What are your Fan Game/Pokémon Pet Peeves?

[Shgeldz]

Sometimes when you're playing a Fan Game, there are certain things you see again and again that really grind your gears, get your goat, burns your biscuit, ruffles your feathers, takes the jam outta your sandwich...

What are your fan game pet peeves? Do you agree with other peoples?

I'll start

• Typos
  • I know this is actually more of an error than a conscious choice, but it really takes me out of a mindset when I see one. In that same category...
• Region Language Differences
  • Color/Colour and whatnot. Knowing a game is European gets my goat.
• Obvious Self Inserts
  • C'mon...
• "Oh my Arceus"

 

[Dawn Bronze]

Something that kinda annoys me is when the mountain tiles you can walk on are the same of the ones you can't. I think this is because it was really strongly ingrained into me when I was first joined the fangame community and Relic was started, so it's just kinda lodged it's way into my brain and got stuck there at this point. Saying that though, I didn't really 100% stick to this rule when the mountain tiles are in caves for some reason, so I guess there I've broken free from the conditioning :P

Color/Colour and whatnot. Knowing a game is European gets my goat

So that annoys you? I don't really understand this, why does knowing a dev doesn't use American spelling get on your nerves?

 

[Shgeldz]

Something that kinda annoys me is when the mountain tiles you can walk on are the same of the ones you can't. I think this is because it was really strongly ingrained into me when I was first joined the fangame community and Relic was started, so it's just kinda lodged it's way into my brain and got stuck there at this point. Saying that though, I didn't really 100% stick to this rule when the mountain tiles are in caves for some reason, so I guess there I've broken free from the conditioning :P



So that annoys you? I don't really understand this, why does knowing a dev doesn't use American spelling get on your nerves?

I'm not saying it makes sense! It just pulls me out of the experience. It's not incorrect, just a pet peeve.

 

[Jephed]

Typos are a great turn off for me as well.
My English grammar is far from perfect, but I tend to look at my script (the actual text) first before releasing screenshots.

Something that I also kinda dislike is when tile styles are inconsistent. Having multiple different gen styles in your game. i.e. a mixture of gen 4 and 5 looks just off to me.

 

[TechSkylander1518]

Definitely agree with typos, it really churns my butter to have dialogue interrupted with weird errors like that. I want to be able to just read what someone's saying, not notice all the ways you can tell it wasn't proofread.

I don't think I have many things that sog my cereal, but one thing that does flatten my soda is to see a game that seems to skip over canon lore. Uranium had a mention of Reshiram and Zekrom in the Vinoville pastor's sermon that said Unovans believed that they created the world, and it really grinded my gears for the rest of that town. (get it because Sheldon's Tracton knows Gear Grind-*shot*) Which isn't to say that Uranium's lore was bad (everything went together really nicely, and the connection to Groundon and Heatran in one legend was awesome!) or that fangame creators should be expected to know everything about the canon games-just that if they're going to include references to something in canon, it'd be nice if it was accurate, y'know?

i was hoping to be funny but i don't think any of my sayings turned out very good

 

[Pixel Profligate]

Something that really, really bugs me is when a game takes its' story too seriously. Like, you can have a story, and it can be super deep and whatnot, but if you take it too seriously without allowing yourself to make fun of it or have lighthearted moments, then I just can't bring myself to keep playing.

 

[doof]

Something that I also kinda dislike is when tile styles are inconsistent. Having multiple different gen styles in your game. i.e. a mixture of gen 4 and 5 looks just off to me.

Same. Though I think Gen IV and Gen V mesh better (better, but not goodly) than Gen III and Gen IV, which I see the most often.

For me, I have a nice list because I get irked really easily:

- Anime characters (especially Ash) in the game, unless it's a game derived from the anime. For me, it usually hurts the game experience for me because in every game I've seen featuring Ash, the player character shows a lot of respect toward him. It ruins the immersion because I absolutely abhor that little twerp.

- Bad spelling and grammar. I mean, yeah, there are some people who are younger and some people might not be as fluent in their chosen language as they'd like to be, but it's one of those things that's literally a main part of the game. You see text everywhere, so one should at least try to make it readable and grammatically correct as they possibly can.

-Featuring the big YouTubers in games. I've seen it done a couple of times, and while it's not really a bad thing overall, I feel like sometimes it's taken too far and can potentially not fair well with people who aren't that particular YouTuber. I don't see anything wrong with having a random trainer based on a YouTuber, but when you make that YouTuber a main character it doesn't go over well for me. I saw a game not too long ago, and a smaller YouTuber (someone we all know and love here) was doing the playtesting by doing a playthrough. Toward the end the developer made a character based around that YouTuber, and it was just pure cringe from there.

- Bad plot/storylines. I think this one is pretty obvious, and I do usually try to give each game a decent attempt all the way through, but if I'm three towns in and either am bored by the story so far or completely clueless as to what it is, then I'm probably not going to make it until the end. And to add on to this, antagonists who have really crappy motivations don't sit well with me. I mean, at least attempt to explain why Team Lunar-spolsion wants to blow up the moon.

- Attempting to recruit team members in-game. Yes, I've seen it done before.

- People using official maps or splices thereof. I've played most of the Pokemon games a couple of times through. I know when I see Hoenn's second route merged with Viridian Forest.

- Completely unaltered EBS/regular battle UI. I think EBS is a great system. It's friggin' awesome. Same with the default, but with a smaller side of awesome. But when I can take an in-battle screenshot from six different games and not be able to tell which is which, there's a problem. It's possible to do. I'm a complete moron, and I was able to do it. At least make an effort. I mean, it's gotten to the part where I'm bored at HGSS for the battle UI now.

- Starter trios from official games. I've used them all before. It'd be nice to not have to pick between Charmander, Bulbasaur, and Squirtle all the time as usual. I mean there's like, what? 799 other Pokemon out there?

I could probably go on, but to be honest, I think that's a decent enough list.

 

[Aki]

Here I go, I already said some of this in Discord but it bothers me.

Peeve:When the fan game has gender options but the dev wrote all the dialogue using he/him pronouns. There's not a single conditional branch anywhere, every single textbox calls me a he/him/son/boy even when I picked the female option.

Solutions: 1) Devs, please learn to write dialogue without using pronouns. 2) Put in the effort to have alternate versions of the text with different pronouns. 3) Just don't have the option to pick alternate characters.

---

Peeve: When the game wants me to go to the professor's place to get my first pokemon but I have no clue how to get there and actually start playing the game.

Solutions: 1) If the starting town is bigger than the typical 3-4 buildings, make the Professor's lab stand out more than any other. 2) Have characters literally tell the player that the lab is to the east or wherever. It can be in a cutscene or just have NPCs around town have that as their dialogue before the player gets a pokemon. 3) Don't drop the player in a huge town with no direction before the real gameplay even starts. Pre-pokemon in a pokemon game isn't even a tutorial section for goodness' sake, unless you as the dev are using that time to deliberately setup some character and story, it feels like a complete waste of my time.

---

Peeve: Not changing the default dialogue. Usually in the intro screen, but also during like the starter choosing scene and things like that. If you as the dev don't care about the dialogue, I as the player super don't care, and low key hate you.

Solutions: 1) Look into your heart and find mercy you monster 2) Set that default text speed to maximum 3) Make the boring explanations optional. 4) If It can't be skipped, keep it short and simple.

 

[Hematite]

It really bothers me when developers misuse Arceus's role in the lore and, say, explain Legendaries with no connection to it as having been created by it (like saying why Arceus created the Legendary Birds when it isn't related to them at all in lore, or worse, talking about how the entire pantheon of Legendaries stemmed from Arceus).

Talking about how Arceus created Dialga, Palkia, Giratina and the Lake Trio is fine, and giving a new perspective on that can be neat, but canon suggests no relation between Arceus and the Weather Trio or the Kalos Legendaries or anything, and I ask that you keep it that way. Bonus points if you include Arceus in your explanation of your new Legendaries, whether out of perceived obligation or so that you can say you have ties to canon lore... because Arceus has never been used to justify the new mascot trio and you don't need to do that with yours.

I find it horrifically immersion-breaking to treat it like the omnipotent Judeo-Christian God and force it into everything when that's not what it's based on - it has never directly created anything but the Creation and Lake Trios in canon, and it's strongly implied that while it was the first Pokémon and was involved in the origin of dimensions and spirit, it did not individually create every other Legendary and every region and everything else.

(This honestly isn't even bad if you just use Arceus correctly. I don't want to hear about the fiftieth way the Legendary mascot Fakemon met Arceus or was punished by Arceus for playing god or was created by Arceus because these things are just using it for the convenience of having a "God stand-in" in your game - that acts like a monotheistic god - and not what Arceus is established to be like, but if you just... have Arceus in your story, as its own entity, and portraying it as it is in canon, then go right ahead!)

I mean, heck, Arceus is vaguely relevant to the history of my project, but I'm making an effort not to impose ideas of what another god might do - especially an omnipotent, divine entity in the pursuit of justice. Its role is also related to Sinnoh, not shoehorned into Galio, my own region. And... It's a Pokémon, not a god; a fallible creature, not an onmipotent being; the one that was there for the beginning the Pokémon universe, not the creator of every Legendary; and for goodness's sake, it does not take an active role in micromanaging the world, speaking telepathy and smiting those it dislikes. Some effort needs to be made to portray it accurately.

---

 

[Djaco75]

There are heaps of things that I really don't like it fan games, but I'll quickly mention a few.

• Spelling mistakes. I mean come on! How hard it is to make a little effort and just write properly.
• Badly altered sprites. For the sprites that are recoloured versions of other sprites, do them properly.
• Non-matching overworld sprites. Self-explanatory.
• Vs Sequences that are either: messy/don't have correct portraits/too long/pointless

 

[Dragonite]

Aw man, I was afk for the meat of the afternoon and all of the good ones have been said already \:

Things that bother me

[tabs]
[tab=Typos]
What the flying skitty are they teaching kids in school these days, anyway? I know you're not getting graded on how well you write a fan game, but really, "how's you're Pikachu?" "How is you are Pikachu?" ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)
[/tab]

[tab=Obvious Self Inserts]
I thought these were a riot when I was, like, fifteen years old. Nowadays if you want me to laugh at the fourth wall break, you have to actually do it well.[/tab]

[tab="Oh my Arceus"]
This is coming from someone who says "what the Skitty" and "for the love of Talos" on a regular basis. It just doesn't flow well. I mean, there are now like fifty canonical deities in Pokémon, at least inject a "holy Jirachi" or "I swear to Xerneas" or something once in a while.[/tab]

[tab=Mixing generation styles]
I'm not sure if I should give this a pass or be extra furious because the default Essentials kit does this (to an extent), too. For that matter, that's something I'm guilty of, too, but at least I have the sense to call it "programmer art" and theoretically intend to address it later.[/tab]

[tab="three-D battler sprites"]
Excuse me, I have to go and vomit.[/tab]

[tab=Items replacing HMs]
Yeah, I went there.[/tab]

[tab=Only you can save the world/You are the chosen one/Divine somethingoranother]
Just because my favorite, second favorite and third favorite games of all time do this doesn't mean that I want to see it in every single fan game, modding tool, word processor and operating system kernel that I ever use, ever. You seem Skyrim and Super Mario Galaxy are aware that they don't have the most shiny new original and exciting storylines every, and they make up for that fact by being Skyrim and Super Mario Galaxy. You are not dev teams of a hundred fifty people making Skyrim or Super Mario Galaxy. You are dev team of probably between one and five people making a fan game. If you had anything that exciting or original to mask a contrived storyline, you would not have space in your game for Pokémon.[/tab]

[tab=Anime characters in the game]
See what Sparta said. You are absolved if the anime you reference is named One Piece.[/tab]

[tab=Unwarranted swearing]
I get it. People swear in real life. I've been to high school. I shared a locker room with the football team. But don't ****ing throw around a **** **** four-letter word like it's **** and **** so that it's hard to ****ing read or maybe like your ****ing ******* mom would **** or ******** and disown you if she caught you playing the game at three AM on Saturday night.[/tab]

[tab=Dark-and-gritty storylines]
Pokémon Uncensored was an unnecessary black mark on, like, every fan game that's been made since before the industry crash in 1973.[/tab]

[tab=Pluralizing Pokémons]
For the last time, the plural of Pokémon is Pokémon, the plural of Dragonite is Dragonite and the next person who tries to convince me otherwise deserves to use nothing but Luvdisc for the rest of their video game-playing career. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Pokémon[/tab]

[/tabs]

Things that actually don't bother me

[tabs][tab=Canon starters]
If you use a different set of starters, great! If you don't . . . so? If I don't like your selection of starters, canon or otherwise, I'll throw it in the PC and go catch something else on Route 1.[/tab]

[tab=European language]
Pls.[/tab]

[tab=Stock assets/EBS/intro/whatever]
Maybe this would be more bothersome if I just flat-out played more games, but everyone has to start somewhere and it's not like the barrier for entry that I play your fan game is "being Pokémon Uranium" or anything. If you're trying to pass your game with stock assets and a save-the-world plot as the No Man's Sky of fan games that's different, but I somehow don't think that's the case for most people.[/tab]
[/tabs]

edited because tabs are amazing

 

[Mak]

• For no explainable reason I actually dislike when fangames use default overworld sprites for generic trainers, whether it be Gen 3 or 4.
  I mean, the only time I really care that much is when it's a game with Fakemon, where I feel like it really wouldn't be that much trouble to give the games a new set of generic trainers. I dunno. Maybe it just feels a little cheap to me.
• 3D Battlers... No thanks.
• Typos can be forgiven at times.
• Lag is something really difficult to avoid with how old XP is, but when it's noticeable, it detracts so much from the experience that it hurts.
• Story-wise there's nothing particular that really bothers me, because frankly even the stupidest of ideas can be done well if you can write well enough. But please, please at least try and make your characters stand out.
  I'm going to contradict myself right now and say I actually dislike when characters feel extremely one-note and don't react to things. One thing I like about having a wide variety of characters is that you can each have them do and say different things, and how they handle situations can be completely different. With rivals especially, I like to be able to get at least a subtle grip of their personality within their first encounter. I don't have to know their whole life story. Obviously, that's what character development is for.

 

[Darius_Oak]

I agree with everything Sparta said, starter gripe aside.

I also don't like when Legendaries speak directly (without an interpreter like N or Lillie) because of "telepathy."

I raise you Tapu Koko.

 

[Hematite]

Oh, shoot, right, I forgot about that! I guess that goes out the window, then. XP It still bothers me personally a little, but the "never happens in canon" argument doesn't apply any more, so whatever people want to do, haha.

 

[Taq]

@Hematite
What if the legendary was speaking in a different style like if it used sign language or showed Braille. Or a different language like Latin (it's considered dead yet it's still possible to be translated.------------------------@Hematite
What if the legendary was speaking in a different style like if it used sign language or showed Braille. Or a different language like Latin (it's considered dead yet it's still possible to be translated.

 

[Hematite]

Mm, I think signing is fine because Legendaries are frequently shown communicating in other ways (like how even the player can read Reshiram's/Zekrom's face to gather a rough "I meant for you to catch me!" and Lillie translates Nebby's movements to come to a meaning even when Nebby doesn't talk); it's just vocalizing a human language that bugs me. XP But as Darius pointed out, it's canon that some Legendaries can do that, so it's not like some rule against it! Just personal preference. Which is up to the developer, not me! :'D

(The example of Latin is another thing entirely, though: if you're using what you think is Latin, you should be extremely careful and consider looking up how tenses, conjugations and noun cases work rather than expecting a translator to be correct. Don't just use Google Translate - you really shouldn't be using another language in your game if you don't speak it, especially if you expect people to translate it back! I only understand a small amount and I'm certainly rusty, but I know some Latin and it really sticks out like a sore thumb when an otherwise well-written game includes what's supposed to be Latin and it's riddled with errors that the developer didn't know well enough to catch. You don't have to learn the whole language, but do at least a little research into what you want to say rather than using an automatic translator and expecting accurate results!)

 

[BIGJRA]

A general thing that is a pet peeve of mine besides all the other good ones you guys have mentioned is when puzzles aren't easier on repeated playthroughs!

I replay fangames for new challenges or to explore alternate storylines, mostly. It's frustrating therefore when a puzzle, especially when it's required for game completion is not easier! For instance, a puzzle where you have to say, move strength boulders around. In this example, it's not hard to believe that you could remember little nuances and tips from your first play through to move on to the next, saving you a little bit of time but still challenging you. What DOES bother me though, is something like a puzzle where you have to read tons of books in, say, a library for specific codes to advance. The first time you play the game this is very logical -- it can give you lore and as all puzzles do, makes you think, record notes, etc. But, when you have to play it again, you need to either find the file you stored all the codes in or trudge through all the text again, which is both time consuming and boring.

I have no idea what this is like from the developer's perspective but I tend to dread every puzzle like this on repeated playthroughs.

 

[Marin]

Writing proper latin is no easy shit, mark my words. I've had latin for three years and I think I've just about had half the grammer. As @Hematite mentioned, there's a lot of things you have to consider when writing latin, and resorting to translate is, especially for latin, likely to cause disaster.

 

[Radical Raptr]

Not much gets on my nerves, but little annoyances happen every now and then (a big one is using "oh my arceus")

For example, I have 2 co-workers who talk in baby talk - a high pitch baby like voice - when dealing with customers, and I hate it with a burning passion, maybe a little more than I should, but regardless, it pisses me off to no end.

another thing that irks me that is fan-game related, is when people don't have their OW's aligned. A lot of people, more than there should be, have misaligned overworlds in their projects!! and its super easy to catch, and even easier to fix!! but a lot of people don't and it bugs me...

 

[Mozart]

References to real world memes and mediums can be fine in small doses, but when you've got a barrage of HEY THIS IS A REFERENCE. THIS NPC ACTS LIKE THIS REAL CHARACTER GET IT. That gets a little obnoxious. Also not taking the opportunity to pokepun it and just doing the reference straight? Shameful.

Attitudes of "we know better than the mainstream games" expressed in fourth wall breaking or vague terms tend to bother me too. I would say characters talking about how they're playing red/blue but I think that's done in universe so???

Swearing and typos were already mentioned. Okay saying "damn" or "hell" sometimes is fine but you don't need to Shadow the Hedgehog at me.

For Pokemon specifically: Hoot Hoot and Noctowl aren't flying/psychic. This is never corrected in fan games either, HECK. (/s)