The removal of HMs was to the series’ detriment

[Ottservia]

So I’ve been replaying a bunch of Pokémon games lately and it’s been pretty fun trekking through these old regions again. Though going through these games now that I’m older and have developed a more critical mindset I’ve begun to appreciate an aspect of these games that I find are absent in the newer titles especially Sword and Shield. The sense of exploration in these games is actually really satisfying because of how each region is designed and HMs honestly play a big part of that. HMs provided a very natural way of locking these areas off to the player and provided incentive to backtrack and explore these areas for rare pokemon and items. For example in platinum, once you get surf, so many new areas open up that you can explore like the fuego iron works or the basements of some caves. These areas contain new and rare pokemon as well as new trainers to battle for experience not to mention hiding rare TMs for strong moves like flamethrower. This is present in every older game I’ve played. Once you get strength in hoenn. You can access to flamethrower(I think it’s flame charge in the remakes), a fire stone, and a new hidden base location. In johto once you get surf the entire basement of union cave becomes a huge new optional area to explore and you can access a rare pokemon like lapras. It incentives you to go back and explore these optional areas. And that can kind of region design is something I kind of miss in SWSH. There are no more places like union cave or meteor falls in these games. I realize SWSH is doing it’s own thing and all that but even so I can’t help but feel that sense of exploration is just gone now.

[Armchair General]

For me, it's kind of a mixed bag. Granted, some of the HMs were worth using, but around a third of them were taking up a space for something better.

 

Sun did it best by summoning dedicated monsters for HMs.

[Sooks]

HMs don’t need to be the things that function in that role though, anything can do it, as proven by Alola’s... pokemon you ride? Whatever those are called. We shouldn’t have to sacrifice a move slot as a means to progress.

[JimmyBeans]

I think the best middle ground was black and white which at least only had like 4 HM's. as much as I like gen4 8 forced moves in your party can be a bit excessive.

[Nym]

1 hour ago, Ottservia said:

So I’ve been replaying a bunch of Pokémon games lately and it’s been pretty fun trekking through these old regions again. Though going through these games now that I’m older and have developed a more critical mindset I’ve begun to appreciate an aspect of these games that I find are absent in the newer titles especially Sword and Shield. The sense of exploration in these games is actually really satisfying because of how each region is designed and HMs honestly play a big part of that. HMs provided a very natural way of locking these areas off to the player and provided incentive to backtrack and explore these areas for rare pokemon and items. For example in platinum, once you get surf, so many new areas open up that you can explore like the fuego iron works or the basements of some caves. These areas contain new and rare pokemon as well as new trainers to battle for experience not to mention hiding rare TMs for strong moves like flamethrower. This is present in every older game I’ve played. Once you get strength in hoenn. You can access to flamethrower(I think it’s flame charge in the remakes), a fire stone, and a new hidden base location. In johto once you get surf the entire basement of union cave becomes a huge new optional area to explore and you can access a rare pokemon like lapras. It incentives you to go back and explore these optional areas. And that can kind of region design is something I kind of miss in SWSH. There are no more places like union cave or meteor falls in these games. I realize SWSH is doing it’s own thing and all that but even so I can’t help but feel that sense of exploration is just gone now.

I disagree.

HM were proven to be obsolete in Sun and Moon. HM means you either have have to waste a move slot on each of your pokémon or have a HM slave, wasting a team member slot.

I remember clearly in Ruby and Alpha Sapphire when I couldn't access the Victory Road because I didn't have Strength and I brought no HM slave. This is bad design in my opinion, at least in later gens only optional explorations required HM.

Also, Surf is the only HM I consider good. Because it's actually a good move in battle. The others are useless or very niche like Rock Smash, Waterfall, Fly and Dive.

The reason for the serie's detriment is pretty simple to explain: Gamefreak lost its passion and is getting very lazy because they know they can get away with making as little effort as possible for each subsequent game. Despite the controversies and the many flaws surrounding Sword and Shield, it still sold extremely well like other Pokémon games, which only prove that GF is right to not makes changes  for the game... or evolve it ironically enough.

It's only going downhill from there for the serie, I can guarantee it.

Edited December 6, 2020 by Nym

[Lord_Brand]

Most HM moves are easily outclassed in battle (with the possible exceptions of Fly and Surf), they require to you use a Move Deleter to remove them (despite the fact they're, y'know, reusable and thus could be relearned at any time), and they force you to have Pokemon in your party who can use them (hence the development of "HM Slaves" like Bibarel to minimize the number of Pokemon with necessary HM moves in your party). HMs were clunky, annoying, and borderline useless. The only reason they were necessary is because of obstacles placed to justify them in the first place. Like, okay, so maybe swimming, flying, and pushing big boulders are cool things your Pokemon can do...but why sacrifice a move slot for it? Why can't my Machamp always push big, heavy boulders? Why can't my Lapras always take me for a cruise? Why can't my Pidgeot always fly me to any town I've already been to? And why the flying Farfetch'd do I need a Move Deleter to make my Pokemon forget a move that was taught to it by an HM that's reusable anyway!?

Pokemon interacting with the world around you is a neat idea, but HMs were a terrible execution of it, and the series only benefitted from removing them and making TMs reusable to begin with.

Edited December 6, 2020 by Lord_Brand

[vanguard333]

This isn't really about HMs; this is about exploration and map design. All that exploration can still be achieved without HMs. I agree that, over time, the series has had less and less exploration in it. I don't think it's because of HMs though; I think it's because of one thing in particular: rush. 

Look at the release dates for the first mainline games in each generation:

• Red & Blue: 1996
• Gold & Silver: 1999
• Ruby & Sapphire: 2002
• Diamond & Pearl: 2006
• Black & White: 2010
• X & Y: 2013
• Sun & Moon: 2016
• Sword & Shield: 2019

So it was 3 years between each Gameboy generation, increased to 4 years for the DS games, then went back down to three years for the 3DS games and stayed at 3 years for the Switch games. If anything, one would want to give the dev team an extra year for transitioning to new hardware (especially for going from something completely portable to a home console). I honestly think that the regions becoming increasingly linear and having less exploration is entirely to do with the dev team having to make essentially bigger and bigger games without getting the time they need, and the game's world takes a hit because it's not on the list of priorities.

[L3xandr3]

Ah, nostalgia. What a wonderful, wicked thing it can be.

Is losing HMs that bad? In some ways yes, in others no. Are 8 HMs excessive? Very much so. Do they provide good ways to prevent exploration past what is allowed at that point? Yes, I'd say. Should they not be forgetable by normal means? Hell no! But this is neither here, nor there, is it?

In my humble opinion, HMs should be used for one-off game progressions and optional areas. Waterfall in Hoenn, for example. You only have to use it to get to Evergrande. Past that, it's used for many optional areas around the region (Meteor Falls springs to mind).

 

But the biggest problem I see isn't related to HMs at all. It's that Game Freak is either getting in a hurry to get the games out, or are just plain lazy. I'm not about to argue it either way, as I've little research into the topic and just don't care enough about the series anymore to try and make a good point. Pokemon is a series I have a lot of nostalgia for, but I feel it has lost it's way. Thus (despite this fairly lengthy post), I just don't care enough to debate the topic. This is simply my opinion, and I know most probably disagree with it.

[Zanarkin]

You don't need to tie game exploration to pokemon movesets. There are many ways to tie exploration based on how far you are in the story or how experienced the in game character is. HMs aren't even necessary in giving your own pokemon an extra sense of utility.

For example, if you wanted your party pokemon to be able to open up exploration you could allow badges to just unlock the player character to be able to command or teach pokemon how to use their special attributes to help in map exploration. For example, you could say, use cut without it being taught to a pokemon by having said pokemon use its claws or something to cut a tree. This hardly needs to be attached to a move that must be learned and use up your limited moveset of 4.

Imagine your charmander using its tail to light up a cave. Or the bulbasaur line using razor leave to cut the small trees. It is dumb to think a Lapras needs to be taught how to surf in order for it to carry individuals across a body of water. None of the HM moves are things that need to be actually taught because there is already a myriad of moves that could in theory do the very same thing.

I struggle to see the need for moves that just get in the way. Restricting exploration with story progression is something that can be done more than one way.

Edited December 6, 2020 by Zanarkin

[Armchair General]

1 hour ago, vanguard333 said:

This isn't really about HMs; this is about exploration and map design. All that exploration can still be achieved without HMs. I agree that, over time, the series has had less and less exploration in it. I don't think it's because of HMs though; I think it's because of one thing in particular: rush. 

Look at the release dates for the first mainline games in each generation:

• Red & Blue: 1996
• Gold & Silver: 1999
• Ruby & Sapphire: 2002
• Diamond & Pearl: 2006
• Black & White: 2010
• X & Y: 2013
• Sun & Moon: 2016
• Sword & Shield: 2019

So it was 3 years between each Gameboy generation, increased to 4 years for the DS games, then went back down to three years for the 3DS games and stayed at 3 years for the Switch games. If anything, one would want to give the dev team an extra year for transitioning to new hardware (especially for going from something completely portable to a home console). I honestly think that the regions becoming increasingly linear and having less exploration is entirely to do with the dev team having to make essentially bigger and bigger games without getting the time they need, and the game's world takes a hit because it's not on the list of priorities.

You know that it takes around 3-5 years to make a game, right? Less if you're reusing the base mechanics and certain assets.

[Punished Dayni]

Honestly my preference would be pokemon that are eligible to use a HM move could then still use it outside of battle even if they weren''t taught the move for fighting. With Gens 7/8 making them TMs this isn't much of an issue to me. @Zanarkin puts it better and adds more to it.

This would complicate stuff like Nuzlockes, but I don't think that scene ranks high on their priorities anyway. Neither would be exploration using these kinds of moves (and arguably exploration in general even in Gen 7) on the basis of those same gens actually.

[Sooks]

2 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

If anything, one would want to give the dev team an extra year for transitioning to new hardware (especially for going from something completely portable to a home console). I honestly think that the regions becoming increasingly linear and having less exploration is entirely to do with the dev team having to make essentially bigger and bigger games without getting the time they need, and the game's world takes a hit because it's not on the list of priorities.

This isn’t even counting Pokemon Let’s Go.

[vanguard333]

1 hour ago, Armchair General said:

You know that it takes around 3-5 years to make a game, right? Less if you're reusing the base mechanics and certain assets.

I know how long it takes. I'm just saying that if they needed four years to make Diamond and Pearl, then another four years to make Black and White, and then used only three to make a game on a home console when they'd previously been making games for portable consoles, then they probably rushed it.

 

29 minutes ago, Sooks said:

This isn’t even counting Pokemon Let’s Go.

That's because I didn't count any of the remakes, though I probably should've.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I can't speak for Sword and Shield because I quit the series. But I enjoyed the Sun and Moon system a great deal while also keeping those moves within the game's code so they can still be a part of battles. I've played enough of those generations to know HMs were annoying in Gen 1 and got progressively worse from there, peaking in Diamond and Pearl. If I recall correctly, it's either MT coronet or Victory Road that requires a whopping 5 HMs (and Flash, which was a TM) just to get from the start to the finish, and those are not optional areas. Two HM slaves to carry everything you need, unless one of your team members is packing both surf and waterfall which nerfs their potential in battle. And even then, bidoof can't learn flash so somebody on your crew has to carry that as well. From Gen 5 onward they were clearly partitioning them out of the main experience and into the realm of just exploring side areas. If pokemon games innovated at the rate of other franchises, I wonder how quickly we would have seen the removal of HMs. If there's a case to be made for HMs in pokemon games, the series had failed repeatedly to make it, so I think it's safe to leave it behind.

[Interdimensional Observer]

2 hours ago, Armchair General said:

You know that it takes around 3-5 years to make a game, right? Less if you're reusing the base mechanics and certain assets.

If you aren't releasing games, you aren't making money. Does anyone tell a farmer "maybe you shouldn't harvest your corn this year"? The complaints of "Slow down with the releases! Make fewer, more quality games" has to accept this reality.

However, to counter your statement, it is worth remembering that GameFreak usually has something else they're working on in addition to the next Pokemon generation, so the next gen isn't receiving all the attention during those 3-4 years. This wouldn't be an issue, except GameFreak is a small company, they don't quite have the manpower expected for multiple teams working on multiple projects.

Although, Pokemon isn't entirely the biggest offender in this regard. Story of Seasons has been able to plop out a new game every two years since 08, which is probably too much farming simulation.

 

4 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

 I've played enough of those generations to know HMs were annoying in Gen 1 and got progressively worse from there, peaking in Diamond and Pearl. If I recall correctly, it's either MT coronet or Victory Road that requires a whopping 5 HMs (and Flash, which was a TM) just to get from the start to the finish, and those are not optional areas.

Bulbapedia says Victory Road. And agreed on it being annoying. Though I somehow still like Sinnoh.

 

---

I stopped Pokemon with Gen 5, so I don't know what they've replaced HMs with. Something Pokemon-related sounds nice, maybe those integrate those Ranger games into mainlines in a way? Although ordinary items would work too, why can't you use a flashlight/lantern for Flash, small inflatable hovercraft or foldable motored surfboard for Surf, or Nintendo's So Bad It's Good Power Glove for Strength and Rock Smash? Fly, I do not know what could replace it.

[Punished Dayni]

4 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I stopped Pokemon with Gen 5, so I don't know what they've replaced HMs with. Something Pokemon-related sounds nice, maybe those integrate those Ranger games into mainlines in a way? Although ordinary items would work too, why can't you use a flashlight/lantern for Flash, small inflatable hovercraft or foldable motored surfboard for Surf, or Nintendo's So Bad It's Good Power Glove for Strength and Rock Smash? Fly, I do not know what could replace it.

They did do that in Gen 7, where you can summon a pokemon to ride on (aka Catch a Ride but it's Tauros instead of a car) and some of them have different functions (Lapras surfing but Sharpedo can also break rocks in the water), though as for Gen 8 as far as I know the bike can get new functions like riding over water (to clarify, I'm also one of those who quit after Gen 7) and I don't know about any pokemon being used beyond there being a flying taxi service in those games.

[Venger_06]

Disagree, Sun and Moon's Poké Ride is vastly superior.

[vanguard333]

5 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

If you aren't releasing games, you aren't making money. Does anyone tell a farmer "maybe you shouldn't harvest your corn this year"? The complaints of "Slow down with the releases! Make fewer, more quality games" has to accept this reality.

However, to counter your statement, it is worth remembering that GameFreak usually has something else they're working on in addition to the next Pokemon generation, so the next gen isn't receiving all the attention during those 3-4 years. This wouldn't be an issue, except GameFreak is a small company, they don't quite have the manpower expected for multiple teams working on multiple projects.

My argument wasn't to slow down the releases. My argument was that the time between releases shrank at the start of the 3DS era, despite there being just as many remakes and other things Game Freak was working on, and didn't go back up for a new game on the Switch. If they can't slow it down, that's fine as long as they have a way of getting around it so they don't have to rush, and based on the reviews I've seen of Sword and Shield, they either did not have a way around it or the workarounds that were in place weren't enough.

I agree with your point about Game Freak having too much on their plate; 2019 saw them releasing both Pokémon Sword & Shield and Little Town Hero, and between X & Y and Sun & Moon was both Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire and Tembo the Badass Elephant.

[Sooks]

3 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

That's because I didn't count any of the remakes, though I probably should've.

Yep, it is extra work on game freak’s part, even if it (presumably) takes less work to remake a game than make a new one.

[Lightcosmo]

I think it's mostly cause people dont like the inconvenience of having to get rid of good attacks, for crap like cut. (Lol) waste of time and an attack slot just creates artificial difficulty, really.

That and people nowadays dont have the patience to swap pokemon In and out of a box, I guess. Not trying to jab anyone, just my opinion/observation.

Not gonn lie, things like the strength puzzles were neat, when applied of course. But HM's like cut (lol) need to be more useful in battle, for them to warrant existing at all, imo.

[Florete]

Disagree. If we need HMs, Black and White handled it best; only a few core HMs, and never needed on the story's main path, only for extra content. Diamond and Pearl having so many HMs and so much reliance on them is part of why I think they're the worst Pokemon games. Ride Pokemon in Sun and Moon are also good, they do what HMs do without forcing the player to waste move slots or have dedicated HM slaves.

[Morgan--Grandmaster]

But now I can have greater team flexibility and don't have to worry near as often about dungeon-crawling without having to trawl all the way back and lament my wasted time, then go all the way back to where I was with one less cool Pokemon on my team. Then, I have to grind levels for the missing party member...etc.

Point I'm trying to make is that I've had a vast QoL improvement.

Edited December 7, 2020 by Morgan--Grandmaster
TL;DR

[Lightcosmo]

Gyrados was best HM slave in G/S/C anyways. It could learn all the necessary ones but cut, which is pretty darn good. Xd also, if you consider that the P/SA split was bugged in that era, Waterfall is actually one of the better Water type attacks of that time. Being outclassed by Surf, Hydro Pump, and that's it, I think?

[Zapp Branniglenn]

7 hours ago, lightcosmo said:

Gyrados was best HM slave in G/S/C anyways. It could learn all the necessary ones but cut, which is pretty darn good. Xd also, if you consider that the P/SA split was bugged in that era, Waterfall is actually one of the better Water type attacks of that time. Being outclassed by Surf, Hydro Pump, and that's it, I think?

Waterfall did not cause flinching in Gen 2, and Surf had 15 more base power with the same PP. It was the strictly worse move until Gen 4. Perhaps debatably a side-grade in Gen 3's doubles and the Colosseum games, since in that generation only, moves that hit both opponents like Surf had their power cut in half, rather than reduced to 75%. But what really brought Waterfall up to speed was the physical special split and the addition of flinching, both in Gen 4.

Gen 1's HM loadout was the best. All of those moves except Cut are either good (Flash, Strength) to top of the line for their respective types (surf, Fly). You could even argue Strength is top of the line since the only strictly better moves are Slash, Body Slam, debatably Hyper Beam and Double Edge. And since Gen 1 movepools were so small compared to later games, four move slots was typically more than enough, even in competitive play, that being bogged down by an HM you can't delete isn't much of a deal breaker.

[Lightcosmo]

2 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

Waterfall did not cause flinching in Gen 2, and Surf had 15 more base power with the same PP. It was the strictly worse move until Gen 4. Perhaps debatably a side-grade in Gen 3's doubles and the Colosseum games, since in that generation only, moves that hit both opponents like Surf had their power cut in half, rather than reduced to 75%. But what really brought Waterfall up to speed was the physical special split and the addition of flinching, both in Gen 4.

I wasnt saying it was great or anything, just decent for water type standards in Gen II, was all. Sure they made it better, but it wasnt like Cut levels of god awful, thate for sure.