Pokemon & Wasted Potential

A lighthearted look into how I believe the Pokemon franchise has endless wasted potential and where I think it could be doing so much more.
I'm aware that Generation 5 (Pokemon Black and White) may seem like somewhat of an outlier in this video. When I'm making general statements or talking about the differences between older, classic main series Pokemon games (i.e. Gens 1-4) and the last decade of Pokemon games (Gens 6-8) I generally leave Gen 5 out. This is because I view Gen 5 as a midpoint between these two eras, if you will, and that they bridge the gap between them to the point where it's hard to generalise with them because they're unlike all the other generations in that way.
So for example, I talk a lot on this video about linearity. Something that the past 3 Generations are riddled with and the first 4 didn't force on you anywhere near as much. Generation 5 is a weird balance between these two. They ARE fairly linear games with you being boxed in and prevented from progressing until you've completed everything in your current location quite often, however they also have quite exploratory route designs and there's a lot of caves and non-essential places to explore and discover regardless. For reasons like this, I didn't really feel like it was fair to lump them in with either of the other two groups, it's not that I'm ignoring them despite my conflicted feelings towards them.
Follow me at: / nocturnalfudj
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I own none of the music or footage used in this video, all footage came from the following channels;
/ pimpnite
/ munchingorange
/ herovoltsy
/ shofu
/ gameranxtv
/ clashtournaments
/ swimmingbird941
/ dazzabound

[@NocturnalFudj]

These old Pokemon videos suck go watch some of my newer stuff kzbin.info/door/yAuKT-djIfpvsFxEGkIhDg

[@annedrieck7316]

Hello

[@jashi7729]

this is better tbh

[@jminich887]

As a retired kid I can confirm that harder games are more fun in childhood.

[@myristicina.]

Obihugzenobi same lol

[@talonfiend861]

That I agreed

[@Bullminator]

Contra .. cough cough

[@vii9779]

I second their statement.

[@Tethloach1]

Hard games *FPS* Golden Eye Perfect Dark Turok 2 and 3 *JRPG* Zelda Ocarina of time Zelda Majora's Mask Pokemon red Pokemon XD Gales of Darkness. Hardest game in childhood was Golden eye Golden eye had a lot of replay value, speed running threw the game in the hardest mode was a thrill.

[@reporterkermit3728]

“Kids want an adventure and not a guided tour” perfectly sums up the why we get invested in the older games and not the new ones.

[@MrSupersonic2012]

Exactly. The older games don't stop you every five minutes to make sure you're paying attention. Because the gameplay and the attachment you feel to your pokemon is really all you need to be engaged.

[@raiden000]

then why do so many of these games get made? it must be successful, and that means it must be what kids want otherwise why do so many buy them?

[@eternalfrost1732]

raiden derp because the kids don’t know anything better and the parents don’t really care and just buy the shiny new game.

[@raiden000]

@@eternalfrost1732 i think you give kids too little credit, they are stupid at first but that doesn't last forever. there are more and more gamer kids every year and if you really think an entire generation simply "doesn't know better" well then ill just have to agree to disagree.

[@TheAquaGamers]

raiden derp They buy it because they like the Pokémon, that doesn’t mean it has to be this way. I don’t see why gamefreak just doesn’t add a difficulty setting for veteran players. The example he uses at the beginning of the video is also a massively popular “kids game” in Minecraft. But Minecraft delivers experiences for veteran players too through its difficulties. It should also be noted that easy kids games typically don’t age very well for the fanbase. Eventually they will grow up to a point where the newer Pokémon games become too easy for them and they’ll lack investment in future titles. That’s what happened to me in omega ruby and alpha sapphire. Sun and Moon appeared baby easy to me so I skipped it, and it dropped me out of the series for the most part. I still go back and play older Pokémon games though. Pokémon games with that sense of adventure and tension and a style I appreciate. Plenty of bad products sell well, and if you see games as simply a means to get money then modern Pokémon is incredibly successful, but if you see games as interactive art and a unique way to present challenges to people, then I don’t think Pokémon can be called a great game recently.

[@rynjp]

I cherish the memories of getting lost in victory road. Having no clue where to go, running low on items, getting slapped by high level trainers...getting through made me feel like I actually accomplished something.

[@akashafofo6939]

yes! Like a proper training of body and mind in order to face the best of the best!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@ImPyroChad]

Victory road is basically Naraku in smt 4 except naraku is the first dungeon of the game and it doesn't get easier from then on

[@cosmicspacething3474]

I never got past there for an entire decade ;-;

[@sharktos3218]

I didn't get out of the starting town in soul silver because I thought the grass was a wall... Would I wish to change that? Would I want it to have never happened? No. It just made my connection to the game even deeper, because it created an unforgettable moment (even though it wasn't supposed to...)

[@anonymousyoutuber1405]

There will NEVER be a feeling better than beating Cynthia.

[@josukejoestarhigashikata745]

But there's also a BIGGER one when you see her in b2/w2 .__.xd

[@AWESOMEvance]

I agree completely

[@jantheking7028]

Isn't she also in soon and moon with a mega garchomp?

[@dragonstouch1042]

Josuke Joestar Higashikata I still have the nightmares

[@olfersisapotato8970]

I quite enjoyed beating the shit out of ghetsis-

[@tuskoub]

I hate the whole “kids are dumb” argument, before I moved to a different city for college, I was working a job where I was teaching kids how to code (that alone should disprove the statement a little bit), and there were two kids in particular that I’d tutor, a brother and a sister. The brother had just gotten Let’s Go Pikachu on a Friday and told me that he was going to go get it after class. On Monday, he told me he had beaten the game and that it was very easy, he’d never played a Pokémon game before and had only watched the anime. I showed him and his sister Pokémon Showdown during their break and when they played the sister kept losing. She asked why and what she could do better, I googled up a type chart for her, explained how it worked and almost immediately she got it, started checking the types of her brother’s Pokémon and her own, and started beating her brother more often. Whenever I hear that stupid argument, I think of these personal experiences and my old students and just how wrong it is that people undersell kids’ potential

[@Vaguer_Weevil]

I know a few people who are at least over 25 years old who can't figure out how to play a Lego game. Plenty of kids *are* dumb but that's to be expected from such young people with no life experiences, however there's just as many adults who are just as clueless..

[@blarghts]

hell give a kid an old nes game and let them go at it even without telling them about obtuse non communicated secrets they will find at least a few of them. Kids lack experince they aren't dumb.

[@Forged4War206]

I think if anything, kids are more willing to accept and overcome challenges in games. A lot of people who play games around my age (early to mid 20s) have incredibly low patience. If a game is difficult, they usually just stop playing or look up ways to cheese it. I feel like older generations are honestly the ones who complain about difficulty the most, not kids. They no longer have the time to spend hours on a game due to growing IRL commitments, so they want everything to be handed to them. I personally don't look at games as a means for instant gratification, I look to them as an escape from reality and a way to challenge myself in other ways. Now that I have less time to dedicate to games, it makes these experiences easier to cherish and respect. tl;dr Young adults are more dumb than kids imo

[@princesspikachu3915]

TheGary2346 I agree with that to a certain extent. I think the real reason the games are easier and shorter is because of NON gamer parents who don’t want the games their kids play to be lengthy anymore. If a game is marketed to families and the game company has a kid friendly reputation they are going to cater to the parents because they are the ones with the cash. I remember back in the old days when the GBC was still new and a good supply of AA batteries was a must kids often times played the games obsessively and some parents became concerned about the “Pokémania” that was infecting their kids faster than the COVID-19 is spreading. Just look at old news reports on it from the late 90’s and early 00’s. A lot of adults at that time didn’t like it because their kids liked it so much that they played it for many hours and parents especially thought it wasn’t healthy to play so much. They (Nintendo) probably made the games shorter due to adult parents having a dislike of good games that have their kids invested. This is why they added the extra online content so older fans might find it better than it actually is. If you don’t have strong internet (or any internet for the poor or rural folks out there)the newer games on Switch can be unplayable and the Gen 6-7 games don’t have a strong continuous/post game play without internet. I think that in general games are also becoming more “social” and the industry is catering to the social media fanatics. This is why some people think Animal Crossing New Horizons is better than New Leaf. They are very similar except Switch has better graphics and you can take screenshots on the Switch and post it on social media sites so that somehow makes New Horizons better... I know that is a different game than Pokémon but I’m using it as an example. I think that games are changing because of social media. It’s a double edged sword (pun intended) but on the one hand games are becoming more main stream and less taboo because of “social gaming” with cutesy games whilst sacrificing the “true gamers” that want more to do and less gimmicks that never last.

[@KenNywithrice]

^ I like to call that WoW syndrome

[@j4rdo740]

having an opinion in the pokemon community is like having a sign that says 'kick me' in a public area

[@goldensunadept5091]

Hit them with the Golden Experience

[@LizardLeliel]

This video has far, far more likes then dislikes. I'm definitely sure you can have an opinion in the pokemon community.

[@AlphaladZXA]

That's probably true over on twitter

[@MM-mx2zt]

@@LizardLeliel Tha's because poketards haven't seen it

[@LizardLeliel]

@@MM-mx2zt I'm pretty sure you and I and everyone else watching this video are just as equally a part of the pokemon community as everyone else.

[@ccheart8574]

The first time I saw Korina's mega Lucario, my first thought was 'I want that'. So I immediately stopped what I was doing, backtracked to catch a Riolu, friendshipped the hell out of it, and leveled it up in the morning to evolve it into Lucario so I'd be ready. And then I fucking met Korina again, and she GAVE ME HER LUCARIO??? There are not words for how pissed I was.

[@dse763]

The funny thing is that your Lucario has probably better Stats than Korina's.

[@greco-romano9852]

Pokémon: *Holds your hand in gameplay opportunities via keenly scaling the enemies' levels, to your Pokémons' general levels* Xenoblade: *"Why is there a level 80 guy, in the baby starting area?"*

[@dexei3150]

I still have nightmares of being level 7 with just Pyra and Nia in Gormott trying to complete my quest while taking in the scenery and all of the sudden I'm fighting a level 87 Territorial Rotbart

[@horizon92lee]

It still annoys me when gamefreak was interviewed and asked if they’d ever put in a difficulty and they legit just laugh, and say why. So out of touch

[@antiday]

imagine if pokemon core games had a proper New Game+ experience. Damn.

[@guzel9823]

@@antiday tbh a New Game+ isn't exactly what's missing from the Pokémon franchise imo but that would be a good start

[@antiday]

@@guzel9823 yea, the more i think about it, the more ways there actually are for the pokemon franchise to grow - if only TPC/Nintendo/Gamefreak could see it..!

[@HydraTower]

@@antiday I've been preaching for New Game+ for ages. It would be the cure for pokemon if they don't do post game. Just rebalance the levels and there you go. The only thing to do in SwSh is to shiny hunt, really. The battle tower is pretty monotonous.

[@antiday]

@@HydraTower aye, that. I used to have nothing against pokemon postgames.. but we've come a long way in gaming as a culture, and the swsh postgame felt extremely lackluster in view of what they shld have had the means, brains and money to do.

[@ptr4410]

If 12 year old me that didnt even know english could beat soul silver, then i'm sure dumbing down the difficulty is one of the worst decisions that gamefreak made.

[@Strider1Wilco]

God that sounds awesome, I'm imagining they're exploring everywhere to see where the story progresses next.

[@BirdThatEatsPrometheussLiver]

Nikolaos Anastasopoulos It reminds me of when I went to play firered at 7. It was a spanish copy. I didn't know much spanish. Also didn't know how to wiki something.

[@decoral]

well i played Heartgold when I was 5 and i made some SERIOUS progress!

[@sskubass1]

This. I finished Pokemon Emerald when I was 10, also i helped me to learn English.

[@dinkelbroetchenlover]

I was 5 and just able to read properly and I beat Pokémon Blue lol

[@grveyardshft]

man, remember imagining what a full 3D open world pokemon game would look like when we were squinting at our pixelated gameboys? How did they drop the ball this bad? :')

[@leonardofarias8843]

I also imagined a Digimon game that's not linear and rewards exploration which Bandai hasn't delivered yet

[@leonardofarias8843]

I played Cyber Sleuth until the end by the way

[@geraldpopinski5650]

@@leonardofarias8843 digimon for me has always been a lot more story oriented. everyone knew it had the better anime, and pokemon had the better gameplay. now that digimon has the better gameplay, it really allows the story to shine. i never wanted a exploration based digimon because digimon has always refined ideas instead of made them. a 3D open world with a brilliant story has not been made yet, and digimon doesn't want to be the one to do it. they know what they are good at, and its what they do. digimon doesn't break the ground, they polish it. digimon has never been about exploration or finding more digimon, that was pokemon's thing. pokemon was first conceptualized as a game where you go in and find stuff. digimon was made before pokemon, and it shows. digimon was meant to be a JRPG, and pokemon was made to be a creature finder, like how kids will just play outside and learn.

[@grveyardshft]

@YASH SINGH legend arceus looks like it's heading in the right direction! Exciting! Let's hope it's good.

[@Bothrops_Asper_89]

This, so much. I am baffled at how the Switch can handle Skyrim, and there's still no open world Pokémon. I mean, even the games imply that gym leaders change their teams according to the challenger's level. There's no excuse to give us something like Liquid Crystal.

[@prisma.]

I don't remember where i heard this quote, but it fits Pokemon pretty nicely: "A game everyone likes is a game nobody will love". If you make something to appeal to everyone, you will captivate no one, that's the issue with the direction of the franchise.

[@admiralstone2456]

"And when everyone's super, *laughs* ...No one will be." - Syndrome, The Incredibles

[@HansVonMannschaft]

The "It's a kid's game argument" doesn't hold water. We were all kids when we played Red and Blue and we loved those games because of the sense of accomplishment that came from building up our team despite the difficulty.

[@khailils446]

@L3giTxSniPE I used special attack on weavile to beat platinum when I was 8 lol.

[@Smart1529]

Exactly Red and Blue was completely unbalance and did horrible to explain crap. But we still played the game and loved it as kids

[@JohnSmith-fj2yd]

@L3giTxSniPE Checking my siblings save file, he beat the game with a lv.53 Pikachu, lv.54 Nidoking, lv.50 Pidgeot, Venasaur, and a Charizard. And a lv.52 Blastoise. He also started in gen 6. This was also in Gen 1

[@hatchell18]

I was 6 when I played and beat the original pokemon red on my Gameboy color and the game was super challenging but fun. And I was able to beat it. They need to stop treating kids like dumbasses who can't beat a game. Also most of their original fantasy and the majority of the fanbase are adults now. If they want an easy mode for little kids whatever but they need to add a hard mode for veterans. Idk why that's so fucking hard for them. They need to listen to the fans. Im tired of the games being so damn easy and gym leaders having only 2 or 3 pokemon and getting one shotted. That's not fun

[@JohnSmith-fj2yd]

@L3giTxSniPE He played Yellow

[@NinjaGuyDan_]

I hate when people defend the lack of difficulty by saying "it's a kids game." It's literally an insult to kids. WE were kids once believe it or not, and our games didn't hold our hands

[@Modie]

You know, I agree with you, but at the same time, so many people agree that "These games are just not for everyone." is a valid excuse for arguing that games like Dark Souls should not have an additional lower difficulty.

[@NinjaGuyDan_]

@@Modie Okay this is true. I guess the same courtesy should be extended here. I've had to come to grips with the fact that I'm no longer the target audience lol Best way for me to experience Pokemon now is rom hacks

[@breloom657]

Right. Plus, just because something's a kid's game doesn't mean only kids play it. Some kids will play anything--great--but some other people appreciate something well-made. But Game Freak has no reason to make anything of quality. Let's be real: they make so much money just by releasing Kanto over and over again and stuff. It would be a poor business decision to waste time and resources making a game that's actually kinda good.

[@benandrew21]

Remember rock tunnel in gen 1? That was hard as hell when I was a kid, and the fact you have a rival battle immediately after? The first time you play that game that part can be so draining on your potions, pp and revives. It was genuinely challenging and I will always point to that dungeon as proof that you don't need to make things weenie hut Jr levels of pandering for kids to be able to play games. Ocarina of Time, Mario 64, Goldeneye, Final Fantasy VII, crash bandicoot, all of those games I beat as a child mostly at 8-11 years of age. Easy games now but as a kid these were challenging as hell! All of those games rank in my favourite games of all time, and none of them pandered to me for being a child.

[@insertnamehere6434]

@@benandrew21 To add to your argument, I'd like to point out Pokemon Black and White since the games are quite recent in comparison to yours. These games put some heavy walls in front of the player multiple times throughout. I mean Elesa's Emolgas had Aerial Ace and her Zebstrika had Flame Charge for fucks sake. It's one of these instances Fudj talked about, you need some sort of strategy for that fight because Elesa has hard counters. Also, Ghetsis' Hydreigon is infamous for a reason. (side note: Is it just me or is someone out there also hella afraid of the Bouffalant's in these games? They all carry Wild Charge, Earthquake and stupidly powerful Head Charge. I swear they're Miltank's cousins lol) (!) Forgot to add: BW is linear but it still doesn't treat you like were a 4-year old. 5th gen wanted to tell a story and give players a different kind of adventure, you know, dip toes into unknown waters. Fudj isn't wrong when he said that a lot changed for the worse after 5th gen but bw(2) succeded in what they did (probably because you can feel the passion that went into these games, gf cared about it so they gave it their all), so it surprises me somewhat that Gamefreak lost it's touch, especially after gen 7 (SM wanted to tell a story too but it kinda failed, Fudj already explained that better).

[@Slogstin]

Here's an example how difficult moments can create a story: I was playing Platinum and found a random Shiny Zubat. Because i don't like Shiny Crobat, i decided to keep him a Golbat and told myself to get this precious boi into the hall of fame. When i made it to Cynthia, the stakes were high. I never save in the League and only use the same amount of items in battle as the trainer i'm battling. So after my Rhyperior weakened the Spiritomb and Togekiss, i brought in Chiropto the shiny Golbat (Who had a really rough time in the E4). He took out both weakened Pokemon and then came the Ice Beam Milotic. I had no answer for this thing and was ready to get my ass kicked. Chiropto was like "Nah dude" and he took on the Milotic as well.....twice, because it got a Full Restore. Without any damage or Item support. The Golbat, the weakest member of my team. He came through and gave my team the ability to finish this battle 1st try. Now Golbat is one of my favorite Pokemon. Because of this one, special moment.

[@olfersisapotato8970]

That's rather wholesome

[@johnmarkson1998]

that moment only happened because you didnt use items and didnt evolve goldbat. not a good example of the game being difficult. thats a "i choose to play this game in a difficult way". you can do that with any pokemon. what made the originals so special was the fact that you could use 100 items all fully evolved team and still get your ass kicked.

[@Slogstin]

@@johnmarkson1998 it wasn't an example to show that the Pokemon games are difficult. The whole purpose of the story is to show how difficult moments can form a story. It literally doesn't matter if Platinum is a difficult game, or if i just gimped myself with some rules. What's important for my argument here is that it was a really bad situation, but the team somehow mastered it anyway.

[@johnmarkson1998]

@@Slogstin well yeah thats obvious. the guy in the video literally provided multiple examples of that.i thought your intention was giving an example of difficult in pokemon. my bad.

[@Chaosdogg47]

@@johnmarkson1998 That's why the examples int the video don't really work either. A challenge in a game like Pokemon only comes from etiher a lack of knowledge of the core mechanics, a lack of grinding to keep your levels up, or a self imposed challenge (like a nuzzlocked run). When he was giving his Minecraft story, he claimed he had fun in that game not because of the game's mechanics, but because he and his friends added arbitrary rules to the way they played the game. Also, many things are funner with other people, even watching a crappy movie can be a fun experience that can become a funny story down the line.

[@blakegillespie509]

"You're so sensitive"...proceeds to write hate mail to a small youtuber about a video on Pokemon. Oh the hypocrisy

[@nintenjuice]

I remember when I first played ORAS for the first time, I was blasting through the text and didn't really read anything. When I was glancing through the text I randomly saw "Latios" and that immediately made me slow down and go "whoa this is really exciting". I went to when the game is told me to go and I saw Steven standing next to latios and I felt genuine excitement, I spent a few minutes to getting ready for the battle just to have it be given to me.

[@safe4547]

bruh

[@jaydenc367]

try getting latias then

[@armintargaryen9216]

This was insulting. My favourite region is Hoenn but I hate ORAS for things like this

[@bitesizedhero8030]

"People remember a challenge." ....Like getting through the dark cave east of cerulean in pokemon blue (or red) without using flash, because you are like 7 years old and don't know english?

[@Handsy_McGee]

Heck I did that and only ever spoke English. The feeling when you get out on the other side though? Like a breath of fresh air after holding your breath for a half hour.

[@mooman1017]

I also did that, and was so happy to be free! I also accedentaly got my pikachu to level 40. And still lost to the 5th gym. I was not smart at 5 years old.

[@inconemay1441]

I remember getting stuck after getting the third badge because I thought there is nothing west of Cerulean

[@brunoreis4455]

Omg so relatable,as a kid l spent like 3 irl days running in circles before l finaly found the exit,and l was desesperated because l also didnt knew how to go back

[@angelmejia4487]

The same happend to me. Years later found out I have to come back to get the HM.

[@storm_77777]

The "Guided tour" part is spot on. After 20 years, let us be honest. Most of the fanbase is in their 20s if not more. Plus, we were fine playing gen 3 or 4 when we were kids and the current generation is more intelligent with more accessible internet so increasing the difficulty is best or at least let us choose the difficulty level.

[@leonardofarias8843]

Pokemon Amie could be exactly the same in challenge mode you just have to nerf the benefits

[@leonardofarias8843]

And you could make it so your pokemon needs max hapiness all the time to mega evolve

[@DanielisAwesome52]

Masuda's stance on the games is "Is my name spelled correctly on the check?" He'll say whatever in interviews to not step too far one way or another. It also seems he's not really in control, it seems no one person really is Pokemon is a game made by committee to sell more merchandise. It shouldn't be that way but that's what its become

[@mickeyesoum3278]

True. I gave up on the franchise and want Tamtam to succeed, any competition.

[@ChonkedCat]

Mickey Esoum in my opinion temtem is a garbage ripoff that is seriously underdeveloped

[@mickeyesoum3278]

@@ChonkedCat well, I don't care much that it's a ripoff; I think many of the designs of the temtems are really good and they have some great ideas to differentiate them from Pokémon. The fact that all battles are 2v2 is interesting and I always felt like that was underdeveloped in Pokémon. And the Stamina system makes battles more strategic; in Pokémon the supereffectiveness is broken and Pokémon often one or two shot one another. I think Temtem has a lot of potential. It just won't ever get to Pokémon level unless it makes anime and stuff. The thing is that Pokémon is loved and nostalgic because we grew up with these creatures. There were movies, the anime, etc. But the Pokémon games are dead; GameFreak is terrible, lazy, and there's nothing anyone can do since the games are decided by a committee that only wants to sell merch and purposefully make the games directed at 5 year olds now. Temtem is our only alternative at the moment. We might get more in the future, if it succeeds, that's whar I'm hoping

[@littlemines6648]

SquishThatCat Just because it is a ripoff of Pokemon does not mean its bad. Plus, they are based off the same idea anyways, monsters from japan/china. It actually isnt garbage : it actually a good experience. Such as instead of JUST a water gym, there is a Water Flying gym, to have coverage of each others weakness. Sure, it is heavily based on Pokèmon, but a far different experience.

[@ArtisChronicles]

@@mickeyesoum3278 keep an eye out for kindred fates. It looks to be a very interesting and possible competitor to Pokemon. The idea behind it is like an open world Pokemon game with a real time battle system. The only thing some people will really hate about it is that your companions do face permadeath.

[@axel1562]

Me and all my friends managed to complete Diamond and Pearl without even knowing a single word of English, if kids going in blind can complete the game then it clearly doesn't need to be made easier.

[@axel1562]

@@treycuret They don't translate the games to Swedish.

[@FranzKarma]

I actually practiced English a lot by playing games (such as Pokemon) when I was a kid. On another note, one of my proudest gaming achievements was beating all Valkyrie Profile Covenant of the Plume endings in Japanese when I was 10-11, I did not understand a single word in the game, but still did it blindly and hell how it was an enjoyable experience.

[@rinkokonoe8644]

I beat like, half of pokemon yellow on an origin Gameboy in Japanese. Doesn't sound impressive until you try it

[@guilhermel9149]

Yeah, this was my case with Pokémon Diamond and SoulSilver. I'd say my first contact with the English language was with Pokémon games (I'm Brazilian).

[@michaeljames6737]

played pokemon DP when i was 7 but didnt play it for a whole year because of the champion

[@NaturalHypertrophy]

Blue & Red were unforgiving af. Just getting out of that first house was a challenge in itself. Was I supposed to immediately guess that those 3 pixels on the wall symbolized a carpet?!

[@phaelmadruga]

​@Lycan To be fair, i've been also playing since the original releases, and i beat pokemon games numerous times without using a single item or TM, is not hard and it never was. But it is way worse than before, that's a fact.

[@MooseCastle]

@MagamisZon Have you ever heard of the concept of hindsight? I'm assuming you have but you likely don't understand how to apply it to the real world as you're clearly pretty young and don't have any experience with life yet. Imagine being a 6 year old playing pokemon yellow when it first came out, likely as your first video game. You cannot beat the game by simply spamming your strongest move with pikachu, and because of that you have to learn how to actually play the game. Fast forwards 20 years and now you can beat the newest games doing exactly that with no reason to ever correct what you're doing. This might all seem obvious to you now but again, hindsight. You don't seem to understand that back then the things you're aware of now weren't common knowledge, there was no "ah i'll just get x pokemon to y level to learn z move while I move to the next town, then the next gym will be a cakewalk". You can type "it's not hard" as any times as you want, but that is the actual non argument here. f you apply the reading comprehension you should have been taught in year 4 you'll realise that not a single person here has made that argument at any point. Stop looking for arguments in a pathetic attempt to be corect about everything; sit down, shut up and learn something.

[@princesspikachu3915]

Omg I thought I was the only one! I actually got lost in Pallet Town and only discovered the grass by accident. I thought it was part of the wall... I actually had the game for over a year and didn’t beat it until I got Yellow version where the game boy color actually made it easier to spot the difference between the wall and the grass among other things...

[@princesspikachu3915]

MagamisZon It depends on the situation and what the player knows of Pokémon types. And also what level you are at. I will say that unless you grind to level 80+ or abuse the Dire Hit glitch that Mewtwo ain’t gonna get taken down in one hit. Of course you are going be trying to catch it but still... Also should you knock out a legendary that you want to catch, it’s gone forever in the older games. That’s why the “You don’t save before catching a legendary Pokémon? I too love to live dangerously!” meme is a thing. No I suppose the games were never really difficult but at the same time they were not as easy as they are now. We should have the option to skip the tutorials. Like FRLG. It had tutorials but you could skip them.

[@wanderingrandomer]

I do think that people overstate the difficulty of the originals. They were never THAT hard compared to the new ones, just less hand-holdy, and had more broken mechanics. Every game has that ONE fight that's tricky and in Gen 1, it was Misty (unless you happened to pick Bulbasaur), but apart from that, Gen 1 was never that difficult.

[@pralenkaman8105]

Pokémon sword and shield: evil country leader Pokémon mystery dungeon blue a d red rescue team: a Pokémon deceives the entire world making all rescue teams wanting to kill you for the sake of not having their world destroyed This is just the first plot point by the way

[@nikkij3254]

But see that’s why I love the mystery dungeon games, Explores of Sky is one of my favorite. Yes it does have a few (a lot) of story arcs, BUT the story is really good and I loved the dungeon crawler aspect of it.

[@awooga-gunga-israel]

Shame Spike Chunsoft are becoming as incompetent as GameFreak

[@NeoReibert]

Shawn Lymburner well, Mystery Dungeon DX, the Remake of the first PMD Game for GBA and NDS, wasn’t so bad, was it? I liked it and felt quite nostalgic. Hope that they remake PMD Time/Darkness/Sky in the future. Can’t talk however about the other games they developed in the last years. Except Jump Force which was horrible but can’t be compared to PMD

[@awooga-gunga-israel]

@@NeoReibert Sure it looked ok. But when I see that they are the one that made Jump Force, I can't help but be worried about the future of pokemon mystery dungeon.

[@JJSquirtle]

@@awooga-gunga-israel Jump Force was very far out of Spike Chunsoft's comfort zone. They specialize in Visual Novels with unique gameplay elements. PMD may not be a traditional visual novel, but it's story-driven enough that you shouldn't worry about the future of the series until they start messing up the other story-driven franchises.

[@zeeb2190]

meanwhile IGN is like: "mystery dungeon too same, is cashgrab" they say, as they proceed to ignore how pokemon main games are repetitive

[@crimsonwizahd2358]

They say as they ravenously shower the Assasins Creed and Call of Duty franchises in 9 and 10/10 scores. I don't disagree btw, my point is that IGN is shit at reviews.

[@Tea_Noire]

IGN is the gaming equivalent of makeup influencers. They don't try to hid that they're sponsored lol

[@johnmarkson1998]

PMD has what 2 good stories. pokemon has maybe 2 if you like black and white. PMD and mainline have been cashgrabs for a long time. IGN are hypocrites if they cant see that.

[@c7zr179]

@@johnmarkson1998 Explorers of Sky was top tier.

[@johnmarkson1998]

@@c7zr179 blue/red rescue team and sky had really good stories. it was basically the gen 5 of the mystery dungeon games. gates to infinity and all the other ones felt super lacking in comparison. now there just remaking the 2 good stories instead of trying to give us a third experience.

[@thekilla1234]

TwitchPlaysPokemon is a true testament to "overcoming a challenge creates great stories". I think saying it created a story is an understatement, it created a legacy.

[@amadezstone9170]

Dude it created a mythology and possibly nearly a cult, legacy is an understatement.

[@NumNutts224]

TwitchPlaysPokemon was humanity at its peak. Its been downhill since.

[@Shenaldrac]

It doesn't even have to be as brutal a challenge as TPP. I ain't asking for a Pokemon game where the average trainer has a full team of 6 balanced pokemon using competitive movesets and set to be ~5 levels above my team. I just want an official pokemon game where I'm not finding trainers at the end game who only have 2 not fully evolved pokemon on their team, and are 5 levels lower than my team when I haven't done grinding against wild pokemon and merely fought every trainer available. I really liked Ultra Sun, it was the first modern pokemon game I'd played since gen 3, but good god was it baby easy.

[@TaleOfTheToaster]

On the whole “how crazy is it that we’re on Generation 8 now”, yes indeed. Diamond and Pearl are now the halfway marks. Gardevoir has been a fairy type for as many generations as it was pure psychic. Snorlax has had to require a held item to breed it’s clearly very natural pre-evolution for over half of Pokémon’s lifespan as to not invalidate breeding in earlier games. Madness.

[@tristanneal9552]

Honestly, I've never really thought about the Snorlax thing but just now it really struck me how laughable it is. Like, for a company that regularly sidelines the primary mechanic from the previous generation, that's an absurd commitment to maintaining "the canon". If they had just had Munchlax suddenly breed-able from Snorlax - with no explanation as to why previous Snorlaxes couldn't (or maybe some BS lore like they often do) - most people would just shrug their shoulders and not think much of it.

[@stevenmartinez2530]

outdated evolution methods are so infuriating. The only good ones were the ones that were like "have x mon in your party and level up" "hold x item and level up at night" and "level up knowing x move"

[@bluegum6438]

The insistence on consistency is too restrictive. Pokemon could stand to be entirely reworked from the ground up and have 20 years of outdated design shorn off. It's not like no one at Game Freak has ever thought of better ways to do things than the multiple truly perplexing decisions that have been enshrined over the years. The base game design has always been poorly balanced and janky under the hood, which was fine as a quirky handheld RPG from the mid-90s but being left unrefined through decades of iterations has just left it feeling hollow and lazy. I'm sure they didn't want to change the formula because you don't fix what ain't broke, but it's Pokemon, it'll sell millions of copies anyway. Why not actually make a good game while you're at it? Game Freak seem bored of the franchise themselves, if the fact that they tossed the development of SwSh to their B-team and put all their effort into Little Town Hero is anything to go by.

[@rigatonithetiger9986]

Hate to be that guy but Gardevoir has been pure psychic for 5 gens (1-5) and psychic/fairy for 3 (6-8). All your other points stand though Edit: I’M FUCKING STUPID

[@hoodedman6579]

@@tristanneal9552 I believe that that's more for convenience; baby Pokemon are worthless, so adding barriers to them being born is actually kind of nice.

[@Shaunfungames]

GameFreak: "Kids don't have the patients to sit down and play a Pokémon game" Me: *looks at all the 13 year olds playing Hardcore Minecraft for LITERAL YEARS* Me: Right. Kids are impatient...

[@stagelights_]

i was playing pokemon sword earlier and the whole time i was just thinking "wow, i really wish i was playing pokemon emerald instead right now"

[@h_hypeboy]

@vicefulder True

[@h_hypeboy]

@vicefulder if people hadn't bitched about gen 5 maybe things could have been better!😒

[@Chaos_867]

Shield is just boring in my opinion

[@Athorment]

My 10 year old cousin surprised me the other day. I lent him my Switch for a week due to me being on finals. - He tried pokemon and he liked it... but he felt he was just pressing the same buttons. - He tried Breath of the wild and he kept dying and dying and dying and dying and dying When he returned my switch, he reached the 5th or 6th gym leader before he stopped.... but he had actually managed to defeat Calamity Ganon

[@itsClaptrap]

Difficulty and challenge (of any kind) gives people a reason to keep pushing the game and themselves to complete the challenge Games like Pokemon, that are essentially pretty looking guided tours only keep their appeal for a few playthroughs So honestly I'm not surprised your cousin made it to Ganon and beat him. People need a reason to work, innovate, or experiment to breakthrough problems persistently. If there's no challenge or problem to tackle, or any sort of satisfaction to gain from conquering it, then it can get boring to a lot of people or not even worth the time to put it in.

[@differentlyabledmuslimjewi4475]

@@itsClaptrap pokemon isn't pretty anymore. Back in the day sure, gen 4 actually impressed me with 3D assets, and gen 5 with super detailed idle animations. These days, it is a joke. So it isn't even pretty anymore.

[@AlphaladZXA]

That feels very telling about pokemons staying power nowadays

[@ExeErdna]

That's why I said IF Game Freak made a Pokemon more like Breath of the Wild it'll pull a lot more players. Make them learn, let them learn, allow them to learn. They don't need NPC's showing them everything including legendaries. Let them explore and they just stumble upon a legendary. then have to track down learn where and when it shows up.

[@ExeErdna]

@@darkfyraproductions7958 To hunt down the legendary dogs was fun as hell. To stumble upon the birds was cool. Now you get cutscened into legendaries

[@redscyther7725]

I've always hated the whole "it's for kids" argument. I remember when I was a kid, I felt very satisfied after winning hard battles like Whitney, Morty, Norman, Steven and Cynthia, and I think that even kids nowadays would enjoy the feeling of finally beating such battles.

[@regionfuego6]

There's Ultra Necrozma, but then again there's ONLY Ultra Necrozma. Gen 5 was the last game that was challenging.

[@mparagames]

@@regionfuego6 A few totems were quite challenging to beat as well, though not on the same level as gens 2-5 hardest challenges. Gen 7 is on general is quite easy, but not nearly _as easy_ as gen 6. The totems show some challenge, S.O.S battles make it so it isn’t as easy to escape it end wild battles, Gladion fools you with his Zorua, and the gen 7’s elite 4 and “champion” battles are actually a battle as opposed to gen 6’s elite 4, which was a complete joke.

[@MustacheDLuffy]

The say it just because it’s not meant for you anymore

[@michaeljames6737]

Kids these days don't even like pokemon

[@mparagames]

@@MustacheDLuffy ? Pokémon is supposed to be for everyone.

[@OhBoy_IWasUsingMyRealName]

I was taught some basic marketing recently and according to my source you NEVER want to make your target audience everyone because it makes your content too broad to mean anything to anyone. It's important to have a specific audience. (Ex. Male Children ages 7-11, the standard American family, female adults ages 18-22, etc.)

[@justfriends7581]

I mean you aren’t wrong. They are just saving time and $$ with these new games.

[@yoyepo91]

In basic marketing that may be true, but keep in mind that it would take very little effort to make a higher difficulty game and fix many of the issues making it good for both. If it takes very little effort to greatly expand your market, you should probably do it

[@Michael.032]

"I'm not saying he's wrong... I'm saying I think he's wrong" best quote ever

[@GoldLuminance]

I always wanted to start in a snowy mountain so that we could have Ice types early game.

[@MattTheHuman9]

Yeah I've seen that idea thrown out a lot and it makes a lot of sense.

[@asmonull]

Ultra Sun/Moon did something along that line - ice types finally were not all limited to lategame area, and at least few of them were available quite early on (Smoochum and Delibird just after first trial, few water/ice types after you get surf and backtrack a bit, Amaura, and two ice-type rich areas just past halfway point in the game). I did monotype ice run (swapping starter for an ice type as soon as trades are enabled) in every generation, and so far USUM were the most pleasant to go through thanks to there being some actual diversity and choices quite early on.

[@shawngallagher8764]

THANK YOU! Ice is my my fav type and needs more buffs and attention

[@Smart1529]

@Roger Dodger I say Ice types should be buff in defense not offense. They hit alot of types in the game already for big damage. They suck at defense, they only resist themselves that is it. They should resist Ground, Water and maybe Flying.

[@shawngallagher8764]

@Roger Dodger hell I'd even say have an immunity to water and resist flying. Have you seen a bird try to fly into a glacier?

[@krampuskardashian5890]

"IT'S A KID'S GAME WHY ARE YOU SO MAD ABOUT IT??" Hey buddy, guess what: Platinum is a *kid's game too* and it's *still a good game.*

[@jackb450]

Don't forget that gen 5 had a team boss trying to kill the player character and used his own son as a tool

[@Chan0art]

Bruh I loved platinum I really liked how much there was to do Poffin making Mining Super contest Pal park Slot machines Pokedex features

[@princesspikachu3915]

In Gen 6 Lysandre supposedly commits suicide. In Gen 4 the game describes the lake trio suffering. The games reference Pokémon being tortured and Gen 1 has Cubone’s mother being murdered. Gen 5 and Gen 7 especially depict child abuse. That’s really good topics for a kids game. 😒

[@albertthepeacock8020]

But at the end of the day you have to ask yourself this:"Is it really worth it to waste time complaining/arguing about a family friendly video game to a bunch of random unknown people on the internet whom I will never meet in real life ever when I could be doing something meaningful?"

[@Chan0art]

@@albertthepeacock8020 Why have an opinion? Why talk about anything? People simply want to voice what they think about how a beloved franchise turned out. It may not lead to much and it may be futile but there is some comfort knowing a bunch of people feel the same way you do

[@mathiashummer9599]

I had a lot of good memories trying to beat the elite four in Platinum. I was a kid and it was difficult but when I finally beat Cynthia it was incredible. When she threw out a level 60 something Garchomp it was very stressful because none of my pokemon were anywhere near that high. So, I beefed them up a bit more and taught ice fang to one of them and kept trying. Eventually I did beat her after multiple attempts with the Pokemon team I had raised over the course of the game. It certainly wasn't easy for me as a ten year old, but it was extremely satisfying when I barely defeated her after most of my team fainted and we just pulled through. That type of experience is always the best part of pokemon games. It felt like me and my pokemon which I had become attached to over the game were in a titanic struggle against massive odds and we succeeded. I haven't had that type of experience in a Pokemon game in a long time. Even the old ones are easier now because I understand them so much better, but I am truly grateful to have the memories.

[@abuslayer17]

a bit late, but I remember getting beat down from it as I had only a water onix with ice fang to beat it, which wasn't even enough. After some few days, I had my level 72 infernape survive a shot and close combat it to death. Was so satisfying to beat her after 2 months of trying

[@spnix1871]

Masuda has a really terrible goal. And for someone who's worked in a big industry as long as he has, it baffles me that his goal is mass appeal. News flash! You cannot and will never please everyone. They should leave the gimmicky and mass appeal stuff for concepts like pokemon go. It works because everyone has a phone. You dont have to be a gamer to enjoy that experience. What he can hope to achieve is creating a gimmick and gameplay so easy that yes, casual folk will pick up. Complete fast and never pick up again. Meanwhile at the expense of losing fans after we grow too tired of the monotony. I hope this doesn't happen. I love pokemon so much. I wish Nintendo would do something about their motives and philosophies. I feel like it's holding them back.

[@samanthapajala8417]

I think you mean gamefreak, not Nintendo, as I believe gamefreak are the ones who are ruining Pokemon. I may be wrong though

[@aleolague5356]

Not even Nintendo. Nintendo have proven time and time again that they have the potential to create games for everybody. Take Mario for example, not complicated, but not overly easy or exremely linear. It's gamefreak that has this idea of "it will sell anyways" or something like that. Rushed projects with almost no inspiration or soul. Gamefreak has become a game zombie machine with nothing new to bring to the table. Makes no justice to Nintendo, tbh.

[@ArtisChronicles]

I think I need to take another multi year break from Pokemon. Hopefully the next time I try to pick it up it'll change enough in interesting ways that I'll enjoy it again.

[@sad3624]

this is why the pokemon company is shifting towards mobile games.

[@yuhjeice7186]

@@aleolague5356 yeah but nintendo always try to take down fan projects right

[@michaellovegrove9467]

My most memorable Pokémon battle: Pokémon Diamond, Cynthia. I was using level 50 average Infernape, Roserade, Golduck, Luxray, Staraptor and Dialga, and it took me a good 20 attempts. What a ride.

[@patrick_hansson]

dude same.. I remember being like 10 years old and being the simple kid that I was, beating Cynthia was the best thing that had happened to me in my life

[@TopityTurvity]

i remember playing the after game of White version and finding Cynthia in that house on the beach, not even knowing who she is because i never beat Platinum version (my first Pokémon game lol), and being so messed up and confused seeing one of her Pokémon have no weaknesses and i could never beat her... it was sick tho.

[@sammyherbert]

Jheez my 10 year old booty must have been a pro or something because I don't remember struggling with Cynthia ahah

[@austinhunter7732]

Dude my same pokemon moment when I was like 12, took me maybe 17 or 18 tries. I had the same exact team as you, except Gyarados over Golduck, same levels! What a time it was!

[@Divridend]

I remember having a level 80 Infernape against Cynthia. I thought somehow I was too weak to get trough the snow on my way to Snowpoint city. So I leveled up my Infernape until level 70 :') great memories.

[@panchampangoro4999]

Masuda’s “There are so many other things competing for people’s attention” is such a cop-out comment. Wouldn’t you want your franchise to *BE* one of those things competing for people’s attention????

[@skkms910]

Pancham Pangoro Exactly. You can tell how the company likes to half-assed bs us fans like with the whole animation controversy with SW&SH.

[@patrickshaw411]

Meanwhile of any franchise to garner or at least potentially garner attention: P O K E M O N

[@ethancampbell9096]

I never understood that argument. If other things were competing for my attention, I simply wouldnt play the game. I WANT to play the games. I WANT to play with all the features. That is stuff I would love to use my attention on. Isnt Nintendo the company that delayed on bringing the original zelda to the US because attention span, but then it sold better there than Japan? I wantes the battle frontier in oras and the national dex in SWSH and I'm definitely not the only one. I hate that they use this weak argument

[@nbkarkat]

not to mention YEAH we're busy, but one of the core conceptions of video games was for them to be A DISTRACTION FROM OUR DAILY LIVES?? we don't want them to be easy and over in a flash, we want to get lost in other worlds for a while to just forget about everything else

[@anfani6839]

Yea remember when the Zelda developers shortened Breath of the Wild and made it a very short and linear game with only one default difficulty because they thought that Breat of the Wild would compete too much with modern mobile games and that kids would only be into that? Me neither

[@normal_mothman]

One of my favorite memories when I was younger was beating that first boss in bloodborne. After hours late into the night I slayed the cleric beast and jumped for joy, shouting and yelling. If a child can play a Souls game and enjoy it without complaining about difficulty, you can make a difficult game.

[@joshhallam2618]

my favorite memories in gen 5 is the close call battle against Ghetsis in both black and white 1 and 2

[@affsteak3530]

I beat the original Mega Man (Gamecube collection) in college. It required patience and focus and I think those are valuable skills for kids to learn and I still remember the pure sense of triumph when I beat the Yellow Devil.

[@TheSwiftie467]

I think there should be a selection of difficulty at the beginning of each game. New trainers Pokémon trainers Ace trainers And just modify them slightly from one another. I have played every single generation from 1 to 7. I haven’t played sword or shield yet. Sun and moon was just so boring and I was annoyed with all the cut scenes and just wanted to play Pokémon.

[@mbtisocialclub]

Yes! Good idea! New trainers can keep the experience share and low difficulty ACE trainers can grind out their team

[@DiamondMinerDJC00]

+@@mbtisocialclub I don't think ace trainers want grinding as much as they do actually well put-together trainer encounters. Y'know, gym leaders with more than 3 pokemon and movesets that actually make you have to strategize.

[@SolaricAngel116]

@@DiamondMinerDJC00 And Make Them The Level That Is The Highest In Your Party. E.G: Corviknight (Lv. 45), Opposing Party's Level Will Scale To The Level Of The Highest Level In Party, If Leveled Up Then The Opposing Pokemon Will Too.

[@AlphaladZXA]

It's truly dumbfounding gamefreak has never added a difficulty select. It would only help people, even Nintendo understand the value in it smh

[@DiamondMinerDJC00]

+@@AlphaladZXA They have, in B&W and B&W 2. But you can only get them from beating the game. And giving a code you get to the opposite game, to start a new game with. Yeaahhhhh...

[@IceBlueLugia]

The argument that “it’s a kid’s game” doesn’t work. As a kid, my first Pokémon game was Díamond, probably the hardest game in the series aside from Black 2’s Hard Mode. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing and had no background at all about how Pokémon worked, didn’t even know who Pikachu was. I learned how most of the game’s mechanics worked on my own because the game’s difficulty forced me to get better. I learned the entire type chart on my own by experimenting with different attacks against different Pokémon, and then using that knowledge to find out the types of other Pokémon by testing attacks. Casual fans often ask me how I’m able to memorize the whole type chart and the types of every single Pokémon, but I learned all of it from just playing the game normally. That’s why I think the lack of difficulty in the new games and the fact that the game tells you what attacks are strong against the opponent are big issues, because it doesn’t force you to think and strategize, you can play brainlessly and still win

[@crowqueenamps]

The same thing happened to me, except to was Pokémon White. I was a little older, around my tween/early teens when I got to play. But I knew nothing about the franchise. The only experience I had was the demo for PMD Gates to Infinity. So when I played, it was all new to me. So when I played the games, I was exploring the world anew. And it was great. I think if I played X/Y (which I do like, though it's super easy to me) first, it would have been a dulled everything.

[@fxncis]

This is absolutely true! I still have trouble after at least 25 replays of Platinum and BW2!!! And I love it!

[@ryansargent8618]

Preach

[@Naruku2121]

The thing about the type chart is so true. I could remeber the chart a lot easier in the past when I actually *had* to. Trial and error all of that. Since what Gen 6 or 7 they tell you automatically what move is super effective well atleast if you used it on a type of pokemon prior first. But that's just it, it's always so readily avaible there's no reason to learn it.

[@asmonull]

Kids are smart enough to not want to spend time on boring grind to get through the game. I happened to start the series (not counting trying out Red back when it was released and I didn't know english at all) with Omega Ruby - game felt very easy, like all of gen6, but still was somewhat fun. I got to play gen4 game (Platinum in my case) around the time Ultra Sun/Moon was released - after I spent two years doing lots of online battling in 2016/2017 seasons - and surprisingly it was much easier than I expected from general opinion. Main difference I found was that a lot of minmaxing your team (both Pokemon and moves) was gated by insane amount of busywork and grind - be it gambling for TMs, farming shards for move tutor, or spending weeks real-time to deal with honey trees. I'd say older generations aren't more difficult by significant margin, they just make minmaxing more annoying and punish bad decisions with grind required to fix them - if you cut out all the grind, they're arguably a little bit easier (probably becuase they were balanced with assumption most players won't put dozens of hours into getting their perfect team).

[@beanburrito4405]

The Miltank segment reminds me of Elesa’s volt switching Emolgas. I remember the NPCs telling you to catch the ground types around the city to defeat the Electric Gym, but she had two flying electric types (which are immune to ground types). They kept volt switching around and that made it really hard to take them out, especially since Elesa would keep spamming goddamn super potions on the things to keep them alive. The Zebstrika was also awful; it had volt switch as well, and it knew fire coverage in flame charge. It was definitely worse than Miltank for me

[@edmundblackadder2741]

Bean Burrito same happened to me I had to use Blitzle for the resistance and flame charge to win lol

[@Predalien3001]

100% agree. I “breezed” Miltank on my first Gold play through but was utterly stalled by Elesa and those motherfucking Volt Switching Emolga and Zebstrika. Up until then gym battles only required to go in fully healed and spam neutral/SP attacks to win, and then that cunt shows up and uses Pokémon with actual coverage and immunities and a momentum keeping attack. Had to actually go catch one exclusively for that battle. Luckily, I caught a Trapinch that learned Rock Slide, and that carried me all the way to the elite 4 as a Flygon.

[@sreenaths6829]

Krokorok, Boldore and Excadrill with Rock moves make Elesa an absolute joke.

[@Ash-hx1jz]

THOSE DAMN EMOLGAS

[@rayneingdown]

White was my first Pokémon game, so Elesa was my Whitney Those three Pokémon were NIGHTMARES for someone with no knowledge on anything in the game. I learned that her Emolgas were immune to ground type moves the hard way.

[@danx505]

In my first or second run of crystal I made it to the champion with only my Typhlosion and maybe 1 other Pokemon, the rest of the party was fine but they were all level 5. I got down to his last Dragonite when he knocked out anything I could use to deal enough damage to kill it. I thought I was done for as he outraged my level 5 Woopers but on the last one... outrage confused foe Dragonite... Dragonite hit itself in its confusion... Foe Dragonite fainted! And by this point I was screaming! My level 5 something or other beat the champion! I was saved by a thread. Not really possible with the new exp share system

[@Sadako2602]

We were all kids once, and I think most of us liked the feeling of beating a hard boss more than watching a cutscene and and spamming a super effective move.

[@Chaos_867]

I beaten hellen gravely So i must be a god damn god

[@TheprogresBMX]

“I’m not saying he’s wrong, I’m saying I think he’s wrong” respect👌 so true

[@Christian-iu3lo]

It feels like every other Nintendo franchise managed to grow up with its players except for pokemon...Pokemon somehow managed to regress...

[@rockbandmaniac2]

@Christian And yet it still sold incredibly well while being critically acclaimed despite cutting half of the pokemon out and selling them later as dlc, poor performance, lack of difficulty, and a new underwhelming gimmick. Honestly impressive and sad.

[@ginger_queen8108]

How fitting.

[@chilzer5612]

I mean, a lot of Nintendo franchises kinda died outside of their obligatory Smash Bros. appearances. RIP Star Fox, F Zero, an American release for the Mother series, Paper Mario, kinda Metroid, kinda Pikmin... must I go on?

[@uchuuseijin]

Uh Don't modern Kirby and Donkey Kong games literally play themselves or is that just a toggle mode

[@Dylan-pq3ny]

@@uchuuseijin I don't play those series but I'm pretty sure it's a toggle mode

[@weirdsanity4588]

I had more fun as a kid overcoming the hurdles placed before me in Pokemon Pearl. I spent weeks beating the game and would play in class with my friends every day as we traded and battled together. The internet wasn't very accessible so we had stories to tell each other and things to discover together. But, now there are no puzzles, (difficult ones) there's a million tutorials online. There are no events (the darkrai event made my friends and I lose our minds it was cool). Nothing is memorable anymore, the best thing we've had to talk about is how difficult Ultra Necrozma was.

[@opy3914]

A memorably part of my Pokémon sun and moon play through was when I put on a randomizer and the Pokémon academy teacher had 3 legendaries which took my team a long time to get through

[@gasternecross]

the universal randomizer makes old pokemon games replayable

[@kingofsauce1319]

Masuda: we wanna make games easier so people want to play them Miyazaki: laughs in dark souls

[@sendouendo1605]

Atlus: Laughs in Shin Megami Tensei.

[@HEADASSLOOKINGAHHH]

We could use a Pokemon game with dark souls difficulty, can you imagine? Getting one shot by a dude with a Rattata lmao

[@kingofsauce1319]

@@HEADASSLOOKINGAHHH plenty of romhacks that do this. Issue is those hacks typically nerf you, for example the kaizo ones which prevent your Pokemon having EVs but allow it for your opponents. My suggestion would be to reduce super effective bonus from 2x to 0.5x make STAB a .25x Rebalance stat distributions for Pokemon so that some aren't just straight up bad. And make the reasons to use different Pokemon more about the movepool it has access to than just "how many types can I hit super effectively to ohko"

[@HEADASSLOOKINGAHHH]

@@kingofsauce1319 Yeah i know about the romhacks, but i mean like a main game you know? this would all be done if they just implemented a difficulty setting, just like FE, casual mode and some kind of hardcore mode for veterans - gym leaders with 6 pokemons, no mono type gyms, rivals that can actually give you a hardtime fighting (and act like a rival), a good poke league that lives up to it's name, and so on...

[@trainershade1937]

To be fair, the Souls franchise has gotten easier over time. Mind you, that's mostly due to the games becoming more fluid and generally better built, as the older games do have some questionable aspects about them. (cough cough Dark Souls 2 is a poorly made game that is horribly buggy, as well as having a lot of bad design choices when it comes to stats and other mechanics cough)

[@Psychesrose]

The thing about the "it's a kid's game" arguement is that they confuse complaining about bigotry of low expectations with too much quality of life mechanics. No more hms is a great quality of life mechanic. Being auto healed between every single battle is a bigotry of low expectations.

[@primarina9812]

One thing i like but also dont like about old games is getting to the end of a cave in low health and BAM! Asshat the rival challenges you and your half dead team to a battle

[@Handsy_McGee]

Put another way, a low health team pushing through a cave is a challenge. HMs are at first a roadblock, then a speed bump. Overcoming a challenge is exhilarating, overcoming 20 speed bumps is annoying.

[@Mustardear]

@@Handsy_McGee Exactly, there are many ways to overcome the challenge of managing your party's hp: adjusting play style, using moves like recover, stocking up on potions. There is only one way to overcome HM roadblocks.

[@ArtisChronicles]

Ok no HMs are great... Especially when those HMs aren't easily able to be deleted. What I always found bizarre was the infinite use moves in the first 2 gens, had no reliable way of deleting them from a Pokemon's movesets. Unless you had access to Pokemon stadium 2 that is. You couldn't delete them in their native games though.

[@cgplayz545]

My 8 yr old nephew loved playing Pokemon Crystal on the 3DS more than Sword...

[@WoFDarkNewton]

There's a trainer in Pattern Bush (FR/LG) in Pattern Bush named Bug Catcher Jonah. When you defeat him, he says something to the effect of "losing is an important to the appeal of Pokemon". How times have changed.

[@dehbuh8197]

How DARE you insult my favorite franchise! Who do you think you are bringing up good points???

[@sableyesgemeyes7918]

I love that pfp, it perfectly shows the sarcasm in the comment

[@champbraeden]

Old Roselina Main facts

[@gligurr]

>good points yeah man, the older games were *SOOOOOO* much harder. no, no, its not that you were younger when you played those games and knew a lot less about the mechanics of the game when you played them, no certainly not that. its not as if they would still be braindead easy if you replayed them again today... haha no way... right? b-but muh exp share gives exp to the whole party even though it can be turned off! but muh pokemon amie makes the game so much easier even though its completely optional! you are totally right

[@sableyesgemeyes7918]

@@gligurr I like it that no one brought the point you made that the games were only hard because we didn't know anything at the time, they say the new games are easy but they also say that the formula stood the same for years, obviously it's going to be easy because you had so many years of experience playing the same game

[@64UPAllGOD]

@@gligurr A game is about achieving an objective within a ruleset. If new rules are introduced which make the game easier, without a compensating increase in the complexity/difficulty in the obstacles, then yes, it's easier. Cookie Clicker would be extraordinarily hard if you never allowed yourself to be within a kilometer of the device it's running on, but that doesn't really matter now does it?

[@corhydrae3238]

I'd add that the principle of "children aren't stupid" extends to the story as well, not just the gameplay. Black and white was a step in the right direction and then they continued making several steps backwards. Apart from reusing the same formula over and over again, the things they do with this formula are also mindless and shallow. But it is entirely possible to create stories that are appropriate for children while also going deep and touching more mature subjects. Look at Avatar the last airbender. And my biggest problem with the whole issue of Pokemon being easy and mindless and dumb is that it is the biggest freaking media franchise in the world. They churn out an insane amount of spinoff and crossover-games. Mystery dungeon, ranger, conquest, freaking picross, stadium, colosseum, and I could probably just make up a few words here and you'd gloss over them and think "yeah, that's probably some real pokemon spinoff somewhere out there". They could easily try to stray from their formula and create a game that is harder, less linear and more mature and then just release it as a spinoff title to see how well players receive it. It probably wouldn't even hurt financially if it flops.

[@AlphaladZXA]

Hell there hasn't been too many meaningful spinoffs lately either, pokemon GO/Masters sure arent near as good as mystery dungeon. And the only one we have gotten recently was a remake for the switch.

[@GordKeen]

I didnt read your wall of text, but wasnt black and white the worst selling pokemon game so far? I remember playing it and put pokemon down until sun and moon was on the horizon. The story was ok, but it was so long it wasnt even fun. It definitely has the most forced trainer battles of any game i feel.

[@AlphaladZXA]

@@GordKeen if anything that's why pokemon hasn't felt the same since gen 5, theres actual effort in alot of things in gen 5 but its things only fans care about. It shows to me they specifically chose to make things easier and more braindead to chase profits from a wider audience to the detriment of fans... and it looks like it works :(

[@GordKeen]

@@AlphaladZXA but also a lot of those fans continue to buy these games. The part youre missing is that your fan group is a small minority of pokemon as a whole. I listened to some of the video and i dont see the disconnect from older generations to this one. He says pokemon is about having a team and traveling with them, but before party wide exp share, the game encouraged playing with your starter the entire game. It takes hours to rng battle grind your non starter, but with exp share your entire team will only be 5 to 8 levels behind your lead allowing you to use 1 mon. Take his whitney example. Whitney was hard for a couple reasons. Most fans that started were children, on top of that most people didnt understand the mechanics, and on top of that you would only have 1 viable pokemon to face whitney and a bunch of sacks so that you can revive your starter and throw them back out. The games were not any harder back then, its just our understanding of the games has gotten larger. I am playing crystal right now and typhlosion just whiped whitney through the floor. No reason in particular, i just switched out when her roll out was getting too strong. And lastly the story. I never played black and white 1 or 2 since i found their gameplay to be the worst in the series. The mechanics were getting old and there was nothing really new about pokemon anymore. I did however listen to the story on youtube and it sounds really good. I dont get why people want every pokemon game to deal with child abuse and psychological trauma though. What i love about swsh is that youre not treated special by anybody around you. When eternatus starts to appear leon tries to handle it since that is his duty as champion. Steven in RSE doesnt do anything, cynthia just provides information but doesnt try to do it herself, lance or the elite 4 never do anything in RB until lets go where loreli helps out. My point is, in swsh youre not treated special. Thats what makes swsh and black and white special. Those games story breaks the cycle of 10 year old being better than the world for no reason. Youre not treated special right from the get like every other game. Ill just end the rant here. Tl:dr i know you feel like people that hate pokemon are not "real fans", but in actuality black and white didnt sell well because the overall fans were tired of the formula. The real fans are the dozens of millions of people that bought swsh making it the best selling pokemon because it revitalised the old format. Very few people actually care about the story, so people that complain about the game being too easy are just a very vocal minority.

[@AlphaladZXA]

@@GordKeen after seeing reviewers like Arlo I'm not so sure your right either. Either way I think this could be the start of some rough years for fans, the defenders, and gamefreak.

[@ryko1246]

The guy on the hatemail: "P.S the characters from sun & moon saw your video and they hated it" 🤣🤣🤣

[@ferchio4801]

16:12 Lemme say that the difficulty/exploring IS what gets my attention. An easy game that has an only road won't interest me at much. If I have to grind a bit or experiment with strategy, I'm fine w/that! That said, I don't mind some storytelling and heavy dialogue (I mean, I've replayed Digimon Cyber Sleuth like 3 times, and it has HEAVY dialogue), but the SwSh's handholding drives me up the walls to the point I'm tempted to turn off the game because I don't want to deal with the constant cutscenes. The concept of not being able to catch pkmn of certain lvl w/o a gym badge was a real bummer to me, considering the Wild Area. It made me lose interest in catching, and it made me pissed that I was forced to progress the story to catch a strong or cool pokemon, instead I beat the strong pkmn and I'm over-leveled for the upcoming gyms (thus fights being boring). I haven't finished SwSh, but I heard from a friend that the ending is long? And to me that read as "too much dialogue and staged progress", and idk how to feel.

[@centurosproductions8827]

Masuda: "People have less time to play games, so we want them to play our game less" Me: "Isn't the point to get people to play your game more *over* other games?"

[@anfani6839]

Masuda: "Well yes but actually no"

[@sreenaths6829]

God, Lamefreak are an absolute joke these days..

[@matd2892]

Sadly no, the point is to make the sale. He phrased it against FREE mobile games, vs a historically popular handheld series and is now on the SWITCH....but he thinks his competition is clash of clans? I don't get it.

[@xSilentZeroXx]

Just to validate your claims a bit: I gave my seven-year-old nephew (think he was six at the time) a copy of Pokemon Gold. I helped him out a few times, but despite it being his very first Pokemon game he was ultimately able to navigate it and beat it just fine, from Falkner all the way to Red (and in most cases that "help" was me just giving him a clue and letting him apply that clue to information he already gathered from the game itself; only once or twice did I outright tell him what to do). And this is a kid that, while shockingly smart and even sometimes insightful for his age, can be rather dense when it comes to picking up on clues. He'd also only known how to read for less than a year by that point too, I believe, which was also working against him. But, like I said, he pulled it off. And to those wondering: yes, he did struggle with the Miltank, lol.

[@Naruku2121]

The Miltank struggle is like a right of passage

[@PokeMultiverse]

legitimately replayed pokemon gold years later in my childhood (maybe 9 or 10) and couldnt figure out how younger me managed to get as far as I did. Older me was having trouble figuring out where to go

[@Naruku2121]

@@PokeMultiverse It was always my impression "Old Games Were harder". It may not be as subjective as I thought while everyone's personal experince is different, when most modern games coddle you with lengthy tutorials, less punishing results for failing and the like. You go back in to a game where it's Do or Die and they just toss you in the deep end and tell you to swim.

[@wariyoshidirector]

Pokemon Gold to me is probably one of the least intuitive pokemon games, so you only having to lightly help him makes it even more impressive I think :P

[@faoncat]

i don’t think i’ve thought of whitney’s miltank since i was about 6 years old but i INSTANTLY remembered the pain of that battle

[@phinehastaylor6964]

"Just bc kids are kids and they're young, that doesn't mean that they're stupid and can't think for themselves" Thank you!

[@dingousoop64]

I just want them to add more difficulty options and ways to play the game like easy, hard, nuzlocke, adventurer (has minimal story) and a way to toggle hints/tutorials on and off like choosing between beginner/ace trainer. This would really help with the longevity of the games and make it so that everyone can truly play Pokemon like they want to.

[@commentingcommenter1230]

B2W2 had this... once you beat the champion... just give us these options at the beginning!

[@stevenmartinez2530]

@@commentingcommenter1230 and easy/hard were version exclusive so you had to know someone who beat the other game to get whichever one you didn't, which was really dumb

[@MrSupersonic2012]

Seriously. A difficulty selection would fix most of my issues with these games. Easy mode could be the same difficulty that the games have had since Gen 6. Normal mode could be the difficulty from Gens 1 through 5. And Hard mode could be fucking Kaizo.

[@LlamaLopez]

@@MrSupersonic2012 Hard could be PokeMMO difficulty

[@MrSupersonic2012]

@person person Look at the Pokemon Crystal Clear rom hack. Because you can tackle gyms in any order, all trainer pokemon levels are determined by how many badges you have. If the people who made that rom hack can do it, I think Gamefreak wouldn't have much problem. They're just too lazy to do so because kids are too busy playing smartphone games.

[@danielsantos-wh2op]

Pokémon needs to have more options beyond catching badges. Imagine could chose be an scientist, a breeder, an Pokémon artist, gun leader, etc. We need to have more surprises too. Like a lot of areas that are your own adventure, like an haunted mansion with exclusive Pokémon, stories, surprises. Or an alien investigation in a remote town. Or things like shine gyarados. More variety inside the Pokémon. Imagine find cristal ônix, or a location wen the butterfree have an red mark in their wings and can learn fire moves. Other thing: secret insane techniques!!, not like mega or giganto. More like train a Pokémon to develop resistance to an type, or a system wen the moves have level and unlock options in how to use them. The mono type gin leaders will benefit so much of this. Imagine if they really have powers you never see, and that you can unlock but only with an especific training and a lot of hard work. Imagine if the hm system was only a part of an Pokémon learning a move? And I wish we could put more than 4 moves in a Pokémon, even if we need to chose 4 for battles.

[@mcrettable]

crystal onix sounds like a different pokemon and different type that would be confusing.

[@danielsantos-wh2op]

NickB it’s like a regional varian, but one that is encountered in a specific spot on the map.

[@mcrettable]

@@danielsantos-wh2op so like a shiny or shellos ?

[@danielsantos-wh2op]

NickB more like a shelos, but whit exclusives moves and abilities(some times even types). You watch’s the old anime? I’m thinking some thing like the orange islands

[@altcenter4944]

You made a small error, and misspelled gym leader as GUN LEADER

[@raioh4747]

I honestly believe that playing hard games as a kid was very beneficial to me growing up, I have a pretty solid willpower and determination, more so than the many people aound me, and I really do think that this is due to all the virtual brick walls I had to tear down as a kid, especially since english isn't even my native language and I could still play these games no problem. Hard games, language barriers and messing with emulators taught me a lot about problem solving, about knowing what is doable and what isn't worth it, I'm really grateful for the influence these games had on me. If I ever have a kid, I'm giving them a copy of dark souls when they turn 7

[@iLlamas1]

I find Bugsy's Sycther highly underrated. He gave me more trouble than Miltank both in Crystal and SoulSilver.

[@CEDL0W]

Probably because most people pick cyndaquil as their starters

[@electroluxray_560]

I agree. I picked Chikorita as my starter which definitely made it worse. The only other Pokémon I had were too weak so my starter was the only one I could use.

[@lsswappedcessna]

*laughs in quilava*

[@natecruz7114]

Clair’s Dragon Pokemon are underrated af too and Steven’s Metagross is monster.

[@tubbs8349]

Screw Bugsy’s scyther. I tried to do a all grass type run and it was a nightmare trying to get past it to the point where I wanted to just throw in the towel.

[@mortmortmort8908]

LOL right from the start of his quote: "rather than listening to what people who have played the games for 20 years want, I'm just going to pander to the lowest common denominator"

[@MustacheDLuffy]

Well we have to think about the next generation of fans Btw Mort, why did SWSH succeed with the all the rioting? Because of the loswet common denominator mentality, #dexit was irrelevant

[@mparagames]

@@MustacheDLuffy Why do you keep defending that it is okay that this next generation accepts to only basically play linear, unpolished and unfinished games? I know most mobile games are like that, but Pokémon should join this club IMO - the mobile industry is taking over too much

[@chaseelwind1578]

@@MustacheDLuffy show us your playtime on the game. real fans have 3-4 digits of playtime

[@MustacheDLuffy]

Pokémon says that we don’t have enough time in our lives to play more games because we’re so distracted by mobile games

[@MustacheDLuffy]

Oh yeah I have 999 hours on SWSH cheese baby oh yes

[@AlsoMeowskivich]

"there haven't been difficulty options in 10 years" that statement echoed through my soul since Black and White came out during my early college years.

[@jillcipher]

“Whitney’s Miltank is memorable” Me: *Blew through her Miltank with a level 18 Quilava as an 11 year old*

[@joshhallam2618]

I have bad memorys against Elesa and her two annoying volt swichting flying rats that is Emogla as a 11years old and ever since than I had hated Emogla for ruining my days in the gen 5 games along with other Emogla in the games as they spam double team.

[@charliez077]

@@joshhallam2618 Elesa is definitely a Top 5 gym leader difficulty-wise!

[@creamofthecrop4339]

heracross with fury cutter or croconaw with rage made whitney look like bugsy

[@hannahshark8080]

That's nice sweetie

[@The_Court_Poet]

lol! I bought crystal for the first time recently and was scared leading up to the fight. Only for my Furret to breeze past her.

[@thekidwiththefa]

I like the 'difficulty in games gives you stories' thing. I remember a girl coming over to my house so I could beat Brock's Onyx with her Pikachu when I was 7 or 8!

[@randykoha8936]

how did that play out

[@dragoniraflameblade]

"Easier means more attention" Uh, I'm sorry, Mr Director, but have you heard of Dark Souls, Bloodborne, or Sekiro? My favorite Pokemon memory is more recent: I recently bought Crystal and decided to play with a Senret at my Second Main lad named Coffee. It wasn't long before Coffee was higher than my starter and she carried me thru the Dragon Gym. Worst: I thought the first Elite 4 was THE END in Silver and didn't find out there was more until after my cartridge battery died. It gets irritating with S/M bc I have to basically hamstring myself to get any difficulty or entertainment out of it. Have a set battle style, stay to certain types, and no mega moves or whatever you call it. I completely forgot to equip my mega moves the first time thru unless an NPC used it. I totally agree with this vid.

[@OctoNico]

Well I mean Pokemon still sells a lot more games than Dark Souls etc. Not that I disagree with you, but if we talk about sales numbers they are not doing anything wrong right now, its selling even better than ever. That's the problem.

[@dragoniraflameblade]

@@OctoNico That's true.

[@lp2664]

I was excited for the gen 4 remakes, however, looking at gamefreak’s recent games, I doubt it would be any good.

[@AlphaladZXA]

I am terrified to see that trailer next year, that's too soon ;-; and even then they'll do what happened to ORAS and just foolishly nerf so many trainers and gym leaders. Its sad

[@llwonder]

Me from the future, you are correct. Pokémon is too easy

[@PER578]

The remakes of gen 4 have a chibi art style and no platinum content

[@Silburific]

"How many memorable battles have you had in the last 3 generations?" Well, I stopped playing after Moon, so here's a story about Black. I don't know if this counts because of the self-imposed rules, but I decided to try my first Nuzlock on Black. Now, gen 5 was the only pokemon game I've gone into completely blind. I didn't know any of the pokemon, their types, what half the moves were... So everything's going great, I get to Lenora and take out her Herdier with my Servine, business as usual. Then the Watchog comes out... and OHKOs my starter with Retaliate. I just stared at my DS for a solid minute before I started raging. What the ever loving fuck is "Retaliate"-- oh god, it brought two more of my mons down to the red!! It wasn't the first time my starter had fainted in a game, but through my own rules, this was the first time my starter wouldn't be with me for the rest of my journey, the first time I wouldn't see its final evolution. My Black, HeartGold, and Sapphire nuzlockes have given me a better plot than anything Gamefreak could possibly dream of (I had even started drawing a comic around them), and I remember those battles years later. I don't remember any... challenge people- kahunas or Elite 4- from gen 7 other than Nanu, and that's only because he was the first Dark leader (and I think he's cute).

[@iceblacktempestrv6426]

Silburific 17 This story was very amusing lol. Lenora’s Watchog frankly scares me that I essentially do as much setting up on her Herdier with Work Up or Growth on Servine, so that I may dispatch her Watchog quickly. I haven’t really done any Nuzlockes as of now, so that should highlight how terrifying Lenora is on just a regular play through. But, on the topic of Nuzlockes, since you have experience with it, I want to know what are some things I should consider if I wish to start one? Sorry if this comment just came out of nowhere, I lurk around KZbin a lot.

[@conic2721]

I punched everything that Nanu had, I had a Pangoro and a Araquinid.

[@Silburific]

@@iceblacktempestrv6426 Damn, I'm just now seeing your comment. So sorry! Well, the most important thing I'd say to consider with a nuzlocke run is how seriously are you going to take it? I've tried to do nuzlockes in newer games, but I got so bored, not with the pokemon but with the game itself, that I just gave up and went back to playing normally. With a traditional nuzlocke, you can only catch a limited amount of pokemon and when they faint you release them, so you're going to be grinding a _lot_ to ensure that your best mons won't die. It can be really frustrating. My best advice is to apply this... mode(?) to a gen you already love. My HeartGold nuzlocke was the most intense game I'd ever played, and I never got tired of grinding because I love that game so much.

[@krampusapprenticeofdarksan7870]

9:25 Cynthia is memorable cuz people talked about her nearly No weakness team and how good Spiritomb was back before the fairies.

[@NoMicGAMER]

My 10yo nephew hates sun and moon and ultra sun and moon he said to me: "they dont stop talking and dont let me play" then he proceeded to just battle wild pokemon for 30min and then closed the game. On the other side he loves B&W1 y 2, and fire red.

[@commentingcommenter1230]

He's got good tastes

[@corhydrae3238]

I think it wouldn't even be that bad if they actually said something. They're talking all the time, but they really aren't saying anything at all.

[@dw5926]

You're nephew will become a hero

[@Htiy]

Tum Tum FR agreed, the gen 5 story had the most content but presented it in a non invasive way. And when it was invasive it was actually interesting. I want to play a Pokémon game not watch a Pokémon movie ffs😭

[@justanotherhunter6634]

Your nephews a genius, nurture his intelligence.

[@TheAbsol7448]

When SwSh was first announced, I was _really_ hoping they'd adopt the design philosophy of Xenoblade. A somewhat linear map to be able to tell a complex story, but huge open areas with hidden paths to add content to the game. I was hoping SwSh was going to be Gen 5 on steroids, but it feels like a combination of the worst parts of Gen 6 and 7.

[@ragingraichu219]

The challenge is what made me like Pokemon from the start. I remember back in gen 1 asking for help to beat the Elite Four. I borrowed someone's Mewtwo, and in return, leveled it to 100 for them. With Mewtwo, I learned a lot about how to improve in battle by experimenting and whatnot, and that carried over to newer generations. I've gotten so spoiled by the easy mechanics of current games that any challenge annoys me anymore, and that saddens me.

[@FrozenDarkVoid]

“I never played this I wish gamefreak would get the **** over kanto.” Single most important line.

[@donlyphans7801]

I felt so guilty buying sun and ultra moon.. Don't encourage their bad behavior!!

[@AlphaladZXA]

I wonder if theres some guilt for swsh owners, and if there also will be for this frankly overpriced DLC 🤔

[@povilixas]

I weighted whether i'd have more guilt for buying sword or pirating sword Glad to say i never bought it and it sucked

[@yveshku5583]

@@AlphaladZXA the dlc is not overpriced, and quite frankly, a better option than situations before like Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, Platinum, Yellow, Crystal, and Emerald.

[@AlphaladZXA]

@@yveshku5583 no it's not, this game already didnt feel worth 60$. At least with those past versions you also got the entire game over again if you wanted. USUM wasnt worth it though so :p. And its DLC, it wont be re aquireable once Nintendo pulls the servers since they love not keeping them up very long, and their already pulling Wii U and 3DS eshops in other countries! Realize when something is less for more compared to previous gens, their making this feel like destiny now which sucks

[@knoxgarfallen3355]

Hoenn & Sinnoh: A Journey across a interesting and content-packed region Anything past X&Y: Entire town with nothing in houses, no ones interesting, not a journey, but a tour.

[@justinsarcedo9355]

Here's one Alola: Fun exploring the islands. Me: "Leave me alone! I want to explore the islands myself." Rotom Dex: " But, you have to go this way." Never mind, I rather go back to Unova again with my Alola team. Lol

[@jaydenc367]

except since gen 5 is when things got more plot focused and nothing interesting? weird as I would argue x and y had the most mysterious in a pokemon game it did feel like a journey to me

[@delphoxxthevulpera68]

The main difference between those games in regards to post game content was a challenging battle facility, I don't see what other content they had besides something like the battle frontier

[@aeroblaze4]

@@jaydenc367 oh man how I wish they expanded upon XY in a potential sequel like Pokemon Z. Imagine zygarde being added into the mix where you have to collect it's cells to be able to stop team flare, and then fight xerneas and yveltal both with zygarde besides you.

[@dashmasterboss8251]

i disagree

[@pngdotjpeg]

I can't tell you how many times in Sword and Shield I've explored somewhere, and I find absolutely nothing for my efforts.

[@t.h.mcelroy6597]

13:06, preach, brother. It's comforting to know we've some shared experience 💛

[@Threads_Of_Fate]

Its interesting that Junichi Masuda acknowledges that people have less time to play games and are more busy now. So instead of doing the logical thing and balancing the game to have less grinding, he just make battles trivially easy and throws in enough cutscenes to rival a Metal Gear Solid game.

[@Ray03595]

Pokemon is just a giant money machine. These devs dont need to try anymore when they know the games will sell no matter how crap they are, they will get decent reviews no matter how crap they are because game journalists are too afraid of backlash to actually critique games anymore, the anime will be a success, there will be movies, merch, and they'll all make a ton of money, and keep churning out the same stuff for the next set of kids. The things in this video may matter to 20-30 year olds, but TPC sees no need to change anything because they are making more money than ever and consistently getting new young fans no matter how much they water down the experience. Why put in effort?

[@PinHeadSupliciumwtf]

People not having time and unskippable cutsence directly contradict one another

[@ExeErdna]

@@PinHeadSupliciumwtf True, even the mini cutscenes in the older games were to the point, now you're just old rails now

[@PokeMultiverse]

@@PinHeadSupliciumwtf he expects you to pull out your phone during them anyway. Honestly the man seems jaded to me

[@asmonull]

Games do have much less grinding, scaling exp gains with exp share is a big factor here - at all times your whole team will stay on useable levels even if you don't use them in fight until you need it. In terms of battle difficulty, they aren't easier for most part - in fact, I'd say they're a little bit more difficult on average, but at the same time there's much less difficulty spikes it takes effort to be completely unprepared to handle a battle - and even if it happens, fixing it by changing moves/Pokemon/catching up in levels takes few minutes instead of few hours. With that, they managed to turn Pokemon from what was mostly busywork with few hype moments, to a mildly engaging game through whole duration. Even back in the day, Platinium felt to me much easier than Ultra Sun/Moon (and I played both first time blind around same time) after I put effort into getting movesets I wanted - difference is, I didn't have to spend 30 hours spamming slot machines in USUM to get the TMs.

[@snausages43]

The games sell like hot cakes. Until that stops, they’re not going to change anything, unfortunately.

[@uchuuseijin]

Well... Each generation of games is selling less, and the video above is explicitly about how the games *have changed*, so...

[@Codraroll]

And when it stops, they will have no idea why, since they think they've "perfected the formula". Then they will go back to their best-selling game and try copy what it did over again, not realizing that this was what sent them into this mess to begin with. There's this thing called "the winner's curse", being successful without fully understanding why. When the success peters out, you've got no way to bring it back, since you never knew how you had it in the first place. Game Freak seems to think their way to success is to refine the traits of RBY to perfection, or rather, to their ideals. Ironically losing track of why RBY was a success to begin with in the process. This could lead to players becoming tired of the repetition, or (as seems to be the case for the Pokémon fanbase), the tuning of the formula to match the developers' ideals breaks it away from what players want. To take a small and very simplified example, Masuda could look back at RBY and think "man, we did good with that one, but in hindsight I see it wasn't linear enough", while the lack of linearity was an aspect players liked about it in the first place. So they make their next games exactly like RBY, but linear, believing it to be an improvement. However, what really **sells** the game are the gameplay loop and creature designs. The second games sell like hotcakes because of the aforementioned two, and the problems with linearity is noted as a loss, but nothing important. Masuda looks at the sales numbers and thinks: "Yep, making it more linear seems to have done the trick. Maybe it was a tad too challenging, though". The third game is both overly linear and overly easy, but retains the good gameplay loop and creature design, so it sells well. And so Masuda thinks "Maybe the fourth one should have more cutscenes?" and so on. What he thinks are improvements keep making the games worse, and the flaws are being masked by what the games do right. Sales numbers aren't affected until players get enough, then sales plummet. Masuda panics and thinks "We have to see what worked well in the past! Fourth game, that sold record numbers! Linear, easy, and cutscenes, that's the success formula!" Look at Kodak, IBM, or LEGO, or countless others who were big until they suddenly weren't (LEGO recovered, though, but it went through a very rough patch). They thought their success meant they were on the right track, and that the decisions they made were sound, until they went off the cliff. Hopefully, Game Freak doesn't quite get there.

[@patrickmarquez8307]

@@uchuuseijin You're wrong about that as Pokemon sword and shield beat sun and moon and x and y in terms of sales.

[@robertmackeymackey5521]

And the fact that Sword and Shield beat Super Smash bros Ultimate in terms of sales on it's launch week just because it's Pokemon is complete garbage.

[@4skintim962]

Well I mean sub and moon we’re the best selling games on the 3ds so I doubt anyone’s gonna stop buying them anytime soon.

[@JoaoVitor-uk7cj]

I want more games like b/w and b2/w2, they were soooo good, with good story, good design, good pokemon and and a good difficult

[@Tan12]

Kids ain't that dumb, my friend and I were looking up strats on Smogon and going pretty hard playing each other online when we were like eleven.

[@elzar5987]

If a game can only be truely enjoyed by kids, it's not a good game

[@michaeljames6737]

the funny thing is its that kids dont even like pokemon

[@lds9280]

@@michaeljames6737 Yup the same argument was used for star wars "star wars was made for kids" while the sales for star wars toys went through the floor. Its only made for kids when people don't have an actual argument.

[@kevinmiller8111]

It's depressing for sure. I loved the first 5 gens but I've tried all of the 3DS games and after 2 or 3 badges I'm so bored by the lack of difficulty and linearity I just can't continue.

[@ferchio4801]

I'm glad I'm not the only one! I've been a fan of the pkmn franchise since the GBA games (and have managed to play most of them since Red/Blue, have replayed them multiple times). I specifically bought a 3DS to try X/Y, and while I enjoyed the game to a certain point... I wasn't that eager to play it every spare free second. I have yet to finish Pkmn Sun, and I only pick up Sword when a friend wants to battle- I'm simply not interested in it. I can't see any plot by the 3rd gym on Sword and while the new elements are interesting, I can't say without a doubt that they enhance the game a 100%. P.S.: Sorry for the rant.

[@lukehennessy2152]

I feel like ultra sun is the hardest of the newer games. Ultra necrozma and the trials are harder to beat if you don’t have a type advantage

[@kevinmiller8111]

@raffle baffle For competitive I can understand why people are still dedicated to the newer games. However, I was in it for the single player experience though, which has been extremely lackluster.

[@ArtisChronicles]

@@lukehennessy2152 great news to me then. I'm gonna go at the trials with a full team of Smeargle from 2nd gen.

[@ArtisChronicles]

@@kevinmiller8111 the single player is so lackluster that it's what's getting me into competitive. It's the only thing to really do...

[@affsteak3530]

Some of the trainers in Colosseum and XD even used strategy! I remember a sandstorm team and someone protecting their Gyarados with a Lightning Rod partner. Nothing advanced but none of the trainers were mono-typed gym leaders

[@sebastianmiranda5453]

I binged the quadrilogy before this. I love discovering new, high quality chanels. Cheers my boi

[@carstan62]

As far as the whole "It's a kid's game," argument: I don't know that I would have become such an avid fan of Pokemon if the earlier games were as easy as the recent ones. On my 5th birthday I got a Gameboy Color and Pokemon Gold. This was my 1st video game period. Whitney was hard sure, but she didn't stop me or any of the other kids who got into Pokemon at the time. Sure sure, I can hear you. "Just because you beat her without any trouble doesn't mean everyone did." No, it doesn't, but do you know what does? The fact that Pokemon was such a huge success even when it had such truly difficult moments. That's not to say that nobody got stuck on anything. I'm just saying that getting stuck on a battle didn't make kids give up on the series. I remember kids who were stuck on a battle (the Elite Four was the major one) would often bring their games into summer camp and ask the better players to beat that battle for them. Being one of those kids that could win battles even with someone else's team got you mad respect and it helped bring the players together.

[@anhurdyn3938]

I'm just saying, go back and play Gold again, or any of the old Pokemon games. They are ludicrously easy. They were easy when we were kids, but I haven't even had a pokemon faint pre-gen 7 in a couple years. Like Cynthia is "hard," because her team doesn't have any common weaknesses, and her lead has no weaknesses. But Spiritomb is not a strong Pokemon, it's fairly middling. The only marginally difficult pokemon to beat on her team is her Milotic because it's stupid tanky. I don't think kids are stupid and I was actually better at some games as a kid, but Pokemon wasn't one of them. Pokemon has never been remotely hard, it's just hard for kids because there is a lot of stuff to learn going into it.

[@charliez077]

Christian Marra mate i'll give you Gen 2, but i won't give you Gen 4, 5 (and Emerald) These games ARE more difficult than Gen 6-8. Yes, we grew older and better BUT you really think Platinum is equall easy as XY? If you do you are dellusional. And even Masuda explicitely said during Gen 6 the new games ARE supposed to be easier. Just do a replay of XY and then replay Platinum or BW2 - you WILL feel the difference.

[@anhurdyn3938]

@@charliez077 nah nah nah, my point isn't the the new games aren't easier, they're a bit easier, though not really much, and I'd still say Ultra Sun and Moon are the hardest in the series, my point is that pokemon games are easy. None of them are even remotely hard.

[@carstan62]

@@anhurdyn3938 First of all, I find it hard to believe your claim that you haven't had a Pokemon faint playing the older games unless you haven't played as much as you're implying or are grinding out the game and playing extremely carefully. You're telling me that you haven't been KO'd by a pre-nerf selfdestruct/explosion or a pre-nerf crit (200% damage rather than our current 150%)? All that being said, the Pokemon games are RELATIVELY easy. There is no challenge in the game that can't be overcome with grinding and type match-up knowledge is a GIGANTIC advantage. Even without going into whether or not the games are actually difficult. My point is that the games have become SIGNIFICANTLY easier. Crits aren't as likely to rob you of a battle you would have otherwise won, the game tells you if a move is super-effective, in SwSh in particular there aren't really any dungeons that are long enough to make you feel like you need to get to a Pokemon Center, exp. share is game-breaking, etc. etc. The list goes on and on. The games weren't particularly difficult before, and yet they've made them increasingly easy beyond that. HOWEVER, what makes me call Whitney a truly difficult encounter was the combination of Miltank having significantly higher base stats than any other Pokemon you were likely to have access to at this point, the only Pokemon available to you at this point in the game with STAB super-effective against normal is Machop, and the fact that both of her Pokemon represent a giant level spike compared to what you've seen so far. These factors are magnified even further when you're playing through the game for the first time. Now that we've all experienced it we can choose not to challenge her until we think we're ready, but I am confident in saying that there are very few people who were able to beat her on their first try without being told to grind up by someone else.

[@anhurdyn3938]

@@carstan62 To the point of crits and explosion and whatnot, no that's never happened to me in general. The one time I got exploded on where it killed me was when I first played Pokemon, and it hasn't happened since. I just play normally, I despise grinding so I rarely do it and am frequently underleveled but pokemon games have actually potato AI until recently so I'd play through Emerald with my swampert out against a cacturne and it'd use dark moves. Exp share is a valid point but it really just gets rid of grinding somewhat because when I fought Leon in Sword I didn't use any exp candies or anything and I was underleveled, I did fight every trainer though. Besides Ultra Necrozma and Hau in Ultra Sun, I haven't had a Pokemon faint pre-gen 8, even, though it helps on the explosion point that I always have a ghost on my team if one's available because I love ghost types. I personally believe Ultra Sun/moon is far and away the hardest game in the series, with nothing else even coming close. So I disagree with your point about the games getting easier. As for Whitney, even as a kid I always did the same thing, just click growl + defense curl, heal and hit the thing in between healing. It'd be hard but you get a lot of money in the gen 2 games so you can get like 60 potions before that fight.

[@dylanmcnab3479]

I’m sorry but the concept of running around with three spearow just makes kid you sound like “youngster Fudj”

[@bijuutamer729]

Dylan McNab especially with the autism

[@jacobesterson]

When I get back to working on my FRLG rom hack I'm putting Youngster Fudj in now. Credit to you.

[@waffleweirdo1252]

@@bijuutamer729 What's that supposed to mean?

[@cosmicspacething3474]

Honestly for the level solution thing I think the gyms should all be available at the same time but when you beat one, the level caps for the rest of them go up that adds a bit of strategy. Also if they want to the obvious solution is difficulty settings. They’ve been there ever since the dawn of gaming

[@tenmaruhakuchou]

I was going to complain about the missed opportunity of not putting on pyrite theme when talking about colusseum, but then all was saved when you put it in at the end. Liked and subscribed.

[@kitmiles_]

As a 7y/o playing Pkmn: D/P for the first time I didn’t give a single feck about types or challenge I just picked the pokemon I thought were cute or cool and struggled so much because I didn’t understand...and I LOVED IT

[@crimsonghost4107]

That's how I ended up with a team with like three fire types. It made the elite four really difficult

[@hostiusasinhostilityhostil7853]

When you mentioned always playing as an 11-year-old, it got me thinking about what a Pokémon game would be like if you instead played as the professor. For instance: you're doing your research into new species that have popped up in a desert island region, when suddenly, you're caught in a plane crash. You have to make it back to civilisation whilst also trying to complete your research. Something like that might be refreshing.

[@JuliaN-ti9zv]

I had the same thought. Why can't we play the professor or even his apprentice that seeks to get recognized as a professor on their own right? This could include several challenges which we have to master like gaining fighting skills and acquiring knowledge about Pokemon and proving it in some sort of tests. What about having to collect certain items from secluded areas that would help us in our research? Or even solving mysteries and puzzles like for example in the Ruins of Alph, just fleshed out quite a bit. Hell, even if we have to be a 10 year old kid there are still have more than enough options to create an interesting story: How about we try to find our dad in a mystery/ detective like manner since it's been a meme for that long? That could have some twists and turns (look at Silver). If they want to stick to the evil team scheme, why can't we have a storyline where we start out our adventure with our best friend but then there's a falling out and he/she joins the evil team? That's not even that original and certainly not thought through at all, but at least I tried. Not sure if the same can be said for GameFreak though tbh.

[@Gianni-qj1kt]

Love this video. Im replaying the platinum rn and the amount of times I've been sent to the Pokemon center is actually refreshing. The reason I loved this game so much as a kid was because of the difficulty and how hard you had to grind to win certain fights. I miss it so much.

[@Casual_Shots]

Pokémon hasn't been about the games in a long time. When your franchise sells more merchandise than most of the other gigantic franchises out there why would you bother innovating games?

[@Thunder-Sky]

I appreciate that you chose the fire trial of all the trials to display when asking for gyms back. Fire trial was my breaking point where I realized I no longer love Pokemon

[@Mr.Japlay]

What about the grass trial?

[@Thunder-Sky]

Dumb fetch quest doesn't insult my 2002 intelligence in quite the same way that spot-the-difference does when level 3 is a photobombing hiker

[@Mr.Japlay]

@@Thunder-Sky did you find challenge in totem lurantis

[@Thunder-Sky]

Oh that's what you were asking about? I don't remember, probably not. The exp. all trivializes all the battles regardless, I spent the entire game with half my team just leveling up pokemon to be evolved. Either way, it was over 2 years ago and the worst pokemon experience I've had in my life, the only things I'm gonna remember are my frustrations.

[@Mr.Japlay]

@@Thunder-Sky for me personally it was the best pokemon experience in my life. The challenge was still there for me as i didn't overlevel my team. And i just found the game charming. But i respect everyones opinion 😄

[@BloodDragonJL]

This is why people create Nuzlocke. I bet Gamefreak doesn´t like it.....

[@CalebJF88]

I may be wrong, but I think I remember them telling people to do nuzlocke when they complained about difficulty

[@Nameless_mixes]

Caleb Fisher Yeah, they just said to implement your own rules. Like turning off the Exp Share... and then they make it that you can’t turn off the Exp Share... Smh...

[@doncare8]

George you are either healed before each gym, or before and after each gym in sns with sporadic sprinkling of heals through out the routes, someone did a run through of sns and counted how many time you got healed. i dont remember how many time but it was way more then previous games

[@waifubreaks1572]

i don't get the appeal of nuzlocke, i'd much rather play fire emblem

[@x99rarecandy]

Hey, you're super honest and funny and have a great formula for your videos. Obviously you make great points as well. i'm rooting for you for your continued success !

[@BringBackOGClubPenguin]

The “kids are not stupid” part is so right. I was a little kid when X & Y came out, and still me and some of my friends my age who played the game, we were complaining about how easy it was. Maybe my group is filled with people that like challenges, but if 8 to 9 year-olds are complaining about your game being yo easy, there is a problem. Just to clarify, I had played other Pokémon games before X & Y, and some of my best memories with the games were beating certain challenges like trying to beat the emerald pokemon league with just an azumarill, beating the wpt in B & W 2, a hariyama saving my ass a couple times in my first nuzlocke (even though it was after X & Y came out). Even in other games beating challenges are some of my best memories, like practicing to beat my brother in smash and Mario kart, the first time I got 3 stars in every 150cc cup, etc.