Research Do you believe pokemon games are on a downward spiral?

[Nullzach]

Now before we begin this post could be a little controversial I just wanted to see the smogon community's thoughts on this subject, so please don't fight anyone because of their opinion.
With that being said lets begin:
Many do believe that Pokemon games are on a downward spiral, but the question is when did the spiral start?
I believe the spiral started after Pokemon ultra sun and ultra moon, I only believe this because it started to show game freak could just easily reuse all of assets of a previous game and just add on to it a little and call it a day.
After they announced that, the hype of watching a Nintendo direct and seeing a new Pokemon game getting released just died down. It just wasn't exciting anymore, it felt like the game ideas were just being reused.

Well at the end of the day that's just my opinion, but feel free to share your opinion.
(I've also attached a poll to this thread so feel free to vote)

Update:
I just realized now that the spiral actually started way earlier than I initially thought, game freak re-released pokemon red & blue on oct 1, 1999 the huge change was your starter is pikachu. Which means game freak became lazy on oct 1, 1999.
Thank you Celeb for reminding me!

Disregarding my update I'm going back to my own opinion, sorry celeb while I do agree with you I believe only the newer generation game ideas are reused.
Also I have read the comments, and now I do understand its more of a milking the content too much issue.

 

[Celeb]

I believe the spiral started after Pokemon ultra sun and ultra moon, I only believe this because it started to show game freak could just easily reuse all of assets of a previous game and just add on to it a little and call it a day.

 

[Samtendo09]

Now before we begin this post could be a little controversial I just wanted to see the smogon community's thoughts on this subject, so please don't fight anyone because of their opinion.
With that being said lets begin:
Many do believe that Pokemon games are on a downward spiral, but the question is when did the spiral start?
I believe the spiral started after Pokemon ultra sun and ultra moon, I only believe this because it started to show game freak could just easily reuse all of assets of a previous game and just add on to it a little and call it a day.
After they announced that, the hype of watching a Nintendo direct and seeing a new Pokemon game getting released just died down. It just wasn't exciting anymore, it felt like the game ideas were just being reused.

Well at the end of the day that's just my opinion, but feel free to share your opinion.
(I've also attached a poll to this thread so feel free to vote)

Update:
I just realized now that the spiral actually started way earlier than I initially thought, game freak re-released pokemon red & blue on oct 1, 1999 the huge change was your starter is pikachu. Which means game freak became lazy on oct 1, 1999.
Thank you Celeb for reminding me! Take a complementary jigglypuff
View attachment 368349

I do not think it had to do as much laziness as it is more about struggling to keep up with time and tried to make their next things as much “cash-in / marketable” as possible, at the expense of other things.

It doesn’t help that Generation 2 wasn’t all that better than Gen 1. While it certainly refined a lot of gameplay issues, the balance was overall still a mess - nowhere as bad as before though - and despite being a sequel to the Kanto games, there is way too much focus on Kanto Pokémon to the point several new Generation 2 Pokémon ends up being overlooked.

I do not think Generation 2 will be that high of a note if the franchise really ends at Generation 2. The success did allowed for more Generations to come, for the better and for the worse.

I do think that the true downward spiral is Generation 7 as a whole. This is where Game Freak started to become arrogant and wanted to changes things up so constantly even if it is not the best option to do, and as a result, things like Mega Evolution, Z-Moves, trade evolutions (though there were none introducec in Sword and Shield surprisingly), Triple Battles, Rotation Battle, Sky Battle and Inverse Battle either not being refined or ends up being forgotten altogether.

It doesn’t help that things like animation in 3D or the increasing balance issue (more duds than overpowered ones in this case) that Game Freak took too slow to resolve.

Dexit is far from the worst thing about the whole situation, but the way Game Freak compensated did accentuate the negatives about it and exposes the worst of both worlds - the Pokémon franchise as a whole, but also the fanbase - and there’s no denying that, even if we did see improvements in some areas, some others did regressed.

 

[King Feraligatr]

As I've said before countless times, I believe Gen 6 was where the decline began in earnest. XY onwards are just far worse than what came before. Still, given that I found BW1 meh and they killed my blind hype for Pokemon, I'd say the seeds where planted that far back. BW1 are not bad games for sure, but if they could kill my hype for the franchise with just themselves, there's a problem. Gen 5 itself can't count as a decline Gen on the whole though, because BW2 exist. And those games are just great (shame I skipped over them when they first came out).

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

Honestly, I'd say yes and no.

Pretty much the issue with Pokemon at its core stems all the way back to Gen 3 honestly, but this franchise is a case where it's suffering from its own success. The "winner's curse", if you'll put it that way.

The first part of the issue is the formula this franchise has derived its success from for so long. It started with 151 Pokemon, a basic formula of 8 Gyms, become the Champ, catch 'em all, and from there they kept adding more and more Pokemon to the roster as time went on. Not just new mons, but more content tagged on, trying to develop new features, and vice versa while trying to retain everything the previous game had. This is an inherently unsustainable formula that Pokemon has locked itself into for so long that has little wiggle room, and yet it's what got the franchise popular in the first place.

This locks the series into a lose-lose situation. Change too little, and Pokemon will be perceived as growing stale. Change too much, and the fanbase will get pissed off like crazy. And yet it's impossible to hang onto all the piles of legacy content this franchise has built up for so long. At some point, they'd have to give up something. Sword and Shield's Dexit, combined with it ending up in the state it was in, is a true testament to the fact that the old Pokemon formula has effectively reached its limit and that it's not going to cut it in modern times, regardless of the fact that it was revolutionary back in the late 90s and early 2000s.

The lose-lose also stems rom how massive an audience this franchise has accumulated over the years. Different people have gotten in at different times, and many generations of people will have different ideas of what Pokemon is. Many of the Gen 1/2 folk were frustrated with Gen 3 back then because it changed so much of what made Pokemon special to them, and now many of them don't play this series anymore. Other people from younger generations will probably have different ideas what what they want out of Pokemon. It's virtually impossible to please just about everyone with how big of an audience this series has now.

Now onto whether this series truly is on a decline...I'd say it's more an issue where this franchise has become far too successful for its own good. If you ask me, I would agree that USUM is where it's really starting to become noticeable that Pokemon is far too successful for its own good.

I think Gen 6, for all of its flaws, was very good and was a damn good start to the 3DS era of Pokemon. In spite of its issues you can tell they put a lot of heart into it, Mega Evolutions were cool and brought a lot of Pokemon into the spotlight, Pokemon Amie is such a cute feature that makes use of the 3DS's features and the 3D models and vice versa, and the minigames it had were adorable. The multiplayer functionality of X and Y was awesome: the PSS was great, Super Training was awesome (and fun too!) to EV train mons, 8-directional movement, Lumiose City, roller skates, Friend Safari! Plus Kalos is just a beautiful region. I was a little underwhelmed by X and Y back then, but in hindsight I appreciate them a lot more because they really were damn good. ORAS despite not having the Frontier made up for it with some nice features and a fleshed out story like Gen 5's, plus Soaring in the Sky and Contests being better than ever. I'd argue even the start of Gen 7 was very good, as Sun and Moon actually had a nice, fleshed out narrative with fantastic and memorable characters, and despite Alola's linearity, it made up for it with a bunch of side quests and had a lot of nice things going for it while keeping much of XY and ORAS's things intact.

USUM onwards up to now is where you can tell Pokemon's success is really getting to Game Freak's heads. USUM did little to fix any of SM's flaws while it was even worse in the storytelling department (trying to redeem Lusamine and failing in doing so LMAO) and was a shitty business move in the grand scheme of things. Let's Go is fucking awful and a blatant cash grab for casuals. Sword and Shield is a game I enjoyed in the grand scheme of things, but you can tell that game direly lacked polish. That game had some nice concepts, and I love the characters so much, plus the Wild Area was a neat concept for open world exploration, but that game sure as hell needed at least two more years in the oven for all it was worth.

And what's the big thing going on there? Those games have been practically been released yearly, back to back. USUM, SwSh, and Let's Go were practically being developed at the same time as each other at one point. The games have been practically been put on a conveyer belt not just for the sake of cash, but to align with merchandise. And combined with GF's inexperience with 3D and especially HD development it shows that they're just putting the games out on a conveyer belt without actually polishing them or actually thinking about what the series is doing right or wrong.

Game Freak has started to become arrogant starting from USUM and you can tell they're just reinventing the wheel for the sake of it and trying to experiment with new ideas and ultimately blowing their budget in style over substance. It's the exact same issue the Sonic franchise has been pushing itself into for the past 20 years. Mega Evolutions were such an awesome concept, but instead of expanding upon it or improving it in future games, they ditched it entirely. Z-Moves and Dynamax are both worse than Megas as concepts, while simultaneously being overpowered as fuck. Pokemon Amie derivatives don't even have the fun little minigames that Amie itself did. PSS was a great multiplayer feature, now look at Y-Comm and that's significantly worse than PSS. Many of the fun battle modes like Triples, Sky Battles, and Inverse Battles are gone now.

At the core, they need to let their egos aside and really assess what this franchise is doing right and what it's doing wrong. As I said, I can forgive Gen 6 in spite of its issues, because it was their debut into the 3D era, and for all of its issues, they had ambition and heart put into them. I enjoy those games, and I still do, in fact more so now than ever (it's easy to really love and appreciate what Gen 6 brought to the table in hindsight, especially considering where we are now). Later gens really don't have that excuse, and it's apparent now that instead of looking at what they've done wrong and trying to fix things to make things better, they've instead been trying to reinvent the wheel to try to sell things and not building on any of the ambition Gen 6, or any generation before it, had.

Now on the other hand, looking at BDSP and Legends does give me some hope that things will hopefully be better, assuming they keep things up. I liked the DLC of SwSh for the promise it showed, and more than anything, it showed to me that there's still talent in Game Freak and they've still got it. I'm liking that BDSP is following up on it a bit and keeping many of DP's features intact while not butchering Sinnoh in all its glory, and Legends is looking to not only change the formula, which is long overdue at this point, but actually shows ambition for once and a will to do something great with this franchise, actually building on the promise some of SwSh's concepts showed for once, and looking to be an experience that can make Pokemon interesting for once. I don't think they'll nail it, they never have first time around, but if they can keep building on that I think there's potential. Of course, whether Gen 9 onwards will do that or not has yet to be seen, but I think they need to really assess what design mistakes are going on and really work on changing things for the better, instead of blowing their budget on style over substance.

 

[Celeb]

On a more serious note, I do not believe that the main games are on a downward spiral since upcoming 'Legends' looks promising. Despite that, I actually agree with You, Nullzach, about the most recent decline of quality in the series. Ultra versions of Sun and Moon disappointed me before their release due to my aversion of 'enhanced' games (mainly due to economic reasons). Then they disappointed me even more when I had actually played them. After that, I saw the announcement of another Kanto remakes - I wasn't amused. Then, Sword and Shield came out. I did not play them but I did see that they accentuated some of SM's disadvantages (overabundance of cutscenes, Exp. Share implementation etc.) and decided to not waste my money on Switch for them.

Seventh generation as a whole was pretty disappointing, honestly. I really liked Pokemon Sun and Moon but what was there to play besides them? Sun and Moon Electric Boogaloo, Let's Go to Kanto One More Time, bunch of mobile games, Pokemon Quest and Detective Pikachu. I mean, Jesus, this is a mediocre selection. Even though second generation has like four games, almost all of them are good sequels (Pokemon GSC, TCG 2, Stadium 2). Eight generation already looks much better with upcoming Sinnoh games, New Snap and Mystery Dungeon remake (which brings me back to my answer - I reckon we are not on a downward spiral right now.).

 

[PokePoindexter]

I really don't think I can give a concrete answer here. The series has had its peaks and valleys over the years. One thing I've noticed is how gens 3-8 line up for me: 3 > 4 < 5 > 6 < 7 > 8. And strangely enough, my favorites of those (5 and 3) are probably the two most historically polarizing generations we had prior to gen 8.

I think said polarization stems from the games tending to defy a lot of preconceived notions that people have grown to expect the franchise to have. For instance, back when Ruby/Sapphire first came out, people went scorched earth on them for the lack of a day/night feature or Time Capsule, the inability to revisit Kanto or Johto, and only having 67 Pokemon from the first 2 generations, while many of the better features Gen 3 had, such as a more flushed-out main adventure and region, the additions of natures and abilities, and 135 brand new Pokemon to catch (several of which I personally grew to love very quickly) were drowned out in the process.

Similarly, when Black/White had a regional Pokedex that didn't have any Pokemon from previous generations, and when said dex had an ice cream and garbage bag, not everyone handled it very well (take it from someone who has several friends that haven't played a Pokemon game since GSC: nobody in that group has ever reminisced about their Jynx, Electrode, Muk, Lickitung, Delibird, Corsola, or Unown from those games, which is probably why it was fairly easy for many of them to write off the shittier designs from those generations). Never mind the even better main story, or that you can still get several past-gen mons in the postgame (or Dream World when that was still active), or that you have some solid alternatives to the ice cream and garbage in Beartic and Scolipede respectively, or the treasure trove of other amazing mons Gen 5 introduced; this gen had the nerve to defy someone's preconceived notions, so much reeeeing ensued as a result.

I guess if I had to pick a point when Pokemon started spiraling downhill, it would be around the time XY came out. It seems to me that Game Freak took a lot of what the vocal minority was complaining about a little too much to heart when making them, which would go somewhere towards explaining the asinine amount of gen 1 fan service in those games (e.g. gifted a Kanto starter, waking up a Snorlax, being able to catch a Mewtwo, Santalune Forest being a carbon copy of Viridian Forest, a plurality of Mega Evolutions being given to gen 1 mons, etc.). Not to mention a smaller roster of new Pokemon because a fully-grown adult with a fully functioning brain "cAn'T kEeP uP wItH aLl tHeSe nEw pOkEmOn!!!1!". Oh, and "3D" that made my eyes bleed (though to be fair, the 3DS's "3D" feature as a whole does that) and cell shading that was... not bad, but much better executed in Gen 7. But ultimately, what we ended up with was a giant mess that tries too hard to cater to two diametrically opposed sides of the same fanbase and subsequently fails to satiate either side's wishes. And although there have been games to come out since that I personally enjoyed playing (ORAS, USUM), they still fall into that same trap as well. Fortunately, there are a few upcoming games that could potentially break that trend; one is cast in a more "traditional" Pokemon game mold, and another is providing a whole slew of new gameplay changes. I think if there is a downward spiral, then BDSP and Legends Arceus being split into separate games might honestly be the best way to help stop that spiral.

 

[Siggu]

By all means, no.

The quality of Pokémon games has always been some sort of roller coaster.

(Red and Green had nothing to compare to)
Blue is better than Red and Green.
Yellow is worse than Blue.
Gold and Silver are better than Yellow.
Crystal is roughly on the same level as Gold and Silver.
Ruby and Sapphire are worse than Crystal.
FireRed and LeafGreen are roughly on the same level as Ruby and Sapphire (though I personally didn't enjoy them).
Emerald is better than Ruby and Sapphire.
Diamond and Pearl are worse than Emerald.

Now comes the point that might have spoiled people - a sequence of solid games that briefly made us forget the sort-of hit-or-miss nature of earlier entries.

Platinum is better than Diamond and Pearl.
HeartGold and SoulSilver are roughly on the same level as Platinum.
Black and White are better than HeartGold and SoulSilver.
Black 2 and White 2 are better than Black and White.

But eventually that finished, and we got back to square one.

X and Y are worse than Black 2 and White 2.
Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire are better than X and Y.
Sun and Moon are worse than Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.
Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon are better than Sun and Moon.
Let's GO Pikachu and Let's GO Eevee are worse than Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon.
Sword and Shield are better than Let's GO Pikachu and Let's GO Eevee (albeit not by much).

So no, there's no downward spiral - it's just on that rollercoaster of "first a superior game, then a worse game" it's almost always been in.

Now, if Legends becomes the intended direction the series is heading to, then the downward spiral will be real, and the series will fall into an abyss. I can't see anything good coming out of a game of that genre.

 

[Adeleine]

USUM starting a spiral leaves a really small sample size, especially given how recent it is. r/s, b/w, x/y, and s/m were all alleged to start the spiral, and more besides.

I think people focus too much on whether x games in the series are better or worse than y games. Marginal differences are, well, marginal I guess, and i think much of the quality differences between Pokemon games are overstated. I see "SWSH is 5/10" (I'm using it and not USUM bc USUM gets more into the weeds of how a game ought to be be rated) as more valuable than "I think SWSH is worse than SM". If I think SM is 8.5/10 and SWSH is 8/10, that doesn't really strike me as spiraling.

Another reason I see hypothetical "SWSH is 5/10" as useful is that, unless you mean specifically "in relation to other Pokemon games / accounting for the fact that the basic system is not an original creation" (which runs into the marginal differences risk), I find that opinion difficult to justify. SWSH, like most Pokemon games, presents a fun and low-key monster-catching romp with great monsters, great music, interesting-if-flat characters, and a bad plot. That doesn't mean it's as good as every other Pokemon games; other games could have even better monsters, even better music, less bad plots, and other benefits and drawbacks I didn't mention. But I struggle to see the differences resulting in, say, a three point gap between it and the best Pokemon game.

 

[Suspicious Derivative]

While I think the games have been getting worse as of late, I'm not sure if I would go as far as to say that the series is in a downward spiral. It is more of a slow decline if you ask me. But even if I don't think some of the most recent games are the very best, I'd still say they are very good for the most part.

Personally, I think Pokémon was mostly getting better with every new game and generation from Gen 1 to Gen 5. The only real exceptions IMO are Yellow (worse than R/B) and HG/SS (worse than Platinum, worse than everything else too for that matter). Apart from these two, I think all other game(s) were better than the game(s) released right before them, or just as good as their direct predecessors.

But starting from Gen 6, I think the games have mostly been getting worse with every release instead of getting better. They are still good though. I think X/Y were worse than B/W and B2/W2, but they are still excellent. OR/AS were worse than X/Y, but still excellent. S/M were worse than OR/AS, but still good. US/UM are an exception as I think they are really great and better than S/M, but I still think they are worse than Gen 5 & 6. I agree with some others who have posted here that US/UM felt like an easy cash grab and that they could have improved more on S/M, but I still think the improvements they did were enough. They were definitely worth the money (and time) for me.

I haven't played LGP/E so I can't really speak about them. In theory though, I don't think I would enjoy them much, which is the main reason I skipped them. As for S/S, I played Sword and while I found the base game to be worse than US/UM, I would rank it above LGP/E (again, only in theory) and tied with S/M. With the DLC, I'd rank Sword higher than S/M, but below US/UM.

Here's how I rank the generations (based purely on the games):
5 > 6 > 7 > 4 > 8 > 3 > 1 > 2

And here's how I rank the games:
B/W = B2/W2 > X/Y > OR/AS > US/UM > Platinum > Sword (with DLC) > S/M > D/P > Emerald > R/S = FR/LG > Crystal > R/B > G/S > Yellow > HG/SS
Unranked: LGP/LGE, Shield (haven't played them, so no opinion on them)

Overall, I think the decline started with Gen 6, but I really don't think it is anywhere near as bad as many other fans often make it out to be. I think the games have been going downward, but it is not like they have gone from the top to the bottom in an instant, it is more of a slow decline. IMO, the newer games are still good for the most part and nowhere near the bottom. My favorite is Gen 5, but Gen 6 is my second favorite, and Gen 7 is my third favorite. I also like Gen 8 a lot. So even if the newest games aren't the best, I think they are still very good.

 

[KaenSoul]

I think the real problem is how similar each game is, at the end of the day most of the games are the same except for a few 'features' and 'gimmicks', the ultra duo had more new content relative to SM than Emerald had to RS, but Emerald is seen as the better 'third version' by most people because most people prefer the Battle Frontier over Mantine surfing or traveling in the space with Nebby, or doing the little sidequest like Ditto pretending to be people, or any of the other stuff that USUM had, Emerald didnt really had much other than the BF, just some small UI changes, sprite animations (ugly compared to those in Crystal), expanded Safari Zone (with the same look as everything else, it could have been done in a half hour by anyone with experience on rom hacking).
And yet, my favourite game is Emerald and find USUM kind of boring, but that must be for the same reason i prefer RS over SM, i like Hoenn and i prefer the designs there, and the plot/writing kind of sucks on both (and most pokemon games) but is way easier to ignore in the first few generatios.
I wouldnt say the games are getting worse, is just that the 'gimmicks of the generation' just dont click, they dont carry over all the gimmicks of the previous games to make them unique and thats because they have been making the same game for 25 years.
If you dont like Dynamax, camping, budget nintendo switch graphics, the new monsters, then Sword and Shield are left with the same stuff you can find since Red and Green with more cutscenes, there is also a problem with the games being Red and Green but with changes instead of the previous set of games with changes, just losing 80% of the new features from the last 20 years is a big problem as they need to think of new gimmicks that will replace them, we dont need a new variation of Mega Evolution every gen, most stuff should comeback if it is easy to implement, maybe updating 900 models in two years for a new game is too much, but why they need to cut Tutor moves just to add them back in the next game or DLC?
At least LArceus looks like a different game.

 

[bdt2002]

Alright. It’s showtime. I’ve been waiting for the chance to talk about my opinions on this debacle.

Let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way first and try to look at the facts here. Pokémon began as a cult phenomenon in February of 1996 over in Japan before taking the rest of the world by Storm throughout the rest of Generation 1’s lifespan. Back then, Pokémon wasn’t what we know it now to be. The game developers were purely focused on creating a new, unique take on the JRPG formula revolving around creature collection.

Fast forward 25 years into the future. Pokémon is now the world’s highest grossing media franchise and one of the most iconic media IPs in history. So what’s changed since the late 90s? A slew of technological developments, popularity blooms among various demographics, and a history of cooperation with consumer electronics giant Nintendo have all taken place in that span, giving the franchise a consistent source of reliable income for one reason and one reason alone.

Pokémon isn’t dying out. Pokémon as a franchise isn’t decreasing in quality, per sé. The only thing that’s changed is us the fans. We’re just getting older. Pokémon’s financial dominance has only lasted this long because of the cooperation of fans in different age groups. And the reason that the franchise looks so bad right now is because we as a fanbase are absolutely pathetic about our demands.

Now I know what you’re going to say. “But bdt2002, most Pokémon fans these days are older, and if that’s the case, why not push your marketing towards them?” My answer to that might sound a little harsh, so I apologize in advance. But when push comes to shove, how do we really know that’s the truth? Society can easily accept a popular opinion as the norm and roll with it for years to come, silencing the voices of all who disagree with it.

We should all be glad that Pokémon prioritizes their games for a younger audience too. Let’s do some basic math here. Most hardcore Pokémon fans are at or above the age of 18. The OG fanbase who would have grown up with the first few generations would have reach this age point at some point during the DS era. But notice how if Game Freak made the DS games entirely for the merits of those fans, the DS generation of fans wouldn’t have gotten the stuff they loved so dearly. With the Nintendo Switch hardware, we’re starting to see this transition again. And if OG fans are perfectly fine with that, why the heck do all of today’s older fans think it’s morally right to even criticize the companies that gave us our childhoods in the first place?

TLDR; if the younger fans enjoy the stuff we have now, let them. If we can only let ourselves see the natural changes of adolescence in a more positive light, our view towards not just the newer titles, but also the ones we grew up with, will increase exponentially.

 

[R_N]

Despite how clown shoes SWSH was & how I will complain about gamefreak's various decisions I do not think they are on a downward spiral at all, no.

XY & ORAS have their own issues (XY has a very weak plot, you've got performance issues, the lack of post game sucks and honestly you can so easily tell they wanted a Z....; ORAS hues too close to RS over E than is needed but it performs better, there's a decent amount of extra content, it's visually pretty nice, etc), but honestly, I think on the whole they were solid games. The Alola games are some of my favorite games. USUM just should have been DLC, but I still enjoyed my time with it a lot.
SWSH has a lot of problems that I'm not as forgiving of and a lot (but not all) of that seems to stem from a combination of time/resource issues and them being on a new HD system they had no experience with combined with a huge influx of people that also all had to be trained. Kind of a lot of latent issues just coming to a head all at once.
The DLC was actually quite good, even if it still has a lot of jank.

I don't exactly trust them to knock Legends Arceus out of the park for numerous reasons, and BDSP will have its own share of issues, but outsourcing hte latter to focus on the former is probably a good idea and as a game LA will probably be fine.

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

Alright. It’s showtime. I’ve been waiting for the chance to talk about my opinions on this debacle.

Let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way first and try to look at the facts here. Pokémon began as a cult phenomenon in February of 1996 over in Japan before taking the rest of the world by Storm throughout the rest of Generation 1’s lifespan. Back then, Pokémon wasn’t what we know it now to be. The game developers were purely focused on creating a new, unique take on the JRPG formula revolving around creature collection.

Fast forward 25 years into the future. Pokémon is now the world’s highest grossing media franchise and one of the most iconic media IPs in history. So what’s changed since the late 90s? A slew of technological developments, popularity blooms among various demographics, and a history of cooperation with consumer electronics giant Nintendo have all taken place in that span, giving the franchise a consistent source of reliable income for one reason and one reason alone.

Pokémon isn’t dying out. Pokémon as a franchise isn’t decreasing in quality, per sé. The only thing that’s changed is us the fans. We’re just getting older. Pokémon’s financial dominance has only lasted this long because of the cooperation of fans in different age groups. And the reason that the franchise looks so bad right now is because we as a fanbase are absolutely pathetic about our demands.

Now I know what you’re going to say. “But bdt2002, most Pokémon fans these days are older, and if that’s the case, why not push your marketing towards them?” My answer to that might sound a little harsh, so I apologize in advance. But when push comes to shove, how do we really know that’s the truth? Society can easily accept a popular opinion as the norm and roll with it for years to come, silencing the voices of all who disagree with it.

We should all be glad that Pokémon prioritizes their games for a younger audience too. Let’s do some basic math here. Most hardcore Pokémon fans are at or above the age of 18. The OG fanbase who would have grown up with the first few generations would have reach this age point at some point during the DS era. But notice how if Game Freak made the DS games entirely for the merits of those fans, the DS generation of fans wouldn’t have gotten the stuff they loved so dearly. With the Nintendo Switch hardware, we’re starting to see this transition again. And if OG fans are perfectly fine with that, why the heck do all of today’s older fans think it’s morally right to even criticize the companies that gave us our childhoods in the first place?

TLDR; if the younger fans enjoy the stuff we have now, let them. If we can only let ourselves see the natural changes of adolescence in a more positive light, our view towards not just the newer titles, but also the ones we grew up with, will increase exponentially.

Yeah.

After realizing this over the past few years I've come to terms with newer Pokémon games as of late and in fact have warmed up to them a lot more.

In that sense, nowadays I don't think the modern Pokémon games are actually worse than older ones, per se, but they merely aren't what I wanted them to be at first. Then I realized that I'm getting older and more set in my ways, and there were certain things that I valued so much about the games I grew up with in my childhood (Gen 4-5), but newer games from Gen 6 onwards are reinventing the wheel and doing different things, and maybe since I wasn't a kid anymore when those games came out (Gen 6 came out just as I was starting high school) they weren't as formative for me so they don't appeal to me to the extent that the gens I am nostalgic for (Gen 4 and 5), well except Gen 6 which I am somewhat attached to. I think the kids who did grow up with XY and ORAS will have higher opinions of them because that was formative to them and the things that define the 3DS era will be what they want out of a Pokemon game, while they may not quite like Gen 9 for reinventing the wheel and replacing what they find interesting with what they do not, it's a never ending cycle.

In that sense, upon realizing this I've come full circle from not really enjoying newer games to enjoying newer Pokémon games differently from how I enjoyed, say, Platinum, HGSS, and BW1/2. I've warmed up to XY and ORAS a lot after enjoying them for what they are and not for what I wanted them to be. I genuinely enjoy SwSh in spite of its flaws and it's actively one of my favorite Switch games because it's my go-to "comfort game" in a sense. SwSh and XY/ORAS are games I genuinely like nowadays because they're fun to relax with. In that sense, while I still am engaged in this franchise and am an active enjoyer of it, my time with the newer games is very casual.

With all that said it's why I think Legends Arceus is genuinely an exciting prospect. It's a totally new experience and as such it's not going to register in my brain as "that what I loved back then, but not quite" and as such will be easier to appreciate not just for myself but presumably many others as well.

 

[bdt2002]

In that sense, upon realizing this I've come full circle from not really enjoying newer games to enjoying newer Pokémon games differently from how I enjoyed, say, Platinum, HGSS, and BW1/2. I've warmed up to XY and ORAS a lot after enjoying them for what they are and not for what I wanted them to be. I genuinely enjoy SwSh in spite of its flaws and it's actively one of my favorite Switch games because it's my go-to "comfort game" in a sense. SwSh and XY/ORAS are games I genuinely like nowadays because they're fun to relax with. In that sense, while I still am engaged in this franchise and am an active enjoyer of it, my time with the newer games is very casual.

With all that said it's why I think Legends Arceus is genuinely an exciting prospect. It's a totally new experience and as such it's not going to register in my brain as "that what I loved back then, but not quite" and as such will be easier to appreciate not just for myself but presumably many others as well.

This right here really sums up my entire post beautifully. Sorry if this ends up sounding weird, but I think I actually gained some extra respect for you when I read your post, my friend. We all have our own go-to comfort games, but the way I see it, we should be allowing the younger kids as well as the "Pokémon Go crowd" as I like to call them to have their comfort games as well. It's only fair, after all. We've had our fun, and as much as growing up sucks, it's time to let the younger generation have their chance. And eventually those kids will have to make the same choices that we are making now, you know?

This is where Pokémon truly shines as a franchise in my opinion. The developers understand that an individual fan isn't going to like every single project they put out, unlike, say, those repetitive sports games we get every year. No offense to them, but it's true. cough cough Madden NFL games

Instead, we get cases where Pokémon Platinum, HGSS, or BW2 would be the comfort games of someone like you or me, while the other fans have their comfort games too. And this is all assuming people's comfort games match up with their age group in the first place. It's just as possible for the opposite to be true, which only further proves our points.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Not anymore. Sinnoh about to save the whole franchise.

 

[Codraroll]

I think ScraftyIsTheBest got it in their first post. The games aren't so much on a downward spiral, but they are butting against the inherent limits of their design formula.

Ever since the beginning, the formula of the main series has been that each game contains all the content of the previous games, plus a bunch of new stuff. Everything works exactly like it used to (with a few exceptions), but there's also more. The games follow the same general framework every time when it comes to plot and story. Certain traditions must be followed, while others are left behind after appearing in one or two games. The games are made by quite small teams so the game director can get involved in every aspect of the production. Oh, and releases are annual, with the games being developed for a new console every few years.

It is pretty clear this isn't a formula they can continue using forever. The pile of legacy content is becoming too big to sort through and update for every new game (for instance, there were ten pre-existing Pokémon for each new one introduced in SwSh). Game development is becoming more complex with each passing generation, most notably on the graphical side. The development cycle leaves steadily less room for anything beyond the bare minimum, and some aspects of graphics and gameplay are becoming badly outdated compared to other flagship titles on their consoles.

But at the same time, this formula of "always the same, but also more!" in itself is also part of the draw of Pokémon. It worked well for the first few generations, for long enough that fans began to expect the formula to stay in use forever. But this was always impossible beyond a certain point, and I think that point has been reached. Something had to yield, and the formula break down. But at this point, Game Freak had set themselves up to disappoint a sizable number of fans no matter what change was made. Every aspect has its die-hard and vocal fans.

I think Sword and Shield was an attempt to cling to the formula for one more (last?) game, but that logistics simply didn't add up anymore. There was too much stuff to manage, no time to implement features beyond the bare minimum, and the allotted time hurt graphics too. Development in full 3D is a whole other beast than 2D sprites, and shortcuts you can get away with when using simple graphics just look flat and uncanny when graphics become more realistic. There were also some instances where ambition and ability didn't match, such as rendering a singing scene without adding any vocals, or writing a scene with rampaging giant Pokémon into the plot without creating the visuals. That scene in the tunnel was honestly the all-time low point of Pokémon for me.

The main series of Pokémon, as of Gen VIII, had become too big to produce on a new console with the same old formula on the same old schedule. It cannot be what it used to be, without some changes. I don't think "decline" is necessarily the appropriate word. The games have just followed a course for a long time that would eventually lead to a breaking point. It is just the outcome of doing "business as usual" without preparing for the inevitable conclusion.

Interestingly, we discussed this almost seven years ago too. I daresay some people made very good predictions in that thread.

 

[mertyville]

I think it depends what you value in a game and modern standards.
Like getting a "cash-in" third version back in the day was kinda justifiable because games couldn't be patched afterwards and there is enough stuff to intensify trading even without the need for exclusive Pokemon.

One of the reasons I can tolerate Pokemon Yellow but not USUM despite USUM technically being better than SM moreso than Yellow to RB.

 

[bdt2002]

I think it depends what you value in a game and modern standards.
Like getting a "cash-in" third version back in the day was kinda justifiable because games couldn't be patched afterwards and there is enough stuff to intensify trading even without the need for exclusive Pokemon.

One of the reasons I can tolerate Pokemon Yellow but not USUM despite USUM technically being better than SM moreso than Yellow to RB.

Pokémon hasn’t had much of an idea of what they want to for their definitive version games for almost ten years now. I think the constant changes are a part of why they don’t seem to have time to develop any particular change like they could in the first four Generations, since none of the concepts below had the time and effort needed to grow the franchise.

Gen 5: Direct sequels and no remakes
Gen 6: Remakes and no definitive versions
Gen 7: Definitive versions that wants to be sequels
Gen 8: Definitive versions turned into DLC

Most people say that this is because Black 2 & White 2 didn’t perform very well on the market, but I honestly disagree with that statement. Even if direct sequels earn less sales than a developer hopes for, the game itself still technically wasn’t a failure.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Pokémon hasn’t had much of an idea of what they want to for their definitive version games for almost ten years now. I think the constant changes are a part of why they don’t seem to have time to develop any particular change like they could in the first four Generations, since none of the concepts below had the time and effort needed to grow the franchise.

Gen 5: Direct sequels and no remakes
Gen 6: Remakes and no definitive versions
Gen 7: Definitive versions that wants to be sequels
Gen 8: Definitive versions turned into DLC

Most people say that this is because Black 2 & White 2 didn’t perform very well on the market, but I honestly disagree with that statement. Even if direct sequels earn less sales than a developer hopes for, the game itself still technically wasn’t a failure.

Also, the profit margin is absolutely massive because a ridiculous amount of resources are literally copy-pasted.

It was a bad model for the customers, not for GF.

DLC sounds like the best replacement though. The extra dev time and consolidated ideas show. The only problem was that base SwSh was deeply flawed.

 

[MellowBusiness]

Overall, I would say yes.
It's easy to say things like Game Freak is incompetent or inept, but I don't think it's true because the "modern era" (XY and beyond) still show signs of brilliance.
It's easy to also say that "Pokemon is too big now" but Game Freak not only has assistance with the games from both Nintendo and Creatures, but they've also haven't been creating as many Pokemon as they did prior to Gen 5. So steps are being taken to "Pokemon is too big"
I honestly think it's that Game Freak is simply tired of making Pokemon games. They have more or less been making "the same games" for over 25 years at this point. It would also explain why Game Freak has created more non-Pokemon games within the past decade than they for their entire existence prior to the last decade. Game Freak doesn't want to be known anymore as "those dudes who make Pokemon" (and even then half the time people mistakenly attribute Nintendo to creating Pokemon). Even Pokemon Legends Arceus is taking a rather interesting direction, and with it being single player only, we might get that sense of adventure that seems to be missing from the more modern entries.

But of course, there's the whole thing of them not wanting to relinquish Pokemon either, because you'd be insane to give that goose up. Anyways, I don't think any of the 3D era games are bad games (although I was greatly disappointed in a lot of aspects of Sword and Shield, even with the DLC), but they feel fairly "run of the mill".
The earlier games, with their limitations and experience did try to feel like RPGs. Like you're on your own adventure, exploring an unknown world. Starting with XY, it feels like you're on someone else's adventure and you're just some bystander to it all (extremely apparent in SM). The single player experience is starting to feel more like an afterthought, or something to pad the time out so you don't get to the multiplayer portion. The increase in cutscenes, the egregious amounts of handholding, the lack of side content. Everything feels like preparation for the multiplayer but not at the same time cause you can't really start preparing for it until you beat the game in the first place. The things they've been adding to the multiplayer are great, but the Pokemon games aren't just multiplayer experiences.
I'll still play (nearly) every new entry, but I don't find myself excited for them as I did before.

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

Starting with XY, it feels like you're on someone else's adventure and you're just some bystander to it all (extremely apparent in SM). The single player experience is starting to feel more like an afterthought, or something to pad the time out so you don't get to the multiplayer portion. The increase in cutscenes, the egregious amounts of handholding, the lack of side content. Everything feels like preparation for the multiplayer but not at the same time cause you can't really start preparing for it until you beat the game in the first place. The things they've been adding to the multiplayer are great, but the Pokemon games aren't just multiplayer experiences.

I mean, if you really think this sort of direction started with XY, I would disagree and say that you're mistaken. If anything, I'd actually argue the direction you're talking about (cutscenes, handholding, linearity) all actually started with BW1. I stand in my opinion that as far as I'm concerned, Gen 5 is the beginning of the "modern direction" of Pokemon games, not Gen 6. The direction of a more story-based experience, where the region is linear and the exploration aspect starts to be shifted away from, really all started with Unova, not Kalos. Unova was notorious from the get go for being aggressively linear as a region compared to the four regions that came before it. BW1 was notorious for having a sizable amount of railroading itself: the first Gym is even a tutorial that railroads you into using a very specific Pokemon to win against them to teach players the concept of type advantages and disadvantages. There's a reason the elemental monkeys have tepid reception that has nothing to do with their design: it's the fact that they were literally a handholding device in their debut game. The adventure type where you're on a pre-set adventure is exactly what BW1 was: there was an increase in story heavy NPCs like Bianca, Cheren, and N. Sure, the 3DS era went even harder on those aspects you mentioned with XY, ORAS, and SM, but the seeds were planted all the way back in the Unova games.

And as I said, whether that direction is "worse" than what it was in the past is entirely subjective. Sure, it's not something you like as much, but that doesn't make them objectively worse, just a new direction for the newer games. There are multiple types of RPGs out there: the world exploration type of RPG, focused on exploring an unknown world, and the story/character-driven type of RPG, one that is focused on the characters and the dynamics and interaction between them as well as the dynamics between them. Some people prefer the former type of RPG, while some prefer the latter. True, the first four gens lean on the former, and the more recent four gens lean on the latter. As I said before, the modern era of Pokemon games are at their core different iterations of what a Pokemon game "is". People who started with the Game Boy era will have their own ideas of what a Pokemon game is. People who grew up with the DS era will also have their own conception of what they value out of a "Pokemon game". Likewise, people who grew up with the 3DS era will also have a different conception of what to expect out of a "Pokemon game". And as the Switch era goes on, those games will forge their identity over time and the kids who are growing up with the modern Pokemon games will have their own expectations of what they want from a "Pokemon game".

Which brings me to something else you said,

I'll still play (nearly) every new entry, but I don't find myself excited for them as I did before.

I kind of realized this as time went on, but I came to the conclusion that ultimately, flaws with Sword and Shield aside, the modern Pokemon games aren't "bad" or "worse" than the older Pokemon games, but they simply weren't quite what I wanted. And I think the same really goes for you too. As all of us get older, we're more set in our ways and we have more rigid values and expectations, and this applies just as much with media/entertainment series that are formative in our childhood years. From that, because I in particular grew up with the likes of Platinum and HGSS, as well as BW1/2 there were certain things that I liked and valued about Gen 4 and 5 that created my idea of what a Pokemon game is. And yet, the newer games in the present day are trying to do other things and taking the series in a new direction. In other words, the focus of the games is different. And that's fine in the end of the day, but for many, they may like those games less, because those other things the newer games focus on are not what several older fans want to pick up and play a Pokemon game for.

It's an inevitable cycle and it will go on for as long as the Pokemon franchise lasts. It's not as apparent and noticeable in the present day because the bulk of the "older fans" in the current fanbase are people from the GBA and DS days. Most of the people who grew up with Gens 1 and 2 don't play Pokemon anymore, so we don't see much of them now. But we did see many of them talking about how much they thought Ruby and Sapphire and Black and White were so much worse than the likes of Gen 1 and Gen 2 long ago. And now we're seeing people who grew up with Gens 3 and 4 talking about how they don't like the newer 3D games as much. The kids who grew up with Gens 6 and 7 likely not only genuinely find those games great, but those games were formative for them and so from the things those games did, create for them a very different perception of what they want to pick up a Pokemon game for. And one day, when we're in Gen 9 or so, and the franchise likely reinvents the wheel yet again, those kids who grew up in the 3DS days will be talking about how newer games are less exciting for them or worse than X and Y or ORAS or SM or whatever. It's the nature of a long running series: as generations come and go, the series must change with it. And sometimes, that means reinventing itself and replacing what one may find interesting with what they do not. It sucks sometimes, but that's how it is. Especially with a series like this that has lived for years and years.

Even Pokemon Legends Arceus is taking a rather interesting direction, and with it being single player only, we might get that sense of adventure that seems to be missing from the more modern entries.

I said it before, but this is exactly why I am genuinely excited for Legends. It's such a different game from what we've gotten before that it's more likely to immediately register in my brain as something totally new, and thus it'll be easier for me to judge the game on its own merits rather than based on my pre-conceived notions of what a Pokemon game should be. I've warmed up to modern Pokemon games precisely because I learned to let go of my pre-conceived notions on what I think a Pokemon game should be, and learned to judge the games from Gen 6 onwards on their own merits, rather than for what I wanted them to be. And when I did that, I ended up enjoying them and appreciating them a lot more since I no longer see them as "The Thing I love but Just Off a Little Bit". Legends, for as new and different as it is, is practically a totally different game and as such will not register in my brain as that, but something new and fresh despite having Pokemon attached to its name.

 

[Plague von Karma]

I don't think Pokemon has ever necessarily been on a "downward spiral". Every single generation tends to end up getting some criticism that makes people think the world is ending. In fact, when BW came out, I remember the exact same dramatic behaviour towards SWSH right now back then. There was so much unbridled hatred towards those games that you can still see scars of today, it was the apparent death of the franchise I tell you! Despite this, it's hailed as the "underrated" title by a very vocal crowd and perception has largely changed. But, again, those games were prophesied to be the death of Pokemon, which is obviously laughable considering this franchise is quite literally bigger than Star Wars and Hello Kitty, not to mention the sheer money made off of merchandise allowing the games to be shut down at some point while Pokemon lives on, but hey. This isn't to say the SWSH stuff is the same by any means, but it's an interesting case study. Anyway, this is about quality, so I guess I have to stay on-topic.

I think Pokemon is fine and has stayed about the same since the start. Every game has had some bizarre flaw in the system that drags it down severely. In fact, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think SM is the only game where this case is the least prevalent, that problem for me being pacing, though USUM made this much better while being a genuine challenge in my experience. Hell, I'd say it's approaching Platinum levels of difficulty without being actual bullshit. Pokemon design on all levels has generally improved despite largely keeping to the core design set in stone during ADV, stories have varied, new things are tried, and so on. Each time the experience is kept at least somewhat fresh, though the in-game has noticeably dampened down in SWSH, which I think is the problem people have these days. They've gradually stripped away the in-game battle facilities and restricted the game modes, both of which gave a lot of spice to games like DPP and BW. The reason we have played Pokemon for years - for people like me all their lives - is because of that variation.

From a competitor standpoint though, I think Pokemon has generally improved. Modern generations have fantastic movepool variety on even the weakest Pokemon, allowing for diverse roles and the like, which I really enjoy. The items have only improved as well, always finding some way to reinvent parts of the game I didn't even think of. It may be because of my card game side, but while dexit itself isn't ideal, acting as a "set rotation" type deal is an interesting idea that could be balanced in unique ways, which, if this cursed thing must continue, I hope is looked into more. I think this is what was partially intended in SWSH, considering TPCi previously banned transfer Pokemon in VGC specifically to act as a set rotation towards movepools. I do somewhat miss Gen 6, though...that was the most VGC fun I had by a long shot.

I know I've not exactly explained much, but I don't really know how to explain it. Just kind of spitballing my personal experience. To be honest, LGPE was some of the most in-game fun I've had with Pokemon in years, just because of the interactive catching system and faster-paced gameplay compared to "mainline". I think it's the most fun game in a while, being able to use Onix or Arbok without feeling completely fucked over felt really nice, even if it was moreso the Candy system being a broken mess that wasn't thought through at all. Pokemon is just a volatile franchise, I guess.

 

[MellowBusiness]

I mean, if you really think this sort of direction started with XY, I would disagree and say that you're mistaken. If anything, I'd actually argue the direction you're talking about (cutscenes, handholding, linearity) all actually started with BW1. I stand in my opinion that as far as I'm concerned, Gen 5 is the beginning of the "modern direction" of Pokemon games, not Gen 6. The direction of a more story-based experience, where the region is linear and the exploration aspect starts to be shifted away from, really all started with Unova, not Kalos. Unova was notorious from the get go for being aggressively linear as a region compared to the four regions that came before it. BW1 was notorious for having a sizable amount of railroading itself: the first Gym is even a tutorial that railroads you into using a very specific Pokemon to win against them to teach players the concept of type advantages and disadvantages. There's a reason the elemental monkeys have tepid reception that has nothing to do with their design: it's the fact that they were literally a handholding device in their debut game. The adventure type where you're on a pre-set adventure is exactly what BW1 was: there was an increase in story heavy NPCs like Bianca, Cheren, and N. Sure, the 3DS era went even harder on those aspects you mentioned with XY, ORAS, and SM, but the seeds were planted all the way back in the Unova games.

And as I said, whether that direction is "worse" than what it was in the past is entirely subjective. Sure, it's not something you like as much, but that doesn't make them objectively worse, just a new direction for the newer games. There are multiple types of RPGs out there: the world exploration type of RPG, focused on exploring an unknown world, and the story/character-driven type of RPG, one that is focused on the characters and the dynamics and interaction between them as well as the dynamics between them. Some people prefer the former type of RPG, while some prefer the latter. True, the first four gens lean on the former, and the more recent four gens lean on the latter. As I said before, the modern era of Pokemon games are at their core different iterations of what a Pokemon game "is". People who started with the Game Boy era will have their own ideas of what a Pokemon game is. People who grew up with the DS era will also have their own conception of what they value out of a "Pokemon game". Likewise, people who grew up with the 3DS era will also have a different conception of what to expect out of a "Pokemon game". And as the Switch era goes on, those games will forge their identity over time and the kids who are growing up with the modern Pokemon games will have their own expectations of what they want from a "Pokemon game".

Which brings me to something else you said,



I kind of realized this as time went on, but I came to the conclusion that ultimately, flaws with Sword and Shield aside, the modern Pokemon games aren't "bad" or "worse" than the older Pokemon games, but they simply weren't quite what I wanted. And I think the same really goes for you too. As all of us get older, we're more set in our ways and we have more rigid values and expectations, and this applies just as much with media/entertainment series that are formative in our childhood years. From that, because I in particular grew up with the likes of Platinum and HGSS, as well as BW1/2 there were certain things that I liked and valued about Gen 4 and 5 that created my idea of what a Pokemon game is. And yet, the newer games in the present day are trying to do other things and taking the series in a new direction. In other words, the focus of the games is different. And that's fine in the end of the day, but for many, they may like those games less, because those other things the newer games focus on are not what several older fans want to pick up and play a Pokemon game for.

It's an inevitable cycle and it will go on for as long as the Pokemon franchise lasts. It's not as apparent and noticeable in the present day because the bulk of the "older fans" in the current fanbase are people from the GBA and DS days. Most of the people who grew up with Gens 1 and 2 don't play Pokemon anymore, so we don't see much of them now. But we did see many of them talking about how much they thought Ruby and Sapphire and Black and White were so much worse than the likes of Gen 1 and Gen 2 long ago. And now we're seeing people who grew up with Gens 3 and 4 talking about how they don't like the newer 3D games as much. The kids who grew up with Gens 6 and 7 likely not only genuinely find those games great, but those games were formative for them and so from the things those games did, create for them a very different perception of what they want to pick up a Pokemon game for. And one day, when we're in Gen 9 or so, and the franchise likely reinvents the wheel yet again, those kids who grew up in the 3DS days will be talking about how newer games are less exciting for them or worse than X and Y or ORAS or SM or whatever. It's the nature of a long running series: as generations come and go, the series must change with it. And sometimes, that means reinventing itself and replacing what one may find interesting with what they do not. It sucks sometimes, but that's how it is. Especially with a series like this that has lived for years and years.



I said it before, but this is exactly why I am genuinely excited for Legends. It's such a different game from what we've gotten before that it's more likely to immediately register in my brain as something totally new, and thus it'll be easier for me to judge the game on its own merits rather than based on my pre-conceived notions of what a Pokemon game should be. I've warmed up to modern Pokemon games precisely because I learned to let go of my pre-conceived notions on what I think a Pokemon game should be, and learned to judge the games from Gen 6 onwards on their own merits, rather than for what I wanted them to be. And when I did that, I ended up enjoying them and appreciating them a lot more since I no longer see them as "The Thing I love but Just Off a Little Bit". Legends, for as new and different as it is, is practically a totally different game and as such will not register in my brain as that, but something new and fresh despite having Pokemon attached to its name.

You bring up a lot of good points about Gen 5, and I agree on a lot of them. Gen 5 is that strange middle ground of a substantial increase and focus on the narrative. Funny enough, the increase in an "engaging narrative" is actually an attempt to lure in the older audience as Masuda himself stated when creating BW1. The games were an attempt to bring back that older audience that once left, and trends were pointing towards a path that older people wanted more engaging narratives in their video games.

I don't have a problem with narratives in video games, but I think if Game Freak wants to continue in this path, they seriously need to hire a dedicated writer. I think everyone here can agree that Sword and Shield narratively is an absolute mess, even for Pokemon standards. Pokemon is capable of having a good story as the Mystery Dungeon series among the fans are praised for their characters and plot.

Gen 5 did sow the seeds for the path modern Pokemon has taken, but I do believe most people here can agree that Gen 5's narrative is far better than Gen 6 and 8's. That's why I believe I specifically called out Gen 6 as in terms of narrative structure, Gen 6 shares more beats with Gen 7 and 8, whereas Gen 5 shares more beats with Gen 3 and 4.

 

[Suspicious Derivative]

I skimmed through the thread Codraroll linked to, and it made me think a bit about the sustainability of Pokémon. Or to be specific, about content in the games. There is one thing I have been thinking about regarding content in the Pokémon games for a long time. This might not be the best place to post it, but since it is partly related to this topic, I decided to post it here.

I think that content in the Pokémon games can be separated in two different categories. Tools and activities, as I want to call them. There might be better terms for them, but I am going to use these two words here.

What does each category contain?
Tools are the things the player can use in the games. Pokémon, moves, items, types and Abilities. Maybe more, but I think those are the main ones.
Activities are the things that the player can do in the games. Some examples are training Pokémon, completing the Pokédex, rebattling trainers, exploring areas, battling in Battle Facilities and Battle Challenges, doing minigames, battling other real-life people and trading Pokémon… plus a lot more.

Those are the categories. Next, I want to take a look at how they have been handled in the series throughout the years.

From Gen 1 to Gen 5, the number of tools and the number of activities both increased with each generation. All games had more or just as many tools as the previous game(s), while the number of activities increased with each new generation. The number of activities would often increase from one game to the next within a generation as well. While some tools and activities were exclusive to certain games or generations, the following games/generations always had enough new stuff to make up for it. Regarding activities, they reach a culmination with B2/W2 which has the highest number of activities in the series to date.

During Gen 6-7, the number of tools kept increasing just like in the previous generations. While Gen 6-7 introduced fewer new Pokémon compared to the previous generations, they still kept all the old Pokémon, which meant that the total number increased. Those generations also went a bit further with the tools as they both introduced a super mechanic or “gimmick”, with Megas and Z-moves. The number of tools culminated with US/UM which are the games with the largest number of tools in the main series so far.

But at the same time, things changed when it comes to activities. During Gen 6-7, the number of activities started to decrease. While I think the games are still pretty good in terms of activities, they are not on the same level as Gen 5, or even Gen 4 to an extent. There is just less to do, and there’s not always a proper replacement for features that were removed from the previous game/generation. One very notable thing that happened in Gen 7 was that the National Dex was completely removed from the main games. It had previously been a staple feature in the series, but as of now, it is no longer. The last time we saw it in the actual games were in OR/AS. Don’t say that it exists in Bank and Home, they are not the main series, and I think both of them handled it terribly. Since the National Dex has yet to come back, I guess that we will never see it again at this point. In retrospect, I feel that the removal of the National Dex should have been seen as a big warning sign that things were about to get even worse in the next generation. But foolish as I was, I didn’t see it that way.

LGP/E were technically the first games for which the number of tools decreased, but I’m skipping them since they are so different from everything else in the series.

Instead, let’s move on to Gen 8, where things changed even more. For the first time in a new generation, the number of tools available in the games decreased. Everyone knows about dexit. When S/S were released, roughly half of the existing Pokémon were completely unavailable. In addition to that, they removed several moves as well as both Megas and Z-moves. While it could be argued that DMax/GMax is supposed to be a replacement as it is the new super mechanic of Gen 8, that doesn’t change the fact that the previous two were completely removed. And in terms of activities, the base game of S/S was a further step down from Gen 6-7.

The DLC improved upon it though. It added more tools in the forms of many more old Pokémon becoming available in the games, as well as new Pokémon, new moves, new items, and some old moves were brought back too. Still, around 25% of all currently existing Pokémon are missing from the games at the time of writing this. The DLC added more activities as well, but it is still far from the epic levels of B2/W2.

So that’s how it has been throughout the generations. One notable thing is that the lower number of activities started at the same time as the games went full 3D. I am not a game developer, but I believe it is much harder and more time-consuming to develop a game in full 3D compared to in 2D. It likely takes much more time and effort to make a 3D game compared to a 2D game. Which means that in order to make games where the number of tools and activities keep on increasing with each release, more development time is needed. This, together with the yearly releases, is not a good combination. Personally, I have never been very fond of the yearly releases. I understand that they need to do them in order to make money, but it can be annoying for us players.

Back during my hardcore days, I always found the yearly releases to be very stressful because it felt like they forced me to complete everything I could in the current games before the next ones were released. This was especially bad for games with a lot of activities. It wasn’t that bad for games with lower amounts of content, or for games I wasn’t as interested in. It was also acceptable when the games shifted system as that meant I could just keep playing the older games on the older system alongside the newer games on the newer system. Namely Emerald (GBA) to D/P (DS), B2/W2 (DS) to X/Y (3DS), and US/UM (3DS) to not LGP/E since I skipped them Sword (Switch). Still, I am not a big fan of the yearly releases. While I dearly miss a follow-up game to X/Y, I am actually quite happy nowadays that they had a break in 2015. I also like what they did in 2020, when they released the DLC for S/S instead of a completely new game.

The yearly releases definitely feel like a contributing factor when it comes to the decrease of activities in the games (as well as the decrease of tools as of Gen 8). It can’t be easy to be forced to create functional games with lots of content in such short amounts of time. At least that’s what I believe.

Now, let’s look at the sustainability of the Pokémon model. Maybe the model they used for Pokémon in the past was just not sustainable in the end. Maybe adding more tools and activities in every new generation would not have worked for all eternity forward. In the past, I often saw the statement that “Pokémon will one day crumble under its own weight”. It could be argued that we have reached that situation now with Gen 8 and dexit, or that it already happened back in Gen 6 when the number of activities started to decline. One thing this statement always made me think about was how the games have handled tools and activities throughout the generations. It just took me ages to figure out how to put it down it words properly, but now, I finally got it done. In the end, I guess we will never see another game with the number of tools in US/UM, nor another game with the number of activities in B2/W2. Or a game with both. Or a game with even more content in both categories.

That said, while the number of activities (and even tools as of Gen 8) have been decreasing lately, I still enjoy the newer games as said in my previous post. I have said in the past that I have thought about quitting Pokémon and that S/S were the beginning of the end when it comes to my interest in the series. But now, despite the decline of the series, I am unsure. Am I even able to quit Pokémon at this point? I don’t know. The future will tell…

At the moment, I have not decided whether to get either SP or L:A (or both), but I am looking forward to Gen 9 because it is guaranteed to have one thing I am always very interested in and looking forward to when it comes to Pokémon: new Pokémon.

And just because I said that, Gen 9 ends up being the first new generation to not introduce any new Pokémon at all.

…

This was something I have wanted to say for a while, and I’m very happy to finally get it out of my head. Parts of what I have said here is subjective, so if anyone disagrees with me about something, that’s okay.

-snip-

TLDR; if the younger fans enjoy the stuff we have now, let them. If we can only let ourselves see the natural changes of adolescence in a more positive light, our view towards not just the newer titles, but also the ones we grew up with, will increase exponentially.

Excellent point. It is easy to forget that the target demographic for Pokémon is (and has always been) children. Personally, I think that if the children of today can get the same feeling of amazement and fun from the modern Pokémon games that I got from playing the older games when I was a kid, that is a very good thing. Children are important and when it comes to franchises created for them, they should never be ignored in favor of adults. If the children of today can have fun with Pokémon, then that’s honestly enough for me.

That said, it is obvious that Game Freak still cares about us older fans to some degree (and I am surprised that they do, since we always complain about everything). Nowadays, remakes only happen due to fan demand. HG/SS, OR/AS, BD/SP (and even LGP/E to an extent). There has also been lots of fan pandering to Gen 1 in various recent games. It started in X/Y, then it continued in Gen 7 where it got even worse. It feels like there is less of it in Gen 8 though, which is great.

I kind of realized this as time went on, but I came to the conclusion that ultimately, flaws with Sword and Shield aside, the modern Pokemon games aren't "bad" or "worse" than the older Pokemon games, but they simply weren't quite what I wanted. And I think the same really goes for you too. As all of us get older, we're more set in our ways and we have more rigid values and expectations, and this applies just as much with media/entertainment series that are formative in our childhood years. From that, because I in particular grew up with the likes of Platinum and HGSS, as well as BW1/2 there were certain things that I liked and valued about Gen 4 and 5 that created my idea of what a Pokemon game is. And yet, the newer games in the present day are trying to do other things and taking the series in a new direction. In other words, the focus of the games is different. And that's fine in the end of the day, but for many, they may like those games less, because those other things the newer games focus on are not what several older fans want to pick up and play a Pokemon game for.

It's an inevitable cycle and it will go on for as long as the Pokemon franchise lasts. It's not as apparent and noticeable in the present day because the bulk of the "older fans" in the current fanbase are people from the GBA and DS days. Most of the people who grew up with Gens 1 and 2 don't play Pokemon anymore, so we don't see much of them now. But we did see many of them talking about how much they thought Ruby and Sapphire and Black and White were so much worse than the likes of Gen 1 and Gen 2 long ago. And now we're seeing people who grew up with Gens 3 and 4 talking about how they don't like the newer 3D games as much. The kids who grew up with Gens 6 and 7 likely not only genuinely find those games great, but those games were formative for them and so from the things those games did, create for them a very different perception of what they want to pick up a Pokemon game for. And one day, when we're in Gen 9 or so, and the franchise likely reinvents the wheel yet again, those kids who grew up in the 3DS days will be talking about how newer games are less exciting for them or worse than X and Y or ORAS or SM or whatever. It's the nature of a long running series: as generations come and go, the series must change with it. And sometimes, that means reinventing itself and replacing what one may find interesting with what they do not. It sucks sometimes, but that's how it is. Especially with a series like this that has lived for years and years.

This is also a good point. From what I have seen in the online Pokémon fandom, many fans seem to prefer the generation(s) they played first or grew up with, but dislike or not care as much for the generations after, as well as the current generation. However, there are exceptions. For instance, I am an older fan as I started playing during Gen 1, it and Gen 2 (as well as the beginning of Gen 3) were Pokémon for me during my childhood. But nowadays, I prefer the newer generations. While I think Gen 1 and 2 were good for their time and I had lots of fun with them back in the day, I don’t care much for them anymore. I prefer the newer generations, my favorites being Gen 5, 6 and 7. On the whole, I would say that I have enjoyed Pokémon more as a teenager and an adult compared to as a kid.