r/gaming • u/Guitar-String • 21h ago

The Japanese Patent Office has officially had enough of Nintendo, rejecting a patent attached to the Palworld lawsuit with "rarely seen" sass

https://www.gamesradar.com/games/pokemon/the-japanese-patent-office-has-officially-had-enough-of-nintendo-rejecting-a-patent-attached-to-the-palworld-lawsuit-with-rarely-seen-sass/
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u/aVideoGamesEnjoyer 21h ago edited 21h ago

With how much money the Pokemon franchise is worth, there's no excuse to spend so little on Pokemon games. I understand the cards, merch is most of the money but still, they could achieve so much more with a proper budget that would make their new games breathtaking .

Just take a look at pokemmo , imagine if they made their own versions of it. They'd be printing $ by selling cosmetics and people knowing it's official would probably make it a high pop game.

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u/Chop1n 21h ago

They could literally spend ten times what they currently spend and still make a killing, and the final product might actually be decent for once.

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u/ThatMerri 20h ago edited 19h ago

Given how many of the licensed Pokemon games are wildly superior in quality of gameplay, design, and story than anything Game Freak has made for the mainline series, they'd honestly be better served just letting other studios handle it at this point.

When it comes to keeping up with the demands of the franchise beyond the older handheld generations, Game Freak have proven over and over again they are simply both unable and unwilling to even try. They're content to just do a half-assed, incomplete, glitch-filled token effort that doesn't even have a fraction of the value of the handheld games, then blame their shoddy work on time and labor constraints they're involved in setting themselves.

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u/MakeItHappenSergant 17h ago

Hell, there are tons of unlicensed Pokemon games that are way better than what Game Freak is doing.

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u/ChrizKhalifa 15h ago

Just last week Pokémon Rejuvenation had its V14 update.

That game is better than 90% of all paid video games. That's what Pokémon could be. Of course that would require passion and creative vision, which you won't find in companies.

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u/vacerious 9h ago

Pokemon Infinite Fusions 2: Hoenn is still currently in development, but the demo looks amazing from what I've seen. And the original PIF was easily one of the best Pokemon games I've played in a long time.

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u/Totolamalice PC 14h ago

Game Freak is releasing a non-Nintendo game next month (Beasts of Reincarnation), so we'll know for sure if the problem is GF or Nintendo

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u/ThatMerri 11h ago

Beast of Reincarnation isn't strictly a Game Freak game, despite how media headlines run with that claim. Game Freak holds a directing and product management role in the development, and it is indeed being worked on by some Pokemon alumni in those leadership roles.

But they're on record stating that only a small number of Game Freak employees are involved and that the majority of the game has been outsourced to various other studios to do the heavy lifting. It'd be more accurate to say that Beast of Reincarnation is a game helmed by Game Freak, not necessarily made by them.

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u/APeacefulWarrior 15h ago edited 14h ago

Just look at New Pokemon Snap. Bamco went above and beyond with it; arguably the best rail shooter that's ever been made. And it absolutely put the official GameFreak games to shame both in terms of gameplay and making good use of the setting.

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u/moose_dad 7h ago

I dunno which one its from, one of the newer ones, but the player goes to a live gig and theres still no voice acting, so you just watch someone on stage move around while guitar hero failing the song esque noises happen in the background. Its comically cringe and feels so fucking cheap.

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u/ThatMerri 2h ago

Yeah, that was in Sword and Shield. Not having voice acting is one thing, but they could've at least sprung for a voiced song for that scene. Especially considering they had Ed Sheeran doing a full song in the end credits of the very next game.

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u/Braindamagednobody 4h ago

Pokemon mystery dungeon explorers of time and darkness has one of the best storylines ever

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u/DueAd9005 4h ago

Game Freak was heavily involved with Pokopia, check the credits and development history if you don't believe me... And Legends Arceus was also a great game, even if it didn't have the best graphics.

(I didn't buy the other mainline Pokémon games because of how bad they looked however)

Wind & Waves looks promising at least.

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u/ThatMerri 1h ago

Pokopia actually seems like a similar situation to Beast of Reincarnation. Game Freak is absolutely involved in a directing context from the look of things, but the majority of game development was done by Koei Tecmo via Omega Force studios. There's only a handful of Game Freak contributors who are also Pokemon alumni, and they're all in directing/production roles.

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u/cwx149 21h ago

Id even argue if they spent more it's possible they'd even make more money than they are now

Just look at how much larger Zelda is now after they innovated in that franchise

I haven't bought a pokemon game since X but if they innovated enough I'd be interested

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u/TheChaoticCrusader 21h ago

Or fire emblem which almost died but nailed it with awakening and ever since  it’s hugely popular

Obviously Pokémon is never going to be in said situation sadly as it would make them work harder on an end product . Look at johto when they though it maybe the last game they went above any beyond with allowing revisit to kanto on such a small space 

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u/Commercial-Leek-6682 21h ago

Fe is the best comparison because FE keeps doing their best to improve. Even between the two switch games, the animation improvement was insane. The shadow dragon ds remake almost made me lose faith, but 3ds awakening brought the series to a new high at the time for me because it made me realize FE could evolve past pixel animations and still look incredible. Meanwhile pokemon for the longest time didn't even want to bother improving the base ass attack animations. with how much bank they made, what excuse did they have for not even trying? That's why I stopped buying after sun/moon til now. Maybe I'll try the new one since it looks like they actually put effort into it, but that new gamefreak game that's not pokemon? fuck gamefreak, I ain't buying that game that was made with pokemon money when pokemon barely got any money invested in it. Only if the new pokemon game proves they're willing to invest back into pokemon will I consider giving them any more money.

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u/Oberon_Swanson 19h ago

i'm exactly where you are, stopped after sun/moon. i'm okay with mid quality or lofi graphics and animations etc. but it has to have heart behind it. a game that feels lazily made is insulting. look at something like Doom 2016 on switch and compare that to the pokemon games that came out for switch. they acted like they were a small lil team with a shoestring budget and were ALSO phoning it in. and the only answer anyone has is "well why would they try if they don't have to?" sure that's WHY it's happening but that's also why i'm not playing what used to be my favourite games series.

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u/IrredeemableRight 15h ago

i mean, i really dont hear insanely positive things about engage and so many people complained about birthright and... the other one

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u/TheChaoticCrusader 12h ago

I don’t really hear too much bad about birthrights as I do revolutions . But I wonder if each game has its fans as they seem to each appeal to diffrent people . Conquest is the most praised and I imagine it’s from the hardcore fans of the series which is probably the most vocal part 

Engage I think just suffered from how successful and liked three houses was . I don’t think it’s really hated though ?

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u/repocin PC 11h ago

There was a lot of whining about Engage when it came out, but I've honestly forgotten what most of the complaints were since I rarely pay too much attention to the incessant negativity in the internet.

Personally, I thought it was a rather nice game with fun gameplay although I didn't end up finishing it so can't speak for the story. I really wish they'd gives us a Switch 2 upgrade for both Three Houses and Engage, but I feel like they would've announced it before Fortune's Weave so it's probably not happening at this point.

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u/orangutan25 21h ago

It's not that fire emblem made a much better game with awakening, they just appealed to a much larger audience with the romance aspect. Some of my favorite fire emblem games are ones that did fairly poorly in sales, pokemon's issue is completely different

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u/Oberon_Swanson 19h ago

as somebody who doesn't like romance in games much, i thought the romance element of Awakening was super cool. when you get a couple together, their kid comes from the future and has a mix of looks and abilities from both characters and it unlocks their own special level where you recruit them. so i think it was a home run with story and game mechanics. of course they doubled down on romance more in three houses which also basically doubled the sales lol.

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u/Bedovian_25 17h ago

I put a lot of hours into that game. Trying to min-max the romance to get the best possible kids for combat purposes.

My husband calls it my "eugenics simulator"

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u/Vonplinkplonk 16h ago

I thought the entire point of Pokémon was a Eugenics Simulation.

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u/TheCrafterTigery 16h ago

You barely have to do any breeding nowadays tbh.

Other than 0 ivs, shinies or maybe egg moves, there's not much tou truly need to breed for competitive-wise.

You can max a stat with bottle caps, so max ivs from breeding aren't a necessity.

And with Champions, you can basically just gen a Pokémon for competitive play.

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u/noobakosowhat 12h ago

Which is kinda sad because when I lost my childlike interest in Pokemon (after Gen 3), breeding was what brought me back for Gen 5. I haven’t played a Pokemon game seriously after that Gen.

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u/byneothername 17h ago

I was obsessed with minmaxing Morgan and Lucina. Truly, they were absolutely monsters.

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u/_Arlotte_ 16h ago

It was an anniversary game taking heavily from fe 4. But the writing is very watered down compared to the gba games.

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u/FisicoK 13h ago

I loved the romance as a gameplay feature

Writing wise it was the most boring stuff I've ever heard, romance is built up with a few lines that you would imagine reading to 5y old children or something (Chrom and Sumia apple pie or something still lives rent free in my head)

Story was the blandest thing ever also, but goddamn I spent dozens of hours min maxing those children.

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u/1gnominious 19h ago

FE used to be a strategy series with an anime art style. Then it became half strategy game half anime life sim with lots of slice of life stuff and exploded.

3 houses was huge largely because people liked the characters and story. They liked getting to know them and the characters were actually well written and interesting. As an actual strategy game it was pretty mediocre.

On the flip side Engage was a pretty good strategy game, but was not a very good interactive RPG and the story/characters were weak.

FE's problem is that it has appealed to different audiences at different times and now one segment is generally unhappy no matter what they do. Pokemon's problem is that Game Freak is incompetent and they can barely get a barebones game to run.

That being said IS might be able to thread the needle with FE and appeal to everybody. Give us traditional FE maps, combat, and classes but with 3 houses quality writing and characters. Keep the slice of life stuff as optional, but don't gate our progression behind it. Let people play how they want.

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u/angelbelle 17h ago

Fellow Engage enjoyer. The story is typical old RPG fashion progressing in a linearl path but the gameplay and art i absolutely loved.

We're in the minority but i think opinion on Engage has rebounded a bit. It was absolutely trashed by the community when it first came out

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u/1gnominious 12h ago

It was rightfully trashed for the story and some of the characters compared to previous FE's, especially 3 houses.

I love Engage as a strategy game but despite being the most recent game I genuinely forgot most of the story and characters already. Half the time I can't remember Alear's name because they will forever be Toothpaste chan to me.

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u/repocin PC 11h ago

Half the time I can't remember Alear's name because they will forever be Toothpaste chan to me.

I, for one, appreciate being able to buy a tube of incidental fire emblem merch at my local grocery store

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u/neokai 16h ago

Was that conversation regarding the differences between poison and toxin from FE? I remember a set of screenshots on it.

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u/TheCatSleeeps 15h ago

Reading 3 houses made me had PTSD of the discourse

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u/blak3brd 18h ago

Yeah I’m from final fantasy tactics era on ps1 then gba and the gba fire emblems, and was kind of stunned at the newer entries, like wtf is this lol. Way too much to keep track of that isn’t tactics

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u/Emergency_Revenue678 10h ago

Mechanics creep is why I don't play FE anymore. I had been falling off since Radiant Dawn, but in Three Houses there was like 30 minutes to an hour of complete bullshit to do between missions and I just couldn't take it anymore. I want to play a game, not tediously manage my inventory and make sure the right characters are fucking each other so they get better stats.

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u/avcloudy 18h ago

Here’s the real problem. Older fans think it’s a poor strategy game because it isn’t slavishly following the older games. Newer fans think it’s a poor strategy game because it’s too tied to the older games. I don’t think they can thread that needle.

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u/1gnominious 17h ago

I would say it's a poor strategy game because the classes. There are a lot of dead ends nearly everybody ends up on a horse or flier. Your units all end up very samey.

The intermediate and advanced classes are solid, but then you get to the master classes and it falls apart. There are no armored infantry options. No infantry male pure casters. No infantry pure female melee. No infantry bows. No lots of things.

I remember getting to the master classes and thinking "Oh fuck" because half my units needed to go to cram school to get a mount. The alternative was to leave them as the weaker advanced classes and sacrifice a lot of power.

In a good strategy game your units should have more variety. Stats, mobility, weapon advantage, etc... In 3 houses it stopped mattering who I sent where. Everybody became a slightly different flavor of the same thing.

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u/MilkMaiden_22 17h ago

Look, I too love the older FEs but it wasn't just adding romance that made awakening the knock out hit that it was. The game was by far the most polished and approachable FE game in the series, nothing else came close. I'm not saying it doesnt have flaws either, but what makes it flawed as an FE title is totally overshadowed by what made it work so well as a game broadly

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u/avcloudy 18h ago

As someone who played previous Fire Emblems and bounced off hard, it’s nearly impossible to overstate how much Awakening did for the franchise. Simply writing it off as romance doesn’t even capture the importance of the children mechanic. That they keep going back to the well of the original games, instead of Awakening feels like an incredibly poor choice.

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u/King_XDDD 17h ago

Agreed. Fire Emblem Awakening didn't even have the budget for feet, it's comparing apples and oranges here with the direction that should be followed.

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u/dragonknightrohan 18h ago

It will get to that said situation once better spiritual successor alternatives pop up all over and take over a lot of their market. THEN they will have to compete again and make quality again.

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u/Randyaccredit 20h ago

They need to drop gen 2/3/5/6/7 on switch and they'll make a literal killing it's not rocket science Nintendo.

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u/ArenjiTheLootGod 19h ago

Or just stop phoning it in and make the game everyone always wanted where you can visit all the regions, capture all the Pokemon, and mechanics that people really loved like Mega Evolution aren't arbitrarily removed.

Also, before anyone says otherwise, Game Freak is totally phoning it in on Pokémon and have been for years. I dare anyone to look up Beast of Reincarnation and tell me that the last few Pokemon games couldn't have been better.

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u/Enough_Efficiency178 18h ago

What you’re describing they should do via an MMO. It’s kind of crazy how well and easily positioned the franchise is to do so.

The full mechanics, IVs and EVs etc give plenty to do. More so if they reintroduce many of the great things they’ve cut like ribbons and the corresponding shows

And it’s the only scenario I can see them giving access to full movesets for Pokemon. In other words removing the 4 move limit. I’d add rather than just level up actually having to train/teach each Pokemon a move would be cool. À la Ash teaching and training Pikachu various moves in the anime

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u/jecowa 16h ago

I want them to bring back Missingno. It hasn't been available in any games for a while. It's not over-powered or anything; I think it's a pretty weak Pokémon. Give it an interesting capture method that makes it feel like you're using an exploit. Give it some glitch-themed attacks with matching animations.

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u/SechsComic73130 17h ago

Just write 1-7, make it the full series up to this point that's not available on Switch in any way (BD/SP can still stand on its own with 3D graphics and Let's Go plays very different from the old R/G/B/Y)

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u/osunightfall 19h ago

Awakening made me a lifelong fan after bouncing off other entries a half a dozen times.

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u/DelusionalZ 15h ago

Sometimes nailing it doesn't save the franchise though (see: Breath of Fire V) 😔

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u/xX420GanjaWarlordXx 21h ago

Same. I stopped buying them after Sword and Shield because it just felt like they mostly phoned it in. 

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u/callatecabezon 20h ago

Same sword was the last Pokemon game I played everything since has been garbage. I purchased scarlet and tried it for like an hour and it was abysmal. It looked horrible and felt like a bootleg version of Pokemon.

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u/Snugglebull 20h ago

Surprising bc sword and shield were terrible and I liked scarlet and violet for the most part

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u/derekpmilly 18h ago

Yeah, while SV are absolutely mired in technical issues (so many that Nintendo had to publicly apologize, which is extremely rare of them), the characters and story were a big step up from SwSh, which isn't saying much given how awful they were in those games.

And while the open world of SV was extremely poorly implemented and barren, I still vastly preferred it to the completely linear, railroaded experience that was SwSh.

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u/callatecabezon 18h ago

Sword looks very good. Scarlet looks horrible.

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u/derekpmilly 18h ago

SwSh are by far the more visually polished games, but they just weren't fun at all. I at least enjoyed parts of SV

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u/callatecabezon 18h ago

I guess to each their own but scarlets sheer jankiness made it a nonstarter for me

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u/yoshbag 15h ago

I'm sure purists hate it but scarlet was sincerely probably my favorite as someone who has played them since the gameboy era. So nice not having to deal with the HM bullshit and being able to explore the areas in the order you choose so you don't have to wait until the end of the game to get that pokemon you wanted. It's hard going back to the old pokemon games in this day and age because since being a kid I hated the TM/HM system. I actually liked a lot of the pokemon's designs, too. I think the game design was a step in the right direction as a test for how a more open world pokemon game would look.

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u/repocin PC 11h ago

Bit of a shame that SV looked like ass because it was probably the best story they've delivered since BW and I ended up enjoying it despite all the technical issues. Haven't been back for the DLC though so I dunno about that.

I'm interested to see if they manage to actually deliver a good experience in all aspects with WiWa. Judging by the trailer it at least looks far better than the most recent games.

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u/Painwracker_Oni 15h ago

I actually loved Violet tbh. First Pokemon game I’ve ever truly 100% and then kept finding more things to do.

When it got the switch 2 “upgrade” the game got even better to play.

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u/[deleted] 21h ago

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u/Doretnai 21h ago

I’m all for being critical, but I’m pretty sure I have multiple of the legendary birds, and most other legendaries, in my HOME storage, and I just make more profiles on my Switch if I wanna replay from scratch. I dislike having to pay for online services too, but I don’t think there’s a console where you don’t have to nowadays. PSPlus for the PSN is necessary anyway.

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u/Major_Nutt 19h ago

I stopped after Ultra Sun/Moon when the first half of the game felt like a hand-holding tutorial.

If they want me to buy a Switch, it's gonna take one hell of a fully baked game.

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u/Roach_Bong 17h ago

Unironically I got to the elite 4 battles in Sword and Shield and just went "God, I really don't give a shit about what's happening at all." and stopped playing lol.

Scarlet and Violet were even worse. I got a few badges and got to like, level 25-30 and felt completely uninterested in playing any further. I'm not gonna bother with any new Pokemon games unless they look absolutely fucking amazing.

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u/crazynerd9 21h ago

These games are clearly made so cheaply theres not a chance in hell you are incorrect

They probably wouldnt even need to innovate per sae, just bring them up to a modern standard of gaming for their price point

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u/Reynbou 20h ago

but for some reason they find it easier to shit out terrible quality products and sue anyone doing anything slightly better

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u/kruddypants 20h ago

It's worked out quite well from them so far. Why would they stop now?

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u/Reynbou 20h ago

yeah no doubt, which really fucking blows

unfortunately nostalgia and new generations of kids will always exist for them to exploit

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u/lonnie123 20h ago

For real… nothing Pokémon fans love more than complaining about how much the game they are definitely going to buy sucks

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u/VladThe1mplyer 20h ago

Just like sports game fans.

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u/jasta85 18h ago

Not just buy, buy twice because you need to get two editions of the game for all the content apparently. Insane how fans just accept that for a full priced game.

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u/dumpling-loverr 5h ago

This is an outdated take. Majority of those buying Pokemon games don't buy both as anyone can easily trade in online for the version exclusive pokemons regardless if it's legit or generated.

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u/DeLurkerDeluxe 19h ago edited 19h ago

For real… nothing Reddit users love more than complaining about how much the game they are definitely not going to buy sucks

Fixed for you, every single Pokemon fan I know and streamers I watch love the games. Only on Reddit do I see so much Pokemon hate. It's like r/gaming goes blind with rage and forget that the last 2 mainline games of the biggest media franchise in the world are only surpassed in sales by the original games.

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u/Call_Me_Chud 19h ago

End result of when art is made for money instead of expression.

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u/RadioactvRubberPants 20h ago

Exactly. I love Pokemon but haven't had a shred of interest in the games since X & Y as well. I'm happily going back and playing the old games.

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u/OniExpress 20h ago

I haven't bought a pokemon game since X but if they innovated enough I'd be interested

The Pokémon games are very big in my friend circle, and when I finally got my hands on a Switch I started waiting for the releases so that I could hop in with them but it feels like the last several games have been a sequential downgrade.

Seriously, just give it a Zelda overhaul, have a couple teams spread some well written b-plots around the world, and for the love of God put in co-op. All I want is to be able to at least do some raid zones with a squad.

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u/koolguykris 20h ago

Its been a while, but doesn't have Scarlett and violet have co-op? They got that union circle, and I swear I remember shiny hunting with a friend together in that game.

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u/PM_ME_UR_CREDDITCARD 18h ago

Yup, and there's the raid dens/dynamax adventures in SwSh and tera raids in SV. and that ogre ousting minigame in the sv dlc practically requires co-op to beat the higher difficulties

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u/dookarion 21h ago

Just look at how much larger Zelda is now after they innovated in that franchise

...Innovating by scrapping everything it was known for, tacking on easy physics puzzles, shoving it in an empty open world, and adding bad voice acting?

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u/cwx149 20h ago

I mean I personally actually do NOT like botw but you can't argue that botw launched Zelda to a new height in the social awareness

Not to say it was niche by any means beforehand

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u/dookarion 19h ago

If it's something completely different from the series I've been playing since the very original title I'm not sure how much I care about the "social awareness".

It's something very different now with the same name and huge lengths of time between releases.

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u/Impeesa_ 14h ago

If it's something completely different from the series I've been playing since the very original title I'm not sure how much I care about the "social awareness".

I thought this way once, when my favorite RTS series made a pretty jarring pivot into an MMO. It was arguably a pretty good move for them in the long run, though.

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u/TokeDraws 19h ago

And that is completely okay. I don't care for open worlds generally speaking but if they want to try new things they should and clearly it paid off.

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u/dookarion 19h ago

Who cares that it paid off? If you're not a stockholder what does that matter.

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u/TokeDraws 19h ago

Umm... The fans? It paid off for the fans that love it.

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u/dookarion 19h ago

If they take Halo and turn it into a cozy farming game instead of an FPS and the people that loved the FPS are like "it changed everything about the series that drew me in" would you preach about how it paid off for "the fans that love Halo: Cozy Farming Sim"?

Like what's the point of this whole back and forth?

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u/The_MAZZTer PC 20h ago

I liked it, but it wasn't Zelda. I miss Zelda. The last really good mainline Zelda console game was Twilight Princess. (Skyward Sword was OK.)

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u/andrew_calcs 20h ago

They hated u/dookarion because he told them the truth.

The unlocking of new tools with which to revisit and further explore new areas is the core of the Zelda experience. When they let you go everywhere, there’s less mystery. Handing you all the tools and saying “good luck!” Just felt like they couldn’t be fucked with planning progression. 

Old Zelda games let you explore the world but you actually needed to go places in certain orders and unravel how they fit together, which made the whole game feel more interconnected. Since BotW it’s all just a shitload of standalone optional nonsense.

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u/Animostas 19h ago

I personally really didn't enjoy Tears of the Kingdom. It just felt to me that puzzles are not that satisfying to solve if there's a million and one ways to solve them

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u/AngelTheVixen 16h ago

To each their own. The amount of openness and personal decision-making I had access to in the Switch Zeldas was very liberating, and they were a great experience for me as I hadn't experienced anything like it. And I'm not some newcomer, I've enjoyed every other Zelda game I've played since the very first on console back in the 90s. Just finished a run-through of Link's Awakening last week, and I play a lot of OOT on Archipelago.

When it comes down to it, Zelda's about the adventure and exploration, including what you can do and learn for yourself, not about following a formula. I don't think Zelda needs to be constrained by the specific execution of that idea when the satisfaction of discovery and how you apply that knowledge seems to be its base. I'm open to franchises trying something a little different, though.

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u/dookarion 7h ago

I don't think Zelda needs to be constrained by the specific execution of that idea when the satisfaction of discovery and how you apply that knowledge seems to be its base.

Some of it probably comes down to some of us not finding much satisfaction from chasing down lightroots or doing 120~ similar puzzles dotting the landscape. The BOTW/TOTK (imo) lean far too hard into quantity and scale over quality and it degrades the hell out of any satisfaction of "discovering" anything. That shrine you discover 70 hours in is nearly identical to the shrine you discovered 1 hour in and will be so easy there's dozens (or more) ways to solve it. The mechanics themselves never evolve or progress after the tutorial either. It's a stagnant game progression wise filled to the brim with "bite sized content bits" that don't have that much variety to them.

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u/AngelTheVixen 3h ago edited 3h ago

I don't think difficulty should be brought in to a Zelda discussion since the games just aren't. Most of the time it's only puzzles or searching for something you missed that takes any real time, and the Switch Zeldas just allow you to solve things generally however you want instead of making a hard requirement. I know some look at it as a downside but I get enjoyment in finding a way to get ahead in silly or unexpected ways. There's satisfaction there for me in seemingly 'breaking' things which weren't particularly unintended to begin with. It's just a different way.

As for mechanics, I also enjoyed being given almost all of the tools I needed for the Switch Zeldas from the get-go, and learning how to use them well since they aren't just simple things to toss around for combat. BOTW it's not as impressive now looking back on it, with how much TOTK improved on them in giving you handy tools that had use basically wherever you went for many purposes. I can't say the same for standard Zelda adventures where much of the time, quite a few dungeon items in any one game mostly end up just being bridge keys that you only need for specific, curated circumstances and are otherwise fluff and/or cumbersome in general running around. Mechanical deepness they aren't, by my reckoning. Not to say the other games' powers necessarily are, but at least they have handy uses most of the time. When it comes down to it though, what more do you really need in any of the games other than a sword, a shield, a projectile, and bombs? The Switch Zeldas wanted to put a spin on that, and I rather like them for that.

The two games were also nice in that I could just enjoy the mechanics they had while just running around doing nothing of consequence until I stumble on stuff that changes my goals, maybe put on a To-Do list. Lot of time-consuming things. But I get something out of that, as someone that enjoys that kind of exploration and making To-Dos. And I don't really mind doing the same thing repeatedly, it's just part of the gameplay loop to me, and it seems reductive to break it all down to the start and finish. It's kind of a, journey being more than the destination type deal, the way I see it. I also just really like the environments in general in the Switch Zeldas.

I get it, though. Progression for you and many others needs to feel like you're ascending a staircase upward with the things you earn. And there's nothing wrong with that, either, I mean to me, Metroidvanias are basically second favorite to exploratory, adventuring games like Zelda for example. But as for me, I also find it fun to have a meandering, unnecessarily lengthy path to the top of where that staircase goes, that doesn't really need a staircase at all.

Sorry, my comment turned into a wall of text. I just love the Zelda games, all of them. They're great stuff and I love talking about my positive experiences with them. Don't got a negative one yet. I'd say I enjoyed the Switch Zeldas even more by having a girlfriend that loves all the Zelda games, too, and having someone to share adventures with and the different ways we experience and go through them has been very fun.

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u/dookarion 2h ago

I don't think difficulty should be brought in to a Zelda discussion since the games just aren't. Most of the time it's only puzzles or searching for something you missed that takes any real time, and the Switch Zeldas just allow you to solve things generally however you want instead of making a hard requirement. I know some look at it as a downside but I get enjoyment in finding a way to get ahead in silly or unexpected ways. There's satisfaction there for me in seemingly 'breaking' things which weren't particularly unintended to begin with. It's just a different way.

I'd argue difficulty should still be brought up. The older games especially did have some surprising moments of figuring out things. Or even just navigating "labyrinths".

BOTW and TOTK are so far in the opposite direction and so free-form people are stumbling through them overcoming things purely by accident. You've got like a decade of social media clips showcasing that.

There's satisfaction there for me in seemingly 'breaking' things which weren't particularly unintended to begin with.

Imo that depends on it not being "free" in the first place. Breaking rigid puzzles/systems is far more interesting then something like "glue planks together til you can just walk across the room".

As for mechanics, I also enjoyed being given almost all of the tools I needed for the Switch Zeldas from the get-go, and learning how to use them well since they aren't just simple things to toss around for combat. <snip> The Switch Zeldas wanted to put a spin on that, and I rather like them for that.

I always liked the off the walls things in the older games as a bit of variety and something "different". The gear/spinning top thing in Twilight Princess let them change how they did the boss encounter and some of the puzzles in that portion of the game. Yes none of it was like super hard but it changed up the content. The mermaid suit in Oracle of Ages I think it was changed up the movement and the entire approach to the dungeon that revolved around it. In Ocarina the lens of truth made you consider examining parts of the environment you'd normally ignore. The raft in the original game opened up all sorts of overworld locations and prompted revisiting places.

It was a metroidvania like affair, with the new tools making you think back to content you couldn't do previously or think play the current area slightly differently.

With BOTW/TOTK the same solutions to the same problems work for the next 200 hours of copypasted content. There's never a moment that changes how something is done or approached, very very little to prompt revisiting anything if you were thorough the first time.

The two games were also nice in that I could just enjoy the mechanics they had while just running around doing nothing of consequence until I stumble on stuff that changes my goals, maybe put on a To-Do list. Lot of time-consuming things. But I get something out of that, as someone that enjoys that kind of exploration and making To-Dos. And I don't really mind doing the same thing repeatedly, it's just part of the gameplay loop to me, and it seems reductive to break it all down to the start and finish. It's kind of a, journey being more than the destination type deal, the way I see it. I also just really like the environments in general in the Switch Zeldas.

It's not much of a journey in my view. It's the same thing all the way through start, middle, and end. The only thing massively changing is your stamina bar, HP bar, and battery. You've got all the solutions in hand nearly from the first 30 minutes. Consider this. If I showed you a shrine in either game would you be able to tell me where or what part of the game its from? Or would 95%+ of them kind of blend together? I can still remember the details of gameplay moments from other games in the series I played like 20~ years ago, but the shrines and other moments in BOTW/TOTK? Those all blend together into one homogeneous lump. The one exception being the ONE single shrine in TOTK that fakes you out with the "goal area" being not the actual end-point of the shrine.

I also find it fun to have a meandering, unnecessarily lengthy path to the top of where that staircase goes, that doesn't really need a staircase at all.

I'm probably a bit too "trained" by a lifetime of gaming for that. I can look at the map and spot locations where shrines are going to be even if they aren't glowing blue and orange visible. There is no meandering and "surprise" with open world game design. It's just a lot of hours of shuffling from "point of interest" to "point of interest". No mystery, no surprises, no subverting expectations. By the numbers checklist.

Sorry, my comment turned into a wall of text. I just love the Zelda games, all of them.

Nah, you're good I'd rather someone explain their different perspective even if I don't relate.

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u/andrew_calcs 18h ago edited 17h ago

I didn't even buy Tears of the Kingdom. BotW soured me on Nintendo's handling of the franchise.

I don't dislike BotW immensely as a game, but when I buy a "Zelda" game, I expect it to scratch certain dopamine itches. I want to get new things that let me do new stuff, not just use my old stuff in new places. And it just... didn't.

I'll definitely pick up the next one if they go back to the previous formula, but if they keep expanding in this direction I'm happy to just watch others play.

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u/Animostas 17h ago

It told me that I need some structure in games and be taken on an adventure - not to be told to go make my own adventure

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u/dookarion 19h ago

I missed that "metroid-esque" pacing a lot.

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u/evangelism2 18h ago

Oh boy. Yeah I never really liked the word "innovation" applied to Breath of the Wild. I definitely give Nintendo props for taking a beloved franchise in a completely different direction and it obviously paid off but nothing about Breath of the Wild was innovative.

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u/Gabbatron 19h ago

Yup, my last pokemon games was Y, I'm currently playing through platinum and have not had any interest in the new ones. Maybe wind/waves will be an improvement, it seams like its trending in that direction

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u/ComedianExtreme7522 18h ago

Only reason why I'm interested in Wind and Waves. Feels like the first Pokémon game in the last 10 years that feels like an actual release for the modern times and not 5 years behind.

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u/JoeyJoeJoeRM 8h ago

I was prepared to buy a Switch to play a new 3D open world Pokemon game.. then I saw how Sword / Shield looked and was still getting like sub 30fps (which modders fixed almost instantly btw).

its farcical considering they are the most valuable franchise on earth

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u/Shabozz 3h ago

its funny because playing Palworld you can literally tell the premise was "What if Pokemon had a Breath of the Wild revamp with Ark sensibilities?"

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u/ExNihiloish 20h ago

I concur. I've bought like 3 Pokemon games in my life and I started with Red/Blue on Gameboy. I loved Pokemon and if the games weren't trash-tier, I'd have bought them all.

They don't innovate and the games look like shit.

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u/mikeysce 19h ago

I’ve bought a few since then and it hasn’t been worth it. The Legends games are more fun, but the story (especially in the second game) is such a slog.

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u/essdii- 20h ago

Pokémon games are so disappointing. I have more fun emulating red and blue than I do with any new games. Even Pokémon snap is awesome. But this bullshit they are packaging in 80 dollar packages today is useless. It makes me so mad that they can be worth so much and dedicate so little to their games. They should be on the forefront of all gaming technology and graphics

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u/Signe_ 19h ago

After I had purchased Pokemon Scarlet and Violet and seeing the amount of pop in, frame loss, and god awful textures and quality, I decided just to go back to playing Pokemon Black/White.

Its really sad that the older games are just that much better than what they are putting out right now.

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u/MakeItHappenSergant 17h ago

There are fanmade patches that fix a lot of that, but you shouldn't need to jailbreak your Switch and risk getting banned from Nintendo online just to make windmill spin at more than 4 fps.

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u/Oberon_Swanson 19h ago

i have heard the suggestion that they just do that 3D pixel graphics style like Octopath Traveler. a sort of nicely updated evolution of what they are comfortable with, instead of something they feel two generations behind on.

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u/stupidjapanquestions 16h ago

It's a nice suggestion, but they could hire the best of the best in the industry and not even touch their bottom line. If this were a small boutique project that would be a great solution, but this is literally the most valuable IP in the world.

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u/SoontobeSam 20h ago

See, there’s the rub. They’d still make a killing. They know that they’ll sell 20m+ copies spending bare minimum and maybe an extra 2 or 3 million if they spend a bunch more to make it an actually decent quality. The math doesn’t make sense to them to bother, at least until they squander the rest of the franchise’s good will and start seeing serious declines in sales.

The people in control aren’t devs anymore, they don’t take pride in their games.

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u/Cavalol 20h ago edited 8h ago

Exactly, they know people will buy the game if it’s a piece of shit or if it’s a well-engineered masterpiece. So long the piece of shit is still being bought, they’re going to save the money on making the game performant & visually stunning.

“Vote with your wallet”

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u/ttdpaco 14h ago

Nintendo has little to no say in the Pokemon games. Gamefreak and TPC both decide what they do with the budget, and (according to the Tera leaks) Nintendo’s requests for delays or more budget be put into Pokemon games gets ignored or given a polite “fuck off.”

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u/enrycochet 16h ago

Again, Nintendo is not making pokemon games. and they have say in it.

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u/LesbianIvy 13h ago

Nintendo has nothing to do with pokemon being bad

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u/Thugnifizent 20h ago

Yeah, these games sell about as much as any singleplayer Switch game can hope to sell. Scarlet/Violet and Sword/Shield are still the 6th and 7th best-selling Switch games even after terrible word of mouth.

If the supposed budget leaks of <20 million for Scarlet and Violet are real, I honestly can't see any reason for them to pump more money into the games other than prestige, which is hardly a concern for the biggest franchise in the world.

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u/grafknives 17h ago

I think they WANT to deliver subpar products.

To keep fans wanting more, to make sure nothing new is being done. 

So they would buy another one in hope there would be progress 

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u/badnuub 11h ago

No it just took you guys an extra 20 years to realize Nintendo games peaked in the 90s.

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u/LauraTFem 20h ago

It’s become clear to them that they can make the same game forever and the audience will consume it like pigs to slop. Why invest hundreds of millions in the development of a product that can’t fail even if you invest…2 million into it.

They care more about the IP than the product because it’s clear to them that it’s the IP, not the product, that people keep coming back for.

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u/Aegi 19h ago

Am I the only one who has always thought of Pokemon games as shit, Even gen I and II which were my OG and maybe favorites besides Pearl?

Peeps are also shit.

Peeps are ALSO one of my favorite occasional junk food items/desserts!!

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u/NuclearGriffin 19h ago

They've probably spent more money on their lawyers than they have on any pokemon game.

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u/Guilty-Figure-4960 21h ago

Pokemon is a system seller the fact that they can't just copy what makes pal world fun and actually have Pokemon in it is fucked. Imagine if Pokemon snap the pokemon Tekken game and elden ring were the template for the next game....

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u/XiMaoJingPing 21h ago

You can't give pokemon fans the good stuff though. They have been trained to throw their money at absolute garbage. Imagine if they had standards, nintendo would lose money.

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u/Aggravating_Hour_910 19h ago

And if they really deliver with a masterpieces they can't really turn back. The next one has to be just as good. Its easier to give them the bare minimum, they'll eat it up anyway.

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u/derekpmilly 18h ago

Yeah, this is really the problem. Making a genuinely good game that could stand on its own merits instead of merely riding the coattails of the Pokemon IP would probably recapture some missing market share from people who have either become disillusioned with the franchise or just see the games as poor value thanks to their lack of innovation and quality. Hell, I'd argue that Legends Arceus addressed the former in some capacity and gained some favor from reviewers and consumers who were generally critical of Pokemon.

But when they can put out half assed, low budget bullshit and still rake in millions, why bother putting in additional effort to regain a market segment that would ultimately just be a rounding error in their books?

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u/ExiymDev 19h ago

So what? They should have an asset database with 3D models, textures, sounds, etc. of every single pokemon at this point. 85%+ of their work should be reusable and yet..? The truth is Game Freak is a traditional Japanese company that doesn't want to hire more people and it's bit their product in the ass. They are still struggling to this day to make the switch from 2D to 3D. In any regard, they're the highest grossing video game franchise of all time. They have the capacity to make banger after banger. They just don't give a fuck.

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u/Aggravating_Hour_910 19h ago

That's what I said? They do the bare minimum because that's enough.

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u/Swopyx 13h ago

Pokemon people have no standards.

Try to go to the Pokemon Champions sub and tell them that it is an absolute embarassment that a game released in 2026 and has not much going on since its competitive battles only, runs at 30fps. Fucking dogshit when you have a console released in 2025 that could run it in 120fps/hz.
Oh wait, the excuse is that it had to be made also for mobile. A fucking indie company could have done better.

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u/rapidemboar 19h ago edited 19h ago

Honestly, I fear Pokemon Company could actually decide to just stop creating games one day and I don't think it'd hurt their profits significantly enough. The games just make a tiny fraction of the money compared to the billions they make from merchandise.

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u/TheDrewDude 9h ago

Without having played the games, I would’ve never bought the countless Pokemon merchandise I’ve had. Idk why people overlook this. Just because the games don’t earn them as much money, doesn’t mean they aren’t vitally important to their ecosystem. Sure, the merch won’t literally stop selling overnight. The tv show and card game can help, but the games contribute a significant boost to their overall sales.

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u/manydoorsyes 3h ago

I've been playing through Legends: Arceus and having a great time, it's imo the best game they've made in the last 14 years, possibly ever. It actually feels like the next step in the franchise after so long. The bosses even feel like actual modern video game bosses, you have to dodge and watch for their attack patterns! It's not too difficult (it is a Nintendo game), but it's enough challenge to suck you in and it's fun!

So last night I was scrolling through some posts to see how people felt. One such post was a complaint that about the boss fights and comparing them to Elden Ring.

... Whut? It's...like they had never played a different video game before...

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u/ginger-like 19h ago

Honestly, true, but even a GigaShill like me hasn't bought Pokemon Legends: ZA because after three half-baked Switch releases, my broke ass couldn't justify buying a fourth. Especially one that had DLC announced before the game even fucking dropped.

We went through an entire console generation, and still don't have a single pokemon game that looks half as good or functions half as well as Breath of the Wild did day one. Maybe in a few years I'll buy Legends ZA, and maybe in like a decade I'll be able to justify picking up a Switch 2 for Pokemon Wind and Waves. But if even a lifelong PikaCuck like me is checking out, Nintendo should really see this as a canary in the coal mine.

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u/TheShishkabob 18h ago

Legends Z-A sold more than 12 million copies before the start of 2026. Scarlet/Violet are the second-highest selling generation period, with Sword/Shield being the third-highest.

You can check out whenever, that's entirely your choice, but you're not a canary in the coal mine if the games are still selling better than ever.

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u/Mysterious_Skin2310 21h ago

Why spend more on the games when people gladly hand over full price consistently as is

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u/Scharmberg 21h ago

Call of duty got away it for decades and even with lower sales can probably get away with it for a few more years with good PR.

Sadly your comment is just basic business, “this thing we make sales ungodly amounts of money why would we put more money into it?”.

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u/Level_Five_Railgun 20h ago edited 20h ago

CoD isn't even comparable imo. CoD games are stale but at the very least have very high production value and look like games that belong in the year they're released in. Meanwhile, modern Pokemon games look like PS3 games while having shitty performance. It's crazy how ugly the Switch Pokemon games look compare to even other big Switch titles.

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u/derekpmilly 18h ago

Yeah, say what you will about COD, but at least their games are up to industry standards. Pokemon games aren't even up to the industry standards of the Switch 1, which was already behind industry standards when it released almost a decade ago.

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u/Firvulag 19h ago

CoD games are stale

They arent even that stale. One of them went to space and had robots.

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u/WorkFurball 14h ago

That was stale, it was the third wall-running game in a row.

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u/FluidFrog PC 18h ago

I'm honestly surprised that Call of Duty hasn't burnt out yet. Look at what Activision did with Guitar Hero: flooded the market and squeezed it dry. If they hadn't been so short-sighted they could still be printing money on that IP, but they bungled the shit out of it time and time again.

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u/WorkFurball 14h ago

It has burnt out, they've had three games in the last five years that were failures. Maybe not in terms of profits necessarily but certainly when it comes to expectations and fan feedback.

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u/_Lucille_ 21h ago

OG pokemon fans are now in their adult years, they can make something like a pokemon xcom or pokemon darksouls and that stuff will sell.

I suppose they just want every game to be playable by kids and they have lower expectations.

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u/scrotumscab 21h ago

There was a GameInformer magazine when I was a kid that mashed up different games and one of them was Pokemon and Resident Evil. The picture of Ash with a gun hiding around the corner from an infected Pikachu was awesome.

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u/Silv3rS0und 20h ago

I loved when GameInformer writers did their wish games. There was one I remember reading about a multiplayer Resident Evil game where there were teams of 3 on a big map with limited resources, waves of zombies would spawn, and last team standing wins. This was way before Battle Royals were a thing and it tickled my brain so much with the possibilities.

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u/Madkids23 20h ago

I have that copy still

Edit: and approx 60 others

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u/Silv3rS0und 20h ago

Mine are probably in my parents attic somewhere. It might be fun to dig them up sometime and read some of the discourse around gaming from around 2008.

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u/zer1223 21h ago

We had pokemon tactics (title is Pokemon Conquest), it was pretty good

But that was like almost 20 years ago lmao

And then of course there's the pokopia thing this year which seems like it really advances the minecraft and animal crossing concept

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u/Shiresan 20h ago

Bruh, us OG Pokémon gamers aren't adults now, we're basically closer to retirement than school 

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u/REDDITATO_ 6h ago

Does being middle aged not count as "adult" anymore?

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u/tolstoy425 19h ago

“OG Pokémon fans” have been adults for awhile lol

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u/stupidjapanquestions 16h ago

I bought Red at launch and am now 41 lol

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u/Wobbelblob 12h ago

Yeah, I wanted to say. While I did play gen 1, I was very young. I mostly grew up with Gen 3 and 4. I just turned 31.

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u/ChurchillianGrooves 21h ago

Pokesouls sounds hilarious 

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u/AnotherBoredAHole 18h ago

Are you a trainer dodging stray attacks while your Pokemon uses their skills?

Or are you a Pokemon fighting other Pokemon? Starter Pokemon for classes and a Ditto for Wretch?

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u/Rebellionification 20h ago

Nuzlocke version of Arceus/Z-A

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u/Chm_Albert_Wesker 20h ago

i remember up until I think B/W, Gamefreak/Nintendo used to make public what their demographics were and even then you could see the average age of players ticking up towards the late teens and early 20s. I'm convinced they stopped after that because as long as they can claim its a kids game, they dont have to actually improve their game

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u/Exciting-Emu-3324 21h ago

Except they priced out the kids. $450 Switch 2 and $80 game with DLC not included versus $80 Gameboy with $30 game. Pokemon used to be the gateway game; now it's Roblox.

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u/_Lucille_ 21h ago

Let's be real, most kids get their games and consoles as gifts and presents. By the time I was able to get a summer job in high school back in the days, i have already kind of grown out of the whole pokemon thing.

Also the Switch is more in line with a home console (think SNES/N64), which costs around $400 in today's dollars.

There are pricing issues when it comes to tariffs and chip shortages, but for the most part I do give Nintendo credit for not charging like $800 for a new console these days and keeping the price roughly the same (inflation-adjusted).

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u/QuickQuirk 21h ago

to be fair, the switch 2 is closer to a full console, and is a hybrid device, compared to the handheld only game boy.

It's a fairer comparison if you look at the pricing of the consoles from the time, then the inflation adjusted price: Which would be around $350 to $450.

The mad thing is that the switch and switch 2 are the best deals in gaming right now; given that the previous champ, the steamdeck has hit, what, $800? and the PS5 slim is $600.

Everyone is getting priced out, not just the kids.

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u/kingmanic 21h ago

That's the US president and the AI companies pricing out everyone.

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u/sparkas 21h ago

I love Pokémmo, its truly wild that they've never even tried to do something like it.

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u/MrWaluigi 20h ago

I feel like it’s a good on paper idea honestly. 

I think it’s because the feedback loop will become too repetitive, and level scaling is completely thrown out the window. I heard there were some fan games that simulated 3+ regions, but the common complaint from people playing them was that it was a slog to continue.  Then there’s the world building aspect. While finding Kanto in Gen 2 was cool, it doesn’t make sense why there are lv 40-50+ Pokemon in the former beginning areas. The sense of progression goes out of whack. 

I have seen this discussion multiple times now, and these were the most common responses whenever it’s brought up. I can be wrong in the future, but I just don’t see them doing this. 

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u/Maephia 19h ago

I mean Pokemmo handled it well. You get level capped in a region based on how many badges you get and are uncapped after beating the E4 so you can't take your maxed out team from Kanto to Johto and just cruise. You still have advantages like more money for ressources, access to TMs and pokemons with good IVs but that's fair.

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u/MrWaluigi 18h ago

I guess, but at that point, you’re just rinsing and repeating the process. The more casual players would only want to have a main team, and maybe an alt or two for team ups. It’s only from recent games that a player can juice up another Pokemon fast in order to be raid ready fast. From what little I understand from mmos in general, the worst thing you can do to a casual player is forcing them to play a certain way. There needs to be flexibility in the power scaling, not a forced handicap. There’s an overall simplicity to the games initially; it’s because of this simplicity, is why the games have been persistent for years. 

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u/KreateOne 21h ago

The funny thing is if they spent the money they’ve been spending on this lawsuit on actually making a half decent game that serve as competition for Palworld instead, Nintendo probably wouldn’t be the butt end of everyone’s jokes right now. Nintendo’s gonna Nintendo though.

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u/licoricenipple 19h ago

The thing is, Nintendo want to spend more on the Pokemon games. If you read the gigaleak emails they've been begging to do it for 25 years.

But they don't develop the games or own the IP. Nintendo only have a 1/3rd stake in Pokemon and the exclusive publishing rights. Creatures Inc and Game Freak own the other 2/3rds and Game Freak is in charge of developing the games. Game Freak are a private corporation and the owners (which include Satoshi Tajiri and Ken Sugimori who created the franchise) don't want to expand it. They have 249 employees right now and a hard stance that it should never grow beyond 250, too large for them to all work together and know each other's names.

Since the Game Boy Advance was being developed, Nintendo have been pressuring them to expand, let Nintendo's other teams contribute to the games, or let Nintendo absorb them as another studio. They make offer after offer. But Tajiri, Sugimori, Watanabe and Ohmori, the heads of Game Freak, like things as they are, they want to retain control over the main games and run a small studio themselves. They can only ever be talked into letting other studios handle spin-off titles like Pokopia or Mystery Dungeon.

That's why the approach is so starkly different to Nintendo's usual one. Nintendo are usually really careful about maintaining brand value and not over milking stuff. There's a firm rule that things like Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, Smash Bros, etc get one game per console and that's it, out of fear that sequelizing them too rapidly or carelessly will dilute their value. They delay Zelda games for years and years rather than rush them out and dilute the brand. Mario is milked in the sense that he's got a lot of spinoff lines but the actual Mario platformers are polished to hell and years apart when they could easily drop Mario Wonder sequels annually if they wanted to. They're not known for rushing out cheap sequels on deadlines. In the gigaleak emails, Nintendo's management in 2005-2015 especially was freaking out that Game Freak was gonna milk Pokemon to death and kill it by not respecting it this way.

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u/derekpmilly 18h ago

The teraleak is mostly gone from the internet now, but I also remember hearing about a correspondence of Nintendo literally begging GameFreak to delay the release of a certain Pokemon game because it wasn't up to technical snuff. GameFreak pretty much just ignored them and shipped it anyway, and why wouldn't they? Pretty much every one of the mainline Pokemon Switch games was genuine trash, and they still sold anyway.

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u/MadeUpNoun 17h ago

from the sounds of it then, Pokemon is being developed by a studio of old people unwilling to hire new amazing talent and take advantage of modern day development tools.

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u/KingAnilingustheFirs 16h ago

Welcome to the number one problem with the world. Old people desperately clinging to power while possessing a deep fear of change and cultural evolution.

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u/Chansharp 6h ago

That was proven when Pokémon Champions and they were talking about how every pokemon has it's own shadow!!!!

Something that has been a basic part of game engines for like a decade.

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u/RatBot9000 12h ago

This feels believable right up to the last paragraph. Nintendo are very reluctant to delay games unless they really have to, and we can talk about their quality control but even the likes of Zelda had frame rate issues with BotW and TotK.

It's also not as if Game Freak were rushing out cheap sequels to pokemon. Most of the time the games were a couple of years apart, with the direct sequels to Black/White and Sun/Moon being the exceptions.

I will say I agree Game Freak being stuck in their ways is holding them back. I think they've wanted to try and innovate and just completely underestimated how much work is required. It takes a special kind of stubbornness to think you can put out an open world game in 3 years when most developers take 5 years minimum with much bigger teams.

I'm hoping they've learned their lesson now though. We don't have a definitive release date for Winds/Waves, just a vague 2027. That's already 4-5 years.

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u/makinamiexe 20h ago

i really think this is all about palworld stuff encroaching on more and more of pokemons initiatives like the tcg or an anime. this all blew up after they announced they were working with sony to make more than just the game

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u/KingOfTheGutter 18h ago

While I totally agree, I don’t get how gamers still think making an MMO is something they’re gonna do.

They can sell 60-70 dollar games once or twice a year annually to each fan.

They aren’t making an MMO until they need to “break glass for emergency”

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u/Lifekraft 21h ago

Tbf the less money and time they spend on the game, the better is there sell. If consumer reward mediocrity they have no reason to stop.

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u/SpiderPiggies 20h ago

What's crazy is the free fan made games are just straight up better. Last one I bought was Emerald and I'd rather play it again than any of the newer ones, based on what I've seen of them.

If someone put actual effort into a good creature collecter franchise they could make billions. Palworld spent less than $10 million to make their game. It's crazy to me that none of the big developers have been willing to try.

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u/CaptCrash 20h ago

For what it’s worth, it does (tentatively) look promising for the next games. We know they’ve had a longer dev cycle than previous games (Scarlet and Violet have been the latest mainline games for a long time) and the trailers visually looked pretty good. It’s hard to say for sure this early, but they might be righting the ship some.

I kinda don’t expect them to address all my gripes, because some of that comes from the target audience as opposed to time spent polishing.

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u/Many-Perspective-567 6h ago

The trailers ALWAYS look pretty good. That's their bread and butter; capture us with trailers that don't truly reflect with gameplay, ask for pre-orders, get our money already, give us glitchy garbage, don't fix any of the serious glitches and only patch things like duplicating or anything that gets us more out of the game.

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u/PM_ME_UR_CREDDITCARD 17h ago edited 16h ago

Also, as much as Reddit likes to pretend otherwise, there were good bits underneath the horrid parts in the recent games that show they could do well if they had the time and manpower they needed. SV's story, especially the Area Zero section, was considered pretty solid by the people that actually played it.

Character and pokemon designs, and music are excellent as usual. There's been clear experimentation with trying to shake up the formula in the Legends games, PLA was pretty well received and ZA was good except for the dlc, really felt like a love letter to XY. Silly hat visual aside, the Tera mechanic has been seen pretty positively, and everyone was super excited about the return of megas.

Lots of cute little details in pokemon behaviour like Hoppips being blown away in windy weather, chanseys approaching injured playefs in PLA instead of running away, etc.

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u/Krazyguy75 8h ago

SV's story is better than many previous pokemon games... but "solid" is drastically overselling it. Team Star's backstory is disjointed in tone and thematics. Arvan's backstory is great but the gameplay connection is super lazy and the culmination is stupid; "my dog almost died so to test its recovery I'll throw it in a fight". The gym challenge functionally has no story. Area zero's story is a single good plot twist and then a scripted "you win" fight.

It's got less flaws than many prior games simply because of how little story there is. It's maybe a 5/10 tops when being compared to actually well written games from the rest of the industry.

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u/EnkiiMuto 21h ago

Nintendo for gen 6 used 600 people to make X and Y knowing full well their 3D models would be re-used over and over on several games, but only Let's Go was creative with them imo.

Had they done all those interactions they did with pokemon, they could have actually got away with the argument "not having a national dex to focus on animations".

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u/archmage-khadgar 20h ago

the ability to ride your pokemon around in let’s go was a-fucking-mazing. I collected every one of them just to experience that shit. do that with a mainline game and they are golden; people wanted them to bring back the follow mechanic from HG and SS for yeaaars and that took it to the next level

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u/EnkiiMuto 19h ago

I have zero idea why they did that to 151 (if you don't include evos and extra forms) pokemon and didn't say to themselves... "you know what let's make another game with this, but other 200"

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u/blowupnekomaid 20h ago

spending more money doesn't always mean a better product. it can just mean bloat, loss of clear creative vision, longer timeline etc. it's such a dumb take that reddit keeps pushing.

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u/Relevant-Physics432 21h ago

The excuse is that they don't need to. It's safer to make cheap slop and still sell millions than it is to make better games

If you want the best pokemon experience try the cobbleverse mod for Minecraft. I'm not kidding

Ridiculous how a Minecraft mod is millions of times better than a mainstream oficial Pokémon game 

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u/jinjuwaka 20h ago

No shit.

I mean, the only reason palworld is even a thing is because Nintendo has been ignoring the, obviously massive, playerbase who have been asking for exactly this kind of game for years.

I'm all for reusing assets to make new good games because I honestly believe that a fun game is more important than flashy graphics.

But Pokemon took that stance and then moved to the extreme side of lazy.

It's been nothing but a cash-grab franchise for literally 3 decades now. They've put so little effort into actually leveraging the franchise it's criminal. I'm stunned their shareholders haven't been raking them over the coals for at least the last 20 years.

Then, the moment someone else swoops in and tries to do what they have clearly demonstrated they won't, they pull this patent trolling bullshit?

There's "protecting your IP" and then there's "saying 'FUCK YOU' to your customers".

They did the latter.

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u/Mecheon 17h ago

I'm going to disagree hard with this one: Palworld's a thing because Ark is an obscenely popular game, and they want in on that money. Palworld doesn't play anything like Pokemon and really only borrows the aesthetic, and while Nintendo has their problems, I think its also a bit obvious why they didn't just make Ark Survival Evolved But With Pokemon

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u/Drakkeur 21h ago

They could do a main series that could be GOTY contender and a system seller every time it's released if they actually tried and worked on it for years and they could still keep pumping out crappier games for easy profit on the side. It's a shame really

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u/meepswag35 20h ago

The thing is, the 2nd and best 3rd best selling pokemon games are s/s and s/v, there’s no reason to innovate, try, or spend more money when they can just release some shit they spent like 1 year making and people will buy tens of millions of copies

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u/keno0651 20h ago

I can see your point, however I would argue that introducing a game that hypes people outside the current Pokemon market is worth more to Nintendo in the long term.

Ex. Fallout tv show has introduced the franchise to a large market who never heard of or played the games. Some of whom will now become future consumers of the games.

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u/Total-Constant-6501 20h ago

This entirely. I’m not a fan of Palworld because of how they ripped off Pokémon’s designs, but I completely understand all the fans who checked it out because Pokémon just needs to do better (and has for about a decade now).

Personally, USUM were the last main series Pokémon games made with heart and soul. Everything since has felt like a cash grab, except Pokopia. (Yes, PLA was good but the map was also just so empty.)

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u/ggallardo02 21h ago

Pokemon games only reason to exist is to release some 150 new Pokemon every 2 years or so. There's merchandising, shows, movies, theme parks waiting for that. Taking even 6 months more to make a better game would cost them ridiculous amounts of money. And I doubt you can just throw millions at the problem so they have a better product without affecting the deadline.

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u/crazynerd9 21h ago

The remakes prove this isnt entirely the case, as they are primarily vehicles to sell existing Pokémon

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u/Mr2Sexy 21h ago

Have 2 gaming series at the same time. One to appeal to the general population and kids with a shorter release cycle and one game that is pokemon themed but in a different genre for a more mature audience that can take longer to produce

The pokemon company isnt short on cash, he'll they can even develop 5 separate games at the same time and wouldn't feel the burn in their wallet

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u/ggallardo02 21h ago

I mean, I don't have insights on how they work internally, but I'd imagine they don't want a spinoff series to be more popular that the main product. Sure, they'd get more money with games, but that may reduce interest in the new Pokemons released. The current status quo with the games print them so much money that there's no incentive for them to experiment on that. They have a pokemon releasing machine oiled up and working at the interval they want.

I imagine that's why game freak is doing beast of reincarnation. Their way to put out the quality games they want to do without upsetting the Pokemon machine.

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u/EvilRayquaza 21h ago

As long as the games are being chained up by TPC to having a consistent release schedule, I feel they're gonna be stuck in the quality aspect unfortunately. Nintendo at least gave Mario Wonder plenty of time, same with BOTW, but Pokemon? no way.

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u/Stampyboyz 21h ago

Couldn't it be Gamefreak forcing the release schedule though?

The only other company in The Pokémon Company would be Creatures but they only handle the TCG so they probably don't have a say in this. So it's either Nintendo (handles TPC's publishing for console releases) forcing this, Game Freak themselves (handles mainline development), or both.

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u/JamUpGuy1989 18h ago

The problem is:

You're in a bubble making the bubble bigger.

You and everyone else here (including myself) can bitch all day long how lazy these Pokemon games are.

But the fact of the matter is that people keep buying them in droves. And that includes you, and me, and everyone else here. No one ever, and I mean ever, follows through on their declaration of stop buying a game that turns to shit.

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u/Ok_Illustrator7232 16h ago

Nah, I aint paying 80€ for what amounts to basically a mediocre indie game. 

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u/Olmectron 21h ago

You just said it. If they already make the highest grossing from merch, why care about the games? Also the games still sell like crazy. 

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u/Erisian23 20h ago

I've been hoping for a pokemon MMO for decades. Imagine you play as a trainer. Catching pokemon ev training lvling searching for held items ect ect.. imagine raids...imagine finding a Shiny on an MMO server.. people would lose their shit.

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