The Star Wars comparison is especially apt because Star Wars will never reach its full creative potential under Disney just like the Pokémon games will never reach their full potential under game freak’s direction
Have you watched clone wars or mandalorian? They definitely capitalized on a lot of potential. You can just kinda ignore all the mainline films after the original trilogy, it's cool and fun to do so.
@@AlmightyDoubleHelix I’ve seen both, and they are some of my favorite Star Wars content, but I just mean in mainline Star Wars. Because Pokemon has some really fun spin offs, but the mainline games mostly feel the same, and I wish those ones were more ambitious since they have the most money backing them. Star Wars isn’t doing that anymore since their new content is getting SO much money put into them, which I’m happy about.
10:51 - 100% agree. For me at least, I've always liked the dex being region specific. Cuts down on choice paralysis, encourages me to branch out and try new Pokémon, and makes that entry feel unique. Sure, I get wanting to be able to move old mons to the new game, but that's never really been for me personally. I like a fresh start. It's why I really liked the random mix of Pokémon they put in Colosseum, limiting the options just made the Pokémon available feel more important.
Ok, agree. I don't care having new creatures and use then in the next regions BUT let me transfer any previous gen' s Pokémon to the newest if I want to, that is, keep the National Dex game by game, program every Pokémon although they can't be found in the wild.
It's an absurd standard that they set for themselves. Just a new batch of Pokémon is already a massive undertaking in terms of designing dozens of characters but right now the expectation is to have a 1000 of them in a new game. If it wasn't the norm I don't think anyone would be expecting this, and you'd be getting into a new Pokémon game for the new monsters anyway.
Arceus and Scarlet were two of their best games ever and they came out within the same year, pushed the series further forward than any of them have since Gold and Silver introduced day/night dark/steel, friendship and breeding in one game.
So much of pokemons appeal has always been the nostalgia and comfort that comes from playing the games. I still enjoy the newer instalments but the biggest hurdle for me is that there's a lack of that same magic of discovery but I think you made a good point about everyone having their first experience.
Pokemon is without a doubt the game franchise I like the least that I've spent the most time on... an unhealthy amount of time. It's a bit hard to explain, but I don't think I'm the only one who has this sentiment. Will be good to watch this video.
I hate Pokemon gameplay and have since I was like 12. It's just boring and repetetive. 20+ years ago me and my friends were talking about the new pokemon game how it would let you run around, actually see which pokemon was in the forest, let you choose to avoid some, or go after others. We talked about how you'd get a 3D view of the world as you flew on the back of your charizard. 20 years ago, a group of kids was having ideas that they're just now using, and doing so in the most lazy way. Wtf is Gamefreak doing? Why do people keep paying for these games?
Leaving here my playstyle that balances the difficulty for gen6+ pokemon games to make them much more enjoyable for veteran players: -> have the battle style on set and the exp share on -> aim to catch all the new pokémon you come across in every area and keep a clear separation of which ones you plan on keeping as your main party and which you're just collecting -> your main party can have 6 or more pokemon, the more pokemon the harder the playstyle is -> the 6 slots of the pokémon you carry with you must be split for the entirety of the game up until the elite four, you'll have 3 slots to keep pokemon from your main party and 3 to level up pokemon you've been collecting passively through the exp share just to evolve them, all of your slots will be in constant rotation This playstyle makes the game much more interesting because it forces you to have a limited party of the pokémon you actually focus on making stronger, making it so you need to be creative in battles, and as you'll be trying to catch a lot of pokemon and completing the pokedex at the same time you'll interact a lot more with the world and making use of mechanics that are easy to ignore such as evolution itens, locations and other triggers. This method also basically guarantees your Pokedex will be basically done right as you finish the game which cuts a lot of postgame busywork
Sejun Park’s Pachirisu wasn’t on his team because it was his personal favorite. It was a brilliant master stroke that filled in a role on his team that was so unexpected but it definitely wasn’t there because his favorite Pokémon. However, after winning the the world championship, I wouldn’t be surprised if Pachirisu later became his favorite lol
I'm sorry, but to me the National Dex is essential to what it has kept Pokémon going so long: That every new game you can reawaken your passion, bringing back your old favorites and sharing this passion with the new generation. The National Dex is the line that conects each newer mainline entry with the very first games 25 years ago. Doing it like they do now, only favoring Gen 1 and the newest means that if you make any new favorite, chances are in the next gen you might already not have them, and have your investment thrown away. I can't see what's so exciting about seeing your favorites cut off. I'd much prefer if they did it like Black & White again. By all means bring something new and highlight it. But let us find our favorites again eventually. And yet, as much as they say they want to focus on what's new, what we see on Sword and Shield is that Gen 1 is again firmly on the spotlight, with multiple new forms and as the Champion's top pokémon. I would understand the need to pull back and lower the scope out of any other studio, but as the video reminds us, Pokémon is The Biggest Multimedia Franchise, so it's not a matter that they can't do it. It's just that they would rather spare costs than investing into it.
I recently watched a video on the best features added in each generation, and it made me realize how good gens 2-5 were (and I played all the games when they came out) It also made me realize how many of these amazing features weren't in Sword and Shield. We lost way more then just the National Dex. The main titles have been on the decline since X and Y, and if Game Freak doesn't want to a repeat of the same mistakes, they need either spend more time on each game, or hire more staff
I wish deciding between Switch and Set Mode was something that was front and center when starting a new file. Honestly it improves the battling so much. Even a seasoned competitive player like myself had a few sweaty moments in Ultra Sun because I was playing on Set Mode. I have a feeling that there are a lot of people who have been complaining about Pokemon's lack of difficulty who either forgot Set Mode existed or never knew it existed. Although of course I think traditional difficulty options in the game would be a great addition to the franchise as well.
A friend recently said what's wrong with Pokemon is that they kept trying too hard to replicate the mechanics of the existing games rather than the feelings that those mechanics were trying to accomplish, a form over function approach. As a result, the series is still beholden to some limitations that arose from the Game Boy and GB Color hardware, in the name of staying "true" to the series. I agree with this, and I'd love to see a Pokemon game that's basically what Tajiri would have done if instead of the GB, he had the Switch or other modern hardware (and appropriate budget) to achieve his RPG idea on.
Pokémon peaked in Gen 5, but it was so poorly received when it first released. Now a lot of fans love it. I wonder if some of the newer gens will be beloved like that in a couple of years.
There is a good chance this will happen. Pokemon basicially become worse and worse each generation. If some bad mechanics are changed with even more bad mechanics people will miss the old Features even if they are hated them back to than. I remember beeing frustrated thanks to the weird PSS in Generation 6. Than it was exchanged with the Festival Plaza in Generation 7 that was even more bad than the PSS. And now I miss the PSS even though it gave me a lot of frustration back in Generation 6.
Thanks for the new video. I just recently bought Pokemon Sword and, after some time with it, decided that it just wasn't for me anymore, much like you said at one point in this video. I think it's okay to grow of of things, I am also a Gen 1 player and while it's sad the magic is no longer there like it was at 10 years old, I'm grateful such an experience was able to be had. Sometimes the nostalgia for these things is so strong that we're convinced it will be the same when we revisit it, but accepting that it may never be is okay too. The way you talked about the next generation of young player getting excited in the way we used to when we first discovered Red and Blue put a smile on my face though. It's reassuring to know that feeling still exists out there right now, for someone else in a different stage of life.
HeavyEyed, your video on 'The Problems With Pokémon - A Series Retrospective' is a brave and insightful exploration into a beloved franchise. 🕹 Your retrospective not only highlights the strengths but addresses the challenges Pokémon has faced over the years. Thanks for offering a balanced perspective and fostering meaningful discussions within the gaming community. Looking forward to more thought-provoking retrospectives from you! 🌐👾 #PokémonReflections #HeavyEyedInsights
Small correction on Pachirisu: Parks didn't use it because it was his favorite (even if it probably became his favorite afterward). He actually used it because he realized it was the best fit for his team and strong against the meta at large. So the beauty isn't that of winning with one's favorites, but of noticing potential in a place everyone else had overlooked.
If it wasn't his favorite, why would he have a plush doll of it with him during fights? There's plenty of people who stumbled on a pokemon and decided that they were a perfect fit but, aside from some minute exceptions like Landshark Sensei, no one roams around with plushes of them. Pachirisu may have only been noticed as the perfect fit because of precisely how much he liked pachirisu beforehand, but still, ultimately, one can't say he didn't intend on accomplishing it with one of his favorite Pokemon from the get go.
I think the idea of not having a national dex every game is actually fine. I've always thought it would be better for the games to have a set of new monsters each gen, and then possibly a handful of older mons who thematically fit in with the new region. I like comparing it to Monster Hunter, which does just that, allowing people to get excited about new mons but also which of the old cast could return, I think it could really help with Pokemons scaling issues. Fantastic video!
As someone who has only really experienced Pokemon games recently (in part because one of my kids wanted me to play) this was really interesting and got me thinking about several things. I think it's great when games like this focus more on customization and variety instead of difficulty because as you got into it's safe to say people will find their own ways to challenge themselves. I kept thinking of parallels with Final Fantasy games (like the first or Tactics etc)
Speaking of how competitive Pokémon is, you should try giving the rom hacks a try. I think you would love Pokémon Radical Red GBA. It’s a Fire Red rom hack in which includes a higher difficulty, every pokémon released since Sword and Shield, Mega Pokémon, EV training and much more.
24:10 "One of the hardest things might be realizing something isn't for you anymore." Yea that realization hit me hard back in gen 7. It's really sad knowing that this piece of my childhood is something that I probably won't ever be able to enjoy again.
Heart Gold/ Soul Silver was the peak of Pokemon for me. I just have not been able to really get into it as much as I did at that point, despite playing all the entries up to and including Sword.
There is so much to love about pokemon, from the art to the gameplay to the music; the heart of the series is just teeming with love from the people who make the games. That said, the expectations they have to deal with are also only getting more demanding, and unfortunately i dont think theyve been able to keep up. I hope gamefreak can pull out a gem with these new games because i dont want to see the franchise wane. That said, i think monster hunter stories 2 has done a fantastic job of showing us what can be done with the pokemon formula for this generation of games, so im sure pokemon can do the same with the right direction.
The music selection was superb on this one. Im quite a bit younger ('97), but quite honestly had a similar journey with the games. Played the originals before I could read properly, with some help from my older brothers, then got into competitive battling halfway through gen5. But nowadays they just fail to catch me in the same way.
Amazing video yet again!!! This was such a nice nostalgia trip ❤️ Despite the many disappointments along the way, I wouldn’t trade growing up with this series for anything! And I still hold hope for future games!
I think possibly the single easiest and best change Gamefreak could make would be to simply remove some of the archaisms that have stuck around since the beginning: instead of individual text boxes that you have to click through for 'super effective', 'not very effective', and 'X was hurt by poison', just changing them into particle effects that pop up when the effect takes place. Faster and more skippable text, faster animations, more animations being allowed to play simultaneously or overlap, clearly readable status icons... the list goes on and on. Many of these elements were necessities on the Gameboy, which to re-use assets and keep as much of the information text-based to cut down on file sizes. Back when red and blue were first released, the fact that they could fit THAT MUCH stuff onto a gameboy cartridge was like witchcraft, it was a 40-hour RPG that was fully customizable AND fully portable, getting that to function at all was a marvel of software engineering, but the absolute paralysis over changing anything, even the transparently bad elements that were included out of necessity, has made the games feel tedious, repetitive, and uninteresting to play.
There's also only runs! I love only runs with only using the early game birds. Fangames have also shown how to make difficulty harder without making it just silly and grindy like setting level caps and new terrains which effect battle which can be caused by move combinations. I loved battle revolution but I couldn't use it online on my wii because of how the internet was set up haha. Sejun Park's favourite pokemon wasn't pachirisu to start with he picked it because it helped gyarados so much but then it became his favourite because of how well it worked and it being unusual
I was very excited for sumo, but couldn't even finish it due to the rotom tutorials every few minutes. I'm glad there's a nice romhacking community that is making quality games without the problems mentioned in the video.
I clearly remember being four years old and playing on my brother's already completed save file on HeartGold and going to the battle dojo everyday to sweep them with my lvl 100 Typhlosion and Mewtwo because I had all of the phone numbers. Those were the days
Pokemon Leafgreen. I tried it when i was a kid. But i got stuck at a rival battle after mt moon because i never grinded and never got the concept. Also never got how the pc worked because i always used "my pc" instead of "someone's pc". Tried it again a couple decades later and just didn't have fun.
I was a really young kid, probably not even 8 yet and picked up Leaf Green. It was an okay-ish experience but I was really disappointed with it not being anything like the anime and not liking Kanto (also could never beat the Elite 4.) But then I got Sapphire version and fell in love with Hoenn & Contests. Even as a kid I enjoyed the non-combat side of the games a lot more and Hoenn is like a Utopia to me with the harmony of nature & civilization.
I'm 37 and having my first Pokemon experience with HeartGold right now, trying to address a decades-long lacuna in my gaming experience. I'm not really enjoying it at all, and still don't get what the appeal is.
I think polish and quality care are other aspects that contribute to fans becoming disaffected. As you said, Pokémon is worth so much money and has so many resources available to it that it’s baffling how all it’s projects feel so mismanaged. When you look at other franchises like Dragon Quest and Persona, who make a fraction of what Pokémon does, their games are just as expansive/complex with tons of attention to things like animations, gameplay, glitch management, QoL, visuals, etc. I know the usual defense is that those games aren’t forced to be annual franchises; but even titles like Call of Duty & Assassins Creed which do have annual to bi-annual schedules are able to at least come out with more polished content than Pokémon does. I just don’t think we should keep apologizing for the half-baked products they keep coming out with because business and design management are still aspects of game development; and it’s obvious Gamefreak isn’t excelling at those.
Ok, so, dude, you'll have to forgive me on this one but I have WAY too much stuff to get out of my chest and a video like this is just an absolute godsend for me to do something like that! While I do agree with a lot of what you put forth, in my opinion you didnt fully hit the nail on the head. Yeah sure, the community that formed around the series is now incredibly diverse, thanks in part to the amount of layers the games provide, which Im sure makes the decision of what to do next in the series an insurmountable thing, but I think the "problem" with the series is an inherent one. Here's what I mean. While I did grow up with Pokémon since like, age 4, when the 3ds initially came out and X&Y weren't out yet, I was fortunate enough to play Monster Hunter 3U. To be fair, the game came pre-installed, but that's besides the point. The point is that MH became as much of an important series to me as Pokémon, and over the years I've noticed some interesting parallels between the two series. They are both iterative series where the core game remains unchanged, they are both released according to generations, and in a sort of ironic way, they both have hundreds of monsters as one of their main selling points. Here's the catch though. While the core of Monster Hunter, aka everything a game in that series needs to work, is its combat, in Pokémon's case, the scenario is not that simple. Monster Hunter works very well as an iterative series, because as long as they keep the phenomenal combat intact, which is to say, the absolute brilliant monster AI and combat design patterns, the series can experiment and add/remove/swap layers on top of that core with each new generation and everything still feels natural. Big features like underwater combat can be completely scrapped between generations, while others like aerial moves are just readapted in later releases. Pokémon doesn't have it this "easy" because in my opinion it's core is comprised of several "inner layers" making it harder to add stuff on top of it. You said that they should have removed the National Dex in gen 3 but I kinda disagree. For me the core of Pokémon is the interconnected web that is formed between the collecting aspect of it, the battling, and the sense of adventure and discovery. The collecting feeds into the way you approach battles and vice versa, and on top of that, in order to keep the feeling of a new gen alive, they need to add a substantial amount of new creatures every 4 or so years. This leads to what you described as patching instead of tackling the core issues at hand (although your point was brought forward in a slightly different context). They keep trying to add new things only to completely "forget" about them later, while the core remains a bit messy and tangled. Removing a couple of your favourite monsters in MH isn't a big deal because the core is still the same, but that is not true for Pokemon, because removing monsters in this case not only affects potential combat strategies, but also impacts the whole catching them all thing. So with this core scope problem, the way they approach adding layers falls a bit flat on its head. They added triple and rotation battles in gen 5 only to disregard them in later gens. Even a big thing like Mega Evolutions was pretty much forgotten in gen 7, but since it is quite substantial when it comes to combat, they left it as a weird foot note. Now they added Dynamax as this gen's equivalent to Mega Evolutions. Even in the TCG things seem to be a bit messy with superficial layers added on top of superficial layers, at least that's what I've heard from people that are more knowledgable regarding the TCG than me. While I don't envy anyone who has to make a decision regarding the future of the series, I do believe that something big needs to change. They either approach the games in a new way like Legends Arceus seems to be doing, or they go all in and make a focused game based around 150 or so new creatures like gen 5 did. That said, and just like you pointed out, the show must go on, and with an IP as big as Pokemon, catering to nostalgia and not making big moves are the obvious decisions to make. That said, another thing that I think doesnt get brought up enough is that despite the astounding success of the series, Game Freak isn't a Santa Monica or Naughty Dog type studio and in my opinion that aspect started to show when the jump to 3d occurred, specially taking into account that making 3d games is inherently more complex than making 2d ones. Anyway, Ive rambled enough, and while Im aware there is no structure whatsoever to this comment, hopefully someone will find some of these ideas interesting. Also great video as always and shout out for mentioning the set/shift battle style. Ive made the change to Set mode a long time ago, but its always nice to see other people acknowledge this. Take care! :)
Pokemon will always have a place in my heart. Played red at release on a falling apart Gameboy. But, it's a series I haven't returned to in a very, very long time. I honestly can't bring myself to play anything with turn based combat anymore. I just see my small quantity of free time ticking away while I select attacks from a menu. I wish I could enjoy them, but at least for now, I can't.
@@moosesues8887 it's not about the amount of time a game takes to play. For me it's the time spent clicking through a menu, and passively watching the same animations over and over again whilst I sit and wait.
@NS 317 It has little to do with total game length. I just find it unfulfilling to click through a menu to perform actions and then passively wait while the same animations take place over and over again.
I think the nat dex cut in swsh was so poorly received was not just because some people didn't like the idea of it, but for me personally it was how they handled it. I understand the reality of their situation and how the national dex couldnt stay forever, but their excuses as to why were just straight wrong. They said that they had to remove some pokemon (even though they removed half but thats another topic entirely) because making entirely new models for the pokemon was giving them trouble but people have found that even in sword and shield they were still just using the same models from xy, so that was a lie. Then they made dlc so that they could basically make an area for them to spit old the same pokemon that should've been in the base game back at you for a large price. That and pokemon home make me feel like game freak couldve handled the cut much better, and i think what they did with it was pretty scummy.
not even mentioning the fact that every single animations (yeah also the walking and the pokémon camp) were inside gen 7's files, so I really don't get how it couldn't be translated for 8G. Not being able to transfer my pokémon teams for each game or even my shinies is a mistep so high that I can't think how it is possible to defend the fact that every pokémon weren't returning in an update... like, again, we're speaking about a $100B company. Just why?
yep, the fact that people are still believing that excuse is a testemount to how gamefreak and nintendo have pulled the wool over the eyes of pokemon fans for so long. This is a billion dollar franchise, and the games they're putting out are shitty rehashes of the same forumala that's been done to death. The only reason people still buy them is the branding.
@@QuintaFeira12 nah walking animations were news to Gen 7 and I'm pretty sure the models themselves were upgraded in Gen 7 and that is the main reason of the framerate issue in the games
*"Then they made dlc so that they could basically make an area for them to spit old the same pokemon that should've been in the base game back at you for a large price."* This is demonstrably false. You don't need the DLC to get the old Pokemon, the patch that adds said Pokemon to the game is free. All you really need is HOME and that thing is cheap.
Like you said, it's hard to accept sometimes that something you love just isn't for you anymore. I grew up with generations 3-5 mostly, and for me the national Pokedex was legitimately the most exciting part of the game. And I was a massive fan of the series, definitely the media I loved more than anything else from like ages 6-14. So when sword and shield rolled around and removed the nationaldex it was pretty upsetting, as I felt like I was losing something that had been with me for so long. But I've come to realize that, yeah, it isn't feasible anymore. And that's okay! Not every interest has to last forever, and the specific experiences I had as a kid are no lesser just because I can't keep replicating them forever. It's tough to move on, tough to grow up. But you need to, and this video really gets at the melancholy of that feeling. Made me tear up a bit tbh :')
I started playing pokemon just like you, with yellow. And it has been a constant throughout my life. Then something happened, I went through some real hard time around the time Sun and Moon were released, I didn't have any money and couldn't afford the game. I remember still, how gutted I was of missing out on some thing that had been a constant for all my life... then, several years later, I had a chance again, and I was met with Ultra Moon. Immediately I was confused, I was told by some it was an upgrade, by others it was a different game, by all that it was a bit of a letdown. Immediately, such a simple game that for me was all about team building and adventure (I'm not a competitive person, at all, which is also the reason I hate battling online, and thus my only enjoyment of the game is in the main storyline) became complex, but for all the wrong reasons. And then, the game itself just.. tried so hard to be annoying. The excessive tutorializing, the always on rotom pain, finding myself constantly and without much work behind it over 10 levels above the storyline... It's hard to say this, but that's when my love for the main serie died. Ultra Moon is the first time in a pokemon game I actually never even fiished a pokemon game. And it hurts. This made me jaded, cautious, and I ended up skipping Sword & Shield until I could borrow it from a friend. And despite how much it hurts to say, I'm glad I did. S&S feels so cheap, so lazy, seeing my childhood, adolescence and early adulthood treated like that actually hurt me. I really, really hope Legends can shake things up. Since then, I've been trying various romhacks and fangames in the hope of keeping that flame burning, but it's dying. And I dread the day where my passion for pokemon disappears
I dont agree that Sun and Moon solved HMs. It removed the aspect of team composition that wast tied to HMs and reduces them to key items. I do not agree that the sense of difficulty curve is purely a result of us getting better A lot of alleged QoL changes aren't really anything of the sort, but things that have categorically dumped down the game like the new forced EXPShare, infinite TMs, Pokemon Amie and the tema comps of trainers trait up being deliberately more anemic. I also see the "just play competitive" argument is largely missing the point. Playing a si gle player RPG cannot be substituted with a competitive PvP. They are not the same thing.
It's hard accepting that elements like SuMo's Rotom that won't shut up and being railroaded, pelted with items and given matches that are designed to be almost impossible to lose are just part of the series these days. Thankfully there are a lot of great Pokemon fangames that have more open and explorable worlds, battles that I don't one-move-KO my way through hitting A on repeat, and stories where your character actually has some agency, rather than the more recent tendency for you to just kinda be there. I'll always love Pokemon. But the fan content is more engaging the the official content, much like other kids' franchises like Miraculous Ladybug or Danny Phantom, and sad as it is to see Pokemon stagnate, it was inevitable. "It's for kids, so it doesn't have to be good" is industry mantra these days in animation, video games and TV shows. It's just kind of a bummer since Silver's arc in Pokemon SS/HG lives rent-free in my head as one of my favorite things in kids' media and I get Hop and Hau confused in my head because they're both super happy people who recover from you crushing their dreams and go back to being happy, jumping up and down and doing that milking-the-giant-cow hand animation. Pokemon has shown it has the potential for engaging stories. It's unwilling to go there. Thankfully, the fandom is.
With how I enjoyed every generation of Pokémon from Gen 1-5 and started disliking Pokémon since Gen 6 I just excused it as me getting older and growing out of Pokémon. I do hope Pokémon Legends Arceus will have enough positive changes for the series to not feel stale, but we will just have to wait and see. Thanks for yet another fantastic and well researched video!
thank god for these thoughts are on video, scourge of scale has something that's been bugging me with this franchise thinking back to the mind-melting everyone was going thru when the dex-slashing was a hot topic.
I lost most of my love for Pokemon but that is mainly due to the insane bottlenecking of the franchise's potential. Why do we only have a show focused on Ash when the Manga is way more creative and has a wider range of characters? Why is there a "mainline" set of games in the first place? We should be getting Pokemon Nintendogs/Nintendcats-like games. We should be getting games focused on contests with visuals like coordinators in the anime. Farming & fishing sims are perfect for Pokemon. Why did Pokemon snap go on hiatus for so long and why haven't we explored the oceans of Pokemon pretty much at all? The idea of Pokemon Rangers is great and all you need to do is change the circle drawing gameplay. And why is Mystery Dungeon basically the only series where you play *as* Pokemon and have hired writers who aren't braindead? Pokemon has so much potential but it is all wasted on maintaining that Mainline JRPG with no attempt to improve the writing or difficulty. All while they are massively behind on QoL features that other JRPG's have had since the DS. If I were to feel a genuine sense of love for Pokemon then I would be incredibly sad because it has failed to live up to its potential in just about every generation of gaming.
*"Why do we only have a show focused on Ash when the Manga is way more creative and has a wider range of characters?"* Because he's popular. Popular enough to have a day named after him, in fact. *"Why is there a "mainline" set of games in the first place?"* Because those are popular and always sell like hot cakes. *"...but it is all wasted on maintaining that Mainline JRPG with no attempt to improve the writing or difficulty."* And why would they kill it? Because *you* don't like it?. *"All while they are massively behind on QoL features that other JRPG's have had since the DS."* Like which ones?.
@@toumabyakuya 1. Ash being popular does not mean they should exclude other shows from the chance of existing. A lot of people grow out of watching Ash's adventures. Having alternatives would help and broaden the possible audience. 2. My point on the "mainline games" is that it slaughters the potential of the other games. Spinoffs tend not to do as well as any series where one set of games is titled "mainline." Select exceptions exist (SMT for example) but a Pokemon pet simuator game is going to be kneecapped for not being part of the "main" series. 3. SMT is a great example here. Devil Survivor had no random encounters, same with DQ 9, Persona 3, Trails in the Sky, even the sh"tty Mario JRPG's don't have that. The speed of the animations/particle effects for both the SMT & Digimon series were/are well above that of Pokemon. And most of the other QoL features I would mention are more abstract and could be disputed because QoL is an ambiguous term (for example I would consider good dialogue a QoL feature while most wouldn't.)
@@haruhirogrimgar6047 *"Having alternatives would help and broaden the possible audience."* And they have. Have you forgotten about Generations? This ovas and more are done every so often, so its not like they don't exist. *"but a Pokemon pet simuator game is going to be kneecapped for not being part of the "main" series."* And this is the main series fault how, exactly?And why should this mean that the main series should die?. *"Devil Survivor had no random encounters,"* However, this wouldn't work for Pokemon were the idea is to catch them all. No random encounters means less opportunities to catch them all. *"The speed of the animations/particle effects for both the SMT & Digimon series were/are well above that of Pokemon."* However, those two series don't depend at all on their "main series games" and so they can get enough time to develop their games. Sadly, that is not the case for Pokemon were the Main games do matter for the development of all the other branches of the franchise.
@@toumabyakuya 1. We don't have other shows outside of Origins and even then basically nothing touching the interesting parts of the Manga as source material. A Pokemon show aimed at teens, young adults, or within the next 20ish years the middle-aged fans who grew up would be a good idea. 2. They basically got rid of random encounters in Gen 8 so it is bs to say they "need" them. On top of that it is a way easier process to get every Demon in Devil Survivor than to fill out the Pokedex in just about any generation. And I would argue that the people "trying to catch them all" is an ultra-minority of players. It is incredibly tedious in every game to finish the regional dex, much less the national. Dexit realistically affected very few players and the outrage was more at the concept of the matter. 3. Pokemon having a sh"t dev cycle isn't an excuse for pumping out sh"t games. If other JRPG's can provide a better experience than Pokemon can then they should be treated as such. Saying "Persona 5 had ___ more years of dev time than Pokemon Sw/Sh" doesn't make Sw/Sh a better game. It makes P5 a better game since they got to flesh out the game a lot more and hired non-clinically braindead writers.
@@haruhirogrimgar6047 1.-) I still fail to see how this is a fault of the main anime. And the manga and the like hasn't been adapted because it isn't that popular as you are trying to make it sound (besides the fact that there are 5+ different mangas that makes gauging interest even harder). *"They basically got rid of random encounters in Gen 8 so it is bs to say they "need" them."* They did not. Not only they appear in the overworld like DQ9, but the tall grass still exists. A game that has enough areas for the 900+ Pokemon to appear is quite literally impossible. *"On top of that it is a way easier process to get every Demon in Devil Survivor than to fill out the Pokedex in just about any generation."* I disagree. It required to combine Demons (something Pokemon has no access to), to buy new ones in the Auction (something that wouldn't fly in a Pokemon game without a Mature rating) and also to unlock some of them in different endings (only thing that could work and that could be taken from DS). *"And I would argue that the people "trying to catch them all" is an ultra-minority of players."* As much of a minority as they might be, their opinions still deserve to be heard and their playstyle still needs to be taken into account, otherwise they are getting alienated from a franchise they might still love. *"Pokemon having a sh"t dev cycle isn't an excuse for pumping out sh"t games."* Why not? After all, this tells us the limitations (or lack thereof) of both franchises's development cycle: - Pokemon is a big franchise that has a lot of branches attached to its name, all of those being dependant on the Main games being released on time, so the later cannot be delayed without causing a ripple effect on the rest of the franchise. - SMT, being honest, is a niche franchise and that means that it has a freedom Pokemon lacks. Add to it the fact that SMT's main games don't hold back any other point of the franchise and you have a franchise were the Main games can be delayed as often as needed.
11:15 This is demonstrably incorrect. Gamefreak stated that the national dex was cut because they had to make new models and animation for every Pokemon and for balancing reasons. These were obvious lies. The models of the old Pokemon have been proven to be the same and most animations are reused. As for balancing, well, the games have never been balanced and Sw/Sh is no exception.
*"The models of the old Pokemon have been proven to be the same and most animations are reused."* If it isn't broken, don't fix it. I thought that the fanbase wanted for GF to reuse the 3DS models and animations because they were "future-proofed"?. *"the games have never been balanced and Sw/Sh is no exception."* That doesn't mean that they didn't try.
They clearly stated that the reason for removing Pokemon was because they had to make new models and animations for all the old ones. This was a lie. They also said they removed the old Pokemon for balancing reasons. Then they add most of them back, undoing any so called balancing. Point is they were not even honest about why they made a shitty decision. As near as I can tell this was just a ploy to manipulate their consumers into accepting a cheaper product. They still haven't given a satisfactory excuse, and people come out of the woodwork to defend this corporation.
@@AlmightyDoubleHelix *"This was a lie."* Maybe, maybe not. That still doesn't change the fact that the majority of the fanbase still says that said models and animations were future-proofed, so why is it bad for GF to use them?. *"Then they add most of them back,..."* Thanks to all the outcry Dexit generated. They had to take a decision: - Bring the cut Pokemon back. - Stick to their guts and possible receive even worse backlash. Is obvious they chose the safest option of the two. *"As near as I can tell this was just a ploy to manipulate their consumers into accepting a cheaper product."* And for all I can see that is just your opinion based on a biased overview of the situation. *"They still haven't given a satisfactory excuse,..."* And why would they do so at this point when the newer games are about to be released? Let it go and move on. *"...and people come out of the woodwork to defend this corporation."* Maybe because we are exhausted of people like you exaggerating how bad everything really was.
I don't understand why this argument keeps happening. They made shitty decisions. They should be called out for it until it is rectified. They don't need fans to defend them. Their actions don't reflect poorly on you.
I enjoyed this very much! Somehow, I missed ALL of pokemon. When I tried to jump into it, I think it was in Platinum, and I fell in love with Piplup and then he evolved when I didn't expect him to and he was gone forever. I guess that's the point of the game? But I just felt like my little dude was gone, haha. So I've been on the outside since, looking in on friends who were battling and deep diving on EV training, etc. Such a cool series that feels like, as far as I can tell, has gotten watered down and stretched beyond its limits in recent releases. It sounds like the nostalgia tank has finally begun to scrape the bottom, and that's unfortunate. I hope they can evolve the series in a meaningful way and still keep its identity!
Disagree with you on the Dex cut. The main issue wasn't with not being able to catch them all in the region (previous games limited what you could find along the main journey). The issue was that some Pokemon were completely removed from the game's code, preventing players from bringing in their favorites from Home. This caused players who transferred Pokemon to Home unable to take them out, as well as pay for a ridiculous subscription fee. Also the argument that GameFreak had to remake models/animations for EVERY pokemon is bullshit, as Pokemon from gens1-7 reused their models and animations. Hell even Hop reused animations from Hau.
Amazing video! I love the points you addressed. There’s so many things I want to express related my experience with Pokemon, but the comment would be very long. I have the urge to boot up Ultra Moon now, the last Pokemon game I’ve ever played and the only one I didn’t finish, with the Set settings and Nuzlocke rules.
Pokemon has been in the steps of Sonic for a long time. It has ambition for a short while in development, then the deadline creeps up and in the rush, it becomes bad.
This is a pretty good overview of some of the issues with the series, and while there are specific parts I might not agree with there's one in particular I want to respond to: Pokemon's difficulty. I would argue that, as a whole, Pokemon has gotten easier. I will agree that the original RBY games are on the easier side of Pokemon games, but that's due to poorly coded AI more than anything else. I would argue the games gradually got more difficult up to Gen 4, with Black and White being a sort of side step, before sharply dropping with subsequent games. And the problems are pretty easy to pinpoint, imo. EXP Share is a big one, while it cuts down on the need for any grinding it also effectively multiplies the amount of experience you receive from each fight. It's easy to end up being TOO POWERFUL for a given point of the game just from the sheer amount of experience you gain, and the level scaling isn't really designed with this in mind with the exception of Leon's team in Sword and Shield. TMs generally start to contain more powerful moves once you get to Generation 3, which is fine. But then in Gen 5 and up, they are now infinite use. This reduces the amount of meaningful decision making you need to make during team building and allows you to splash more moves around with better type coverage. I think in general the TM changes are good because it allows for more versatility, but the enemy trainers rarely take advantage of the extra options that are afforded to the player. It's also just easier to get more and better Pokemon early on. There's a wider variety in what's available near the start, and while that's generally a good thing it also means you can build a pretty competent team with only 1 or 2 badges. And that's before we get to the overpowered gift Pokemon. Luckily Gens 7 and 8 dial this back a lot, but it was a huge problem in Gen 6. XY gave you so many GOOD gift Pokemon, including the Mega Evolving Lucario and choice of Kanto starter with their own Mega Stone, and ORAS just gives you a powerful Legendary Pokemon also capable of Mega Evolving. It's up to the player to use them, of course, and I personally don't...but a lot of people did, and once again the game doesn't account for the fact you have more powerful tools than you did in previous titles. As an aside, I actually enjoy the more tedious aspects of revisiting Gen 1. HM moves and limited inventory space means there's more actual decision making outside of combat rather than just going straight from point A to point B and adds to the feeling, in my opinion, of it being a journey. I know these things aren't for everyone and I wouldn't suggest that they come back, but the modern games have a distinctly different flavor. It feels like you're just being taken along on a train ride stopping for set pieces rather than organically exploring the world. There's details about how the maps are designed in the older titles that are lost starting with Gen 7, such as how Kanto accommodates players that don't use Fly by looping around on itself naturally if you go with the expected route through the game. Meanwhile, Sword and Shield might as well not even have routes with how linear the game is. This comment is already a little too long, so I'll leave one last thought here. I hope Pokemon Legends is good. I genuinely want The Pokemon Company to experiment with games that share the core gameplay loop but explored in different ways. Revisiting the Gamecube titles was very interesting. The shift to doubles made fights more challenging, particularly when the AI had teams built around the format, and the limited Pokemon roster also made things more difficult by reducing the tools you have to work with. Meanwhile, PLA seems to be focused on the exploration and dex filling aspects of the core series that seem to have been ignored in later titles. I think there's room both for the current style of Pokemon and alternative experiences for older players looking for something more out of the game. It's frustrating to me that Game Freak expects me to play multiplayer as the end game when that was never my favorite part of the games growing up. So I'm cautiously optimistic that PLA represents a turning point for the series, and that Sword and Shield was just a stepping stone to get there.
Something I forgot to mention that I'm going to put here instead of editing the original lengthy comment: I play with Set battle rules, I don't use healing or battle items during trainer fights, and if available I use the option to disable the EXP Share when I'm not going out of my way to level up. I find this brings the level of difficulty up to a good level as a veteran player, even if the games are still on the easy side. And, of course, there are the options of difficulty hacks, though I'm not usually a fan of how those handle the difficulty changes. Another thing I do to help shake things up is the occasional challenge run, like a mono-type run, or avoiding Pokemon that I've used in the past in favor of ones I haven't trained before. I've slowly been chipping away at the entire Pokedex this way, and I've in fact have completed a file using every single Kanto Pokemon and most Johto Pokemon this way, with the exceptions of some of the Megas or Regional forms. It's going to be difficult once I'm getting to the Pokemon exclusive to the 3DS or Switch games since I don't exactly enjoy those as much but eh...the Pokemon designs are why I'm still here. Designs like Hawlucha, Mimikyu, or Cramorant are among some of my favorites in the entire series! I hope the designs keep getting better and better in the future. :)
This summed things up perfectly tbh. I've loved this series for years but some of the fans have the most ridiculous takes about it. People who only like the first few gens won't admit some parts were just tedious and not fun. And while some of the new games definitely have their problems, people complain about every little thing, even when like you said, some changes were for definitely for the better . i actually fell off of the series for a few years after gen 5, and while sword/shield (and watching nuzlockes!) brought me back into it and got me replaying a bunch of past gen games, i still never got around to sun/moon. moving forward though, i want to have realistic expectations for upcoming pokemon games, and just want to enjoy them for what they are. like you said, each new game is some kids' first pokemon adventure-- you discussing this made me a tad emotional thinking back to the magical experience of my first pokemon games. so i hope i can let myself enjoy some new adventures in the future :)
I feel like it's worth mentioning in regards to difficulty in the franchise that back in the 2d era we had things like the Battle Frontier, PWT and actual difficulty selection that you could unlock in BW2, not to mention the post game that offered the ability to rematch various gym leaders and the elite 4 with even stronger mons. Many of these features are unfortunately not present in the current gens and with stuff like the universal XP share or friendship bonuses it makes the game much easier
8:05 I really wish Pokemon fans would stop calling other monster collector genre games "clones". Alot of Pokemon's own monster design philosophy even with Kanto's "original" 151 can easily be traced to back to Dragon Quest monster designs especially since Draogn Quest 5 is a monster collector that came out years before Pokemon and helped further popularize the genre in Japan alongside older monster collectors like Shin Megami Tensei. By all accounts, it's super easy to refer to Pokemon as a Dragon Quest clone. 14:10 I agree. One of my problems with Sun and Moon besides it just being a soulless attempt at trying to replicate the goodness of Yo-Kai Watch games is the fact it might as well be Lillie's story instead of yours and I like how this video highlights that. I've always been convinced she's a Mary Sue. She does nothing of value yet everything is all about her, her rich girl problems and even getting a free chance to study abroad in Kanto just because she talked back to her mom like any other teenage girl would do. 15:05 I wouldn't really say the physical-special split of Pokemon is really anything special. Older games already had that split between physical and magic attacks for years already but Pokemon had to be extremely vague and unclear about how it actually worked. We only know about it now because of online resources like Bulbapedia. It's just something that patched up previously bad game design, as far as I'm concerned. A Band-aid solution, as you put it.
One of the problems in discussing difficulty with the Pokemon series is no one seems to define what tools they are using first. You can use a Z-move or mega evolution to steamroll gen 6 and 7, or you can completely ignore those systems. You can make sure your team has good natures and you can shape their EVs with berries and hyper training. You can use affection bonuses to score crits or survive lethal blows. You can research or just remember what types gym leaders and elite 4 members use. You can use the exp share. You can use the a dragon or a pseudolegendary or box legendary on your team. Heck, a lot of adult players probably have a good idea of how base stats compare between pokemon, something new and young players won't know anything about. The difficulty is extremely variable due to all these factors, but people who choose to play on easy mode by z-moving everything just say "lol easy baby game" and its become the dominant sentiment because no one wants to admit that several totem pokemon or ultra necrozma outsped and one shot their entire team.
I'm surprised you did not mention Pokemon UNITE at all. I do believe it's a very fresh and original perspective for the series. I honestly did not expect to talk positively about this game but in glad to say it was a very pleasant surprise that the Pokemon are very well represented in a MOBA format, and it does make me wonder about the future of the franchise.
On difficulty, things would be a lot more interesting if trainers actually used different tactics, swapped out Pokémon, and had more team variety. Maybe even give ace trainers mega evolutions and such. I go through most Pokémon games just tapping the A button until everything is dead. It’s rare that I really have to think about what I’m doing, and usually don’t have to at all against normal trainers.
Surely EV/IV training, nature breeding and egg moves are the epitome of tedium replacing difficulty? It's not *hard* to make a perfect Pokemon. It just takes absolutely forever.
I've only ever played Red & Yellow but I still have fond memories of those days, and it's fun to catch up with the series a bit. Thanks for the video :)
I 1200% agree that the national dex should have been cut back in Gen 3. When I heard they were cutting the Gen 8 national dex, my reaction was "Thank god" and "Why now?" It just seemed so bizarre to me that they would wait so long to cut it, when it was such an obvious drain on development time and hardware space. When they hadn't cut it by Gen 5 or 6, even after the fresh reset of Black and White, and even after the switch to a new system and from 2D to 3D, I figured they just had an internal rule to never cut it no matter what even when that made no sense.
*"I figured they just had an internal rule to never cut it no matter what even when that made no sense."* I think said "ruling" was just them being cautious and don't wanting to poke the beehive when it wasn't necessary. I mean, most might like to say that Dexit started because of the likes and the like and not because Pokemon were cut, but I am more than sure that no matter what, the drama would have still started no matter when Dexit happened.
@@GunnarClovis wasn't an issue for sun and moon. The dexcut was a marketing scheme simple as. All the assets were future proofed and most gameplay features 1000-2000 Pokémon would make impossible would also be impossible at 400 Pokémon
I remember being excited about Sun & Moon, and ultimately feeling physical pain when playing it. I'm glad somebody calls it out, and it's really frustrating how it was heavily marketed as a break-out for the series and to this day has deluded people into believing that yes it was the Gyms and HMs what was holding the series back (and not the patronizing tone and railroading design found in the Gen 6 games), this is the most "innovative" entry yet with an amazing story! Except it wasn't because all of the "freshness" the story and setting became tired as soon it was re-released the very next year and none of that innovation stuck around in the next game, as it's a Pokémon tradition (except for the twist of a fake villain and a real villain which got copied wholesale in Sword & Shield)
Love the pints you hit in this video. I agree the National dex just doesn’t make sense anymore. I’ve been saying it for years, Give me a game with all regions in it or give me nothing at all! Lol great video once again!
Not only a game with all regions would be impossibly hard to balance thanks to how long it would be, but it would also be frikishly huge, so huge that I don't think the Switch could handle it.
On the topic of star wars, it's pretty ironic considering sun and moon has a premise similar to that of "return of the Jedi" with Lusamine (Darth Vader) and Lillie (Luke Skywalker). Lillie is trying to help her mom turn away from evil (being seduced by Nihilego) and in the end after an intense fight in the ultra wormhole, she is freed. Lusamine is no longer attached to the ultra beast, she lets go (I think) and is able to appreciate her daughter for who she is, her daughter. Lusamine really loves her children, she was just under the influence of Nihilego (kind of like the dark side or being long-term possessed) that she couldn't see that. The video games do it a lot better than the TV anime. Also, I think there is a bit of a Luke and Leia dynamic between Gladion and Lillie.
Though as many have pointed out, the models and animations for the Pokémon have remained the same. GF said the dex cut was to do new models and animations for all the pokémon but that simply wasn't the case. The only "issue" that could have played part in this was having to update the textures because they've been doing so in every single entry. SM, Let's Go, GO and SWSH all feature different textures for every pokémon instead of reusing the same ones from GO that are already HD (and all textures after the 3DS games have the same resolution from what I can tell), so this shouldn't even be an issue in the first place. They could have very easily used the same textures from GO and we would have at least gens 1-3 and some from Sinnoh by the time SWSH came out. Not to mention they already have the code for all those mons and some were even left in SWSH's data but with their stat values being empty.
Great video! Weird thing for me is that with the whole catching tutorial, they had the option to skip it in G/S/C and then went back to unskippable... very strange choice.
I don't like the argument of "remember the game is for kids" because kids deserve good games too. They might be more likely to overlook flaws and shortcomings for the sake of experiencing the fantasy but that's not an excuse to not do better. You can have both the fantasy and a good game, especially for a miniscule fraction of a *hundred billion dollars*. I know most fans are only pushing what they'd personally like to see and that sometimes wouldn't work for a younger audience, but there's a decent crossover too.
I wasn't sure what to expect: every time I see the whole "problem with Pokémon" thumbnail I feel a shiver down my spine, "ah here we go again, someone telling me Pokémon is bad now because they don't have unique animations for every single individual species using every single type of attack or some other crazy thing..." But I am glad I gave this videos a watch, I enjoyed it a lot and it was very fair; even as someone who loved the story of Sun and Moon I thought the critiques to that game, and the series as a whole, were more than comprehensive and like... Chill? It's surprisingly hard, within the Pokémom fanbase, to find people who'll be so tame and calm, rather than give into their primal instincts and hate all over whatever it is they don't like in a fit of fury: Gamefreak's ruining this or TPCi is ruining that...! I gave this video a shot, which I'm very happy for, specifically because I saw KingK retweet it on Twitter - now, admittedly, I don't always agree with absolutely everything he says in his videos, but I also find them to be very well made and researched, calm and typically fair, opinionated to an extent but with enough objectivity to make them feel like comprehensive analysis, which I really appreciate! (At least as far as I've seen...!) I think this video did that too, so I have to commend your work!
Weirdly enough, it was with some of the hotter takes that I felt like I agreed the most. The national dex thing? Despite not being old enough to play the games back in the Gen 3 days, I feel like it would have been the smartest choice, and if not then and there, to cut it alongside Gen 5's huge arrange of changes, though I guess lots of people would see Black & White in a way more negative light these days for that, if being forced to use Gen 5 Pokémon for the whole main story wasn't a big enough turn off for many... I feel people take the national Pokedex for granted... If we were to make a list of games on the Nintendo Switch that can connect all the way through multiple consoles generations, back to the GBA, I don't think you'd find a single one besides Pokémon... The fact that this has gone on for so damn long should be a monumental achievement and not something we fight over on Twitter because we want for it to be preserved forever at the cost of development resources that could go elsewhere, especially when the series is plagued by other far more pressing problems to the games' overall quality like lack of content, graphical fidelity, writing downgrades, etc...
I know you addressed it in the video, but I definitely think you gave the story of Sun and Moon a bit too harsh a treatment. Yes, the tutorial is disgustingly long, and yes, with the massive amount of text breaks it makes replaying it a bit of a chore, and, also yes, the story chooses to focus on Lillie instead of the main character. But god. I love the world and characters of Sun and Moon, especially Lillie. Going through the game seeing her learn about the world just along the main character, overcoming her traumatic and abusive past, and confronting her mother in the final battle, has to be the greatest character arc in any Pokémon game by far. It and Gen V are the only games that have really gotten me emotional about characters in a Pokémon game. That’s also why Ultra Sun and Moon was so absolutely disappointing for me, as it completely guts and ruins Lillie’s story. I can understand not playing Pokémon to be invested in the human characters and wanting to focus on your own journey, but to come in with that expectation only to discover a genuinely moving, (yet still grantedly simple) character story was a moment thats really stuck with me more than some of my other Pokémon experiences.
Really great video and basically that’s how I feel but I do disagree with the VGC part you see I also used to breed a lot and make different teams in gen 6 but the unfortunate the hacking truly ruined the experience for me the reason I loved the proces is because you build your own Pokémon in different manners which nature? Which movesets? Which ability? that makes it fun but people genning their mons and hell even their stats which truly ruined everything there are simply way to many hackers whom even got exposed many times already so I stoped playing the newer generations I finished sword in a day and never touched it again I am currently doing a battle frontier challenge in emerald with my best friend that’s something Pokémon is truly missing these days
@@delphoxxthevulpera68 if he has a 3ds the games shouldn't be that much pricier than your regular second hand 3ds game, so there's no reason to NOT play them on original hardware. Thats just how i see things though.
Nexomon 2 has actually accomplish making nuzlocke options a thing with the level of flexibly to make things unique enough meet different preferences... but its nexomon so not many people will give it a chance since "its not pokemon"
As someone who still does love Pokemon (even if its dwindled somewhat) I agree. I think its become a victim of its own formula. What it has in place combat wise still works, what's hurting it however its its refusal to evolve or take itself further. It feels as if rather than evolving with the audience its devolving instead. Like forced tutorials for instance, older games let the player either skip tutorials (gen 2) or if they were present (the Old Man in Gen 1) they only lasted a minute for what was a minor annoyance. Don't get me wrong HMs being gone is a great choice, however I think they could've worked, they should've been retooled so that rather than use moveslots, have them just be abilities Pokemon do out on the field exclusively, making Pokemon be an asset to the world and combat, especially if you like the idea of them following you. What's even worse is when Gamefreak do have ideas to add modern sensibilities to Pokemon (removing random encounters in Lets Go) they backpedal on them. I think the whole "EXP Share" criticism the new games face is misused, the EXP share isn't the problem, as I believe it cuts back on grinding, rather the difficulty itself isn't scaled in a way to favor the inclusion. It just exposes the balancing flaw the combat has. And while I do think mechanic changes make newer games more polished in terms of combat, I prefer the older game's meta because they aren't as horribly unbalanced or ripped with power creep (Gen 8's power creep showcases how Modern Pokemon needs a HUGE rebalancing)
My first shiny was a Makuhita full odds when ruby and Sapphire came out I was about 8 and didn't even realize how rare it was cuz I stopped playing I had nobody to play with then lost the game
I completely agree with a lot of your arguments. And I still actively love pokemon. But the Nat dex thing still bothers me. Not because it got cut but because they lied about it. They said they were making new models for sw/sh but they are the same models from X and Y that have been used in almost all 3d pokemon games. They also said that they were making new animations for the game which is slightly true but still very lackluster. Overall just really broke my trust in gamefreak quite a bit. I'll still be playing it but tbh Legends Arceus is going to be my last chance for them. But hey I still have plenty of pokemon fangames to play.
i likey this video a lot! there's a lot you discuss that I think Pokemon main-line series suffers and well... THIS SUN AND MOON DUNKING WILL NOT GO UNNOTICED. It's probably my 2nd favorite in the series, and like the criticisms about too much tutorials & story at the start is super valid - it kills the pacing. But I think like Gen 5 it does some really great stuff story wise and intertwines criminal organization, "good guys", gym fights and existential threats in a way that was super fresh and exciting.
I used to play Pokemon a lot during my youth, but after Ruby & Sapphire, I guess I grew tired of trying to catch 'em all because there will always be more and new Pokemon coming out. So, just like that, I quit Pokemon cold turkey and never touched a mainline Pokemon since. Even my cousin got me Pokemon Sword for X-Mas, and I have yet to touch it ever since. I have heard of the Nuzlockes challenges, but I'm too much of a coward gamer to lose my Pokemon b/c I get too attached to my game characters, which is why the idea of permadeath is something I stray away from. Still, this video does address some other issues I had no clue I heard of, but good on Pokemon for being bigger than Disney (almost).
Yeah, a lot of the people that propose nuzlocke's really don't seem to get that it isn't a fun way to increase the challenge for most. More challenge should mean that to overcome a gym I need to take advantage of status effects because type advantages aren't there. Or a gym leader uses a lot of boosing moves so I need stuff that resets their boosts. You can't Nuzlocke this type of difficulty in. I don't want to play a game like everything does 2x damage because random crits can just kill my favourite Pokemon out of a team that is already filled with Pokemon I may not love.
Pokémon for me is like Star Wars: limitless potential that it doesn’t take advantage of, but I still hold near and dear to my heart.
god star wars is such a perfect comparison, I love it but with the sheer amount of stuff coming out it's hard to keep up or care as much as I used to
I agree with this reply so much ;-;
The Star Wars comparison is especially apt because Star Wars will never reach its full creative potential under Disney just like the Pokémon games will never reach their full potential under game freak’s direction
Have you watched clone wars or mandalorian? They definitely capitalized on a lot of potential.
You can just kinda ignore all the mainline films after the original trilogy, it's cool and fun to do so.
@@AlmightyDoubleHelix I’ve seen both, and they are some of my favorite Star Wars content, but I just mean in mainline Star Wars. Because Pokemon has some really fun spin offs, but the mainline games mostly feel the same, and I wish those ones were more ambitious since they have the most money backing them. Star Wars isn’t doing that anymore since their new content is getting SO much money put into them, which I’m happy about.
10:51 - 100% agree. For me at least, I've always liked the dex being region specific. Cuts down on choice paralysis, encourages me to branch out and try new Pokémon, and makes that entry feel unique. Sure, I get wanting to be able to move old mons to the new game, but that's never really been for me personally. I like a fresh start. It's why I really liked the random mix of Pokémon they put in Colosseum, limiting the options just made the Pokémon available feel more important.
Ok, agree. I don't care having new creatures and use then in the next regions BUT let me transfer any previous gen' s Pokémon to the newest if I want to, that is, keep the National Dex game by game, program every Pokémon although they can't be found in the wild.
Imagine thinking dexit a good thing. Sure bring all the excuses u have have.
It's an absurd standard that they set for themselves.
Just a new batch of Pokémon is already a massive undertaking in terms of designing dozens of characters but right now the expectation is to have a 1000 of them in a new game.
If it wasn't the norm I don't think anyone would be expecting this, and you'd be getting into a new Pokémon game for the new monsters anyway.
@@aseta. Which would mean it's still the same amount of work for the developers, so that wouldn't help much.
@@PauLtus_B hire personal. multibillion company
Arceus and Scarlet were two of their best games ever and they came out within the same year, pushed the series further forward than any of them have since Gold and Silver introduced day/night dark/steel, friendship and breeding in one game.
So much of pokemons appeal has always been the nostalgia and comfort that comes from playing the games. I still enjoy the newer instalments but the biggest hurdle for me is that there's a lack of that same magic of discovery but I think you made a good point about everyone having their first experience.
Pokemon is without a doubt the game franchise I like the least that I've spent the most time on... an unhealthy amount of time. It's a bit hard to explain, but I don't think I'm the only one who has this sentiment. Will be good to watch this video.
I both hate and love that game franchise, so yeah
I know exactly the feeling you're describing.
I hate Pokemon gameplay and have since I was like 12. It's just boring and repetetive.
20+ years ago me and my friends were talking about the new pokemon game how it would let you run around, actually see which pokemon was in the forest, let you choose to avoid some, or go after others. We talked about how you'd get a 3D view of the world as you flew on the back of your charizard. 20 years ago, a group of kids was having ideas that they're just now using, and doing so in the most lazy way. Wtf is Gamefreak doing? Why do people keep paying for these games?
Leaving here my playstyle that balances the difficulty for gen6+ pokemon games to make them much more enjoyable for veteran players:
-> have the battle style on set and the exp share on
-> aim to catch all the new pokémon you come across in every area and keep a clear separation of which ones you plan on keeping as your main party and which you're just collecting
-> your main party can have 6 or more pokemon, the more pokemon the harder the playstyle is
-> the 6 slots of the pokémon you carry with you must be split for the entirety of the game up until the elite four, you'll have 3 slots to keep pokemon from your main party and 3 to level up pokemon you've been collecting passively through the exp share just to evolve them, all of your slots will be in constant rotation
This playstyle makes the game much more interesting because it forces you to have a limited party of the pokémon you actually focus on making stronger, making it so you need to be creative in battles, and as you'll be trying to catch a lot of pokemon and completing the pokedex at the same time you'll interact a lot more with the world and making use of mechanics that are easy to ignore such as evolution itens, locations and other triggers. This method also basically guarantees your Pokedex will be basically done right as you finish the game which cuts a lot of postgame busywork
I think our playstyles are kinda similar! I collect all the mons I can but select a special team for Elite Four.
FIRE VID AND NOW I FINALLY KNOW WHAT NUZLOCKE MEANS TY!!!! 🔥
lmao glad you finally know how it works!!
Sejun Park’s Pachirisu wasn’t on his team because it was his personal favorite. It was a brilliant master stroke that filled in a role on his team that was so unexpected but it definitely wasn’t there because his favorite Pokémon. However, after winning the the world championship, I wouldn’t be surprised if Pachirisu later became his favorite lol
I'm sorry, but to me the National Dex is essential to what it has kept Pokémon going so long: That every new game you can reawaken your passion, bringing back your old favorites and sharing this passion with the new generation. The National Dex is the line that conects each newer mainline entry with the very first games 25 years ago.
Doing it like they do now, only favoring Gen 1 and the newest means that if you make any new favorite, chances are in the next gen you might already not have them, and have your investment thrown away. I can't see what's so exciting about seeing your favorites cut off.
I'd much prefer if they did it like Black & White again. By all means bring something new and highlight it. But let us find our favorites again eventually. And yet, as much as they say they want to focus on what's new, what we see on Sword and Shield is that Gen 1 is again firmly on the spotlight, with multiple new forms and as the Champion's top pokémon.
I would understand the need to pull back and lower the scope out of any other studio, but as the video reminds us, Pokémon is The Biggest Multimedia Franchise, so it's not a matter that they can't do it. It's just that they would rather spare costs than investing into it.
I recently watched a video on the best features added in each generation, and it made me realize how good gens 2-5 were (and I played all the games when they came out)
It also made me realize how many of these amazing features weren't in Sword and Shield. We lost way more then just the National Dex.
The main titles have been on the decline since X and Y, and if Game Freak doesn't want to a repeat of the same mistakes, they need either spend more time on each game, or hire more staff
I wish deciding between Switch and Set Mode was something that was front and center when starting a new file. Honestly it improves the battling so much. Even a seasoned competitive player like myself had a few sweaty moments in Ultra Sun because I was playing on Set Mode. I have a feeling that there are a lot of people who have been complaining about Pokemon's lack of difficulty who either forgot Set Mode existed or never knew it existed. Although of course I think traditional difficulty options in the game would be a great addition to the franchise as well.
never knew what set meant till i just looked it up, i’ll try it out cause early game is so easy i’m bored, thanks for the suggestion.
Oh can't wait to watch this 🍉
A friend recently said what's wrong with Pokemon is that they kept trying too hard to replicate the mechanics of the existing games rather than the feelings that those mechanics were trying to accomplish, a form over function approach. As a result, the series is still beholden to some limitations that arose from the Game Boy and GB Color hardware, in the name of staying "true" to the series. I agree with this, and I'd love to see a Pokemon game that's basically what Tajiri would have done if instead of the GB, he had the Switch or other modern hardware (and appropriate budget) to achieve his RPG idea on.
Pokémon peaked in Gen 5, but it was so poorly received when it first released. Now a lot of fans love it. I wonder if some of the newer gens will be beloved like that in a couple of years.
There is a good chance this will happen. Pokemon basicially become worse and worse each generation.
If some bad mechanics are changed with even more bad mechanics people will miss the old Features even if they are hated them back to than.
I remember beeing frustrated thanks to the weird PSS in Generation 6.
Than it was exchanged with the Festival Plaza in Generation 7 that was even more bad than the PSS.
And now I miss the PSS even though it gave me a lot of frustration back in Generation 6.
Thanks for the new video. I just recently bought Pokemon Sword and, after some time with it, decided that it just wasn't for me anymore, much like you said at one point in this video. I think it's okay to grow of of things, I am also a Gen 1 player and while it's sad the magic is no longer there like it was at 10 years old, I'm grateful such an experience was able to be had. Sometimes the nostalgia for these things is so strong that we're convinced it will be the same when we revisit it, but accepting that it may never be is okay too. The way you talked about the next generation of young player getting excited in the way we used to when we first discovered Red and Blue put a smile on my face though. It's reassuring to know that feeling still exists out there right now, for someone else in a different stage of life.
HeavyEyed, your video on 'The Problems With Pokémon - A Series Retrospective' is a brave and insightful exploration into a beloved franchise. 🕹 Your retrospective not only highlights the strengths but addresses the challenges Pokémon has faced over the years. Thanks for offering a balanced perspective and fostering meaningful discussions within the gaming community. Looking forward to more thought-provoking retrospectives from you! 🌐👾 #PokémonReflections #HeavyEyedInsights
Small correction on Pachirisu: Parks didn't use it because it was his favorite (even if it probably became his favorite afterward). He actually used it because he realized it was the best fit for his team and strong against the meta at large. So the beauty isn't that of winning with one's favorites, but of noticing potential in a place everyone else had overlooked.
If it wasn't his favorite, why would he have a plush doll of it with him during fights? There's plenty of people who stumbled on a pokemon and decided that they were a perfect fit but, aside from some minute exceptions like Landshark Sensei, no one roams around with plushes of them. Pachirisu may have only been noticed as the perfect fit because of precisely how much he liked pachirisu beforehand, but still, ultimately, one can't say he didn't intend on accomplishing it with one of his favorite Pokemon from the get go.
@@QuintaFeira12 He walked around with a plush because Pachirisu became a people's champion. He didn't START with the plush.
I think the idea of not having a national dex every game is actually fine. I've always thought it would be better for the games to have a set of new monsters each gen, and then possibly a handful of older mons who thematically fit in with the new region. I like comparing it to Monster Hunter, which does just that, allowing people to get excited about new mons but also which of the old cast could return, I think it could really help with Pokemons scaling issues. Fantastic video!
As someone who has only really experienced Pokemon games recently (in part because one of my kids wanted me to play) this was really interesting and got me thinking about several things.
I think it's great when games like this focus more on customization and variety instead of difficulty because as you got into it's safe to say people will find their own ways to challenge themselves. I kept thinking of parallels with Final Fantasy games (like the first or Tactics etc)
Noice vid... Was listening to this while playing monster hunter... You have my sub now.
Speaking of how competitive Pokémon is, you should try giving the rom hacks a try. I think you would love Pokémon Radical Red GBA. It’s a Fire Red rom hack in which includes a higher difficulty, every pokémon released since Sword and Shield, Mega Pokémon, EV training and much more.
Renegade Platinum also works
Or just play battle tower.
24:10 "One of the hardest things might be realizing something isn't for you anymore." Yea that realization hit me hard back in gen 7. It's really sad knowing that this piece of my childhood is something that I probably won't ever be able to enjoy again.
Heart Gold/ Soul Silver was the peak of Pokemon for me. I just have not been able to really get into it as much as I did at that point, despite playing all the entries up to and including Sword.
There is so much to love about pokemon, from the art to the gameplay to the music; the heart of the series is just teeming with love from the people who make the games. That said, the expectations they have to deal with are also only getting more demanding, and unfortunately i dont think theyve been able to keep up. I hope gamefreak can pull out a gem with these new games because i dont want to see the franchise wane. That said, i think monster hunter stories 2 has done a fantastic job of showing us what can be done with the pokemon formula for this generation of games, so im sure pokemon can do the same with the right direction.
thank God for Pokémon fangames. they really saved my love for this series
The music selection was superb on this one. Im quite a bit younger ('97), but quite honestly had a similar journey with the games. Played the originals before I could read properly, with some help from my older brothers, then got into competitive battling halfway through gen5. But nowadays they just fail to catch me in the same way.
Amazing video yet again!!! This was such a nice nostalgia trip ❤️ Despite the many disappointments along the way, I wouldn’t trade growing up with this series for anything! And I still hold hope for future games!
I think possibly the single easiest and best change Gamefreak could make would be to simply remove some of the archaisms that have stuck around since the beginning: instead of individual text boxes that you have to click through for 'super effective', 'not very effective', and 'X was hurt by poison', just changing them into particle effects that pop up when the effect takes place. Faster and more skippable text, faster animations, more animations being allowed to play simultaneously or overlap, clearly readable status icons... the list goes on and on.
Many of these elements were necessities on the Gameboy, which to re-use assets and keep as much of the information text-based to cut down on file sizes. Back when red and blue were first released, the fact that they could fit THAT MUCH stuff onto a gameboy cartridge was like witchcraft, it was a 40-hour RPG that was fully customizable AND fully portable, getting that to function at all was a marvel of software engineering, but the absolute paralysis over changing anything, even the transparently bad elements that were included out of necessity, has made the games feel tedious, repetitive, and uninteresting to play.
There's also only runs! I love only runs with only using the early game birds. Fangames have also shown how to make difficulty harder without making it just silly and grindy like setting level caps and new terrains which effect battle which can be caused by move combinations. I loved battle revolution but I couldn't use it online on my wii because of how the internet was set up haha. Sejun Park's favourite pokemon wasn't pachirisu to start with he picked it because it helped gyarados so much but then it became his favourite because of how well it worked and it being unusual
I was very excited for sumo, but couldn't even finish it due to the rotom tutorials every few minutes. I'm glad there's a nice romhacking community that is making quality games without the problems mentioned in the video.
Oh crap, didn't even realize this bad boy dropped. Let's gooo
Excellent writing, pacing and complementary visuals. Great video!
Hey team! Here is Foxcade's video!
ruclips.net/video/zi3_A1Oj6Nw/видео.html
Also tell me about your first Pokémon experience
mhm
I clearly remember being four years old and playing on my brother's already completed save file on HeartGold and going to the battle dojo everyday to sweep them with my lvl 100 Typhlosion and Mewtwo because I had all of the phone numbers. Those were the days
Pokemon Leafgreen. I tried it when i was a kid. But i got stuck at a rival battle after mt moon because i never grinded and never got the concept. Also never got how the pc worked because i always used "my pc" instead of "someone's pc". Tried it again a couple decades later and just didn't have fun.
I was a really young kid, probably not even 8 yet and picked up Leaf Green. It was an okay-ish experience but I was really disappointed with it not being anything like the anime and not liking Kanto (also could never beat the Elite 4.) But then I got Sapphire version and fell in love with Hoenn & Contests. Even as a kid I enjoyed the non-combat side of the games a lot more and Hoenn is like a Utopia to me with the harmony of nature & civilization.
I'm 37 and having my first Pokemon experience with HeartGold right now, trying to address a decades-long lacuna in my gaming experience.
I'm not really enjoying it at all, and still don't get what the appeal is.
I think polish and quality care are other aspects that contribute to fans becoming disaffected. As you said, Pokémon is worth so much money and has so many resources available to it that it’s baffling how all it’s projects feel so mismanaged. When you look at other franchises like Dragon Quest and Persona, who make a fraction of what Pokémon does, their games are just as expansive/complex with tons of attention to things like animations, gameplay, glitch management, QoL, visuals, etc. I know the usual defense is that those games aren’t forced to be annual franchises; but even titles like Call of Duty & Assassins Creed which do have annual to bi-annual schedules are able to at least come out with more polished content than Pokémon does. I just don’t think we should keep apologizing for the half-baked products they keep coming out with because business and design management are still aspects of game development; and it’s obvious Gamefreak isn’t excelling at those.
Heart gold and soul silver were my send offs, I just don't love the franchise enough to put up with the flaws of sword and shield.
Ok, so, dude, you'll have to forgive me on this one but I have WAY too much stuff to get out of my chest and a video like this is just an absolute godsend for me to do something like that!
While I do agree with a lot of what you put forth, in my opinion you didnt fully hit the nail on the head. Yeah sure, the community that formed around the series is now incredibly diverse, thanks in part to the amount of layers the games provide, which Im sure makes the decision of what to do next in the series an insurmountable thing, but I think the "problem" with the series is an inherent one. Here's what I mean. While I did grow up with Pokémon since like, age 4, when the 3ds initially came out and X&Y weren't out yet, I was fortunate enough to play Monster Hunter 3U. To be fair, the game came pre-installed, but that's besides the point. The point is that MH became as much of an important series to me as Pokémon, and over the years I've noticed some interesting parallels between the two series. They are both iterative series where the core game remains unchanged, they are both released according to generations, and in a sort of ironic way, they both have hundreds of monsters as one of their main selling points.
Here's the catch though. While the core of Monster Hunter, aka everything a game in that series needs to work, is its combat, in Pokémon's case, the scenario is not that simple. Monster Hunter works very well as an iterative series, because as long as they keep the phenomenal combat intact, which is to say, the absolute brilliant monster AI and combat design patterns, the series can experiment and add/remove/swap layers on top of that core with each new generation and everything still feels natural. Big features like underwater combat can be completely scrapped between generations, while others like aerial moves are just readapted in later releases. Pokémon doesn't have it this "easy" because in my opinion it's core is comprised of several "inner layers" making it harder to add stuff on top of it.
You said that they should have removed the National Dex in gen 3 but I kinda disagree. For me the core of Pokémon is the interconnected web that is formed between the collecting aspect of it, the battling, and the sense of adventure and discovery. The collecting feeds into the way you approach battles and vice versa, and on top of that, in order to keep the feeling of a new gen alive, they need to add a substantial amount of new creatures every 4 or so years. This leads to what you described as patching instead of tackling the core issues at hand (although your point was brought forward in a slightly different context). They keep trying to add new things only to completely "forget" about them later, while the core remains a bit messy and tangled. Removing a couple of your favourite monsters in MH isn't a big deal because the core is still the same, but that is not true for Pokemon, because removing monsters in this case not only affects potential combat strategies, but also impacts the whole catching them all thing. So with this core scope problem, the way they approach adding layers falls a bit flat on its head. They added triple and rotation battles in gen 5 only to disregard them in later gens. Even a big thing like Mega Evolutions was pretty much forgotten in gen 7, but since it is quite substantial when it comes to combat, they left it as a weird foot note. Now they added Dynamax as this gen's equivalent to Mega Evolutions. Even in the TCG things seem to be a bit messy with superficial layers added on top of superficial layers, at least that's what I've heard from people that are more knowledgable regarding the TCG than me.
While I don't envy anyone who has to make a decision regarding the future of the series, I do believe that something big needs to change. They either approach the games in a new way like Legends Arceus seems to be doing, or they go all in and make a focused game based around 150 or so new creatures like gen 5 did. That said, and just like you pointed out, the show must go on, and with an IP as big as Pokemon, catering to nostalgia and not making big moves are the obvious decisions to make. That said, another thing that I think doesnt get brought up enough is that despite the astounding success of the series, Game Freak isn't a Santa Monica or Naughty Dog type studio and in my opinion that aspect started to show when the jump to 3d occurred, specially taking into account that making 3d games is inherently more complex than making 2d ones.
Anyway, Ive rambled enough, and while Im aware there is no structure whatsoever to this comment, hopefully someone will find some of these ideas interesting. Also great video as always and shout out for mentioning the set/shift battle style. Ive made the change to Set mode a long time ago, but its always nice to see other people acknowledge this.
Take care! :)
Pokemon will always have a place in my heart. Played red at release on a falling apart Gameboy. But, it's a series I haven't returned to in a very, very long time. I honestly can't bring myself to play anything with turn based combat anymore. I just see my small quantity of free time ticking away while I select attacks from a menu. I wish I could enjoy them, but at least for now, I can't.
Hopefully something short, concise and not turn based can pull you back in one day, it's a wonderful series that is just bogged with a lot of issues
Time does not matter
@@moosesues8887 it's not about the amount of time a game takes to play. For me it's the time spent clicking through a menu, and passively watching the same animations over and over again whilst I sit and wait.
@NS 317 It has little to do with total game length. I just find it unfulfilling to click through a menu to perform actions and then passively wait while the same animations take place over and over again.
@@leftovernoise maybe it's not your genre anymore
I think the nat dex cut in swsh was so poorly received was not just because some people didn't like the idea of it, but for me personally it was how they handled it. I understand the reality of their situation and how the national dex couldnt stay forever, but their excuses as to why were just straight wrong. They said that they had to remove some pokemon (even though they removed half but thats another topic entirely) because making entirely new models for the pokemon was giving them trouble but people have found that even in sword and shield they were still just using the same models from xy, so that was a lie. Then they made dlc so that they could basically make an area for them to spit old the same pokemon that should've been in the base game back at you for a large price. That and pokemon home make me feel like game freak couldve handled the cut much better, and i think what they did with it was pretty scummy.
not even mentioning the fact that every single animations (yeah also the walking and the pokémon camp) were inside gen 7's files, so I really don't get how it couldn't be translated for 8G. Not being able to transfer my pokémon teams for each game or even my shinies is a mistep so high that I can't think how it is possible to defend the fact that every pokémon weren't returning in an update... like, again, we're speaking about a $100B company. Just why?
yep, the fact that people are still believing that excuse is a testemount to how gamefreak and nintendo have pulled the wool over the eyes of pokemon fans for so long. This is a billion dollar franchise, and the games they're putting out are shitty rehashes of the same forumala that's been done to death. The only reason people still buy them is the branding.
@@TempoKong all animations were on gen **6** games
@@QuintaFeira12 nah walking animations were news to Gen 7 and I'm pretty sure the models themselves were upgraded in Gen 7 and that is the main reason of the framerate issue in the games
*"Then they made dlc so that they could basically make an area for them to spit old the same pokemon that should've been in the base game back at you for a large price."*
This is demonstrably false. You don't need the DLC to get the old Pokemon, the patch that adds said Pokemon to the game is free. All you really need is HOME and that thing is cheap.
Love love love the content. Thanks for the thoughtfulness
Like you said, it's hard to accept sometimes that something you love just isn't for you anymore. I grew up with generations 3-5 mostly, and for me the national Pokedex was legitimately the most exciting part of the game. And I was a massive fan of the series, definitely the media I loved more than anything else from like ages 6-14. So when sword and shield rolled around and removed the nationaldex it was pretty upsetting, as I felt like I was losing something that had been with me for so long. But I've come to realize that, yeah, it isn't feasible anymore. And that's okay! Not every interest has to last forever, and the specific experiences I had as a kid are no lesser just because I can't keep replicating them forever. It's tough to move on, tough to grow up. But you need to, and this video really gets at the melancholy of that feeling. Made me tear up a bit tbh :')
I started playing pokemon just like you, with yellow. And it has been a constant throughout my life. Then something happened, I went through some real hard time around the time Sun and Moon were released, I didn't have any money and couldn't afford the game. I remember still, how gutted I was of missing out on some thing that had been a constant for all my life... then, several years later, I had a chance again, and I was met with Ultra Moon. Immediately I was confused, I was told by some it was an upgrade, by others it was a different game, by all that it was a bit of a letdown. Immediately, such a simple game that for me was all about team building and adventure (I'm not a competitive person, at all, which is also the reason I hate battling online, and thus my only enjoyment of the game is in the main storyline) became complex, but for all the wrong reasons. And then, the game itself just.. tried so hard to be annoying. The excessive tutorializing, the always on rotom pain, finding myself constantly and without much work behind it over 10 levels above the storyline... It's hard to say this, but that's when my love for the main serie died. Ultra Moon is the first time in a pokemon game I actually never even fiished a pokemon game. And it hurts. This made me jaded, cautious, and I ended up skipping Sword & Shield until I could borrow it from a friend. And despite how much it hurts to say, I'm glad I did. S&S feels so cheap, so lazy, seeing my childhood, adolescence and early adulthood treated like that actually hurt me.
I really, really hope Legends can shake things up. Since then, I've been trying various romhacks and fangames in the hope of keeping that flame burning, but it's dying. And I dread the day where my passion for pokemon disappears
I dont agree that Sun and Moon solved HMs. It removed the aspect of team composition that wast tied to HMs and reduces them to key items.
I do not agree that the sense of difficulty curve is purely a result of us getting better
A lot of alleged QoL changes aren't really anything of the sort, but things that have categorically dumped down the game like the new forced EXPShare, infinite TMs, Pokemon Amie and the tema comps of trainers trait up being deliberately more anemic.
I also see the "just play competitive" argument is largely missing the point. Playing a si gle player RPG cannot be substituted with a competitive PvP. They are not the same thing.
It's hard accepting that elements like SuMo's Rotom that won't shut up and being railroaded, pelted with items and given matches that are designed to be almost impossible to lose are just part of the series these days. Thankfully there are a lot of great Pokemon fangames that have more open and explorable worlds, battles that I don't one-move-KO my way through hitting A on repeat, and stories where your character actually has some agency, rather than the more recent tendency for you to just kinda be there. I'll always love Pokemon. But the fan content is more engaging the the official content, much like other kids' franchises like Miraculous Ladybug or Danny Phantom, and sad as it is to see Pokemon stagnate, it was inevitable. "It's for kids, so it doesn't have to be good" is industry mantra these days in animation, video games and TV shows. It's just kind of a bummer since Silver's arc in Pokemon SS/HG lives rent-free in my head as one of my favorite things in kids' media and I get Hop and Hau confused in my head because they're both super happy people who recover from you crushing their dreams and go back to being happy, jumping up and down and doing that milking-the-giant-cow hand animation. Pokemon has shown it has the potential for engaging stories. It's unwilling to go there. Thankfully, the fandom is.
With how I enjoyed every generation of Pokémon from Gen 1-5 and started disliking Pokémon since Gen 6 I just excused it as me getting older and growing out of Pokémon. I do hope Pokémon Legends Arceus will have enough positive changes for the series to not feel stale, but we will just have to wait and see. Thanks for yet another fantastic and well researched video!
thank god for these thoughts are on video, scourge of scale has something that's been bugging me with this franchise thinking back to the mind-melting everyone was going thru when the dex-slashing was a hot topic.
I lost most of my love for Pokemon but that is mainly due to the insane bottlenecking of the franchise's potential.
Why do we only have a show focused on Ash when the Manga is way more creative and has a wider range of characters? Why is there a "mainline" set of games in the first place? We should be getting Pokemon Nintendogs/Nintendcats-like games. We should be getting games focused on contests with visuals like coordinators in the anime. Farming & fishing sims are perfect for Pokemon. Why did Pokemon snap go on hiatus for so long and why haven't we explored the oceans of Pokemon pretty much at all? The idea of Pokemon Rangers is great and all you need to do is change the circle drawing gameplay. And why is Mystery Dungeon basically the only series where you play *as* Pokemon and have hired writers who aren't braindead?
Pokemon has so much potential but it is all wasted on maintaining that Mainline JRPG with no attempt to improve the writing or difficulty. All while they are massively behind on QoL features that other JRPG's have had since the DS. If I were to feel a genuine sense of love for Pokemon then I would be incredibly sad because it has failed to live up to its potential in just about every generation of gaming.
*"Why do we only have a show focused on Ash when the Manga is way more creative and has a wider range of characters?"*
Because he's popular. Popular enough to have a day named after him, in fact.
*"Why is there a "mainline" set of games in the first place?"*
Because those are popular and always sell like hot cakes.
*"...but it is all wasted on maintaining that Mainline JRPG with no attempt to improve the writing or difficulty."*
And why would they kill it? Because *you* don't like it?.
*"All while they are massively behind on QoL features that other JRPG's have had since the DS."*
Like which ones?.
@@toumabyakuya 1. Ash being popular does not mean they should exclude other shows from the chance of existing. A lot of people grow out of watching Ash's adventures. Having alternatives would help and broaden the possible audience.
2. My point on the "mainline games" is that it slaughters the potential of the other games. Spinoffs tend not to do as well as any series where one set of games is titled "mainline." Select exceptions exist (SMT for example) but a Pokemon pet simuator game is going to be kneecapped for not being part of the "main" series.
3. SMT is a great example here. Devil Survivor had no random encounters, same with DQ 9, Persona 3, Trails in the Sky, even the sh"tty Mario JRPG's don't have that. The speed of the animations/particle effects for both the SMT & Digimon series were/are well above that of Pokemon. And most of the other QoL features I would mention are more abstract and could be disputed because QoL is an ambiguous term (for example I would consider good dialogue a QoL feature while most wouldn't.)
@@haruhirogrimgar6047 *"Having alternatives would help and broaden the possible audience."*
And they have. Have you forgotten about Generations? This ovas and more are done every so often, so its not like they don't exist.
*"but a Pokemon pet simuator game is going to be kneecapped for not being part of the "main" series."*
And this is the main series fault how, exactly?And why should this mean that the main series should die?.
*"Devil Survivor had no random encounters,"*
However, this wouldn't work for Pokemon were the idea is to catch them all. No random encounters means less opportunities to catch them all.
*"The speed of the animations/particle effects for both the SMT & Digimon series were/are well above that of Pokemon."*
However, those two series don't depend at all on their "main series games" and so they can get enough time to develop their games. Sadly, that is not the case for Pokemon were the Main games do matter for the development of all the other branches of the franchise.
@@toumabyakuya 1. We don't have other shows outside of Origins and even then basically nothing touching the interesting parts of the Manga as source material. A Pokemon show aimed at teens, young adults, or within the next 20ish years the middle-aged fans who grew up would be a good idea.
2. They basically got rid of random encounters in Gen 8 so it is bs to say they "need" them. On top of that it is a way easier process to get every Demon in Devil Survivor than to fill out the Pokedex in just about any generation. And I would argue that the people "trying to catch them all" is an ultra-minority of players. It is incredibly tedious in every game to finish the regional dex, much less the national. Dexit realistically affected very few players and the outrage was more at the concept of the matter.
3. Pokemon having a sh"t dev cycle isn't an excuse for pumping out sh"t games. If other JRPG's can provide a better experience than Pokemon can then they should be treated as such. Saying "Persona 5 had ___ more years of dev time than Pokemon Sw/Sh" doesn't make Sw/Sh a better game. It makes P5 a better game since they got to flesh out the game a lot more and hired non-clinically braindead writers.
@@haruhirogrimgar6047 1.-) I still fail to see how this is a fault of the main anime.
And the manga and the like hasn't been adapted because it isn't that popular as you are trying to make it sound (besides the fact that there are 5+ different mangas that makes gauging interest even harder).
*"They basically got rid of random encounters in Gen 8 so it is bs to say they "need" them."*
They did not. Not only they appear in the overworld like DQ9, but the tall grass still exists. A game that has enough areas for the 900+ Pokemon to appear is quite literally impossible.
*"On top of that it is a way easier process to get every Demon in Devil Survivor than to fill out the Pokedex in just about any generation."*
I disagree. It required to combine Demons (something Pokemon has no access to), to buy new ones in the Auction (something that wouldn't fly in a Pokemon game without a Mature rating) and also to unlock some of them in different endings (only thing that could work and that could be taken from DS).
*"And I would argue that the people "trying to catch them all" is an ultra-minority of players."*
As much of a minority as they might be, their opinions still deserve to be heard and their playstyle still needs to be taken into account, otherwise they are getting alienated from a franchise they might still love.
*"Pokemon having a sh"t dev cycle isn't an excuse for pumping out sh"t games."*
Why not? After all, this tells us the limitations (or lack thereof) of both franchises's development cycle:
- Pokemon is a big franchise that has a lot of branches attached to its name, all of those being dependant on the Main games being released on time, so the later cannot be delayed without causing a ripple effect on the rest of the franchise.
- SMT, being honest, is a niche franchise and that means that it has a freedom Pokemon lacks. Add to it the fact that SMT's main games don't hold back any other point of the franchise and you have a franchise were the Main games can be delayed as often as needed.
great vid
11:15 This is demonstrably incorrect. Gamefreak stated that the national dex was cut because they had to make new models and animation for every Pokemon and for balancing reasons. These were obvious lies.
The models of the old Pokemon have been proven to be the same and most animations are reused.
As for balancing, well, the games have never been balanced and Sw/Sh is no exception.
*"The models of the old Pokemon have been proven to be the same and most animations are reused."*
If it isn't broken, don't fix it. I thought that the fanbase wanted for GF to reuse the 3DS models and animations because they were "future-proofed"?.
*"the games have never been balanced and Sw/Sh is no exception."*
That doesn't mean that they didn't try.
They clearly stated that the reason for removing Pokemon was because they had to make new models and animations for all the old ones. This was a lie.
They also said they removed the old Pokemon for balancing reasons. Then they add most of them back, undoing any so called balancing.
Point is they were not even honest about why they made a shitty decision. As near as I can tell this was just a ploy to manipulate their consumers into accepting a cheaper product. They still haven't given a satisfactory excuse, and people come out of the woodwork to defend this corporation.
@@AlmightyDoubleHelix *"This was a lie."*
Maybe, maybe not. That still doesn't change the fact that the majority of the fanbase still says that said models and animations were future-proofed, so why is it bad for GF to use them?.
*"Then they add most of them back,..."*
Thanks to all the outcry Dexit generated. They had to take a decision:
- Bring the cut Pokemon back.
- Stick to their guts and possible receive even worse backlash.
Is obvious they chose the safest option of the two.
*"As near as I can tell this was just a ploy to manipulate their consumers into accepting a cheaper product."*
And for all I can see that is just your opinion based on a biased overview of the situation.
*"They still haven't given a satisfactory excuse,..."*
And why would they do so at this point when the newer games are about to be released? Let it go and move on.
*"...and people come out of the woodwork to defend this corporation."*
Maybe because we are exhausted of people like you exaggerating how bad everything really was.
I don't understand why this argument keeps happening. They made shitty decisions. They should be called out for it until it is rectified. They don't need fans to defend them. Their actions don't reflect poorly on you.
Also, what do you mean "maybe not"? There is no maybe. People extracted the files and compared them. They are the same.
I enjoyed this very much! Somehow, I missed ALL of pokemon. When I tried to jump into it, I think it was in Platinum, and I fell in love with Piplup and then he evolved when I didn't expect him to and he was gone forever. I guess that's the point of the game? But I just felt like my little dude was gone, haha. So I've been on the outside since, looking in on friends who were battling and deep diving on EV training, etc. Such a cool series that feels like, as far as I can tell, has gotten watered down and stretched beyond its limits in recent releases. It sounds like the nostalgia tank has finally begun to scrape the bottom, and that's unfortunate. I hope they can evolve the series in a meaningful way and still keep its identity!
Disagree with you on the Dex cut. The main issue wasn't with not being able to catch them all in the region (previous games limited what you could find along the main journey). The issue was that some Pokemon were completely removed from the game's code, preventing players from bringing in their favorites from Home. This caused players who transferred Pokemon to Home unable to take them out, as well as pay for a ridiculous subscription fee.
Also the argument that GameFreak had to remake models/animations for EVERY pokemon is bullshit, as Pokemon from gens1-7 reused their models and animations. Hell even Hop reused animations from Hau.
31:10 I adore how you stayed careful with what generation you wanted him to play with, you put him over yourself, you’re a very good uncle
Amazing video! I love the points you addressed. There’s so many things I want to express related my experience with Pokemon, but the comment would be very long. I have the urge to boot up Ultra Moon now, the last Pokemon game I’ve ever played and the only one I didn’t finish, with the Set settings and Nuzlocke rules.
Wonderful video. Thanks for adding subtitles/closed captions.
Pokemon has been in the steps of Sonic for a long time. It has ambition for a short while in development, then the deadline creeps up and in the rush, it becomes bad.
This is a pretty good overview of some of the issues with the series, and while there are specific parts I might not agree with there's one in particular I want to respond to: Pokemon's difficulty.
I would argue that, as a whole, Pokemon has gotten easier. I will agree that the original RBY games are on the easier side of Pokemon games, but that's due to poorly coded AI more than anything else. I would argue the games gradually got more difficult up to Gen 4, with Black and White being a sort of side step, before sharply dropping with subsequent games. And the problems are pretty easy to pinpoint, imo.
EXP Share is a big one, while it cuts down on the need for any grinding it also effectively multiplies the amount of experience you receive from each fight. It's easy to end up being TOO POWERFUL for a given point of the game just from the sheer amount of experience you gain, and the level scaling isn't really designed with this in mind with the exception of Leon's team in Sword and Shield.
TMs generally start to contain more powerful moves once you get to Generation 3, which is fine. But then in Gen 5 and up, they are now infinite use. This reduces the amount of meaningful decision making you need to make during team building and allows you to splash more moves around with better type coverage. I think in general the TM changes are good because it allows for more versatility, but the enemy trainers rarely take advantage of the extra options that are afforded to the player.
It's also just easier to get more and better Pokemon early on. There's a wider variety in what's available near the start, and while that's generally a good thing it also means you can build a pretty competent team with only 1 or 2 badges. And that's before we get to the overpowered gift Pokemon. Luckily Gens 7 and 8 dial this back a lot, but it was a huge problem in Gen 6. XY gave you so many GOOD gift Pokemon, including the Mega Evolving Lucario and choice of Kanto starter with their own Mega Stone, and ORAS just gives you a powerful Legendary Pokemon also capable of Mega Evolving. It's up to the player to use them, of course, and I personally don't...but a lot of people did, and once again the game doesn't account for the fact you have more powerful tools than you did in previous titles.
As an aside, I actually enjoy the more tedious aspects of revisiting Gen 1. HM moves and limited inventory space means there's more actual decision making outside of combat rather than just going straight from point A to point B and adds to the feeling, in my opinion, of it being a journey. I know these things aren't for everyone and I wouldn't suggest that they come back, but the modern games have a distinctly different flavor. It feels like you're just being taken along on a train ride stopping for set pieces rather than organically exploring the world. There's details about how the maps are designed in the older titles that are lost starting with Gen 7, such as how Kanto accommodates players that don't use Fly by looping around on itself naturally if you go with the expected route through the game. Meanwhile, Sword and Shield might as well not even have routes with how linear the game is.
This comment is already a little too long, so I'll leave one last thought here. I hope Pokemon Legends is good. I genuinely want The Pokemon Company to experiment with games that share the core gameplay loop but explored in different ways. Revisiting the Gamecube titles was very interesting. The shift to doubles made fights more challenging, particularly when the AI had teams built around the format, and the limited Pokemon roster also made things more difficult by reducing the tools you have to work with. Meanwhile, PLA seems to be focused on the exploration and dex filling aspects of the core series that seem to have been ignored in later titles. I think there's room both for the current style of Pokemon and alternative experiences for older players looking for something more out of the game. It's frustrating to me that Game Freak expects me to play multiplayer as the end game when that was never my favorite part of the games growing up. So I'm cautiously optimistic that PLA represents a turning point for the series, and that Sword and Shield was just a stepping stone to get there.
Something I forgot to mention that I'm going to put here instead of editing the original lengthy comment: I play with Set battle rules, I don't use healing or battle items during trainer fights, and if available I use the option to disable the EXP Share when I'm not going out of my way to level up. I find this brings the level of difficulty up to a good level as a veteran player, even if the games are still on the easy side. And, of course, there are the options of difficulty hacks, though I'm not usually a fan of how those handle the difficulty changes.
Another thing I do to help shake things up is the occasional challenge run, like a mono-type run, or avoiding Pokemon that I've used in the past in favor of ones I haven't trained before. I've slowly been chipping away at the entire Pokedex this way, and I've in fact have completed a file using every single Kanto Pokemon and most Johto Pokemon this way, with the exceptions of some of the Megas or Regional forms.
It's going to be difficult once I'm getting to the Pokemon exclusive to the 3DS or Switch games since I don't exactly enjoy those as much but eh...the Pokemon designs are why I'm still here. Designs like Hawlucha, Mimikyu, or Cramorant are among some of my favorites in the entire series! I hope the designs keep getting better and better in the future. :)
This summed things up perfectly tbh. I've loved this series for years but some of the fans have the most ridiculous takes about it. People who only like the first few gens won't admit some parts were just tedious and not fun. And while some of the new games definitely have their problems, people complain about every little thing, even when like you said, some changes were for definitely for the better . i actually fell off of the series for a few years after gen 5, and while sword/shield (and watching nuzlockes!) brought me back into it and got me replaying a bunch of past gen games, i still never got around to sun/moon. moving forward though, i want to have realistic expectations for upcoming pokemon games, and just want to enjoy them for what they are. like you said, each new game is some kids' first pokemon adventure-- you discussing this made me a tad emotional thinking back to the magical experience of my first pokemon games. so i hope i can let myself enjoy some new adventures in the future :)
Yeah, I LOVE the exp.share we have now.
I feel like it's worth mentioning in regards to difficulty in the franchise that back in the 2d era we had things like the Battle Frontier, PWT and actual difficulty selection that you could unlock in BW2, not to mention the post game that offered the ability to rematch various gym leaders and the elite 4 with even stronger mons. Many of these features are unfortunately not present in the current gens and with stuff like the universal XP share or friendship bonuses it makes the game much easier
8:05 I really wish Pokemon fans would stop calling other monster collector genre games "clones".
Alot of Pokemon's own monster design philosophy even with Kanto's "original" 151 can easily be traced to back to Dragon Quest monster designs especially since Draogn Quest 5 is a monster collector that came out years before Pokemon and helped further popularize the genre in Japan alongside older monster collectors like Shin Megami Tensei.
By all accounts, it's super easy to refer to Pokemon as a Dragon Quest clone.
14:10 I agree. One of my problems with Sun and Moon besides it just being a soulless attempt at trying to replicate the goodness of Yo-Kai Watch games is the fact it might as well be Lillie's story instead of yours and I like how this video highlights that.
I've always been convinced she's a Mary Sue.
She does nothing of value yet everything is all about her, her rich girl problems and even getting a free chance to study abroad in Kanto just because she talked back to her mom like any other teenage girl would do.
15:05 I wouldn't really say the physical-special split of Pokemon is really anything special. Older games already had that split between physical and magic attacks for years already but Pokemon had to be extremely vague and unclear about how it actually worked. We only know about it now because of online resources like Bulbapedia. It's just something that patched up previously bad game design, as far as I'm concerned. A Band-aid solution, as you put it.
One of the problems in discussing difficulty with the Pokemon series is no one seems to define what tools they are using first. You can use a Z-move or mega evolution to steamroll gen 6 and 7, or you can completely ignore those systems. You can make sure your team has good natures and you can shape their EVs with berries and hyper training. You can use affection bonuses to score crits or survive lethal blows. You can research or just remember what types gym leaders and elite 4 members use. You can use the exp share. You can use the a dragon or a pseudolegendary or box legendary on your team. Heck, a lot of adult players probably have a good idea of how base stats compare between pokemon, something new and young players won't know anything about. The difficulty is extremely variable due to all these factors, but people who choose to play on easy mode by z-moving everything just say "lol easy baby game" and its become the dominant sentiment because no one wants to admit that several totem pokemon or ultra necrozma outsped and one shot their entire team.
I'm surprised you did not mention Pokemon UNITE at all.
I do believe it's a very fresh and original perspective for the series.
I honestly did not expect to talk positively about this game but in glad to say it was a very pleasant surprise that the Pokemon are very well represented in a MOBA format, and it does make me wonder about the future of the franchise.
Unite is a spin-off
he didn't talk about any of the spin-offs
On difficulty, things would be a lot more interesting if trainers actually used different tactics, swapped out Pokémon, and had more team variety. Maybe even give ace trainers mega evolutions and such. I go through most Pokémon games just tapping the A button until everything is dead. It’s rare that I really have to think about what I’m doing, and usually don’t have to at all against normal trainers.
Surely EV/IV training, nature breeding and egg moves are the epitome of tedium replacing difficulty? It's not *hard* to make a perfect Pokemon. It just takes absolutely forever.
Really quality video, dawg. made a lot of points that I hadn't considered
I've only ever played Red & Yellow but I still have fond memories of those days, and it's fun to catch up with the series a bit. Thanks for the video :)
22:20 what if I told you newer monster tamer games like Nexomon extinction already have that built in their engine
As I watch this video it further reminds me how much I really love this franchise 😭this was a very well done video
I 1200% agree that the national dex should have been cut back in Gen 3.
When I heard they were cutting the Gen 8 national dex, my reaction was "Thank god" and "Why now?"
It just seemed so bizarre to me that they would wait so long to cut it, when it was such an obvious drain on development time and hardware space. When they hadn't cut it by Gen 5 or 6, even after the fresh reset of Black and White, and even after the switch to a new system and from 2D to 3D, I figured they just had an internal rule to never cut it no matter what even when that made no sense.
*"I figured they just had an internal rule to never cut it no matter what even when that made no sense."*
I think said "ruling" was just them being cautious and don't wanting to poke the beehive when it wasn't necessary. I mean, most might like to say that Dexit started because of the likes and the like and not because Pokemon were cut, but I am more than sure that no matter what, the drama would have still started no matter when Dexit happened.
We got nothing in exchange for the dexcut though
@@alphamarigi the game actually releasing on-time and not being an unplayable mess of bugs is the main one
@@GunnarClovis wasn't an issue for sun and moon. The dexcut was a marketing scheme simple as. All the assets were future proofed and most gameplay features 1000-2000 Pokémon would make impossible would also be impossible at 400 Pokémon
I remember being excited about Sun & Moon, and ultimately feeling physical pain when playing it. I'm glad somebody calls it out, and it's really frustrating how it was heavily marketed as a break-out for the series and to this day has deluded people into believing that yes it was the Gyms and HMs what was holding the series back (and not the patronizing tone and railroading design found in the Gen 6 games), this is the most "innovative" entry yet with an amazing story!
Except it wasn't because all of the "freshness" the story and setting became tired as soon it was re-released the very next year and none of that innovation stuck around in the next game, as it's a Pokémon tradition (except for the twist of a fake villain and a real villain which got copied wholesale in Sword & Shield)
Some of the totems were tricky though....
Great video, I very much enjoyed this, you've got a new subscriber here
Love the pints you hit in this video. I agree the National dex just doesn’t make sense anymore. I’ve been saying it for years, Give me a game with all regions in it or give me nothing at all! Lol great video once again!
A game like that wouldn't work
Not only a game with all regions would be impossibly hard to balance thanks to how long it would be, but it would also be frikishly huge, so huge that I don't think the Switch could handle it.
@@toumabyakuya lies
@@haroldnecmann7040 Uh? Care to explain?.
On the topic of star wars, it's pretty ironic considering sun and moon has a premise similar to that of "return of the Jedi" with Lusamine (Darth Vader) and Lillie (Luke Skywalker). Lillie is trying to help her mom turn away from evil (being seduced by Nihilego) and in the end after an intense fight in the ultra wormhole, she is freed. Lusamine is no longer attached to the ultra beast, she lets go (I think) and is able to appreciate her daughter for who she is, her daughter. Lusamine really loves her children, she was just under the influence of Nihilego (kind of like the dark side or being long-term possessed) that she couldn't see that. The video games do it a lot better than the TV anime. Also, I think there is a bit of a Luke and Leia dynamic between Gladion and Lillie.
Though as many have pointed out, the models and animations for the Pokémon have remained the same. GF said the dex cut was to do new models and animations for all the pokémon but that simply wasn't the case. The only "issue" that could have played part in this was having to update the textures because they've been doing so in every single entry. SM, Let's Go, GO and SWSH all feature different textures for every pokémon instead of reusing the same ones from GO that are already HD (and all textures after the 3DS games have the same resolution from what I can tell), so this shouldn't even be an issue in the first place. They could have very easily used the same textures from GO and we would have at least gens 1-3 and some from Sinnoh by the time SWSH came out. Not to mention they already have the code for all those mons and some were even left in SWSH's data but with their stat values being empty.
I'm only 1 min in and it's obvious how much love and care this video has poured in.
Great analysis!
WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT THE 80 BILLION WINNIE THE POOH???? LOL
Another insightful commentary!
Great video! Thank you!
The first game I ever played was Pokemon Yellow and I had no idea you could change the battle style until this video. My entire life is a lie.
Great video! Weird thing for me is that with the whole catching tutorial, they had the option to skip it in G/S/C and then went back to unskippable... very strange choice.
I don't like the argument of "remember the game is for kids" because kids deserve good games too. They might be more likely to overlook flaws and shortcomings for the sake of experiencing the fantasy but that's not an excuse to not do better. You can have both the fantasy and a good game, especially for a miniscule fraction of a *hundred billion dollars*.
I know most fans are only pushing what they'd personally like to see and that sometimes wouldn't work for a younger audience, but there's a decent crossover too.
love this video. very insightful and well thought out analysis mitch.
I wasn't sure what to expect: every time I see the whole "problem with Pokémon" thumbnail I feel a shiver down my spine, "ah here we go again, someone telling me Pokémon is bad now because they don't have unique animations for every single individual species using every single type of attack or some other crazy thing..."
But I am glad I gave this videos a watch, I enjoyed it a lot and it was very fair; even as someone who loved the story of Sun and Moon I thought the critiques to that game, and the series as a whole, were more than comprehensive and like... Chill?
It's surprisingly hard, within the Pokémom fanbase, to find people who'll be so tame and calm, rather than give into their primal instincts and hate all over whatever it is they don't like in a fit of fury: Gamefreak's ruining this or TPCi is ruining that...!
I gave this video a shot, which I'm very happy for, specifically because I saw KingK retweet it on Twitter - now, admittedly, I don't always agree with absolutely everything he says in his videos, but I also find them to be very well made and researched, calm and typically fair, opinionated to an extent but with enough objectivity to make them feel like comprehensive analysis, which I really appreciate! (At least as far as I've seen...!)
I think this video did that too, so I have to commend your work!
Weirdly enough, it was with some of the hotter takes that I felt like I agreed the most.
The national dex thing? Despite not being old enough to play the games back in the Gen 3 days, I feel like it would have been the smartest choice, and if not then and there, to cut it alongside Gen 5's huge arrange of changes, though I guess lots of people would see Black & White in a way more negative light these days for that, if being forced to use Gen 5 Pokémon for the whole main story wasn't a big enough turn off for many...
I feel people take the national Pokedex for granted... If we were to make a list of games on the Nintendo Switch that can connect all the way through multiple consoles generations, back to the GBA, I don't think you'd find a single one besides Pokémon... The fact that this has gone on for so damn long should be a monumental achievement and not something we fight over on Twitter because we want for it to be preserved forever at the cost of development resources that could go elsewhere, especially when the series is plagued by other far more pressing problems to the games' overall quality like lack of content, graphical fidelity, writing downgrades, etc...
I know you addressed it in the video, but I definitely think you gave the story of Sun and Moon a bit too harsh a treatment. Yes, the tutorial is disgustingly long, and yes, with the massive amount of text breaks it makes replaying it a bit of a chore, and, also yes, the story chooses to focus on Lillie instead of the main character. But god. I love the world and characters of Sun and Moon, especially Lillie. Going through the game seeing her learn about the world just along the main character, overcoming her traumatic and abusive past, and confronting her mother in the final battle, has to be the greatest character arc in any Pokémon game by far. It and Gen V are the only games that have really gotten me emotional about characters in a Pokémon game. That’s also why Ultra Sun and Moon was so absolutely disappointing for me, as it completely guts and ruins Lillie’s story. I can understand not playing Pokémon to be invested in the human characters and wanting to focus on your own journey, but to come in with that expectation only to discover a genuinely moving, (yet still grantedly simple) character story was a moment thats really stuck with me more than some of my other Pokémon experiences.
Oh my goodness what was that background music it’s beautiful
The video warm up my heart 💖
Pokemon: Can customize character sense x and y
Pokemom omega ruby and alpha sapphire: Am I a joke to you!?
Subtle shoutout to Eurothug in there, nice
Rip & tear, until it is done.
Really great video and basically that’s how I feel but I do disagree with the VGC part you see I also used to breed a lot and make different teams in gen 6 but the unfortunate the hacking truly ruined the experience for me the reason I loved the proces is because you build your own Pokémon in different manners which nature? Which movesets? Which ability? that makes it fun but people genning their mons and hell even their stats which truly ruined everything there are simply way to many hackers whom even got exposed many times already so I stoped playing the newer generations I finished sword in a day and never touched it again
I am currently doing a battle frontier challenge in emerald with my best friend that’s something Pokémon is truly missing these days
I thought I had watched every Pokemon video essay. Seems I was wrong.
Thanks for thenvid
I totally agree with what you said about national dex
I was thinking of playing Pokémon after some 10 years, because I got a new 3DS.
And then this dropped.
ORAS is pretty solid, specially when compared to X&Y. Give it a try if you will before it becomes stupidly expensive ;)
Just play the 3ds Pokemon games on a Citra emulator
@@delphoxxthevulpera68 if he has a 3ds the games shouldn't be that much pricier than your regular second hand 3ds game, so there's no reason to NOT play them on original hardware. Thats just how i see things though.
Nexomon 2 has actually accomplish making nuzlocke options a thing with the level of flexibly to make things unique enough meet different preferences... but its nexomon so not many people will give it a chance since "its not pokemon"
As someone who still does love Pokemon (even if its dwindled somewhat) I agree. I think its become a victim of its own formula. What it has in place combat wise still works, what's hurting it however its its refusal to evolve or take itself further. It feels as if rather than evolving with the audience its devolving instead. Like forced tutorials for instance, older games let the player either skip tutorials (gen 2) or if they were present (the Old Man in Gen 1) they only lasted a minute for what was a minor annoyance.
Don't get me wrong HMs being gone is a great choice, however I think they could've worked, they should've been retooled so that rather than use moveslots, have them just be abilities Pokemon do out on the field exclusively, making Pokemon be an asset to the world and combat, especially if you like the idea of them following you. What's even worse is when Gamefreak do have ideas to add modern sensibilities to Pokemon (removing random encounters in Lets Go) they backpedal on them.
I think the whole "EXP Share" criticism the new games face is misused, the EXP share isn't the problem, as I believe it cuts back on grinding, rather the difficulty itself isn't scaled in a way to favor the inclusion. It just exposes the balancing flaw the combat has. And while I do think mechanic changes make newer games more polished in terms of combat, I prefer the older game's meta because they aren't as horribly unbalanced or ripped with power creep (Gen 8's power creep showcases how Modern Pokemon needs a HUGE rebalancing)
My first shiny was a Makuhita full odds when ruby and Sapphire came out I was about 8 and didn't even realize how rare it was cuz I stopped playing I had nobody to play with then lost the game
I completely agree with a lot of your arguments. And I still actively love pokemon. But the Nat dex thing still bothers me. Not because it got cut but because they lied about it. They said they were making new models for sw/sh but they are the same models from X and Y that have been used in almost all 3d pokemon games. They also said that they were making new animations for the game which is slightly true but still very lackluster. Overall just really broke my trust in gamefreak quite a bit. I'll still be playing it but tbh Legends Arceus is going to be my last chance for them. But hey I still have plenty of pokemon fangames to play.
i likey this video a lot! there's a lot you discuss that I think Pokemon main-line series suffers and well...
THIS SUN AND MOON DUNKING WILL NOT GO UNNOTICED. It's probably my 2nd favorite in the series, and like the criticisms about too much tutorials & story at the start is super valid - it kills the pacing. But I think like Gen 5 it does some really great stuff story wise and intertwines criminal organization, "good guys", gym fights and existential threats in a way that was super fresh and exciting.
I used to play Pokemon a lot during my youth, but after Ruby & Sapphire, I guess I grew tired of trying to catch 'em all because there will always be more and new Pokemon coming out. So, just like that, I quit Pokemon cold turkey and never touched a mainline Pokemon since. Even my cousin got me Pokemon Sword for X-Mas, and I have yet to touch it ever since. I have heard of the Nuzlockes challenges, but I'm too much of a coward gamer to lose my Pokemon b/c I get too attached to my game characters, which is why the idea of permadeath is something I stray away from.
Still, this video does address some other issues I had no clue I heard of, but good on Pokemon for being bigger than Disney (almost).
Yeah, a lot of the people that propose nuzlocke's really don't seem to get that it isn't a fun way to increase the challenge for most.
More challenge should mean that to overcome a gym I need to take advantage of status effects because type advantages aren't there. Or a gym leader uses a lot of boosing moves so I need stuff that resets their boosts. You can't Nuzlocke this type of difficulty in. I don't want to play a game like everything does 2x damage because random crits can just kill my favourite Pokemon out of a team that is already filled with Pokemon I may not love.
Never understood the hate for Sun and Moon
I love those games