog in two universes? I can barely even name a single team of pokémon. Colette is more powerful than I even have words to conceive of.

Why I don’t: Because all the stuff I mentioned above is frustratingly underwritten. Like—you can play through the entire game and still manage to not get anything out of her other than the aforementioned generically sweet, passive, selfless heroine archetype. Yes, the stuff I’m describing is obviously the intended point of her character and you would have to miss it completely, but like… a moderately undiscerning reader totally can play through Tales of Symphonia and come out reading Colette as “generic heroine with some self-confidence issues I guess”. And while fans totally missing the point of a character is nothing new, I feel in this case a good portion of it really is on the writers. I get that when you’re trying to deconstruct an archetype, you will by definition be working with a character who fits the letter of that archetype, but I feel like the writers pretty badly miscalculated the difference between being subtle (er, comparatively subtle; this is Symphonia) and forgetting to actually make your point out loud. Especially when Colette’s standing next to the rest of Symphonia, which is, again, as subtle as a sledgehammer.

Also, exaggerated clumsiness as comic relief stopped being funny approximately 6,293,102 centuries ago.

Favorite episode/scene:Favorite season/movie/arc: …Yeah okay, I’d better just combine these two parts.

… Anyway. Uh. God, it’s so hard to think of these things on the spot, especially when it’s late and it’s a game I haven’t played in ages… You know what, I’ll get back to you in the morning when I think of something. Or, uh, someone with a better memory suggest things?

Favorite line: … My first thought was that this is also kind of redundant with the above, but eh, I guess some characters are more quotable than others, so it does make sense as a separate category.

Anyway, uh… I’m sorry, it’s midnight and you’re asking me to remember individual lines, you get another rain check.

OTP: Lloyd and Zelos! Or Lloyd or Zelos. I have a brand to maintain, is my point.

Colette/Sheena is also cute and all and I feel like I should like it in theory, but in practice it kind of bores me. Colette/Presea is the objectively superior Colette femslash option.

Favorite platonic relationships: Hey, you know what there isn’t enough focus on? Colette and Genis’s friendship. Like, there are other characters I can and should list here, but that was the first thing that came to mind and honestly, I always miss the early-game where you have Lloyd, Colette, and Genis running around in a small enough group that it’s actually clear they’re all best friends.

Also, let Colette and Kratos talk more. They get what, that one nice skit and some largely incidental plot dialogue with the rest of the party and basically nothing else? Add more, dammit, these two talking is actually interesting!

Headcanon: oh god another “think of something on the spot”

The most frustrating thing is that I almost certainly have Colette-related headcanons, they’re just not coming to mind now. Argh.

Another “I’ll reblog if something comes to me”, I guess.

Something something something, hallelujah.