Every time a new Pokemon game comes out, the fanbase seems to split into two parts: those who like it and those who say that GameFreak has hit another low point. When Pokémon Scarlet first came out, my opinion was close to the second camp due to the numerous bugs and lack of interesting new Pokémon in the early game. But then I finally decided to buy the DLCs and actually clearly scarletAnd you know what I realized? I was wrong. Pokemon didn’t get bad or go downhill or anything like that. It still feels the same as it did when I first started the game as a kid.
Pokemon is one of those franchises that suffers from a huge fan base. With most popular series, people know what they want and what they’re getting into. It’s not like Person A can play, for example: Final Fantasy XVI in a way that is so different from the way person B does it that they get a completely different experience out of it. But Pokemon is like The Sims. There are so many people with so many different expectations or desires that it is virtually impossible for GameFreak to please everyone. Players who only care about the story, characters, or mon collection aspects probably don’t care as much about the meta or difficulty, so their opinions on various aspects of the game will differ greatly from those who play Pokemon mainly because of the PvP elements. It’s a delicate balancing act that has no right answer other than simply making separate games for different audiences.
I’m a player who cares about completing the story, taking pictures with my favorite NPCs, putting together cute outfits, and completing the PokeDex. My friends are the kind of people who make OCs. It’s pretty similar to how I play, except there’s an extra layer of imagination involved. Our conversations are different than the ones I have with my friend, who plays more competitively. Reading and listening to people compare the stats or movesets of Pokémon A and B to decide who they want on their team is like watching my favorite show in a foreign language. And I doubt they can understand that I have Froslass on my team for no other reason than “It’s ice/ghost and pretty.”
Everyone’s way of playing Pokemon is valid. It is not as if we are in the Pokemon world where Paul’s method of selecting Pokémon based on their stats is seen as malicious behavior. Not being a competitive player, I don’t quite understand why people were upset about mechanics like Dynamaxing or Terastalizing. I don’t engage with them aside from story battles, so they’re about the same as Mega Evolution, which the PvP people seemed to love. I don’t want to sound like the most stereotypical gamer ever, but the only things that really bothered me about Pokemon now there is a lack of interesting characters and avatar customization. Surprise! I care more about hanging out and looking cute than fighting mechanics. For those thinking “god I bet their favorite eevee evolution is Sylveon (derogatory)”, yes you are right… it is…
But does that make me a less valuable player? It really shouldn’t. That would be like saying that kids who only care about collecting a team of legends are playing the game wrong. You could even argue that They are GameFreak’s actual target audience. We should all keep that in mind. These games are for everyone and yes, that includes the little kid who doesn’t bother to pay attention to whether a move is physical or special when making their Pokemon learn it.
A common complaint about Pokemon these days is that they’re too easy. Mechanics like Camping and Amie make building Friendship a breeze. Even when it’s down to chance, Friendship can feel overpowered in NPC battles. NPC trainers will challenge you with only one or two weaklings on their team. Universal Experience Exchange greatly reduces the time and effort required to level up a weaker Pokemon. Honestly, I find the old method of starting with a weak Pokemon you want to train and then swapping it for a stronger one annoying as hell. It wasn’t fun and it didn’t make the game any harder. Boredom doesn’t equal difficulty, and difficulty doesn’t equal fun. I’m on Team Universal Experience Exchange. But yeah, it sucks that we can’t turn it off.
What made me think about how PokemonThe quality is just as good, if not better, than the previous games, and the sense of excitement. Isn’t that what games are all about? Exploring Paldea reminded me of my first trip to Twinleaf Town, and the newer Pokemon Games that give Gym Leaders and Rivals more depth than just one or two traits make the game Strictly speaking feels like a role-playing game.
I know people hated sword And Signbut I personally really enjoyed it because of the character creation and camping. Bede, Marnie, and Hop all had such satisfying character arcs throughout the story, and the Gym Leaders seemed more fleshed out than those in past games. I’m glad GameFreak continued this with the Rivals in Scarlet/Violetas they really were the best parts of the game. Yes, I’m aware there were characters like Lillie and N, but I felt like their games only had one or two really interesting characters compared to the Switch generations.
OK, scarlet has a lot of problems. There’s a reason I left the game alone for so long. The open world is really buggy. There are also way too many old Pokemon. This is its own problem with very little solution outside of something similar to Black-and-white where older Pokémon are only available after the story. Some people like to use or catch Pokémon that debuted in previous parts. Others prefer new ones. The camping mechanic was terrible compared to Sword/Shield‘s. My biggest issue is the marketing. While it’s not impossible to complete every storyline or challenge every Gym Leader/Team Star Boss/Titan in the order you want, the lack of level scaling can make it either way too hard or way too easy for your team.
I appreciate GameFreak’s semi-successful attempt to do something new and ambitious. It hasn’t always worked, and the games are now too expensive for the “well, you tried!” participation trophy. But when one of the main complaints from fans is that the games stagnate and never change the formula, then it’s annoying that GameFreak did changing the formula feels silly. Plus, that’s another problem with the huge fan base. Not everyone likes that they follow a formula! I didn’t mind, but I still liked the way scarlet was about merging several storylines together. If the new direction of Pokemon was to focus on the story and characters at the expense of PvP, that’s perfectly fine with me. Granted, from what I hear, the current meta is really entertaining, so now I’m not quite sure why people were talking about it scarlet And Violet as if it were garbage that could no longer be saved.
Honestly, every time “New Pokemon Games suck!” discussions that pop up in my timeline and I read through them, I never see a real concrete complaint. It kind of feels like people like the Pokémon franchise, but they haven’t quite accepted that the Pokemon Games have never been so difficult that they were a challenge for someone with a general understanding of game mechanics. GameFreak has always developed them with children in mind. Since GameFreak is still keeping quiet about what is in Pokémon Legends: ZAas well as the future of the main games, it’s hard to say what we’ll see next year. We hope the fan reaction will be better than past games.
Pokémon Scarlet And Violet are immediately available on the Nintendo Switch.
