Pokémon is the single highest-grossing media franchise in the world. It is estimated to have earned over $100 billion in its lifetime and has produced some truly iconic and celebrated video games. For some reason though, many of the past decade’s releases haven’t been particularly celebrated. In fact, many of those titles have been downright controversial among fans.
Pokémon was once an almost universally beloved franchise that continually released quality products. Now, that’s changed. The reveal of the latest installments on Pokémon Day 2021 were met with a plethora of emotions. The franchise has evidently devolved over the years, and fans had taken notice.
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Pokémon‘s early releases were massive hits. Pokémon Red, Blue & Yellow (as well as the Japanese Green) were huge successes that jump-started Pokémania, and its sequels mostly continued to improve on the formula. The last Pokémon games on the Nintendo DS, Pokémon Black 2 & White 2, would also prove to be the last beloved games in the series, and the final time that a Pokémon game felt complete at launch.
When the franchise jumped onto the Nintendo 3DS with Pokémon X & Y in 2013, the change had begun. The games were laughably easy, with none of the challenge of earlier titles, and were rather barren in content. Still, generation six was mostly forgiven as they were the first releases in 3D. But the latest titles, Sword & Shield, still suffer from the same issues six years later.
A clear change in design philosophy occurred somewhere along the way. Post-Nintendo DS entries are, for the most part, entirely easy and lacking in content (especially in the post-game), and now the latest releases don’t even have impressive graphics to fall back on. This change in design philosophy can be best exemplified by two remakes: 2009’s Pokémon HeartGold & SoulSilver and 2014’s Pokémon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire. Director of HG/SS, Shigeki Morimoto, stated in an interview how greedy they had been with features for the remakes, transplanting all the best pieces of content from the previous games. These entries are viewed as the best titles in the history of the series by many.
By contrast, Managing Director at Game Freak, Junichi Masuda, stated in a Spanish interview that the team opted not to include the fan-favorite Battle Frontier in OR/AS as players are “busy” and too few gamers would utilize the feature. The studio went from placing as many features as possible in its titles to create the best experience, to including the bare minimum that casual gamers would play before moving on.
3D Pokémon games also receive flak for the lifeless 3D models they use. The current games (and newly announced future releases) use the same 3DS models which have been unchanged for nearly a decade. When spin-off games by other developers such as New Pokémon Snap show the monsters full of life in a graphically stunning world, it’s hard to not be disappointed by Game Freak’s output.
The ‘Dexit’ controversy surrounding Sword & Shield also compounded the issue of the models. Half of all the pocket monsters were excluded from the game, and Game Freak’s reasoning was that the studio needed to create entirely new, high-quality 3D models for the game. This was quickly proven false when data miners determined that the models were identical to the 3DS ones, and players could see this for themselves when playing.
The reveal of the highly-anticipated Diamond & Pearl remakes were met with strong reactions, as many felt the remakes looked like mobile games, with poor lighting and graphical fidelity, with many noting that the original games looked better. Others were frustrated by the confirmation that the same lifeless Pokémon models were being used, and with Game Freak’s current attitude to content, it is highly unlikely the Battle Frontier will be making a return. The new Pokémon Legends: Arceus looks like an empty world with low-FPS Pokémon randomly placed around it. Fans asked themselves how the quality of these games is acceptable when Super Mario Odyssey and Breath of the Wild show what the Nintendo Switch is truly capable of.
One theory as to how the mainline games have been allowed to deteriorate so much is that The Pokémon Company simply doesn’t need them to be quality releases. Pokémon is a marketing machine constantly in motion. So, new releases need only exist to build hype and generate pre-orders, and to produce new content for use in the anime, Trading Card Game, and merchandising.
Of the $100 billion the franchise has earned, just under a quarter comes from games, while around three-quarters of it come from merchandising. Why bother taking time to produce something groundbreaking when the bare minimum will already sell? It only needs to exist to create merchandise, and taking more development time would slow down those merchandising efforts.
Pokémon truly feels like it is in a make-or-break moment. While many fans will purchase whatever the series produces regardless of quality, there are also many that have had enough. Brilliant Diamond, Shining Pearl and Legends: Arceus have a lot to prove, and the games do not look promising to many. Only time will tell if the series will turn its reputation around, or if it will remain content with producing less than customers deserve.
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