u/Mightyoritus

I know this post might probably annoy some people, but I felt like I had to say this for a long time.

I’m going to be completely honest: Pokémon S/V, despite their obvious flaws, have become for me the best modern Pokémon games and one of the top three games in the entire franchise. And saying that isn't easy for me, because it means a whole lot.

I bought the game as a Christmas present in December, and I remember going in with quite a bit of fear. I had seen YouTubers, Reddit, and Twitter turn completely against these games, just like what happened with Sw/Sh. It felt like it was already decided that it would be just another disappointment. I myself expected to find a disaster full of bugs and glitches… but my experience was the complete opposite.

Violet ended up becoming the second Switch game where I surpassed 1,000 registered hours on the console, second only to Sword. Honestly, that says more than any critique or review about what this game meant to me.

Is it perfect? No, not at all. Its biggest problem—aside from the rough start it had, which I didn't experience since I bought it in mid-December—is the rather inconsistent graphics. There are moments where everything looks beautiful: the Pokémon, the characters, some locations… but there are also areas that don't look as good, especially compared to Sw/Sh, which in my opinion had a nicer artistic direction. Even so, outside of that, I find it hard to find something I truly didn't like.

Because everything else… I adore it. I found the characters unforgettable, the music is wonderful, the Paldean Pokémon left a huge mark on me, the sense of adventure and discovery is incredible, the region's mythology fascinated me, the quality-of-life improvements make everything feel much smoother, I liked the DLC even more than the one for Sw/Sh, shiny hunting is more accessible, the legendary duo are absolutely adorable, I loved the Ed Sheeran song in the credits, and the ending of the story made me cry. And I mean it: I cried.

Pokémon S/V represents everything I love about Pokémon. During my adventure and also in the DLCs, I was smiling almost the entire time. There was something special about these games that touched me in a way I hadn't felt in a long time. If it weren't for the nostalgia I have for White 2 and Emerald, I would probably put them in my personal #1 spot.

I don't understand why the internet seems to have such a grudge against Pokémon. Yes, it's not on the level of a game like Mario Odyssey, but that doesn't mean S/V aren't great games in their own right. Sometimes I feel like many people forget that a game doesn't need to be perfect to be unforgettable, and these games are unforgettable to me.

It saddens me to think that S/V are already reaching their final updates. That’s why I wanted to write this: as a small love letter and a "thank you" to the games that made me feel much more than I expected. And I’ll stick with that phrase that fits so well here: "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."

The impact of Fnaf cannot be understaded. An indie game that became one of the most famous franchises in recent memory.

9 year old me was completely horrified by Fnaf 2 when I watched the bigger kids playing the mobile version on recess, but after some years I grew fondness to the first 4 games, specially the 4 one since for me is the scariest one. At the end I ended up losing the interest in the franchise for a multidude of reasons by the way.

But if you ask me which of these mascot horror games was my biggest obsession when I was younger was Bendy and the ink machine. I love animated media and seeing an evil version of Bimbo the dog or Mickey Mouse was really novel. The story had me hooked until the end and was a really memorable ride.

When Poppy Playtime was released I was near the end of high school and I saw a lot of potential in it, it also helped that the game was pretty unnerving and Huggy's design sticked with me (Also I love that Huggy and Kissy instead of a roar they screech, for me far more scary than a generic RAAAAWR), but I admit that the controversies that the series got made me stray away from it for a while, specially the NFTs. However, at the current time I'm writing this I fell in love with this series.

For me the best part of this series is the story, the worldbuilding and the characters.

Objects having human souls inside is not revolutionary, I mean, Childs play did it long before Fnaf, but the execution of the Poppy Playtime experiments was great. The kids that were turned into toys aren't just a body count with no backstory, we actually know the hell that they went through and makes the impact of seeing these victims turned into monsters makes it have way more impact.

The worlbuilding is pretty good too, the way the factory facade disappears and turns into a cientific and industrial hellscape makes the world feel a lot more deep (no pun intended).

The characters are flat out iconic since day one. Huggy, the critters, the doctor, lily, the prototype, etc, all of them have excellent designs and even if some don't show up for too long they live an impact. They are well written and well executed characters that totally deserved theyre time in the spotlight.

The games itselfs I say they are solid, but the gameplay can lack in some areas. Chapter 4 for me was the worst, not only because it was broken on release, but some parts of it felt pretty boring, and being boring as a game is not good. I like chase scenes, but they should experiment more with other ways of facing these monsters like they did with Catnap's battle in chapter 3.

I feel like these issues with gameplay would have never happened if Poppy Playtime was a series of movies. Honestly this series can make for a great movie that can please the og fans while attracting new fans, but only if they are not handled like the Fnaf movies or the Mario Galaxy movie. The first fnaf movie wasnt all that bad but I would not say that it was good, fnaf 2 really sucked and the Mario Galaxy movie was really disappointing for me since it was just a bunch of references.

I think there are more Poppy Playtime fans than haters, but man, those haters sure are loud. Poppy Playtime is not a rippoff of Fnaf, is not the death of horror games and definitly is not at the level Garten of Banban. Garten of Banban is honestly everything wrong with Mascot horror: The puzzles suck, the story is nonsensical, the game is most of the time is really boring, is a never ending series of repetitive fetch quest, the voice acting is really unconvincing, is not scary in the slightest, and has character designs that are way worse than Concord (and Concord set the bar really high for bad character designs).

I brought Banban because is everything Poppy is not. Poppy Playtime is not a sloppy poorly made product that only wants to capitalize on the popularity of a subgenre of horror, Poppy Playtime has soul and care put into it and I really appreciate that.

If you don't like Poppy Playtime, thats fine, but if you say things like the game is just to take advantage of little kids or that is just food for Game theory then I will take those statements with a bit (a lot) of salt.

I was chating with a friend about chapter five and he said (without playing it) that some of the chase scenes were bad. I don't agreed with him that much since I was like "Man I really like a good chase scene" and for me chapter 5 delivered on that.

The Lily Lovebraids one was for me the worst due to unclear directions, and from a game design perspective is a bit questionable that the first minutes of chapter 5 was a chase scene were the player can die easily, other than that I loved the Prototype's final chase scene since I felt like I was on an action movie like Die Hard. The music of that chase, the atmosphere, the tension, the quick thinking, all of that made it excinting for me.

I would not mind the next chapter had a bit more focus in this "action movie" vibe, I know it would probably be divisive, but that could make chapter six even more distinct from the rest of modern mascot horror.

I think my favorite chase scene is from chapter one, the Huggy chase scene is amazing, but the second one would be the final one from chapter six.

I will stand by this: The Poppy series is not perfect by any means, but I just cannot hate it, I got so invested in the story and most of the games were pretty good gameplay wise (chapter four is really weak compared to the other in terms of gameplay). In the grand scheme of things I think most people found Poppy playtime to be good, I mean, most of the chapters had really good steam reception, is just that when they do something questionable it gets blown up way out of proportion.