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
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.
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u/Retroid69 Aug 19 '26
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.