Don't forget that pokémon is, for the people who own it, a product. They don't care about your memories and feelings, only how they can be monetized. They'll dangle nostalgia on your face like jingling keys just to keep you buying. Your love doesn't have to translate to financial commitment to bad product.
I’m in a position where I’m able to realize that Pokemon won’t die if I don’t keep buying. I don’t need to worry about that. They’re in a solid enough position for now. If they start doing something beautiful again, perhaps I’ll come back to it and have fun again. Until then, I just hope it manages to find itself again.
This video spoke to me in such a unique way. My personal experience with Pokémon mirrors a lot of yours - using it as an escape from life's hardships, falling out of love with a lot of the newer installments, even details such as losing a beloved game (I lost my HeartGold copy years ago). Yet in spite of this, I never could move on from Pokémon the way you could. Maybe that has to do with me at least marginally enjoying BDSP and Scarlet/Violet and enjoying Legends Arceus, but there was something about the franchise that gripped me in a way where it could always sneak its way back into my mind. As weird as this sounds, this video made me appreciate Pokémon even more for what it once was, and to keep holding on to faith that it can someday recapture that.
I resonate with this. Pokémon has been one of the most consistent things in my life. I can’t give up on it, and honestly, I never want to. It means too much to me, and I want that to continue. The franchise brings people of all types together. It’s important whether everyone in the world loves it or not, in my opinion
you took the words out of my mouth as well. unfortunately, just like you, ive lost two of my pokemon games and one of the games i had on an sdcard broke :,) however ! i believe you can fully recapture that excitement. i am 21 and yesterday, i still got excited seeing pokemon cards being sold at my grocery store. i didnt buy any since they were the newer cards, but i remember the feeling :) i hope you find it again, too.
@@jeffrey5013 Radical Red, Pokerogue, Pokemon Sage, Crystal Legacy... Even in the tcg people are having fun with the GLC format. Screw Game Freak, Pokemon is THRIVING right now if you only care about fan-made content.
if it wasn't for the Reborn family of spinoff games i'd detest pokemon, ngl. but even with Reborn and its 'children' making incredible improvements to the formula it still feels less than good to play.
This kinda summarises my takes honestly, x and y were fun but sun and moon really left me feeling sad about the fact I’ll never experience the “Pokemon” I knew and loved again, everything’s just so corporate. It pissed me off how pokemons newest games feel like demos more than full games.
I’m surprised Sun and Moon made you feel that way. I was first introduced via Platinum, and when Su/Mo came out I was at the beginning of this “I guess I just grew out of it” phase of my life. Because no other pokemon game could really keep my interest like Platinum did. Except for Su/Mo. Which, at least in terms of character and story, felt like such an improvement. I don’t think they’re the _best_ games from the franchise, but I thoroughly enjoyed them. Guzma and Team Skull are, without a doubt, my favorite villain team. And the situation between Gladion, Lillie, and Lusamine is really interesting. Idk, that’s just me though.
@@TarosTheVoid I like the _idea_ behind S/V but they're so busted on a technical level it's embarrassing. Draw distance issues, low LOD models appearing way too close to the player, huge performance dips whenever more than 2 NPCs are in frame - even when those NPCs are low-detail and have only a few frames of animation... ...S&V look like an amateur coding project or a pre-alpha build of a game. They absolutely shouldn't have been greenlit for release in that state.
I feel so, so badly for the folks who waited for the Sinnoh remakes. I grew up during gens 1 and 2. When they remade my first games, they were slam dunks. Even ORAS taught me to love Hoenn, after RSE originally released during a time when I'd kind of (temporarily) outgrown Pokémon (I'd later get back into the series with XY, and eventually fell in love with BW shortly after). You guys deserved so much more from the Sinnoh remakes. It broke my heart, vicariously, to see that go down.
As an autistic person, Pokemon was one of my biggest special interests for years (alongside FNAF). And then one day it just -- faded. I looked at the flood of notifications from my favorite Poketubers, all about the newest generation of Pokemon, the DLC that was coming out for it. I just wasn't happy with it anymore. I couldn't keep up with all the new Pokemon, because I couldn't find the love that Pokemon had sparked in me. The past couple of months, I've felt that love returning, but I know it won't be the same. I love Pokemon, but I will never love it the same way. And coming to terms with that is difficult, but that's just how the tide flows. I find the newer games full of potential -- but that's not enough for everybody.
As someone who has a special interest in Pokemon...same. I love creature collecting and such, so Pokemon was perfect for me. But the games just don't live up to expectations. Now I enjoy things like discussing Pokemon designs and theorizing type combos even if I can't enjoy the newer games as much. And at least Legends Arceus and Pokemon Snap has helped keep some interest for me in the Switch games.
I've seen some really shitty and confusing excuses for the newer games. "The games are bigger and rendering Pokémon with random stats is hard, of _course_ it looks ugly and runs horribly!" Have any of these people played _any_ non Pokémon games on Switch? The Witcher 3 is less ugly on Switch _and_ it runs better. As a Pokémon fan, this gen has been incredibly embarrassing. TotK exists on the same platform. EDIT (04/11/2024): Read the comment chain under this comment and you'll understand why Pokémon continues to sell so well despite the games being complete dogshit all around compared to other games on the same hardware. This is the extent that people will go to to mindlessly excuse, deflect, undermine, and even lie to make Pokémon look less bad than it actually is.
None of those games have any complex random algorithms and no one in their right mind would buy witcher 3 on switch. @TheAbsol7448 I never said the file is what is used to create, urban cave troll. I specifically said heavy or excessive RNG which is what Pokemon uses. It said they are programming statements. And what if multiple sources are wrong? I never said I was an authority on anything, you're mockingly labeling me as a physicist for just explaining quantum physics as a subject. Response to last 7 comments.: Decompilation of source code could take months to a few years depending on experience, people trying to decompile Mario 64 weren't professional. I never said anything about taking the file and fixing it simply in any form, spaghetti code literally refers to scrambled code that refers to difficulty in decompilation, you're clearly very ignorant. Also nothing is random quantum physics isn't even completely understood and is completely theoretical which is why it uses probability. The science behind it uses probability, that doesn't mean quantum physics is random, urban cave dweller. Sure guy, bring up your 100 MB game meanwhile Pokemon randomizes far more data. A world in dwarf is less than that of a randomized item model in Pokemon.
@@rpgfanatic9719 Dude. Your middle school calculator could generate like a million Pokémon a second. It's really not that hard computationally. And, yes they do. It's called behavior and pathfinding. And in TotK specifically, weather and physics.
@@TheAbsol7448 No they can't, non-deterministic algorithms especially if when used when performing many processes at once are more latent "Efficiency: Quick vs Deliberate Typically, deterministic algorithms are sprinters. They're efficient, wrapping up tasks speedily, solving problems in polynomial time. The non-deterministic algorithms often lag behind in this context, resolving problems using *exponentially more time.* But they offer unparalleled versatility in combing through possibilities and conjuring approximations." -bot penguin
@@TheAbsol7448 Which is why entire WOW servers crashed because of non-deterministic modifier calculations firing off at once. How in any way are any of those elements non-deterministic?
@@rpgfanatic9719 Riddle me this, Batman. _Why_ do you think Pokémon continues to run poorly _after_ the Pokémon have already spawned, and in place where Pokémon _don't_ spawn? I _emplore_ you to look up "computers are fast" on RUclips and to watch the first result. Again. All Pokémon does is roll a handful of dice for every Pokémon on screen, if the game generates stats before a battle. Neither really matters because RNG, these "random algorithms" you're talking about, aren't hard to calculate. D&D players do it by hand literally all the time. RNG has never been special or unique to Pokémon. The Game Boy games did it in battles every time the foe used a move, and when you use a move. That's not why WoW crashes. It's because it's an MMO with many terabytes of data. 🙄 They have a room with absolutely _massive_ servers, which just isn't really a thing with Pokémon.
I remember my first exposure to Pokemon. I remember my mom getting me a Happy Meal at McDonald's and I sat down and opened the toy, to find a Buizel inside. I thought it was just a cute otter, so I brought it to school the next day so I could play with it at reccess. When my friends saw that I had something Pokemon related in my hands, I think they got excited. They began to ask me what my favorite Pokemon was and how many cards I had. I was a shy kid and started crying because I felt overwhelmed by being asked - what a 5 year old feels - is a lot of questions. And I also remember my kindergarten teacher taking the Buizel away because she thought it was a distraction. When my mom picked me up from school I told her all about how the kids made me cry and how the teacher took my otter away. And I think my 6 year-old self decided that Pokemon was this evil thing that I didnt like. For awhile anytime I heard someone talk about Pokemon I would hide or run away. Then one day, my mom dropped me off at one of her friends houses to sleep there for the night. I think it was because of a work trip or something. My moms friend had 2 kids. There was J'ren, who was about my age, and Tyler, who was probably around 8. I remember being really confused as to why people were still awake at 10pm because my mom imposed a strict 8pm bedtime policy. Then Tyler turned on the TV and flipped to Boomerang and started watching the Pokemon anime. I went to a corner of the living and started to sob uncontrollably, only for Tylers parents to reassure me that nothings wrong and sit me down with Tyler and his brother on the couch. I still cried for a bit until a fuckin Steelix showed up on screen and thought to my 5 year old self "wait nevermind this shit rocks". I nagged my mom to 'buy a Pokemon' for me. When she didnt have the money, I nagged my poor Grandpa for it, we went to Walmart and I got Pokemon Platinum because I thought the black and red colors looked super cool. And I used my blue DSi that I got as a hand-me-down to boot it up. And ive been in love ever since. Thank you Pokemon, for everything!
My first experiences with Pokémon were fuzzy, I experienced them very early on, but I think I first discovered it when my mom took me to a book store and I saw the Pokémon Adventure manga on a shelf. I thought it looked cool, so I took it home with me. That's where my infatuation with Pokémon started. Today, I'm a very pathetic fan. I only enjoyed, PSMD, Rescue Team DX, and Arceus out of the games that have come out since XY. My trust in Pokémon was completely shattered with ORAS and SM, so I wasn't surprised when SwSh came out the way it did.
For me, the cutoff point is Gen 5. I have played more recent games, but don't really feel like going back to them. Tried Y and couldn't get past how annoying Pansear waving that tail in my face is.
It is pretty much the consensus that either Platinum, HGSS, or BW2 are the best games in the series. It definitely peaked there. XY was a hollow and soul-less iteration of the formula, and it only got worse from there.
Gen 7 and ORAS were good. X/Y sucked. I barely played X but then put so many hours into ORAS. I just replayed AS a few weeks ago. If you never gave the gen 3 remakes a chance, I’d definitely recommend them.
Gen 5 is an ugly, pixelated nightmare imo and I can't get down with the pokemon akwardly twitching and the slow as hell pace of battles. Gen 4 is my cutoff personally, they did it to perfection, let it die.
Sun and Moon came out on the exact same day I graduated highschool. I stayed up past midnight the night before to get my pre-ordered copy on release. Fast forward like 2 months and I'm (I think) 2 thirds through the game. I put it down one day and haven't played a single Pokemon game (that was released after it) since. I bought Scarlet because my brother wanted me to play it (he was the same age as I was when I got SM), I finished the tutorial area and closed the switch and never opened it again. I don't know if it's me or if it's Pokemon. The first games I ever owned for myself were Pokemon Pearl and Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon. Right after I put the cartridge for Scarlet back in it's cover I popped Three Houses out for my 5th playthrough, so I'm inclined to believe it's Pokemon
It's Pokemon. I should know, cause I haven't played one of the newer 3D ones in years (Except for Omega Ruby, but that's a remake), but after modding my 3DS I've sent 3 hours yesterday playing through Crystal. (I want a legit shiny Celebi from the source) Also, breaking Emerald through glitches is tons of funs, with some of them being even more nonsensical than playground rumors. Gen 6 is when they lost the passion, while Gen 7 is when they lost the drive, and it's been downhill since. Like you can tell they're trying in Gen 6 but their heart's not fully in it, while with Gen 7 they released an unfinished product then sold it a 2nd time with bug fixes as an entirely new game.
This is so goated and mega based. Shadow Dragon at an early age is just such a beautiful thing, and I'm glad I'm not alone in my appreciation for Three Houses. I played the hell outta Pkm Sun. Put hours of my life into it. Don't regret it. Loved it, I don't care how some people dislike it or try to diminish it. If only you could feel the joy I was feeling when I was getting my hands on my copy of Pkm Sun. I remember where I was and I remember it was simply one of the happiest moments of my life. I never once bothered to get Ultra because I felt I was betrayed like yeah uh now my game is obsolete. Saw how Sword and Shield were shaping up, saw the reviews, did not purchase it. I'm not supporting that. Then the final nail in the coffin being Violet with all the insane bugs, frame drops, less that stellar visuals that make Quake 3 have a facepalm.
This video makes my heart ache. I understand the feelings you’re going through because I’m falling out of love with Pokémon as well, but I didn’t realise it until now. But my first game was Pokémon Diamond, so I’m still desperately clinging onto what I used to like. This video made me realise how invested I am in a franchise that doesn’t even care to listen to its audience. Thank you for making this.
Edit: idk why this comment got left here, I left it on another comment. Must be something weird on RUclips's end. _____________________________ I tried not to use too harsh of language when talking about Arceus in the video since I know a lot of people actually like it, but yeah, I REALLY do not like this game. I think it gets too much credit for having an interesting vision and concept when that vision and concept were completely botched. It devolves into nothing but busywork and bad Pokemon battles in a world that looks bad and is boring and clunky to traverse. Honestly if I ever make another Pokemon video it's going to be about Legends Arceus and why I don't like it. That probably won't be for a long time though, because I'll have to work up the willpower to actually sit through it for footage and to refresh myself on it.
@@mrpiccionedivino5598??? That's so weird, must be something wrong with the comments thing in the creator studio. I definitely left this reply on a different comment
Sure I guess but most fangames aren't my cup of tea and I stopped caring about competitive pokemon a while ago. I have no idea on how robot terrakion and caveman entei effect the meta. I think the only Pokemon romhacks I care about are Coral and Prism since they aren't overly difficult, don't shove corny original characters down your throat, and feel like official pokemon games. However I mostly just play improvement hacks since I can transfer my pokemon unlike in 99.9% of rom hacks.
i’ve loved pokemon ever since i was 4 and yeah this is the way i’d like to include pokemon tcg in there too, not an indie project like the others but it made me appreciate some mons i never cared about
As a 32 year old mom, I now recognize Pokemon as a soulless product, the magic is gone. The apathy I used to feel has evolved into a new kind of magic in the form of buying Pokemon products from yard sales and making Halloween blind bags to hand out to kids. I get the opportunity to experience Pokemon bringing my toddler's generation joy, even as a soulless product.
THANK YOU! Arceus was filled with so much busywork, and that is the WHOLE gameplay loop. It's good but it is not the panacea. BDSP is generally frowned upon but I know a lot of people that cope about SwSh and ScarVi. I WANT Pokemon to be good, I've always loved it, in a similar way to you, that's why the disappointment and falling short hits so hard to me.
I enjoyed gen 8 and 9. They’re not perfect, but still a lot of fun that have kept me busy for hundreds of hours. I’ve never had to “cope” with these games.
I _like_ the gameplay loop personally, and I'll probably replay it from the beginning at some point, but it's really lacking a lot. I'm hoping Z-A will have the content that Arceus needed, but I don't really have any expectations.
@@AerwasilienHonestly, I'd rather keep myself occupied with much better games. Lately, I've been playing a lot of FF9, Metroid Prime 2, Explorers of Sky, and Dragon Quest 11S. And I may revisit older Pokémon games, but I have no desire to play anything past XY. I tried to play Moon again a couple years ago, but I put it down because everything takes so fucking long. It doesn't understand what makes other long JRPGs compelling.
I personally get bored of the crafting system and find it as more of a chore then an enjoyable experience. Also, I do think they should adjust the radius in which aggressive pokemon react to you. It gets exhausting trying to dodge an entire area while gathering resources. Especially Alphas that knock you off your mount. I do love Scarlet and Violet though. The only real complaint (besides the obvious rush job they did on it) is dynamic level scaling. The choose your own adventure campaign was a bit misleading since there are only a few routes you can go in practice.
This video really resonated with me. While I didn't fall out of love with Pokemon (in the sense that I did not love it for years upon years like you did), I did fall out of love with a property and the hobbies and fandom adjacent to it. I spent so much of my high school years enwrapped with said thing and it was so important to me and my development as a person, yet these days I don't have the energy nor will to sustain it. And it breaks my heart that this thing that mattered so much to me has no real role in my current life. I feel empty, in the sense that I haven't found something to replace it as my #1 hobby. So hearing you describe how you fell out of love with Pokemon was cathartic for me. Thank you.
Next month will mark two years since my mother passed away from chronic kidney failure. I still remember being in elementary school (30 now), and my Mom picking me up a little early from school, just for that day. When I got home, she gave me Pokemon Ruby. Brand new. Just released. Whenever I play those early, 2D Pokemon games, my heart fills with warm memories. Sunday dinners, family road trips, those deep conversations when you discover your parent’s hidden lore, lazy days of just relaxing and watching sun rise and sun set.
I love how this felt like less of a video essay and more of a story being shared around a campfire. Thank you for making this video, I resonated with so much of it
I was hooked on Pokémon when I was a small child, and my first ever mainline Pokémon game I played was Pokémon Diamond, which I played when I was a teen. When BDSP came out, to me at least, I was stoked and looked forward to it. Brilliant Diamond did not disappoint me in the slighest. I am a 31-year adult now, and I must say that it has been one of the greatest gaming experiences for me. I know nostalgia is a big part of it, and that the games aren't anything special if you aren't attached to the OG Diamond- and Pearl games, but for me specifically I savoured every moment of the game! And the soundtrack is amazing imo, it really triggered those nostalgic feelings. I loved Brilliant Diamond. (It was over 15 years since I last played Pokémon Diamond, so the nostalgia was huge for me when I played Brilliant Diamond on release.)
I found a full odds shiny Stunfisk on the White 2 playthrough I just finished. That Stunfisk brought more joy than any new Pokemon release could ever dream of.
My first foray into the Pokémon world was _Pokémon Soul Silver._ Until that point Pokémon had simply been something annoying that I would see on t-shirts around town, but reading through my uncle's Pokédex got me interested enough to pick up a copy of the new game at Costco. I was about fourteen at the time, and therefore very into gold, what with treasure and pirates and adventures and whatnot. So it was hard for me to choose _Soul Silver,_ but the box legendary was just infinitely cooler than the big bird. I was a bit busy with other things, and didn't start the game that day. I seem to recall that I was very into _The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks_ at the time. Perhaps a week later, my dad called me and my theee siblings into the hallway. I knew from his voice that something was very serious. We congregated in the hallway. Mom was crying, and Dad informed us in so many words that our cousin was dead. He had been in an accident. I essentially had cousins instead of friends, we were a big clan. This particular cousin was thirteen years old, and always played Pikachu in _Smash Brothers Brawl._ I had never beaten him at the game, and now I would never do so. His dad (my godfather) was understandably devastated. After being informed that Mom and Grandma would be flying up right away to be with their brother/son and the rest of us would head up for the funeral a few days later, I quietly went back to my room. After processing for an indeterminate amount of time, I pulled out my red DS Lite and silently started up my first Pokémon game. My uncle and cousin had already chosen the cool one, CyndaquilI, so I picked Chikorita because he learned Synthesis. I named him Chibi, after the cute dragon from a weird but captivating backwards comic at the library. I drowned my sorrows for maybe half an hour and then went to bed. While out of state for the funeral, I played Pokémon and thought about death, played Pokémon and thought about my cousin. I found a Shiny Rattata on Route 30 and caught it within my first six hours of game time, which was exciting. I have always paced when I'm stressed or when I'm thinking, so the Pokéwalker was well-positioned. I logged at least 10,000 steps daily onto that thing while on the trip, and transferred hundreds of items and dozens of Pokémon to my game cartridge. On the plane home I pulled out my DS and looked for my copy of _Spirit Tracks._ I was at the boss of the Sand Temple, and wanted to give it another go on the way home. I couldn't find it. My entire case of games had somehow been left at the hotel. It must have fallen down the side of my bed, I virtually never lose things. Countless stamps in _Brain Age_ 1 & 2, near 100% completion in _Mario and Sonic at The Olympic Winter Games,_ hundreds of thousands of Rupees and hours and hours of progression and story investment in _Spirit Tracks,_ et cetra, all lost. The only game left to me was my cartridge of _Pokémon Soul Silver,_ which happened to be in my game system instead of the case. Time passed, and wounds faded. Eventually I reached the Veridian forest in the postgame, and caught my first Pikachu. I named it after my cousin. I still have Chibi, a beautiful level 100 Meganium. For being made of ones and zeros, he means lot to me. He's on my Pokéwalker with me right now. Thanks for sharing some of your childhood. It took me back.
Damn, if I had lost any of my games on holiday it would of absolutely destroyed me. I used to guard my ds and games like they were last drop of water on earth. Losing them all must of sucked so bad
This video really is how I feel. You saying "back in my day there were 493 pokemon" drove it home. That's exactly the number that has always hung in my head. While I liked Legends: Arceus and will consider Z-A, SwSh and BDSP destroyed my love. Despite hearing great things about SV's story, I dropped it around Levinca. I just wasnt having fun anymore, and I've never gone back to it.
I'm older so I had different feelings. Back in _my_ day there were 151. And I by no means claim that makes me better than people who joined the franchise later. It just made me think - when I was young, the internet was entirely the domain of people of my generation. It was all teens and twentysomethings - any older than that and it was strictly the domain of tech nerds. This meant you kinda knew everyone was around the same age as you. Nowadays it can feel like the internet is Gen Z by default and people my age have become less visible. I don't know if that's true because we're all as online as ever, but... sometimes it makes you feel like you're turning into a fossil and that's a weird feeling to grapple with. I do miss the old, anarchic, shitty HTML internet a lot.
@@rdrrr I was part of the OG generation as well. I played Silver/Gold but by that time in the early 2000s Yugi-Oh had overtaken Pokemon as the more popular cartoon and TCG. By 4th grade in 2003 I had moved on from Pokemon. I downloaded an emulator of Fire Red back in 2016 and had some nostalgic fun while it lasted but for some reason Pokemon and Digimon haven't stayed with me into my 30s like Dragonball has since I first saw it in Kindergarten back in 1999
@@richborn6700 Yeah I played Yu-Gi-Oh! back when I was a teen. That brought back memories. Damn, the power creep in that game is rancid. It makes MTG look honest, haha. TCGs really had the same business model as games that carve up their content to sell as DLC, but, you know... "analogue".
Couldn't get into most TCGs outside playground rules. The rules are ever changing, cards are getting constantly banned, and the scene is usually filled with players I am glad I never grew up to be like@@rdrrr
@@richborn6700 I feel you on the culture. Like tabletop RPGs, it's extremely nerdy. Nothing wrong with being nerdy, but a lot of nerds are socially dysfunctional, off-putting and toxic to be around. I find tabletop RPGs really ironic because they're sociable by nature but a lot of people that play them are bad at being around other people. This is why everyone seems to have a story about _that_ player, or _that_ group that's always full of drama. I hate to admit it but I used to be _that_ guy. I wouldn't say I was toxic but I was definitely socially awkward and made people uncomfortable without meaning to. Fortunately as I grew up I learned from my mistakes and grew out of it. Some people don't and that's really sad.
I love Pokemon and always will. But I love it as a memory, as a concept. I listen to the soundtracks and reminisce on what it brought to me. I would still describe myself as loving it despite not playing any of the games for so long, and having no desire to. I think what the series did best was providing childlike wonder to the worlds, causing the games to be more rooted in nostalgia than most properties, and why I see so much more discussion about how great the old games are. I think the kids who grow up with the new games will feel the same when they are older too.
Pokemon isn't developed at nintendo, it's developed by a company called Game Freak. Nintendo just owns the publishing rights. Iwata never had any involvement with the games to start with.
@@user-wj6jh1cd5n Yes he did. He was a major producer/mentor for a lot of Nintendo products. When Gen 2 was getting made he realized that GF wasn't compressing the data properly and he himself compressed it enough within a day or 2 to fit in all of Kanto.
This video made me cry. As a child Pokemon was my whole life, it was the game that united me with my brother and my cousins. Everyone on the school would know about me as the girl who knew the name of every single pokémon (they were only five generations at that time). I would usually watch the movies and some of the anime episodes. Heck, as you whoever is reading this, can see my pfp is a Pikachu pixel art that I made it myself. When the national dex cut happened, something broke inside me. Right now, I understand why it happened and I think it was kind of inevitable, but at the right time, I was just profoundly sad. I was sad for the dex, sure, but I was more sad because, somehow, I knew that was an inflection point for me; in that moment I just knew that I... probably wouldn't like Pokémon anymore. Even if years later I would be playing Legend Arceus and enjoying it, I just couldn't find the joy that Pokémon made me feel in the past days. As time went on, I realized I didn't know the name of every pokémon anymore, I just forgot about lots of them. I would rarely watch the anime or the movies. And Pokémon wasnt the main focus of my drawings anymore. I didn't like Pokémon anymore; I don't like it anymore. Maybe it hurts because its attached to some kind of nostalgia for me, but well... it still hurts, lol.
As a GenWunner 32-year-old I can tell you that your distaste for Pokemon is not due to hitting a certain age. It came from the specific lineup of games that you mentioned. We fell out of love at the same time in the same way despite being totally different ages.
I'm a fan of Fire Emblem as well as Pokémon so this channel is _relevant to my interests_ - I've kinda fallen out with both franchises for the same reasons. They're chasing a wider, more casual audience and I'm not part of it. I guess we're both casualties of gaming achieving a mainstream audience and therefore being subjected to the same commercial pressures blockbuster films are. Development budgets are massive, marketing budgets are massive and there's less room for experimentation and depth. Another way to look at it - limitations breed creativity, and video games are losing their limitations. At 31, I'm ancient by the internet's standards. It's a funny feeling realizing I'm just not young any more. But like you, I think my feelings have more to do with the way the gaming market has evolved than just "getting older". There's the little picture - you - and the big picture - everything else. As we change, so does the world around us and not all change is for the better.
@@rdrrr Even when a good game comes out, it gets bogged down by a shit ton of DLC and microtransactions meant to suck you dry. Less so for the RPG series you mentioned, but this just sadly the way triple AAA big budget games seem to be going. God I'm so happy we live in an era where indie games can thrive, or else I'd probably completely fall off gaming as a hobby.
@@floppavevo5920 Man, some companies are really aggressive with their DLC practices. I'm a history nerd so I play Paradox games but Paradox are the absolute worst for pumping out tons and tons of low-quality, barely play tested DLC that add mechanics that don't integrate with anything else in the game. I'll never buy any of their products again, I don't want to support their exploitative economic model. Funny how Oblivion Horse Armor got so much shit back in the day but it's so much less cynical than a lot of DLC nowadays...
@@rdrrr I'm in this same boat. It loses its niche appeal after becoming mainstream and a husk of its former self. I remember it was a stigma to like Pokemon in the late 3rd gen-7th gen until the GO boom happened. Now those people who made your life hell growing up with are into what you liked now, acting like they knew it deeply before it was cool. Weird analogy but that's how it feels. This isn't just a Pokemon problem, but all of geek culture.
For me, the first cracks started showing back in Gen 5. I watched the anime religiously until pikachu was K.O.'d by a level 5 snivy and Ash reverted back to his Indigo League days. Black & White were the first time a Pokemon game felt like a slog to get through. After X & Y, I just watched the franchise I grew up with just slowly decay.
I couldn't agree more. I used to be *the* person my friends and coworkers thought of in regards to Pokemon. Knew everything there was to know, had a ton of merchandise, could basically write an essay on any Pokemon if prompted, logged hundreds of hours IV breeding, EV training, and battling on each title...hell, I learned to draw *just* so I could draw Pokemon, practicing every day just for that. Then Sun and Moon dropped. It hurt, but I figured things would get better after that. And then they fed us the lie that they'd be giving us better animations and models. They haven't gotten a cent out of me since. I *want* to love Pokemon, and it really feels like I lost a part of myself. It really is a weird limbo of apathy and indignation.
I watched this video and I felt so heartbroken I feel so guilty now, because I genuinely like the most of games Pokemon made and it just tears me apart that because of people like me so many other people lost something so important and cherished I've been with Pokemon for 9 years and I've turned 20 this year, and I feel like my love for the franchise is on its peak and Pokemon is, like, a half of my personality I feel truly sorry for all people who fell out of love with the franchise, I hope you all guys will truly be able to move on to something that may fill the void that Pokemon left in your heart💔
...how? how can you look at the new pokemon games and not feel distaste (at best)? edit: not trying to be mean or aggressive or anything, genuinely asking.
@@comyuse9103 idk, I just like to play it. That's taking into an account the fact that I have a library of over 100 completed different games that are much better. I guess I'm just weird :D
When I was 20, I felt the exact same way. Now I'm 27, and I feel exactly how they described in the video. Maybe it's the age, or maybe it's being around long enough to finally observe the linear decline in quality. I hope it doesn't happen to you, but either way I don't think it's your fault. No amount of consumer hold out was going to stop this, Pokemon is simply too big to fail and too big to be reigned in.
@@tristanneal9552 well, I can see the decline of quality in these games. Moreover, I talk about them pretty frequently, especially when someone else asks me "what Pokemon game should I play". However, I just.... don't concentrate on them when I play the games. Again, I've played all mainline games starting with Pokemon Yellow, as well as dozens of other games in general. I just always come back to Pokemon like to a problematic child. Yeah, they drink, swear, run away from the house, make troubles and don't listen to you, but you still love them, because it's your child no matter what :D. I guess my relationship with Pokemon are kind of the same
Watching this (very well written) video made me realise that I too had given up on hoping that anything good would be coming out of Pokemon in the future, and that the only reason I didn't notice sooner was because I'd practically only been engaging in the parts that were still nostalgic to me. A different but all too similar disillusionment, one where you hide away in your bunker and pretend the world outside isn't real, so to speak. But you can only replay Gold, Snap, Ruby, Diamond and White so many times, only buy nostalgic trading cards for a vintage collection so many times, only escape into what WAS so many times, before the illusion breaks absolutely and the lights come back on. By trying to avoid apathy I over indulged in halcyon comfort, as if I'd found the source of a nostalgic smell, and devoured it I think I'm ready to leave the bunker now. Ready to search for newer, better gaming experiences, and to let my memories of Pokemon rest forever as simply just that: memories
"That game sat for 10 months in a cabinet still in the saran wrap" OMG same, my brother also bought me Pokemon Violet and I also never bothered opening it... I tried to exchange it for a discount on another game multiple times, but no where would even accept Pokemon Scarlet/Violet for trade in.
I can't say I've had that experience; I may not have been vocal about my actual gripes with Pokemon to my family, but I still told them not to bother getting any of it for any next birthday or holiday if it was "for" me. My sis went on to get the remaining 3DS games we didn't have, by herself. I didn't even look in their general direction, not even when she played them. And then we practically abandoned the franchise on the Switch except for PMD DX.
I knew I had truly fallen out of love with Pokémon when my Switch died and I lost all of my Pokémon that I had kept through time. I had a full living dex including ALL variations (all colors of Floette, Deerling, all regional forms, etc.), all of the teams I had used since X and Y, multiple boxes of legit shinies, multiple boxes of legit mythicals, so many rare events like shiny locked mons or mons with their hidden abilities that you can't obtain in-game. One day a few years ago my Switch died, and I wasn't using Pokémon Home, so I had all of my mons on the save files. Since the save files are stored on the Switch and not the cartridges, I just lost everything. Years of collecting... You can't back-up Pokémon games for some reason, so there was nothing I could do. But the saddest thing is that I wasn't even as sad as I thought I'd be. It was just like "Oh well that really sucks. Oh well I guess." I realized Pokémon just wasn't as important to me anymore, and THAT's what made me most sad.
Really enjoyed this. I've found myself at the same apathy, but for different reasons. I go back and play the old games, I feel nothing. I play the new games, I feel nothing. The logical part of my brain can see all the ways the new stuff isn't as good, but the numbness is equal. As I play more JRPGs, get into fire emblem, phantasy star, and steam's wonderful indie offerings, I start to think that the strategy of pokemon is just not enough for me anymore. I used to beat 4 or more pokemon games a year. Last year, not even one.
I think the first time I felt this was when I played Dragon Quest Jokers for The Nintendo DS. It felt way ahead of Pokémon mechanically and was more expansive during that time. By the time ORAS and Sun and Moon came along I've already played so many JRPGs and thought the combat in Pokémon was no longer deep. The games also still HEAVILY pailed in comparison to PMD2 Explorers of Sky and Pokémon Colosseum/XD. Now playing any Pokémon game in comparison to most modern RPGs/JRPGs feels like going back two decades.
I'm so glad you called the battle system Pokemon's greatest strength. Not enough people realize that, especially in Gamefreak. The Gen IV games gave an illusion that we hate long battles, we just hate long animations that we'll see 1000 times. But they took that info and decided to make 90% of all trainer battles from Gen VI and on to have only 1 Pokemon on their team, 2 if we're lucky. The games got boring because they made the most fun part boring. They extended the animations to the point where we were barely playing for almost an hour straight in Sun&Moon and made all the battles meaningless distractions for the lame story that didn't even get the full attention it should've. Their method of the past decade has been to cut the battles and boost the amount of extra stuff nobody likes. It's not just being jaded, they actually legitimately destroyed everything the games used to be. There's a reason why I still only replay older games from Gen VI and back, and its because any of the newer games are unbearably boring, and totally different games. It's not what I want to play, so i just replay their old games, and don't give them any more of my money. The more new Pokemon they make, the less I care about the universe. I remember realizing that 1000 was not far away, I would've thrown a party for that pokemon and praised whoever it was for whatever reason. Now I'm at a point where I don't even care to know who it is, and this is coming from a consistent fan since 96. Only game I didnt touch was Scarlet and Violet. Feels so sad to finally give this up, and frustrating to accept that we never really will get a high quality Pokemon game ever. The old games were perfect, but they were cheaper games, they weren't ever really high quality for their time. I used to be hopeful that when it comes to console we will see it, but after a decade of disappointment, I know they will never turn that boat around.
This really echoed the feelings I’ve had of this series lately. I haven’t quite given up on the series yet, but every year since X and Y I felt that the games have been totally hollow. You really nailed it when you said that the old games had genuine polish and love in them. I remember reading an interview for Black/White 2 where a developer said they tried to squeeze in as many things as possible into the games, and their responses to interview questions had this really excited tone like they were making something from the heart. When I compare that to something like Violet, that passion just isn’t there unfortunately. There still are just enough glimmers of hope for me to keep playing these games, but I can see myself finally dropping it in a couple more years like you did 😢
i love your old pokemon plushies! they remind me of my little riolu. i (read: my mom at my behest) bought him as a gift for my best friend when i was in 4th grade... and then i couldn't bear to give him away and i kept him. To this day I haven't told her he was meant to be hers lmao. I had no idea where to get a riolu in the game, either - i never did iron island in diamond. so when i saw that that very same best friend *had* a riolu in her game, i offered her EVERYTHING for it in a trade. i even offered her my beloved kadabra, my favorite pokemon that I'd used and had carry me from the very start of the game (and that neither of us at that point knew how to evolve), but she wouldn't trade it to me. even though I eventually figured it out, Riolu's felt like such a special little guy to me ever since those days. nowdays the plushie is so color-worn and dirty, but I'm afraid to throw him in the washer. he's still soft, very huggable, and the space between his ears on top of his head is still the perfect size to kiss. I'm kind of halfway to falling out of love with pokemon too, but i love my little guy
Putting him through the wash would not be a good idea, the stuffing inside could mold. And thus he'd be ruined for ever, more so than he already is from discoloration. Now, the way you could is by opening a seam and removing the stuffing, then washing it in the washer. It would somewhat repair the discoloration, and remove some stains. However, as it's a Pokémon plush, and thus a collectors item (albeit used), it's likely you'd never want to do that. Plus no guarantee you'd even know how to re-sew the seam, not everyone is a sewing master...
The first pokemon i played was red, way back when game boys were battery powered bricks and i couldn't even read. My brother and i had to ask our mom to save the game whenever we stopped playing. Ruby was the first game i played that i could fully understand and experience by myself, and hoenn feels like a second home to me still. Pearl blew my kid mind with the step-up in graphics, it audibly made me gasp when i watched my brother boot it up when he got it for his birthday. Alpa Sapphire is predictably my favorite pokemon game to date. My love for the franchise began to fade with shield. I was uninterested in arceus, the diamond remake appaled me, and at long last violet became the tomb to my love of pokemon. Played three hours, then never touched it again. I'll come back to the games i did enjoy, a yearly replay of alpha sapphire is a tradition of mine by now. But i will not buy new games anymore. The heart is gone. I'm moving on.
The last Pokemon game i really remotely cared about were the Alola games and the Hoenn remakes. I played Let's go eevee and while i enjoyed seeing Eevee be a starter, i wasn't a big fan of the Pokemon Go aspect. And I wasn't gonna play any of the other Pokemon games on switch but my cousin wanted me to play with her so she and my aunt ended up getting me Shield and Violet. While I enjoyed Violet a lot more than Shield, I still didn't like it much. I wasn't a big fan of the dynamaxing in Sword/Shield and I wasn't too fond of terrastralizing in Violet. The only reason I even play Violet and Shield is for the new fave pokemon I liked from both games. (Hattarene, Galarian Rapidash, and Frosmoth from Shield and Fidough, Quaxley, and Clodsire from Violet).
This video summarizes the entirety of the 5 stages I went through after sun and moon was over and sword and shield came around. I’ve been numb to it ever since. I caught them all back during x and y. That was my challenge and I did it. All 718.
Oh I fell out of being a big Pokémon fan around gen 4 I think. I can’t remember the last game I played, definitely none of the modern games. But I’ll always have a special attachment to those really early years with Pokémon, just seeing merch and content for them cheers me up even if I don’t participate in the series anymore. Great video, thanks for catching that nostalgia that many of us shared in our childhood
Im going to be fully honest, this video is art. Its understandable to be sad when something youve grown alongside changes. But such is the nature of things, to always change. Im glad you still recognize it as a love once loved. I hope you find many more amazing interests to love just as much, if not even more deeply :)
This is a really well written essay. The ending brought me to literal tears. My love for pokemon really does remind me of my ex. It’s weird, but you appreciating the good times is now helping me do the same. I have the same issue with pokemon now too, I love it, but I love what it WAS. And what it did for me as a child.
I can truly appreciate this video. Ironically, I feel the exact same about most of the franchises I enjoy, as if it was a curse that whatever I'm fated to like is ruined by a company's greed.
I WAS alive in the 90s. I got in on the ground floor with RBY. I lived and breathed it, and it helped me immensely through a hard time in my life and connected me to my neighbors--my first new friends after a sudden move. I fell out of Pokemon in high school, then got back into it in college. The Black and White launch was such a great college memory... and then things declined, slowly but surely, as I was an adult, especially post-X&Y. I still like Pokemon in concept, but generally... I agree with you. And I echo the "not mad, just disappointed" sentiment. I want the magic my childhood self experienced on that tiny, un-backlit Gameboy Color screen or the magic of my stressed college self kicking back with HGSS and BW on the DS back... and I'll probably never get it. Such is the way it goes.
This was enough to make a grown man cry. I never comment on youtube videos but this video moved me. As someone who grew up in the 2000s i will always look back at the memories of pokemon and be thankful that I got to experience pokemon at its best. Today's pokemon is a hot dumpster fire that needs to be completely reworked and gamefreak and the pokmeon company will never take the time or effort on them like they did with generations 1-5. Dollar signs burned into gamefreak's retna. Like you said in the video there are so many time restraints and pressure from the suits that the people working on the games couldnt even put care into the game if they wanted to. Game freak and the pokemon company are a shell of the company they used to be. Even going after youtube channels DMCA striking them and taking down multiple videos because they are using an emulator or modding them to add a breath of life to a game they hold so many fond memories of. Its sad when you realize that the people who literally MADE your childhood what it is dont care about you.
Thise aren't the people who made your childhood. The artists, composers, programmers, etc who really made Pokémon what it is by and large don't care what you do with the games, I'm sure. The ones that are doing this are suits that don't care about any of that.
I agree with you and I slowly started to care less and less around Gen 5/6. However more importantly, I didnt know Pokemon Mystery Dungeon DX was a remake, thnks for bringing it up!
I think this is one of my favorite video of yours, and really makes me want to reflect on the things I've loved and love, and put it on writing, since I was thinking about it anyways and falling out of things is something that I want to think about a bit more now.
Maaaan, this hit. Pokemon was so much for me. It was THE big thing that improved my drawings via obsession after dinosaurs, it was my first videogame, it was the reason I was bullied relentlessly through middle school, it was the save space I could escape to during that same time. It was also the thing I spent my first self-earned money on (Diamond was bought from my first internship money) and it generally colored my interests in games (I vastly favor customization over everything else and I love fantasy creatures of all kinds). The first few notes of the original theme song still get an emotional reaction out of me. But yeah, I also fell out of love. The thing for me is, I view it less as gradually falling out of love and more like getting hit by the kitchen sink your angry lover threw at you. I think that made it easier for me. I actually still really like everything up to ORAS and I just enjoyed a replay of Sun despite thinking it was "the first bad one". I can point to SwSh as the first slap, to keep with the relationship analogy, BDSP the second and then SV as the kitchen sink, because that game is just broken on a technical level. I find it easier that way, because it's less "my fault" for growing out of it than Pokemon just doing it to itself. I also found a whole genre to explore thanks to Pokemon, so I'm not actually missing something I like. Sure, those memories and influences I mentioned at the top of this comment, those are irreplaceable, but in my opinion, they don't have to be replaced or matched. I had a good time while it lasted, I still have a good time replaying the old games (my faves are Crystal and White 1/2) and I think that's what counts. I'm glad I don't have to feel bitter about it. Thanks Pokemon SV.
I used to be a huge Pokemon fan too. My earliest childhood memories are of me re-watching the same couple of episodes of the original anime that I had on VHS. Gen 4 was my intro generation to the games and the franchise as a whole (I had red and blue for the GB but I was 4 and didn't know what I was doing) and ever since then I played every main line game and the entire mystery dungeon series, watching every episode of the anime every week it came out, and even tried the TCG but never really got into it due to my inexperience with card games at the time. I feel like everything you said on this video nearly perfectly describes my own journey with Pokemon. I think most older (like really early 2000s/Gen 5 and below) Pokemon fans also share a similar Journey and Gamefreak HAS to be aware if this and yet they continue to allow themselves to degrade. I too now only feel apathy and its a bit disheartening knowing such a huge joy in my past has now become such a disappointment.
Honestly part of what made Pokemon special is simply the interactions with others growing up. Remembering who you fought with and played the games with is what made these special. I grew up and played all the way to series 4. I still recall who I played with in battles. Heck even my brother and sisters who were younger played all the way to 7th gen. If you have real life friends theres nothing wrong with falling out of the craze but Remember its the shared memories which you shouldn't throw away. Ironically I'm the Gen 1 generation and whenever I talk to people my age no matter what walk of life or how much of a dick a person is, if I ask about their Pokémon experience everyone has a fond memory(ies).
This very sentiment you expressed here is exactly what I've been experiencing. Even though I didn't really grow up with pokemon until I was 12 and gen 5 was ending, recently I just fell out of love with it. I still love the older games and characters, but it just doesn't feel the same anymore and I can't reignite that spark that it once had... beautiful video thank you so much
This video hits hard. 100%. I grew up with everything pokemon. From toys, cards, apparel, animated series to the video games on console and handhelds. The last pokemon series I enjoyed was gen 6 in 2013 as I was in college. I firmly believed pokemon fell off since. It just doesn't capture the essence and the emotional impact anymore not. It's now 2024 and I'm in my 30s. From time to time, I still go on youtube and listen to pokemon soundtracks and even hour long videos of pokemon lofi.
This captured a feeling that I hadn't even realised I had. I too played Sword & Shield and found it deeply whatever, gave up on Legends Arceus halfway through and I wanted to keep liking Pokemon so bad but I didn't even bother buying Scarlet & Violet. I loved Pokemon so much, and I still love the old stuff. Gen 2 and 5 especially, one being my first game and the other probably the height of my enjoyment of the series. I have a Spinarak plushie I take with me everywhere, but the new Pokemon added in SV don't even look real to me. I don't know where I'm going with this comment but thanks for the video, possibly the most relatable thing I've watched.
I don't share all of the same issues that other people have with modern pokémon for pretty circumstantial reasons, but it does make me sad to see a lot of the decisions they've made recently and how so many fans are falling out of love with it. Ever since the jump to 3D they've had a difficult time making solid games within their deadlines and they either need to slow down or get a larger team. That's really all they need to make a complete-feeling experience. Eventually they'll have to step it up again one way or another and I don't say that out of hope, that's just how business goes.
In the UK, over the summer of 1998, I played Final Fantasy VII for the first time. For almost everybody in the UK, it was our first JRPG. This was not because the other ones were obscure and FF7 had very aggressive marketing, but because they didn't _exist_ here. FF1, as well as the "2" and "3" that were actually 4 and 6 didn't even make it here. Super Mario RPG's PAL release was cancelled. It was FF7 and Suikoden. And that was pretty much it. Pokemon was not only an oasis to some very thirsty new JRPG fans like myself, but it was mainstream popular, so unlike FF7 which was still a bit niche, liking Pokemon meant you could connect with people, and I basically had another FF game. I even used Pokemon as a gateway game to get younger players into FF, and JRPGs in general once we started getting them released here. What I therefore didn't accept back then was that the game... actually wasn't all that good. The campaign balance was a joke. The graphics were actually quite lazy. The mechanics had interesting ideas but weren't implemented with any proper challenge in mind, and half of them didn't even work. The trainer AI either selected random moves, spammed sleep (and would even "select" it if you woke up that turn) or spammed moves with a super-effective type, even if the move did no damage. Six years in development and that was the best they could do. I'm not joking when I say I've played RPG Maker games made by two teenagers in the space of a year that were better than that. (I know RPG Maker is a proprietary engine but that has the ability to let the user tweak enemy AI so it's not just acting entirely randomly, and these teenage amateurs would actually use that.) It took all the way until Sword and Shield to make me realize the series was really never all that good and I'd lied to myself about what it actually was. I used to be ride or die for this franchise. Now I don't think I could possibly hate it more. I resent the fact it's the highest grossing media franchise of all time, and I'm kinda disgusted with myself for ever supporting it. I am also convinced that FF7 was the reason Pokemon got that belated westward push. Bear in mind, normally when Nintendo made or published a game back then, they were already taking localization into account. For the most part, we didn't have to wait two or three years after the Japanese release to play a text-heavy game. And yet, well into the life cycle of the Game Boy Color, Nintendo put out an SGB game over a year _after_ FF7 had played such an integral role in the PSX annihilating their market share, and two years after R/G's Japanese release. Very convenient. P.S. Sorry, I deleted the first comment by accident while trying to copy the text :P
I don't think I'll ever hate Pokemon, but I also have pretty much fallen out of love with it. But in addition to agreeing on the same points you mention, Sword/Shield came out when my friend group had fallen apart, so I no longer had people to play with. The social aspect was no longer there for me, which ended up highlighting just how "meh" the games were.
Pokémon today isn't Pokémon from back in the day. There's different dev teams, the concepts have evolved beyond recognition. While the state of the new ones is sad, it could never taint what Pokémon meant and means to me. Love this vid.
I share a similar experience with Pokemon, StarWars, Marvel and D.C content. But here's the thing. Even if the new stuff is bad we'll always have the old stuff to remember. At least we got to experience the good and new comers can always go back to experience them as well.
I will say, Pokémon violet did make me feel like a kid again. Sure, it’s not the 2d Pokémon but I felt like the jankyness made violet fun and running everywhere back and forth catching all the Pokémon’s. It was awesome. No I didn’t beat the game because I then got bored but it was awesome when it made forget about all the stress in my personal life . Any ways need to play arceus and see where that leads me .
I'm still madly in love with the idea of Pokémon, but it's... it's like... I'm in love with its potential. I would literally bawl tears of joy if they released a Let's Go Eeveelution! and I could pick a Glaceon or Sylveon and just hug them and love them to death. Holding "hands" with a sweet little Sylveon or brushing a Glaceon's precious fur while she smiles up at me would fkn fill me with happiness of a new sort I can only merely imagine. Integrate these with the game mechanics and make it different for every Eeveelution. Flareon's warm floof makes them extra huggable and snuggly, Jolteon's super playful with outdoor sports, Vaporeon loves swimming with the trainer and playing aquatic games, etc. These could extend into ways the trainer approaches the game and its progression toward collecting badges and catching new Pokémon. Idk, just... so much potential... So much wonderful potential, and imagine all this in a PLA-like open-world MMO-type thing. It's been my childhood dream. But I just don't know if they'll ever give that many fucks about us. They sure love to shut down the fan games that try to make this stuff a reality; I wish they cared that much about their own releases. It is one of the most heartbreaking and complicated love-hate relationships a player can have with a franchise their whole childhood was based on and that they still love deeply as a middle-aged adult.
Back in my day, we had only 151 pokemon. My love for pokemon catching and world exploring is now replaced by my hobby of mushroom hunting in the woods. It's really fun to ID them and take photos or even pick some tasty ones to cook. Pokemon was inspired by the love of nature exploring: catching bugs, bird watching, etc. You should give it a try.
As many others have already said, thank you SO much for making this video. I'm an older fan (90s baby and 1st game was gen 2 lol), but gen 4 is my all time favorite. When I saw BDSP I pretty much knew I had to let go of this series, no matter how much I still love it and am thankful for the experiences it's given me. I was utterly heartbroken. Now, much of my enjoyment comes exclusively from Romhacks and fan made games at this point, but even then, I've realized that it's better to just take a cautionary step back, and remember that what I love about Pokemon is the memories, and the friends and community that's been made from it, not the product Nintendo/GF has been giving us. :/
You actually put into words what i had been feeling for a while now, ever since sword and shield. I didn't like them, and i wanted to so bad. I remember playing X and Y with my brother and cousin on our 3ds' at our grandma's house. We couldn't figure out how to use the wireless feature to link trade. When we finally did, I remember we screamed in joy. I traded my Aegislash for my cousin's Raichu, and I still remember the grin on her face after we traded. My brother and I especially, fell in love with Pokemon. We played previous games too, and were both really excited for sun and moon. All three of us, my brother, cousin, and I, went to the Pokemon philharmonic orchestra. Pokemon brought us closer. The older Pokemon mystery dungeons were also games that helped me through a really tough time at the beginning of high school. Coming home after a long day at school to play something like explorers of sky, red rescue team, or pokemon super mystery dungeon was incredibly refreshing. I miss games with a soul and a story. Something about new video games, especially remakes and new Nintendo games, feel just, soulless? It's really exhausting to have your memories and feelings monetized, it seems like. I want to like the new games. I really do. But I just cant seem to keep buying $50- $70 games that make me feel empty inside. It made me feel guilty, almost, feeling this way, thinking that I was just being critical. I'm glad its not just me feeling this way. Thank you for this video. This was gut wrenching and really made me cry. I hope someday I play a Pokemon game and feel how I did when I link traded with my cousin.
Your story is funnily not much different from mine. With XY starting that decline and fizzling out my passion, my fiery passion for Yo-Kai Watch only grew over time and still burns bright. It's because of the simple fact that pretty much any of the common criticisms I and and many others had for Pokemon just do not exist in the 3DS Yo-Kai Watch games. Kinda adds to the disillusionment Sun and Moon created by trying so hard to implement Yo-Kai Watch features to poor execution after ORAS got outsold by YKW2 in Japan. Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee also have different core gameplay loops with catching but it is still a main series game.
I don't really care about the new games post gen 6 but I still love the old games, I play the base games and rom hacks whenever my heart feels the need. I don't think I'll ever fall out of love with those old games, they carried me through the worst times of my life and produced some of my favorite memories but the sadness of new adventures being gone is pretty nasty tbh. Thank you for the video, man.
sword and shield was when my love for pokémon died. any time i try to go back to an older game to relive the enjoyment i had before, i can never finish them. they just don’t hit the same anymore
Many of us have felt this way. Plenty of us have even flirted with the idea that maybe we just outgrew pokemon. In reality we could have had the great epic stories that pokemon could have offered with great improving gameplay each generation. Because of greed and apathy from the very company that holds our nostalgia we no longer live what we once did. I was not excited for x&y and scarlet and violet was hard to get through. It’s been a long time since the idea for the next game was about the pokemon fans themselves and it shows in the community sentiment. Beautiful video, thank u for summarizing what many of us feel in a direct and eloquent way.
At least we still have fan projects to keep the community afloat. Personally, my love for Pokémon will never die, but that love is given from the hands of a passionate fan base rather than the actual licensed games themselves.
Felt this. Like I probably would've had similar feelings going into future titles past swsh if not for swsh making me so lukewarm on pokemon, prepping me perfectly for falling hook line and sinker into a digimon brainrot that started in 2020 and has yet to leave me. Unironically the digimon anime hit all the boxes for what I liked out of pokemon and more and I basically dove straight in there and never looked back. I still like pokemon but it's certainly an indifference now more than anything else
This is such a deeply relatable video. You captured my frustrations with the game & community perfectly. I fell out of love with pokemon after sword & shield. Seeing Gamefreak fail to deliver on the series' potential over and over afterwards made me care even less. I felt like a lunatic when I would see people praising all their horrible decisions. Recently and now in my 20s, I decided to check out the pokemon anime, I heard it ended recently so I wanted to watch it for nostalgia's sake. The episodes weren't particularly good, but it brought a tear to my eye seeing the end of a story I was so invested in as a child. So many memories of me as a kid, who was OBSESSED with pokemon, came flooding back. Flash forward to now, I'm beginning to love Pokemon again for the first time in years. In spite of recent releases. Albeit, not with the all-consuming fervour I once had for the franchise.
This is one of the best videos I've seen on this platform. I love how you tell your story alongside how pokemon games were developing over the years. Your story also really resonates with me personally because I had those same adventures with the pokemon games growing up. And after seeing what the games have become nowadays I had almost reached the same conclusion you have. But, I have always had one foot in the pokemon fan game community, so I simply turned all my adoration of pokemon towards the people that truly care and the passionate games they make. I don’t blame anyone at all for not caring about Pokemon... it's been a dying ship for quite awhile. But if you ever become slightly interested in Pokemon, I invite everyone to check out the Pokemon fan game and rom hacking communities. Because thats where the love for the pokemon games truly flourishes.
No shade to the fan game community, but I've had an epiphany. Trying to be a fan game dev myself I keep running into the issue of the Pokemon's core gameplay loop getting in the way of my own creative ideas for the project. I have come to the conclusion to make Pokémon exciting from a gameplay perspective its gameplay loop needs to change,- meaning Pokémon needs to be changed on a fundamental level. I realize that I'm better off making my own original game rather than trying to fix Pokémon in its entirety to make its gameplay loop truly engaging and have meaningful depth and challenges for all audiences. Nowadays, I only play fan games and rom hacks for the story. It's strange, my opinion on Pokémon was a lot more hopeful 7 months ago, but now I understand that Pokémon itself needs to evolve drastically to make its gameplay new and fresh again. Pokémon has always been the same stale cracker sold in different colored packages over the decades. I'll see if I have more to add after rewatching this video... (edit) Yeah, I fell out of love for Pokemon, I can't hope to make a fan game for Pokemon if I simply don't love Pokemon anymore.
While I have been really critical of the series (since gen 3) and fell out of love mostly for the games and merch, I think I'm starting to appreciate more and more the ideas and concepts the series was built from. Just that sense of adventure into the unknown and also being really interesting in insects as a kid like Satoshi really made me understand why I gravitated toward sthe series to begin with. Recently watching Pokémon Concierge, I realize Pokémon has a lot of appeal outside games and just battling. The series is still a goldmine of potential and new ideas I hope they keep experimenting like they have with Concierge and the Legends series.
A game that really brought the magic back for me was PokeMMO. It's an MMO Pokémon game, so I get to play with a bunch of different people and experience new events and an economy. It feels like the next step the mainline Pokémon games should've taken.
I definitely relate to this. I played both pokemon black and pokemon sun/moon during the same time in my life and pokemon black slapped way harder for me personally. This is a very good video on how pokemon as a franchise is changing, and how things arent the same anymore
I came to terms with this, my childhood was satisfied with ORAS even if it lacked the battle front and romhacks remain a nice time passer I can keep on my phone, but when I look at the new games it feels like we are sticking a kid's crude drawing on the fridge door "Oooh they made a decent plot in the epilogue part! Next time the entire story might be good!" "You can see the wild pokemon in the overworld, sometimes interacting with each other! They _kinda_ feel alive" "They are streamlining the gameplay, it's a bit less of a slog this time!" thats how I felt playing Arceus and SV, consensus among more observant fans is that they want to do better and up standards, but they can't reach as far as they wish on a single release just like they cut down many corners and leave things unpolished, and it's unclear if their workflow and structure just isn't prepared for the demands of games on a bigger scale or they just don't get the time and resources they need, which would be okay on indie rpgs, but not on the most profitable franchise ever
I feel like you have put into words what I have been feeling for so long. I remember sitting in my college dorm room watching people Livestream Sun and Moon while eating ramen out of a measuring cup thinking the next release I'll be able to play myself. And then the next release burned me so bad. I didn't buy the DLC, I didn't play gen 9. I like Legends as it's own thing, but mainline Pokemon has just became something I can't seem to care about anymore. Young me would have been shocked to learn that a new generation has been out for over a year and not only have I not picked it up, but that I have no desire to.
The downfall since XY and i agree 100%..fell out of love for the series at sun and moon.... its sad to see so many others accept an empty shell with a Pokemon logo on it. A positive for me is that my falling out has only made me love Gen 1-5 even more ❤
I understand your predicament. I truly do. To be honest I think the primary reason is that you feel as if you just dont have much do to in the games anymore. I had the same problem you do right now, and fell into a lull for pokemon, even having my cards stolen from me years ago. Growing up with Gen IV and V, i felt myself always coming back to them but still feeling...nothing. BDSP felt like such a large slap in the face. Just when i had almost written the franchise out of my life an old friend of mine dumped a few games on me that he didnt want. One of these was Pokemon Colosseum. At first i didnt think much of it, even not liking the game very much. I put it down and didnt look at it for a few months. It was also around this time that SirToasty uploaded a video. This video detailed him playing Pokemon Colosseum, and getting a shiny Scizor in order to obtain every possible ribbon on one Pokemon. I watched it and didnt think anything of it until i remembered i owned Colosseum. Its bizzare but that sort of lit a fire in me again. I looked up what pokemon could be shiny and settled on one of my favorites, Croconaw. I spent two months hunting but eventually got the croconaw to shine. I traded it out of colosseum and into my Emerald copy and from there i just started playing every game, and working to get every possible ribbon on this little guy. He started in Colosseum, then went to Emerald, then to HeartGold, Pearl, then to Black, and now hes in X, as im working on the Gen VI ribbons. Im not going to lie, this is the most enjoyment I've had playing pokemon in years, watching the ribbon page fill up more and more is making me feel as if the time spent playing the game is actually worth it. Now i know it's probably just me in the end, but still, I'd strongly recommend trying this challenge. it's not easy by any means. It's given me a great appreciation as well for each game he goes through. I never imagined something as simple as ribbon collecting would make me fall back in love with the games.
You absolutely nailed the feeling I have with Pokémon recently the hope, the forgiveness and eventually the désillusion.. Diamond and pearl graphics was the knife in the heart
S&V was the point when when I finally got burnt out on the whole thing. Shame, too. They gave my favorite Pokemon (Dunsparce) an evolution and the character designs were honestly phenomenal.
i honestly think pokemon peaked in gens 3-5, and i find myself returning to that span of time much more than the recent games. i really hope things change someday, but that hope dwindles slowly. ill just stick to replaying my childhood favorites for now (currently playing heartgold, on a homebrewed 3ds because i am NOT paying the secondhand prices people want for those games)
I started with Gen I and by Gen IV/V I had lost interest in the series. It's not that the games got bad, I think it's just that I grew up and realized I didn't have a sense of awe and wonder doing the same core gameplay loop over for the nth time. Good video soda crab!
It's so validating to finally find someone who feels the same way about Pokemon that I've been for years. I hate to generalize, but sometimes it does seem like the majority of Pokemon fans don't acknowledge or care about the decline of effort and care put into the games. When I hear news about Pokemon, its usually about a new product they're selling. Pokemon isn't about video games anymore, I believe they're closer to a company like Sanrio, where the main profit drivers are products containing their characters, and any other media is just an afterthought. Pokemon doesn't need to make good games because either way, they'll still make a profit.
Oh man…this video hit me like a truck. I grew up with Hoenn mostly but my sentiments are the same. My personal memories with it were with my cousins and brother and how we’d play the games, play pretend as the Pokemon and how my cousin made certificates out of construction paper every time I accomplished something like beating a trainer. I’ve fallen out of love with Pokemon for the same reasons you have, and while I still love it and I appreciate every time my brother gets me a gift of something Pokémon, I still feel empty playing a lot of the recent games. Lately Bugsnax has been that thing that fills the void of Pokemon and why I love it so it’s not all terrible though.
I love your storytelling. I personally have never delve too deep into the Pokémon games. I never grew up with them, but just hearing your stories about the older games makes me wanna actually play them for the first time.
for me ive never really fallen out of love with pokemon because me and one of my friends go on a discord call every time we play a pokemon game so legends was really fun for us because the whole time we would banter so the empty parts of the game were never empty i really only get lots of joy out of the series by playing with a friend or booting up showdown
For me the apathy for Pokémon arrived when ultra sun and moon were announced. I liked playing Sun, but not enough to play it all over again. It was the first time I saw a Pokémon game as not worth getting which was a feeling I didn’t know how to reconcile with.
god this video was so good, i remember playing fire red on my cousin’s game boy when i could barely read the in game text and ever since that day i’ve loved the franchise. every new game was such an incredible adventure, getting stuck in certain areas, losing gym battles over and over, and just being completely enthralled and addicted to the franchise. sun and moon was the nail in the coffin for me, it just wasn’t the same, i knew where to go, what to expect, etc. do i still replay older titles every year? yeah. but do i keep up with the new games and developments? not really. i’m ok with that though, pokemon is a solid grounding point to my childhood, and i’m ok with letting the “love” die off. i still love pokémon, but not like i loved pokémon when i was 6-16.
I just fell back in love with my 3DS and the whole ds/3Ds saga. It made me so terribly sad and angry about the current state of the franchise. How did it fell so bad? And it still sells like crazy!! Knowing how big companies are, as long as they keep selling, they won’t change.
I haven't finished the video yet but the title has definitely drawn me in, ive been feeling this way so much lately. I was obsessed with pokemon as a kid to the point my classmates made a song about me and pokemon. I bought plushies when i first had my own access to my bank card. But nowadays i feel nothing for it, the recent games are really such a let down. I've always been an extremely casual gamer, but man, after playing games like mario odyssey and splatoon, it really made me aware of how much pokemon had been lacking and how much its fallen off for lack of a better word. Every new thing makes me more frustrated than excited, i dread any types of remakes more than i could ever look forward to them. No more rambling, but im excited to watch the video and hear your perspective
Thanks for making this video i share a lot of the views, the decline after oras and the nostalgia, genuine shivers man. I havent bought a game after ultra sunmoon and for now it will stay that way. Nintendo generally tends to trample on us lately, but I am cherishing the past it gave us.
I don't think I'll ever truly hate pokemon, I just wish the games could manage to keep up with the reputation the franchise set for itself
I really feel like an old man now because all I can say about pokemon is that I'm not mad, just disappointed.
@@2changJRPGmusicI'm not mad, just disappointed. (II)
@@AlexsaurusRexI'm not mad, just disappointed (III)
I’m not mad, just disappointed (IV)
lol never
Don't forget that pokémon is, for the people who own it, a product. They don't care about your memories and feelings, only how they can be monetized. They'll dangle nostalgia on your face like jingling keys just to keep you buying. Your love doesn't have to translate to financial commitment to bad product.
Between Pokemon and Star Wars I've had enough nostalgia key jangling rug pulls for my lifetime. I don't think I'll ever fall for it again.
TPC has not made a regular customer out of me, but they have made a regular fan, I'd say. I enjoy the franchise my own way
@@SodaCrabputting it with the context of Star Wars 100% makes me emotionally relate to the vid.
I’m in a position where I’m able to realize that Pokemon won’t die if I don’t keep buying. I don’t need to worry about that. They’re in a solid enough position for now. If they start doing something beautiful again, perhaps I’ll come back to it and have fun again. Until then, I just hope it manages to find itself again.
@@saadinhalf Yeah I'm in a similar spot. If they release a truly magnificent mainline game then I'll probably buy it. For now, fangames are my home
Top tear-jerkers in media:
1. First six minutes of this video
2. Opening scene from Up
if he had put in the theme from up in there for just a minute I think my tear ducts would have been permanently damaged
I probably would have if I wouldn't get a copyright strike
Lmao same I felt that too
This video spoke to me in such a unique way. My personal experience with Pokémon mirrors a lot of yours - using it as an escape from life's hardships, falling out of love with a lot of the newer installments, even details such as losing a beloved game (I lost my HeartGold copy years ago). Yet in spite of this, I never could move on from Pokémon the way you could. Maybe that has to do with me at least marginally enjoying BDSP and Scarlet/Violet and enjoying Legends Arceus, but there was something about the franchise that gripped me in a way where it could always sneak its way back into my mind. As weird as this sounds, this video made me appreciate Pokémon even more for what it once was, and to keep holding on to faith that it can someday recapture that.
You took the words out of my mouth
I resonate with this. Pokémon has been one of the most consistent things in my life. I can’t give up on it, and honestly, I never want to. It means too much to me, and I want that to continue. The franchise brings people of all types together. It’s important whether everyone in the world loves it or not, in my opinion
In my case, Pokemon forced me to give up on it not the other way around.
it'll recapture the magic as soon as half life 3 comes out and we discover FTL travel.
you took the words out of my mouth as well. unfortunately, just like you, ive lost two of my pokemon games and one of the games i had on an sdcard broke :,) however ! i believe you can fully recapture that excitement. i am 21 and yesterday, i still got excited seeing pokemon cards being sold at my grocery store. i didnt buy any since they were the newer cards, but i remember the feeling :) i hope you find it again, too.
Your description of love in a video about silly monster game for children did NOT have to go that hard
I got tears tbh
@@gg_sam7847 Nobody has done a Pokemon video that hit so home for me
was thinking the same thing like damn this "Pokemon isn't good anymore" vid got super deep all of a sudden
It kinda has too go hard😅 lol
My heart broke hearing that description, felt crippling just hearing it
Fangames and some good spinoff games feel like they're the only thing keeping my love for pokemon alive these days honestly.
All I play nowadays are the Drayano hacks which mostly keep it vanilla and the occasional run on fan games like Gaia 😢
games like coromon, nexomon, and cassette beasts take the formula for pokemon and make me feel the same joy I felt playing ORAS back when I was 7.
Can you recommend me some?
@@jeffrey5013 Radical Red, Pokerogue, Pokemon Sage, Crystal Legacy... Even in the tcg people are having fun with the GLC format. Screw Game Freak, Pokemon is THRIVING right now if you only care about fan-made content.
if it wasn't for the Reborn family of spinoff games i'd detest pokemon, ngl. but even with Reborn and its 'children' making incredible improvements to the formula it still feels less than good to play.
This kinda summarises my takes honestly, x and y were fun but sun and moon really left me feeling sad about the fact I’ll never experience the “Pokemon” I knew and loved again, everything’s just so corporate. It pissed me off how pokemons newest games feel like demos more than full games.
This
I might've enjoyed SV, but I will say SwSh killed my enjoyment with the series, and well even SwSh has alot of those issues
SV still have alot of those issues*
I’m surprised Sun and Moon made you feel that way. I was first introduced via Platinum, and when Su/Mo came out I was at the beginning of this “I guess I just grew out of it” phase of my life. Because no other pokemon game could really keep my interest like Platinum did. Except for Su/Mo. Which, at least in terms of character and story, felt like such an improvement. I don’t think they’re the _best_ games from the franchise, but I thoroughly enjoyed them. Guzma and Team Skull are, without a doubt, my favorite villain team. And the situation between Gladion, Lillie, and Lusamine is really interesting. Idk, that’s just me though.
@@TarosTheVoid I like the _idea_ behind S/V but they're so busted on a technical level it's embarrassing.
Draw distance issues, low LOD models appearing way too close to the player, huge performance dips whenever more than 2 NPCs are in frame - even when those NPCs are low-detail and have only a few frames of animation...
...S&V look like an amateur coding project or a pre-alpha build of a game. They absolutely shouldn't have been greenlit for release in that state.
I feel so, so badly for the folks who waited for the Sinnoh remakes. I grew up during gens 1 and 2. When they remade my first games, they were slam dunks. Even ORAS taught me to love Hoenn, after RSE originally released during a time when I'd kind of (temporarily) outgrown Pokémon (I'd later get back into the series with XY, and eventually fell in love with BW shortly after).
You guys deserved so much more from the Sinnoh remakes. It broke my heart, vicariously, to see that go down.
As an autistic person, Pokemon was one of my biggest special interests for years (alongside FNAF). And then one day it just -- faded. I looked at the flood of notifications from my favorite Poketubers, all about the newest generation of Pokemon, the DLC that was coming out for it. I just wasn't happy with it anymore. I couldn't keep up with all the new Pokemon, because I couldn't find the love that Pokemon had sparked in me. The past couple of months, I've felt that love returning, but I know it won't be the same. I love Pokemon, but I will never love it the same way. And coming to terms with that is difficult, but that's just how the tide flows. I find the newer games full of potential -- but that's not enough for everybody.
With respect, what on earth does your being autistic have to do with the rest of your comment?
As someone who has a special interest in Pokemon...same. I love creature collecting and such, so Pokemon was perfect for me. But the games just don't live up to expectations. Now I enjoy things like discussing Pokemon designs and theorizing type combos even if I can't enjoy the newer games as much. And at least Legends Arceus and Pokemon Snap has helped keep some interest for me in the Switch games.
Same here, but my interest started going into Digimon instead (a Pokémon fans worst enemy lol, jk).
Full of potential but never actually reaching the bare minimum. Literally edging the community.
@@vanspacerobot87 Digimon Survive and Digimon Cyber Sleuth have been way better games than the past two generations of Pokemon.
I've seen some really shitty and confusing excuses for the newer games. "The games are bigger and rendering Pokémon with random stats is hard, of _course_ it looks ugly and runs horribly!" Have any of these people played _any_ non Pokémon games on Switch? The Witcher 3 is less ugly on Switch _and_ it runs better. As a Pokémon fan, this gen has been incredibly embarrassing. TotK exists on the same platform.
EDIT (04/11/2024): Read the comment chain under this comment and you'll understand why Pokémon continues to sell so well despite the games being complete dogshit all around compared to other games on the same hardware. This is the extent that people will go to to mindlessly excuse, deflect, undermine, and even lie to make Pokémon look less bad than it actually is.
None of those games have any complex random algorithms and no one in their right mind would buy witcher 3 on switch.
@TheAbsol7448 I never said the file is what is used to create, urban cave troll.
I specifically said heavy or excessive RNG which is what Pokemon uses.
It said they are programming statements. And what if multiple sources are wrong?
I never said I was an authority on anything, you're mockingly labeling me as a physicist for just explaining quantum physics as a subject.
Response to last 7 comments.: Decompilation of source code could take months to a few years depending on experience, people trying to decompile Mario 64 weren't professional. I never said anything about taking the file and fixing it simply in any form, spaghetti code literally refers to scrambled code that refers to difficulty in decompilation, you're clearly very ignorant. Also nothing is random quantum physics isn't even completely understood and is completely theoretical which is why it uses probability. The science behind it uses probability, that doesn't mean quantum physics is random, urban cave dweller. Sure guy, bring up your 100 MB game meanwhile Pokemon randomizes far more data. A world in dwarf is less than that of a randomized item model in Pokemon.
@@rpgfanatic9719 Dude. Your middle school calculator could generate like a million Pokémon a second. It's really not that hard computationally.
And, yes they do. It's called behavior and pathfinding. And in TotK specifically, weather and physics.
@@TheAbsol7448 No they can't, non-deterministic algorithms especially if when used when performing many processes at once are more latent
"Efficiency: Quick vs Deliberate
Typically, deterministic algorithms are sprinters. They're efficient, wrapping up tasks speedily, solving problems in polynomial time.
The non-deterministic algorithms often lag behind in this context, resolving problems using *exponentially more time.* But they offer unparalleled versatility in combing through possibilities and conjuring approximations."
-bot penguin
@@TheAbsol7448 Which is why entire WOW servers crashed because of non-deterministic modifier calculations firing off at once.
How in any way are any of those elements non-deterministic?
@@rpgfanatic9719 Riddle me this, Batman. _Why_ do you think Pokémon continues to run poorly _after_ the Pokémon have already spawned, and in place where Pokémon _don't_ spawn? I _emplore_ you to look up "computers are fast" on RUclips and to watch the first result.
Again. All Pokémon does is roll a handful of dice for every Pokémon on screen, if the game generates stats before a battle. Neither really matters because RNG, these "random algorithms" you're talking about, aren't hard to calculate. D&D players do it by hand literally all the time. RNG has never been special or unique to Pokémon. The Game Boy games did it in battles every time the foe used a move, and when you use a move.
That's not why WoW crashes. It's because it's an MMO with many terabytes of data. 🙄 They have a room with absolutely _massive_ servers, which just isn't really a thing with Pokémon.
I remember my first exposure to Pokemon. I remember my mom getting me a Happy Meal at McDonald's and I sat down and opened the toy, to find a Buizel inside. I thought it was just a cute otter, so I brought it to school the next day so I could play with it at reccess. When my friends saw that I had something Pokemon related in my hands, I think they got excited. They began to ask me what my favorite Pokemon was and how many cards I had. I was a shy kid and started crying because I felt overwhelmed by being asked - what a 5 year old feels - is a lot of questions. And I also remember my kindergarten teacher taking the Buizel away because she thought it was a distraction.
When my mom picked me up from school I told her all about how the kids made me cry and how the teacher took my otter away. And I think my 6 year-old self decided that Pokemon was this evil thing that I didnt like. For awhile anytime I heard someone talk about Pokemon I would hide or run away. Then one day, my mom dropped me off at one of her friends houses to sleep there for the night. I think it was because of a work trip or something. My moms friend had 2 kids. There was J'ren, who was about my age, and Tyler, who was probably around 8. I remember being really confused as to why people were still awake at 10pm because my mom imposed a strict 8pm bedtime policy. Then Tyler turned on the TV and flipped to Boomerang and started watching the Pokemon anime. I went to a corner of the living and started to sob uncontrollably, only for Tylers parents to reassure me that nothings wrong and sit me down with Tyler and his brother on the couch. I still cried for a bit until a fuckin Steelix showed up on screen and thought to my 5 year old self "wait nevermind this shit rocks".
I nagged my mom to 'buy a Pokemon' for me. When she didnt have the money, I nagged my poor Grandpa for it, we went to Walmart and I got Pokemon Platinum because I thought the black and red colors looked super cool. And I used my blue DSi that I got as a hand-me-down to boot it up.
And ive been in love ever since.
Thank you Pokemon, for everything!
You were a weird kid.
My first experiences with Pokémon were fuzzy, I experienced them very early on, but I think I first discovered it when my mom took me to a book store and I saw the Pokémon Adventure manga on a shelf. I thought it looked cool, so I took it home with me. That's where my infatuation with Pokémon started. Today, I'm a very pathetic fan. I only enjoyed, PSMD, Rescue Team DX, and Arceus out of the games that have come out since XY. My trust in Pokémon was completely shattered with ORAS and SM, so I wasn't surprised when SwSh came out the way it did.
@@Aerwasilien yeah I read this and was about to say
@@Aerwasilien I wouldn't say weird, just sensitive, it seems.
@@Aerwasilien Very much so lol
For me, the cutoff point is Gen 5. I have played more recent games, but don't really feel like going back to them. Tried Y and couldn't get past how annoying Pansear waving that tail in my face is.
It is pretty much the consensus that either Platinum, HGSS, or BW2 are the best games in the series. It definitely peaked there. XY was a hollow and soul-less iteration of the formula, and it only got worse from there.
I’m with you, the magic stopped after BW
5 worthwhile generations, a few fun spinoffs after the fact, makes sense to me
Gen 7 and ORAS were good. X/Y sucked. I barely played X but then put so many hours into ORAS. I just replayed AS a few weeks ago. If you never gave the gen 3 remakes a chance, I’d definitely recommend them.
Gen 5 is an ugly, pixelated nightmare imo and I can't get down with the pokemon akwardly twitching and the slow as hell pace of battles.
Gen 4 is my cutoff personally, they did it to perfection, let it die.
Sun and Moon came out on the exact same day I graduated highschool. I stayed up past midnight the night before to get my pre-ordered copy on release. Fast forward like 2 months and I'm (I think) 2 thirds through the game. I put it down one day and haven't played a single Pokemon game (that was released after it) since. I bought Scarlet because my brother wanted me to play it (he was the same age as I was when I got SM), I finished the tutorial area and closed the switch and never opened it again.
I don't know if it's me or if it's Pokemon. The first games I ever owned for myself were Pokemon Pearl and Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon. Right after I put the cartridge for Scarlet back in it's cover I popped Three Houses out for my 5th playthrough, so I'm inclined to believe it's Pokemon
Owning Shadow Dragon as one of your first games ever is incredibly based
It's Pokemon.
I should know, cause I haven't played one of the newer 3D ones in years (Except for Omega Ruby, but that's a remake), but after modding my 3DS I've sent 3 hours yesterday playing through Crystal. (I want a legit shiny Celebi from the source) Also, breaking Emerald through glitches is tons of funs, with some of them being even more nonsensical than playground rumors.
Gen 6 is when they lost the passion, while Gen 7 is when they lost the drive, and it's been downhill since. Like you can tell they're trying in Gen 6 but their heart's not fully in it, while with Gen 7 they released an unfinished product then sold it a 2nd time with bug fixes as an entirely new game.
This is so goated and mega based. Shadow Dragon at an early age is just such a beautiful thing, and I'm glad I'm not alone in my appreciation for Three Houses.
I played the hell outta Pkm Sun. Put hours of my life into it. Don't regret it. Loved it, I don't care how some people dislike it or try to diminish it. If only you could feel the joy I was feeling when I was getting my hands on my copy of Pkm Sun. I remember where I was and I remember it was simply one of the happiest moments of my life.
I never once bothered to get Ultra because I felt I was betrayed like yeah uh now my game is obsolete. Saw how Sword and Shield were shaping up, saw the reviews, did not purchase it. I'm not supporting that. Then the final nail in the coffin being Violet with all the insane bugs, frame drops, less that stellar visuals that make Quake 3 have a facepalm.
I’m the opposite with fire emblem games I can’t play them anymore😭
Based Shadow Dragon enjoyer
This video makes my heart ache. I understand the feelings you’re going through because I’m falling out of love with Pokémon as well, but I didn’t realise it until now. But my first game was Pokémon Diamond, so I’m still desperately clinging onto what I used to like. This video made me realise how invested I am in a franchise that doesn’t even care to listen to its audience.
Thank you for making this.
this >>>>>
The real secret to bring a Pokémon fan is playing fan games and Pokémon showdown. Pokémon rogue just came out and it’s soooooo good
Edit: idk why this comment got left here, I left it on another comment. Must be something weird on RUclips's end.
_____________________________
I tried not to use too harsh of language when talking about Arceus in the video since I know a lot of people actually like it, but yeah, I REALLY do not like this game. I think it gets too much credit for having an interesting vision and concept when that vision and concept were completely botched. It devolves into nothing but busywork and bad Pokemon battles in a world that looks bad and is boring and clunky to traverse. Honestly if I ever make another Pokemon video it's going to be about Legends Arceus and why I don't like it. That probably won't be for a long time though, because I'll have to work up the willpower to actually sit through it for footage and to refresh myself on it.
@@SodaCrabbro replied to the wrong comment
@@mrpiccionedivino5598??? That's so weird, must be something wrong with the comments thing in the creator studio. I definitely left this reply on a different comment
Sure I guess but most fangames aren't my cup of tea and I stopped caring about competitive pokemon a while ago. I have no idea on how robot terrakion and caveman entei effect the meta.
I think the only Pokemon romhacks I care about are Coral and Prism since they aren't overly difficult, don't shove corny original characters down your throat, and feel like official pokemon games. However I mostly just play improvement hacks since I can transfer my pokemon unlike in 99.9% of rom hacks.
i’ve loved pokemon ever since i was 4 and yeah this is the way
i’d like to include pokemon tcg in there too, not an indie project like the others but it made me appreciate some mons i never cared about
As a 32 year old mom, I now recognize Pokemon as a soulless product, the magic is gone. The apathy I used to feel has evolved into a new kind of magic in the form of buying Pokemon products from yard sales and making Halloween blind bags to hand out to kids. I get the opportunity to experience Pokemon bringing my toddler's generation joy, even as a soulless product.
THANK YOU! Arceus was filled with so much busywork, and that is the WHOLE gameplay loop. It's good but it is not the panacea. BDSP is generally frowned upon but I know a lot of people that cope about SwSh and ScarVi. I WANT Pokemon to be good, I've always loved it, in a similar way to you, that's why the disappointment and falling short hits so hard to me.
I enjoyed gen 8 and 9. They’re not perfect, but still a lot of fun that have kept me busy for hundreds of hours. I’ve never had to “cope” with these games.
I _like_ the gameplay loop personally, and I'll probably replay it from the beginning at some point, but it's really lacking a lot. I'm hoping Z-A will have the content that Arceus needed, but I don't really have any expectations.
@@AerwasilienHonestly, I'd rather keep myself occupied with much better games. Lately, I've been playing a lot of FF9, Metroid Prime 2, Explorers of Sky, and Dragon Quest 11S. And I may revisit older Pokémon games, but I have no desire to play anything past XY. I tried to play Moon again a couple years ago, but I put it down because everything takes so fucking long. It doesn't understand what makes other long JRPGs compelling.
I personally get bored of the crafting system and find it as more of a chore then an enjoyable experience. Also, I do think they should adjust the radius in which aggressive pokemon react to you. It gets exhausting trying to dodge an entire area while gathering resources. Especially Alphas that knock you off your mount.
I do love Scarlet and Violet though. The only real complaint (besides the obvious rush job they did on it) is dynamic level scaling. The choose your own adventure campaign was a bit misleading since there are only a few routes you can go in practice.
@TheAbsol7448 those are all amazing games.
This video really resonated with me. While I didn't fall out of love with Pokemon (in the sense that I did not love it for years upon years like you did), I did fall out of love with a property and the hobbies and fandom adjacent to it. I spent so much of my high school years enwrapped with said thing and it was so important to me and my development as a person, yet these days I don't have the energy nor will to sustain it. And it breaks my heart that this thing that mattered so much to me has no real role in my current life. I feel empty, in the sense that I haven't found something to replace it as my #1 hobby. So hearing you describe how you fell out of love with Pokemon was cathartic for me. Thank you.
Next month will mark two years since my mother passed away from chronic kidney failure.
I still remember being in elementary school (30 now), and my Mom picking me up a little early from school, just for that day.
When I got home, she gave me Pokemon Ruby. Brand new. Just released.
Whenever I play those early, 2D Pokemon games, my heart fills with warm memories. Sunday dinners, family road trips, those deep conversations when you discover your parent’s hidden lore, lazy days of just relaxing and watching sun rise and sun set.
I love how this felt like less of a video essay and more of a story being shared around a campfire. Thank you for making this video, I resonated with so much of it
I was hooked on Pokémon when I was a small child, and my first ever mainline Pokémon game I played was Pokémon Diamond, which I played when I was a teen. When BDSP came out, to me at least, I was stoked and looked forward to it. Brilliant Diamond did not disappoint me in the slighest. I am a 31-year adult now, and I must say that it has been one of the greatest gaming experiences for me. I know nostalgia is a big part of it, and that the games aren't anything special if you aren't attached to the OG Diamond- and Pearl games, but for me specifically I savoured every moment of the game! And the soundtrack is amazing imo, it really triggered those nostalgic feelings. I loved Brilliant Diamond. (It was over 15 years since I last played Pokémon Diamond, so the nostalgia was huge for me when I played Brilliant Diamond on release.)
I found a full odds shiny Stunfisk on the White 2 playthrough I just finished. That Stunfisk brought more joy than any new Pokemon release could ever dream of.
My first foray into the Pokémon world was _Pokémon Soul Silver._ Until that point Pokémon had simply been something annoying that I would see on t-shirts around town, but reading through my uncle's Pokédex got me interested enough to pick up a copy of the new game at Costco. I was about fourteen at the time, and therefore very into gold, what with treasure and pirates and adventures and whatnot. So it was hard for me to choose _Soul Silver,_ but the box legendary was just infinitely cooler than the big bird.
I was a bit busy with other things, and didn't start the game that day. I seem to recall that I was very into _The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks_ at the time.
Perhaps a week later, my dad called me and my theee siblings into the hallway. I knew from his voice that something was very serious. We congregated in the hallway. Mom was crying, and Dad informed us in so many words that our cousin was dead. He had been in an accident. I essentially had cousins instead of friends, we were a big clan. This particular cousin was thirteen years old, and always played Pikachu in _Smash Brothers Brawl._ I had never beaten him at the game, and now I would never do so. His dad (my godfather) was understandably devastated.
After being informed that Mom and Grandma would be flying up right away to be with their brother/son and the rest of us would head up for the funeral a few days later, I quietly went back to my room.
After processing for an indeterminate amount of time, I pulled out my red DS Lite and silently started up my first Pokémon game. My uncle and cousin had already chosen the cool one, CyndaquilI, so I picked Chikorita because he learned Synthesis. I named him Chibi, after the cute dragon from a weird but captivating backwards comic at the library. I drowned my sorrows for maybe half an hour and then went to bed.
While out of state for the funeral, I played Pokémon and thought about death, played Pokémon and thought about my cousin. I found a Shiny Rattata on Route 30 and caught it within my first six hours of game time, which was exciting.
I have always paced when I'm stressed or when I'm thinking, so the Pokéwalker was well-positioned. I logged at least 10,000 steps daily onto that thing while on the trip, and transferred hundreds of items and dozens of Pokémon to my game cartridge.
On the plane home I pulled out my DS and looked for my copy of _Spirit Tracks._ I was at the boss of the Sand Temple, and wanted to give it another go on the way home. I couldn't find it. My entire case of games had somehow been left at the hotel. It must have fallen down the side of my bed, I virtually never lose things. Countless stamps in _Brain Age_ 1 & 2, near 100% completion in _Mario and Sonic at The Olympic Winter Games,_ hundreds of thousands of Rupees and hours and hours of progression and story investment in _Spirit Tracks,_ et cetra, all lost.
The only game left to me was my cartridge of _Pokémon Soul Silver,_ which happened to be in my game system instead of the case.
Time passed, and wounds faded.
Eventually I reached the Veridian forest in the postgame, and caught my first Pikachu. I named it after my cousin.
I still have Chibi, a beautiful level 100 Meganium. For being made of ones and zeros, he means lot to me. He's on my Pokéwalker with me right now.
Thanks for sharing some of your childhood. It took me back.
Damn, if I had lost any of my games on holiday it would of absolutely destroyed me. I used to guard my ds and games like they were last drop of water on earth. Losing them all must of sucked so bad
This video really is how I feel. You saying "back in my day there were 493 pokemon" drove it home. That's exactly the number that has always hung in my head.
While I liked Legends: Arceus and will consider Z-A, SwSh and BDSP destroyed my love. Despite hearing great things about SV's story, I dropped it around Levinca. I just wasnt having fun anymore, and I've never gone back to it.
I'm older so I had different feelings. Back in _my_ day there were 151. And I by no means claim that makes me better than people who joined the franchise later. It just made me think - when I was young, the internet was entirely the domain of people of my generation. It was all teens and twentysomethings - any older than that and it was strictly the domain of tech nerds.
This meant you kinda knew everyone was around the same age as you. Nowadays it can feel like the internet is Gen Z by default and people my age have become less visible. I don't know if that's true because we're all as online as ever, but... sometimes it makes you feel like you're turning into a fossil and that's a weird feeling to grapple with. I do miss the old, anarchic, shitty HTML internet a lot.
@@rdrrr I was part of the OG generation as well. I played Silver/Gold but by that time in the early 2000s Yugi-Oh had overtaken Pokemon as the more popular cartoon and TCG. By 4th grade in 2003 I had moved on from Pokemon. I downloaded an emulator of Fire Red back in 2016 and had some nostalgic fun while it lasted but for some reason Pokemon and Digimon haven't stayed with me into my 30s like Dragonball has since I first saw it in Kindergarten back in 1999
@@richborn6700 Yeah I played Yu-Gi-Oh! back when I was a teen. That brought back memories. Damn, the power creep in that game is rancid. It makes MTG look honest, haha.
TCGs really had the same business model as games that carve up their content to sell as DLC, but, you know... "analogue".
Couldn't get into most TCGs outside playground rules. The rules are ever changing, cards are getting constantly banned, and the scene is usually filled with players I am glad I never grew up to be like@@rdrrr
@@richborn6700 I feel you on the culture. Like tabletop RPGs, it's extremely nerdy. Nothing wrong with being nerdy, but a lot of nerds are socially dysfunctional, off-putting and toxic to be around.
I find tabletop RPGs really ironic because they're sociable by nature but a lot of people that play them are bad at being around other people. This is why everyone seems to have a story about _that_ player, or _that_ group that's always full of drama.
I hate to admit it but I used to be _that_ guy. I wouldn't say I was toxic but I was definitely socially awkward and made people uncomfortable without meaning to. Fortunately as I grew up I learned from my mistakes and grew out of it. Some people don't and that's really sad.
I love Pokemon and always will. But I love it as a memory, as a concept. I listen to the soundtracks and reminisce on what it brought to me. I would still describe myself as loving it despite not playing any of the games for so long, and having no desire to. I think what the series did best was providing childlike wonder to the worlds, causing the games to be more rooted in nostalgia than most properties, and why I see so much more discussion about how great the old games are. I think the kids who grow up with the new games will feel the same when they are older too.
Ever since iwata passed away, Nintendo hasn’t been the same
Pokemon was already on the decline when he was still here. X and Y and Sun and Moon were clearly leagues below the DS games.
@@One2Ctrl4U that’s true I guess, but idk sun and moon to sword and shield was a major decline
Pokemon isn't developed at nintendo, it's developed by a company called Game Freak. Nintendo just owns the publishing rights. Iwata never had any involvement with the games to start with.
@@user-wj6jh1cd5n Iwata was the one who programmed Kanto in gold and silver though
@@user-wj6jh1cd5n Yes he did. He was a major producer/mentor for a lot of Nintendo products. When Gen 2 was getting made he realized that GF wasn't compressing the data properly and he himself compressed it enough within a day or 2 to fit in all of Kanto.
This video made me cry.
As a child Pokemon was my whole life, it was the game that united me with my brother and my cousins. Everyone on the school would know about me as the girl who knew the name of every single pokémon (they were only five generations at that time). I would usually watch the movies and some of the anime episodes. Heck, as you whoever is reading this, can see my pfp is a Pikachu pixel art that I made it myself.
When the national dex cut happened, something broke inside me. Right now, I understand why it happened and I think it was kind of inevitable, but at the right time, I was just profoundly sad. I was sad for the dex, sure, but I was more sad because, somehow, I knew that was an inflection point for me; in that moment I just knew that I... probably wouldn't like Pokémon anymore.
Even if years later I would be playing Legend Arceus and enjoying it, I just couldn't find the joy that Pokémon made me feel in the past days. As time went on, I realized I didn't know the name of every pokémon anymore, I just forgot about lots of them. I would rarely watch the anime or the movies. And Pokémon wasnt the main focus of my drawings anymore.
I didn't like Pokémon anymore; I don't like it anymore.
Maybe it hurts because its attached to some kind of nostalgia for me, but well... it still hurts, lol.
As a GenWunner 32-year-old I can tell you that your distaste for Pokemon is not due to hitting a certain age.
It came from the specific lineup of games that you mentioned. We fell out of love at the same time in the same way despite being totally different ages.
I'm a fan of Fire Emblem as well as Pokémon so this channel is _relevant to my interests_ - I've kinda fallen out with both franchises for the same reasons. They're chasing a wider, more casual audience and I'm not part of it.
I guess we're both casualties of gaming achieving a mainstream audience and therefore being subjected to the same commercial pressures blockbuster films are. Development budgets are massive, marketing budgets are massive and there's less room for experimentation and depth. Another way to look at it - limitations breed creativity, and video games are losing their limitations.
At 31, I'm ancient by the internet's standards. It's a funny feeling realizing I'm just not young any more. But like you, I think my feelings have more to do with the way the gaming market has evolved than just "getting older". There's the little picture - you - and the big picture - everything else. As we change, so does the world around us and not all change is for the better.
@@rdrrr Even when a good game comes out, it gets bogged down by a shit ton of DLC and microtransactions meant to suck you dry. Less so for the RPG series you mentioned, but this just sadly the way triple AAA big budget games seem to be going.
God I'm so happy we live in an era where indie games can thrive, or else I'd probably completely fall off gaming as a hobby.
@@floppavevo5920 Man, some companies are really aggressive with their DLC practices. I'm a history nerd so I play Paradox games but Paradox are the absolute worst for pumping out tons and tons of low-quality, barely play tested DLC that add mechanics that don't integrate with anything else in the game. I'll never buy any of their products again, I don't want to support their exploitative economic model.
Funny how Oblivion Horse Armor got so much shit back in the day but it's so much less cynical than a lot of DLC nowadays...
@@rdrrr Oh god, yeah, Paradox is definitely one of the worst offenders.
@@rdrrr I'm in this same boat. It loses its niche appeal after becoming mainstream and a husk of its former self. I remember it was a stigma to like Pokemon in the late 3rd gen-7th gen until the GO boom happened.
Now those people who made your life hell growing up with are into what you liked now, acting like they knew it deeply before it was cool. Weird analogy but that's how it feels. This isn't just a Pokemon problem, but all of geek culture.
For me, the first cracks started showing back in Gen 5. I watched the anime religiously until pikachu was K.O.'d by a level 5 snivy and Ash reverted back to his Indigo League days. Black & White were the first time a Pokemon game felt like a slog to get through. After X & Y, I just watched the franchise I grew up with just slowly decay.
I couldn't agree more. I used to be *the* person my friends and coworkers thought of in regards to Pokemon. Knew everything there was to know, had a ton of merchandise, could basically write an essay on any Pokemon if prompted, logged hundreds of hours IV breeding, EV training, and battling on each title...hell, I learned to draw *just* so I could draw Pokemon, practicing every day just for that.
Then Sun and Moon dropped. It hurt, but I figured things would get better after that.
And then they fed us the lie that they'd be giving us better animations and models. They haven't gotten a cent out of me since.
I *want* to love Pokemon, and it really feels like I lost a part of myself. It really is a weird limbo of apathy and indignation.
I watched this video and I felt so heartbroken
I feel so guilty now, because I genuinely like the most of games Pokemon made and it just tears me apart that because of people like me so many other people lost something so important and cherished
I've been with Pokemon for 9 years and I've turned 20 this year, and I feel like my love for the franchise is on its peak and Pokemon is, like, a half of my personality
I feel truly sorry for all people who fell out of love with the franchise, I hope you all guys will truly be able to move on to something that may fill the void that Pokemon left in your heart💔
...how? how can you look at the new pokemon games and not feel distaste (at best)?
edit: not trying to be mean or aggressive or anything, genuinely asking.
@@comyuse9103 idk, I just like to play it. That's taking into an account the fact that I have a library of over 100 completed different games that are much better. I guess I'm just weird :D
When I was 20, I felt the exact same way. Now I'm 27, and I feel exactly how they described in the video. Maybe it's the age, or maybe it's being around long enough to finally observe the linear decline in quality. I hope it doesn't happen to you, but either way I don't think it's your fault. No amount of consumer hold out was going to stop this, Pokemon is simply too big to fail and too big to be reigned in.
@@tristanneal9552 well, I can see the decline of quality in these games. Moreover, I talk about them pretty frequently, especially when someone else asks me "what Pokemon game should I play". However, I just.... don't concentrate on them when I play the games.
Again, I've played all mainline games starting with Pokemon Yellow, as well as dozens of other games in general. I just always come back to Pokemon like to a problematic child. Yeah, they drink, swear, run away from the house, make troubles and don't listen to you, but you still love them, because it's your child no matter what :D. I guess my relationship with Pokemon are kind of the same
thanks bro
Watching this (very well written) video made me realise that I too had given up on hoping that anything good would be coming out of Pokemon in the future, and that the only reason I didn't notice sooner was because I'd practically only been engaging in the parts that were still nostalgic to me. A different but all too similar disillusionment, one where you hide away in your bunker and pretend the world outside isn't real, so to speak. But you can only replay Gold, Snap, Ruby, Diamond and White so many times, only buy nostalgic trading cards for a vintage collection so many times, only escape into what WAS so many times, before the illusion breaks absolutely and the lights come back on. By trying to avoid apathy I over indulged in halcyon comfort, as if I'd found the source of a nostalgic smell, and devoured it
I think I'm ready to leave the bunker now. Ready to search for newer, better gaming experiences, and to let my memories of Pokemon rest forever as simply just that: memories
"That game sat for 10 months in a cabinet still in the saran wrap" OMG same, my brother also bought me Pokemon Violet and I also never bothered opening it... I tried to exchange it for a discount on another game multiple times, but no where would even accept Pokemon Scarlet/Violet for trade in.
DAMN
This feels like an “and then everyone clapped” moment tbh. Also bro ofc no one is taking it it’s a 22 million copy seller
What do you mean nowhere wouls let you trade it in? Gamestop still gives like 30 bucks for Scarlet/Violet
Gamestop doesn't take games while they're unopened.@samuelrichards5521
I can't say I've had that experience; I may not have been vocal about my actual gripes with Pokemon to my family, but I still told them not to bother getting any of it for any next birthday or holiday if it was "for" me.
My sis went on to get the remaining 3DS games we didn't have, by herself. I didn't even look in their general direction, not even when she played them. And then we practically abandoned the franchise on the Switch except for PMD DX.
I knew I had truly fallen out of love with Pokémon when my Switch died and I lost all of my Pokémon that I had kept through time. I had a full living dex including ALL variations (all colors of Floette, Deerling, all regional forms, etc.), all of the teams I had used since X and Y, multiple boxes of legit shinies, multiple boxes of legit mythicals, so many rare events like shiny locked mons or mons with their hidden abilities that you can't obtain in-game. One day a few years ago my Switch died, and I wasn't using Pokémon Home, so I had all of my mons on the save files. Since the save files are stored on the Switch and not the cartridges, I just lost everything. Years of collecting... You can't back-up Pokémon games for some reason, so there was nothing I could do.
But the saddest thing is that I wasn't even as sad as I thought I'd be. It was just like "Oh well that really sucks. Oh well I guess." I realized Pokémon just wasn't as important to me anymore, and THAT's what made me most sad.
Really enjoyed this. I've found myself at the same apathy, but for different reasons. I go back and play the old games, I feel nothing. I play the new games, I feel nothing. The logical part of my brain can see all the ways the new stuff isn't as good, but the numbness is equal. As I play more JRPGs, get into fire emblem, phantasy star, and steam's wonderful indie offerings, I start to think that the strategy of pokemon is just not enough for me anymore. I used to beat 4 or more pokemon games a year. Last year, not even one.
I think the first time I felt this was when I played Dragon Quest Jokers for The Nintendo DS. It felt way ahead of Pokémon mechanically and was more expansive during that time. By the time ORAS and Sun and Moon came along I've already played so many JRPGs and thought the combat in Pokémon was no longer deep. The games also still HEAVILY pailed in comparison to PMD2 Explorers of Sky and Pokémon Colosseum/XD.
Now playing any Pokémon game in comparison to most modern RPGs/JRPGs feels like going back two decades.
@@Drstrange3000I'm of the same mindset
I'm so glad you called the battle system Pokemon's greatest strength. Not enough people realize that, especially in Gamefreak. The Gen IV games gave an illusion that we hate long battles, we just hate long animations that we'll see 1000 times. But they took that info and decided to make 90% of all trainer battles from Gen VI and on to have only 1 Pokemon on their team, 2 if we're lucky. The games got boring because they made the most fun part boring. They extended the animations to the point where we were barely playing for almost an hour straight in Sun&Moon and made all the battles meaningless distractions for the lame story that didn't even get the full attention it should've. Their method of the past decade has been to cut the battles and boost the amount of extra stuff nobody likes. It's not just being jaded, they actually legitimately destroyed everything the games used to be. There's a reason why I still only replay older games from Gen VI and back, and its because any of the newer games are unbearably boring, and totally different games. It's not what I want to play, so i just replay their old games, and don't give them any more of my money. The more new Pokemon they make, the less I care about the universe. I remember realizing that 1000 was not far away, I would've thrown a party for that pokemon and praised whoever it was for whatever reason. Now I'm at a point where I don't even care to know who it is, and this is coming from a consistent fan since 96. Only game I didnt touch was Scarlet and Violet. Feels so sad to finally give this up, and frustrating to accept that we never really will get a high quality Pokemon game ever. The old games were perfect, but they were cheaper games, they weren't ever really high quality for their time. I used to be hopeful that when it comes to console we will see it, but after a decade of disappointment, I know they will never turn that boat around.
This really echoed the feelings I’ve had of this series lately. I haven’t quite given up on the series yet, but every year since X and Y I felt that the games have been totally hollow. You really nailed it when you said that the old games had genuine polish and love in them. I remember reading an interview for Black/White 2 where a developer said they tried to squeeze in as many things as possible into the games, and their responses to interview questions had this really excited tone like they were making something from the heart. When I compare that to something like Violet, that passion just isn’t there unfortunately. There still are just enough glimmers of hope for me to keep playing these games, but I can see myself finally dropping it in a couple more years like you did 😢
i love your old pokemon plushies! they remind me of my little riolu. i (read: my mom at my behest) bought him as a gift for my best friend when i was in 4th grade... and then i couldn't bear to give him away and i kept him. To this day I haven't told her he was meant to be hers lmao. I had no idea where to get a riolu in the game, either - i never did iron island in diamond. so when i saw that that very same best friend *had* a riolu in her game, i offered her EVERYTHING for it in a trade. i even offered her my beloved kadabra, my favorite pokemon that I'd used and had carry me from the very start of the game (and that neither of us at that point knew how to evolve), but she wouldn't trade it to me. even though I eventually figured it out, Riolu's felt like such a special little guy to me ever since those days. nowdays the plushie is so color-worn and dirty, but I'm afraid to throw him in the washer. he's still soft, very huggable, and the space between his ears on top of his head is still the perfect size to kiss. I'm kind of halfway to falling out of love with pokemon too, but i love my little guy
Putting him through the wash would not be a good idea, the stuffing inside could mold. And thus he'd be ruined for ever, more so than he already is from discoloration.
Now, the way you could is by opening a seam and removing the stuffing, then washing it in the washer. It would somewhat repair the discoloration, and remove some stains. However, as it's a Pokémon plush, and thus a collectors item (albeit used), it's likely you'd never want to do that. Plus no guarantee you'd even know how to re-sew the seam, not everyone is a sewing master...
The first pokemon i played was red, way back when game boys were battery powered bricks and i couldn't even read. My brother and i had to ask our mom to save the game whenever we stopped playing.
Ruby was the first game i played that i could fully understand and experience by myself, and hoenn feels like a second home to me still. Pearl blew my kid mind with the step-up in graphics, it audibly made me gasp when i watched my brother boot it up when he got it for his birthday.
Alpa Sapphire is predictably my favorite pokemon game to date.
My love for the franchise began to fade with shield. I was uninterested in arceus, the diamond remake appaled me, and at long last violet became the tomb to my love of pokemon. Played three hours, then never touched it again.
I'll come back to the games i did enjoy, a yearly replay of alpha sapphire is a tradition of mine by now. But i will not buy new games anymore. The heart is gone. I'm moving on.
The last Pokemon game i really remotely cared about were the Alola games and the Hoenn remakes. I played Let's go eevee and while i enjoyed seeing Eevee be a starter, i wasn't a big fan of the Pokemon Go aspect. And I wasn't gonna play any of the other Pokemon games on switch but my cousin wanted me to play with her so she and my aunt ended up getting me Shield and Violet. While I enjoyed Violet a lot more than Shield, I still didn't like it much. I wasn't a big fan of the dynamaxing in Sword/Shield and I wasn't too fond of terrastralizing in Violet. The only reason I even play Violet and Shield is for the new fave pokemon I liked from both games. (Hattarene, Galarian Rapidash, and Frosmoth from Shield and Fidough, Quaxley, and Clodsire from Violet).
💯
This video summarizes the entirety of the 5 stages I went through after sun and moon was over and sword and shield came around. I’ve been numb to it ever since. I caught them all back during x and y. That was my challenge and I did it. All 718.
Oh I fell out of being a big Pokémon fan around gen 4 I think. I can’t remember the last game I played, definitely none of the modern games. But I’ll always have a special attachment to those really early years with Pokémon, just seeing merch and content for them cheers me up even if I don’t participate in the series anymore. Great video, thanks for catching that nostalgia that many of us shared in our childhood
Im going to be fully honest, this video is art. Its understandable to be sad when something youve grown alongside changes. But such is the nature of things, to always change. Im glad you still recognize it as a love once loved.
I hope you find many more amazing interests to love just as much, if not even more deeply :)
This is a really well written essay. The ending brought me to literal tears. My love for pokemon really does remind me of my ex. It’s weird, but you appreciating the good times is now helping me do the same.
I have the same issue with pokemon now too, I love it, but I love what it WAS. And what it did for me as a child.
I can truly appreciate this video. Ironically, I feel the exact same about most of the franchises I enjoy, as if it was a curse that whatever I'm fated to like is ruined by a company's greed.
I WAS alive in the 90s. I got in on the ground floor with RBY. I lived and breathed it, and it helped me immensely through a hard time in my life and connected me to my neighbors--my first new friends after a sudden move.
I fell out of Pokemon in high school, then got back into it in college. The Black and White launch was such a great college memory... and then things declined, slowly but surely, as I was an adult, especially post-X&Y.
I still like Pokemon in concept, but generally... I agree with you. And I echo the "not mad, just disappointed" sentiment. I want the magic my childhood self experienced on that tiny, un-backlit Gameboy Color screen or the magic of my stressed college self kicking back with HGSS and BW on the DS back... and I'll probably never get it. Such is the way it goes.
This was enough to make a grown man cry. I never comment on youtube videos but this video moved me. As someone who grew up in the 2000s i will always look back at the memories of pokemon and be thankful that I got to experience pokemon at its best. Today's pokemon is a hot dumpster fire that needs to be completely reworked and gamefreak and the pokmeon company will never take the time or effort on them like they did with generations 1-5. Dollar signs burned into gamefreak's retna. Like you said in the video there are so many time restraints and pressure from the suits that the people working on the games couldnt even put care into the game if they wanted to. Game freak and the pokemon company are a shell of the company they used to be. Even going after youtube channels DMCA striking them and taking down multiple videos because they are using an emulator or modding them to add a breath of life to a game they hold so many fond memories of. Its sad when you realize that the people who literally MADE your childhood what it is dont care about you.
Thise aren't the people who made your childhood. The artists, composers, programmers, etc who really made Pokémon what it is by and large don't care what you do with the games, I'm sure. The ones that are doing this are suits that don't care about any of that.
Very early, perfect to fall asleep to. Cozy way down memory lane.
I agree with you and I slowly started to care less and less around Gen 5/6. However more importantly, I didnt know Pokemon Mystery Dungeon DX was a remake, thnks for bringing it up!
I think this is one of my favorite video of yours, and really makes me want to reflect on the things I've loved and love, and put it on writing, since I was thinking about it anyways and falling out of things is something that I want to think about a bit more now.
Maaaan, this hit. Pokemon was so much for me. It was THE big thing that improved my drawings via obsession after dinosaurs, it was my first videogame, it was the reason I was bullied relentlessly through middle school, it was the save space I could escape to during that same time. It was also the thing I spent my first self-earned money on (Diamond was bought from my first internship money) and it generally colored my interests in games (I vastly favor customization over everything else and I love fantasy creatures of all kinds). The first few notes of the original theme song still get an emotional reaction out of me.
But yeah, I also fell out of love. The thing for me is, I view it less as gradually falling out of love and more like getting hit by the kitchen sink your angry lover threw at you. I think that made it easier for me. I actually still really like everything up to ORAS and I just enjoyed a replay of Sun despite thinking it was "the first bad one". I can point to SwSh as the first slap, to keep with the relationship analogy, BDSP the second and then SV as the kitchen sink, because that game is just broken on a technical level.
I find it easier that way, because it's less "my fault" for growing out of it than Pokemon just doing it to itself. I also found a whole genre to explore thanks to Pokemon, so I'm not actually missing something I like. Sure, those memories and influences I mentioned at the top of this comment, those are irreplaceable, but in my opinion, they don't have to be replaced or matched. I had a good time while it lasted, I still have a good time replaying the old games (my faves are Crystal and White 1/2) and I think that's what counts. I'm glad I don't have to feel bitter about it. Thanks Pokemon SV.
I used to be a huge Pokemon fan too. My earliest childhood memories are of me re-watching the same couple of episodes of the original anime that I had on VHS. Gen 4 was my intro generation to the games and the franchise as a whole (I had red and blue for the GB but I was 4 and didn't know what I was doing) and ever since then I played every main line game and the entire mystery dungeon series, watching every episode of the anime every week it came out, and even tried the TCG but never really got into it due to my inexperience with card games at the time. I feel like everything you said on this video nearly perfectly describes my own journey with Pokemon. I think most older (like really early 2000s/Gen 5 and below) Pokemon fans also share a similar Journey and Gamefreak HAS to be aware if this and yet they continue to allow themselves to degrade. I too now only feel apathy and its a bit disheartening knowing such a huge joy in my past has now become such a disappointment.
It can still be a joy! Don’t let the modern shortcomings distract you from the greatness of the past games :D
Honestly part of what made Pokemon special is simply the interactions with others growing up.
Remembering who you fought with and played the games with is what made these special. I grew up and played all the way to series 4. I still recall who I played with in battles.
Heck even my brother and sisters who were younger played all the way to 7th gen. If you have real life friends theres nothing wrong with falling out of the craze but Remember its the shared memories which you shouldn't throw away.
Ironically I'm the Gen 1 generation and whenever I talk to people my age no matter what walk of life or how much of a dick a person is, if I ask about their Pokémon experience everyone has a fond memory(ies).
This very sentiment you expressed here is exactly what I've been experiencing. Even though I didn't really grow up with pokemon until I was 12 and gen 5 was ending, recently I just fell out of love with it. I still love the older games and characters, but it just doesn't feel the same anymore and I can't reignite that spark that it once had... beautiful video thank you so much
This video hits hard. 100%. I grew up with everything pokemon. From toys, cards, apparel, animated series to the video games on console and handhelds. The last pokemon series I enjoyed was gen 6 in 2013 as I was in college. I firmly believed pokemon fell off since. It just doesn't capture the essence and the emotional impact anymore not. It's now 2024 and I'm in my 30s. From time to time, I still go on youtube and listen to pokemon soundtracks and even hour long videos of pokemon lofi.
This captured a feeling that I hadn't even realised I had. I too played Sword & Shield and found it deeply whatever, gave up on Legends Arceus halfway through and I wanted to keep liking Pokemon so bad but I didn't even bother buying Scarlet & Violet. I loved Pokemon so much, and I still love the old stuff. Gen 2 and 5 especially, one being my first game and the other probably the height of my enjoyment of the series. I have a Spinarak plushie I take with me everywhere, but the new Pokemon added in SV don't even look real to me. I don't know where I'm going with this comment but thanks for the video, possibly the most relatable thing I've watched.
I don't share all of the same issues that other people have with modern pokémon for pretty circumstantial reasons, but it does make me sad to see a lot of the decisions they've made recently and how so many fans are falling out of love with it. Ever since the jump to 3D they've had a difficult time making solid games within their deadlines and they either need to slow down or get a larger team. That's really all they need to make a complete-feeling experience. Eventually they'll have to step it up again one way or another and I don't say that out of hope, that's just how business goes.
In the UK, over the summer of 1998, I played Final Fantasy VII for the first time. For almost everybody in the UK, it was our first JRPG. This was not because the other ones were obscure and FF7 had very aggressive marketing, but because they didn't _exist_ here. FF1, as well as the "2" and "3" that were actually 4 and 6 didn't even make it here. Super Mario RPG's PAL release was cancelled. It was FF7 and Suikoden. And that was pretty much it.
Pokemon was not only an oasis to some very thirsty new JRPG fans like myself, but it was mainstream popular, so unlike FF7 which was still a bit niche, liking Pokemon meant you could connect with people, and I basically had another FF game. I even used Pokemon as a gateway game to get younger players into FF, and JRPGs in general once we started getting them released here.
What I therefore didn't accept back then was that the game... actually wasn't all that good. The campaign balance was a joke. The graphics were actually quite lazy. The mechanics had interesting ideas but weren't implemented with any proper challenge in mind, and half of them didn't even work. The trainer AI either selected random moves, spammed sleep (and would even "select" it if you woke up that turn) or spammed moves with a super-effective type, even if the move did no damage. Six years in development and that was the best they could do. I'm not joking when I say I've played RPG Maker games made by two teenagers in the space of a year that were better than that. (I know RPG Maker is a proprietary engine but that has the ability to let the user tweak enemy AI so it's not just acting entirely randomly, and these teenage amateurs would actually use that.)
It took all the way until Sword and Shield to make me realize the series was really never all that good and I'd lied to myself about what it actually was.
I used to be ride or die for this franchise. Now I don't think I could possibly hate it more. I resent the fact it's the highest grossing media franchise of all time, and I'm kinda disgusted with myself for ever supporting it.
I am also convinced that FF7 was the reason Pokemon got that belated westward push. Bear in mind, normally when Nintendo made or published a game back then, they were already taking localization into account. For the most part, we didn't have to wait two or three years after the Japanese release to play a text-heavy game. And yet, well into the life cycle of the Game Boy Color, Nintendo put out an SGB game over a year _after_ FF7 had played such an integral role in the PSX annihilating their market share, and two years after R/G's Japanese release. Very convenient.
P.S. Sorry, I deleted the first comment by accident while trying to copy the text :P
I don't think I'll ever hate Pokemon, but I also have pretty much fallen out of love with it.
But in addition to agreeing on the same points you mention, Sword/Shield came out when my friend group had fallen apart, so I no longer had people to play with. The social aspect was no longer there for me, which ended up highlighting just how "meh" the games were.
Pokémon today isn't Pokémon from back in the day. There's different dev teams, the concepts have evolved beyond recognition. While the state of the new ones is sad, it could never taint what Pokémon meant and means to me. Love this vid.
I share a similar experience with Pokemon, StarWars, Marvel and D.C content. But here's the thing. Even if the new stuff is bad we'll always have the old stuff to remember. At least we got to experience the good and new comers can always go back to experience them as well.
Every experience you’ve said in this video is the same feeling I have about Pokémon. Glad I’m not alone
I will say, Pokémon violet did make me feel like a kid again. Sure, it’s not the 2d Pokémon but I felt like the jankyness made violet fun and running everywhere back and forth catching all the Pokémon’s. It was awesome. No I didn’t beat the game because I then got bored but it was awesome when it made forget about all the stress in my personal life . Any ways need to play arceus and see where that leads me .
It is really good to see that I am not the only Pokemon fan who strongly dislikes Pokemon: Legends Arceus.
the cries of a true fan. it hurts man. im here with you.
I'm still madly in love with the idea of Pokémon, but it's... it's like... I'm in love with its potential. I would literally bawl tears of joy if they released a Let's Go Eeveelution! and I could pick a Glaceon or Sylveon and just hug them and love them to death. Holding "hands" with a sweet little Sylveon or brushing a Glaceon's precious fur while she smiles up at me would fkn fill me with happiness of a new sort I can only merely imagine. Integrate these with the game mechanics and make it different for every Eeveelution. Flareon's warm floof makes them extra huggable and snuggly, Jolteon's super playful with outdoor sports, Vaporeon loves swimming with the trainer and playing aquatic games, etc.
These could extend into ways the trainer approaches the game and its progression toward collecting badges and catching new Pokémon. Idk, just... so much potential... So much wonderful potential, and imagine all this in a PLA-like open-world MMO-type thing. It's been my childhood dream. But I just don't know if they'll ever give that many fucks about us. They sure love to shut down the fan games that try to make this stuff a reality; I wish they cared that much about their own releases. It is one of the most heartbreaking and complicated love-hate relationships a player can have with a franchise their whole childhood was based on and that they still love deeply as a middle-aged adult.
Back in my day, we had only 151 pokemon. My love for pokemon catching and world exploring is now replaced by my hobby of mushroom hunting in the woods. It's really fun to ID them and take photos or even pick some tasty ones to cook. Pokemon was inspired by the love of nature exploring: catching bugs, bird watching, etc. You should give it a try.
As many others have already said, thank you SO much for making this video. I'm an older fan (90s baby and 1st game was gen 2 lol), but gen 4 is my all time favorite. When I saw BDSP I pretty much knew I had to let go of this series, no matter how much I still love it and am thankful for the experiences it's given me. I was utterly heartbroken. Now, much of my enjoyment comes exclusively from Romhacks and fan made games at this point, but even then, I've realized that it's better to just take a cautionary step back, and remember that what I love about Pokemon is the memories, and the friends and community that's been made from it, not the product Nintendo/GF has been giving us. :/
You actually put into words what i had been feeling for a while now, ever since sword and shield. I didn't like them, and i wanted to so bad. I remember playing X and Y with my brother and cousin on our 3ds' at our grandma's house. We couldn't figure out how to use the wireless feature to link trade. When we finally did, I remember we screamed in joy. I traded my Aegislash for my cousin's Raichu, and I still remember the grin on her face after we traded. My brother and I especially, fell in love with Pokemon. We played previous games too, and were both really excited for sun and moon. All three of us, my brother, cousin, and I, went to the Pokemon philharmonic orchestra. Pokemon brought us closer. The older Pokemon mystery dungeons were also games that helped me through a really tough time at the beginning of high school. Coming home after a long day at school to play something like explorers of sky, red rescue team, or pokemon super mystery dungeon was incredibly refreshing. I miss games with a soul and a story. Something about new video games, especially remakes and new Nintendo games, feel just, soulless? It's really exhausting to have your memories and feelings monetized, it seems like. I want to like the new games. I really do. But I just cant seem to keep buying $50- $70 games that make me feel empty inside. It made me feel guilty, almost, feeling this way, thinking that I was just being critical. I'm glad its not just me feeling this way. Thank you for this video. This was gut wrenching and really made me cry. I hope someday I play a Pokemon game and feel how I did when I link traded with my cousin.
Your story is funnily not much different from mine. With XY starting that decline and fizzling out my passion, my fiery passion for Yo-Kai Watch only grew over time and still burns bright. It's because of the simple fact that pretty much any of the common criticisms I and and many others had for Pokemon just do not exist in the 3DS Yo-Kai Watch games. Kinda adds to the disillusionment Sun and Moon created by trying so hard to implement Yo-Kai Watch features to poor execution after ORAS got outsold by YKW2 in Japan.
Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee also have different core gameplay loops with catching but it is still a main series game.
I don't really care about the new games post gen 6 but I still love the old games, I play the base games and rom hacks whenever my heart feels the need. I don't think I'll ever fall out of love with those old games, they carried me through the worst times of my life and produced some of my favorite memories but the sadness of new adventures being gone is pretty nasty tbh. Thank you for the video, man.
sword and shield was when my love for pokémon died. any time i try to go back to an older game to relive the enjoyment i had before, i can never finish them. they just don’t hit the same anymore
Many of us have felt this way. Plenty of us have even flirted with the idea that maybe we just outgrew pokemon.
In reality we could have had the great epic stories that pokemon could have offered with great improving gameplay each generation. Because of greed and apathy from the very company that holds our nostalgia we no longer live what we once did.
I was not excited for x&y and scarlet and violet was hard to get through. It’s been a long time since the idea for the next game was about the pokemon fans themselves and it shows in the community sentiment.
Beautiful video, thank u for summarizing what many of us feel in a direct and eloquent way.
At least we still have fan projects to keep the community afloat. Personally, my love for Pokémon will never die, but that love is given from the hands of a passionate fan base rather than the actual licensed games themselves.
Felt this.
Like I probably would've had similar feelings going into future titles past swsh if not for swsh making me so lukewarm on pokemon, prepping me perfectly for falling hook line and sinker into a digimon brainrot that started in 2020 and has yet to leave me. Unironically the digimon anime hit all the boxes for what I liked out of pokemon and more and I basically dove straight in there and never looked back. I still like pokemon but it's certainly an indifference now more than anything else
This is such a deeply relatable video. You captured my frustrations with the game & community perfectly. I fell out of love with pokemon after sword & shield. Seeing Gamefreak fail to deliver on the series' potential over and over afterwards made me care even less. I felt like a lunatic when I would see people praising all their horrible decisions.
Recently and now in my 20s, I decided to check out the pokemon anime, I heard it ended recently so I wanted to watch it for nostalgia's sake. The episodes weren't particularly good, but it brought a tear to my eye seeing the end of a story I was so invested in as a child. So many memories of me as a kid, who was OBSESSED with pokemon, came flooding back. Flash forward to now, I'm beginning to love Pokemon again for the first time in years. In spite of recent releases. Albeit, not with the all-consuming fervour I once had for the franchise.
This is one of the best videos I've seen on this platform. I love how you tell your story alongside how pokemon games were developing over the years.
Your story also really resonates with me personally because I had those same adventures with the pokemon games growing up. And after seeing what the games have become nowadays I had almost reached the same conclusion you have. But, I have always had one foot in the pokemon fan game community, so I simply turned all my adoration of pokemon towards the people that truly care and the passionate games they make.
I don’t blame anyone at all for not caring about Pokemon... it's been a dying ship for quite awhile. But if you ever become slightly interested in Pokemon, I invite everyone to check out the Pokemon fan game and rom hacking communities. Because thats where the love for the pokemon games truly flourishes.
No shade to the fan game community, but I've had an epiphany. Trying to be a fan game dev myself I keep running into the issue of the Pokemon's core gameplay loop getting in the way of my own creative ideas for the project. I have come to the conclusion to make Pokémon exciting from a gameplay perspective its gameplay loop needs to change,- meaning Pokémon needs to be changed on a fundamental level.
I realize that I'm better off making my own original game rather than trying to fix Pokémon in its entirety to make its gameplay loop truly engaging and have meaningful depth and challenges for all audiences. Nowadays, I only play fan games and rom hacks for the story. It's strange, my opinion on Pokémon was a lot more hopeful 7 months ago, but now I understand that Pokémon itself needs to evolve drastically to make its gameplay new and fresh again. Pokémon has always been the same stale cracker sold in different colored packages over the decades.
I'll see if I have more to add after rewatching this video...
(edit) Yeah, I fell out of love for Pokemon, I can't hope to make a fan game for Pokemon if I simply don't love Pokemon anymore.
While I have been really critical of the series (since gen 3) and fell out of love mostly for the games and merch, I think I'm starting to appreciate more and more the ideas and concepts the series was built from.
Just that sense of adventure into the unknown and also being really interesting in insects as a kid like Satoshi really made me understand why I gravitated toward sthe series to begin with.
Recently watching Pokémon Concierge, I realize Pokémon has a lot of appeal outside games and just battling. The series is still a goldmine of potential and new ideas
I hope they keep experimenting like they have with Concierge and the Legends series.
A game that really brought the magic back for me was PokeMMO. It's an MMO Pokémon game, so I get to play with a bunch of different people and experience new events and an economy. It feels like the next step the mainline Pokémon games should've taken.
This video hits hard. I may not feel the same way, I still love Pokemon, and I’m still young, but I feel you.
even though it’s about pokemon, i appreciate your deep reflection. helped me in relation to my sibling and childhood
I definitely relate to this. I played both pokemon black and pokemon sun/moon during the same time in my life and pokemon black slapped way harder for me personally. This is a very good video on how pokemon as a franchise is changing, and how things arent the same anymore
I came to terms with this, my childhood was satisfied with ORAS even if it lacked the battle front and romhacks remain a nice time passer I can keep on my phone, but when I look at the new games it feels like we are sticking a kid's crude drawing on the fridge door
"Oooh they made a decent plot in the epilogue part! Next time the entire story might be good!" "You can see the wild pokemon in the overworld, sometimes interacting with each other! They _kinda_ feel alive" "They are streamlining the gameplay, it's a bit less of a slog this time!"
thats how I felt playing Arceus and SV, consensus among more observant fans is that they want to do better and up standards, but they can't reach as far as they wish on a single release just like they cut down many corners and leave things unpolished, and it's unclear if their workflow and structure just isn't prepared for the demands of games on a bigger scale or they just don't get the time and resources they need, which would be okay on indie rpgs, but not on the most profitable franchise ever
I feel like you have put into words what I have been feeling for so long. I remember sitting in my college dorm room watching people Livestream Sun and Moon while eating ramen out of a measuring cup thinking the next release I'll be able to play myself. And then the next release burned me so bad. I didn't buy the DLC, I didn't play gen 9. I like Legends as it's own thing, but mainline Pokemon has just became something I can't seem to care about anymore. Young me would have been shocked to learn that a new generation has been out for over a year and not only have I not picked it up, but that I have no desire to.
The downfall since XY and i agree 100%..fell out of love for the series at sun and moon.... its sad to see so many others accept an empty shell with a Pokemon logo on it. A positive for me is that my falling out has only made me love Gen 1-5 even more ❤
I understand your predicament. I truly do. To be honest I think the primary reason is that you feel as if you just dont have much do to in the games anymore.
I had the same problem you do right now, and fell into a lull for pokemon, even having my cards stolen from me years ago. Growing up with Gen IV and V, i felt myself always coming back to them but still feeling...nothing. BDSP felt like such a large slap in the face.
Just when i had almost written the franchise out of my life an old friend of mine dumped a few games on me that he didnt want. One of these was Pokemon Colosseum. At first i didnt think much of it, even not liking the game very much. I put it down and didnt look at it for a few months.
It was also around this time that SirToasty uploaded a video. This video detailed him playing Pokemon Colosseum, and getting a shiny Scizor in order to obtain every possible ribbon on one Pokemon. I watched it and didnt think anything of it until i remembered i owned Colosseum.
Its bizzare but that sort of lit a fire in me again. I looked up what pokemon could be shiny and settled on one of my favorites, Croconaw. I spent two months hunting but eventually got the croconaw to shine. I traded it out of colosseum and into my Emerald copy and from there i just started playing every game, and working to get every possible ribbon on this little guy. He started in Colosseum, then went to Emerald, then to HeartGold, Pearl, then to Black, and now hes in X, as im working on the Gen VI ribbons.
Im not going to lie, this is the most enjoyment I've had playing pokemon in years, watching the ribbon page fill up more and more is making me feel as if the time spent playing the game is actually worth it.
Now i know it's probably just me in the end, but still, I'd strongly recommend trying this challenge. it's not easy by any means. It's given me a great appreciation as well for each game he goes through.
I never imagined something as simple as ribbon collecting would make me fall back in love with the games.
You absolutely nailed the feeling I have with Pokémon recently the hope, the forgiveness and eventually the désillusion.. Diamond and pearl graphics was the knife in the heart
S&V was the point when when I finally got burnt out on the whole thing. Shame, too. They gave my favorite Pokemon (Dunsparce) an evolution and the character designs were honestly phenomenal.
i honestly think pokemon peaked in gens 3-5, and i find myself returning to that span of time much more than the recent games. i really hope things change someday, but that hope dwindles slowly. ill just stick to replaying my childhood favorites for now (currently playing heartgold, on a homebrewed 3ds because i am NOT paying the secondhand prices people want for those games)
I started with Gen I and by Gen IV/V I had lost interest in the series. It's not that the games got bad, I think it's just that I grew up and realized I didn't have a sense of awe and wonder doing the same core gameplay loop over for the nth time. Good video soda crab!
It's so validating to finally find someone who feels the same way about Pokemon that I've been for years. I hate to generalize, but sometimes it does seem like the majority of Pokemon fans don't acknowledge or care about the decline of effort and care put into the games. When I hear news about Pokemon, its usually about a new product they're selling. Pokemon isn't about video games anymore, I believe they're closer to a company like Sanrio, where the main profit drivers are products containing their characters, and any other media is just an afterthought. Pokemon doesn't need to make good games because either way, they'll still make a profit.
Genuinely a really beautiful video
Im gonna be honest I randomly stumbled across this channel and I agree with almost every single point Soda Crab expressed. Great video man
Oh man…this video hit me like a truck. I grew up with Hoenn mostly but my sentiments are the same. My personal memories with it were with my cousins and brother and how we’d play the games, play pretend as the Pokemon and how my cousin made certificates out of construction paper every time I accomplished something like beating a trainer. I’ve fallen out of love with Pokemon for the same reasons you have, and while I still love it and I appreciate every time my brother gets me a gift of something Pokémon, I still feel empty playing a lot of the recent games. Lately Bugsnax has been that thing that fills the void of Pokemon and why I love it so it’s not all terrible though.
I love your storytelling. I personally have never delve too deep into the Pokémon games. I never grew up with them, but just hearing your stories about the older games makes me wanna actually play them for the first time.
for me ive never really fallen out of love with pokemon because me and one of my friends go on a discord call every time we play a pokemon game so legends was really fun for us because the whole time we would banter so the empty parts of the game were never empty i really only get lots of joy out of the series by playing with a friend or booting up showdown
For me the apathy for Pokémon arrived when ultra sun and moon were announced. I liked playing Sun, but not enough to play it all over again. It was the first time I saw a Pokémon game as not worth getting which was a feeling I didn’t know how to reconcile with.
god this video was so good, i remember playing fire red on my cousin’s game boy when i could barely read the in game text and ever since that day i’ve loved the franchise. every new game was such an incredible adventure, getting stuck in certain areas, losing gym battles over and over, and just being completely enthralled and addicted to the franchise. sun and moon was the nail in the coffin for me, it just wasn’t the same, i knew where to go, what to expect, etc. do i still replay older titles every year? yeah. but do i keep up with the new games and developments? not really. i’m ok with that though, pokemon is a solid grounding point to my childhood, and i’m ok with letting the “love” die off. i still love pokémon, but not like i loved pokémon when i was 6-16.
I just fell back in love with my 3DS and the whole ds/3Ds saga. It made me so terribly sad and angry about the current state of the franchise. How did it fell so bad? And it still sells like crazy!! Knowing how big companies are, as long as they keep selling, they won’t change.
I haven't finished the video yet but the title has definitely drawn me in, ive been feeling this way so much lately. I was obsessed with pokemon as a kid to the point my classmates made a song about me and pokemon. I bought plushies when i first had my own access to my bank card. But nowadays i feel nothing for it, the recent games are really such a let down.
I've always been an extremely casual gamer, but man, after playing games like mario odyssey and splatoon, it really made me aware of how much pokemon had been lacking and how much its fallen off for lack of a better word. Every new thing makes me more frustrated than excited, i dread any types of remakes more than i could ever look forward to them. No more rambling, but im excited to watch the video and hear your perspective
Thanks for making this video i share a lot of the views, the decline after oras and the nostalgia, genuine shivers man. I havent bought a game after ultra sunmoon and for now it will stay that way. Nintendo generally tends to trample on us lately, but I am cherishing the past it gave us.