Let's Talk Pokémon

Let’s talk Pokémon and where the series is going.  The biggest issue to address is that the newer Pokémon games are lacking in challenge and  creativity as well as competition design choices. Game Freak has gotten lazy with their ability to produce content. Not only are they skimming on Pokemon designs and how many there are; they also are randomly creating movesets and stats that are not made to mesh well with each other, coming off sloppily and not performing well within competitive play. The last game that was well designed was the fifth generation of games being Pokemon Black, and White as well as Black and White 2. While this generation could be argued to be the start of bad design decisions with such designs as the Ice Cream Cone Pokémon. Overall the generation was very well designed and many Pokémon made an impact within competitive play showing a level of competence from the design team.

Generation six and seven on the other hand, don’t have this. Generation six tried to cover this up with the concept of mega Pokémon which where just rehashing old designs and changing them up a bit. This worked for the most part but most older fans realize the lack of new Pokémon . Generation six, even gameplay wise was lacking severely. The game was made massively easy due to a change in the mechanics in how experience points were distributed. The game becomes a cake walk where you can coast through without ever feeling like you ever have a chance of losing a single battle. The worst part about that is that there is no post game content to take advantage of this easy game so even after you beat the game you can’t do anything compared to older games. The older games could be loaded with endgame content but now there was nothing to do but challenge old trainers. However what these games did was made it easier to compete with other players after you finished the game, by reworking the system that was previously used to train Pokémon for competitive play.

Generation seven tried to correct most of the mistakes that generation six had, however they made a fatal mistake of hand holding the player, it felt less like playing a game than a tutorial that lasted forever. The game was made slightly harder but at the same time, the Pokémon that came out in the generation could be split into two categories made for competitive play and made as filler to the pokedex. This results in a very split experience where all the Pokémon that are good come up after you finish the game. Making the game feels very slow and unsatisfying because every new Pokémon is overall weaker and not worth catching in the long run.

Pokemon is an experience where you explore the world of Pokémon and go on an adventure. At the core of this is the Pokémon that inhabit the world. If the Pokémon that inhabit the world are exciting, even things such as hand holding and the ease of the game can be ignored. The reason Pokémon was able to survive for so long without making major changes to the formula is because players were always excited to see what new Pokémon were going to inhabit the world. What the Pokémon company needs to do instead is then focus on making more Pokémon and fleshing out the world rather than trying to make a better story and changing the base mechanics of the game.