Pokémon is a cultural phenomenon, reaching across almost every form of entertainment imaginable. Kicking off as a gamble for Nintendo and fanzine turned developer Game Freak, Pokémon is now man-kinds biggest-grossing franchise ever.
Pokémon: Gotta Catch Some of Them?
With that being said, Pokémon is certainly not without its flaws. The bigger a franchise gets, the more it relies on its own tricks and bloated sense of ego. The issue with Pokémon is its self-reliance on what The Pokémon Company and Game Freak think is best. Worse still, the blatant laziness and half-baked excuses in recent years have kicked off numerous fanatical debates about the competency of Game Freak in the 2010s and beyond.
I love Pokémon. It was my first introduction to role-playing and helped me engage socially. This, in turn, helped my development as a chubby nerd who wanted everyone’s approval. This is not an attack on one of my favourite franchises, it’s a series of points that I’ve been thinking about for a long time now. Let’s get into it.
Always the Last to the Party
Pokémon is infamous for missing a new console launch not taking advantage of new tech with the release of a new generation. Even when they have made an effort to catch up with the Let’s GO! and Sword and Shield outings, Nintendos hybrid flagship had been out for a decent amount of time. Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon kickstarted a riot amongst thousands of disappointed Pokéfans who expected a Switch release titled ‘Pokémon Stars’.
Granted, this was a rumour and should have been treated as such. However, Nintendo was bouncing back from a trainwreck of a console cycle with the Wii U, an upgraded version with high res graphics of Sun and Moon would have been a brilliant move. Moreover, it would have been such a simple thing to execute.
Long Winded Methods
It wouldn’t be fair to comment on the mainline Pokémon game mechanics due to the amount of revision and improvements they have had over the years. Pokémon Sword and Shield have proved this with ability capsules, visible individual values and more.
Trying to get a certain event Pokémon or transfer from/to storage systems such as Home or previously Bank is a headache. The most recent example is the recent GO to Home compatibility. Originally, players had to be over level 40 to transfer to Home. Bar the obvious soft launch reasoning, there is no excuse for this.
Players need to faff around in Pokémon GO! settings, then go and mess around in Home. An energy counter stops people from transferring too many Pokémon. Also, that Shiny four-star Rayquazza can’t be transferred to Sword and Shield until it has been caught in-game. This requires the purchase of The Crown Tundra DLC, which is part two of a double-packed pass. This brings me to my next point.
Ridiculous Reasoning
There is no reason why players cannot transfer all of their caught Pokémon on GO to Home at once. There is also no reason why a legendary from GO/Home cannot be transferred to Sword and Shield. The sheer addiction and compulsion to complete a Pokédex is enough to make players play Pokémon without the need to paywall or intentionally make things harder than they need to be. Can someone please send the below picture to Game Freak, please?
Pokémon Let’s GO! was all about making mainline games accessible to younger and new audiences. How does it make sense to then create insane methods to do simple things? The Pokémon Company is obviously trying to create a multi-platform eco-system that allows trading and interaction from various games. It makes zero sense that they would want to then make the concept challenging for consumers.
Lazy Development Choices
I have been defending Game Freak for its lack of National Dex in Sword and Shield. It’s safe to say a good third of all Pokémon are useless in battles and have no business being in anyone’s party. However, when a franchise slogan is ‘Gotta Catch ’em All!’, and the latest game comes out without the ability to do so, it’s going to wind up the Pokémon community.
The sprites were there, they just needed a fresh lick of paint with a copy and paste of code. They could have been dumped onto a bonus wild area as part of the expansion pass, or even weather cycled in the various wild areas. The worst part of this issue is Game Freak more or less admitting the assets were there but decided to bail on the idea. Let’s also say some textures and ‘design choices’ for Sword and Shield were pretty half-baked. Go and look at a tree in the wild area and get back to me.
Oversaturation
Pokémon Stadium, Colosseum, Mystery Dungeon, Go! and Snap! are all great spin-off games and provide some form of useful functionality with mainline games. From transferring Pokémon to grabbing an exclusive legendary, it’s good marketing and a great way to keep the fanbase entertained until a new mainline game comes around.
Pokémon did not need toothbrushing, a half baked emoji mini-game and a MOBA within months of each other. Pokken Tournament falls in the category of a good idea with a half-baked execution also. All these attempts at re-skinning various game genres de-values the brand’s authenticity, it’s been done time and time again. SEGA is a classic example of a company running its mascots into the ground with methods such as this.
If this kind of thing is going to happen, it needs to be well executed. Mario Kart, Tennis and Party and the like have decent mechanics and are fun to play. This is due to developers being given the time and patience to execute wild card ideas successfully. Game Freak and The Pokémon Company are trying to emulate others’ success whilst failing to be critical of themselves when it’s in the name of a good product.
Pokémon will always have a special place in my heart and game collections, and it’s that passion that drives my frustration with the above points. On the flip side, the fandom has been the culprit of some disgusting/violent acts simply for not getting what they want. The best we can do is voice our concerns for something we love, let’s hope Game Freak and The Pokémon Company hear us out.
