The thing that annoys me is that they rake in ridiculous amounts of money but they're too cheap to make a good game because they know that people will buy it up even if it's dogs*** because it's Pokemon.
I admit I've played all the main games except Violet and Scarlet, but black and white were probably the last games I really enjoyed.
Here's to hoping the next games on switch 2 are great
Dude, I completely agree with you. I was so angry when Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon came out. I felt like Game Freak was just using me as a beta tester for Sun and Moon. I refused to by Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon out of spite.
i believe it’s been revealed at some point in the last year or so that the budget for either Legends Z-A or Legends Arceus was like ~$20 million, which is not a whole lot for game development budgets. they make bank off the games because the budgets are relatively low and it’s very obvious.
Take this with a grain of salt (I've heard it in a YT video, but I can't verify it), but it's apparently on purpose, because GameFreak realized that they would be making Pokemon games till the heat death of the universe, so they are only making tiny incremental improvements to the games. According to an interview (which, again, I can't find anymore), someone at the studio said that every time they make a bigger "generational leap", like moving from 2D to 3D, that becomes the new baseline they have to meet, while only veeery slightly improving on the previous game still satisfies the majority of the fans and lets them make a lot of money, while also giving them an easier time developing the next game, because the "minimum viable product floor" is kept artificially low.
Except they keep removing features and dumbing down the games. 10 yo me figured out how to play just fine without 10 hours of cutscenes explaining the world of Pokémon before it was one of the largest franchise in the world
They make cutscenes like they have voice acting, it’s so uncomfortable to watch. Like bro either get voice acting or change your cutscenes, the games are so.. quiet
Deadass. Nineties-00s Pokémon felt like adult games that kids insisted on playing to me as a kid, now I go back and the hand holding makes me turn it off after 20 minutes. Remember tryna figure out the Unown alphabet??
Dude, fuck the Unown alphabet. Remember having to learn braille in Ruby and Sapphire? Or how about the bizarre requirements for certain things? You ever think how stupid it was that you needed to trade Scyther while he held a Metal Coat to evolve him into Scizor?
I spent months learning braille at my library, so I could do the Regi quest. Like, it's to the point where I can still, decades down the line, read braille because I learned it as thoroughly as any other skill.
They also don't want to manage large teams. But regardless they've always been the mobile devs of the videogame industry. They don't even do the 3D modelling of the pokemon -- that's done by the other studio in the pokemon company.
Like, stuff like cards and merchandise makes an order of magnitude more money than the games. The games are basically just advertising for new pokemon at this point.
That must be why they also are so litigious towards others who decide to move in "on their turf", like Pal World. Those who want to take a piece out of the same genre of games, while also being very strongly experimental must feel like a threat to that kind of incremental policy.
Imagine a Pokémon Company that was less apt to spend on lawsuits, and more on making stronger entries in the IP. From my viewpoint, the "withered technology" and "incremental policy" are becoming more exposed as a raw nerve over time, that they have to spend increasingly more on the law side of things to cover for. I think it's a symptom of traditionalist policies that are costing them ironically more to maintain than it would be to just adapt.
Except every Nintendo game seems to get that treatment. They continually make games easier because kids are becoming dumber and less likely to try to finish games that provide even the smallest level of challenge. So regardless of what you read, fabricate, or imagine I think looking at the bigger picture is important here.
Nintendo knows they can produce slop and their "fans" will eat it up. Their main demographic is also children.
I've heard great things about both legends games but I haven't had the opportunity to play them. But yeah, oh my GOD has the series been in a massive decline, specially in the switch.
I admit that the 3ds games aren't as good as the DS games but I'd still argue that better than the first few gens, but God damn is SWSH not worth even buying.
Not yet. I saw the poor performance of SV and it kinda put me off pokémon again. The prices of the games is also a deterrence. I might buy a Switch 2 for Christmas. (Like I didn't say that last year. '>_>)
I’ve played part of it (ADHD, can only focus on a game for about 10-20 hours before another game gets my attention) and it was really good. Maybe not as good as arceus, but solidly good.
I've heard great things about both legends games but I haven't had the opportunity to play them
The benefit of lowered expectations.
Legends Arceus is just discount Monster Hunter. Hell, MH Tri on the Wii has better landscapes and texturing ffs. (Helps that most Pokemon players never play any other games)
It doesn't actually play like monster hunter at all, and Tri definitely has muddier textures. That's not to say PLA doesn't have its share of poor textures, they're definitely there.
The game itself doesn't play like Monster Hunter at all. Having a hub world doesn't a monster hunter game make, might as well say it's budget Super Mario 64. Even the quest structures are completely different, Monster Hunter's quests are pretty much invariably have you fighting the monsters while you can get through a lot of PLA without having to really fight any monsters.
You sound like someone that's really only ever played Monster Hunter Tri, and think every game is like it going off these comments. You couldn't even pick facial expressions in Tri, part of that is that Monster Hunter as a series has never been a story driven game.
Honestly.... just look into romhacks. Hard-core fans turn the game with good bones but awful-balancing into actually pretty good balancing. You've usually got thr option between being challenging or absolutely brutal.
Scarlet and Violet were improvements over Sword and Shield, but then they had an actual interesting game with Legends Arceus only to tank it with Legends ZA
Its so sad, honestly. The core gameplay and replayability is so good in pokemon (hence why it became popular in the first place). Imagine the games that could have been, if some passion and talent had been put into these games.
I never really thought any of their games was good per se, not even the old ones. But they were still fun, because of that core concept. I always saw a lot of missed potential in everything. But at least the early games was new, made on hardware that was very limiting etc. And they kept improving and building upwards for each game (well, sort of anyways). After gen 5 they started tearing down instead. Building downwards if you will.
My only hope for a decent new pokemon game is that palworld has had huge success. That game is better than anything pokemon has ever released. Although not the same type of gameplay loop at all, they have a lot of similarities (obviously). Maybe they are scared of that success, their lawyers certainly seems to be, lol. Heres hoping, only to be let down, probably. Its gamefreak after all.
It's more complicated than that, the scope creep with Pokémon is extremely daunting with the new mechanics, updated movesets, textures, models, animations, etc. They reuse Pokémon models and animations, but there's only so much they can do in the 2-3 years they have to develop the games.
It’s hilarious because GameFreak actually just put out a pretty decent 3D game in Beast of Reincarnation. So you know they’re capable of doing better - they just don’t.
If 100 hundred people will buy your product if you don’t try too hard but 101 people will buy your game if you try really hard, what’s the point? Nintendo doesn’t view players as forever players, they view kids maybe hanging around 2 gens but will buy peripherals, like cards and stuffed animals, longer. Once they age out new kids have come in who don’t remember the old but everyone talks about Pokémon. Rinse and repeat.
Oh I completely agree with you. There are a lot of GameFreak apologists out there, though, who will argue that GF is a small team and can’t be expected to deliver the “outrageous quality” that some players expect.
Considering the game director for every mainline game since Sun/Moon got reassigned and the director behind the SW/SH and S/V DLCs took their place, starting with Winds/Waves, we may be getting a drastically different, significantly better Pokemon experience moving forward.
Considering the shitty hardware the last ones were made for I don't think they were bad. They definitely under delivered but I don't think they are bad.
I didn't buy scarlet or violet and I won't buy the next ones if the reviews aren't great. The truth is that the last two gens were gifted to me by people who knew I liked the games. I'm not sure if I would've bought them on my own or not, but maybe.
I've got such a backlog of games these days anyway that my usual strategy is to wish list something and then buy it when it goes on sale, but Pokemon games don't really seem to go on sale
i enjoyed scarlet and violet but only because the switch 2 release evened it into more of a "spider-man 2" rushed story. gameplay wise i quite enjoyed it but do not ask me the plotlines 😭😭😭
As someone who still plays modern pokemon I absolutely agree with you. I’m really hoping they’re taking their time with this new one but you never know. I mainly play pokemon because it’s comforting not because it’s super amazing lol
I don't even think it's exclusively the lack of effort in polish either.
The route restrictions really helped the flow of gameplay in Pokémon imo and made it more difficult to get through routes because of the trainer traps and puzzles. That's all gone now.
Ive always assumed pokemon is so profitable that it falls into this weird void where the expectations of revenue are so high they never have the margin to make a quality game
But it really bothers me that Nintendo is doing absolute voodoo with breath of the wild, but at the same time telling their most profitable side studio to fuck off.
It’s perplexing. Downright perplexing. Why their most profitable IP from a third-party studio doesn’t have access to the engine.
Really doesn’t make sense. I am an “OG” fan meaning I played the first few gens on release and honestly I drifted away from the series. Admittedly I heard Black and White 2 were amazing so I won’t talk smack on those but I recently played FR on Switch, I’d never played that remake I had HG and SS. Anyways, despite them being so simplistic at their heart a good RPG born out of creativity and gameplay focus is there.
I got Sword and felt totally bored with how hand holding it was and it felt just really easy. I saw gameplay of ZA and it looked like shit, literally looks like a Wii shovelware game and you have just a prop city you can’t really be in.
There’s fans that know way more than me but I can’t discount this feeling I have with the newer games. Winds and Waves looks cool but honestly so much of the fan base just mirrors say…the CoD community where the games haven’t been good mostly and they complain but they’ll still keep buying.
The games got bad during the Ruby/Emerald/Sapphire era. Diamond/Pearl/Platinum brought it back around. X/Y were so unbearably bad that I haven't touched a pokemon game since LOL.
I do want to play Black/White because they actually look interesting, but what's funny is that Black/White/and Collisseum XD were the biggest outliers in terms of approach/story/environment AND HOW INTERESTING THEY ARE . . .and they were the least successful. You can thank slopfans for that.
Gamefreak owns a third of The Pokémon Company and it's run by a few 60 year olds who do not care about video games. Like, they dont even like the concept of video games. All they care about is marketability and merch.
Dude. The "game" is a glorified tech demo. It does nothing special except show that nintendo can create whatever garbage, put link in it and slap the word "Zelda" in the title and it will somehow be an instant hit. They have been riding on this free pass bullshit for decades.
Yes it should be the benchmark for what companies should be able to do on the switch when it comes to graphics and optimization, but acting like its some revolutionary thing is just asinine.
I don't think it's very perplexing. Quality over quantity? Nintendo does not have some moral imperative to always produce the highest quality games, they have a mandate to show profit to shareholders so they do both.
Zelda has few super high quality releases and as long as sweaty 35 year old nerds are still buying billions of Pokemon TCG packs they will keep pumping out a high quantity of shitty games.
I said BotW was a "this game" for me. But I do have to acknowledge that it did open world better and on the original Switch system (and technically Wii U) than whatever the newer Pokémon games have been attempting to do. I hate Scarlet & Violet, honestly, and Paldea as a region bores me.
It isn't as simple as "give this engine to gamefreak" but there is definitely someone who could take a GF dev aside and explain to them how they really need to make their games ... playable. Maybe even ...stable?
That's likely why they've fallen off so much with the last couple of releases. The same reason COD still goes strong despite selling essentially the same game every year with declining quality as well, they're so big that they know the diehard fans will buy it regardless so they'll make a profit even if the quality isn't what it used to be
Halo is practically the same way. Every single one of us will try every new Halo game that comes out, despite knowing Halo Studios and Microsoft will cling to their anti-consumerism until the day the company files bankruptcy. And the crazy thing is that Halo isn’t anywhere near as profitable as it should be to warrant just blatant disregard for the franchise that essentially epitomized XBOX as an absolute legend of the gaming industry. How the mighty have fallen.
Usually, from a business perspective, there is a monetary risk of innovation and change. That monetary risk gets higher the most successful a business is.
If it is easier to understand, think of the Amazon's interface. The detail page of an item in amazon has been the same for 20 years. That is on purpose: It works. Trying to make it look less "early 2000s web" might actually drive revenue down. Amazon makes so much money that updating the UI carries a huge risk. Even a 2% decline in profits is a lot. Why would they update it to make it look nicer if there is not an obvious case that that is deterring profits and there is a risk that the change would offput customers?
Same thing here. Pokemon makes a ton of money. If the choice is between making a chance that might not land and cause a small percentage wise decline (but large in absolute number) and do nothing and still make a ton of money... Why make the change in the first place?
Those sort of risks make sense on smaller, less successful enterprises.
Why would they cut into profits by allocating anything more than the bare minimum budget if fanboys will continue buying every game no matter how shit they are.
Another guy in this thread literally said he hasn't enjoyed a game since gen V, but has played them all except Scarlett and Violet. Literally continuing to make pokemon money despite not enjoying the games.
With this logic lump in Gen 1 it’s has the most iconic glitches and terrible sprites and weird mechanics.
While I agree that they should do way better Pokemon had these problems since the beginning and because of the way more effort to 3D in a single year that’s why they always felt rushed because they were.
I want the Pokemon team to slow down and actually take more time than they are, breath of the wild took 4 years compared to 1 year rush in Pokemon.
Waaaaaaay too different to lump in! We only know about Gen1 glitches because of game magazines and early internet rumors. Your gameplay as a kid WAS NOT affected in normal gameplay. And the dev team with Iwata was so smart, everything he did for them they only kept making better sequels for awhile.
“Your game play as a kid” ima stop you there I’m am younger than gen 1 and only started to know about it in my young teens and only got a Pokemon game when I was in high school because my parents could finally afford something for pure gaming, only reason I know so much about it because I’m autistic.
Also famous glitch that effected every play through psychic immune ghost to when everything in game tells us otherwise.
Also yes Iwata was amazing but my point was they were under a time crunch so much it affected them throughout the entire series.
Edit: my English is not good and needed to change a few words to make sense.
Okay, and many of us were younger than 10 when gen1 came out. The game for us was completely playable without any indication of an underlining glitch code manipulation. You cannot play scarlet & violet without the switch1 eating shit, game was an absolute mess, it was like pulling teeth and the amount of visual glitches were EVERYWHERE.
You CANNOT compare these games like that, I'm sorry.
To be fair, BOTW looked like crap too. And it performed horribly on Switch 1. Never forget first time using Revali-Ravioli Gale and the FPS dropping to single digits.
Its down to Gane Freak who due to the ownership structure of the ip heads the development and Game Freak doesnt really care to improve it for the exact reason and also they wont hire more employees
No the Wii U had breath of the wild. The switch ported it over and gave us a terrible DLC like game called Tears of the Kingdom. I out 600 hours into BoTW. I put minimal in ToTK. It’s just Nuts and Bolts with Zelda on it.
I'm gonna get hate for this, but I think the BOTW comparison is pretty dumb. BOTW is a pretty game with a good lighting engine and simple, more artistic textures, but the lighting engine is what really carries it. BOTW focuses a majority of the switches resources into an advanced lighting engine and Pokémon chooses to allocate those resources towards interactive assets with simple overworld animations. BOTW has curated encounters with reliable spawn locations for a low amount of enemies and Pokémon has random encounters that can pop up on any tile within a large area and then the large amount of "enemies" stay there until you leave and reload the zone, which again is huge. Two completely different game directions and design philosphies with different goals. BOTW wants to look pretty, Pokémon wants to load a billion assets all at once to make the world feel "alive". How pokemon succeeds in its goal is determined by the player, really.
I hear ya, it's bad enough that even I couldn't look past it in sword and shield. For context, I am legally blind. I'm right on the razor's edge of that definition, but the point is that I usually don't have an issue with games that have subpar graphics, I literally can't tell the difference. What I can notice, and can't ignore, is half the objects and pokemon in the environment vanishing into / appearing from thin air every time I so much as adjust the camera angle.
It's not even that the game has pop in, if it's at a distance I probably won't even notice, but when everything suddenly dissapears into the void the second it moves more than 5 feet away from my character . . . I just can't.
At the very least, they could have not tried to push the damn GBA adapters nobody bought, so hard. Completely locked away a good portion of the game with that.
honeslty i have the opposite issue,i LOVE 3d pokemon. but only in like the most niche way. i dont like main title 3d pokemons but i LOVE the pikachu park and pokken games. The human aspect of pokemon i just simply never cared about and id would have just rather be the fucking pokemon
I was so dissapointed with how easy X and Y were. Sun and Moon didn't improve much for me either. Can't say anything about Sword and Shield or Scarlet and Violet, as I never even bought those games as Dexit pissed me off too much.
I think a lot of people feel this way. They could have gone for a more stylised cell shaded/sprite hybrid style. The Switch entries truly look like ass.
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon on Switch does this and it’s more fun than mainline Pokémon. I am also now remembering they had a 2 episode series on it a long time ago.
i loved xy to death and SM/USUM were great contenders for being some of the best pokemon games imo. but once we get to gen 8 (the switch to the switch) is when 3D felt like it overstayed its welcome. it doesn’t feel like it’s improving anymore if anything it feels like it’s downgrading. i yearn for the days we go back to 2d but not like whatever the sinnoh remakes were like
The 3d part is really cool, and the exploration and extra features (like follower pokemon and riding and stuff) are cool...but all the fucking super saiyan ultra evolved mega attack bullshit...they really jumped the shark and have no idea.
I’m currently forcing myself through Ultra Moon which I will simultaniously say is one of the best Pokémon games, but really damn hard to get through after 15 years of playing better RPGs than the last Pokemon I played. So many small QoL issues that add up and make the game feel very repetitive and overbearing. I don’t need everything explained to me, and PLEASE give me a way to make Rotom shut up so I can see the map.
Pokémon Colosseum is the best Pokemon game minus the parts that can be grindy. I wish I could get into Gale of Darkness but going from Wes to Michael felt like a major downgrade and the beginning felt so slow.
Yeah I haven't played past the 3rd gen. Its the exact same thing over and over.. I'm just waiting until they give us the game we all want (they won't).
Oooh I can agree with this, think the last ones I played were Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald, after that I tried out Insurgence (Fangame) and I've been hooked on Fangames ever since, because frankly the quality and story are just so much better.
I think all the 3ds games are actually quite great, things started going downhill on the switch. X and Y were a bit small, but I think the transition to 3ds was fairly successful.
I felt this way at first and while nothing beats first 3 generations I was genuinely surprised how much I enjoyed pokemon scarlet and when I played omega Ruby I literally teared up from the nolstagia
Still cool if you don't wanna give em a go but it was genuinely a good time
The Legends games are really all ive liked since gen 5. PLA more than ZA for sure, but I thought ZA was a cool concept. The buildings looking like cardboard all over the city you're trapped in really took me out of it though. If Gen 10 isn't better I may not buy it and just stick to playing showdown and shiny hunting in PLA.
I played up till sun and moon... but the switch games didn't really appeal to me... but now that they are canceling the bank I finally got a cheap switch and violet off my friend who does reselling...
as someone who can't stand turn-based combat and random encounters, I find the world of pokemon games to be charming in many ways, but the only one that I actually thoroughly enjoyed was Arceus!! I love the fluidity of just adventuring around finding new pokemon and interacting with them only when you choose to! The boss battles I had a great time with too! Truly was a breath of fresh air after my trials and tribulations with the older games haha :)
I’m with you. I kept buying them until Switch, and I bought Arceus and Pokopia, and i loved the hell out of those, but all the other titles are just the same game over and over with a region/city. Super boring
BUT! It was the first 3ds game. Diamond and pearl had several issues, including story ones, that got fixed in platinum.
While ruby and sapphire didn't really have "issues" ANYONE that knows ANYTHING can agree emerald was a much more OBJECTIVELY complete experience (even if they still prefer one of the other two)
And i really wish we got to go back to kalos in a 3rd game. One where the gen 1 starters were maybe half way through the game instead of THE FIRST TOWN, where mega evolution was a little better handled and not related to mostly post game, where the elite four was actually hard and the story WASNT trash.
X and Y were a great starting point. But it NEEDED a Pokémon Z.
And the fact that instead of returning to kalos, they went back to lumios city ONLY, makes me feel like they will never give the games the proper love they really deserved and they will forever be seen as the red headed step child of the Pokémon franchise.
But i will say, i may be biased. I haven't finished a Pokémon game since my play through of y, cause they all were BORING AS FUCK.
For a switch game, you expect better quality after racking in all the money. But no. So I just stop supporting them.
They can argue its for kids that wouldn’t appreciate the sophisticated graphic details. But I think they’re just lazy and wanting to keep things simple.
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u/WhatShouldTheHeartDo Aug 19 '26
3D Pokemon (Except the Gamecube games, basically Pokemon after the 5th gen)