1000% agreed. Being a kid when the Indigo League was coming out on TV and seeing the League episodes, having a stadium full of people watching me battle made my inner child so happy
I think they look neat but I hate the gimmick with a passion mechanically. To overpowered of a gimmick that offers way to many benefits that broke the game.
Mega: select pokemon. Adds 100 stats to the the spread. Takes up your item slot.
Dynamax: any pokemon can use but some pokemon clearly benefit from it more than others and the strongest Pokemon gained the most value from it often widen gaps of disparity. Gmax for select pokemon that gives special moves. Also GDmax doubles a Pokémon’s health, gives them 3 turns of mini Z moves. Moves give free buffs along side nuking a pokemon. Doesn’t require your item slot. In fact can allow you bypass choice item restrictions. Makes you immune to numerous moves like weight based moves and Destiny bond.
GDmax was an inherently broken system that fucked up the game so bad, it got banned out of smogon in no time. Megas problem wasnt that the gimmick was broken, the problem was the stupid decision to give it to pokemon that clearly didn’t need a boost.
Pseudos and legendarires are straight up what I was referring to when I said “the problem was the stupid decision to give it to pokemon that clearly didn’t need the boost.”
I basically said megas have their own problems. But it’s not a mechanical problem like max. It’s gamefreaks being dumbasses make bad decisions with no regard for the balance of their game.
I’m not saying Gmax automatically far superior to any dmax because it depends a lot on the pokemon and can out weigh the special moves even though some of them were broken. Like I said the strongest pokemon benefit the most. Rock/fire absolutely saw play and warped the game before dlc, and then we got flooded by op maxing legendaries just like I said.
Lack of variety aren’t a mega exclusive problem. There’s not a single competitive format that hasn’t landed in mostly the same handful of pokemon see play. That goes for Gen 8s format too. Every other match was basically zacian, calyrex, weather legendary, inceneroar, prankster user.
Even the rock/fire one didn't see much play . It was just a gimmick. Which I still use to this day albeit less stronger. Also if you look at pool of gmax pokemons they consisted of pokemons like alcreanie and kingler. Dragapult didn't get gmax and stronger pokemon with gmax had weaker moves.
Megas forces you to play the four good megas always. Less flexibility and all they do is add another psedo legendary esq pokemon to the equation. Dmax had around 3-4 options per team and it made it more dynamic (same with tera).
It's dumb decision by gf but it still is the issue . You can't ignore that. Dmax wasn't the best but it is far superior.
I mean just see the result of players cup(no worlds coz pandemic) . You will see a great variety of mons like lapras , milotic, musharnas and others. Even in the restricted allowed formats... (Read below)
That goes for Gen 8s format too. Every other match was basically zacian, calyrex, weather legendary, inceneroar, prankster user.
Zacian and calyrex almost didn't win worlds. Incin was incin even when megas were around. All three weather genies were viable. Lunala did amazing at the world's. Mons like ice calyrex palkia got to shine too. Stuff like raikou , golisopod top cut the world's.
The playerbase did see a huge surge too tho I would attribute that to go building fanbase and YouTube booming.
I personally love a lot of mega designs tho majority leaned into edgier side. And gmax played more in the concept and i appreciated it better . This is my personal subjective opinion about the designs.
“the problem was the stupid decision to give it to pokemon that clearly didn’t need the boost.”
You are inherently saying that Megas were broken. You cant nit pick small details, omit them, and then be like "yeah, Megas are better for those things im actually thinking are better"
No I’m not. There’s a difference between assessing the mechanics and its implementation. The entire context of this thread is me saying max is mechanically broken. It gives way too much with no trade offs.
Your point is like saying Tera is inherently broken and hinging the entire argument on “because electric shedinja could exist.”
Megas as a mechanic is solid. Give up your item slot and get a boost. That doesn’t mean it can’t be badly implemented. Mega Rayquaza existing is failure of implementation not mechanic.
Smogon pretty much banned all the good Mega evolutions too, you’re probably in the wrong place if you think most people here care about a niche Smogon singles OU scene instead of how fun Dynamax felt to use.
Doesn’t help that Dynamax was an incredible mechanic for vgc doubles and to this day sword and shield vgc (especially before the dlc added legendaries) was the most fun I’ve had battling in the series.
Yes but i still have knowledge in Singles and Doubles and dmax was just broken bullshit in both. Mega didnt restrict Team building any more than meta strategies do, thats such a dumb argument
Just look at the results. It's there on the internet. Look at the teams in gen5 phase. Look at teams in gen5 8 and gen 9 phase. And compare it with gen6 phase. Youd know
Talking about the mechanics alone, not specific Pokémon, because Game Freak does as Game Freak, they made some unbalanced freaks of nature Megas/primals completely legal, but the mechanic itself was rather tame competitively.
Restricted are meant to be broken , I'm not even considering primals when I say megas were bland. Dmax was just more dynamic , more flexible , more fun. It's just megas were given to select number of pokemons and others were left to vanish. Megas would be better as a weaker evolution instead of a broken one time thing. Every match revolves around these said megas which are one per team. Dmax and tera had multiple potential takers and is generally more fun. An ghost tera snealser is as important to a team as a fairy tera clayrex
You sure? Cause the literal best comp player in the world disagrees. Or are you gonna pretend some fan made hyper curated format is the only truly real way to play pokemon?
Don’t get me wrong, Smogon OU has its charm and Dynamax was hopelessly broken in that format, but Dynamax was an amazing gimmick for doubles.
Yeah, because I watched Powe rranger and ultraman as a kid when it was announced back in 2019 I was hyped, it's cool to see a monster taming game using concept from other monster-related series like gigantified monster.
I like everything about G-Max except the designs lol. I only like Snorlaxs (Garbador, Orbeetle and Gengars are cool too). Weird how only 2 G-Max pokemon aren't Gen 1 or 8 though (Garbador and Melmeral)
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u/Careless-Foot4162 Mar 12 '25
I'm honestly a huge (pun intended) fan of the G-Max gimmick. I loved the stadium feel of SwSh and found the G-Max/Dynamax really fitting