Hello, folks! This video took a lot of time to make, and it got a little beyond where its original scope was meant to be, but there was a lot of stuff that I was given which I felt needed to be included. I welcome everyone's thoughts on the matter, but please remember to be civil. I might sound very negative and maybe even bitter at times in the video, but really, I just want to see Pokemon at its full potential, and if I don't get new shiny toys to play with, I know I can still play with the old ones.
My issue with the games is that the pace was quite poor. They tried to make the game more story centric and that made the cadence of the game sluggish to the point where it couldn't keep my attention. The art was actually very good and the new Pokemon were cool. -- A.T.
Yeah, the beginning portion of the games has become quite bloated. Even in Sun and Moon, I has to play ~7 hours before I got off the first island, which is basically a tutorial
I also made the mistake of playing the base and ultra versions back to back bc i didn't know they'd be nearly completely the same so that soured my experience even more
This was fantastic. I didn’t realize my quitting after Sun and Moon was a big phenomenon. I would also contribute that the next game being on the switch and not a DS system greatly deterred me.
i gave up after playing the new paldean games for a day. it's like being in a relationship with someone you like so much but they keep making mistakes after you've forgiven them so many times. maybe i'll come back to it some day but for now i resent how bad they've become
Sun and Moon literally came out on the day of my Highschool graduation, I stayed up until midnight to get my pre-ordered copy on release and I played it for an extra few hours all as I was about to leave school forever in less than 12 hours. About a month later I stopped on the third island and have never played a pokemon game since. I don't really know why but I guess I just found it boring, there was nothing new or special about the games anymore, it was all too shallow for me now
The excessive amount of cut scenes in SM/USUM damaged the game, as well as the lack of experience bonus gained from battling all trainers. It was also unacceptable that these trainers only had one pokemon or two, so what was game freak thinking? The fact the national dex was also cut from SwSh onward also ruined the franchise. So many mistakes occurred ever since.
Pokémon old head here, one who keeps up with the modern games. I enjoyed Sun and Moon’s ideas, but they felt so lacking at their core. What do you do after the main story? The battle tree was just a reskinned battle maison and just as bland. Do you mess with competitive builds? Well, at that point in time, it was still annoying to build without genning. The worst part - the absolute worst for me - was removing the PSS. It stripped away that feeling of being connected to the world AND made playing with others annoying for no reason. Think about it. Generation 5 was the last mainline entry to offer anything substantial after the main story that wasn’t DLC. (Legends Arceus was excellent and exempt from my complaints)
Shared exp made the game boring for me because just by playing as I had always normally done, by exploring and not avoiding battles, I was very soon overpowered and everything became trivial.
Honestly, my last pokemon game was Shield and I have no regrets about it. The thing that sealed the deal for me was replaying older games and getting into rom hacks. With those, I’m set babyyyy! That’s all I need. I still actively play and enjoy pokemon to this day, I just don’t NEED the newest games to do that. The only thing that really deters me from this is the 3ds online shut down coming soon, but hell all I need to do is get the trading out of the way now while I still can.
I was in the same boat. Started wRed, ended wSun. It's just a process that becomes stale less the story and QOL is good. I don't even mind exp share since Pokemon has always been about player-made difficulty. And I don't think the games even need a national dex since it makes the region less unique if every game had the exact same things. Idk what Pokemon Company needs to do to get me back in...maybe just give themselves some time to make something feel special and not obligitory & half-baked.
Yeah, I don't actually have much of an issue with certain Pokemon not being available in other regions. It is mostly that people give the excuse that it's for "balance reasons" that bothers me, because it's definitely not for balance reasons, at least in most cases. I fully understand that it's difficult to make that many models and to figure out a way to make them available which is organic to the game and doesn't ruin its identity, though.
@@NecromancyForKids I'd rather have a nice, curated list of Pokemon that creates its own distinct metagame and have future releases get people excited for "what pkm will return." Because now you run into the issue that if they don't have the natdex, people complain since they only want the same thing, but bigger each time- which can't be fun for the devs.
@@JanjoZonePokemon is the Pokedex. The only reason the franchise is successful is the POKEMON. Nobody plays mainly for groundbreaking gameplay, or story, but for the Pokemon themselves. Naturally, if mons are missing, it is very noticeable. They dont have to work to include every Pokemon. They've been recycling models ever since 3d, adding minor tweaks and textures here and there.
@elly8948 And they will continue to clash with the newer pokemon that are far more expressive. If gen 9 is anything to go by, adjusting movesets among other things to align with newer gens is still something they have to do as well. Pokemon being about the pokemon just means they have to make a complete world with the selection of pokemon they choose from, not necessarily allow players to hold every single pokemon in existance in a single game. (and i am talking about natdex) Gen 3 dropped "Gotta catch em' all!" because doing the latter is an unrealistic and bloated task for both the player and the developer, and undermines the identity of each game.
I've heard people say they dropped off at SuMo. Me personally as a older guy in his early 30's that's been playing since the original games released these games were my favorite. I so loved going back for more in Ultra SuMo.
I never played the Ultra games, but they seemed to have some interesting universal stuff I hadn't even heard about until recently somehow, so maybe some day I'll give them a try. If only Pokemon games weren't basically full price used, though. lol
The Pokémon Sun and Moon Hype season was really fun for me! Revealing new Pokémon, Characters, Regional forms every two weeks! It was the reason (and Pokémon Go) I got the game! The Hype for SS and SV was no where to be seen and the only fun is the Riddles that Khu does!
As someone who's not liked the new games for all the reasons you listed I have to say a lot of the "improvements" you listed are also part of the reason I don't like the more recent games, like the over reliance on the ride pokemon really annoy me, I feel like the issue is they take away from the feeling of bonding with your team per say, and I really disliked the fact they aren't my pokemon, especially in SV it was one of the biggest reasons I stopped playing, I didn't like the designs of the box legendaries it just felt like I was being forced to bond with it due to its plot relevance and the fact its the only way to traverse some areas, I also think the games having gone more open world was not a good idea, the regions feel more empty and barren, there's no side areas, caves are just empty hallways/rooms, don't feel like an actual dungeon or are fun to explore, routes don't feel unique, theres no puzzles, my favourite part of the older games was exploring the regions, now I can't be bothered to play the games because of how bland and downright ugly the environments are
I think that's fair enough. Everyone will have different tastes. I don't know how I feel about the games being more open world, either, though it is nice to me that it isn't a pure hallway in the same way as it was in Sun and Moon.
For me, a big deal was that i discovered SNES emulation around this time and got to play a bajillion games that Before this I had only seen in walkthroughs. Especiallly Chrono Trigger, that game is perhaps the most influential game on my modern gaming lifestyle today. So I essentially replaced pokemon with other JRPGs and retro games in general
Scarlet is my last pokemon game. I'm done with pokemon. I used to love it. But the lack of content is my trigger. Completing the pokedex isn't fun anymore (I'm looking at you pokenav). The last good and complet(ish) game was Oras for me...
I had been playing Pokemon since the start and I dropped SM at the third trial, I think either Mallow or Lana. It was such a slog to go through with the constant interuptions. It annoyed me even more that they hadn't improved in their animations in these forced "cutscenes". I just recently got up to the point where Lusamine goes to ultra space in UM, and there's an actual animated cutscene there with interesting camera work where Gladion runs past the Skull grunts. After XY I expected improvement, but all we got were in engine slideshows where a character can only move in a straight line, rotate, then emote. I was extremely let down that they weren't moving forward. Although many have said that Alola is actually bigger than some regions when all the islands are put together, it always felt like I was just going in a circle exploring each island. That one's a nitpick, but it felt cramped, and I wasn't really enjoying the minimal exploration at all. I eventually picked Sun back up and did end up enjoying the story and many of the new pokemon, but it was 4 years after I had purchased the games. In fact, I got SM, dropped it for 3 years, bought Ultra Sun, dropped that, then a year later picked up SM again and played through both, then SM, then bought UM, and I'm going through that right now. I think I have stockholm with gen 7 at this point, because I actually have them higher on my list of favorites.
Yeah, there were a lot of cutscenes and even unnecessary pausing between cutscenes. Like it would play a cutscene, then you need to walk forward a couple of steps, then a new cutscene happens. That and you take forever to get off the first island, so it feels like a drag. I still had fun with it, but it was grating at times for sure. I could have talked about my experience with Sun and Moon more, but the length of the video was so long and half of what I talked about could be its own video, so I had to keep it less personal to me and just talk about what other people had said.
I started with the anime and recently came around to the tcg (and Pokémon Live)... still skeptical of starting the video games (my first exposure was thinking that the first guy in Red was dead... never got past there) I didn't even choose a starter
I'd say to give whichever games look good to you a try. Maybe check out a review which is hopefully mostly spoiler free and just talks about the gameplay elements. Unfortunately, a lot of "reviews" today are actually narrated playthroughs. lol.
Personally I liked story centric games as I had gotten into stuff like Final Fantasy and Xenoblade so Sun and Moon being more story centric was fine with me. They actually ended up being my favourites in the entire series, though being released in the 20th anniversary probably helped with that.
I used to play the games since gen1, stopped playing after gen7. I didn't really like tjem getting rid of HMs and feild type moves in general. Tried SwSh but didn't like had an immense distane for the lvcap system which prevented you from capturing pokemon higher than your badge allowed. Also the Gigamax forms kind of felt lazy and boring compared to the Megas and Z-Moves, but mainly the lvcap system.
Speaking as someone who quit after USUM I will say that there are a few reasons why I switched. The games stopped being released on the DS and I did not want to invest money in a Switch. As I have gotten older I have more so wanted to invest my money in things that will last a lifetime vs last a few years or save me money. Buying Cast Iron cookware and bakeware that will last a lifetime or saving up for a house that reduces amount on rent or a car that is electric to save on gas as examples. Also with the lack of a full Pokedex I felt I did not have a need to buy the real game to have every Pokemon. Story wise I can watch someone play the game on RUclips for free. So I suppose the reasons I quit buying Pokemon games was because I did not feel A need to spend lots of money on video games anymore and would rather prioritize other things in my life.
My issue is shiny locks which started in BW. This is why I consider gens 1-4 to be the best. The shiny locks got worse with each generation bc of Pokémon’s greed for charging players $1 for each attempt at a shiny legendary in Pokemon Go and making some Go exclusive.
when sun and moon came out i was shiny hunting for the starters but the cutscenes were so damn long per reset I eventually stopped and just never got to playing them, I actually picked up sword and shield though in 2021 and played through those, and I've just recently last week started soft resetting for a shiny starter again on sun and moon, i WILL play these games... eventually 😅
for a long time i hated black and white. These days i actually love black and white because i just didnt understand it at the time. It was the last great story line we got from pokemon. Sun and moon almost made me quit completely. I hate that game so much. The only redeeming things about it to me were the designs for tapu lele and fini and some of the ultra beasts. I didnt like hau. I am playing them again at the moment trying to give it another chance. And i dont hate it as much as i did when i first played it but it just doesnt feel like the old pokemon i fell in love with. I love pokemon too much to abandon it entirely its been a huge part of my life if not one of the most important as sad as that sounds. The series helped me through a great many of my depression spirals and episodes. So it just hurts to see it in the state its been for some time and im seeing myself love the series as a whole again. But i do agree with many of the criticisms this video spoke about
yeahhhh... i've been feeling all these points since the move to 3D, but it got real bad starting in SwSh. remakes of my favorite pokemon games are allegedly right around the corner, and i think how good or bad they're handled might determine whether i keep engaging with this franchise for another generation
USUM what was the last main line series game I've played, and everything I've seen from the last two generations from some of the worst optimization I've ever seen at launch to pay DLC has not made me want to come back. The amount of cutscenes and linearity in usum was infuriating, along with feeling like I got sold the same game again and that's saying something ask someone who never minded the third game releases they did in the past or the approach they took with black and white two. I'm not going to sit here and act like old Pokemon games were some kind of bastion of non-linearity and exploration, but jeez the regression feels very real. I also won't pretend like I think I wouldn't have any fun at all with the newer Pokemon games, but the lack of polishing and from my perspective general disrespect for their fan base has genuinely maybe not want to support them financially. XY was a little rough imo, but ORAS really held it down for me so I was willing to give sun and moon a try. I did play them a lot and I won't pretend like there was no redeeming qualities but about halfway through the ultra games I really felt cheated and have haven't looked backed. Will probably try Z-A out though, willing to give it a try. I'll still probably buy it second hand even if it's not really any cheaper though I don't want to give them any money.
Realistically, gens 3-5 were bigger dropping points to old fans than Gen 7, actually for most of the same reasons you've listed early on in that video. It's just that many gen z fans (like me) grew up with Gens 3-5 and liked them despite their issues. I think Gen 7 is the same way, and nothing truly egregious happened until SwSh. A lot of modern Pokémon fans don't actually know that this cycle of loud generation hate -> love has been a thing since *Generation 3.* People used to be saying Gen 3 started the downfall of Pokémon, Gen 5 was the lowest point, Gen 5 was the downfall, and such. Gen 6 was a maaassive turnover which brought back many more older fans than lost thanks to the revolutionary (and immensely overlooked by gens 3-5 fans) improvements in Pokémon's gameplay and features introduced. Gen 6 was truly responsible for formalizing a shiny hunting community, significantly growing all sides of competitive gameplay (especially Smogon), Pokémon content exploding on Twitch and RUclips, people uniting together to talk about the games, their mysteries/traits, engaging in the most rewarding pvp battles set up, so forth. I truly think it's too overlooked for its own good, simply because people didn’t find X and Y's main story as engaging as BW (despite BW's gameplay being so much more barren) and that ORAS didn't have a Battle Frontier (...despite having more content than Emerald and more meaningful things to do than nearly every other Pokemon game, if not every). This gen during its time was even known as Pokémon's Renaissance era, where everyone was at their most calm in a long while, and not much turmoil happened. Gen 8 was truly when everything shattered into pieces, down to the point where Pokémon's reception universally fell across every corner of the playerbase, both official critics and fans alike. Albeit, LGPE didn't get as high of reception either, but those games didn't really affect the series much by themselves.
I don't know if it would be fair to call 3 generations a "long time fan as compared to 20 years with Sun and Moon. If we're talking about dropoff in general, the games immediately dropped off in sales after gen 1, though of course were still popular in comparison to many other franchises.
I'm not knowledgeable enough to comment on if this is actually true, but i will say that the third versions and sequels of that era DRAMATICALLY skewed our perception now vs back then. Of course people are going to ignore glaring flaws in diamond and pearl when platinum patches most of them up. Of course people are going to see X & Y as a missed opportunity with a perceived "missing" third version that would theoretically fix it's own issues. As much as i love them, i hate how pseudo-remakes gaslighted us into thinking pokemon games shouldn't be judged on their own merits but on the merits of a version later on, not to mention how they've enabled gamefreak to stagnate while keeping the illusion of innovation.
This applies to me. I stopped playing with Sun and Moon. There were so many reasons behind it but I was so put off I didn't even think of Pokemon until recently. It was around the time gen 9 was announced I got back into Pokemon but again gen 7 took me out of it for a good number of years. Even now, thinking about Sun and Moon makes me annoyed. When I got the game i was so excited. I went in completely blind as I always did and within an hour I knew this was not going to be fun. Constant stopping for curscenes that moved at the pace of a snail, it was around ever corner. A story that persisted in every part of the game but was as dry and lifeless as your character looked. The graphics, although not something I care much about, look so poor in these games. I still don't understand how gen 6 looks so much better when it came out before. Why does your character look so lifeless? Why does everything looks so choppy and pixlizated? Gen 6 looked better than that....i seriously don't u understand. I like the concept but it turns out to be such wasted potential. All the kahuna people are forgetable, the only one I recall with some decent memory is pony girl but only because of her horse and she looked very distinct. Personality? I think only Lily had some fraction of character everyone else was as bland as air. I don't mind mire focus on story and character but it has to be intresting, you need to feel investment Sun and Moon did it all very poorly. During my first Playthrough I stopped at the third totem and just didn't play...literally never happened before but all attempts to come back to it didn't work. It was only around the time the trailer for gen 9 dropped and I had started to watch nuzlocke videos (After the Jaiden video which is why I started to get Pokemon news) that I found intrest again. I didn't have a switch but with my interest in Arecus and Gen 9 I decided I'd cave and get a switch if I finished Moon. I decided to start a new game and do a nuzlocke in hopes of keeping interest. I beat the game but unfortunatly didn't enjoy pretty much any of it. I only enjoyed Lanturn and Vaporeon being nvps in the elite four but they weren't even new Pokemon. I spent some time with the game afterward because I wanted to like something about it but even just catching Pokemon was misery. SOS calling is by far one of the most annoying mechanics ever introduced. I couldn't catch the simplest thing for the pokedex even a caterpie could take 40 plus minutes because the animation was slow and it kept calling for help, for some reason it wouldn't stay in a ball. I never played the ultra games for obvious reasons ( even if I didn't hate og moon and sun I was never one who could afford the third version of games), maybe the ultra games would be better but I doubt it'd improve my view on them that much. I sometimes think about trying to get and play the ultra games but my negative experience with the og games always stops me. Coming back to today I've now played gen 9, arceus, and gen 8. I can say gen 7 is my all time least favorite gen and nothing that's come out since has been as bad. Gen 8 I had low expections since it was like 3 years after it came out and I heard not the best things but I enjoyed it just fine . It has problems but I enjoyed my playthroughs and although it also had cut scenes they looked decent and not as slow paced or as many as Moon. I'm glad I played gen 8 but the same can not be said for gen 7. I have to go back to transfer my partial completed Dex to home and it makes me think about actually completing it but there no way I can. SOS calling is too annoying like almost unbearable and I have no intrest in the Ultra Beasts. (I still don't even know how many there are)
Funny enough the only reason I dropped off from Shield was due to money issues but I don't feel like I made the wrong decision getting another game that year instead of Scarlet. There's parts to Gen 9 that look good for me but... The way that game debuted. And they did the gen 4 remakes DIRTY! That hurt me especially since while I've been playing Pokemon since gen 1 I feel it was gen 4 when I really hit my stride as a Pokemon trainer. It was the first time I actually had the diligence to reach and beat the champion! I guess that made it easier for me to pass on Scarlet, maybe keep passing until I see proof the games will get the development time and care that they need to be better. At the very least, I can say the roster of Pokemon are still impressive. And why did it take THIS LONG until a Mythical Pokemon was given actually good treatment again? I get it, Zeraora and Zarude showed up in movies but I don't give a Muk's trail about the movies, make me care about these Pokemon in-game! Mew lead to Mewtwo, Celebi has a shrine in Ilex Forest, Victini was hiding from Team Plasma in Liberty Tower, why can't the other Mythicals have been given the same treatment? The ones that never got any in-game treatment might as well not exist at all, really putting the MYTH in mythical! (Of course, this wouldn't have been an issue if the games had more time to cook!)
Gen 7 definitely isn’t for everyone, but it’s one of my favorites (the ultra games especially) compared to kalos where only one or two routes were that memorable for me, each in alola felt like a breath of fresh air (the main two exceptions being the end of Melemele and the postgame routes in poni, though poni isn’t too bad since you can speed through all of it in one go). It also felt like there were more out of the way areas with interesting little tidbits and fun Pokémon tucked inside. SM definitely feel a lot more boring on the story side, probably because every hour of gameplay was matched with one or maybe two easy major fights, but the difficulty of the ultra games fixes this and makes each character feel distinct and important. Alola also just feels a lot more lived in than other regions (looking at you, paldea and galar). The main example of this to me would be the postgame interactions with the trial captains. You can find them doing a job separate from their captain duties, interacting with their Pokémon, or just being out in the world. You only have to seek out one or two, just llima if I’m not mistaken. The Pokémon designs were also top tier this gen, but I don’t really feel like I need to explain why that is (the bug types especially go hard in alola).
I don't know much about the video games, though a lot of the early ones have barely anything to do with the actual card game. Like Forbidden Memories and Duelist of the Roses. I am sure you can find at least one that tickles your fancy, though.
@@NecromancyForKids I have played the duelist of the 🌹 roses 🌹 I start from the Original show Yu-Gi-Oh Duel monsters but series continues with GX 5ds of Yu-Gi-Oh 🎉 the games I understand i only played Yu-Gi-Oh Duel links that game has all the Yu-Gi-Oh series characters and cards
I know you'll probably make some decent criticisms in this video. But first, I have to say, saying "some mainline players left the series for good after these games" isn't a proper criticism. pokémon is one of the most popular franchises on earth. It has millions of players. For every single game in the series (or for that case, any series) there will always be some players who will stop and never buy another of the games again, for one reason or another. There are also some people like me, who see sun/moon as being one of the best in the 3d era of the series, as I think in ways, they have the best atmosphere in the series.
@@NecromancyForKids I saw that part. I understand that you're not trying to attack the series, or people you like it, by your analysis. I just personally thought the premise of the video (based on the title) was a little on the redundant side, I guess? But I respect the perspective, and honestly, I don't have a problem with most of the details of the video.
@@p4rm3s34nThe major point I wanted to get through was that I am not saying that people exclusively left the game at that time, and that the point of the video is to explore why a phenomenon that I noticed was occurring, as almost everyone I knew who used to play Pokemon, old or new acquaintances ranging from 19-50, all stopped playing after X/Y or Sun & Moon, plus I saw a large number of comments on older Pokemon videos that had the same sentiment. Because the information I gathered ended up being far larger in scope than what I previously had thought, however, it ended up being more about why people didn't like the newer games than just delving into that phenomenon. I figured since I can't really show anything scientific anyway, I should focus on that information. Thus, "a Critique of Modern Pokemon" since that is the bulk of the video. If you have a better idea for what this video should be called based on that criteria, I am open to it.
Seems funny to me people shitting on pokemon designs POST gen 5 when that gen had most of the ugly pokemon i've ver seen. Probably gen1 fans and also gen1 pokemon are not that great compared to other gens. I've actually quit in USUM (my brother in SM) since Pokemon SwSh seemed to be a shitshow. I (only) got back bc I had tried pokemon scarlet and despite the bugs I've quite actually enjoyed the game and ended up buying it on a sale. Also want to try Legends Arceus. Not sure if I'll buy future games.
I got Alpha sapphire Ultra Moon and I'm still paying Pokemon I give away my Y game I Agree with you're video I don't care for the newest pokemon games but I'm still a big pokemon fan 🪭 for old games of Pokemon my first pokemon game was Silver 🥈
Hello, folks! This video took a lot of time to make, and it got a little beyond where its original scope was meant to be, but there was a lot of stuff that I was given which I felt needed to be included. I welcome everyone's thoughts on the matter, but please remember to be civil. I might sound very negative and maybe even bitter at times in the video, but really, I just want to see Pokemon at its full potential, and if I don't get new shiny toys to play with, I know I can still play with the old ones.
My issue with the games is that the pace was quite poor. They tried to make the game more story centric and that made the cadence of the game sluggish to the point where it couldn't keep my attention. The art was actually very good and the new Pokemon were cool. -- A.T.
Yeah, the beginning portion of the games has become quite bloated. Even in Sun and Moon, I has to play ~7 hours before I got off the first island, which is basically a tutorial
I also made the mistake of playing the base and ultra versions back to back bc i didn't know they'd be nearly completely the same so that soured my experience even more
This was fantastic. I didn’t realize my quitting after Sun and Moon was a big phenomenon. I would also contribute that the next game being on the switch and not a DS system greatly deterred me.
I didn't stop after Sun & Moon... but I should have.
i gave up after playing the new paldean games for a day. it's like being in a relationship with someone you like so much but they keep making mistakes after you've forgiven them so many times. maybe i'll come back to it some day but for now i resent how bad they've become
Sun and Moon literally came out on the day of my Highschool graduation, I stayed up until midnight to get my pre-ordered copy on release and I played it for an extra few hours all as I was about to leave school forever in less than 12 hours. About a month later I stopped on the third island and have never played a pokemon game since. I don't really know why but I guess I just found it boring, there was nothing new or special about the games anymore, it was all too shallow for me now
The excessive amount of cut scenes in SM/USUM damaged the game, as well as the lack of experience bonus gained from battling all trainers. It was also unacceptable that these trainers only had one pokemon or two, so what was game freak thinking? The fact the national dex was also cut from SwSh onward also ruined the franchise. So many mistakes occurred ever since.
Pokémon old head here, one who keeps up with the modern games.
I enjoyed Sun and Moon’s ideas, but they felt so lacking at their core. What do you do after the main story? The battle tree was just a reskinned battle maison and just as bland. Do you mess with competitive builds? Well, at that point in time, it was still annoying to build without genning.
The worst part - the absolute worst for me - was removing the PSS. It stripped away that feeling of being connected to the world AND made playing with others annoying for no reason.
Think about it. Generation 5 was the last mainline entry to offer anything substantial after the main story that wasn’t DLC. (Legends Arceus was excellent and exempt from my complaints)
Shared exp made the game boring for me because just by playing as I had always normally done, by exploring and not avoiding battles, I was very soon overpowered and everything became trivial.
Honestly, my last pokemon game was Shield and I have no regrets about it. The thing that sealed the deal for me was replaying older games and getting into rom hacks. With those, I’m set babyyyy! That’s all I need. I still actively play and enjoy pokemon to this day, I just don’t NEED the newest games to do that. The only thing that really deters me from this is the 3ds online shut down coming soon, but hell all I need to do is get the trading out of the way now while I still can.
I was in the same boat. Started wRed, ended wSun. It's just a process that becomes stale less the story and QOL is good. I don't even mind exp share since Pokemon has always been about player-made difficulty. And I don't think the games even need a national dex since it makes the region less unique if every game had the exact same things. Idk what Pokemon Company needs to do to get me back in...maybe just give themselves some time to make something feel special and not obligitory & half-baked.
Yeah, I don't actually have much of an issue with certain Pokemon not being available in other regions. It is mostly that people give the excuse that it's for "balance reasons" that bothers me, because it's definitely not for balance reasons, at least in most cases. I fully understand that it's difficult to make that many models and to figure out a way to make them available which is organic to the game and doesn't ruin its identity, though.
@@NecromancyForKids I'd rather have a nice, curated list of Pokemon that creates its own distinct metagame and have future releases get people excited for "what pkm will return." Because now you run into the issue that if they don't have the natdex, people complain since they only want the same thing, but bigger each time- which can't be fun for the devs.
@@JanjoZonePokemon is the Pokedex. The only reason the franchise is successful is the POKEMON. Nobody plays mainly for groundbreaking gameplay, or story, but for the Pokemon themselves. Naturally, if mons are missing, it is very noticeable. They dont have to work to include every Pokemon. They've been recycling models ever since 3d, adding minor tweaks and textures here and there.
@elly8948 And they will continue to clash with the newer pokemon that are far more expressive. If gen 9 is anything to go by, adjusting movesets among other things to align with newer gens is still something they have to do as well. Pokemon being about the pokemon just means they have to make a complete world with the selection of pokemon they choose from, not necessarily allow players to hold every single pokemon in existance in a single game. (and i am talking about natdex) Gen 3 dropped "Gotta catch em' all!" because doing the latter is an unrealistic and bloated task for both the player and the developer, and undermines the identity of each game.
I've heard people say they dropped off at SuMo. Me personally as a older guy in his early 30's that's been playing since the original games released these games were my favorite. I so loved going back for more in Ultra SuMo.
I never played the Ultra games, but they seemed to have some interesting universal stuff I hadn't even heard about until recently somehow, so maybe some day I'll give them a try. If only Pokemon games weren't basically full price used, though. lol
@@NecromancyForKidsusum are the best! Honestly, they’re my favorite pokemon games!
The Pokémon Sun and Moon Hype season was really fun for me! Revealing new Pokémon, Characters, Regional forms every two weeks! It was the reason (and Pokémon Go) I got the game!
The Hype for SS and SV was no where to be seen and the only fun is the Riddles that Khu does!
As someone who's not liked the new games for all the reasons you listed I have to say a lot of the "improvements" you listed are also part of the reason I don't like the more recent games, like the over reliance on the ride pokemon really annoy me, I feel like the issue is they take away from the feeling of bonding with your team per say, and I really disliked the fact they aren't my pokemon, especially in SV it was one of the biggest reasons I stopped playing, I didn't like the designs of the box legendaries it just felt like I was being forced to bond with it due to its plot relevance and the fact its the only way to traverse some areas, I also think the games having gone more open world was not a good idea, the regions feel more empty and barren, there's no side areas, caves are just empty hallways/rooms, don't feel like an actual dungeon or are fun to explore, routes don't feel unique, theres no puzzles, my favourite part of the older games was exploring the regions, now I can't be bothered to play the games because of how bland and downright ugly the environments are
I think that's fair enough. Everyone will have different tastes. I don't know how I feel about the games being more open world, either, though it is nice to me that it isn't a pure hallway in the same way as it was in Sun and Moon.
@@NecromancyForKids that's true, although I don't remember SM having too many routes like that, I might have to play it again at some point this year
For me, a big deal was that i discovered SNES emulation around this time and got to play a bajillion games that Before this I had only seen in walkthroughs. Especiallly Chrono Trigger, that game is perhaps the most influential game on my modern gaming lifestyle today. So I essentially replaced pokemon with other JRPGs and retro games in general
Scarlet is my last pokemon game. I'm done with pokemon. I used to love it. But the lack of content is my trigger. Completing the pokedex isn't fun anymore (I'm looking at you pokenav). The last good and complet(ish) game was Oras for me...
I’m tired of the different hardware BS, it’s 2024 now and we are 7 years into the switch. Get with it
I had been playing Pokemon since the start and I dropped SM at the third trial, I think either Mallow or Lana. It was such a slog to go through with the constant interuptions. It annoyed me even more that they hadn't improved in their animations in these forced "cutscenes". I just recently got up to the point where Lusamine goes to ultra space in UM, and there's an actual animated cutscene there with interesting camera work where Gladion runs past the Skull grunts. After XY I expected improvement, but all we got were in engine slideshows where a character can only move in a straight line, rotate, then emote. I was extremely let down that they weren't moving forward.
Although many have said that Alola is actually bigger than some regions when all the islands are put together, it always felt like I was just going in a circle exploring each island. That one's a nitpick, but it felt cramped, and I wasn't really enjoying the minimal exploration at all.
I eventually picked Sun back up and did end up enjoying the story and many of the new pokemon, but it was 4 years after I had purchased the games. In fact, I got SM, dropped it for 3 years, bought Ultra Sun, dropped that, then a year later picked up SM again and played through both, then SM, then bought UM, and I'm going through that right now. I think I have stockholm with gen 7 at this point, because I actually have them higher on my list of favorites.
Yeah, there were a lot of cutscenes and even unnecessary pausing between cutscenes. Like it would play a cutscene, then you need to walk forward a couple of steps, then a new cutscene happens. That and you take forever to get off the first island, so it feels like a drag.
I still had fun with it, but it was grating at times for sure. I could have talked about my experience with Sun and Moon more, but the length of the video was so long and half of what I talked about could be its own video, so I had to keep it less personal to me and just talk about what other people had said.
I started with the anime and recently came around to the tcg (and Pokémon Live)... still skeptical of starting the video games (my first exposure was thinking that the first guy in Red was dead... never got past there) I didn't even choose a starter
I'd say to give whichever games look good to you a try. Maybe check out a review which is hopefully mostly spoiler free and just talks about the gameplay elements. Unfortunately, a lot of "reviews" today are actually narrated playthroughs. lol.
Personally I liked story centric games as I had gotten into stuff like Final Fantasy and Xenoblade so Sun and Moon being more story centric was fine with me. They actually ended up being my favourites in the entire series, though being released in the 20th anniversary probably helped with that.
I've played every single main series Pokemon games and I own all GB/GBC, GBA, NDS, 3DS, and Switch Pokemon titles
Cool. What are your top 3 games?
Yeah what are your favorites?
@@NuggetGX Ruby, Heart Gold & Omega Ruby
@00
1) Heart Gold/Soul Silver
2) Platinum
3) Emerald
I used to play the games since gen1, stopped playing after gen7. I didn't really like tjem getting rid of HMs and feild type moves in general.
Tried SwSh but didn't like had an immense distane for the lvcap system which prevented you from capturing pokemon higher than your badge allowed. Also the Gigamax forms kind of felt lazy and boring compared to the Megas and Z-Moves, but mainly the lvcap system.
Speaking as someone who quit after USUM I will say that there are a few reasons why I switched. The games stopped being released on the DS and I did not want to invest money in a Switch. As I have gotten older I have more so wanted to invest my money in things that will last a lifetime vs last a few years or save me money. Buying Cast Iron cookware and bakeware that will last a lifetime or saving up for a house that reduces amount on rent or a car that is electric to save on gas as examples. Also with the lack of a full Pokedex I felt I did not have a need to buy the real game to have every Pokemon. Story wise I can watch someone play the game on RUclips for free. So I suppose the reasons I quit buying Pokemon games was because I did not feel A need to spend lots of money on video games anymore and would rather prioritize other things in my life.
My issue is shiny locks which started in BW. This is why I consider gens 1-4 to be the best. The shiny locks got worse with each generation bc of Pokémon’s greed for charging players $1 for each attempt at a shiny legendary in Pokemon Go and making some Go exclusive.
when sun and moon came out i was shiny hunting for the starters but the cutscenes were so damn long per reset I eventually stopped and just never got to playing them, I actually picked up sword and shield though in 2021 and played through those, and I've just recently last week started soft resetting for a shiny starter again on sun and moon, i WILL play these games... eventually 😅
this happened to me and i just play showdown now lmaooo
Same, but I replaced pokemon with other JRPGs
for a long time i hated black and white. These days i actually love black and white because i just didnt understand it at the time. It was the last great story line we got from pokemon. Sun and moon almost made me quit completely. I hate that game so much. The only redeeming things about it to me were the designs for tapu lele and fini and some of the ultra beasts. I didnt like hau. I am playing them again at the moment trying to give it another chance. And i dont hate it as much as i did when i first played it but it just doesnt feel like the old pokemon i fell in love with. I love pokemon too much to abandon it entirely its been a huge part of my life if not one of the most important as sad as that sounds. The series helped me through a great many of my depression spirals and episodes. So it just hurts to see it in the state its been for some time and im seeing myself love the series as a whole again. But i do agree with many of the criticisms this video spoke about
Pokemon
Let’s be real, Sun and moon were the last good games (legends being the exception)
yeahhhh... i've been feeling all these points since the move to 3D, but it got real bad starting in SwSh. remakes of my favorite pokemon games are allegedly right around the corner, and i think how good or bad they're handled might determine whether i keep engaging with this franchise for another generation
USUM what was the last main line series game I've played, and everything I've seen from the last two generations from some of the worst optimization I've ever seen at launch to pay DLC has not made me want to come back. The amount of cutscenes and linearity in usum was infuriating, along with feeling like I got sold the same game again and that's saying something ask someone who never minded the third game releases they did in the past or the approach they took with black and white two. I'm not going to sit here and act like old Pokemon games were some kind of bastion of non-linearity and exploration, but jeez the regression feels very real. I also won't pretend like I think I wouldn't have any fun at all with the newer Pokemon games, but the lack of polishing and from my perspective general disrespect for their fan base has genuinely maybe not want to support them financially. XY was a little rough imo, but ORAS really held it down for me so I was willing to give sun and moon a try. I did play them a lot and I won't pretend like there was no redeeming qualities but about halfway through the ultra games I really felt cheated and have haven't looked backed. Will probably try Z-A out though, willing to give it a try. I'll still probably buy it second hand even if it's not really any cheaper though I don't want to give them any money.
Realistically, gens 3-5 were bigger dropping points to old fans than Gen 7, actually for most of the same reasons you've listed early on in that video. It's just that many gen z fans (like me) grew up with Gens 3-5 and liked them despite their issues. I think Gen 7 is the same way, and nothing truly egregious happened until SwSh.
A lot of modern Pokémon fans don't actually know that this cycle of loud generation hate -> love has been a thing since *Generation 3.* People used to be saying Gen 3 started the downfall of Pokémon, Gen 5 was the lowest point, Gen 5 was the downfall, and such.
Gen 6 was a maaassive turnover which brought back many more older fans than lost thanks to the revolutionary (and immensely overlooked by gens 3-5 fans) improvements in Pokémon's gameplay and features introduced. Gen 6 was truly responsible for formalizing a shiny hunting community, significantly growing all sides of competitive gameplay (especially Smogon), Pokémon content exploding on Twitch and RUclips, people uniting together to talk about the games, their mysteries/traits, engaging in the most rewarding pvp battles set up, so forth. I truly think it's too overlooked for its own good, simply because people didn’t find X and Y's main story as engaging as BW (despite BW's gameplay being so much more barren) and that ORAS didn't have a Battle Frontier (...despite having more content than Emerald and more meaningful things to do than nearly every other Pokemon game, if not every). This gen during its time was even known as Pokémon's Renaissance era, where everyone was at their most calm in a long while, and not much turmoil happened.
Gen 8 was truly when everything shattered into pieces, down to the point where Pokémon's reception universally fell across every corner of the playerbase, both official critics and fans alike. Albeit, LGPE didn't get as high of reception either, but those games didn't really affect the series much by themselves.
I don't know if it would be fair to call 3 generations a "long time fan as compared to 20 years with Sun and Moon. If we're talking about dropoff in general, the games immediately dropped off in sales after gen 1, though of course were still popular in comparison to many other franchises.
I'm not knowledgeable enough to comment on if this is actually true, but i will say that the third versions and sequels of that era DRAMATICALLY skewed our perception now vs back then. Of course people are going to ignore glaring flaws in diamond and pearl when platinum patches most of them up. Of course people are going to see X & Y as a missed opportunity with a perceived "missing" third version that would theoretically fix it's own issues. As much as i love them, i hate how pseudo-remakes gaslighted us into thinking pokemon games shouldn't be judged on their own merits but on the merits of a version later on, not to mention how they've enabled gamefreak to stagnate while keeping the illusion of innovation.
This applies to me. I stopped playing with Sun and Moon. There were so many reasons behind it but I was so put off I didn't even think of Pokemon until recently. It was around the time gen 9 was announced I got back into Pokemon but again gen 7 took me out of it for a good number of years. Even now, thinking about Sun and Moon makes me annoyed.
When I got the game i was so excited. I went in completely blind as I always did and within an hour I knew this was not going to be fun.
Constant stopping for curscenes that moved at the pace of a snail, it was around ever corner. A story that persisted in every part of the game but was as dry and lifeless as your character looked. The graphics, although not something I care much about, look so poor in these games. I still don't understand how gen 6 looks so much better when it came out before. Why does your character look so lifeless? Why does everything looks so choppy and pixlizated? Gen 6 looked better than that....i seriously don't u understand.
I like the concept but it turns out to be such wasted potential. All the kahuna people are forgetable, the only one I recall with some decent memory is pony girl but only because of her horse and she looked very distinct. Personality? I think only Lily had some fraction of character everyone else was as bland as air. I don't mind mire focus on story and character but it has to be intresting, you need to feel investment Sun and Moon did it all very poorly.
During my first Playthrough I stopped at the third totem and just didn't play...literally never happened before but all attempts to come back to it didn't work.
It was only around the time the trailer for gen 9 dropped and I had started to watch nuzlocke videos (After the Jaiden video which is why I started to get Pokemon news) that I found intrest again. I didn't have a switch but with my interest in Arecus and Gen 9 I decided I'd cave and get a switch if I finished Moon. I decided to start a new game and do a nuzlocke in hopes of keeping interest. I beat the game but unfortunatly didn't enjoy pretty much any of it. I only enjoyed Lanturn and Vaporeon being nvps in the elite four but they weren't even new Pokemon. I spent some time with the game afterward because I wanted to like something about it but even just catching Pokemon was misery. SOS calling is by far one of the most annoying mechanics ever introduced. I couldn't catch the simplest thing for the pokedex even a caterpie could take 40 plus minutes because the animation was slow and it kept calling for help, for some reason it wouldn't stay in a ball.
I never played the ultra games for obvious reasons ( even if I didn't hate og moon and sun I was never one who could afford the third version of games), maybe the ultra games would be better but I doubt it'd improve my view on them that much. I sometimes think about trying to get and play the ultra games but my negative experience with the og games always stops me.
Coming back to today I've now played gen 9, arceus, and gen 8. I can say gen 7 is my all time least favorite gen and nothing that's come out since has been as bad. Gen 8 I had low expections since it was like 3 years after it came out and I heard not the best things but I enjoyed it just fine . It has problems but I enjoyed my playthroughs and although it also had cut scenes they looked decent and not as slow paced or as many as Moon. I'm glad I played gen 8 but the same can not be said for gen 7. I have to go back to transfer my partial completed Dex to home and it makes me think about actually completing it but there no way I can. SOS calling is too annoying like almost unbearable and I have no intrest in the Ultra Beasts. (I still don't even know how many there are)
I actually Consider Pikemon Sun and Moon [and their ultra variants] as the last good pokemon games^^'
These games were phenomenal imo, didn’t deserve the hate
Funny enough the only reason I dropped off from Shield was due to money issues but I don't feel like I made the wrong decision getting another game that year instead of Scarlet. There's parts to Gen 9 that look good for me but... The way that game debuted. And they did the gen 4 remakes DIRTY! That hurt me especially since while I've been playing Pokemon since gen 1 I feel it was gen 4 when I really hit my stride as a Pokemon trainer. It was the first time I actually had the diligence to reach and beat the champion! I guess that made it easier for me to pass on Scarlet, maybe keep passing until I see proof the games will get the development time and care that they need to be better.
At the very least, I can say the roster of Pokemon are still impressive. And why did it take THIS LONG until a Mythical Pokemon was given actually good treatment again? I get it, Zeraora and Zarude showed up in movies but I don't give a Muk's trail about the movies, make me care about these Pokemon in-game! Mew lead to Mewtwo, Celebi has a shrine in Ilex Forest, Victini was hiding from Team Plasma in Liberty Tower, why can't the other Mythicals have been given the same treatment? The ones that never got any in-game treatment might as well not exist at all, really putting the MYTH in mythical!
(Of course, this wouldn't have been an issue if the games had more time to cook!)
this was my stoping point but after todays presentation i might return
If the game looks good when it comes out, I might play it too.
Gen 7 definitely isn’t for everyone, but it’s one of my favorites (the ultra games especially) compared to kalos where only one or two routes were that memorable for me, each in alola felt like a breath of fresh air (the main two exceptions being the end of Melemele and the postgame routes in poni, though poni isn’t too bad since you can speed through all of it in one go). It also felt like there were more out of the way areas with interesting little tidbits and fun Pokémon tucked inside. SM definitely feel a lot more boring on the story side, probably because every hour of gameplay was matched with one or maybe two easy major fights, but the difficulty of the ultra games fixes this and makes each character feel distinct and important. Alola also just feels a lot more lived in than other regions (looking at you, paldea and galar). The main example of this to me would be the postgame interactions with the trial captains. You can find them doing a job separate from their captain duties, interacting with their Pokémon, or just being out in the world. You only have to seek out one or two, just llima if I’m not mistaken. The Pokémon designs were also top tier this gen, but I don’t really feel like I need to explain why that is (the bug types especially go hard in alola).
I see you do a lot of Yu-Gi-Oh 🎉 I need to get a Yu-Gi-Oh card game
I don't know much about the video games, though a lot of the early ones have barely anything to do with the actual card game. Like Forbidden Memories and Duelist of the Roses. I am sure you can find at least one that tickles your fancy, though.
@@NecromancyForKids I have played the duelist of the 🌹 roses 🌹 I start from the Original show Yu-Gi-Oh Duel monsters but series continues with GX 5ds of Yu-Gi-Oh 🎉 the games I understand i only played Yu-Gi-Oh Duel links that game has all the Yu-Gi-Oh series characters and cards
I know you'll probably make some decent criticisms in this video. But first, I have to say, saying "some mainline players left the series for good after these games" isn't a proper criticism. pokémon is one of the most popular franchises on earth. It has millions of players. For every single game in the series (or for that case, any series) there will always be some players who will stop and never buy another of the games again, for one reason or another. There are also some people like me, who see sun/moon as being one of the best in the 3d era of the series, as I think in ways, they have the best atmosphere in the series.
I would suggest watching the section titled "What This Video Is"
@@NecromancyForKids I saw that part. I understand that you're not trying to attack the series, or people you like it, by your analysis. I just personally thought the premise of the video (based on the title) was a little on the redundant side, I guess? But I respect the perspective, and honestly, I don't have a problem with most of the details of the video.
@@p4rm3s34nThe major point I wanted to get through was that I am not saying that people exclusively left the game at that time, and that the point of the video is to explore why a phenomenon that I noticed was occurring, as almost everyone I knew who used to play Pokemon, old or new acquaintances ranging from 19-50, all stopped playing after X/Y or Sun & Moon, plus I saw a large number of comments on older Pokemon videos that had the same sentiment. Because the information I gathered ended up being far larger in scope than what I previously had thought, however, it ended up being more about why people didn't like the newer games than just delving into that phenomenon. I figured since I can't really show anything scientific anyway, I should focus on that information. Thus, "a Critique of Modern Pokemon" since that is the bulk of the video. If you have a better idea for what this video should be called based on that criteria, I am open to it.
Seems funny to me people shitting on pokemon designs POST gen 5 when that gen had most of the ugly pokemon i've ver seen. Probably gen1 fans and also gen1 pokemon are not that great compared to other gens.
I've actually quit in USUM (my brother in SM) since Pokemon SwSh seemed to be a shitshow. I (only) got back bc I had tried pokemon scarlet and despite the bugs I've quite actually enjoyed the game and ended up buying it on a sale. Also want to try Legends Arceus. Not sure if I'll buy future games.
I got Alpha sapphire Ultra Moon and I'm still paying Pokemon I give away my Y game I Agree with you're video I don't care for the newest pokemon games but I'm still a big pokemon fan 🪭 for old games of Pokemon my first pokemon game was Silver 🥈