Pokemon Battle Frontier

 

            Alright, I’m having an extensile crisis. Is that the right phrase? Not sure. Anyway, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl does NOT have the Battle Frontier from Platinum. I just finished the Pokedex, went to go to the Survival Area because I was looking for the Battle Frontier, wasn’t finding it so I went a-googlin'. I could have sworn that Diamond and Pearl had the BF but apparently not and the reasoning it's not in BDSP is because they wanted to keep the games faithful to the originals but yet they have fairy types in the game. How is that faithful? Apparently, Emerald had a Battle Frontier and HeartGold/SoulSilver had the exact BF as Platinum. So maybe that’s why I thought more than one game had it. I never got to the BF in Emerald, I didn’t even know it had one until I was googling. I remember finding something in Alpha Sapphire that was like a model of the frontier or the Battle Tower and said something like “coming soon.” I just found this; I guess there was an interview with Masuda years ago and he was asked why the Battle Frontier wasn’t in ORAS. Basically he says “only a very small part of the players would have fully appreciated and made use of this feature; nowadays players get bored and frustrated more easily and they aren't interested in things that are so demanding/challenging.” God that irritates me. That right there is why Sun, Moon, Sword and Shield are the way they are. That’s why they’re so handhold-y and linear.

I’m more of a PvE player than a PvP. There are games that I like the multiplayer but Pokemon isn’t one of those, I like having something to do post game that’s different than the typical game. If the Battle Frontier had an option for PvP I might try that. In Platinum you had five different facilities. There’s the Battle Tower that has basically been in all the games since the third generation. You do singles or doubles and go as far as you can with your team. There’s the Battle Factory that has you use rented Pokemon. I think you picked three Pokemon and as you defeated people you got to take one of theirs. The Battle Castle is kind of similar to the Battle Tower but your Pokemon don’t heal after every battle. You get Castle Points that you can spend on healing and other items, a little tougher, more strategy. There’s the Battle Arcade that would do single or multi battles where you spin a wheel and land on an “event” that can affect your team, the enemies team or the field in someway. My favorite thing to do was the Battle Hall. If you did singles or doubles you’d pick your Pokemon and go through a selected type of Pokemon to fight. So I’d pick Empoleon and pick say, Fire and you’d battle, I think, ten fire type Pokemon. After you defeat those ten you’d have “defeated” that type and get to pick another type and see how many types you can win against. Towards the end you’d always have some guy throw out a Heatran or something and it’s like “man, where’d you even get that? I’ve got the only one!” Each of these facilities had a boss called a “brain” I believe, I don’t think I myself ever fought a brain but it’s things like this that I love to do. I like the Wii game, Battle Revolution for the same reason. They have all these different ways to play and battle, I find it fun and interesting. I can’t imagine we’re going to get anything like that again.

I’ve seen somewhere on Twitter about like “should games like Pokemon have games geared towards kids and games geared towards adults.” I saw someone’s comment like “*At the GameStop* Yes excuse me, I’d like the Pokemon for big boys please.” I think I’ve mentioned something similar in one of my other posts but I kind of agree with this. How do I say this properly? As we age we expect the games we like to keep up. As we grow we expect the games to evolve with us but when they don’t we sometimes loose sight that they’re not exactly meant for us. When I saw the combined announcement for Pokken Tournament and Ultra Sun/Moon that’s what I felt Nintendo was going for. Like “these games are for kids but this one is something you older fans can play.” I do like Pokken, it has Empoleon in it so of course I like it but, for me, I just wish they didn’t shift from 2D fighting to 3D fighting. I would like to just stay in the 2D plain please.

So yeah, I love having more ways to play a franchise I like but they just don’t do enough of the other things. Will there be a Pokken 2? Will Legends Arceus really be that different? I don’t know, but I’m here for it. I’ll always be here for it and always have something to say. That’s about it for this, I just wanted to quickly hammer out my sadness that the Battle Frontier is still just a memory and will probably never be seen again. Do you have a favorite facility in the Battle Frontier? Are you an avid Pokken player? (I don’t think anyone is.) Or do you have any thoughts on game franchises having multiple games for multiple audiences? Let me know and I’ll try not to attack you with another post for a little while!

@AztecSauce