How Pokémon Became a Logistical Nightmare of Design

Pokemon.
Twitter: / superfoxcade
Patreon: / foxcade
Thanks to Sylphy for the Pikira drawing
/ syl_phy
Thanks to Nintendo Unity ( / nintenunity ) and Mixeli ( / elimanene ) for the extra footage
Chapters:
1. Intro - 0:00
2. Scale of the Problem - 2:38
3. Building of an Empire and Short Sighted Escalation - 10:56
4. The Struggles of Scope vs Polish - 17:57
5. Gameplay Stagnation - 27:56
6. It’s All Capitalism Baby - 35:44

[@jotapeguarnieri]

"It's not like GameFreak and its parent company delivered some self-inflicted wounds?" I think the term you're looking for is "hurt itself in its confusion", my dude.

[@giovannyveliz2516]

LOL

[@fullmetaltheorist]

Game Freak hurt itself in its confusion.

[@Idontwantahandle11]

Haha

[@poisonedyoyo]

At least Gamefreak is giving people a stupid open world game they claim to want but when it's actually here they'll probably act like they never wanted it in the first place. Just like people griped at SWSH for having evolutions of older Pokemon but no Megas, even though back when egs were first introduced, THOSE SAME PEOPLE barfed at Megas are were so upsetthat GAmefreak didn't give older Pokemon new evolutions. Granted, there were some people who still seemed to want this when Gen Seven came out, they were baffled that Drampa wasn't a Dunsparce evolution, but I dunno where they disappeared to in the three years between 2016 and 2019. Personally,, people can have whatever fun they want with a Pokemon game that serves no purpose other than to fulfill fantasies that people will claim they never had even though they whined about wnating it for years, BUT it bugs me that The Pokemon Company has chosen to bastardize Sinnoh in games released two months apart. Still, at least I can avoid getting a Switch, the only good games on it I know of are SWSH, Fire Emble: Three Houses, and Ni No Kuni. There are probably others, but they certainly don't get mentioned enough if they exist.

[@Agostoic]

It's super effective! Lol

[@smerfjr9191]

just a quick note. despite the total staff of sword/shield (while they were being developed) was close to 1000 people, the majority of it was translators and marketing teams. The actual development team was around 200 people.

[@akiradkcn]

Sad

[@avatarwarmech]

Do you have a source for this information

[@barraskewda333]

of course it's marketing teams. of course

[@nullpoint3346]

@@barraskewda333 They don't even need them, why the hell are they wasting resources on them?

[@DanielPereira-ey9nt]

I heard Masuda likes to keep his team as small as possible to avoid miscommunication

[@Gahanun]

I am a technical artist and something that always baffled me is how they haven't yet implemented some kind of procedural animation system. This would solve their scalability issue. Lots of pokemon have very similar body types (bird, dog, snake, etc.) you could create several types of move animations based on different personalities and then blend between them to create a unique feeling one for each individual pokemon even. I do this in my own game and it took me like an afternoon to put together.

[@thomaslecomte1570]

Hey, is there a place where we can check out your games?

[@barnabasmadai2241]

Lots of pokemons having similar appearances is misleading. The animations have to be similar to prev generations of animations for the same pokemon. Making a procedurally generated system that works... and also works very similarly to prev generations of animations will take way too much time.

[@d4n13lr0x]

I imagine if you're able to somehow spearhead a prototype of this and present it to GameFreak/Pokemon company, you're going to make a lot of money.

[@thomaslecomte1570]

@@d4n13lr0x provided they listen to you, which isn’t a given sadly

[@RTU130]

Yui

[@RycoreXIII]

For me I understand the limitations, what bothers me is the things that should be easy, like when a Pokemon has a kicking animation but doesn't use it in an attack labeled kick, something that happens quite often. I'm fine with a game having to forgo polish for scale but it's when they can't even recycle animations properly that I raise an eyebrow.

[@Araneus21]

'kick, punch, it's all in the mind !"

[@Reidemptionv1]

While yes it’s “easy” to do the correct animation based on the attack, it also takes lots of time creating that animation for every single Pokémon.

[@theflamingphoenix9148]

​@@Reidemptionv1 That's not the problem the person has. They're saying that the pokemon has a kick animation but doesn't use it with a move labeled kick.

[@dinohunter6450]

​@@Reidemptionv1in this situation the kick animation already exists for a specific Pokemon, but that Pokemon uses something completely different... even though the animation already exists.

[@phorchybug3286]

Repeat process for hundreds upon hundreds of brand new dudes.

[@IVeNoMII]

To me it's pretty undeniable that they have just been coasting on their success for at least 10 years now. I'm not mad they didn't put every pokemon in the new games I'm mad they said they couldn't because of the new higher quality animations they are using..but they just reused animations from the Nintendo DS games.

[@chinoborrego4828]

THIS! I'm mad because they said they were gonna make better animations and 3d models, and they're the SAME as 3DS games

[@borby4584]

Agreed. They haven’t tried since Black and White 2 XY almost felt like it had effort, but it needed more time in the oven, and pokemon Z to really shine. It’s like what’d happen if Gen 4 was only Diamond and Pearl, without Platinum

[@Tustin2121]

Did they actually say "they couldn't because of the new higher quality animations they are using"? Because I honestly don't remember anything about specifically animations in their initial announcement, and I took it more that they wanted to try and polish what they had before the release deadline. Is this animation thing an internet Mandela-ism?

[@Tustin2121]

@@chavaspada - Okay, so the reason they gave was about pokemon models then... and not animations like everyone on the internet keeps talking about...?

[@chavaspada]

@@Tustin2121 They started backtracking and saying it was about animations when the fans confirmed they reused the models.

[@Exilis]

It's not "developers lazy", it's "shareholders greedy".

[@umbaupause]

...Honestly, some of it does seem to be "fans unreasonable" though.

[@tankissed]

@@umbaupause that too

[@Ramsey276one]

Why not BOTH??

[@guy-sl3kr]

@@Ramsey276one Since when are game developers lazy? The industry is known for insane crunch times that regularly happen on pretty much every major release. If anything, they're overworked

[@costby1105]

@@guy-sl3kr Why I never call developers lazy.

[@rockfan243]

The swapping moved on the fly from a move pool was incorporated in Ledgens Arceus and it was BRILLIANT. It could also be a way to bring back the HM puzzles without the draw backs like being stuck with a useless move in battle or a useless team member. It would also keep the team band that is a big selling point versus the ride pokemon that are just tools.

[@stephenfiler3204]

Pokemon Legends Arceus is the closest we have come to perfection in the series so far.

[@-eight-]

Agreed, Arceus has my whole heart

[@anushbhattarai8849]

A lot of Pokemon's issues can be addressed simply by gamefreak dividing its projects and taking the time necessary to build a proper game. Look at legends arceus. That game is a breath of fresh air but still needs time to be polished. Game freak needs to be able to give time to develop these projects and bring small dlc's to these games which make them feel fresh for 3-4 years. They can then develop their mainline games to be released every two years.

[@user-ds8rj2vc4v]

Personally, I'd want for them to scale up production for their mainline title to be on-parr with something like Breath of the Wild. Release the new big Pokemon Generation game every 3 years or so. That would give them a lot more time to really make improvements and feel like a generational improvement. Then to fill the gap with a combination of things from external studios that they outsource work to. -Pokemon Go games (like Eevee/Pikachu) -Pokemon remakes (like Shining Pearl etc) -Other Pokemon franchises (like Pokemon Ranger, Mystery Dungeon, Stadium, Colosseum etc). -Pokemon collections of older games (Gen 1 collection, Gen 2, Gen 3 etc).

[@kiriki4558]

3 years would not be enough time to make a breath of the wild copycat

[@prismavoid3764]

Three-year dev cycles are what GameFreak already uses - XY in 2013, Sun & Moon in 2016, Sword and Shield in 2019, Scarlet and Violet in 2022. Third versions and remakes like ORAS and Ultra SM are developed by smaller teams in GF and reuse code + assets from their source games, so they take a tiny fraction of the effort that the new generational releases do. A game that's on par with Breath of the Wild would take closer to six or even more years to implement - BotW itself took five years to develop with a massive team and multiple support studios pitching in, and a Pokemon game of similar scope would take way longer because of all the creatures in the game.

[@----x-----]

Honestly I wish they'd just split into 2 teams at this point, one team making 2D sprite based traditional games like GEN 5, Pokemon at its best and another team doing higher budget and riskier games like Arceus, given a chance to experiment more, take longer development time and innovate

[@tsuki3752]

@@prismavoid3764 right? the only game that didn't take 3 years to make was black and white, since d&p came out in 2006 and b&w came out in 2010. i think pokemon would benefit from a 4 year wait between mainline games, i kinda just want them to focus more on character and story writing but i feel like everyone wants different things from the company, so ig i may or may not get that lol

[@socksinsoda9517]

"what's this? Pokemon Franchise is evolving!" Game freak: *mashes B button*

[@justinr.507]

Nah just use a everstone

[@planetomega38]

Legends Arceus???

[@thomasgeschke9553]

@@planetomega38 Hope for the best, expect the worst. I really want Arceus to be a good game, but I don't trust Game Freak to put out a polished product anymore.

[@planetomega38]

@Indie Plex and still looks radically different from anything pokemon has ever produced before

[@planetomega38]

@Indie Plex have you been paying attention to what's been announced at all? We know quite a lot

[@CamHennings]

Idk what you mean, Wailord using Darkest Lariat is a spectacle of 3D model animation at its finest

[@robertlupa8273]

*Dankest Lariat

[@GoldPrince2468]

I just started the video. I hope I see it. EDIT: Nice.

[@echonoir_]

@@GoldPrince2468 timestamp?

[@GoldPrince2468]

@@echonoir_ Very early. Let's say about... 1:15 ? EDIT: 1:42 I was kinda off.

[@eclipsesoluna3453]

That's Flying Press tho

[@Golemoid]

The video is just 2 years old but it's already like 3 games behind, that's crazy.

[@waluigiisthebest2802]

Now scarlet and violet has a huge scope, but zero polish. And since it is still successful, this problem is just gonna get worse.

[@TuLibertadTePertenece]

Exactly, because the real problem is that salles won't stop, it's a money making machine, when people stop buying they will need to make money with actual work.

[@willowbarrelmaker8269]

Honestly, I don’t know how true that is. Not to jerk off Nintendo, but they’re a company that seems intent on having good public relations/image if nothing else. They do tend to listen to audience outcry/feedback, at least more than many other companies.

[@EnigmaticGentleman]

@@TuLibertadTePerteneceAh yes, a very original and productive argument. And its not like I don't even agree with it, but historically saying the solution is something that is not gonna happen anytime soon almost always contributes to the problem.

[@NeverBetter23]

​@@willowbarrelmaker8269The thing is, Game freak isn't Nintendo, nor is TPC. Nintendo has powers in those rooms, but ultimately Pokemon is its own cosmic entity that Nintendo itself would rather leave to its own devices. The real problem is TPC itself, as games take a lot of time to make and they're put on short schedules. Before a current Pokemon game has had any time to be really appreciated, they're deep into production on the next. And that's cause they have to keep up with demand from TPC, which constantly wants to push new designs and merch out.

[@m3gapixel878]

@@TuLibertadTePertenece How will pokémon improove without a budget? Are you telling me that with less money, game freak would make a better game?

[@VolatileViolet]

Most people didn't complain about the National Dex being gone - they complained because Game Freak's reasoning was in favor of better animations, which was a straight-up lie.

[@pinstripecool34]

Facts

[@djroscurro9859]

This. This was the only reason I was mad about it

[@reginlief1]

For the most part. I still want the national dex back, but I can handle not having it. Telling me it’s for the sake of “animations” is just a slap in my face though.

[@cakeisyummy5755]

Facts!!!!

[@Tustin2121]

Bullshit. There was a literal massive poll on the Pokemon subreddit about how “they can’t take away the national dex, every pokemon is someone’s favorite”. The hashtag was “BringBackNatDex”. There was nothing f*cking else anyone was talking about aside from “they got rid of the Nat Dex for [insert out of context image or bullshit uninformed hot take here]”.

[@bookbagfox]

Something I'd really like to see from these games isn't even so much a direct change in mechanics so much as actually using the mechanics they already have more effectively. You don't even need to touch status moves, defensive moves, moves that swap out your Pokémon on use, etc. until battle tower or multiplayer. It'd be great to see the game gradually teach its mechanics through challenges throughout the game instead of only needing you to know 'hit the super effective button'.

[@TheEeveeKing]

The only game that was requiring you to use other strats outside the basic attacks was the Colosseum games.

[@hi-i-am-atan]

@@EresirThe1st i feel like taking out the main way pokemon learn new moves would have far greater consequences than you predict

[@Lunarose17]

The fookin gyms could do this very easily. Literally we don’t need 8/8 gyms about type match ups; we really don’t. We can have 1 or 2 but have the rest focus on different aspects such as status moves, stat boosting moves, weather/terrain, and other strats. Or even just focusing gyms around specific type of Pokemon like how Steven’s team is based off rock/ground/steel types. Just anything but the stupid type gym system, it’s so boring

[@limitamationsstudio8916]

@@Lunarose17 I kinda like that idea

[@shawnasiumyt7051]

@Fen and @Jeany Rosario Yes! While there may be some issues that might come up, these are the things I think would be the best for the series from a gameplay stand point.

[@DarkIceKrabby]

I was always expecting something like Dexit to happen to Pokemon. I was just frustrated that Game Freak forced it, lied about why they did it, it was absolutely not for better models/animations, and I didn't really see anything in the game that was worth loss in all those Pokemon.

[@bubalackgaming8892]

I'd be perfectly fine with us losing a bunch of Pokemon if the games were actually good enough to make up for it, but Sword and Shield were... Not that.

[@Talkin-fr0g]

@@bubalackgaming8892 you say that but they were the second best selling Pokémon games- only beat by the OG red, blue and green games

[@okagron]

@@Talkin-fr0g And that's a bad thing because it shouldn't have sold nowhere near as much. Sword and Shield are completely souless, half assed, clearly made on a tiny budget and rushed out the door. And the populace decided to reward them for their lack of trying.

[@mauricioalvarezpino1818]

@@Talkin-fr0g sales=/=quality

[@derrickmiles5240]

​@@Talkin-fr0gThe problem is that as of now the games are sitting at sub 5.0 user score on metacritic. Meaning future titles may be impacted. With regular release titles like pokemon, people don't bother looking up reviews, they just buy it and play it. Meaning a lot of people bought a stinker without realizing it. This is an unsustainable business practice. If they can't keep up the quality, sales will drop off going forward.

[@MikeOcksmallClips]

As a child it seemed to me unsustainable to make 100 new characters every generation which was every 5 years or so. It seemed like insane work.

[@flameshana9]

Thank you for saying it. Most people seem to gloss over it. I'd be happy with less Pokemon per game if that extra development time now went into making them look and fight better.

[@ShrewdPlacebo98]

That seems like a lot of work?

[@deifiedtitan]

@@ShrewdPlacebo98it is. Coming up with 100 isn’t too hard with a team, but “making” 100 is massive. There’s R&D, then the hundreds of concepts that never get any further, then asset creation for the 100 you’re making, then animating them all for each instance one is required (walk, run, attack 1, attack 2, damage, dead, etc), then all the extra work you don’t think about like icons, balancing, location, CPU tendency, etc. Huge leap from being a concept artist generating one evolutionary line that a few thousand people online like compared to making a game-complete pokemon. It’s more than people think. I’d also add that this is how Gamefreak chooses to make their money and I personally don’t think they’re particularly good at it.

[@armyofninjas9055]

They're the most profitable media franchise in history. That isn't a lot of work. Indie games have done it.

[@deifiedtitan]

@@armyofninjas9055 your statements have no relation to each other. It’s like saying running a marathon isn’t hard for a professional because amateurs do it too. You’re right, and it’s hard for both of them. Pokemon Company & Gamefreak 100% need to do a better job of making their games. SwSh was boring and SV are, frankly, a mess. That so much of their work ‘appears’ lazy is indicative that it simply isn’t good enough. However saying their job isn’t hard because someone else with far less to balance and insanely less work to do behind the scenes is doing something superficially similar is asinine.

[@SunsetTheDragon]

I really wish Pokemon generations were 4 or even 5 years long instead of just 3. The 3 year long lifecycle of each generation burned me out on the core series games as well the pricing of SwSh and just the fact how underwhelming it looks. Keep the generations longer to allow for more dev time and keep fans busy with spinoffs and maybe remakes. I know the dev time wouldn't translate into a revolutionary new Pokemon title, but it would have more polish for sure. I'd also be interested in seeing a new Pokemon title from Game Freak in BW's 2.5D style. Doesn't have to be a core game, I'd be fine with just a spinoff in that style.

[@OnlyMain1]

The only challenge is that Pokemon isn't just the games. As the video demonstrated in part 6: "It's All Capitalism Baby", new content needs to be pushed out all the time. There need to be new characters to appear in the anime, new Pokemon for merchandizing, and new gameplay features for trading card sets. Fundamentally, as much as it would benefit the game's to have more development time and longer generations, that just isn't possible given how much it would hurt the other aspects of the franchise and decrease the yearly revenue. The capitalist desire for ever more revenue means that the multimedia nature of Pokemon is suffocating the games.

[@SunsetTheDragon]

@@OnlyMain1 They could probably figure something out though. Maybe introduce a few new Pokemon mid generation or something that debut in spinoffs etc to sell merch of. There's a solution to everything.

[@Renotaraa]

Seriously though, they can definitely slow down. According to them the games spearhead the media and anime merchandise ect follows. But this franchise is so deep in with so much content they can slow down. Maybe don't add a new gen after 3 years, expand an older ones with the pokemon already made. There's so much possible content to give us while they take the time to rework the framework for the main games.

[@SunsetTheDragon]

@@Renotaraa Yeah, absolutely. They could stick to the batch of Pokemon they create for each new generation, but distribute them slower or something. Or just create brand new Pokemon mid generation and release them through DLC or something. Lots of ways to buy time for new generations while also keeping the anime and TCG going. Doing this could also buy the Adventures manga time so Kusaka isn't overworked bc of new gens or remakes.

[@raze2012_]

@@SunsetTheDragon we don't live in could-land. They know what's safe and what works. why take a risk if nothing's broken (financially).

[@Soooooooooooonicable]

I would LOVE if they implemented a hard-mode option. Just ask players in the beginning if they're 'new to the world of pokemon' or 'a veteran of pokemon'.

[@NeoZhinzo]

I'm curious what people would consider a hard mode to pokemon? I feel like what most people would consider a "hard mode" wouldn't actually be tactically harder, just more time consuming or annoying.

[@GabrielAlves-ow4ux]

@@NeoZhinzo probably would be better AIs and better oponents compositions, since in the core games your oponnent could use harden 6 to 10 times in a row, they hardly have a "strategy" and dont even change the pokemon in the battle. It even is already being used in some hack roms.

[@Daidek]

Battle Tower AI?

[@NeoZhinzo]

@@GabrielAlves-ow4ux Don't get me wrong when I say this, because that is a great answer, but I don't think that alone would change the core of the issue. Like, how do these roms handle the AI?

[@yaseennechat4090]

@@NeoZhinzo Along of fanmade roms have hard modes. If random individual's can do it the billion dollar company could find a way as well

[@cosmojg]

I got my start in Gen 3. I owned Emerald, FireRed, Coliseum, XD, and multiple link cables. My visits to the Pokemon Center in NYC to get event Pokemon would end up becoming formative memories. Until watching this video, I never realized how much of an achievement it was that I actually caught them all. Time to put this on my resume!

[@justsomejojo]

It's interesting to watch this video now, after Legends Arceus' release. Quite a few of the things mentioned in this video are seemingly getting addressed with the last couple games: Legends shakes up the formula, only adds a handful of (probably temporary) new mons and doesn't make them the entire selling point of the game either. Furthermore, BDSP having been outsourced to ILCA (however that turned out is irrelevant at the moment) shows me that the Pokemon Company is looking to broaden game development by incorporating more studios and ideas to maybe lessen the burden of a tight development cycle. I think you hit the nail in the head with a lot of points in the video and personally, I'm happy to see that some of the stuff seemingly is getting addressed as we speak. It's been a while since I've been super optimistic about Pokemon (despite enjoying the games on a base level) so this line of thought makes me rather happy actually.

[@kamikoto1558]

yep. tho im not sure about the upcoming S and V

[@wrestlinganime4life288]

@@kamikoto1558 Well it did not leave up to the expectations

[@Talkin-fr0g]

@@wrestlinganime4life288 I think it was worth my money, I love Violet- a favorite game

[@SUCHMISH]

Scarlet and Violet which removes the ideas that made Arceus engaging and a breath of fresh air has popped into the chat...

[@justsomejojo]

Apparently those two were in development alongside each other at least part of the way, so I kind of get it. It's a sad reality that Pokemon HAS to rush its development to meet toy deadlines, so we'll only ever see improvements in increments. I actually quite like SV's gameplay (the one that's buried under a mountain of technical issues) so my optimism still holds, somewhat. My view on it is this: Legends showed me that Gamefreak still wants to reinvent the formula despite the harsh working conditions. SV are a mess on the technical side because of it, but there's a chance the Pokemon Company will take the hint and do *something* to make the games' development cycles more manageable.

[@hauntedsunsets]

the way they explain decisions always seems to be the part that absolutely breaks things. if they said they removed the national dex because it's simply becoming unrealistic to uphold and they want more room to expand in the future? I'm sure it would've gone over better than their claims regarding "enhanced animations" that fell through incredibly quickly because people could... see the animations, and suddenly it felt like they'd told a lie

[@youtubeneedstochange4414]

If GameFreak had better relations with its fans then people would be able to forgive some of the issues.

[@harveycustodio2625]

It's true the translation and PR need some work... I think it's because if there are any internal problems within the company and about the project, they'll keep quiet and not say anything to make everything thing appear smooth and most likely to save face... Kind how in Game of Thrones Houses don't really show they're having internal disputes or issues that they need to deal with...

[@danielac2285]

I bet this is because of the language and culture barrier. Japanese companies have a hard time understanding the "western formula" of how to communicate decisions to customers. They come off as awkward and dishonest because of this at times.

[@lynth]

The entire point of Pokemon is to catch them all. That's the charme. If you can't catch them all, it loses all its value. You don't play Pokemon for the crappy story or the soulless, forgetabble characters. You play Pokemon for the Pokemon and your collection and being able to create a lifelong team. If you have to leave behind your Pokemon, it's runing EVERYTHING.

[@skrrtskrrt2410]

@@lynth I, uh.... Believe it or not I partially play Pokemon for the story because I like the escapism it gives ((;; >_> ))

[@pedroivantaveraferreira3037]

Folks, don't forget: The Time while Pokemon GO was a fever was the closest we have ever got to World Peace. I remember seeing my city, São Paulo, one the biggest cities in the world, full of life with kids and adults talking in the streets (yes in the streets, like living the city) for the first time in my life was energezing. You could see people were more energic because their neighborhood, their dormitory neighborhood, was full of life. Of course, as I'm from 93 I had a pokemon T-shirt when I was 7 and Pokemon was the first album I collected but I'm more of a digimon guy, so it is not nostalgia speaking. It really was something else. A game brought life to dead aspects of many people's and place's life

[@animatedink2529]

As much as some fans will disagree, Pokemon Go was the closest we got to reigniting The Pokémon Craze of the late 90s. Which Gen is best is subjective but there's no denying that Gen 1 will always be the one that resonates with the vast majority of people. Sadly, I don't ever think we'll recapture the magic. But I do believe we can at least come close. Now it shouldn't be about the quantity of Pokemon but the quality.

[@rarecandy3445]

i completely agree. at the time, i lived in a bar/party city in the midwest USA and there wasnt much for me to personally enjoy living in a massive cornfield. pokemon go released and i got into it day 1. there were hardcore pokemon fans running around checking it out and then it hooked *REALLY* fast. there were literal hoardes of university students on summer break traveling together to catch pokemon. i remember one night when a dewgong was spawning over by the campus’ engineering quad and i swear the entire asian student body was there, late at night trying to catch this dewgong. i went to one of the townie neighborhoods and i battled some kid all night that laid claim to the gyms in his neighborhood park. he was new, so i could easily wipe him out with my newly evolved vaporeon. we were half way communicating with eachother with laughs over the battles. i heard him yell “DANGIT” when i finally took the last gym. even a year or so after its release old couples were walking around enjoying it. like fricken grandmas were out playing POGO. i was born in 1989, a hardcore gen 1-2er and it felt so good to see people in my generation introducing their young kids to pokemon and sharing the experience we were daydreaming about back when red/blue/yellow first released or just the thrill of seeing a bunch of young kids waiting for anyone to show up so we could fight and catch zapdos. im glad to know so many people from different cultures around the world saw the power such a simple phone game had on us.

[@sgt.lincolnosiris4111]

Just now watching this video I was about to comment on how I never understood how pokemon was on the scene far longer then digimon, yet as a guy born in 90, finding pokemon and being obsessed for 3 years of my childhood, digimon came out of nowhere. I was instantly hooked because pokemon wasn't known for 300 count at the time and digimon had just as many, yet suppior art work, cooler concept and easier understanding of the card game and to this day the pokemon fans I meet have know idea what digimon are.

[@KryselITG]

@@rarecandy3445 This wouldnt happen to be U of I would it? Cause it hit super hard here when it first came out. Honestly car accidents rose for a bit because everyone waa glued to their phones trying to catch pokemon, so people wouldnt look where they were walking/driving.

[@edddie7563]

@@animatedink2529 that’s b00mer talk, no offence. your experience doesn’t reflect vast majority of people, who like myself did not start with gen 1

[@limitbreak2966]

32:00 Pokémon arceus did so much of this section I love it, explains everything WAYY Better , *literally has a pop up that both displays that bulbapedia type matchup table, and explains type matchups* , has changeable moves whenever, mastered abd more upgraded moves, rewards veterans by adding lots of unique stuff in to do

[@SushiElemental]

The free-roaming actually-throw-the-ball craft-on-the-go stuff is the reason I bought Arceus - I don't even play Pokémon games usually

[@lasercraft32]

Shame they completely forgot about those features in Scarlet & Violet... -_-

[@westernbrumby]

@@lasercraft32they were being developed at the same time I think

[@VincentHondius]

Not to mention that it runs properly intead of like a slideshow

[@VincentHondius]

@@lasercraft32 Legends was developed by a different studio

[@Seetiyan]

Missed the opportunity to say that the company was between a "rock type and a hard place." But otherwise, great video. Thank you for sharing your thoughts!

[@tylera9665]

"between a rock type and a hard stone". Would've been better Imo

[@itsgonnabeanaurfromme]

@@tylera9665no it wouldn't

[@lainiwakura1776]

I don't get why we only had the ability to sit on chairs and such for only one game. Why even bother at that point.

[@Blah3210]

You could technically do it in the sprite-based games as well by walking over them. You could even get under the covers of your bed. But yeah, "one step forward, two steps back" has been GameFreak's motto for a while now.

[@justdirt]

You can in Sword and Shield tho... so 2 maybe 3 games

[@chich-ai]

X, Y, OR, AS 4 games

[@globox1998]

0/10 cant sit on a chair

[@friendlyotaku9525]

you can do that in XY AND ORAS as well as SwSh. In SM/USUM while you couldn't sit on chairs or benches you can sleep in beds.

[@william.jvenancio]

The problem with the "cut down the national dex" approach is that we've been paying for a service since around 2014, with his sole purpose was to bring our pokémon to newer generations, first was Bank and now Home.

[@masterofblabber367]

Home is fair compared to Bank, Home doesn’t delete your Pokémon if you don’t pay the fee, you can keep them there and only pay when you need to take them out. Paying more for the ability to transfer is a different discussion, but it’s a much better service than Bank based solely on the no deletey.

[@pinstripecool34]

Yea they even said the 3d models were future proofed so that it would be easy for us to transfer them to new Gens.

[@PoggusAmogus]

@@Dairunt1 exactly me too

[@Shakiahjprod]

@@pinstripecool34 They never directly said that. It was everyone when they discovered the 3d models of every pokemon in Pokemon SM. People keep complaining about the transfer stuff but the thing is we had been able to transfer everything from the 3ds games to the next. It's understandable the next gen needs more time before all of them can come into one game again.

[@thatonguy2407]

If their plan of rotating which Pokémon are available in each new gen ends up as reality, it isn't a problem, as your whole collection would still be usable, just not all at once, with Home being a hub for storing the collection. Implementing nearly 1,000 3d models and giving them all personality is a monstrous task that is absurd to tackle, and as the franchise continues to grow that task only gets harder. Pokémon was never going to be able to keep every Pokémon is every game, eventually something had to give. Their options were introducing way less new Pokémon, extend the development time significantly with each new game taking longer, or cut back on how many are available in each game. Cutting back keeps the appeal of the games without leading to profits dropping from nothing new coming out for multiple years.

[@Flailmorpho]

fun fact, there's a popular monster tamer that predates Digimon and Pokemon, and is the one that invented the genre Shin Megami Tensei, which has skyrocketed in popularity due to their Persona spinoffs getting really successful

[@thatoneguy1298]

Ah, Pokemon/Digimon's crazy drugged-out satanic grandpa. Classic.

[@silentdrew7636]

Dragon Quest 5 did it a month earlier

[@The-Determined-Ninja]

I'm so glad *_someone_* was able to discuss the full scope of what's happening while being fully _honest,_ fair, and not overly critical - shoving the blame _exclusively_ on Gamefreak like many do. This is a franchise, there's more depth to it than "lazy," of course that doesn't make for a non-issue, but I'm tired of people blindly spreading falsehoods, shallow-minded complaints and other nonesense all over. So thank you for your help clearing up all the excess misconceptions. (õ∀ŏ;⁠)⁠ゞ

[@olivercharles2930]

Nah they are just lazy

[@TuLibertadTePertenece]

It's not that difficult to understand. It's called business. When you buy a bad product, you don't buy another bad product again. You wait until they make a good one. THEN you buy the good one ONLY. SWSH: everyone complains like crazy. SV: most sold Pokémon games ever within the first week. SV-DLC1: everyone buys it. SV-DLC2: everyone buys it. SV 13 months after release: still as bad as day 1. Gen 10: will sell more than gen 9. People will buy DLCs again. THIS IS THE REAL PROBLEM. You want good games, but you buy bad games. Don't buy bad games and they will make good games. It's called business. If bad games sell, why would you spend extra budget to make good games?

[@Ro9ge]

I'm honestly just shocked that the "Gotta catch 'em all" catchphrase was stopped as far back as Gen 3. I thought they were still doing it!

[@Sugurain]

I knew they had stopped using it a long time ago, I just never noticed it was THAT long ago. But it makes sense, as you couldn't obtain every pokemon with Ruby and Sapphire alone.

[@thesunwillneverset]

It's still the Pokémon (Company's) motto (and present on the intro to every modern ad that shows the Pokémon Company logo on the white background) but it's no longer on the actual games.

[@theelike4302]

I believe it came back up for a while when Pokemon Go first released but that might have just been everyone saying it.

[@majintv24]

With split games every new gen it wasnt even possible to catch every pokemon in the first 2 gens without trades.

[@snintendog]

Actually gen 2 alot of the reprint boxes dropped the label as well it was a 4kids tagline after all and when they failed hard they took almost everything they had with them.

[@spogob2228]

I'd be completely fine with there being a generation every 4 years, as it would probably be well worth the wait

[@Paulxl]

The problem is the merchandising side of things can't wait for new characters to sell for 4 years. And that's the part really making the money. Not the videogames.

[@kamikoto1558]

@@Paulxl they can mate thats how much money they make.

[@jesusramirezromo2037]

@@Paulxl They can add free updates, Past gens got around years of relevancy with movies using mythical Pokemon

[@redmatter4285]

@@kamikoto1558 They totally can but they don't want to, because a companies goal is to make a product and get as munch money out of the product as they can.

[@bartbasil3704]

@@redmatter4285 and that very fact should cause a lot of people turning its back to Game Freak. There is a happy medium for profitability and customer satisfaction. If Game Freak / Nintendo cannot reconcile that, everyone who is betrayed by their approach should stop giving them money and move on. If it collapses, it collapses. If not, then just laugh at how far down the drain its quality ends up going. I stopped playing Final Fantasy, because I can't be bothered. I don't buy Pokemon games anymore. If I see the winds of change for good quality to return, they can start to have my money again.

[@phlpcockrell]

Anyone coming back to this after Arceus like "real time battle system and the ability to change moves on the fly and simplifying EV and IV system.." someone hire this man

[@simon-the-bar5657]

I think the biggest issue is that while S/V and Sw/Sh cut the dex, they didn't actually do anything new with the pokemon. The animations, attacks, and models were ported over from previous games. I'm of the mind that no one would have an issue with the cut dex if the pokemon that were included felt more alive

[@VannyBeumer]

That would work for sword and shield. Doesn't work for scarlet and violet, which added new models for a ton of existing pokemon.

[@jayfolk]

been seeing a lot of 2d sprites on 3d enviorment games this E3 week, and really wonder what pokemon would be like had they gone that direction instead of just general 3D overall

[@rez8248]

Big feature on 3ds was the fact that games were 3d on it. So they had to use 3d models in order to sell the 3D gimick.

[@goldstarsupreme]

Funnily enough, that's basically what Gen V is (and it's the prettiest generation imo)

[@yupazestru5189]

@@rez8248 but with sprites they could have made the worlds stereoscopic ughhh

[@rez8248]

@@yupazestru5189 of course, but it's inevitable for corporate video game studios to move away from sprites and move to 3D. Most indie games now do sprites. A shame that this is the reality

[@gabrielfreitas3033]

@@rez8248 There are a lot of things that would be harder to implement with 2D sprites rather than 3D models, like character customization for exemple. The shift is not purely an aesthetic choice

[@Jabrils]

Okay, hear me out. The Pokemon Company should build an experimental branch & make a Pokemon2 series that re-imagines the franchise. They bring in $100B a year, don't tell me they dont have a little experiment money.

[@HellsingSora]

hear me out, that with pokémon adventures :) it would be amazing! and the games would be darker and mature!

[@revolvency]

true

[@four-en-tee]

They dont because pokemon tcg prints them money.

[@connordarvall8482]

For that to work, they'll effectively have to double the size of the games development department. Still not sure which department would pay for that.

[@cius2112]

As mentioned in the video, that figure is split between multiple different companies.

[@SimielBlack]

The lack of foresight in the planning is WAY underplayed in this video. Maybe you can forgive them in Gen I and II but by now between Gamefreak and the Pokémon company, it is unforgivable that one of them hasn't created a forward compatible database of models and animations, and the fact that this work gets redone, over and over for Let's Go, for Arceus, for BDSP is the dumbest thing ever. It would inform a more consistent art style, prevent scaling issues, allow to create more games more quickly. However it would only save money in the future and it would cost money that wouldn't show an immediate return right now. So you know, screw it, let's repeat the work over and over when we need it.

[@Xahnel]

But they did though. They did when they went to gen 6. They literally did the thing you think they didn't do. They just *lied* about it. So they could pretend Dexit was for technical reasons rather than the real reasons.

[@QPoily]

@@Xahnel Seriously how do so many people still not get this? The 3DS games all freaking recycled Pokemon models throughout the entire console's lifespan. Even as far as general data it seems like GF has already been forwarding their databases throughout all the generations. Many of the later games have moves and items still within their databases despite them not being accessible whatsoever. There's zero excuse for Dexit. > LITERALLY< zero excuse. All excuses are easily debunked and counteragued ranging from "it's unsustainable for every game to have all 3D models" to "muh competitive Pokemon scene" they've all been debunked and counterargued using examples of standards GameFreak set themselves.

[@tomastipo7250]

@@QPoily ok, but appart from the expectations that gamefreak set, how can you solve the problem of having a growing number of pokemons in a game with finite space and development time avaliable, like the models are not an excuse but what about the stats what about the moves pokemon can learn there's multiple cases where past pokemon recieve some sort of update in their characteristics to compete better in the newer generations and that needs more development time and I'm sure that if was gamefreak and I had more time I would preffer to use it to polish other aspects of the game rather than have sunflora programmed into the game

[@QPoily]

@@tomastipo7250 I'm not sure what sort of problem you're seeing surrounding stats/moves. I'd rather these pokemon be in the game and not have received stat/move updates than have them NOT be in the game and ALSO not have received stats/move updates. Also not everything needs to be about the competitive scene. We can just, y'know, have these pokemon in the games for the casual crowd and have the competitive scene regulate itself, as it already has for the majority of the pokemon game franchise's lifespan. Furthermore if the concern is around past pokemon suddenly becoming OP when left untouched and introduced into the competitive scene, that's already solved in gen 7 by only allowing regional dex pokemon to be used in competitive. So yeah TL;DR this is a non-issue that doesn't require solving. GameFreak can update the same amount of pokemon stats/moves as they have since SwSh and nobody would bat an eye. Only difference is that we'd have our favorite pokemon to play with.

[@tomastipo7250]

@@QPoily then there's the problem of having pokemon stagnate, even if you are not in a competitive setting it wouldn't take more than 2 generations to have people asking why can't x learn this cool new move, and the pokemon would get powercreeped by the new ones due to a lack of tools to deal with them even in a casual setting (although I guess that's not an issue if the game poses the same difficulty of breathing), and then this just leaves the question of why having them they don't offer anything new so by a designer standpoint why should they be on the base map, this would leave the pokemon only avaliable in post game or by transfer, if you go to the post game route you have to deal with the locations, catch rate and apparition rates, we go back again to the logistic nightmare; and if you transfer them you are not catering to the casual crowd, not even that many people transfer old pokemon to the new games to play with them so why bother programming every single one into the game. Dexit although understandably annoying is the most logical route by a game designer viewpoint. Casual fans don't care that much about it only pokemon fans do, and even for the more hardcore fans (competitive players and collectors) it's better since you don't have to deal with all the old pokemon to complete your dex or to build a competitive team, the best is to just have a good cloud service to store them (and I want slaking without truant honestly).

[@skyla2970]

Thank you for the most fair critique and examination of the Pokemon series I've ever seen. I think we get so caught up in the hype and expectations of what we want Pokemon to be, that we fail to appreciate all that it is. Of course we all want the games to be better, but we also need to understand the crushing reality that the source of the problems with Pokemon are often the same things that have kept the franchise alive and growing for 25 years.

[@flarecoils1573]

Tbh, pokemon doesnt really need anything "new" to the gameplay. The issue is that most of the time, the gameplay against npcs barely scratches the surface of what competitive pokemon looks like. There are so many items, moves and abilities that interact in such interesting ways with one another, so gamefreak could literally just use those more, as well as allow the games ai to do things like switching more often.

[@barraskewda333]

romhacks my beloved

[@flarecoils1573]

@@el-maiki when I say competitive pokemon, I more mean using things such as switching pokemon and using items. The issue isnt that the best pokemon aren't being used, it's that the main story in pokemon games use so little of the actual depth there is in pokemon its infuriating. The closest we've gotten in recent is Raihan, who still barely scratches the surface of using weathers like sandstorm, such as using pokemon with sand rush/sand force or using kommo-o with overcoat to ignore sand damage. Theres so much depth to pokemon, and yet the only way you would know it is by playing online.

[@inconemay1441]

Most competitive items are single use and it would make the route battles a slog (not that it matters because routes are so barren of trainers as it is nowadays, but you still dont want to dedicate the same amount of time for a boss battle to regular trainers on the streets.)

[@mectainea5575]

Honesty this right here and what's even worse which is even more noticeable with the Kalos and Galar gym leaders is that oftentimes their teams don't even use the strengths of a pokemon species properly. like Korrina and Milo can't use the regenerator ability because the AI never switches or runs U turn, (Korrina also can't use unburden because that needs an expendable item to be used), Nessa runs and entire swift swim team yet has literally nothing to set up rain at the start of the battle (same with Ramos with chlorophyll), Opel's Ace and her team is actually more doubles oriented but is forced into being a single battle fight while Raihan is a doubles focused gym leader but utilises absolutely nothing from what the format can provide. With the older games, some gym leaders at least had some interesting quirks like elesa's volt switching emolga, Lenora's retaliate watchog, Candice hail team (which she utilised hail better than Raihan ever did with sand or any weather and hail had almost nothing to work with) and of course the infamous Whitney's miltank.

[@flarecoils1573]

@@mectainea5575 that's not even mentioning stuff like champion iris' team in challenge mode, where she had everything from life orb sheer force druddigon to flying gem acrobatics archeops to focus sash dragon dance haxorus. They're fully aware of the things they can do, and yet they seem afraid to actually capitalize on them.

[@joemck85]

More development time? Definitely! They can look to the past for the solution: Accept that a mainline Pokemon game takes serious time to develop, and throw the fans some spinoff games like Pinball, Trozei, Dash, Ranger and Mystery Dungeon in the meantime. Fans don't get as hyped about them as the main games, but we still buy and love them. Speaking of, I have 3 words for anyone associated with The Pokemon Company: BRING BACK RANGER. Yeah it was kinda built around the DS, but a Switch version could work pretty well. Design it primarily for handheld mode and pack in a basic $0.50 phone stylus since it's irritating to play Ranger with a finger. Tabletop and docked modes could be made to work too, using Joycon motion controls -- put a bit of aim assist to compensate for inaccuracies, or rework it entirely so you aim a beam that snaps to Pokemon and then you "swirl" it with the thumbstick.

[@EE-jp5ev]

Holy shit yes, It might be nostalgia glasses, but Pokemon ranger is one of my favorite games ever made

[@Anhilare]

@@EE-jp5ev It's not just nostalgia. I never had the games as a kid, but when I bought them I did genuinely enjoy them

[@dirthousegirl]

omg yes !!! i've been saying i wish they'd made more ranger games for years.

[@firekirby123]

The thing with Rangers and Mystery Dungeon is the gameplay depth is actually pretty shallow, but the *story* carries the whole thing through charm, humor, and compelling story hooks. Then you have literally the opposite side of the coin with Pokepark, where the story is barely there, but the gameplay is so interesting and varied that it doesn't even matter. I'm not saying they need to add more entries to these titles, but giving us more like it is without a doubt a strong move. New Snap is probably my favorite thing to come out of the franchise since ORAS. It's just so damn good, and the amount of little things they packed into that game is amazing! But yeah, like the video said, they can't really slow down the games. Their entire marketing cycle and corporate infrastructure relies on the consistent release schedule. In all honesty, they just need to work out a way to give more time to game development without losing out on their cycle, and the only ones I can really think of would be big expenditures without guaranteed profit returns, so I really don't see them risking them. (though the most recent partnership with ILCA does spark a bit of hope)

[@kaylaherrera4544]

I love ranger and mystery dungeon. so fun and I guess I feel like the storylines of the ones I've played are more interesting than the mainline games. Though to be fair, I haven't really gone too far in the mainline games because of how boring/repetitive training your pokemon can be.

[@NighttimeNubbs]

It's amazing how good Pokemon Stadium animations were compared to most games in the series but as you mentioned size and scale which... is their own fault. Each Gen added 100+ until X/Y with 72. If they didn't bloat the number so bad the issue wouldn't be as bad and they wouldn't have as many "dud" Pokemon. I get they want to go big but it's really bit them in the ass to where they really have no good solution to fix it and cutting Pokemon sadly is economical option but it loses fans.

[@thesardonicrenegade3065]

here's a fun fact, the pokemon in Stadium only have about 3-ish animations for moves, those 3 animations are then repeated for most of the moves they use

[@alecrutz6979]

I personally think they should have just combined generations, like having the gen 6 and 7 pokemon be one generation, and then 8 and 9 being another. And then compensate by slowing the fuck down instead of trying to release massive games every 3 years when it's clearly not sustainable

[@dr.archaeopteryx5512]

I feel like Dexit would be less hated if the two Pokemon storage systems weren't Abandonware and Ransomware respectively

[@daggerthedragon1582]

I was hoping Shin Megami Tensei would be brought up along with Digimon. SMT is the god-father of these monster collecting games.

[@daggerthedragon1582]

SMT>Pokemon

[@sadoldguy4380]

And no SMT game has every single demon.

[@concernedfish5574]

I'd honestly recommend smt to Pokémon fans that are tired of the series.

[@JoJoboiWav]

@@daggerthedragon1582 lol

[@ZylethXenocian]

ONE MORE MON REJECTED

[@cupriferouscatalyst3708]

Since gen 4 I've been thinking "they're gonna need to make all this in 3D at some point and it's not gonna go over well". I've only done a bit of 3D modelling and animating, but the idea of having to model and animate more and more Pokemon for better and better systems every few years is absolutely insane. I think that unless some genius develops an AI specifically made for automating rigging and animating Pokemon models (something that can animate on its own once you've identified the limbs, marked spots where energy attacks can originate from and stats like weight and mass), they're probably gonna have to change their focus at some point. I've been more interested in the spin-offs for a long while anyway, so I wouldn't mind.

[@colemin2]

So far they've been giving each Pokemon four to five attack animations and then sprinkled the move effect on top, which isn't great but it keeps animation work down. I'm fine with this as long as they keep all the damn Pokemon in the games.

[@voltsm_]

I wish SWSH was delayed. they couldve taken their time to give at least a bunch of the pokemons personality and polish. and then I don't mind if the next switch pokemon games reused the animations

[@yurisei6732]

I really hope that at some point they take a page out of Octopath Traveller's book. It's clear now that sprite art doesn't need to look outdated, and so many pokemon just don't work in 3D.

[@OMalleyTheMaggot]

"They're gonna need to make all of this in 3D at some point" This mentality is the exact thing that contributed to the downfall in quality of the franchise. This never needed to happen. Imagine if we lived in a timeline where they just improved on the gen 5 animated sprites. The games not only would look gorgeous I bet a lot of crap would have been done much differently.

[@foresthillwolf7998]

@@voltsm_ if Sword and Shield was delayed, they would still have a problem when gen 9 comes out. They had to pull the bandaid off eventually.

[@bwminich]

I watched this video after the release of Legends Arceus and after the announcement of Scarlet and Violet. Arceus is a pretty big shakeup of the series in a lot of ways while still feeling like a Pokemon game. I really like the new batch of models and animations. Scarlet and Violet seem like they are running on the same engine and will be doing similar things. One of the things that has interested me since the first Legends game has been released was this: so why not make this a mainline game, especially since Gen 9 is going to be something along these lines? And then it hit me. Game Freak had obviously been working on this prototype for a while. It’s clearly the direction they want to go. However, they know their fanbase, and know that just plopping this into Gen 9 would cause huge problems. Long time fans would be like “what are these changes, is this where we want Game Freak to go, I don’t know, so I am going to get mad!” But Legends Arceus wasn’t a mainline game. So long time fans could try it (and they did judging by sales numbers), spend some time getting used to the system, and then be like “wait, can some of this end up in Gen 9? Seems like that could work!” So NOW, when Gen 9 has been announced to be taking several things from Legends, people have had time to see how it works in a game, and things are much better in that way. A very smart move, I must say.

[@gentrelane]

Pokemon being so expansive definitely makes it insane for devs and designers but I do like how it really feels like it's own whole world. It's amazing how immersive it can be

[@e-jthompson6322]

It’s a bit like Harry Potter, there’s nothing actually new and you see the same merch over and over in comic shops, but it’s so deep in nerd culture that new people will always get into it because it’s everywhere

[@turtleanton6539]

Yes

[@halfdecentstrange]

agreed

[@xenstarboy]

I think pokemon walking with you and mega evolution should be core mechanics instead of gimics.

[@spritemon98]

I agree

[@velveteenv76]

Mega evolutions is what made me quit, started to become DBZ.

[@nickfiscella9267]

megas are actually very wack and theyre literally all ugly except maybe like 2 of them. pokemon walking with u is fire tho

[@Sagasking14]

Exactly. They worked for what they were, and outside of some Megas causing balancing issues, it was a great mechanic that added more depth to the game overall.

[@smallss7197]

Well, they were kinda easy mode and made Comp insanely boring tbh

[@MarkJardon]

Watching this video a few years later, it’s neat how a lot of the things talked about ended up being addressed and fixed

[@HaxAras]

"Gotta catch 'em all" was used in English promotional trailers for gen 4.

[@jessebrowning2427]

My main gripe is the lack of “completeness” felt in Sword and Shield. On another note, I would like to see is a difficulty setting for the games, and I’m not talking about a simple level increase of the opposing pokemon. I’m talking trainers, especially Gym Leaders, using different Pokémon, and most importantly, strategies such as the water gym leader using a rain team.

[@LibraryofAcousticMagic3240]

weather teams definetely could be explored more. It's such an interesting concept yet hardly ever encountered

[@BeezyNgeezY-ul1nu]

I think the game needs to grow beyond the same model its ran with for 25 years

[@kamatari1220]

Seriously! This company is so terrified of doing something different. It's not like people aren't going to buy the newest game!

[@kamatari1220]

@@LibraryofAcousticMagic3240 I hope the developers heard fans say how much they liked Raihan's sandstorm team so they will be encouraged to expand on that!

[@joaopinheiro4396]

Want new mecanics that don't affect competitive? Do like the best pokemon fan games. Fighting in water? Water and electric moves do more dmg and abilities like swift swim are activated. Blizzard freezes the field into ice field which boosts ice types in similar manner. Earthquake breakes it and goes back to water field. Some moves can poison water and it does dmg to non poison types every turn. I could go on and on with the interactions. Boom you just made mainline games interesting again. Fighting in water is no longer just a background change. In competitive keep neutral field. Problem solved.

[@shooby9496]

"Why are we still messing around with this whole 'forget move and it's gone' s**t?" THANK YOU.

[@brotbrotsen1100]

Didn't played the latest game but i heard they you can relearn them now.

[@connordarvall8482]

@@brotbrotsen1100 They've been able to relearn moves for a while now, but only when late into the story and at a price of an item that's a little difficult to find. It exists, but it's not particularly convenient for casual or competitive players.

[@zjzr08]

Interestingly Temtem gave a way to choose your 4 moves in a set and rearrange before a battle, although how do you apply that logic in Pokemon wild battles (the anime didn't explicitly say it can only learn 4 a time, even if it is implicit since Gen 4 or so), although just maybe ignore it as a game mechanic thing.

[@MM80536]

@@connordarvall8482 in swsh you can relearn moves anytime you want no charge

[@ThePlasmicAlchemist]

@@MM80536 I will say, this does bring up a new interesting challenge. With stone evolutions like Growlithe, they stop learning moves by level-up once you use that stone to evolve them, so back then, the challenge was figuring out "what level should I choose to use this thing?" Now, move relearners are in every corner, so should Arcanine and the like now change their entire learnset to be like the rest of the cast?

[@LLN_Roscoe]

It's wild how much this works as a "Why did palworld happen" video

[@toribarlow1000]

Pokemon as a franchise came out a year or so before i was born so it was just always around and I've played everything from red and blue to the 64 additions. I loved Gen 3 and 4 but there is something has me keep coming back to Alola. I love how they shook things up there and I love poke pelago. Excited to see what they do next!

[@Golemoid]

spoiler alert: they did nothing interesting

[@Thelmas]

Bring back the national dex wouldn't have been nearly as much of an issue had the pokemon company not baited us into expecting all pokemon to return by selling us the pokemon bank and pokemon home by marketing them as ways to bring our pokemon to the new generations.

[@Jfam11638]

That's the thing yeah, Home was announced before the dex cut was and we were expecting to be able to bring all of our pokemon over - not to mention given that it was going to be on a home console we figured, if anything, implicitly that every pokemon would be available. In my opinion it was probably the worst time to tear that band-aid off because it opened GF up to a very wide amount of scrutiny. Honestly... they probably should have bit the bullet and implemented every pokemon for Sword and Shield, while at the same time announcing that not every pokemon would be usable in future entries. At the very least it would assure players that, in the current gen, we would at least be able to use our pokemon somewhere, instead of keeping them in Home collecting dust.

[@MrMarcost2]

Or if the animations and sprites weren't just the basic fucking AS and OR sprites and animations with an AA pass applied; I'll never understand the "oh well they cant possibly do this" on a company that's seen as much revenue growth as 2600% YoY, "oh they can possibly animate the whole dex plus the new ones" then at least do SOME; the entire debacle about the national dex was because we were getting a cut in pokemon for literally no improve in quality for the remainder. Someone in another comment pointed out that 80% of the development team for Sword and Shield was marketing/translators, anyone see the issue here?

[@PokemonProfessorNebula]

I think it was also stated that the data for the other pokemon is in the game, it is just impossible to obtain it through normal means.

[@zjzr08]

@@PokemonProfessorNebula That was what happened in RS and maybe XY pre-Bank - they had the data of the Pokemon there, just inaccesible until later on and you technically use hacks to access them. Not the case for SwSh, as the assets for missing Pokemon are missing and their stat info are scrubbed off.

[@arendking]

Also doesnt help that they added in 200 more pokemon with the release of dlc. So now they got a game that is close to 2/3 of the national dex. If they continue to copy/paste from older games (there is too many reused animations for them to claim this is not the case), they can easily bring back all pokemon and even update sword/shield to add this additional data.

[@dragonelexus4988]

In addition to the combat ideas you implement, a really simple change I've seen suggested by a number of fan is just change the theming of the gyms (or their equivilents) from just elemental types to broader themes. For example, a forest-themed gym would mostly feature grass type Pokemon, but the inclusion of flying, bug, normal and even bug types would mean you could apply a little more strategy than just 'let's train up my fire poke!'. Again, you'd be doing little to affect the core gameplay, but force players into more creative applications of strategy.

[@oscarstaszky1960]

so almost like a combination of the Island Trials and Gym challenge? Now that sounds pretty rad

[@nycto5335]

This

[@unknownaura]

Good idea

[@Centrioless]

It would be too complex for the main target audience, which is the kids.

[@voilet-the-non-violet-vulpix]

@@Centrioless I think most kids understand what a forest or river is, and what kind of animals you can find there

[@Declan_ChristoTube_VA]

In my opinion the biggest strength the Pokemon mainline game series has is the ability to transfer Pokemon from the previous game to the newer ones. I still have my original team from my first playthrough of Fire Red and that never fails to impress me. This also highlights how important it is to include ALL Pokemon in the national Dex, as the potential of losing your personal favourites is heartbreaking. The biggest weakness at this point in time is the lack of voice acting. The games, graphic and animations have all progressed leaps and bounds but now we're watching fully animated cutscenes with text boxes. Pokemon Masters already gave every character a voice, and that's just a mobile game!

[@tmntlorefan7518]

But you need to cut some Pokemon, we need a more in depth battle system, and better attack animations, I want every character to ooze charm, I say we combine Pokken Tournament, with the best aspects from the fan favorite Generations, the only thing is, does everyone want a real time battle system? If not, maybe it'd be best for Game Freak to make a spinoff with one, while keeping the mainline game's battle system for the main series, either way I feel like cutting Pokemon is necessary for more polish and overall just a more fun game.

[@charlibiris]

My favourite pokemon is that one that is a lamp, and the second is the candle. South Park predicted it with Chimpokomon and that shoe

[@nategwright]

I think the big reason everyone made such a huge deal out of the dex cut was that they lied to us as to why. They said they wanted to focus on animating the Pokémon in as high quality as possible, so they were cutting the scope to improve the polish. However, in the same presentation, it was obvious that every animation in the game was being reused from the 3DS games, and the graphical quality of the world was pretty subpar (the tree, for example). So we were losing the ability to use a lot of our Pokémon, and getting next to nothing in return. What needs to happen to Pokémon is one of two things. Either it needs to completely reset itself each generation, where they have ONLY the new Pokémon, and go all out on making an incredible 3D game with high graphical quality and good story, or it needs to go back to a pixel art based design and make a 2.5D game a la Octopath Traveler or Mario & Luigi. That way they can spend a lot less time and effort making the Pokémon and characters come to life and still have it look good, and then it leaves them time to include all of the Pokémon and have a good story. Just please God let it have a good story. Or just let Game Freak have more than a year to release a new game. Give them 3-5 years to develop a truly great game, please.

[@No-One-Important-Here]

Gotta Catch Some of Them!

[@peanutkix]

A 2.5D game would be great. I miss the pixel art so much...

[@BriarBeeBenson]

Another way they could do it is realise a main series game of gen 9 for example. Have the story and the region and new pokemon only kind of like Pokemon black and white and then add stuff to it, and not the DLC $40 bullshit we got where it included content that should have been in the game since launch. They have the ability now to release updates now like what they do with Animal Crossing and just keep adding to that game for the next 3-5 years. Add a battle frontier, different regions, start adding in Pokémon and shiny hunting mechanics or bring back stuff like secret bases and patches. And while they do this another team works on the next mainline game which will be released 6 years down the line or so. I’m pretty sure a LOT of triple games studios do this so I have no idea why Nintendo can’t and why they haven’t yet.

[@Jfam11638]

Yeah that's the thing really. They were cutting a very wide chunk of the game out and giving us very little to make up for it. As always, people at least wanted something to keep them preoccupied indefinitely with the games, like a Battle Frontier, but the stuff Sword and Shield has to keep you preoccupied postgame are pretty subpar, involve a lot of repetition (currydex, battle tower), and ultimately, it just leaves a lot to be desired. The only thing that interests me anymore in the games is the double battle league tournament, but even that could have had more characters implemented, like Oleana and Honey, and maybe rules like only three pokemon could be entered and level-scaling to make it more challenging.

[@spritemon98]

Well how else are they supposed to repackage the cut out pokemon without selling it at a premium price?

[@ahr4296]

"be able to change moves of a pokemon easily" blew my goddamn mind. Being able to load out your pokemon moves like they are items you can swap on and off? God I would love that so much and I am now sad it's not a thing

[@a-s-greig]

Blew my mind when I found out I could do just that in Dragon Quest IX simply by changing my weapon mid-battle. Combat got a whole lot spicier really fast.

[@guillermostreiger2307]

Imagine being able to create and swap movesets

[@reginlief1]

I do think it would render the games pathetically easy at that point. But then I would like to see harder Pokémon fights in the games so maybe that would self remedy that issue.

[@guillermostreiger2307]

@@reginlief1 it might, but the way its now doesnt make it harder, it makes it incredibly bothersome. You can basically do the same thing but you have to walk around the map a lot more and grind a lot of money. An interesting idea would be that everytime you can learn a new move, they let you do a mock fight to try it out

[@lukebytes5366]

I'd save that for postgame personally.

[@JAGomez]

This video was badass and I genuinely appreciate all the time and effort you put into this research. That must have been killer.

[@Seveinis]

Not many times I’m thankful for a KZbin video taking up my time lol but thank you for shedding light on a topic I didn’t give much thought on but always harbored resentment for

[@SuperRocketMetal2]

I think my biggest gripe, even if you have to live under the deadlines, is how dead the world is now compared to other entries, in ways you can definitely fix just by designing the world like previous games. Older games had more nonlinear ventures, like "go to the lighthouse, go to this other town, come back and NOW you can fight the gym" or "head over to Celestic Town for some lore, even though it isn't straight to the next gym". Now it's just "the next destination is the next island challenge / gym, and some goons will block the forward path until you beat the next challenge". At least HMs meant you could have more "natural" barriers to some extent.

[@theorangecandle]

Yeah there's no soul anymore

[@ultmewtwo]

You had to go to cestltic town to move on the story of gen 4 I was needed u fight evil team leader there

[@lukebytes5366]

Exactly. There was simply more stuff to do other than the main goal. There isn't much to do any more other than look for the occasional item.

[@ultmewtwo]

@@lukebytes5366 you still had to go to that town to move the story forward it's same as go to town and town we get from other pokemon game

[@mr.preston1632]

@Jack Alan We don’t even know if they have crunch yet

[@QMMarc]

There is a comparison to SMT that isn't the ''collecting monster'' aspect that I've read here, which is the fact that SMT didn't add million new demons with every game, they add a couple, even some redesigned ones, but every game kept more or less the same demons, re-using them or doing different stuff. Sometimes the enemies themselves change like how in Persona sometimes there are completely different enemy designs and the Demons are just your thing. That kinda let them have a wriggle room to put their work into other stuff.

[@robertlupa8273]

Are those "redesings" comparable to Regional Variants?

[@QMMarc]

@@robertlupa8273 Hm, sometimes? Sometimes not? Like, Take-Mikazuchi has two completely different designs in SMT and early Personas, but Persona 4 its like, not even the same thing, probably cause it reflects Kanji more in that. But in SMT itself they're rarely redesigned, tho i havent played the Nintendo only SMTs cause i aint got money for a switch or 3ds, so im missing a few, and too lazy to wiki dive, so maybe theres some like that.

[@Ramsey276one]

I have played several SMT Got 4(not Final) on 2DS Some demons are redesigned as new artwork is used. Movesets will change if the available moves change Since you can FUSE to acquire new demons, or to make stronger ones, your only collection is the Compendium I physically had *24* in SMT4 after a second NewGame+ , but the Compendium lets me access a couple hundred. Expect SMT to have a similar approach.

[@Sergio-wc1wn]

It comes to how the franchises are presented

[@Pompadourius]

@@robertlupa8273 They can be. Check out Odin in regular SMT and then Odin in his SMT IV redesign, or SMT IV's archangels compared to how they're presented everywhere else in the series.

[@onetoughpickl1729]

Something similar is going on with the monster hunter franchise. Previously popular monsters are being heavily recycled and the community is beginning to ask for newer monsters or ones previously not seen for multiple generations.

[@Emily-lh6em]

This was really well thought out and insightful. You brought up things I had never thought about and made me really understand what the pokemon developers have to do and why they make the choices they do.

[@ASolidSnack]

The irony is that Nintendo itself, and Dragon Quest which is the most comparable game series to Pokémon, have built their brands on each game being as polished as possible while giving the devs as much time as needed to do so. The exact opposite approach as TPC takes to Pokémon, a game published by Nintendo and inspired by Dragon Quest. I lay no blame at all on GameFreak, TPC seem like slave drivers and the devs always seem so exhausted in interviews.

[@DarkShinobi11]

I'm glad you see it. People keep skipping over this important detail.

[@DarkAngelEU]

Pokémon is a big fat money machine and they only think about how they can keep it going. Sadly.

[@p3mcthedoor32]

Agreed. Game freak isn't really much to blame as others think since it's the money glutton that is TPC not giving them more freedom to develop their games because in every new generation there's the TCG the anime and the toys that apparently need to come out to coincide with the games pretty much giving them crunch time. What's the problem with Pokemon delaying their games and a generation lasting longer than usual? The answer to that is simple: Pokemon is a business vehicle where quantity always wins for them.

[@TheExFatal]

Why can't TPC find a second developer company? That's what Activision's been doing for years now, say whatever you want about the Call of Duty games, but they come out competent because they're given enough dev time. Why can't TCP do the same? Is it greed?

[@p3mcthedoor32]

@@TheExFatal To be fair they did hire other companies but only for the games other than the core series. And recently they actually did it once with BD/SP but you know how that turned out.

[@voxelgon3391]

19:00 I loved the B/W artstyle from the day it released, and from release till today I want to see pokemon, as well as other games, be made in that style again.

[@thekiss2083]

Thank goodness for Square Enix

[@PelemusMcSoy]

You and me both, friend.

[@cgpxae2119]

It was always hideous to me

[@FunnyFany]

God I love the limited 3D they use for this game. It's so charming

[@stevencraeynest7729]

really?

[@rohiogerv22]

I was honestly really pleasantly surprised by Pokemon Sword and Shield... until the last 1/4 of the game. Spikemuth not being a real town, dropping the ball on Bede's character arc, the absolute bipolar trajectory of plot events (especially once you get to the Elite Four), the fact that we essentially unwittingly help the antagonist achieve his goals, and that's it, the end. It's like in the last week of development the storywriters handed the storyboard over to an intern, said "write an ending" and then went off to do something else. Sun and Moon's story was an absolute drag, but at least Po Town and the Ultra Beasts felt like a real payoff.

[@Battlehammer333]

Would have loved to see Pokemon Colosseum and XD mentioned. Two super awesome games absolutely ahead of their times. Showing that a nice 3D Pokemon with good difficulty curve and better design than Pokemon Arceus can be done - even 20 (!) years ago. And they didnt even need any new Pokemon, just a creative mechanic around decrypting them.

[@hugmynutus]

They were done by different studios & made use of procedural animation (same body type = same animation) to save on time. Brilliant games which always fly under the radar.

[@avenger4027]

That's because they were handled by competent developers and not Gamefreak. They recycled assets from Stadium games, though, but since the 3-D animations were made with each Pokemon in mind, it was cool. Especially considering the time they were released in. Battle Revolution is now also praised for what 3-D battling with Pokemon should've been, instead of what we have. 3-D Pokemon games are absolutely possible to be made, just not by Gamefreak.

[@MadCartoonist]

30:35 As an accountant, I can confidently say that none of the formulas we learned is even that complicated 😂

[@awts..7954]

@@hahmann wtf

[@matthewmoser1284]

The diversification of development teams actually gives me hope. We're NEVER going to get the Pokemon Company to agree to slow down how often it pumps out new games. But by splitting teams up to different projects, we can both be happy. Pokemon gets new media to churn out loads of new merchandise regularly, while individual teams get more time to work on their respective titles.

[@mycenaeangal9312]

Yeah I’ve really been enjoying all the different spin offs.

[@zjzr08]

Problem is even BDSP seems rushed, even if it is made by another comapny. Legends Arceus is gonna be out early 2022, which really should be delayed another year to add more polish and content based on their track record IMO.

[@cise3895]

@@zjzr08 Yeah, things definitely aren’t at a great place even with the split. But as the original commenter said, it’s at least _hope_ that the game development cycle can crawl its way to something healthier and more polished.

[@methos4866]

The Pokemon games since Sun & Moon have been all been a 7 in my book. Still good but it feels like something is lacking. The animations and performance are especially dissapointing. The games don't need new Pokemon but polish.

[@toreger2852]

Interesting to watch this video in the light of the most recent release. Would love a follow up, seeing as they went through with a lot of the big changes to the formula discussed here. Maybe even a deeper dive into each individual games, or some of the most prolific fangames? Temtem or gooblets? A deconstruction of the genre and what makes it work? Staying tuned :)

[@dadmitri4259]

I love your editing somehow you made it so that the background gameplay always matches what you are saying

[@MrMarinus18]

One thing I appreciate in the Pokémon battle system is the lack of any innate resistance to status effects. In many RPG's opponents of significantly higher level are immume to status moves which means you pretty much need to be strong. Pokémon doesn't have that so with careful strategy a weak Pokémon can defeat a strong one. The breeding system is also still one of the best in any RPG. I seriously can not think of a similar RPG that has topped it in just how complex it is.

[@belot217]

Back at launch, EverTale did a lot of great things with the "anyone can get status effects" idea. Shame gacha mechanics ran it into the ground with every update.

[@MrMarinus18]

@@belot217 I don't know why all RPG's insist on adding that resistance. With Pokémon the speed stat already makes status effects harder to pull off. Also paralysis, confusion and infantuation doesn't completely stop the opponent and sleep is unreliable. So it's not like the lack of status resistance makes levels irrelevant. Also in single player you don't do much status effects anyway.

[@bigjohnsbreakfastlog5819]

@@MrMarinus18 I think the problem RPGs have with status ailments is that many games feature status ailments up the wazoo, but design their games to have the bosses be immune to virtually all of them as a challenge, rendering it something players instinctively avoid using. In Pokémon, there are certain abilities or types that grant you immunity or resistance to these effects, giving you a little bit of comfort in avoiding undesirable outcomes, but in terms of offensive strategy, they fall into the same pitfalls that most RPGs have where they aren't as reliable as just brute forcing your way through battle.

[@akiradkcn]

Bruh Poison moves straight up dont work agaist Steel

[@MrMarinus18]

@@akiradkcn But that has nothing to do with level.

[@magnushaveland2526]

I like when they make regional variants of already existing pokemon, rather than developing new forgettable ones. Like we have 800 pokemon already, we can use those... Same with new evolutions for pokemon that are never used because they are bad. I love pokemon that evolve into different pokemon, depending on how you evolve it (Eevee, ralts etc.)

[@BobtheX]

I disagree. I think that region variants make sense in universe and are a really cool way of creating new versions of old pokemon.

[@basedlaya]

@@BobtheX that’s what they said; they like reusing the existing Pokémon and building on Pokémon without existing evolutions. Reading comprehension is important

[@fungi265]

@@basedlaya the original comment was written in a very sarcastic tone, it's not surprising at all the first person mistook them.

[@StarlightNkyra]

Their always fun additions. Like the galar ponyta or alolan dugtrio. It makes sense that a fire horse that lives in a mushroom forest would turn into a unicorn, or a dugtrio living in an environment where surfing is popular would grow surfer dude hair.(Which is also a hilarious idea.)

[@Ace-pi3wt]

i'm genuinely disapointed they havent done a regional variant of eevee to fill in the last 9 types. like a fighting type eevee that evolves into a dragon type vaporeon, steel type jolteon, bug type leafeon, poison type umbreon, flying type sylveon etc

[@Nukepositive]

This was a great explanation. After watching this, it really gives me comfort to know Pokemon has settled into this incremental change model and reduced scope. Maybe one day we will see real-time battles. Maybe one day they will have accumulated a backlog of great animations. On such a development timescale, we will always be the beta testers, and whatever works is going to be kept. I dropped the series in Gen 3 and came back for Gen 8 and I had a LOT of catching up to do. It will be exciting to see how different the franchise will be five generations from now.

[@Paulxl]

The problem is that with 900+ pokemon and adding and game graphics and animation tech getting better and better is going to take a lot of time for that backlog to exist.

[@Willz828]

simple solution, scale up the adventure, scale down the pokedex, if you gave me a (as you call it) botw like adventure with just kanto pokemon it would still be the best thing they ever put out

[@orderofthephoenixwright4821]

Thats exactly what they did for legends Arceus

[@Crysta11ize]

I think a lot of fans (myself included) were annoyed by the dex cut only because we theorized that GameFreak was going to "cut" a bunch of classic faves and sell them back to us via DLC, which they, uh... did. That combined with new business tactics requiring fans to pay for services like Pokémon Home is just worrying because it's starting to push the franchise into EA Games territory

[@CaptainObliviousV]

It’s kind of a wierd blanket statement to say they simply “sold them back”. Like, if you wanted to catch them natively in the game, then sure that applies. But you didn’t need to buy the DLC to be able to transfer them in since the update for that was free. As for having to pay for Home to get the most out of it, it definitely would’ve been preferable to give us a yearly plan like with Bank, but I feel like that matter was out of Gamefreak’s hands for the most part and more in ILCA’s.

[@nethowarrior3294]

They need money to pay for the servers.

[@Canalbiruta]

@@nethowarrior3294 yup... the money came from merchandising and nso...

[@bubalackgaming8892]

@@nethowarrior3294 Dude, they're literally the most massively profitable IP in fucking *HUMAN HISTORY.* Money isn't an issue for them in the slightest.

[@nethowarrior3294]

@@bubalackgaming8892 Yup, but they don't care because they're a company so they're going to keep charging anyways. Unfortunately.

[@smurph1043]

My only issue was paying for Pokémon bank for years and them giving really poor excuses for cutting the national dex.

[@mustachecrab9669]

My issue is that you're paying extreme amounts of money for such a small amount of data being transferred. The thing is a scam, it would cost like 2 bucks if it were slightly fairly priced.

[@OpinionatedChicken59]

I abandoned all my pokemon there in that graveyard, pokemon bank can rot.

[@ryaquaza1571]

Pokemon bank I could have dealt with, sure it’s a scam, but £5 a year isn’t that bad in all honesty,.. Home is a different story however, you have to play many times as much for an inferior, often buggy software that is basically ransom-were since you can’t even bring them into SWSH.

[@_Gilles_]

"only issue"

[@turtleanton6539]

@@ryaquaza1571 Pokemon home would be ok if it was already included in the already expensive NSO

[@ItsAstridEh]

Honestly, I think we're seeing some interesting new directions with regards to Pokémon games; it's clear that even they're getting kind of tired of same old stuff and are trying new things and are collaborating more and more with other studios and developers for spin offs (it's honestly kind of hilarious seeing Bandai work on Pokémon considering they're their biggest competitor for Digimon) and now even the remakes being made by others. Also, the fact that Legends Arceus is steeped in mystery to the point where no one knows whether it's a core game or a spin-off or even what generation to classify it as definitely makes me think that part of their solution is to completely abandon the generation model, which will allow side games and remakes and mainline games to be way more freeform in how they're made and the ideas they're allowed to consider while ignoring past traditions and expectations.

[@mldanny1899]

I think my biggest annoyance with the ditch of including all Pokemon is because their excuse was "due to balancing issues, with the total amount of Pokemon and Game Freak's desire to look at other aspects of the game, like battling mechanics and visuals." The Switch is a current gen console so balances can be pushed out through updates, and they lied with the visuals because they're worse than that found on the 3ds.

[@Pandora234able]

I never understood the “kid” argument...Kids can appreciate well-made games as well. I could tell a crap game from an awesome game as a kid. Not ooooo shiny ball.

[@graphitetailgrace3870]

And dude, just IMAGINE how many kids were left heartbroken when their favorite monster was cut out.

[@Pandora234able]

@@graphitetailgrace3870 Many!!!! I think we don’t give them enough benefit of the doubt. The bullshit they have to put up with that’s half assed as shit...

[@hemalathapajaniraja1990]

@@graphitetailgrace3870 thats only you adults who drool over gen 5 because of nostalgia. as a kid, i can say that idc about the dex cut and the SINGULAR TREE THAT YOU GUYS MAKE FUN OF BECAUSE YOU THINK YOUR NOSTALGIA IS OBJECTIVE

[@SteveCrafts2k]

@@hemalathapajaniraja1990 If the nostalgia card is your only argument, then you need to step it up. Actually prove your point instead of oversimplifying people's opinions.

[@hemalathapajaniraja1990]

@@SteveCrafts2k ok... explain how its bad then, i'll provide a defense for that. i cant be bothered to watch the video because i cant give some random money-hungry nostalgiatard views.

[@LieseFury]

Shin Megami Tensei has been around since before Pokemon and it's still going

[@rez8248]

Makes me hope that smt 5 will do good enough so that we can get smt 6 to exist.

[@Torlik11]

Although the serie doesn't have as many games as pokémon

[@LieseFury]

@@Torlik11 So? Foxcade wasn't comparing how many games were in other monster collection RPG series. He said Pokémon and Digimon were the only ones to survive past the '90s.

[@thatitalianlameguy2235]

It's also gotten pretty fucking stale in mainline even though it had way less games compared to pokémon.

[@jaykelley103]

R u cis or trans

[@toribarlow1000]

I love what Legends has done with the move mechanics and I really hope they keep it! I love that I can switch out moves but can buy extra moves like you do in mainline games. I hope they keep this system!

[@TuLibertadTePertenece]

Yes? You are enjoying how insulting the games are in every single aspect to anyone who loves Pokémon, you enjoy making the problem worse by giving them more money no matter what they do?

[@treyden]

We love well researched, nuanced takes. thanks for this. My one complaint about new Pokemon is that it's too easy

[@feelix2732]

I just wish mega evolution was consistent throughout the generation. Best gimmick with most potential.

[@grfrjiglstan]

To me, it always felt like AVGN's "Beat a game button." You mega evolve the guy, it doesn't take a turn, and you stomp whatever your opponent's pokemon is. Never played much PVP with it, but I'd imagine it restricts the meta.

[@waves5249]

@@grfrjiglstan quite the opposite, actually. Just as an example, for smogon's gen 6 OU (the standard meta), the most defining pokemon is clefable, despite having mega metagross and mega scizor in the tier. Dynamax on the other hand is the "beat a game button" so broken that every tier has outright banned it for how restrictive and over-centralizing it is; it's so broken that even ubers banned it

[@theimpostorafungus1213]

Well technically it was throughout all of its generation plus gen 7 but I see where you're coming from

[@reaganspider200]

I honestly strongly disagree with it having potential. Conceptually it feels like it has diminishing returns. What do they do in the future? Just add more megas forever until literally half the dex has them? It just feels like it would eventually lose its impact. To me, regional forms are the same essential way revise old Pokemon but are just way more interesting and fresh.

[@kaiyodei]

mega eevee

[@turtlenator6249]

I absolutely love Gen 5. It’s what REALLY got me into the series and battling, but it breaks my heart that, when it was released, it was the worst selling in the whole franchise. Edit: technically Gen 4 got me into the franchise more, and Gen 5 got me more into the battling.

[@HaohmaruHL]

Gen 5 almost made me see top playing the series. There was not a single thing I liked about it. Many years later I still dislike Gen 5 the most, despite so many flaws with the latest games

[@sinnohperson8813]

Gf pulls a great game : we ain't gonna buy it Gf pulls a bad game : let's make its sales reach sky high and then rant it Pokemon fanbase in a nutshell

[@pn2294]

White is still one of my favorite games period

[@CKangZ]

black 2 and soul silver and the best in my opinion

[@georgeliquor1236]

@@sinnohperson8813 But BW were bad??

[@chrismaystar3014]

2/3 of those changes he brought up near the end we're fixed in PLA.

[@hi28]

the move animations look really good, but tbf its gen 4 pokédex not swsh pokédex (correct me if im wrong)

[@mimikyulostatail4705]

Seeing this, shortly after playing through PLA makes me appreciate it way more.

[@kyrios2773]

Really tho, I still remember getting “climb” right in a spelling test when I was tiny solely because of pokemon

[@DrawciaGleam02]

Nice!

[@oh_itsDTheo]

I knew how to spell the word chlorophyll when I was 10 years old because of pokemon lol. My fourth grade teacher always wondered how I knew that

[@miguelmejia4656]

@@oh_itsDTheo teachers are really really stupid.

[@akl2k7]

Pokemon does expose you to a lot of different vocabulary and you do read a lot playing the games. I remember learning the word "leer" from them.

[@InciniumVGC]

Honestly as a fan that has been with the series since gen 1 I wish they didn't feel compelled to release a game every year. I can see that's the source of most of the problems. I'd be willing to wait for and even pay more than $60 for a fully polished Pokemon AAA title that had national dex support. I know there'd be complaints on this either way but ultimately I think the majority of fans would be happy with the result. Another way I'd be fine is if they just returned to sprite graphics, 3d is cool and all but honestly playing the most recent game, being extremely disappointed, then going and playing some fan made games that were much more polished and had a better experience while still being all sprite graphics, the most important thing is honestly the experience of the game. Again, yes people would complain but the majority of die hard fans would be happy with a return to sprite graphics in exchange for a much richer gameplay and story experience and all the Pokemon being there. I'd also be fine with them actually making an open world Pokemon game that's like BotW - let's see if Legends: Arceus lives up - and yes, even if not all the Pokemon are there, because at least that would be a fresh and interesting take and possibly actually fun, so long as it's polished. Lastly as someone who has played competitive for a quite a while as well, I wish they wouldn't add gimmicks like Dynamax that drastically unbalance the game. Also, make evasion clause a thing in official competitive battles, that'd be awesome but minor. As it stands the fan made games for this franchise in recent times are far better overall than the official games, loads of fan games that add challenge and an interesting story while also having a surprising level of polish and actually keep up to date with new games as far as new additions. In all honestly though I think it's completely fair to expect more from them, this is the LARGEST MEDIA FRANCHISE IN THE WORLD. But yes they won't change anything significant until their profits start to dip. So if you're tired of being disappointed, instead of just complaining loudly about it, effectively just adding your shit to the cesspool that is the fanbase, just stop buying things and play fan games instead. Stop mindlessly consuming.

[@ReidMcCorkle]

I have played radical red three full times including a hardcore mode run (holy crap what a nightmare that was) and I honestly straight up prefer the sprite graphics. I think they look better and the game plays faster.

[@LibraryofAcousticMagic3240]

your points are valid but damn you write in Snake

[@shinesunarjo3638]

The problem is that GF dping that will result is siginificamtly less money, BDSP which is a very cheaply made game with the quality of a fangame sold 6 Million in the first week

[@dragonairdragon6173]

Pokemon will never go back to sprites because they can just keep reusing Models and animations from XY. It is sad, but it's the reality that as long as people keep buying half-baked new games anyway. They won't put in effort.

[@vgcreviews8277]

@@ReidMcCorkle you have to realise that part of it is the bias that you have because you grew up playing that game. the graphics isn't the problem, the problem is trying to do the game as cheaply as possible. i think pokemon should focus on making good games. capitalism promotes companies to milk their audiences quickly, and pokemon are falling for it. They need to stop milking the audience and make quality games. I don't mind paying 5$ on a DLC if the game itself is quality. They need to write compelling stories with a big climax that is rewarding. They need to hire writers, good writers that know how to do this. They need to hire a large team to design pokemon. A lot of pokemon feel underwhelming and forgetable, which isn't a problem I felt in DP, my first games. Granted, they were my first games, and that affects it somewhat, but most modern pokemon feel very forgettable. They also could relax on the number of pokemon in the game. I don't care about national dex, and most people probably don't either, they just like to complain. 250 pokemon is enough to have in a game, and they should just circle the pokemon. You have 250, then the next game you keep 100 and bring 150 other ones, and if 50 of those 250 are new, that is a good ratio I think

[@Mono789]

We really took Black and White for granted at the time. Their sprite work looked SO good, but we transitioned to 3d right after.

[@kratal122]

I would love something like giving the players a choice when starting a game if they want Route Trainers to have their teams full or not, as well as not having every Route Trainer being a monotype specialist. I get sick of seeing bird keepers and getting an electric type sweep, a black belt and getting a psychic type sweep, a fire breather and getting a water type sweep, etc. unless I’m in the early game and don’t have access to enough types yet, but even then the trainers are usually Youngsters with the approximate equivalents of Ratatta, Pidgey and Nidoran. I don’t want to *HAVE* to use a randomizer to give trainers a team that requires me to think about what Pokémon they’re switching into without *HAVING* to do a Nuzlocke either.

[@kaleeshsynth9994]

I prefer gen 5 style sprites they had more charm

[@ChangedMyNameFinally69]

They're ugly lol

[@woogachan]

@@ChangedMyNameFinally69 cap

[@ChangedMyNameFinally69]

@@woogachan No cap

[@WHY-tl6je]

@@ChangedMyNameFinally69 🧢

[@aeigir]

yeah they had more personality to them!

[@sophialovecraft7894]

I always wished that Medabots had caught on, in the same way Pokemon did.

[@adrianchriste6]

Im surprised to see someone remember that, good show

[@Silviremon]

Medarots had an April Fools crossover with Digimon last year.

[@sophialovecraft7894]

@@wyatt199x3 My thought is that although pokemon has the tried and true formula , Medabots could have sustained the genre so much better in a less convoluted way. Swapping parts and robots around in combinations, the whole show was great, I need to rewatch it soon. I wan't to get into some of the games to be honest.

[@sophialovecraft7894]

@@Silviremon Ah I don't really know much about Digimon but I might have to check that out.

[@sperryyoungerjr.3985]

I like Medabots. I used to play the GBA Medabots game. I still have the cartridge, but I don't have a GBA or a DS lite to play it on.

[@thrakerzad5874]

40 minutes to say one thing "everyone calls game freak lazy for not being able to add close to 1000 pokemon to each new game"

[@TheMegaultrachicken]

It's partially gamefreak's fault and TPC's. The pokemon company is a scumbag corporation who likes rushing out products. I don't know why there even is a pokemon company. Why is it not just gamefreak and nintendo? By the way for pokemon, which has always put every single pokemon in every single main series game yeah it is an obligation to put every pokemon in the game. Being in 3d and working with models under extremely tough time constraints is what's causing the lack of quality and as of SWSH, quantity.

[@Cri_Jackal]

Officially produced Pokemon ASMR, that's something new.

[@l-I-I__Iool]

Right? Soon they'll have gardevoir ASMR videos...

[@normalhuman78-53]

@@l-I-I__Iool *oh no*

[@MetalMercutio]

@@l-I-I__Iool Lopunny ASMR

[@miguelmejia4656]

@@l-I-I__Iool why didnt he mention pokemon go?

[@PartnershipsForYou]

@@MetalMercutio take my money gamefreak

[@tyranitararmaldo]

One aspect that wasn't quite touched on, was that Gamefreak sometimes make their job harder. Look at pokemon like Alcremie and Silvally. Those each have a massive amount of forms, each needing their own models in the data. Is that really necessary? To make pokemon with like 30-odd forms that all need to be incorporated into a new game or any future one? It makes it really hard to defend their argument about not bringing all the pokemon forward, when they go out of their way to make problems for themselves. I'm not blaming everything on them...but they do need to make their own jobs easier and have some foresight.

[@jamclone]

They may be handled automatically, and may work like shinies - a texture change. Spinda has near infinite pattern amounts, and is most likely handled by a bot

[@tyranitararmaldo]

@@jamclone I agree that there are far simpler ways of handling it. Simply making the "skin" change colour rather than making a brand new model for each (I don't know why they still do the latter...). Or for Silvally, its ability could pop up whenever it is sent into battle and declare what type it is. Like Intimidate or Unnerve do.

[@jamclone]

@@tyranitararmaldo yeah

[@creativebeetle]

@@jamclone Unless I'm mistaken, every model for Alcremie is stored as an individual file, making that pokemon use up as much space as like half the pokedex on its own. This isn't an error that belongs on the resume of the most successful media franchise on Earth.

[@Draconicdisciple]

Also, those are ways of increasing the amount of character given to a Pokemon. When you decide to have a pokemon based off of cake, well cakes have multiple flavors, what makes a cake pokemon unique? The ability for it to have lots of flavors. What's unique about a chimera? Its mutation/combination. What makes a chimera pokemon unique? The ability to change types and you have to have some cool effect to represent that and give it character. Its why people latched onto regional forms so much, they enjoy unique form ideas. Foresight means its harder to carry them over, but you can't take risks while still keeping in complete foresight.

[@GhostRat__]

I honestly thought you were going to go into how in the hell the world functions if a ghost can become the size of a city and just eat it. Or a fish from the water can just scoot around on land and is the size of a city

[@SexyMrNibbles]

29:30 YEEEEEESSSS!! The biggest problem I have with the main titles are the lack of walking with my partner pokemon. LET MY CROAGUNK SWAG!!

[@cizd]

3D animation is really versatile and reusable. If they had an animations team separate from the core game team that just slowly did one Pokemon at a time over the last 6 years they would be done by now and they could use this work in every game. It would benefit the main series, Pokemon Go, mystery dungeon, and any other spin off they ever decided to make.

[@fede1324ee]

you would still have to balance a lot of pokemons tho

[@cizd]

@@fede1324ee I'm sure that's why you see so many Eldegoss and Dubwool in competitive. Let's be honest Pokémon being a bit unbalanced is a feature and While 9 out of 10 Pokémon will never be usable in competitive we still love them.

[@-FutureTaken-]

I agree, I totally would be fine if they added custom animations to one or two Pokémon every year that they then reuse