T. K. Arispe

Thought I'd change it up a bit from the string of Zelda comics with more old art. Back in the day, someone created a "PokéFusion" web page that combined two different random sprites of Gen I Pokémon, and it became a thing in the Pokémon art community to draw these amusing hybrid creatures. I tried my hand at a few myself. 

After I posted my feelings about Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, and as I've been playing Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom with their impeccable game design, I got to thinking about what exactly goes into a great Pokémon game, and what I'd like to see in future installments of the main series.

Mostly what it boils down to, for me, is that Pokémon needs to go deeper, not necessarily bigger. Scarlet and Violet were a prime example of what happens when you try to go big without adding an equivalent amount of depth--you end up with a lot of empty landscape, an underwhelming plot, and ultimately not very much to actually engage and satisfy a player in this enormous world you crafted, unless they are like Nemona and are really, really, really into just training Pokémon and not much else.

Two of my most favorite Pokémon generations are II and V, because in the case of both Gold and Silver and Black and White (and also Black 2 and White 2, let's be real), the developers took some bold steps in smart directions, while also preserving the basic essence of what's appealing about the core games in the first place. 

One of my favorite mechanics of Gold and Silver was an incredibly innovative real-time clock that provided a variety of experiences based on the time of day and even day of the week you were playing. Not only was it a great way to keep the content fresh, but it also made Johto feel alive, a place where things were happening and NPC's were carrying out their lives even when you weren't playing, like Animal Crossing before there was Animal Crossing. Gold, Silver, and Crystal really made the most of the hardware they were built for, and in my opinion they are the greatest Game Boy (/Color) games of all time.

And Black and White overhauled the Pokémon experience in some really good ways. Setting aside controversy about only including Gen V Pokémon until the postgame, I really enjoyed BW's sleek updated aesthetic, its much-needed quality-of-life gameplay tweaks, and the innovative uses it found for Nintendo DS technology, such as the Entralink and the Dream World. It was really refreshing to see multiplayer experiences that didn't just revolve around battling. The graphics in BW are lush, brimming with detail, and care and thought were really given to making environments truly unique, not just samey landscape with slightly different tilesets for each town's buildings like in previous games. And I really loved the introduction of Pokéstar Studios and Join Avenue in B2W2, as engaging side activities that took the Pokémon experience in new and fun directions.

Plus, Black and White were, I think, the first Pokémon games to really up the storytelling. Up until then, the plots of Pokémon games were pretty much just "aim for the Pokémon League, oh, and you'll probably end up defeating a villainous organization and catching a Legendary Pokémon along the way". BW tried to impart some profound messages about the nature of relationships, the importance of balance and moderation over extremism, and the value of critical thinking in the face of questionable social movements. N was a fantastic anti-villain, and Bianca and Cheren were fun to watch grow and mature as they progressed on their journeys. 

I feel that Gen V was the turning point where Pokémon plots began to focus less on simply doinking around the region, and more on involving the player in dramatic adventures with multi-dimensional characters, layers of history and backstory, and resolutions where you don't just save the world, but make a difference in the lives of those you've met. It's the kind of stuff RPG fans like me just sink their teeth into.

I think that's why I was so disappointed that the storytelling in Scarlet and Violet was a mixed bag. First, let me say that I absolutely loved the Team Star storyline. I think Penny is such an awesome character, but I'm very biased toward super smart, really shy nerdy girls with glasses. :) I loved the anti-bullying themes of the Team Star plot, and I think it said some important things about not judging people based on first impressions, and how priceless good, true friends are, especially for people who have a really hard time making friends. Like, I want a whole game that's just about hanging out with the Team Star bosses actually, because they're adorable.

As far as Arven goes, I enjoyed watching him gradually warm up to and open up to the player. #friendshipismagic I also really liked the idea of Area Zero and all the crazy research stuff that went on there (not to mention the awesome music). But my big beef with Arven's plotline is at the very end, how he's basically had a terrible childhood and the climax of the plot had to have been traumatic for him as he learned what actually happened to his parent, and then he just laughs it off and decides everything's okay because he's got friends now and they're walking into the horizon together? That just didn't strike me as remotely realistic. Like, this kid needs serious therapy after everything he's been through. 

You can't just decide everybody magically has all their problems resolved just because the plot's wrapping up and you need to hurry and get to the credits and a peppy Ed Sheeran song. That got on my nerves. I feel like Arven had a compelling start to his character arc, but it just was not concluded well at all. It almost felt like the writers chickened out after giving Arven such a weighty storyline, and tried at the end to simply brush off everything they'd put him through, like "haha just kidding, Pokémon is for kids so we're not going to explore serious psychology here". 

Except a) that just plain doesn't work on a storytelling level, and b) kids who are old enough to care about the storyline of a Pokémon game are perfectly capable of following complex character development. (They didn't magically make Lusamine all better at the end of Sun and Moon, so what's with the cop-out here?)

But what annoyed me most was Nemona's (lack of a) storyline. It felt like an obvious nod to people who like competitive battling and the metagame, but Nemona is a disappointingly one-dimensional character. All through Area Zero, I kept waiting for her to reveal some sort of twist to her personality, but no, the whole time it was just "I like Pokémon battles!" That's the kind of thing you couldn't even get away with in the Game Boy days.

I think that's another thing that bothered me about SV, and that I'd like to see rectified in future games--I feel like SV did a lot for players whose main interest is battling and the metagame... but not much else. I have nothing against those types of people, I understand that the metagame community is huge and there are lots of Pokémon fans who absolutely love putting together strategic movesets and optimizing stats. But I'm just not one of them. I'm not saying I hate Pokémon battles - they're fun - but as a story-driven gamer, I see the battles more as vehicles to advance the plot and world exploration, not as an end unto themselves. 

(Incidentally, that's the reason why I find the Pokémon Masters EX mobile game so incredibly frustrating; I love the idea of all the Pokémon characters getting together and having fun adventures, but the game just focuses way too much on intricate battle mechanics, to the point where the storyline is almost an afterthought. It also doesn't help that it's super pay-to-win, and you can't really succeed in any event unless you shell out gobs of cash for multiples of the latest gacha exclusive which the event was specifically tailored to make you use. Ugh.)

Of course, that isn't to say I think Pokémon games shouldn't place any priority on improving the battle experience, but in SV it just felt like the gameplay innovations leaned too far in this direction, and the plot and exploration aspects of the game suffered as a result. Instead of putting more energy into actually making the world interesting (or giving Nemona just a smidgen of personality) the developers focused on stuff like allowing you to craft infinite amounts of TM's, pushing the Terastallization gimmick (I'm a little bit tired of gimmicky battle mechanics, to be honest), creating ultra-difficult rotating Tera Raid Battle events that I don't care about, and making the entire postgame (pre-DLC) consist of letting you challenge the Gym Leaders again with tougher teams, and an extremely repetitive battle tournament. (Contrast with the fantastic postgames of Gens II and V, which actually gave you like the other half of the world map to explore.)

As just an example of where I feel this balance went awry, I really wish there were other uses for Pokémon materials than TM crafting--for example, sidequests where an NPC wants a certain amount of a certain material. (SV was sadly lacking, in general, in anything meaningful to do besides the main storyline.) Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom did a fantastic job giving items a multiplicity of purposes; you could sell them, cook them, fuse them, exchange them with certain NPC's for more valuable items, collect them for sidequests. In Scarlet and Violet, though, I found myself with 999 Lechonk Hairs and and absolutely nothing to do with them except craft 333 copies of the TM for Take Down. Having more purpose for the TM materials would have really given more direction to and incentive for battling wild Pokémon.

In summary, when it comes to future Pokémon games, I want the developers to give at least as much focus to depth as to breadth. I don't want a world that's geographically immense as much as I want a world that's actually fun to be in and that gives me compelling reasons to explore it, a world that has a lot going on and will keep me engaged for a long time, and a world that has much more to it than Pokémon battles because I am not Nemona. I'm really hoping Pokémon Legends: Z-A will be more along the lines of what I like in a Pokémon game; I loved Legends: Arceus and I'm hoping for more of the same with Z-A. (Also, it'll be really awesome to go back to the Kalos region, because I enjoyed XY and I was sad that they didn't do much else with Kalos after those two games.)

I'm aware that Breath of the Wild made epically vast world maps fashionable, but I think developers would be wise to remember that the secret to that game's success wasn't the fact that the world was huge, but that the world was huge and chock full of a wide variety of fun stuff. There's really no point in creating an overwhelmingly large game world with almost nothing interesting in it. I hope that future installments of the Pokémon core series will place as much value on quality as on quantity--and if they must choose one or the other, I would much rather them prioritize quality.

(As a tangential aside, you know what I'd love to see? A Pokemon Mystery Dungeon mobile game. I'm a big fan of the PMD series and I'd really like a game with a constantly-updating list of dungeons, a fun ongoing storyline, and maybe some event-exclusive dungeons with the chance to recruit Legendary Pokémon. I just want more Pokémon Mystery Dungeon.)