As a consumer, fan, and amateur developer I have a love-hate relationship with Pokemon. I love the games (at least, all of the ones I play). I love the idea of the battle system, the exceptional range and depth of the moves, and the pure enjoyment of the fun little world But I wish that half of them never existed. It's not that "they're not as good as the first ones" and it's not that "they didn't change x" or "they don't need y." It's nothing about the way that a move is balanced or how "dumb the names are" or any part of the games. It is the fact that the games as a whole are the same. It is the undeniable truth that no matter what game you're playing, you're leveling monsters to teach them moves to beat each other, and you're catching them in the wild or trading them. There's nothing inherently wrong with this, and I don't mean to claim that there is- but it has been done to death. We live in a time when games like this are preserved, and there's no need for this rehashing over and over again. I mean, hell, it would probably be impossible to get rid of pokemon roms at this point! They're everywhere! Now, a lot of people will probably say that I haven't played the latest and everything has changed (not true on either count), and to them I don't have much to say. If you honestly think that the game is entirely removed from its origins in everything but title, that you are not a single player training monsters to meet a goal, then... well, then I have to assume you haven't played any of the games, and move on. Others will wonder why I would criticize Pokemon for this, and not CoD, or Final Fantasy, or any of hundreds of other game dynasties. What could be done to make the Pokemon world more interesting, they wonder. * Why go after this one game? My honest answer is because when it came out, it opened the world up to video games in a way I've never seen. Everyone played Pokemon. For many kids in my generation, we grew up on it. We cried at 7 over KO'd Charizards, and beat up kids for cards, and, more than all of this pettiness, we were heart and soul invested in a world that seemed huge and imaginable and touchable through these tiny, monochromatic screens. But instead of fleshing the world out, someone made the decision that we just wanted more monsters. That somehow, Charizard wasn't cool enough, and Mew wasn't mysterious enough for us any more. We needed more monsters, not more ways to explore. So they gave us more monsters, and the series is fine. It is. It's fine. But it's not making anyone's heart race unless it's their first Pokemon game. It's not saying, "We know you grew up on this, and we're releasing something for older players, too." It's just giving us what inspired us at 8-15. And that's something. But imagine how huge the world is! Imagine playing a strategy game in which you controlled a battalion of trainers, who controlled their pokemon- a constantly evolving battalion, in which no one was knocked out, but people died. Imagine the devastation of losing half of your team and coming out with 2 Growlithes and a couple of guys with guns, losing your Raichu and your Hypno to get to the next level. Now imagine a modern shooter in which both sides have Pokemon. Imagine the campaign, running through fields as bombs drop around you- it's dark, and the camera is shaking as you make your way to a barn, the only shelter in sight. And you look up to see, not planes, but the hum and screeches of a hundred Magnemites, dropping shockwaves and ripping apart your squad mates all around you. Imagine a pikachu jumping onto your chest like the dogs of CoD, reaching back with a fistful of lightning to finish you off. Imagine a Kadabra teleporting in front of you to grab your CO, imagine pressing down on the stick to knife him in the back. Now imagine an AoE kind of game in which you lead a small tribe of prehistoric people- you can grow and change and your world can expand. But just on the edges of your settlement, they are there. Huge and small, powerful and prey, Pokemon which cannot be constrained by merciful technology. Haunters waiting for night to fall to prey on your villagers while they run in their Ponyta-skin coats, protecting each other with fire and spears and cunning. Imagine fighting a Blastoise with nothing but nets and spears and fire. I'm not mad at them for making the games they made- I'm disappointed that in a choice between the same thing they'd already done and something innovative, they chose the safe route. Even now, if they released a modern shooter pokemon, it would outsell everything on the market. But only if they said to older people "Yes, we know that you're old enough that we don't have to sugarcoat this. We know you've wondered why they only ever get KO'd. Now we have some honest answers for you about the world of Pokemon." They could still make the kids' games, but it's depressing that after you've gotten the idea down the world and the math and the logic of it close in on you and keep you from exploring farther than the edge of the map. * I'm not just speculating here- I've had this conversation before....Pokemon X and Pokemon Y would be fully 3D, with new and old monsters making appearances...
Nintendo is notorious for "playing it safe." Their most venerable series, like Zelda, Mario, and Metroid, undergo occasional revampings, but their core mechanics remain the same. Zelda games are still "about" going into dungeons, finding a new tool, solving puzzles with it, and moving on to the next one, and so forth. Mario games are still "about" jumping on the heads of your foes to get from point A to point B. (It must be noted, in fairness, Mario games have had a slew of other games in-universe, such as Mario RPG on the SNES and paper mario RPGs, not to mention creative efforts like Luigi's Mansion). This doesn't make it the correct strategy, its merely an observation that many people use to criticize Nintendo's strategy. It hasn't seemed to wound their profits too deeply, however. That said, I do think Nintendo is interested in innovation - but not from the software angle. They might try out a new game style and think it's fine or whatever, but at the end of the day they fall back on what they know for the overall design. What they want to innovate on is how you play that game. Ever since the move from N64 to GameCube, we all saw there was something off. The games on the system were fine, but they lacked innovation, they didn't make us lose our minds like the N64 did. So what happened? Nintendo decided that obviously this strategy wasn't working. Rather than monkeying with their key series and risking alienating their hardcore fans (the kind of people who can play every pokemon game and not get sick of it) they decided hey, we aren't going to have better graphics or faster processing or a better online system than any of these guys. Lets try and find new ways to play on the hardware instead! Thus the generation of the DS, the Wii, and now the WiiU. Fine, and fun, and love it or hate it I give them kudos for thinking outside the established box on that front. I think this is how Nintendo wants to play it - rather than making their games very different, they'll try a platform or a particular interface for one or two iterations of any given series, and then they'll mix it up and try a new interface on essentially the same game design. Pokemon is suffering from a peculiar kind of creative rot though. While the other games can have interesting ramifications or quirks when trying them with new hardware, Pokemon is just... not different. It doesn't make any mechanical difference whether you pick "attack" or "hyper beam" with a d-pad or a pointer or a stylus. It's the same. Time will tell if they want to do something new, or introduce a kind of hardware that really does make pokemon feel different. But until then, I think they are just trying to appeal to the super hardcore who could catch monsters forever, and the new who never did it in the first place. And that's keeping their profit margin alive just fine, but its clearly not rocking the worlds of experienced, interested gamers who know and think about how pokemon could be used differently. I don't necessarily agree that the series needs to have a gritty coat put on it, although a T-rated game at least might be able to explore some more interesting themes. Unfortunately, there are some issues with making a hard-core, violent or otherwise M-rated Pokemon game. Foremost in my mind is the problem akin to "Marketing cigarettes with cartoon characters." Although it may never be anyone's intention, sticking pokemon in any game, be it a cute rail shooter where you take photos of pokemon on safari, or a Modern Warfare where Gyrados's hyperbeam is a kill-streak game-ender, little kids will pick it up. I'm not in favor of censorship in our art and entertainment, but I think we can't have your idea righto out of the gate. Lets try and make a different kind of pokemon game to appeal to more mature gamers, without relying on the staples of modern violence. Then once that has taken off we can ease into grittier territory once there's an established branch of the franchise for the elder fans.
I'd never really though of Nintendo as innovating with hardware in order to avoid innovating on their cornerstone series. I always thought of them as just conservatives, but you're absolutely right- they keep their brands alive by adapting to their hardware innovations, not by trying to make fresh versions of old things (like Ninja Gaiden). And I didn't mean to say that I'd only like gritty reboots (although, you know, I really really would love one)- anything which shook up the formula in a meaningful way and wasn't a gimmick (Snap and Pinball come to mind...) would be great! A story, characters, just something that said "This wasn't made to be next year's garage sale, and it's not Crystal v. 3.05."
While the other games can have interesting ramifications or quirks when trying them with new hardware, Pokemon is just... not different. It doesn't make any mechanical difference whether you pick "attack" or "hyper beam" with a d-pad or a pointer or a stylus. It's the same.
This is a great point, and not something I would have thought about. As fun as it was at the time, Pokemon Stadium could never stand up on its own legs, which Nintendo seems to have realized.
I feel that Nintendo is too conservative in their staple series by regressing in the design. As time goes on, I think they aren't even keeping up to the same standards of yesteryear. I don't even want to buy a Wii U because I think I am going to be disappointed, because of my experience with Other M, Skyward Sword, and little desire to play 2D Mario games. I think it's a cop-out to dumb down the games so far because the general audience might be unable to cope with mechanics of yesteryear. Give the public a little credit? As for Pokemon, I'm really hoping that they will expand Pokemon X&Y to support competitive and persistence better with player-driven community. That's kind of my holy grail for Pokemon modern day technology. They always seem to flirt with MMO aspects and persistence with the Global Link, but then are too conservative to go the full nine. (Then again, I didn't play B&W2, so I don't know how much improvement there was on the Global Link front.) I want to have that feeling of your handpicked Pokemon team growing and sticking with you over time, but in a persistent world. That's my favorite part of playing a Pokemon game is the pride that I take in my team. While they may not be optimal in a competitive sense, it's hard not to get attached to them, at least for me. Actually, on a side tangent, that is one of the things that I think is missing in modern-day theme-park MMOs, that are item progression-based. The sense of accomplishment and history in the building of your character gets lost due to the item churn. In a persistent Pokemon MMO, I would like to see someway to progressively keep your team up to date, without swapping them on every expansion.
I'd be curious about the kinds of themes that Pokemon tries to go for - specifically the addictive, 'catch 'em all' thing - applied in a new way. Collecting and trading is a key mechanic of the series, and there's surely unique ways to go about that. Maybe instead of a rote checklist of things to catch, what about a game where they have a mix of pokemon - old, new, and freshly-created - and just don't tell you what they are, where to find them, or what they can do. It could be like you said, a primitive person in the pokeworld, or a kid who doesn't have a "professor oak" to get them on track. Either way, it would embrace more of a "thrill of discovery" kind of thing more than a simple, rote "fill out the list". Imagine just travelling around in a big, Skyrim-esque overworld brimming with hidden caves, deep lakes, and secluded forests, and you have no idea whats around the next bend in this savage, uncivilized world, like a pokemon madagascar or galapagos. You could catalogue all the new and thrilling species, and have to do more to learn about them than just catch it once - maybe engage it in combat, or stalk it to watch its habits, so you can really earn that 100% pokedex.
That would be really cool if there was also a procedural world generation so every experience is slightly different. Pokemon aren't in the same place for everyone, checklists might be different, certain Pokemon might be a little different, etc. I'm thinking of a cross of roguelike elements with Pokemon: like expanding the premise of the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games.
Well, if you really wanted every experience to be different, you could use my absolute favorite algorithm ever. When the game starts you seed the environment with Pokemon, and have a loop running in the background which periodically makes a huge amount of quick battles happen, and then those (non-user) pokemon which beat other (non-user) pokemon get an appropriately large amount of the space they inhabit. In this way, you would actually see an automatic progression to more powerful pokemon, real evolution, and make it impossible for anyone to spoil the location or types for anyone else. I love the Genetic Algorithm so freaking much.
There could be all sorts of neat ways to implement the procedural content. While it might be harder with a GA, I was thinking that it might be neat to be able to share the seed. That way that people could, if they wanted to, play the same instance and share secrets for that instance. Kind of like the "password" system in the fictional .hack where 3 words seed the content so you can share the same zone between players and the WonderMail system in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon.
Great idea! Having a user-accessible seed for a GA seems like a great way to create a potentially "unique" but sharable experience! Man, I needa get this 2d physics engine finished.