How Pokémon Became a Logistical Nightmare of Design

[@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

[@redcenteno7150]

I didn't even realize this was a video from 3 years ago, a lot if not all of these issues are still relevant

[@nullpoint3346]

They've been relevant for a long time.

[@armandoventura9043]

They are relevant from the third generation, from there it was seen that there were going to be many problems in the future

[@KoOk-h1d]

​@armandoventura9043 Agreed that the fact that Gamefreak is still under the TPC is still a problem in and of itself.

[@KoOk-h1d]

Monolith Soft has consistent releases because of their masters of the 3d open world and have budget that helps them.

[@tangomango2353]

Damn I didn't either 😭

[@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).

[@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.

[@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

[@kingofcrap4414]

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 ((;; >_> ))

[@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

[@moistenvelopes]

Arceus FUCKED hard and then they dropped the ball in the next one

[@ldmtag]

No, thanks😂 Although I would love HMs back, I want them as Koraidon capabilities, not as Gen 2 nightmare when your poor Water type has to carry like 3 HMs. Having to have an HM move never really bothered me, cos most pokemon don't need comverage when you have a team of 6, and status moves like Hypnosis are mostly a waste of time in playthrough, so I was totally fine with my starter's moveset being something like {Ember, Cut, Strength, Fire Blast}. But now in Sapphire my Ludicolo has to learn not just Surf, Dive and Waterfal. Where is there even place for its Grass STAB, when its low Sp.A could really use some help from Fake Out?! I used to run double Water on my team, and that was in Gen 9 with no HMs, but only because the options were plentiful, and I really wanted to try physical Intimidate Gyarados and Huge Power Azumarill for the first time. Like, Rock Smash is a decent high PP move, especially after it got buffed in Gen 4, Strength is an INCREDIBLE move, very reliable, can hit anything but Ghost, Steel and Rock, Cut, again, a nice option for saving your strong move's PP, less need to go back to heal at the Pokemon Center when clearing a route, Rock Climb, I belieclve, is basically Rock Smash'es duplicate, it's hella rare, but at least it's not a burden to carry (though carrying a pokemom that can learn it - is, but it's not really essential, nothing interesting is locked behind Rock Climb, I believe), Surf - great move, Fly - great move, Waterfal works with physical Water types, which is fine considering some non-Water types can run Surf. But bloody Whirlpool?! A NOTHING move! Dive? It's either a duplicate of Surf or Waterfall, can't remember. Like, why couldn't they make those HMs work like upgrades? Surf gets you surfing, Whirlpool gets you both surfing and crossing whirlpools, Water fall gets you surfing, crossing and climbing waterfalls, and Dive gives you all 4? Or like how Rock Climb gives you Rock Smash, Strength and Rock Climb in one, which would be fair considering how absurdely late game Rock Climb is, like, at that point, why would you even want to go back to locations and find new itema you no longer nees cos you've beaten the entire game already?!

[@Koroguru]

@@ldmtagnowhere in the comment do they say they want HMs back in the way they were implemented before

[@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.

[@UltimatePhantasm]

That's Flying Press tho

[@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.

[@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?

[@DawnChaser-yn]

@@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

[@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.

[@Patrick-y4d1z]

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

[@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

[@RenxyQuad]

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]

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

[@RenxyQuad]

@@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]

@@RenxyQuad 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

[@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.

[@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.

[@ajbXYZcool]

@SandHater Actually I had let my Bank lapse for a year or 2, but when I managed to get back to it all of my mons were miraculously still there! I was pleasently surprised (after which I have since migrated them to Home)

[@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.

[@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?

[@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

[@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.

[@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

[@bartbasil3704]

@@ekuLy_42 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.

[@okagron]

@@Paulxl Yes, it can.

[@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!

[@Bleeperblopper497]

Did you buy Pokémon Box Ruby and Saphire there too?

[@zjzr08]

@cosmojg Gen 3 (in)famously is the hardest to complete a National Dex IMO especially with some like Johto starters being the hardest to get.

[@cosmojg]

@@Bleeperblopper497 No, sadly! My friend who would go to the Pokemon Center with me had it, but as a kid, I never understood the appeal nor the need. If only I knew!

[@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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@dr.archaeopteryx5512]

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

[@0celot9]

Ransomware?

[@dr.archaeopteryx5512]

@@0celot9 Pokemon Home. You risk losing your Poke's if you quit paying the subscription, and some mons are stuck in there without the right switch game

[@thelairofblair]

They're talking about how your pokemon are stored online in the cloud through a paid subscription. If you don't pay the fee they will eventually delete your account. I don't know how long the grace period is. It would be cool if they created a my pokemon ranch kind of game where you can store your pokemon locally.

[@Koroguru]

@@thelairofblairhome doesn’t delete Pokémon, you just can’t access them

[@Monitice]

@@Koroguru Still essentially ransomware.

[@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.

[@JoJoboiWav]

@@daggerthedragon1582 lol

[@ZylethXenocian]

ONE MORE MON REJECTED

[@Gadgetmcflyv2]

@@sadoldguy4380 but they have femboy protag so it's all good

[@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.

[@socksinsoda9517]

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

[@justinr.507]

Nah just use a everstone

[@Bigmanpo615]

Legends Arceus???

[@thomasgeschke9553]

@@Bigmanpo615 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.

[@Bigmanpo615]

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

[@Bigmanpo615]

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

[@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.

[@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

[@Hyper_Drud]

I’m not mad the majority of the merch is Gen 1 mons, I’m mad that it’s THE SAME Gen 1 mons. Game stores, carnivals you name it. There is no shortage of Pikachus, the starters and the other iconic gen 1s. Where’re the weirdos like Tangela, Venonat or Lickitung?

[@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

[@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.

[@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).

[@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.

[@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.

[@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?

[@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

[@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.

[@acomfyslugcat]

​@@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.

[@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]”.

[@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

[@Golemoid]

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

[@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.

[@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

[@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.

[@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?

[@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

[@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??

[@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.

[@PokebellasWussy]

Some people would be of that camp, but me and a lot of people just don’t accept dexit, period. Part of the reason I don’t like dexit as a concept is because it makes to where your fav Pokémon has to have enough clout to be included in these newer games. For example, what if someone wanted to transfer the shiny Jellicent they had since childhood all the way to gen 9? Whelp, they can’t because someone at either GF or TPC decided “well, no one cares about these mons, I’m sure no one will be upset that they’re gone.” Whenever dexit is brought up, I always have to remind people that SOMEONE’S. FAVE. GOT. CUT. Also it just feels weird when they literally used to CONGRATULATE you when you obtained all the Pokémon up to that gen in the older games.

[@miimiiandco]

S/V added at least new textures, and I'm sure they have new animations, too. Lucario animates very differently than in X/Y to Sw/Sh.

[@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.

[@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

[@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

[@rickyrns1059]

@@silentdrew7636Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei was the game adaptation that SMT was the “original story” successor of, and that game was released a little over 5 years before DQ5. So yeah, Megaten still did it first, it was just the original Megaten, and not the “Shin” Megaten.

[@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.

[@ViolentRainbow]

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

[@ryaquaza3offical]

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]

@@ryaquaza3offical Pokemon home would be ok if it was already included in the already expensive NSO

[@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.

[@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.

[@juliagoetia]

@@zjzr08 Two years later: Legends Arceus is PEAK lmao, I'm so happy it turned out well :3

[@Kranitoko]

Game freak: "why would we spend all this time developing stuff only a fraction of players will see?" Larian with Baldur's Gate 3: "hold my beer"

[@NotSatanDisguised]

"The great Monster Taming wars of the late 90's" is how I will now and forever refer to my childhood.

[@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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@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

[@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

[@oceanviolets1306]

I would like to point out how each generation iterated on the gameplay. Gen 2 introduced new types and held items. Gen 3 introduced abilities and double battles. Gen 4 introduced the special/physical split so all moves of a certain type aren't one or the other, gen 5 introduced triple battles and rotation battles, Gen 6 introduced fairy type. 2,3, and 4 changed the gameplay in very big ways, and I personally love rotation battles, but other than fairy types what systems have been introduced in the past several generations that STUCK? Mega evo? Z moves? Is gigamx gonna be in the next game?

[@sadoldguy4380]

The secret new feature of Sword/Shield is the much easier methods to get back old forgotten moves and moving mons in and out of the party while still in field.

[@christopheraddeo5949]

@@sadoldguy4380 although those are nice additions, they don't fundamentally change gameplay in battle which is the original poster's main sentiment. I think adding new types and reworking some of the existing match ups would help a lot. Adding some form of benefits for fast decision making would also be a nice change because it rewards skill and fast thought.

[@Jdudec367]

did triple and rotations battle stick? They didn't last longer then Megas, and Z moves were cool.

[@charlescaulkins8306]

Game Freak said that Dynamaxing/Gigantomaxing is exclusive to the Sword and Shield region, so no, I don’t think we’ll see it come back the next generation. I doubt they even meant to bring Mega Evolution in Gen 7 honestly given how tacked on those games were.

[@gustavoschiller6852]

Both Gen 7 & 8 introduced mechanics that made raising competitive Pokemon easier like Hyper Training and Nature Mints and new items such as the heavy duty boots which helped balance the excessive use of stealth rocks and they also buffed moves that were very weak or not that useful like Leech Life and Rapid Spin

[@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

[@willismiller7035]

There is only one way to truly complain and that is to STOP BUYING! If you purchase pokemon, you no longer get to complain. Your purchase was your approval of what they have sone with the ip. Period, no argument to be had.

[@831x10]

The issue isn't as much about the number of pokemon as you make it out to be. Yes, that is a core aspect of the franchise and something many people were disappointed about, but at the same time most people would have been willing to accept the cut if the games made up for it in quality. The games are just bad. The dex cut was simply the straw that broke the camel's back and it came with no gain to make up for it. And the fact that a majority if the franchise's profit comes from merchandise and gamefreak doesn't see much of it isn't an argument in their favor. The Pokemon series, without looking at merchandise, is still the second best selling video game series, only behind Mario. You cannot tell me they don't have the resources to deliver a honorable AAA gaming experience.

[@raze2012_]

"he fact that a majority if the franchise's profit comes from merchandise and gamefreak doesn't see much of it isn't an argument in their favor. " sure it is. It just isn't an argument you personally like.

[@creativebeetle]

@@raze2012_ Game freak owns a third of Pokemon's shares unless I'm mistaken, I don't see how they could be remotely concerned about money.

[@patrickharley3003]

Exactly what I was thinking while watching this the entire time. The dex cut just comes with absolutely no benefit when all the Pokemon models are reused, all the animations are reused, the texture quality is lower, and the story is rushed and nonsensical. The fact that they lied about first needing to redo all the models from scratch, and then they had to cut it to make room for better animations is what really irks me. Sword and Shield could have been so much better received had they just put the rest of the Pokemon in, even if they were unobtainable in-game; we had to wait for months for Pokemon to be ported from gen 5 to gen 6, but we got them all. And that was back when they ACTUALLY had to redo all the Pokemon in 3D. It really just shows how the standards have fallen.

[@FraserSouris]

@@creativebeetle Shares doesn't mean you can get easier deadlines. It's entirely possible the other 2/3 said "hey, get a new game out on x date with y money. You ain't getting any more. We got a ton of merch, anime and cards riding on this"

[@831x10]

@@raze2012_ you don't think the second best selling video game series in the world should be able to develop decent games regardless of merchandise revenue?

[@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.

[@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

[@HaxAras]

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

[@GodleyX]

I don't care that they cut the roster. I love the idea of a small curated roster in each game. The problem is... The game still sucks. Like it feels like Pokémon is make by an amateur developer

[@zerellix]

This

[@luclin92]

They where amatures, but somehow they never ended up keeping any veterans while making the games. All i hope is that the spinn off acerus game would be pretty great. Or that it would get a sequel which keeps the promises it looks like it could make

[@torchthe62nd63]

Because it is made by a amateur developer. They're good at making decent 2D sprite games, but they've fallen apart now that they're on a home console.

[@GodleyX]

@@torchthe62nd63 I guess so huh? When you really get down to it: this developer has no experience outside of making the same game over and over again with slightly different assets each time. Ever since the games went 3d, it's been pretty crummy. And now they're making an open world game... And seeing it scares me. Looks like they should at least consult an experienced open world game developer....

[@Draconicdisciple]

@@GodleyX Who would you trust to make it though? There's a lot of open world games that come out and then flop or have a lot of complaints related to them. Even Bethesda's games are noted to be full of flaws in their open world nature and a lot of previously made ones have faded into obscurity eventually. And how do they keep the inherent difference of a pokemon fighting other pokemon with you vs you fighting your enemies alone fresh while still consulting someone who has experience with a similar genre of game but not the exact same style? Then you have to think about if a company wants to cooperate with that, or how much it costs and so how much you can budget for that...

[@LieseFury]

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

[@RenxyQuad]

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

[@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.

[@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?

[@Matty002]

ive only seen 1 other comment bring up the base issue: not using the BILLIONS of dollars TPC makes to hire more development staff SwSh only had about 200 working on the game. big games like GTAV had 1000 people. RDR had 2000. even BOTW had 300 working on it and that was made for the 8th gen wii u this is just incompetence via greed

[@orbusg8451]

This is why I don't defend them. Not enough resources is not a valid argument when you're literally the most profitable piece of media in history. They don't want to give the games more development time, but they also don't want to spend more money/hire more people to bring the quality of the games up for that shorter dev time which are essentially massive advertisements for their merch. Well, that's a goddam problem they have only themselves to blame for.

[@bigwave1713]

I don't know the inner working, but that billions of dollars is not all games. That takes into account EVERYTHING, from Movies to TV to Manga to Trading card game. While yes they can probably add more, just saying there not using a billion dollars is straight up not looking at everything. Also, that Breath of the Wild example does not hold up when you realize that they had at least 6 years compared to the MAXIMUM of 3 years a usual Pokemon game gets.

[@mr.preston1632]

@@orbusg8451 But gamefreak isn’t to blame, TPC is

[@creativebeetle]

@@bigwave1713 Game freak owns about a third of Pokemon's stock though, so their assets are nothing to scoff at.

[@kman215]

Pokemon is a Cash cow. They just do the same thing over and over with little to no creativity and it sells

[@twilftw]

16:30 one thing that also has to be kept in mind about the "gota catch em all" line is it was something made up my nintendo of america and was never used in japan.

[@jowysw]

And? I doubt GameFreak, TPCi and NoJ didn't know what NoA marketing department does for two Pokemon generations in a row.

[@zebimicio5204]

@@jowysw They know, but what would they do? They marketed that way towards americans, not Japanese.

[@jowysw]

@@zebimicio5204 ? My point was that if GameFreak felt that slogan was not exactly one that fit the series, they could've stopped it... But they didn't.

[@zebimicio5204]

@@jowysw Except they couldn't really stop it though. TPC (by TPC i mean Nintendo) have the power to market the games. GF have no say to agree or not lmao.

[@jowysw]

@@zebimicio5204 GameFreak is a third of TPC, just saying. Daying they have no power over the promotion of their own games is bullshit. And they did stop it tho. Just that they waited until gen 3.

[@alexbluer]

my problem with gamefreak, is how sometimes they are so incompetent at what they do. bad optimization, bad decisions (things they could reuse like pokecamp animations and others they don't use), etc. The worst thing is that the company has few employees and even so they decided to divide their team to work on another game while they made pokemon S&S (for those who have forgotten, they released little town hero and it has the same problems as pokemon or worse)

[@maxxor-overworldhero6730]

I don't even hear _anything_ about Little Town Hero. It was that much of a failure.

[@friendlyotaku9525]

they didn't divide their team so that's actually not true. Only 20 people worked on Little Town Hero while 200 of the core team worked on SwSh, so clearly more was being put into Pokemon.

[@maxxor-overworldhero6730]

@@friendlyotaku9525 That just makes that worse.

[@alexbluer]

@@friendlyotaku9525 The truth is, I don't know if that's better or worse. but wow, they have very few employees

[@friendlyotaku9525]

@@alexbluer and for a reason.

[@smokeyfish7435]

Marill being called 'pikablue' in the schoolyard before gold/silver came out just unlocked an ancient memory

[@QwixLF]

Honestly, new generations just feel less impactful when they come like clockwork every 3 years. New gen pair, third version (or equivalent in case of this gen with DLC), remake of old gen. Rinse and repeat. We will get gen 9 in 2022, even with Legends doing it's own thing. I recognize that the multimedia part of Pokemon is where the true money is, but I wish the games could be decoupled from it all. Stretch a gen cycle to cover 5 or 6 years and it would be much more refreshing. A game every other year.

[@costby1105]

I kind of doubt well get Gen 9 at least a traditional one. Gamefreak is Busy with Pokemon Legends Arceus, how do you think they are going develop that and release Gen 9 at the same time. Most likely If we start seeing new pokemon, they will be introduced in Pokemon GO.

[@QwixLF]

They've been outputting the start of a new gen every 3 years reliably since gen 5 on Sept 2010. Unless Arceus is truly the start of a new direction and not a one off experiment, I don't see why them pushing their usual holiday package out 2 months to make way for BDSP is going to affect work on it for the first time in ever. Check a timeline of releases, even in the early years they were putting out a new title, third version, or remake yearly with only one or two exceptions. Why would they not meet this imaginary deadline now?

[@gameboy8010]

@@QwixLF Arceus very much feel like the Pokemon Let's Go between Gen 7 and 8. It's their testbed for new ideas, seeing what works and doesn't. Inevitably those ideas will end up seeping into the core franchise if they work just as overworld roaming did from Go.

[@costby1105]

@@QwixLF Because of how large Pokemon Legends Arceus is. It's what the main team has bee working on. Gamefreak doesn't have the ability to work on two big projects at the same time. Unless they have another developer work on Generation 9 It's probably coming at 2023 at the earliest. Remember BDSP are being developed by ILCA not Gamefreak.

[@QwixLF]

@@costby1105 I know ILCA is handling BDSP, I'm saying if its such a huge project for them, why not make it the holiday title for 2022? It would give them a full two years on the thing instead of a paltry extra two months. They might have even known that BDSP's artstyle and remake approach would have gotten mixed responses, considering Masuda is overseeing that project despite it being outsourced, and did this to counterbalance the response. Combined with the artificial timetable for the gen cycle, it smells of a rushed project. The big twist would be if they were working on this in the background for a longer time than suspected and it was slightly impairing their ability to work on SWSH.

[@Spaecefaeries]

It’s weird because while I didn’t like sword and shield at all, I thought sun and moon were some of the best installments ever. They did so many exciting, different things and had a great selection of new Pokémon.

[@ndrocca]

I’m so happy to see someone else feel this way.

[@survivordave]

As someone who's played every generation, I think 7 (Alola) was the most fun I've had with a Pokemon game since Pokemon Gold. It just felt so new and exciting. It's the only mainline game without gyms, first one with regional variants, first one with Ride Pokemon/without HMs, and honestly probably the best story out of any Pokemon game. Z Moves are my favorite gimmick so far, and you could still Mega Evolve. Plus Alola has some incredible Pokemon. Toucannon is one of my favorite Pokemon of all time; Decidueye is my favorite fully evolved starter; Comfey and Orocorio were amazing in battle with Triage and Dancer. And I love the box Legendaries. Such a great generation ❤️

[@MajoraZ]

You bring up complaints of visual stagnation, but is that something people actually complain about? Most crticiism I see aimed at Gen 6/7/8 "stagnating" has less to do with visuals (most fans I see are understanding of the reuse and stagnation of the models), and more to do with a point you bring up later in the video, which is the fact that the games have stuck to the same core formula they did previously when sprite based instead of shifting in scope and design to be, well, like what Legends is shaping up to be. There is absolutely some complaints about animations, and that may or may not be reasonable, but regarding your comment at 26:00 , it IS possible to re-use and transfer animation data alongside the models. Obviously it takes some work to import models, textures, and animations into a new game and ensure there's no issues, but plenty of 3d formats allow for rigs, vertex weighting, IKS, etc to be saved alongside the geometry. IIRC modders /have/ found that the Sword/Shield models and animations were generally directly ported over from Gen 6/7. And that brings me to the final thing: We got the national dex cut with absolutely 0 apparent upsides. If they want to drastically increase the scope like Legends or drastically personalize the animations and have improved graphics like Snap, then cutting Pokemon is reasonable and understandable. Buit what exactly justifies (either from a consumer perspective or even in development resource terms) it happening with sword and shield? It happened for no apparent reason. Anyways, something I think the franchise could do that I think is feasible (I mean I also think it's feasible for TPCI to pump way more money into each Pokemon game and give them more time to where they can be AAA titles, but that's not gonna happen) is to use the "cycling" of Pokemon to built up improved animations over time. For a while, sure, cut the natdex, but for the pokemon they DO include in each new game, take some time giving them a bit more specialized animations. Not one per move, that'd be insane, but, like 6 variations of attack animations rather then just 2-3. Do that enough and eventually you "catch up" and now every Pokemon has fancier animations, and include them all in one game, maybe that specific title gets an extra long dev cycle to justify having every Pokemon. I'd also like to see Legends reuse animations from Pokemon snap for it's overworld. Lastly, 32:00: I play Pokken competitively :P

[@georgeliquor1236]

Damn, you expect me to read all that?

[@bigman88george3]

@@georgeliquor1236 about 4 minutes. Not a big deal. Good pints he made.

[@mars5914]

@@georgeliquor1236 Yes.

[@georgeliquor1236]

@@bigman88george3 I like pints.

[@MajoraZ]

@@georgeliquor1236 Bro if you think that's long you should see the 10,000+ character replies I make on videos about Mesoamerican history, that are so long they hit youtube's character limit.

[@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

[@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!

[@animefreddiemercury]

I always wonder how Atlus felt about pokemon since they basically created the monster collecting genre, but even in a lot of videos I see, people forget about Shin Megami Tensei

[@raze2012_]

Like fox said, that quantity factor in the very beginning paid off big time for pokemon. SMT's strategy of very slowly expanding monsters was much more sustatinable, but it never blew up. Sometimes, it's just about knowing where and how to be ambitious than just being first.

[@Bothrops_Asper_89]

Because SMT wasn't backed by mass marketing like Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh or Digimon.

[@kutaoizumi4189]

@@raze2012_ SMTs monster designs, style and story are also not as easily marketable to literally everyone ever. So it already caters to a very small percent of people.

[@squirtleislife1312]

SMT has always been about constancy. It knows its audience and has been giving them what they want for decades, unlike pokemon

[@HYPERYoshi5]

don't forget that demon/persona stats and such arent quite as intuitive, deep, or even interesting as mainline pokemon design-- because in those games you're meant to use a multiple character party for mostly mob fights, while pokemon has a much more intuitive, straightforward battle system with more unique individual interactions both are good, but this is why people tend not to compare the two so much, one is a difficult single player experience (with honestly rather spotty difficulty balancing...), the other is a battle system meant to be able to be used in competitive one-on-one battling you also don't have anywhere near the level of implied intimacy with any of your demons or personas, which just doesnt appeal as much as the idea of having a little pet eevee or something ...it also helps that most demon/persona designs arent very marketable or as widely appealing as most pokemon aside from like- what, jack frost? pixie?... p3 orpheus??

[@ajimajiPH]

I thought they moved from 2D sprites to 3D models to future-proof the Pokemon, and to save time since these 3D assets do not need to be redrawn/redesigned every new generation. Also there are other companies like Falcom(YS/Trails) and Gust(Atelier) who also have yearly releases, but have produced good games in spite of their low budget

[@Percival917]

Hand-drawn sprites would probably have worked better in that regard.

[@gabrielfreitas3033]

Future proofing the models doesn't mean it doesn't take work to implement them in each game, a lot of game developers already said this, and modders have shown that you can't just put the 3DS models into the game. Also the Ateliers series reuses assets A LOT, there's a good amount of models and animations that have been around since the PS3 days

[@kushagrasharma8974]

those other games are not a victim of capitalism.

[@LIVEvil789]

Yes, you are correct. Gamefreak got caught in a couple lies regarding their reasons why not all Pokemon would make it in. One was that it would take too long to upscale or create from scratch all the models, but then the leak came out that the 3D models from Gen 7 were already rendered at 4k in an effort to future proof the franchise. And another was that they didn't have enough people to make the game as well as it could be, which when people found they split their main development studio to work on their own game codenamed "Home" or something instead of devoting them to their flagship series, made people even more mad as that is another apparent lie. This is all from memory; I could be slightly mistaken as it was about a year ago this all went down, but to the best of my ability I'm pretty sure that's why.

[@Foxcade]

Except they didnt split their studio to work on Little Town Hero. They regularly have other projects going alongside Pokemon's development so devs dont get completely burnt out on the IP, but the staff is never more than 20-30 people of their nearing 200 core staff. Sw/Sh had 100s of staff including contractors (still the biggest credits compared to previous gens). Little Town Hero had less than 40 including contractors, none of whom were leads on Pokemon. This continuing idea that the staff was split is odd because it takes a second looking at credits to see the difference of staffing on each project.

[@jakyvirtorks4304]

My biggest issue is that Game Freak straight up lied about the NatDex. We've had 3 games, and 4 DLCs since SwSh...but it still looks like an early era PS3 title. All they're doing is cutting content, and seeing how long they can charge full price until people really start to fire back.

[@jonathanlanglois2742]

Even without going into "highly detailed attacks", just moving the location where the sprites of the attacks come from would already make a huge difference.

[@liarwithagun]

It's tuffer to initially set up than normal animations, but you can make modular animation systems which would let them make very detailed animations that are perfectly suit to each pokemon and its body type and available limbs so each move is 'unique' and perfectly suited to that pokemon. It'd take a single experienced competent animator a month to two months max to learn how to do this and implement it for all the pokemon that exist.

[@TeleportRush]

@@liarwithagun Honestly yeah, anyone complaining about people complaining that they don't have a node on the models to where 'breath style' attacks (like watergun and flame thrower) originate from because it'd be 'too much work' is really either not genuine or ignorant.

[@InfiniteThePhantomJackal]

@@TeleportRush I mean, Battle Revolution seemed to have that.

[@TeleportRush]

@Copen it's literally a node on a model. Any modeler, any programmer, and anyone of amateur knowledge of those subjects will tell you, it's not hard

[@TeleportRush]

@Copen when you have a dedicated 1000 modeler company, should be easy.

[@matthewmatthew981]

Before we get walking Pokémon again, I would love to see a return to and expansion of the environmentally-contextual battles seen in X and Y. That way, by the time we're riding around on our Ponytas again, we'll actually get to have unique battles based ON riding the Ponyta: and our capacity to escape or even control where we're going will not be returned until we're able to END said battles!

[@leahdresser2290]

Every time I see footage/photos of late 90's Pokemania, my brain explodes with a combination of nostalgia, joy, and sadness that those days are long gone. If I could travel back in time, I would go right back to September 1998 and relive the release of Red and Blue, the premiere of the anime, the release of the TCG, and all of the wonderful things that went with it. There's a reason why vintage booster boxes and packs sell for such exorbitant amounts of money. That's the value of reliving that feeling, just a little bit, even for a moment. In a way, sealed vintage cards are the only way to really touch that past. A little time machine of foil paper and cardboard.

[@Sellipsis]

I remember my whole kindergarten year of 1999-2000, the entire small town school was absolutely nuts about pokemon. It was practically every other conversation all kids in school had. Good times, good times...

[@ShakuraKazuki]

Ah, the days I hid under my blanket with a light attached to my GameBoy Color to play Pokemon Blue after bedtime... Good times.

[@pascalsimioli6777]

I think about that often, unfortunately I'm afraid once you get there and obtain what you desire the most you'd realize that it was better in your memories and that the beauty of nostalgia is that it can't be relieved again...

[@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

[@PokemonProfessorNebula]

I personally think they just need to extend the time period between generations or partner with/hire more game devs, and probably cap off the dex at 1000 Pokemon. I think just having new random creatures popping up in the world would eventually cap off or slow down to one or two monsters over time (Legendaries and Mythicals probably) rather than just finding a new 100 creatures on some island nobody ever heard of. I think 1000 is more than enough to make a game diverse each time a new one is released. Focusing on story, mechanics, features, fighting style, and graphics is what would be the best thing to focus on, and I hope with stuff like the remakes coming out is what will be worked more on.

[@KreuzDrache]

Yeah, I definitely CAN see how constantly adding new pokemon can and will be a problem in the long term/then present day of 2021, but with their Pokemon Home service costing money to get the most out of it and the overall quality of Sword and Shield when it comes to balance and animations; you have to forgive me if I am doubtful of Gamefreak's intentions. Their actions do speak a hell of a lot louder than their words. I do recall Woolie or Pat doing a podcast about Sword and Shield and comparing it to Monster Hunter World, and I am fairly certain the feeling was something a long the lines of, "Sure we have less monsters to hunt, but look at all these really good changes and visuals and everything else! I don't think people would be nearly upset if the pokemon games did all that too." This is sentiment I also shared. I do agree though that more time would definitely make for a better experience ideally. Both for consumers and developers. We REALLY do not need a big pokemon game every year. Honestly, what I want to know is what actually happened with the Black and White entries? Cause that seems like turning point for Gamefreak too. Yeah, I can understand the 2nd games not doing so hot due to being "sequels", but why did the first games not do so well?

[@LiveHedgehog]

Yes, this. I don't think people are annoyed that they can't get every Pokémon in Sword/Shield. They're annoyed that, even after paying way too much for a simple transfer/storage service (and Nintendo's own online service), that they don't have the ability to use any Pokémon they own. It's limited for some unexplained reason. Let's not pretend they couldn't have made every Pokémon usable in the game. The animations, models, sound effects, etc. are all recycled and already made for them, any competent developer would have programmed a tool to automate the process and would have easily been able to make every Pokémon useable in the games.

[@planescaped]

The game series has become so bland and iterative that I get instant gaming fatigue when I put in a new pokemon game. It's not even that they need to change the formula, they just need to make better games that aren't just GBA games with better graphics. I personally loved Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon... but I hadn't played a pokemon game since Emerald by the time I played it because even back when Emerald came out I was getting sick of the games all feeling the same. I suppose I won't play pokemon for another decade and then I'll enjoy it again. :P Because hoping for this series to have any ambition whatsoever is very much in vain.

[@D-Havoc]

What do you mean by what happened to Black and White? A lot of louder Pokemon _fans_ hated being trapped in a new region with 150 new Pokemon. Granted, the animated sprites were very rough around the edges to say the least.

[@KreuzDrache]

@@D-Havoc Is that really the reason why it didn't sell well at all compared to the other DS titles at the time? I was under the impression since they sold relatively poorly, despite having so much extra content in it, its another factor as to why the later games have also been going down.

[@KreuzDrache]

@Grima the Fell Dragon Well that depresses me more than Sword and Shield selling more than Black and White. :(

[@TrueNomadSkies]

I was especially impressed that Skylanders made every character forwards compatible into future games and without losing attacks or having to start them over. They will lack new features, but they still work & you're always able to bring them with you as new games would come out. I can take my Hex and Drobot from the first game, and enter them into any of the future ones. They work a little bit differently due to different engines and animations were improved, but they committed to this and it was very commendable.

[@Sluggii]

tbh the fact that gen 10 isn't announced and being hyped yet gives me hope, like I really hope they're giving the team plenty of time to really polish the next mainline entries we get

[@creativebeetle]

This is an interesting video, but I feel that some of the points were understated. Regarding the scope of the games, I find that the basis for criticisms such as the national dex issue stem from a lack of quality in SWSH to compensate for the significantly lower amount of content. To me, the mass critique of the quality of games like sword and shield is entirely justified by the consistently poor quality in everything aside from the designs. Regardless of the scope of the new region additions, the pre ps2-level implementation of 3D and the swathes of performance issues/bugs demonstrated incompetence in console programming. This kind of deficit is largely separate to general scope and is indicative of a different problem.

[@bestaround3323]

Not to mention that with it jumping from handheld to a home console it should make better use of the better hardware. The game looks like it's running on a standard 3ds.

[@maxxor-overworldhero6730]

Though I will point out that the trees in question literally wasn't touched by GameFreak for months, and it took a modder all but a day to make the tree textures significantly better. Same can be said of people who fixed the floating Wingull.

[@friendlyotaku9525]

@@maxxor-overworldhero6730 "fixed the floating wingull" wingull is supposed to look like that so they didn't fix anything.

[@friendlyotaku9525]

what performance issues/bugs? I've played the game and there's very few of those kinds of issues presents, aside from some graphical hiccups performance is mostly solid across the board (with it hitting 30fps most of the time with only dips during intensive weather or while online in the wild area) and I've not encountered any bugs in normal gameplay.

[@maxxor-overworldhero6730]

@@friendlyotaku9525 Wingull aren't supposed to levitate and rotate 90° periodically. It's a bird.

[@epicphantom589]

The problem with the Pokémon fandom is that they’re not all fans of the same thing. They all love Pokémon because of different games from different eras, and because of this they all have their own idea of what Pokémon should be.

[@TuLibertadTePertenece]

No, the target of Pokémon games is people from the 90's who grew up with it, and will buy anything no matter what. And those people, even though they only keep feeding the very issue, pretty much agree on what the games should be and DISLIKE the turd that Pokémon is doing. But, despite disliking it, they won't stop buying the games. That's the REAL problem. They won't stop buying.

[@TuLibertadTePertenece]

"Because if I spend 90 USD twice, next time the games will be higher quality" - WRONG!!! Keep dreaming......

[@TrvisXXIII]

I’m always on the hunt for Pokémon deep dives and pray that the algorithm sends me videos like these

[@zoidsfan12]

I just bought a switch about a week ago to catch up on the switch pokemon games. I'm someone that seems to always skip a console generation so I have been stunned with legends Arceus and Scarlet and Violet. The games are gorgeous and are some of the most fun I have had with pokemon in ages. As I've gotten older I don't engage in discourse for games anymore. I find it can often rob me of the enjoyment that I have had for a title. I'm someone that views pokemon as comfort food, something to play when I don't want to be challenged or something to mindlessly grind for 40 hours to get a shiny. For me what I have loved about these new releases is the ease of access for everything. Nowadays you can use items to boost IVs rather than eugenics, shiny hunting is easier than ever (if I want it to be challenging I still have all the gen 3 games). For me Pokemon's core appeal is the building of an iconic team and collecting everything. Yeah is it a little sad to see not every pokemon be accessible in one game but I'm someone that has my stuff locked off anyway. I never got a DS till after pokemon bank went under so I never got to transfer my pokemon from the GBA games. My pokemon have been locked in their respective games for a long time. Honestly I feel that most of people's complaints are coming from a place of burnout. Play some other games, you'll appreciate your favorite games more. I keep a big library of indie games just for burn out scenarios. I've got multiple games with 2000 hours logged and one with 11000 logged. You gotta get good at spicing things up rofl. I'm also to an age where shouting out angrily into the ether doesn't grant me any catharsis. If a company is acting as they always have don't act surprised, and if you don't feel you are being catered to go somewhere else. For instance I love the designs and lore of league of legends but can't stand playing it anymore, it's not a knock on the company, it's a case that I changed, what I valued and what my priorities were changed. Be fluid people, be open to change and follow your gut.