The negative aspects of this HC for me were:
- The obtainment of the sweets. Having them purchasable for Poké makes them very accessible, but also misses out on a new Item for the market that would have been heavily sought after In my opinion. The economy Is something contributing to the downfall of the game so I personally believe opportunities like this should be taken more often. I have no Idea If they’re In the end boxes because of
- the Underpass. I’m actually a fan of having to do one dungeon to unlock another. But I don’t see a good reason to need to do It twice, especially when you’re encouraged to grind either for shinies or currency. Story-wise It makes sense obviously, but I can’t be bothered to care about most of PMU’s stories as they are all mostly throwaway and don’t tie Into anything else
- When new mons are released could their exclusive Abilities and moves work beforehand? Mostly looking at Galar Ponyta, but for many mons their Ability will not work until months after their release, which may deter people from actually using them In some cases
- Not exclusive to this Holiday Cave but It Is still upsetting that new collectibles are Introduced year by year and I am running out of storage for them at this point. MMOs and games which you need to always have certain resources like revs by nature cause people to want to hoard. It Is part of the fun for some people, which games are generally meant to be. I’m still
copinghoping storage stacking Is something that will be considered one day
Some of these Issues or their underlying ones do *have* solutions but would simply require "too much work
For example a very good way to explain mechanics like the stairs and generally all of them Is something every game to ever exist does: tutorial pop ups. You know, like these
Also I could be wrong but I think legacy moves could be manually Implemented with enough time. It would basically require another table In the database for the moves Pokemon cannot get anymore. With PokeAPI, you can easily get the moves of a certain Generation for any Pokemon
From the perspective of someone super de duper burnt out and also generally putting my time Into other things which matter more, HCs and really most dungeons, feel too long. I don’t understand why a lot of dungeons have to be 50-60 floors. If you have the energy to grind that’s great. I don’t though. Not anymore
Like, as I mentioned Underpass you have to beat twice so that’s 80 floors of stuff that at least I didn’t want as I figure most people would rather do the main dungeon If they’re looking for rewards or currency. A good handful of the best HC mons get Agility or the like, which Is great. Even with It runs just…take so long as even then you have to be checking every floor too whether for currency or for experience. Dungeon length Is not an Issue when you’re just bolting for the stairs and Is why for example, Hallowed Well was so fun. It was 99 floors but there also wasn’t a point In leveling, so the strat was to just run for your life and see If you made It. But you can not do this In every other HC dungeon
Yes I know, no one forces anyone to do HC and whatever. That doesn’t mean missing out doesn’t feel bad since that Is simply how the human mind tends to function. I didn’t run this year’s Easter a single time and missed out on two of my favorites who I made the portraits for. No game has to cater to my depression lol but that’s just my point of view.
Moving on
Positive aspects:
- Very good hub mapping
- Alcremie. It’s Incredible that for once effort was put In to do something and as a result we got a Pokemon most people probably didn’t think we’d be getting any time soon
- The mushroom thing Is Interesting. I don’t see a need to give more than one as HC Is more than doable even If you don’t get all the moves you want
- Using recurring characters/NPCs Is good
- Underpass wasn’t a bad Idea, just questionable execution I guess
I don’t think this HC Is objectively bad at all, as a lot of effort was put In to make It stand out and try to address feedback
Other stuff:
Something that I think would be helpful to Introduce Is only being able to buy X amount of an Item In a shop rather than Infinite. This Is something else that certain game does. This would mean Legacy Tokens could have a lower price as every player would only be able to buy It a certain amount of times anyway
Basically just having Lum Berries or any similar Item would have worked as they can heal sealed moves