22:20 actually, they try to explain new types in the manga ay one point - when the steel type was added in gold and silver, the characters discussed the fact that various pokemon that had already been discovered and documented (such as magnemite) may actually have this undiscovered type, and they hadn't considered it before because there weren't enough pokemon with the same attributes to support it as its own type. when other pokemon like steelix were discovered however, they found the common attributes associated with the steel type, and classified the initial pokemon accordingly... it could be that with the fairy type, they just didn't think that the shared attributes between existing discovered pokemon were enough for a new classification, so when more research was done and new pokemon were found, they decided that fairy would need to be a new classification. idk, just thought that that was interesting. sometimes pokemon does explain things, it just takes some digging :)
Makes plenty sense. Also considering that certain species call specific regions their home, making it harder to research a specific type when so very few live in that region. We have an example of this with Skarmory, who prefers to live in canyon and crag mountain side like enviorments, which Kanto lacks but Johto doesn't. Consider Scyther only being able to evolve when exposed to a Metal Coat. The ones that lived in the region home to Skarmory would eventually be able to run into the shedding of a Skarmory's coat/feathers, compared to the ones in Kanto. Same goes for Onix, leaving Kanto with only one species to study in regards to Steel types, Magnemite, and if you ask me, that's not enough to be sure that these metallic creatures are part of a possible Steel classification/category, so they could only classify it as the more obvious electric type that it clearly was. When it comes to Dark types, Umbreon is the stump on the road, considering nothing stopped an Eevee from evolving into an Umbreon and there was never any evidence of this in Kanto. Yes, Murkrow, Hondour/doom and Tyranitar were Johto mons, which made it easier to identify a similar trait among these species as easy as Steel was to identify, but Umbreon would've and should've been a foreign species that should've driven research into this obscure typing. They would've seen an Espeon's abilities and said: This is definitely a psychic type, but what about this one? It prefers the night time, it's attacks have somewhat of a dark aura to them and he is immune to psychic type attacks, what could it be? In comes Johto and shares their research with Kanto, cementing a second new typing, Dark. Fairy is a story for another day, and one that sadly, does not have as much of a foundation/proper explanation as to why they weren't known the way the previous two were, since, there was "Fairy" types from the beginning (Mr. Mime, Clefairy/fable and Cleffa, Jpuff, Wtuff and Ibuff, Marill and Azu, Togepi/kiss and the literall fairy species Snubull and Granbull). Imo, zero excuse as to why these weren't included, other than "balancing the game". There was plenty of different pokemon to study and research to come to a conclusion that there was something unique about these species and quite possibly, an unidentified typing. But I guess Kalos had to do the job that Kanto and Johto were to lazy to do.
@@ugn154nah, there's a reason, they weren't new types, Gen 6 onwards take place in a different timeline and there's evidence of that in ORAS (Looker) and in USUM (destroyed alola)
However, this doesn't explain how they decided a "Ghost" type or "Dragon" type existed when there was only one evolution line that had that type (Gengar and Dragonite)
You are thinking of this wrong. The Pokemon is what's inside the tea container, not the container itself. There are many Pokemon like this, inhibiting some specific object in one way or another. It makes sense that in two tea drinking regions, two pokemon living in tea container would "evolve" separately.
Also adding about convergent, it's two different species that evolves to look similar, in this case, two ancestor of both polteagheist evolved to look like these tea drinking dishes to protect themselves from predators, and thus making both of them looks pretty similar in the idea, plus how they are actually "evolved" to deal with the changes in environment in specific case which is human urbanization and "evolved" to have same idea thus it is called convergent. The other way happened with the other convergent digglet and tentacool line, which evolves to appear similar, where convergent "evolution" usually in real world happened because both species lives in the same space and the shape specific to both of them are very good to survive the specific areas they live in (it happened a LOT to crabs and turtles, they have 2-3 different genus belonged to different families and sometimes even ordos that looks pretty much super similar to the point that scientists got a name for the phenomenon).
Convergent evolution is different animals evolving similar traits on the same environment, like Dolphins and Sharks. Every one of the ones people try to sell as "convergent" are everything but, they are just mimicking other species.
@@RandalfElVikingo I don't think anyone seriously thinks that the forces of evolution are truly in play in the Pokemon universe. The creators thought it would be fun to create Pokemon that look similar to ones we've seen before and didn't want to make them "XYZ" Regional forms. This is fictitious universe that has proven to be consistently inconsistent - whether or not you like it is another matter. Convergent evolution is also far more complicated than requiring the same environment - but it's use here is to frame it with a phenomenon that is known about in our real world.
I was literally thinking “I sure hope he didn’t painfully make each one of these Pokémon depictions” they are too good looking for how little they get shown
i just want to point out the changes to the models in legends arceus and scarlet/violet are from normal mapping and other such tools, not from creating entirely new models from scratch. ...that would be insane.
That's half true, they've also changed the models to have modeled mouths and eyes instead of textures, alongside some minor changes probably to facilitate the addition of new animations
to be fair there's a few specific cases where mons got models tweaked for more than just the facial features too. Persian for instance has had its proportions adjusted noticeably compared to its previous model ofc not every mon gets this treatment, but just saying that they do have a few cases of straight up new models
Charizard and Mewtwo definitely got special treatment in this regard. Also every Pokemon who's eyes and mouth were 2D textures got an ovehaul to these areas. Their faces are completely different. Also the rigging and animations more than make up for the somewhat reused models. Yungoose for instance has an excellent walking and running animation, where it moves like a real ferret or mongoose, instead of like a stiff tube. Also have contextual animations for flying pokemon, where they arent permanently suspended in the air, and will land and walk when necessary is nice. Being on an HD screen means that smaller Pokemon could be accurately scales, which is a huge plus. The Problem now is athat Pokemon Go and HOME use the gen 6-8 style models, to the point where some of the new PLA and S/V mons actually needed downgraded versions of their models/textures.
I wanna point out that while ys the nostalgia factor plays a big role in why so many old Pokémon get new things, there's also the aspect of powercreep. Pokémon's competitive angle has changed drastically since the first few generations and the simple matter of fact is that the majority of Gen 1 (and really 1 to 3) mons had poorly distributed stats, so they simply couldn't really keep up. Things such as Regional Variants or new evolutions help bring these back immensely
That's an excellent point and these these reasons combined are why in personally fine with them favoring gen 1. It's an effort to bolster pokemons iconography imo
@@lupvirgaI assume he was referring to the redistribution of stats of new regional variants, which is a good way to help old pokémon stay relevant competitively, since their original stats would perform poorly in competitive fights as the generations progressed.
im get it out of the way, i dont mind gen 1 pokemon getting new forms, i enjoy seeing them as modern interpretations… still waiting for a Dewgong line form/variant lol
I think they will just always sideline the Seel line because they will never find a way to make it competitively relevant or in a place that fits its stuff
37:04 I love how they got so angry when they said "Primape gets so angry that it DIES!!", you can hear the *Sliiightest* bit of a mic bump afterward. Beautiful. Just beautiful.
@@Lesistius Yeah but if cubone wears its mother's skull, and you can breed cubones to make a new one, how do they get their mother's skull? It makes no sense!
One interesting thing you left out from the original 3D Sprites. On the 3ds In 2011, nearly 2 years before the X and Y announcement, they released the Pokedex 3D. Which was a free app you could download onto your 3ds and slowly unlock a full Pokedex of every single Pokemon that existed up to that point. This was a way to utilize those 3d Models they had developed for X/Y prior to the release, and help build the hype.
It’s crazy because I’m a victim of it. In general 5 I was “too old” for Pokémon and I went back later and they’re great Games. I wish people would’ve bought more at the time of gen 5 cause it was great
Gen 5 was a hit and miss for me in terms of design. Some of my favourite Pokemon are from this gen, and yet some of my (then) least favourite designs were also from that gen. Victini is even my favourite, closely followed by Lilligant, Chandelure and Scrafty. But I'm one of those people that can't get behind the twin ice cream Pokemon, or the golem, or KlingKlang, and that's not because I'm a genwunner, it has more to do with what their designs actually says about the wider Pokemon world. Essentially they rip me right out of the immersivenes of the world.
You know what's interesting? Generation 7 is also when I decided to get back into Pokémon. I didn't like the designs of Gen 3, but I thought Gen 7 had natural looking designs. Of course, I didn't know about Ultra Beasts, Tapus, and Necrozma before they released, but I went back and bought Gens 3, 4, 5, and 6 to catch up.
Loved watching this video! Was very fun to see an analysis for how things have changed over the years with the mainline games. Amazing work as always! 😄
lately I’ve been going down the rabbit hole of Pokémon informative videos and getting back into the games, and you have one of the best vids that anyone should watch
33:23 "And players STILL loved this game! For the refreshing catch mechanic and action boss battles." Also because Ingo was there. You forgot to mention that
They way you described BDSP is a perfect reasoning for its existence, Pokemon can do this method in the future so long as the games aren't full price as they aren't meant to be new (and with gen5 next, remasters of BW leading into remakes of BW2 would be a good plan). As far as the balancing act of nostalgia, I think they've learned that the series has been around long enough they don't need to rely on just the original Pokemon, so long as they don't forget about some. Parasect have received nothing yet but PLA made them known as hyper aggressive, Dewgong, Fearow, the Nido family, Victreebel, Cloyster, Hypno, Seaking, Golduck, and Starmie are all contenders for something to spice them up or make them interesting.
Lol when the Hoenn music started up I felt my pulse pick up. I was into pokemon prior to third gen, but Ruby was my very first pokemon game. It holds a special place in my heart.
There was a lore reason for the fairy typing in XY. The Ultimate Weapon is like Schrödinger’s Cat, it both went off and didn’t go off. The first five gens are the world where the Ultimate Weapon did not get fired, while Gen 6 and onward are the world where the Ultimate Weapon went off. So, fairy type just doesn’t exist in the world where the Ultimate Weapon didn’t fire. Same with mega evolutions and Z-moves (since they use infinity energy which doesn’t exist in the world of the first five gens).
@@gagan6749 yeah, they’re from the timeline where the weapon went off. Idk about BDSP, tbh, because honestly I think that was just made by a team that didn’t really care much about these things given how bare bones it is. BDSP, lore wise should’ve had it because of the Devon Corporation and literally every other region in “Poke-Japan” using Infinity Energy (except Kitikami since it has Tera crystals). However, I don’t think they’ve given a real lore reason for why Mega’s and Z-moves aren’t in the other regions, I’m hoping maybe we’ll get answers with the Indigo Disk since Roaring Moon and Iron Valiant seem tied to megas. My head cannon at the moment is each region just uses the energy that’s readily available, based on how Galar, Paldea, and Kitikami are done. They’d rather use the energy they have. Plus, Galar and Paldea would’ve been the most effected by Kalos’s war, so they might shun infinity energy because of how it’s hurt them. As for PLA, that’s the one that makes the most sense in my mind. “Poke-Japan” seems to parallel real Japan more than Poke-America and Poke-Europe. The Meiji Period was just when Japan started getting in touch with the West, and they mostly knew of Americans. It’s unlikely the people of Hisui had been in touch with Kalos to even know about infinity energy. The Hisuian’s barely even knew how to use Pokémon, it’s not too surprising to me they wouldn’t know how to use mega evolutions. Like I said, I’m hoping that the Indigo Disk gives us some answers. SV does seem to be taking time to fill in lore holes, and us being at a terrarium off the coast of Unova and figuring out what’s up with the paradox Pokémon, I wouldn’t be surprised to get answers on why megas seem to be locked to Kalos, Alola, and Poke-Japan (except Sinnoh and Kitikami).
@@mray4784 well that's weird because lore wise if z moves and mega can co-exist why can't the other? And lore-wise bdsp should've had mega same for Pokemons legends Arceus (it has sylveon even), but it didn't.
I loved the whole video!! You’re so engaging and summed up the series so well, I even learned a few things. I don’t even want to think about how long it took to edit this video, but you did an amazing job and I’m so proud of you!
I'm so glad that the games are starting to bring back great stories with Legends Arceus and Scarlet/Violet. Especially since thats most of the reason I play games.
What a great and well researched video! I think Scarlet & Violet finally reached a nice balance, bringing a bit of nostalgia from older generations but not focusing solely on Gen 1, while also bringing tons of brand new designs and ideas.
Amazing video! One of the biggest letdowns of Let's Go for me was not getting an expanded Gen 1 Dex now that Pichu, Sylveon and so many other additions to the original lines exist.
None of the cross gen evolutions (although it was cool we had the regional variants) was annoying. I guess I could live without the abilities (having been playing Stadium recently), but why no Sevii Islands?
22:15 I swear there was an explanation but I think I must have dreamt about it because I don't hear anyone else talk about it. What I remember is that Xerneas was dormant all this time, and some time before the events of X&Y it awakened, and its presence returned the fairy type to every pokemon that lost it when it was asleep
@@TheRedSmarty Not Let's Go, but in Arceus you could chalk it to Xerneas being awake many years ago, going to sleep and waking up again later. It's a nice headcanon, at the very least.
So that means Sylveon is canonically the Normal-type Eeveelution... because honestly, what else would it be if you took its Fairy typing away: same as Togepi, Clefairy and others. Damn, that's... a revelation...
Another great video n0rt! Other comments have said this already, but I wanted to reiterate how much I appreciate all the effort you put into these videos, from creating custom artwork of all the mons, making unique motion graphics, collecting hundreds of relevant b-roll clips, and writing such thoughtful and informative video scripts! Keep up the amazing work, but remember to take care of yourself too :)
Based off of the tile nod and his video, this was not what I expected. I was thinking we would get a more specific breakdown on how the art designs of each gen 1 pokemon transitioned over time, not a description of evolutionary branches and systemic changes :/ Also I think it should be noted that the dip in sales for black and white is likely due to the prevalence of R4 piracy at the time, and not necessarily a negative reaction to the region. That was a unique problem late in the life of the DS that most games then faced.
Now that the gen V games are more popular than ever, I wonder what the Pokémon Company plans to do with that information. If they have any sort of common sense, they should know that just making Black and White remakes while leaving out Black 2 and White 2 is gonna piss everyone off. On the other hand, remaking 2 sets of games seems like a lot work, especially considering how much they rush things. The best case scenario would be a Black 3 and White 3, as long as they make a good enough story for it.
@@ratedr7845but it will still sell really really well. Corps react to money, nothing else. They don't care about complaints, hell, they might even make fun of us behind closed doors. I buy the games almost a year after launch but too many preoder and buy day one so, why change?
In a very weird sense, I now want them to release a remake of Black and White, or even Black 2/White 2. I want them to fail that remake so badly any illusions about GameFreak being a good company that can improve are shattered. The fans have proven time and time again they can make new Pokémon, Pokémon maps, Pokémon stories, tweaks to existing games, entirely new games and stories using an engine, and far more. It is my opinion that despite being the lynchpin that Pokémon rests upon, GameFreak is completely redundant.
The main reason for FRLG existing is not to "go back to the story" but rather to have access to pokémon that would otherwise be unavailable in 3rd gen. There is no backwards compatibility whatsoever. Which is also why most Gen2 pokemon are available on the Sevii Islands to compensate for the lack of Jotho. Also incenses should've been mentioned in Gen3 since thats when they were introduced.
Dein Video über 9 Generationen hinweg ist wirklich sehr gut geworden. Vielen vielen dank für dieses super spannende und interessante Video! Ich habe selten so viel Freude beim gucken gehabt. Ich hatte noch spontan die Idee, ob du die Legendären und Mysteriösen Pokémon und ihren jeweiligen einzigartigen Geschichten über die 9 Generationen hinweg erläutern möchtest. Gotta Catch 'Em All ⚾
Looks like the original 151 pokemon lines that haven't been touched at all are: Fearow Arbok Nidoqueen/king Parasect Venomoth Golduck Victreebel Dodrio Dewgong Cloyster Hypno Seaking Starmie Ditto Omastar Kabutops Dragonite
It was the middle of Diamond and Pearl when I fell off. Card game changes so none of my cards were valid anymore, and Grandparents stopped paying cable which is how I watched it. Platinum was the last mainline game I played in it's time. Then Pokemon Go came out, and a friend sent me the early access APK. Which was awesome, except for data limits. Would be playing it still, as I had my off and ons, but the ads for it wore me out. But this is what sparked me up for it, and got a new deck in the Sun and Moon era. Now mostly just fandom and retro stuff. Until last week. But I exolained that in another comment. XP
Thank you for putting so much work into your videos and projects!Between regular and high quality videos, music, stema game development, RUclips collabs, kadomon, all of your pokemon graphics, and probably a bunch of other stuff that I haven't stumbled across yet you do so much. From a stem student, please be careful not to let yourself burn out, and thank you for everything you do!
5:49 I'm 31 now so I grew up with gen 1, and I just realized I never actually questioned the baby pokemon at all or how they made sense - I just instantly liked them because they were smaller, cuter forms of things I recognized. HOWEVER, at the same age, I also thought pokemon like Scizor and Steelix made no sense whatsoever (as you put it, why couldn't I evolve them in the first game?). That's just how marketing works I suppose LOL
big respect for the effort. especially the last time-diagram was really nice to look at. Besides all the struggles you mentioned, i think your graphs show pretty clear that the biggest problem for pokemon is, that they just release the games more and more rapid since the atleast a % of the playerbase will buy any new pokemon game anyways. i really hope people will soon just stop buying unfinished games resulting in them maybe getting back to a 2 year development cycle instead of 0,7years per game
One reason no one barely mentions about why Gen V didn't sell well is because it came out in an awkward time so late into the DS's life span. The 3DS had just came out around the same time, that people wanted a new next gen Pokemon game on their new, shiny handheld. Granted we eventually got those games but imagine if they came earlier, within the first year of the 3DS launch window. Probably would have help boost sales of the games and 3DS system, which was kind of struggling at the time. People would have a justified reason for buying a new handheld for a high $250 price tag, by buying it with a guaranteed killer app with it.
I like how a lot of people had this idea in the head that the "whited-out" Ken Sugimori gen 1 art that was used in all the marketing and stuff was the way how the orignal 151 pokemon were always intended to look like. It was revealed much later, as in earlier this year, they were just poorly scanned and dissaturated. not only were the white-out parts were just meant to be hightlights, but it was also revealed that pokemon Stadium and all following media depictions had the right colors for the orginal 151(minus color limitations and Scarlet abd violet) some genwunners would Swear up and down that everyone else had it wrong.
Hahaha pretty crazy to hear that Masuda basically said he felt pressure to make better games because the Merch did not sell OMG it shows so hard nowaydays ...
I first played Pokemon Yellow, on my grandmother's Gameboy, more so on Gameboy Advance. We played a lot of older consoles well past their date, i think.... I remember us having a Nintendo 64 in 2007.
So, charizard changed its shiny color, pikachu got on a diet and learned its name only to forget it again, snorlax finally stood up, and kadabra finally can have its own tcg cards produced again after like 20 years. Oh yeah never forget those banned cards, gotta love moo moo milk.
I havent finished the video (barely started) and I don't know how many are talking about your original project based on science topics but i wanted to say it sounds excellent, reminds me of one time I wanted shitpost about the theme of a new starter trio and ended up meeting people finding it interesting, it was about the starter trio being medicine themed, it was like this: - Herbology, making a grass/psychic type which is the old type of medicine focused on the use of plants to heal both the body and the mind. - A modern surgeon, making a water/steel type with a great focus on surgery tools. - Homeopathy, get the cure from what causes the pain, fire vs fire, making for an excellent fire/fighting type focused onsymulating the style of the opponent which defeated an ally. Yeah, the whole joke was having an excuse to add yet another fire/fighting type and accidentally took it seriously.
I still think a sprite game on the switch would be amazing. Use the updated tech to make the best sprites we've ever seen. We could probably get a game with multiple regions like Gen II did, since they wouldn't have as much data needed. Every sprite could be fully animated and every pokemon would be available. Heck, depending on how much space it takes, they could theoretically let you choose your region to start in and have you travel around to the others from there. If this were the case, I'd be fine with no new pokemon and just let you choose the starter from the region you're in.
I wouldn't mind a full Pokemon game with an art style taken in the direction of Pokemon Cafe. Expressive, detailed, 2d animations would be a fun thing to happen at least once in a remake!
@@KertaDrakeIf the art direction of Mario Wonder is anything to go by, I’d say a mix of Café and Wonder could look absolutely incredible for a future gen
I'm 23, I watched the anime and had a few books and toys when I was very young maybe 5-8 years. Was always into Pokémon but never bought a DS game until 2013. I still remember sitting in front of the TV and seeing the Pokémon ad for X and Y come on. I still remember seeing xerneas and yveltal and just feeling amazed, I had to get the game! I went into GameStop after school, got Pokémon X and that was the beginning. It feels so weird that that was nearly exactly 10 years ago. Feels like generation 6 was only yesterday. I loved Pokémon X and played it for hours upon hours, late nights sneaking my DS. I didn't use the internet much at the time so trying to catch every Pokémon and learn their locations and how to evolve them was very fun. Then one day I caught a gligar and couldn't figure out how to evolve it as I still had a book and saw gligar evolved into gliscor and I just had to have it. I went online and found out how then saw that there was a very active community and video tutorials of how to get certain Pokémon and items. Soon after I got into battling online on Pokémon showdown and the rest is history. I know a lot of people hate on gen 6 but it was my first generation and sparked my love for Pokémon. I bought omega ruby and alpha sapphire on the 3Ds along with Pokémon black 2 and finally Pokémon sun. I haven't played a Pokémon game since but I still watch videos every day and I'm more interested in battling than the actual games themselves. I'm thinking of buying a switch and getting Pokémon scarlet though to get back into just fun casual games. To think if it wasn't for that ad on the TV I might never have gotten into Pokémon.
Damn, you just recounted the same magic I felt. I'm 32 now and remember growing up on the merch and original games from 4-5 years of age, waaayyyy back when Pokémon was a brand new thing. I had the First Edition cards and everything, the movie toys and whatnot, even saw the first movie in theaters. Fast forward to when I was 12, Ruby and Sapphire released, and that shit blew my mind. Went into Walmart one Saturday and bought both games, and that was pretty much formative to most of the friendship interactions I had back then. I was that Pokémon-obsessed kid, and everyone knew it. I had the Beckett magazines and submitted drawings too. I stopped playing after beating FireRed. I was reaching an age where I was just entering high school, and while my Pokémon obsession was at its peak, it was "uncool" to all the kids who were just coming of age, so my friends didn't play it anymore, and I was forced to adapt if I wanted a social life. That meant Xbox, Halo, Call of Duty and late nights up with the homies playing online. It was a fine period of life, I guess, but I wasn't *really* happy, you know? Something was missing. But then I turned 30 some 15 years later and found myself questioning if I did the right thing by leaving Pokémon behind and "growing up" as it were. I wound up buying a Switch and picked up Shield, and... I know SwSh may have been disappointing to everyone who's been playing every gen that I missed, but at least to a returning fan, it was brilliant. I went on to grab Legends Arceus and then Scarlet when that dropped. I mostly play UNITE these days. I've since hooked myself back into my old obsession, drawings included, which actually led to starting a side business making art for people. I guess I have Pokémon to thank for that. I don't think I'll ever sideline this obsession again; I'm too old for it now and both my wife and I are too happy with it -- straight-up, we watch the anime together on a bed covered in Eeveelution plushies, TV surrounded by Glaceon paraphernalia and the like. In too deep now, man. Never give that up.
It’s so weird hearing about how hated gen five was, for me and probably many others, it was my first generation and holds many of my favorite Pokémon. In present time, black and white are usually discussed nostalgically.
Love this video and love how there is no cursing in here, I have seen many pokemon video or video game analyze videos that have it and I can't watch it aloud. I will be subscribing.
Soul Silver has always been my favorite game, its the first one I had ever played, and recently replaying it has shown me it wasn't just rose tinted lenses. The scenery, the progression, just all have felt amazing. And being able to jump back to Kanto is very fun as well, having a second entire region and second roster of gym leaders was very fun. I remember beating the Elite 4 and Champion and being absolutely dumbfounded that there was so much more to go do. B&W always will have a special place in my heart. I would have definitely been disappointed in the lack of older pokemon if I was more invested when I first played Gen5, but even now it just feels very refreshing to have a region with its own exclusive pokemon, and so much less of what I've already seen. Will I miss grabbing Leafeon and Glaceon on my next B&W playthrough? Yeah, definitely. But The designs they came up with were iconic, and I will always treasure them, and for that the entire gen5 aesthetic
One thing I like about Pokémon is that they don't have simple recolors as distinct creatures. There are deliberately similar Pokémon like the Forces of Nature, the elemental monkeys, or Plusle and Minun, they do have design differences as well.
I've had an ongoing spreadsheet tracking this kind of information for years now to predict which pokemon from kanto might get new forms/evolutions with new games so it's funny that I'm stumbling onto this video now, glad other people think about this stuff too haha
Gen 9 really rekindled my love for Pokemon. The region is beautiful. The Open world is doing so good. And the new Pokemon are beautiful. Can't wait for gen 10. But so far I am happy to see where dlc goes.
"People refer to how sprites were so much better back then" I've been interested in Pokemon since before the games or anime ever debuted in the US and I've never once heard anyone in all of my Pokemon conversations ever go to bat for Gen 1's often goofy sprites.
As for the "convergent" Pokémon terminology discourse we've seen in the community, while I lean more towards "lookalikes" compared to "convergent" (too much potential to be inaccurate to usage in biology, plus*), I instead prefer using: Parallel Pokémon. In its purest meaning, the word parallel literally means two things that do not intersect, which perfectly captures the "twist" of these Pokémon being that they are specifically unrelated to the existing Pokémon that they clearly resemble. But not only that, the term Parallel Pokémon even works well as an umbrella term to include Paradox Pokémon as a more thematically specific subgroup (*whereas "convergent" Pokémon on the other hand excludes Paradox Pokémon), as Paradox Pokémon are essentially the same twist (unrelated lookalikes), just with more complicated mysterious lore added into it.
Any chance you'd wanna do these videos looking at the other generations? In theory most of them would be smaller but just as interesting and add to the big picture. Really appreciate the links in the description btw, I wish certain other channels did this.
im soo condlicted seeing the sales of gen 5, bc it was one of the best experiences ive had playing the pokemon series. soo much soo that i bought both black and white then both sequals
While I enjoyed this video alot I wish you had gone more into your opinion on things. You seemed frustrated with many of the call backs, but clearly you enjoyed regional forms and paradox forms. Your channel heavily focuses on analyzing the series, so more direct criticism (positive or negative) could have been really informative imo. Also to me honestly, Ive personally always sided on the international dex is a really bad idea that stifles evolution in the series, but a Id be curious what your thoughts on that were. Side note of a side note: while I totally agree that a good amount of gen 5 criticism isn't great, I don't think refering to the folk who complained as "babies" does any good. Ignoring that the games are litterally made for kids, and that it only serves to stir the pot unnecessarily (imo). I think alot of fans want a sort of repetitive comfort with pokemon where they can play with their virtual pets and be nostalgic. While I dont think thats the most interesting or worthwhile path by anymeans, I do recognize thats the fantasy for many people. I think thats why the intdex was such a big deal, they felt that they were being sold a consistent deal, almost like a live service style game; again pokemon has never really lived up to that, nor could it, but I feel thats the appeal at least. Otherwise great vid!
41:22 From the final summary, I've counted 19 of the evolution lines/single stage pokemon that haven't had any major changes after the first Pokemon games. These are: - Fearow line - Arbok line - Nidoqueen line - Nidoking line - Parasect line - Venomoth line - Golduck line - Victreebel line - Dodrio line - Dewgong line - Cloyster line - Hypno line - Seaking line - Starmie line - Ditto - Omastar line - Kabutops line - Dragonite line - Mew
I thought you were going to focus more on how the designs changed like how sprites changed after the anime solidified the designs. maybe compare them to the anime, as well as how 3D models took a different direction sometimes, leaving behind some design features, while addressing the big colour change issue. But this type of video was equally interesting, a great overview of the evolution of the franchise, especially for people who are lost, since, indeed, Pokemon is getting pretty old now. Personally, it made me realise, or simply put into words, something I felt for a while and of which I made sense in different ways before, that this fascination with gen 1 might be because it was the baseline in more ways that one, and since we had our basic "catch them all" game already in the first gen -we subsequently eventually had had caught them all- so we inevitably compared the next games to that first experience. Additionally, since it never really evolved much -they kept doing the same formula basically simply with a new roster- it can ultimately, definitely be seen as them not having anything more to show us, ergo you could basically have the full Pokemon experience simply by keeping to that first set of games, nothing fundamentally additional or different to take away from the later ones (even if they were sort of improved versions basically). Under that lens, it puts even more into perspective the idea that they are just iterating extensively on the same thing, repeating themselves; a realisation which is baffling, when you thusly deconstruct it. As an analogy: if they were a painter, it would be the same as doing the same drawing over and over for years. Which is fine, but it's kind of a naval-gazy practice or very personal practice to undergo rather than thinking of the product as something people will consume -which is sort of the point in a video game and this type of game especially; but I'll explain it further. In the interest of fairness, yes, they have made some changes of which some are widely appreciated (albeit many others solicit widespread contention), however, majoritarily, they are details in the grand scheme of things, as the method of making the games stays the same overall. To reiterate, the skeleton stays the same and they just pad it out with various things. For instance, in the logic of this analogy, they don't think of changing to a new skeletal structure or expanding on the anatomy of the creature they have assembled. All to say, when you really dive deep into it, it is indeed baffling that they never focus on any new aspect of the franchise for each subsequent generation. Meaning, they never followed with a sort of obvious thought like: "we made this "catch them all" ecosystem, which works, now let's shift the focus on the narrative or a branching paths game element", or "now let's focus on the training aspect", or "let's focus on the breeding"; they never did that in a substantial way. Only in Legends did they really focus on making it a sort of action game, while still keeping "most" of the main series gameplay by which warranting it not seeming like a simple spin-off. Indeed, most times, when there is an expansion to the formula, it's a whole different game and usually not a mainseries one; like the Colloseum & Battle Revolution games, or Mystery Dungeon, PokePark etc. Which all begs the question "is the mainseries just there to introduce new Pokemon?", with basically no gameplay value other than neutering that first catch-them-all formula? Honestly, I hate how they piecemeal the experience has become; it is to an egregious degree, in fact. All the while, truthfully, Pokemon I can easily imagine being more like an MMO (or adopting some similar creative franchise-development cycle) like where you have a base game and just have expansions and new modes that vastly evolve the gameplay and focus. Besides, the models already eternally have been staying the same from game to game, so we're almost there in terms of the changes not being that big that we need a whole new game. Pragmatically, why, as a player, would you want to start all over with a each new game release, when you have already gone through the paces just the year before (if not less, considering the current release schedule, BDSP, Arceus and ScarVi were so close together than it shows releases can be even more close together sometimes)? I'm not even going to go into the details of all the real world caveats to the realisation probability and feasibility of such a production format, instead, I am just going to propose this take outright, see if anyone can relate to this viewpoint and/or can share my proposed prospects for this hypothetical other direction for the franchise. I think the logic behind this view of the franchise and its development through the years is backed by very compelling plausibility through this prior set of evidence, so as to make my critique seem quite accurate and my take have merit to reflect upon. This viewpoint certainly, at least personally, makes me feel that the franchise's woes are clearer. Anyway, this is the direction into which your video's retrospective made my thoughts rapidly and deeply spiral. This reflection personally consolidates further my conviction that all that's needed is for the older games to be, essentially, modded and expanded upon rather than accepting to pander to the current formula of having us have to spend top dollar for a piece of the pie which provides mostly a repeat of what we already had before (often times simply in worse or more incomplete condition to add insult to injury). Conclusivelly, it further makes me think that there is just a single direction Pokemon can go to fulfill its conceptual direction and that is: to move away from its current cyclical repetitive release formula.
Honestly, Pokémon is halfway to an MMO within Paldea already. It’s not even just base Paldea in the story, with its supposedly impressive wide spaces, wild encounters, ability to do stuff in any order but an obviously suggested path, and different storylines to follow. It is also everything else about Scarlet/Violet: the way it has now effectively replaced different versions with DLC, the way that each region has more obviously powerful Pokémon in some sense, a new gimmick to chase down. The other half that makes Pokemon an MMO could already be there. Places to hang out in, battling given you can capture Pokemon to do battle with, unique visuals, customization options, places to hang out with your Pokémon, contests, obtuse ways to get the endgame stuff. This is in addition to OP’s comment. All they really need to do now is to place a dedicated server and they basically have Pokemon as an MMO.
To also be clear, Pokémon GO is also basically like an MMO. A very barebones one that relies on the fact you capture Pokémon in the real world, but it is.
I wish you wrote this like a normal person and I didn't have to read an entire thesis that mostly just amounts to saying the same thing over and over. But I did in fact read it all so now here I am to leave my comment. So one, do the mainline games exist just to introduce new pokemon. ...yes. The entire point of the mainline series is to introduce new pokemon, humans, world, concepts etc that will get used in the anime, movies, cards, spinoffs etc. Thats why they have to release as frequently as they do, they control the entire franchise despite being what's given the least amount of care an attention. There is literally, literally, nothing else like Pokemon in this regards. No where else is there a huge multimedia franchise, that dips their shoes into everything, that completely revolves entirely around the video game side, because anyone could tell you how unproductive that is. 2, Pokemon as a game is too specific a concept to where one could make meaningful deviants off of it. A mario game can do literally whatever it wants in a sequel, the only thing that ties them together is the fact he jumps. Typically games that have a super specific gameplay style, just wouldn't be as popular and as such would have less games. But even beyond that, Pokemon has a bunch of other ties that force it down even more. Every game has the ability to connect to each other in some form, you can bring a Pikachu from your gameboy all the way into onto the Switch, and it will function the same. That same Pikachu has to exist in a game where the entirety of the combat system is based around the fact that you could be fighting against another human person, and every single enemy is a creature you could be using yourself. Creatures in which their individual existence holds so little meaning, given such little time to shine because there's hundreds of other completely distinctive creatures that need as much attention put into. Hell, the 60-100 new creatures, ontop of all the human characters, is more design than pretty much any other game does, ever. And their creatures can't just be designed to be creatures, each and every single one of them has to be designed as a mascot. Each one of them having tons of lore, and inspiration, and creativity, each one of them needing to be designed in a way where they could carry a 22 minute long episode of the anime, or be something someone gets excited about buying in the store or getting as card. Pokemon is not samey out of laziness, or not being willing to change, it's literally a prison. Everything has to stay exactly the same, because that's the entire point of the series. People complain about how they want the games to be unique, but than they complain when they can't bring their Gazorppee into the latest game. Developers have talked multiple times about how much they resent having to work on Pokemon, and how much they try to to find a new breakthrough. They hired a new development studio to make the Diamond and Pearl remakes just so they could work on Legends Arceus (which is a passion project). They don't want to make Pokemon, and who can blame them. What does it even mean to work on Pokemon, the only thing you do each new game is make a bunch of new creatures and human designs that can't be half assed at all. And The Pokemon Company is never going to give GameFreak a rest and get a new development studio, because no one in the right mind would ever want to sign up for that, much less under the crunch, and lack of resources GameFreak is subjected to. There isn't room for anything else, it's terrifying because you will not find anything else that encapsulates the definition of a living hell more than Pokemon.
@@Whispernyan Sorry, I get lost in my writing. I feel you when you say it's a chore to read through, I too have a hard time reading myself when I'm done with these long comments or articles. You have no idea how much time I spend on them and now it's just a routine. I don't even expect people to answer, I just like doing it. I get what you are saying but I'm getting mixed signals. You say we should accept it but that it's hell, a prison. So do you like the way things are atm or not? I personally can barely play the games anymore, I'm overwhelmed with frustration at the half-assed & dropped features & mechanics. Actually, I'm almost done with being fed up altogether too and not caring about Pokemon anymore. So overall, with my comment, I was simply trying to put into perspective the how contrived and stagnant GF's thought-process must be and how it would be very counter-intuitive-feeling for anyone to adopt that mentality were they in their place developing these games.
@@iantaakalla8180 I would not call the game an MMO or an open world. It was some features but overall it a very straightforward RPG with a few MMO features. It fails in almost all departments, mainly connectivity. In theory, yes, the game *wants* to be an MMO open world, but in deeds, it just has bullet points where there should be fleshed out features & mechanics. The world is basically empty. It's like making all the mechanics of your game but leaving the default plane and not making a map. I'm speaking in a loose way. It's overall pretty much just as if it was that way, might as well be. In my mind, they have never dedicated to making that a reality rather tacking on something to an existing formula. They have the cupcake and keep adding a single lonely dry topping then take it away in the next game to replace it with another.
that crystal commercial i remember was wired AF they were like pull it no push it when obviusly it slides open neither push or pull like a supermarket door would.
sun and moon was my favorite bc of ultra beasts which also made me like paradox pokemon as they has a similar-ish origin… wish they had more customization tho 😭
I grew up with pokemon. I honestly thought i played Pokemon red on the gameboy but i guess i didn't. It seems we shared a similar path, as I bought pokemon black but i couldn't finish it. I stoped playing pokmeon until sword and shield came out. Being able to play using the tv was amazing for me and i finished it. Shortly after, Pokemon Brilliant Diamond came out and i got that too as i wanted to play the older games too. Legends of Arceus surprised me. I loved being able to run around an open world. My daugther hates pokemon battles, so she loved Arceus. I recently just picked up Violet, so i'm playing through that. I haven't gotten far, as many other games are coming out right now (AC Mirage just came out yesterday!) anyways. Thank you for this video, it was interesting to see Pokemon through the years, and the ones i missed. I'm hoping for more remakes down the line as i missed a lot.
2:50 I was around for gen 1 and I have never heard anybody saying that the sprites where better. They had more character yes, but not implying that they were better. Also, it was only after gen 3 that people really started complaining on new designs.
@mckinneym.2743 I was around back then, yes there where a few designs that people didn’t like, but there where gen 1 designs that people didn’t like also. If they didn’t like generation 2 it was mostly for other things, like being unable to get most of the new Pokémon until late game/post-game, the strange level gaps in the gyms, or female Pokémon having lower stats. So you might hear about people like that just because you come across people mocking those people all the time.
@@jesusramirezromo2037 I definitely have seen people hate the designs on gen 2. I personally am not a fan either, but it's definitely because of the uninspired direction they took with most of them - both artistically and mechanically, because boy do gen 2 Pokemon suck in battle (unless you're part of the very exclusive gen 2 cool kids club).
22:20
actually, they try to explain new types in the manga ay one point - when the steel type was added in gold and silver, the characters discussed the fact that various pokemon that had already been discovered and documented (such as magnemite) may actually have this undiscovered type, and they hadn't considered it before because there weren't enough pokemon with the same attributes to support it as its own type. when other pokemon like steelix were discovered however, they found the common attributes associated with the steel type, and classified the initial pokemon accordingly...
it could be that with the fairy type, they just didn't think that the shared attributes between existing discovered pokemon were enough for a new classification, so when more research was done and new pokemon were found, they decided that fairy would need to be a new classification.
idk, just thought that that was interesting. sometimes pokemon does explain things, it just takes some digging :)
Makes plenty sense. Also considering that certain species call specific regions their home, making it harder to research a specific type when so very few live in that region. We have an example of this with Skarmory, who prefers to live in canyon and crag mountain side like enviorments, which Kanto lacks but Johto doesn't. Consider Scyther only being able to evolve when exposed to a Metal Coat. The ones that lived in the region home to Skarmory would eventually be able to run into the shedding of a Skarmory's coat/feathers, compared to the ones in Kanto. Same goes for Onix, leaving Kanto with only one species to study in regards to Steel types, Magnemite, and if you ask me, that's not enough to be sure that these metallic creatures are part of a possible Steel classification/category, so they could only classify it as the more obvious electric type that it clearly was. When it comes to Dark types, Umbreon is the stump on the road, considering nothing stopped an Eevee from evolving into an Umbreon and there was never any evidence of this in Kanto. Yes, Murkrow, Hondour/doom and Tyranitar were Johto mons, which made it easier to identify a similar trait among these species as easy as Steel was to identify, but Umbreon would've and should've been a foreign species that should've driven research into this obscure typing. They would've seen an Espeon's abilities and said: This is definitely a psychic type, but what about this one? It prefers the night time, it's attacks have somewhat of a dark aura to them and he is immune to psychic type attacks, what could it be?
In comes Johto and shares their research with Kanto, cementing a second new typing, Dark.
Fairy is a story for another day, and one that sadly, does not have as much of a foundation/proper explanation as to why they weren't known the way the previous two were, since, there was "Fairy" types from the beginning (Mr. Mime, Clefairy/fable and Cleffa, Jpuff, Wtuff and Ibuff, Marill and Azu, Togepi/kiss and the literall fairy species Snubull and Granbull). Imo, zero excuse as to why these weren't included, other than "balancing the game". There was plenty of different pokemon to study and research to come to a conclusion that there was something unique about these species and quite possibly, an unidentified typing. But I guess Kalos had to do the job that Kanto and Johto were to lazy to do.
And they suddenly got new weaknesses and resistances when "categorized" ;)
@@ugn154nah, there's a reason, they weren't new types, Gen 6 onwards take place in a different timeline and there's evidence of that in ORAS (Looker) and in USUM (destroyed alola)
"fairy nuff"
However, this doesn't explain how they decided a "Ghost" type or "Dragon" type existed when there was only one evolution line that had that type (Gengar and Dragonite)
Pikachu learned it's own name, and Snorlax learned to stand up and run. This is important to their evolution.
Then Pikachu forgot again.
And Mewtwo learns to take performance-enhancing stones, but made sure to read the warning labels first so he doesn't take both at once.
hello
hello
Snorlaxs sprites are it slowly getting up to use the z-move
I like the convergent pokemon but it is very funny to think of "ghost tea container" as an ecological niche
You are thinking of this wrong. The Pokemon is what's inside the tea container, not the container itself. There are many Pokemon like this, inhibiting some specific object in one way or another. It makes sense that in two tea drinking regions, two pokemon living in tea container would "evolve" separately.
Also adding about convergent, it's two different species that evolves to look similar, in this case, two ancestor of both polteagheist evolved to look like these tea drinking dishes to protect themselves from predators, and thus making both of them looks pretty similar in the idea, plus how they are actually "evolved" to deal with the changes in environment in specific case which is human urbanization and "evolved" to have same idea thus it is called convergent. The other way happened with the other convergent digglet and tentacool line, which evolves to appear similar, where convergent "evolution" usually in real world happened because both species lives in the same space and the shape specific to both of them are very good to survive the specific areas they live in (it happened a LOT to crabs and turtles, they have 2-3 different genus belonged to different families and sometimes even ordos that looks pretty much super similar to the point that scientists got a name for the phenomenon).
@@lollertoasterghost tea being an ecological niche is still funny ngl
Convergent evolution is different animals evolving similar traits on the same environment, like Dolphins and Sharks.
Every one of the ones people try to sell as "convergent" are everything but, they are just mimicking other species.
@@RandalfElVikingo I don't think anyone seriously thinks that the forces of evolution are truly in play in the Pokemon universe. The creators thought it would be fun to create Pokemon that look similar to ones we've seen before and didn't want to make them "XYZ" Regional forms. This is fictitious universe that has proven to be consistently inconsistent - whether or not you like it is another matter.
Convergent evolution is also far more complicated than requiring the same environment - but it's use here is to frame it with a phenomenon that is known about in our real world.
I was literally thinking “I sure hope he didn’t painfully make each one of these Pokémon depictions” they are too good looking for how little they get shown
i just want to point out the changes to the models in legends arceus and scarlet/violet are from normal mapping and other such tools, not from creating entirely new models from scratch. ...that would be insane.
That's half true, they've also changed the models to have modeled mouths and eyes instead of textures, alongside some minor changes probably to facilitate the addition of new animations
@@gabrielfreitas3033 thank you for expanding on "and other such tools".
to be fair there's a few specific cases where mons got models tweaked for more than just the facial features too. Persian for instance has had its proportions adjusted noticeably compared to its previous model
ofc not every mon gets this treatment, but just saying that they do have a few cases of straight up new models
I'm loving this. what else is to know?
Charizard and Mewtwo definitely got special treatment in this regard. Also every Pokemon who's eyes and mouth were 2D textures got an ovehaul to these areas. Their faces are completely different. Also the rigging and animations more than make up for the somewhat reused models. Yungoose for instance has an excellent walking and running animation, where it moves like a real ferret or mongoose, instead of like a stiff tube. Also have contextual animations for flying pokemon, where they arent permanently suspended in the air, and will land and walk when necessary is nice. Being on an HD screen means that smaller Pokemon could be accurately scales, which is a huge plus. The Problem now is athat Pokemon Go and HOME use the gen 6-8 style models, to the point where some of the new PLA and S/V mons actually needed downgraded versions of their models/textures.
What a great video i hope the creator didn't go insane when drawing the charizard line
they held a ~6 hour charizardathon livestream a few whiles back drawing all the charizard, it got unlisted though
@@Melecie I believe they're referencing that exact thing, as a joke
Yea
I wanna point out that while ys the nostalgia factor plays a big role in why so many old Pokémon get new things, there's also the aspect of powercreep. Pokémon's competitive angle has changed drastically since the first few generations and the simple matter of fact is that the majority of Gen 1 (and really 1 to 3) mons had poorly distributed stats, so they simply couldn't really keep up. Things such as Regional Variants or new evolutions help bring these back immensely
That's an excellent point and these these reasons combined are why in personally fine with them favoring gen 1. It's an effort to bolster pokemons iconography imo
Definitely a fair point. Gen 2 could use some of that love too, it’s Pokémon are generally struggling
Regional Variants doesn't change much though. it's still a new pokemon just with a familiar face.
@@lupvirgaI assume he was referring to the redistribution of stats of new regional variants, which is a good way to help old pokémon stay relevant competitively, since their original stats would perform poorly in competitive fights as the generations progressed.
@@doloreshaze-ji4jw But you don't really have the OG sprite then
It’s pretty crazy that the main Generation V games did not have Pikachu in its respective region.
You don’t need the word ‘respective’ here.
@@ManifestationPowerhousekinda. They were specifying that the National dex doesn’t count with funny words
And yet Psyduck has been in every game
@@Mimiyan_or_Pikapikafanpsyduck mvp
@@ManifestationPowerhousesir, this is a Pokemon video
im get it out of the way, i dont mind gen 1 pokemon getting new forms, i enjoy seeing them as modern interpretations… still waiting for a Dewgong line form/variant lol
don't think about it, even the developers have forgotten about it
I'm waiting for a Dragonite that actually looks like an evolution of his line
I'm waiting on Arbok to get ANYTHING and for Golduck to be part Psychic type
They even make them more competitively relevant, look at Ninetales
I think they will just always sideline the Seel line because they will never find a way to make it competitively relevant or in a place that fits its stuff
37:04 I love how they got so angry when they said "Primape gets so angry that it DIES!!", you can hear the *Sliiightest* bit of a mic bump afterward. Beautiful. Just beautiful.
If natural selection applied to Pokémon, prime-apes wouldn’t survive long.
@@tell-me-a-story-which someone makes them even better adapted. Odd
I find it super weird that through ALL of that, Kangaskhan's baby never became it's own pokemon.
Also no alternate Dragonite form of any kind.
and we still don't know how cubone's mothers get them their skulls while still alive
@@doughboywhineits pretty much confirmed, since in Alolah, Cubone can call upon Kangaskhan to join a wild battle.
@@Lesistius Yeah but if cubone wears its mother's skull, and you can breed cubones to make a new one, how do they get their mother's skull? It makes no sense!
One interesting thing you left out from the original 3D Sprites. On the 3ds In 2011, nearly 2 years before the X and Y announcement, they released the Pokedex 3D. Which was a free app you could download onto your 3ds and slowly unlock a full Pokedex of every single Pokemon that existed up to that point. This was a way to utilize those 3d Models they had developed for X/Y prior to the release, and help build the hype.
It’s crazy because I’m a victim of it. In general 5 I was “too old” for Pokémon and I went back later and they’re great Games. I wish people would’ve bought more at the time of gen 5 cause it was great
Gen 5 was a hit and miss for me in terms of design. Some of my favourite Pokemon are from this gen, and yet some of my (then) least favourite designs were also from that gen. Victini is even my favourite, closely followed by Lilligant, Chandelure and Scrafty. But I'm one of those people that can't get behind the twin ice cream Pokemon, or the golem, or KlingKlang, and that's not because I'm a genwunner, it has more to do with what their designs actually says about the wider Pokemon world. Essentially they rip me right out of the immersivenes of the world.
Didn't play it until about 2 years ago for the same reason. I checked out of the franchise after HG/SS. I'm glad I came back to them
Autocorrect strikes again!
I really like those timelapses, they recap the entire video in a really nice way
Man, I forgot how much I loved the original Pikachu sprite. Great vid!
i might be in the minority. I actually prefer the new pikachu design
@@fireycyndaquil5026me too
Same, but i love chunky pokemons tho@@fireycyndaquil5026
You know what's interesting? Generation 7 is also when I decided to get back into Pokémon. I didn't like the designs of Gen 3, but I thought Gen 7 had natural looking designs. Of course, I didn't know about Ultra Beasts, Tapus, and Necrozma before they released, but I went back and bought Gens 3, 4, 5, and 6 to catch up.
Fat pikachu needs to become a regional form.
Or just a rare version
Loved watching this video! Was very fun to see an analysis for how things have changed over the years with the mainline games. Amazing work as always! 😄
Mega evolution was dope, I hope they'll bring it back with way more current Pokémon that can use it.
They are with the next Legends game.
lately I’ve been going down the rabbit hole of Pokémon informative videos and getting back into the games, and you have one of the best vids that anyone should watch
33:23
"And players STILL loved this game! For the refreshing catch mechanic and action boss battles."
Also because Ingo was there. You forgot to mention that
and because a lot of the characters were very very hot.
@@laravioliiii2832Agreed wholeheartedly
They way you described BDSP is a perfect reasoning for its existence, Pokemon can do this method in the future so long as the games aren't full price as they aren't meant to be new (and with gen5 next, remasters of BW leading into remakes of BW2 would be a good plan). As far as the balancing act of nostalgia, I think they've learned that the series has been around long enough they don't need to rely on just the original Pokemon, so long as they don't forget about some. Parasect have received nothing yet but PLA made them known as hyper aggressive, Dewgong, Fearow, the Nido family, Victreebel, Cloyster, Hypno, Seaking, Golduck, and Starmie are all contenders for something to spice them up or make them interesting.
I love how the logic behind Gigantamax Pikachu seemed to be "Let's take the original R/B Thickachu sprite and make it THICCER"
THICC INDEED
Just want to say i love the way you draw all the pokemon, especially Eevee. Its pure eye-candy.
Idunno.... Mr. Mime looks like he would show up standing at the foot of your bed while planning to eat your soul...
I like how Psyduck is in every generation
Ah yes. Pokemon's punching bag
@@ervdoessomethinglmao
psygoat
Lol when the Hoenn music started up I felt my pulse pick up. I was into pokemon prior to third gen, but Ruby was my very first pokemon game. It holds a special place in my heart.
There was a lore reason for the fairy typing in XY. The Ultimate Weapon is like Schrödinger’s Cat, it both went off and didn’t go off. The first five gens are the world where the Ultimate Weapon did not get fired, while Gen 6 and onward are the world where the Ultimate Weapon went off. So, fairy type just doesn’t exist in the world where the Ultimate Weapon didn’t fire. Same with mega evolutions and Z-moves (since they use infinity energy which doesn’t exist in the world of the first five gens).
Well then is BDSP/SWSH/SV/PLA from the ultimate weapon world fired one or the not fired one? Because all of them have fairy type but no mega
@@gagan6749 Because people on other regions don't use mega, they use dinamax and tera.
@@gagan6749 yeah, they’re from the timeline where the weapon went off. Idk about BDSP, tbh, because honestly I think that was just made by a team that didn’t really care much about these things given how bare bones it is. BDSP, lore wise should’ve had it because of the Devon Corporation and literally every other region in “Poke-Japan” using Infinity Energy (except Kitikami since it has Tera crystals). However, I don’t think they’ve given a real lore reason for why Mega’s and Z-moves aren’t in the other regions, I’m hoping maybe we’ll get answers with the Indigo Disk since Roaring Moon and Iron Valiant seem tied to megas.
My head cannon at the moment is each region just uses the energy that’s readily available, based on how Galar, Paldea, and Kitikami are done. They’d rather use the energy they have. Plus, Galar and Paldea would’ve been the most effected by Kalos’s war, so they might shun infinity energy because of how it’s hurt them. As for PLA, that’s the one that makes the most sense in my mind. “Poke-Japan” seems to parallel real Japan more than Poke-America and Poke-Europe. The Meiji Period was just when Japan started getting in touch with the West, and they mostly knew of Americans. It’s unlikely the people of Hisui had been in touch with Kalos to even know about infinity energy. The Hisuian’s barely even knew how to use Pokémon, it’s not too surprising to me they wouldn’t know how to use mega evolutions.
Like I said, I’m hoping that the Indigo Disk gives us some answers. SV does seem to be taking time to fill in lore holes, and us being at a terrarium off the coast of Unova and figuring out what’s up with the paradox Pokémon, I wouldn’t be surprised to get answers on why megas seem to be locked to Kalos, Alola, and Poke-Japan (except Sinnoh and Kitikami).
@@mray4784 well that's weird because lore wise if z moves and mega can co-exist why can't the other? And lore-wise bdsp should've had mega same for Pokemons legends Arceus (it has sylveon even), but it didn't.
@@gagan6749 Because not every country (region) is the same.
I loved the whole video!! You’re so engaging and summed up the series so well, I even learned a few things. I don’t even want to think about how long it took to edit this video, but you did an amazing job and I’m so proud of you!
I'm so glad that the games are starting to bring back great stories with Legends Arceus and Scarlet/Violet. Especially since thats most of the reason I play games.
God, you’re such a good composers, that transition into the Stema theme was so good.
a Vinny clip is probably the last thing I'd expect to see on this channel
that was gold
What a great and well researched video! I think Scarlet & Violet finally reached a nice balance, bringing a bit of nostalgia from older generations but not focusing solely on Gen 1, while also bringing tons of brand new designs and ideas.
Won't lie watching the entire 151 change and reduce at the end was my favorite to watch
Amazing video! One of the biggest letdowns of Let's Go for me was not getting an expanded Gen 1 Dex now that Pichu, Sylveon and so many other additions to the original lines exist.
None of the cross gen evolutions (although it was cool we had the regional variants) was annoying. I guess I could live without the abilities (having been playing Stadium recently), but why no Sevii Islands?
Amazing work, Nortist. It's obvious that your videos are a passion of love and they are a joy to watch because of it.
22:15
I swear there was an explanation but I think I must have dreamt about it because I don't hear anyone else talk about it. What I remember is that Xerneas was dormant all this time, and some time before the events of X&Y it awakened, and its presence returned the fairy type to every pokemon that lost it when it was asleep
That doesn't explain the presence of the Fairy type in Let's Go, BDSP, or Legends: Arceus though.
@@TheRedSmarty Not Let's Go, but in Arceus you could chalk it to Xerneas being awake many years ago, going to sleep and waking up again later.
It's a nice headcanon, at the very least.
So that means Sylveon is canonically the Normal-type Eeveelution... because honestly, what else would it be if you took its Fairy typing away: same as Togepi, Clefairy and others. Damn, that's... a revelation...
what about dark typing still existing despite yvaltal being asleep
@@usernametaken017 Dark type didn't exist in the first gen, so Yveltal woke up in Gen two, before Xerneas.
Another great video n0rt! Other comments have said this already, but I wanted to reiterate how much I appreciate all the effort you put into these videos, from creating custom artwork of all the mons, making unique motion graphics, collecting hundreds of relevant b-roll clips, and writing such thoughtful and informative video scripts! Keep up the amazing work, but remember to take care of yourself too :)
Based off of the tile nod and his video, this was not what I expected. I was thinking we would get a more specific breakdown on how the art designs of each gen 1 pokemon transitioned over time, not a description of evolutionary branches and systemic changes :/
Also I think it should be noted that the dip in sales for black and white is likely due to the prevalence of R4 piracy at the time, and not necessarily a negative reaction to the region. That was a unique problem late in the life of the DS that most games then faced.
Agreed. A good video but I think the title is wrong.
same
It did feel like they went a little too in depth to aspects that are unrelated to the title.
Now that the gen V games are more popular than ever, I wonder what the Pokémon Company plans to do with that information. If they have any sort of common sense, they should know that just making Black and White remakes while leaving out Black 2 and White 2 is gonna piss everyone off. On the other hand, remaking 2 sets of games seems like a lot work, especially considering how much they rush things. The best case scenario would be a Black 3 and White 3, as long as they make a good enough story for it.
worst case scenario they remake the games but chibi, full price, no modifications to the story or events
@@Carcosaheadpeople are getting tired of gamefreak and their crap, if they do that, they will get ripped apart
@@ratedr7845but it will still sell really really well. Corps react to money, nothing else. They don't care about complaints, hell, they might even make fun of us behind closed doors. I buy the games almost a year after launch but too many preoder and buy day one so, why change?
@@RicardoBanchs you can only get punked so many times, they will snap eventually, i see your reasoning though
In a very weird sense, I now want them to release a remake of Black and White, or even Black 2/White 2. I want them to fail that remake so badly any illusions about GameFreak being a good company that can improve are shattered. The fans have proven time and time again they can make new Pokémon, Pokémon maps, Pokémon stories, tweaks to existing games, entirely new games and stories using an engine, and far more. It is my opinion that despite being the lynchpin that Pokémon rests upon, GameFreak is completely redundant.
I love your lineless art style. I think its at its best with the hisuian forms. That voltorb and electrode look amazing
The main reason for FRLG existing is not to "go back to the story" but rather to have access to pokémon that would otherwise be unavailable in 3rd gen. There is no backwards compatibility whatsoever. Which is also why most Gen2 pokemon are available on the Sevii Islands to compensate for the lack of Jotho.
Also incenses should've been mentioned in Gen3 since thats when they were introduced.
Tbh u draw in the best art style possible to me its so cute
Dein Video über 9 Generationen hinweg ist wirklich sehr gut geworden. Vielen vielen dank für dieses super spannende und interessante Video! Ich habe selten so viel Freude beim gucken gehabt. Ich hatte noch spontan die Idee, ob du die Legendären und Mysteriösen Pokémon und ihren jeweiligen einzigartigen Geschichten über die 9 Generationen hinweg erläutern möchtest. Gotta Catch 'Em All ⚾
SOME OF US DON'T SPEAK GERMAN! PLEASE TRY TO SPEAK ENGLISH!
Great video, the translation of the the Sugimori art style with you're animation are a feast for the eyes
I loved gen 5 games and the anime, it was an exciting change and new start. It was bold but it paved the way for everything that came after.
Looks like the original 151 pokemon lines that haven't been touched at all are:
Fearow
Arbok
Nidoqueen/king
Parasect
Venomoth
Golduck
Victreebel
Dodrio
Dewgong
Cloyster
Hypno
Seaking
Starmie
Ditto
Omastar
Kabutops
Dragonite
Ditto was technically touched. It became a central part to breeding
Dragonite is already perfect
This was so cool to watch! Very well made and enjoyable!
It was the middle of Diamond and Pearl when I fell off. Card game changes so none of my cards were valid anymore, and Grandparents stopped paying cable which is how I watched it. Platinum was the last mainline game I played in it's time.
Then Pokemon Go came out, and a friend sent me the early access APK. Which was awesome, except for data limits. Would be playing it still, as I had my off and ons, but the ads for it wore me out. But this is what sparked me up for it, and got a new deck in the Sun and Moon era.
Now mostly just fandom and retro stuff. Until last week. But I exolained that in another comment. XP
As much as I love Pokémon including Gen 1, if game freak continues sucking up to 30 year olds I might explode
Pretty informative. You should do this kind of video for the evolutionary families of Pokemon from later generations.
Thank you for putting so much work into your videos and projects!Between regular and high quality videos, music, stema game development, RUclips collabs, kadomon, all of your pokemon graphics, and probably a bunch of other stuff that I haven't stumbled across yet you do so much. From a stem student, please be careful not to let yourself burn out, and thank you for everything you do!
5:49 I'm 31 now so I grew up with gen 1, and I just realized I never actually questioned the baby pokemon at all or how they made sense - I just instantly liked them because they were smaller, cuter forms of things I recognized. HOWEVER, at the same age, I also thought pokemon like Scizor and Steelix made no sense whatsoever (as you put it, why couldn't I evolve them in the first game?).
That's just how marketing works I suppose LOL
You know it’s gonna be good when it’s a long N0rt video! 🤩
man that gengar t-pose in the intro is funny
big respect for the effort. especially the last time-diagram was really nice to look at.
Besides all the struggles you mentioned, i think your graphs show pretty clear that the biggest problem for pokemon is, that they just release the games more and more rapid since the atleast a % of the playerbase will buy any new pokemon game anyways. i really hope people will soon just stop buying unfinished games resulting in them maybe getting back to a 2 year development cycle instead of 0,7years per game
One reason no one barely mentions about why Gen V didn't sell well is because it came out in an awkward time so late into the DS's life span. The 3DS had just came out around the same time, that people wanted a new next gen Pokemon game on their new, shiny handheld. Granted we eventually got those games but imagine if they came earlier, within the first year of the 3DS launch window. Probably would have help boost sales of the games and 3DS system, which was kind of struggling at the time. People would have a justified reason for buying a new handheld for a high $250 price tag, by buying it with a guaranteed killer app with it.
I like how a lot of people had this idea in the head that the "whited-out" Ken Sugimori gen 1 art that was used in all the marketing and stuff was the way how the orignal 151 pokemon were always intended to look like. It was revealed much later, as in earlier this year, they were just poorly scanned and dissaturated. not only were the white-out parts were just meant to be hightlights, but it was also revealed that pokemon Stadium and all following media depictions had the right colors for the orginal 151(minus color limitations and Scarlet abd violet) some genwunners would Swear up and down that everyone else had it wrong.
I've been playing since the beginning. Black and White were amazing! It brought me back into the series.
Great long-form content! Really enjoyed this.
I’m pretty proud of him. Sounds like he’s being working really hard on his speech impediment.
Shoutout actually mentioning the designers of pikachu and others as it’s not talked about as much in pokemon content
Hahaha pretty crazy to hear that Masuda basically said he felt pressure to make better games because the Merch did not sell OMG it shows so hard nowaydays ...
I was expecting more comparisons of the sprites between generations from the title, but still a neat video!
I first played Pokemon Yellow, on my grandmother's Gameboy, more so on Gameboy Advance.
We played a lot of older consoles well past their date, i think....
I remember us having a Nintendo 64 in 2007.
Dude your art style is amazing. This isn't random,i just saw his channel
So, charizard changed its shiny color, pikachu got on a diet and learned its name only to forget it again, snorlax finally stood up, and kadabra finally can have its own tcg cards produced again after like 20 years.
Oh yeah never forget those banned cards, gotta love moo moo milk.
"Pokemon Go's OC"
You get a sub for that alone.
I havent finished the video (barely started) and I don't know how many are talking about your original project based on science topics but i wanted to say it sounds excellent, reminds me of one time I wanted shitpost about the theme of a new starter trio and ended up meeting people finding it interesting, it was about the starter trio being medicine themed, it was like this:
- Herbology, making a grass/psychic type which is the old type of medicine focused on the use of plants to heal both the body and the mind.
- A modern surgeon, making a water/steel type with a great focus on surgery tools.
- Homeopathy, get the cure from what causes the pain, fire vs fire, making for an excellent fire/fighting type focused onsymulating the style of the opponent which defeated an ally.
Yeah, the whole joke was having an excuse to add yet another fire/fighting type and accidentally took it seriously.
i grew up playing pokemon platinum, and now i'm on pokemon scarlet, massive jump and it feels the same but even better
I still think a sprite game on the switch would be amazing. Use the updated tech to make the best sprites we've ever seen. We could probably get a game with multiple regions like Gen II did, since they wouldn't have as much data needed. Every sprite could be fully animated and every pokemon would be available. Heck, depending on how much space it takes, they could theoretically let you choose your region to start in and have you travel around to the others from there. If this were the case, I'd be fine with no new pokemon and just let you choose the starter from the region you're in.
I wouldn't mind a full Pokemon game with an art style taken in the direction of Pokemon Cafe. Expressive, detailed, 2d animations would be a fun thing to happen at least once in a remake!
@@KertaDrakeIf the art direction of Mario Wonder is anything to go by, I’d say a mix of Café and Wonder could look absolutely incredible for a future gen
I really like your video style, informative and researched, but with humor and great visuals. Glad I found you-followed!
I'm 23, I watched the anime and had a few books and toys when I was very young maybe 5-8 years. Was always into Pokémon but never bought a DS game until 2013.
I still remember sitting in front of the TV and seeing the Pokémon ad for X and Y come on. I still remember seeing xerneas and yveltal and just feeling amazed, I had to get the game! I went into GameStop after school, got Pokémon X and that was the beginning.
It feels so weird that that was nearly exactly 10 years ago. Feels like generation 6 was only yesterday. I loved Pokémon X and played it for hours upon hours, late nights sneaking my DS. I didn't use the internet much at the time so trying to catch every Pokémon and learn their locations and how to evolve them was very fun. Then one day I caught a gligar and couldn't figure out how to evolve it as I still had a book and saw gligar evolved into gliscor and I just had to have it.
I went online and found out how then saw that there was a very active community and video tutorials of how to get certain Pokémon and items. Soon after I got into battling online on Pokémon showdown and the rest is history.
I know a lot of people hate on gen 6 but it was my first generation and sparked my love for Pokémon. I bought omega ruby and alpha sapphire on the 3Ds along with Pokémon black 2 and finally Pokémon sun. I haven't played a Pokémon game since but I still watch videos every day and I'm more interested in battling than the actual games themselves. I'm thinking of buying a switch and getting Pokémon scarlet though to get back into just fun casual games.
To think if it wasn't for that ad on the TV I might never have gotten into Pokémon.
Damn, you just recounted the same magic I felt. I'm 32 now and remember growing up on the merch and original games from 4-5 years of age, waaayyyy back when Pokémon was a brand new thing. I had the First Edition cards and everything, the movie toys and whatnot, even saw the first movie in theaters.
Fast forward to when I was 12, Ruby and Sapphire released, and that shit blew my mind. Went into Walmart one Saturday and bought both games, and that was pretty much formative to most of the friendship interactions I had back then. I was that Pokémon-obsessed kid, and everyone knew it. I had the Beckett magazines and submitted drawings too.
I stopped playing after beating FireRed. I was reaching an age where I was just entering high school, and while my Pokémon obsession was at its peak, it was "uncool" to all the kids who were just coming of age, so my friends didn't play it anymore, and I was forced to adapt if I wanted a social life. That meant Xbox, Halo, Call of Duty and late nights up with the homies playing online. It was a fine period of life, I guess, but I wasn't *really* happy, you know? Something was missing.
But then I turned 30 some 15 years later and found myself questioning if I did the right thing by leaving Pokémon behind and "growing up" as it were. I wound up buying a Switch and picked up Shield, and... I know SwSh may have been disappointing to everyone who's been playing every gen that I missed, but at least to a returning fan, it was brilliant. I went on to grab Legends Arceus and then Scarlet when that dropped. I mostly play UNITE these days.
I've since hooked myself back into my old obsession, drawings included, which actually led to starting a side business making art for people. I guess I have Pokémon to thank for that. I don't think I'll ever sideline this obsession again; I'm too old for it now and both my wife and I are too happy with it -- straight-up, we watch the anime together on a bed covered in Eeveelution plushies, TV surrounded by Glaceon paraphernalia and the like. In too deep now, man.
Never give that up.
amazing video and incredible work with the art!!! thats so much work and you went so hard!!!!
It’s so weird hearing about how hated gen five was, for me and probably many others, it was my first generation and holds many of my favorite Pokémon. In present time, black and white are usually discussed nostalgically.
Love this video and love how there is no cursing in here, I have seen many pokemon video or video game analyze videos that have it and I can't watch it aloud. I will be subscribing.
Soul Silver has always been my favorite game, its the first one I had ever played, and recently replaying it has shown me it wasn't just rose tinted lenses. The scenery, the progression, just all have felt amazing. And being able to jump back to Kanto is very fun as well, having a second entire region and second roster of gym leaders was very fun. I remember beating the Elite 4 and Champion and being absolutely dumbfounded that there was so much more to go do.
B&W always will have a special place in my heart. I would have definitely been disappointed in the lack of older pokemon if I was more invested when I first played Gen5, but even now it just feels very refreshing to have a region with its own exclusive pokemon, and so much less of what I've already seen. Will I miss grabbing Leafeon and Glaceon on my next B&W playthrough? Yeah, definitely. But The designs they came up with were iconic, and I will always treasure them, and for that the entire gen5 aesthetic
Change it to Heart Gold and I had the exact same experience as you holy shit
I love the simple and cartoony artstyle that the pokemon are drawn in for this video
One thing I like about Pokémon is that they don't have simple recolors as distinct creatures. There are deliberately similar Pokémon like the Forces of Nature, the elemental monkeys, or Plusle and Minun, they do have design differences as well.
The base genie designs are all a bit too similar, but other than that yeah
ey yo that video was amazing, crazy, must have been a lot of work
The vector pokémon are so great. This video is a treat for those alone.
I've had an ongoing spreadsheet tracking this kind of information for years now to predict which pokemon from kanto might get new forms/evolutions with new games so it's funny that I'm stumbling onto this video now, glad other people think about this stuff too haha
Gen 9 really rekindled my love for Pokemon. The region is beautiful. The Open world is doing so good. And the new Pokemon are beautiful. Can't wait for gen 10. But so far I am happy to see where dlc goes.
"People refer to how sprites were so much better back then"
I've been interested in Pokemon since before the games or anime ever debuted in the US and I've never once heard anyone in all of my Pokemon conversations ever go to bat for Gen 1's often goofy sprites.
As for the "convergent" Pokémon terminology discourse we've seen in the community,
while I lean more towards "lookalikes" compared to "convergent" (too much potential to be inaccurate to usage in biology, plus*), I instead prefer using:
Parallel Pokémon.
In its purest meaning, the word parallel literally means two things that do not intersect, which perfectly captures the "twist" of these Pokémon being that they are specifically unrelated to the existing Pokémon that they clearly resemble.
But not only that, the term Parallel Pokémon even works well as an umbrella term to include Paradox Pokémon as a more thematically specific subgroup (*whereas "convergent" Pokémon on the other hand excludes Paradox Pokémon), as Paradox Pokémon are essentially the same twist (unrelated lookalikes), just with more complicated mysterious lore added into it.
What a nice graph, and presentation at the end! ^^
another lecture by Professor Nortist uaaaaay
I really loved the way you used the music in this video!!
Any chance you'd wanna do these videos looking at the other generations? In theory most of them would be smaller but just as interesting and add to the big picture.
Really appreciate the links in the description btw, I wish certain other channels did this.
im soo condlicted seeing the sales of gen 5, bc it was one of the best experiences ive had playing the pokemon series. soo much soo that i bought both black and white then both sequals
You forgot they added pika-clones just to match with our mascot.
Congrats. This is an excellent material. Love the drawings!! ❤
While I enjoyed this video alot I wish you had gone more into your opinion on things. You seemed frustrated with many of the call backs, but clearly you enjoyed regional forms and paradox forms. Your channel heavily focuses on analyzing the series, so more direct criticism (positive or negative) could have been really informative imo. Also to me honestly, Ive personally always sided on the international dex is a really bad idea that stifles evolution in the series, but a Id be curious what your thoughts on that were.
Side note of a side note: while I totally agree that a good amount of gen 5 criticism isn't great, I don't think refering to the folk who complained as "babies" does any good. Ignoring that the games are litterally made for kids, and that it only serves to stir the pot unnecessarily (imo). I think alot of fans want a sort of repetitive comfort with pokemon where they can play with their virtual pets and be nostalgic. While I dont think thats the most interesting or worthwhile path by anymeans, I do recognize thats the fantasy for many people. I think thats why the intdex was such a big deal, they felt that they were being sold a consistent deal, almost like a live service style game; again pokemon has never really lived up to that, nor could it, but I feel thats the appeal at least.
Otherwise great vid!
41:22 From the final summary, I've counted 19 of the evolution lines/single stage pokemon that haven't had any major changes after the first Pokemon games. These are:
- Fearow line
- Arbok line
- Nidoqueen line
- Nidoking line
- Parasect line
- Venomoth line
- Golduck line
- Victreebel line
- Dodrio line
- Dewgong line
- Cloyster line
- Hypno line
- Seaking line
- Starmie line
- Ditto
- Omastar line
- Kabutops line
- Dragonite line
- Mew
I thought you were going to focus more on how the designs changed like how sprites changed after the anime solidified the designs. maybe compare them to the anime, as well as how 3D models took a different direction sometimes, leaving behind some design features, while addressing the big colour change issue.
But this type of video was equally interesting, a great overview of the evolution of the franchise, especially for people who are lost, since, indeed, Pokemon is getting pretty old now.
Personally, it made me realise, or simply put into words, something I felt for a while and of which I made sense in different ways before, that this fascination with gen 1 might be because it was the baseline in more ways that one, and since we had our basic "catch them all" game already in the first gen -we subsequently eventually had had caught them all- so we inevitably compared the next games to that first experience. Additionally, since it never really evolved much -they kept doing the same formula basically simply with a new roster- it can ultimately, definitely be seen as them not having anything more to show us, ergo you could basically have the full Pokemon experience simply by keeping to that first set of games, nothing fundamentally additional or different to take away from the later ones (even if they were sort of improved versions basically). Under that lens, it puts even more into perspective the idea that they are just iterating extensively on the same thing, repeating themselves; a realisation which is baffling, when you thusly deconstruct it. As an analogy: if they were a painter, it would be the same as doing the same drawing over and over for years. Which is fine, but it's kind of a naval-gazy practice or very personal practice to undergo rather than thinking of the product as something people will consume -which is sort of the point in a video game and this type of game especially; but I'll explain it further. In the interest of fairness, yes, they have made some changes of which some are widely appreciated (albeit many others solicit widespread contention), however, majoritarily, they are details in the grand scheme of things, as the method of making the games stays the same overall. To reiterate, the skeleton stays the same and they just pad it out with various things. For instance, in the logic of this analogy, they don't think of changing to a new skeletal structure or expanding on the anatomy of the creature they have assembled. All to say, when you really dive deep into it, it is indeed baffling that they never focus on any new aspect of the franchise for each subsequent generation. Meaning, they never followed with a sort of obvious thought like: "we made this "catch them all" ecosystem, which works, now let's shift the focus on the narrative or a branching paths game element", or "now let's focus on the training aspect", or "let's focus on the breeding"; they never did that in a substantial way. Only in Legends did they really focus on making it a sort of action game, while still keeping "most" of the main series gameplay by which warranting it not seeming like a simple spin-off. Indeed, most times, when there is an expansion to the formula, it's a whole different game and usually not a mainseries one; like the Colloseum & Battle Revolution games, or Mystery Dungeon, PokePark etc. Which all begs the question "is the mainseries just there to introduce new Pokemon?", with basically no gameplay value other than neutering that first catch-them-all formula? Honestly, I hate how they piecemeal the experience has become; it is to an egregious degree, in fact. All the while, truthfully, Pokemon I can easily imagine being more like an MMO (or adopting some similar creative franchise-development cycle) like where you have a base game and just have expansions and new modes that vastly evolve the gameplay and focus. Besides, the models already eternally have been staying the same from game to game, so we're almost there in terms of the changes not being that big that we need a whole new game. Pragmatically, why, as a player, would you want to start all over with a each new game release, when you have already gone through the paces just the year before (if not less, considering the current release schedule, BDSP, Arceus and ScarVi were so close together than it shows releases can be even more close together sometimes)? I'm not even going to go into the details of all the real world caveats to the realisation probability and feasibility of such a production format, instead, I am just going to propose this take outright, see if anyone can relate to this viewpoint and/or can share my proposed prospects for this hypothetical other direction for the franchise. I think the logic behind this view of the franchise and its development through the years is backed by very compelling plausibility through this prior set of evidence, so as to make my critique seem quite accurate and my take have merit to reflect upon. This viewpoint certainly, at least personally, makes me feel that the franchise's woes are clearer.
Anyway, this is the direction into which your video's retrospective made my thoughts rapidly and deeply spiral. This reflection personally consolidates further my conviction that all that's needed is for the older games to be, essentially, modded and expanded upon rather than accepting to pander to the current formula of having us have to spend top dollar for a piece of the pie which provides mostly a repeat of what we already had before (often times simply in worse or more incomplete condition to add insult to injury). Conclusivelly, it further makes me think that there is just a single direction Pokemon can go to fulfill its conceptual direction and that is: to move away from its current cyclical repetitive release formula.
Honestly, Pokémon is halfway to an MMO within Paldea already. It’s not even just base Paldea in the story, with its supposedly impressive wide spaces, wild encounters, ability to do stuff in any order but an obviously suggested path, and different storylines to follow. It is also everything else about Scarlet/Violet: the way it has now effectively replaced different versions with DLC, the way that each region has more obviously powerful Pokémon in some sense, a new gimmick to chase down. The other half that makes Pokemon an MMO could already be there. Places to hang out in, battling given you can capture Pokemon to do battle with, unique visuals, customization options, places to hang out with your Pokémon, contests, obtuse ways to get the endgame stuff. This is in addition to OP’s comment. All they really need to do now is to place a dedicated server and they basically have Pokemon as an MMO.
To also be clear, Pokémon GO is also basically like an MMO. A very barebones one that relies on the fact you capture Pokémon in the real world, but it is.
I wish you wrote this like a normal person and I didn't have to read an entire thesis that mostly just amounts to saying the same thing over and over. But I did in fact read it all so now here I am to leave my comment. So one, do the mainline games exist just to introduce new pokemon.
...yes.
The entire point of the mainline series is to introduce new pokemon, humans, world, concepts etc that will get used in the anime, movies, cards, spinoffs etc. Thats why they have to release as frequently as they do, they control the entire franchise despite being what's given the least amount of care an attention. There is literally, literally, nothing else like Pokemon in this regards. No where else is there a huge multimedia franchise, that dips their shoes into everything, that completely revolves entirely around the video game side, because anyone could tell you how unproductive that is.
2, Pokemon as a game is too specific a concept to where one could make meaningful deviants off of it. A mario game can do literally whatever it wants in a sequel, the only thing that ties them together is the fact he jumps. Typically games that have a super specific gameplay style, just wouldn't be as popular and as such would have less games. But even beyond that, Pokemon has a bunch of other ties that force it down even more. Every game has the ability to connect to each other in some form, you can bring a Pikachu from your gameboy all the way into onto the Switch, and it will function the same. That same Pikachu has to exist in a game where the entirety of the combat system is based around the fact that you could be fighting against another human person, and every single enemy is a creature you could be using yourself. Creatures in which their individual existence holds so little meaning, given such little time to shine because there's hundreds of other completely distinctive creatures that need as much attention put into. Hell, the 60-100 new creatures, ontop of all the human characters, is more design than pretty much any other game does, ever. And their creatures can't just be designed to be creatures, each and every single one of them has to be designed as a mascot. Each one of them having tons of lore, and inspiration, and creativity, each one of them needing to be designed in a way where they could carry a 22 minute long episode of the anime, or be something someone gets excited about buying in the store or getting as card.
Pokemon is not samey out of laziness, or not being willing to change, it's literally a prison. Everything has to stay exactly the same, because that's the entire point of the series. People complain about how they want the games to be unique, but than they complain when they can't bring their Gazorppee into the latest game. Developers have talked multiple times about how much they resent having to work on Pokemon, and how much they try to to find a new breakthrough. They hired a new development studio to make the Diamond and Pearl remakes just so they could work on Legends Arceus (which is a passion project). They don't want to make Pokemon, and who can blame them. What does it even mean to work on Pokemon, the only thing you do each new game is make a bunch of new creatures and human designs that can't be half assed at all. And The Pokemon Company is never going to give GameFreak a rest and get a new development studio, because no one in the right mind would ever want to sign up for that, much less under the crunch, and lack of resources GameFreak is subjected to.
There isn't room for anything else, it's terrifying because you will not find anything else that encapsulates the definition of a living hell more than Pokemon.
@@Whispernyan Sorry, I get lost in my writing. I feel you when you say it's a chore to read through, I too have a hard time reading myself when I'm done with these long comments or articles. You have no idea how much time I spend on them and now it's just a routine. I don't even expect people to answer, I just like doing it.
I get what you are saying but I'm getting mixed signals. You say we should accept it but that it's hell, a prison. So do you like the way things are atm or not?
I personally can barely play the games anymore, I'm overwhelmed with frustration at the half-assed & dropped features & mechanics. Actually, I'm almost done with being fed up altogether too and not caring about Pokemon anymore.
So overall, with my comment, I was simply trying to put into perspective the how contrived and stagnant GF's thought-process must be and how it would be very counter-intuitive-feeling for anyone to adopt that mentality were they in their place developing these games.
@@iantaakalla8180 I would not call the game an MMO or an open world. It was some features but overall it a very straightforward RPG with a few MMO features. It fails in almost all departments, mainly connectivity. In theory, yes, the game *wants* to be an MMO open world, but in deeds, it just has bullet points where there should be fleshed out features & mechanics. The world is basically empty. It's like making all the mechanics of your game but leaving the default plane and not making a map. I'm speaking in a loose way. It's overall pretty much just as if it was that way, might as well be.
In my mind, they have never dedicated to making that a reality rather tacking on something to an existing formula. They have the cupcake and keep adding a single lonely dry topping then take it away in the next game to replace it with another.
that crystal commercial i remember was wired AF they were like pull it no push it when obviusly it slides open neither push or pull like a supermarket door would.
sun and moon was my favorite bc of ultra beasts which also made me like paradox pokemon as they has a similar-ish origin… wish they had more customization tho 😭
I grew up with pokemon. I honestly thought i played Pokemon red on the gameboy but i guess i didn't. It seems we shared a similar path, as I bought pokemon black but i couldn't finish it. I stoped playing pokmeon until sword and shield came out. Being able to play using the tv was amazing for me and i finished it. Shortly after, Pokemon Brilliant Diamond came out and i got that too as i wanted to play the older games too. Legends of Arceus surprised me. I loved being able to run around an open world. My daugther hates pokemon battles, so she loved Arceus. I recently just picked up Violet, so i'm playing through that. I haven't gotten far, as many other games are coming out right now (AC Mirage just came out yesterday!) anyways. Thank you for this video, it was interesting to see Pokemon through the years, and the ones i missed. I'm hoping for more remakes down the line as i missed a lot.
Gen 3 was where pokemon peaked change my mind ⚡
Gen 5 White 2 was my very first Pokémon game , amazing story and graphics. I recently got White and Black 2 as well which is fun.
2:50 I was around for gen 1 and I have never heard anybody saying that the sprites where better. They had more character yes, but not implying that they were better.
Also, it was only after gen 3 that people really started complaining on new designs.
I think it depends on who you ask, I heard of folks who hated gen 2 when it came out. So I feel it depends
@mckinneym.2743 maybe crystal squashed that opinion with the "animated" sprites
@mckinneym.2743 I was around back then, yes there where a few designs that people didn’t like, but there where gen 1 designs that people didn’t like also.
If they didn’t like generation 2 it was mostly for other things, like being unable to get most of the new Pokémon until late game/post-game, the strange level gaps in the gyms, or female Pokémon having lower stats.
So you might hear about people like that just because you come across people mocking those people all the time.
@@mckinneym.2743I don't think anyone hates Gen 2 designs, At worst they call them "Bland", Gen 2 is mostly seen as an extension of Gen 1
@@jesusramirezromo2037 I definitely have seen people hate the designs on gen 2. I personally am not a fan either, but it's definitely because of the uninspired direction they took with most of them - both artistically and mechanically, because boy do gen 2 Pokemon suck in battle (unless you're part of the very exclusive gen 2 cool kids club).
I love that the only pictures we have of Nashida are of him holding a plushie