What I'd like to see more of from Pokémon

With it now being more than a year since the release of The Indigo Disk, and still absolutely no new information on Pokémon Legends: Z-A since the very vague teaser trailer back in March, as well as my recent various rantings on what Scarlet and Violet could have done better, I figure now is an opportune time to reflect on what I like about Pokémon as a franchise and a game series, and what I hope to see from it moving forward. (Also, happy new year and such.) (This post is rife with spoilers. You have been warned.)

More developed writing and immersive world development

Scarlet and Violet really suffered in this regard, which is a shame because up until this point, the Pokémon core series had been doing really well here. What got me hooked on Pokémon as a wee tot (i.e. junior high), and what's kept me playing into my senior years (i.e. I have nieces that play video games now, that's weird), was just how compelling, vibrant, unique, and plain fun the world is. It's got a deep mythos that stretches back to the literal beginning of the universe, and every region is crammed to the gills with interesting locations, breathtaking scenery (once the graphics got good enough, anyway), intriguing lore, quirky and memorable characters, and lots of magical creatures scampering around for you to befriend--and utilize as a source of empowerment. A Pokémon journey is the ultimate adventure, from the thrill of anticipation as you step outside your character's hometown with your level 5 first partner, to the satisfaction of that Poke Ball clicking as you snag a powerful legendary critter post-game.

Which is why Scarlet and Violet were such a disappointment. As I have mentioned in previous rants, Paldea is a very empty place for its size--and no, populating the map with endlessly-spawning Pokémon does not do anything to remedy that issue, because Paldea is notably nearly devoid of anything meaningful that gives story-driven gamers like me an incentive to explore and do stuff. The only activities with a plotline or character development are the three storylines, the academy classes, the faculty bonding events, and the postgame Team Star thing. (If you're feeling charitable, you can include the pre- and post-battle dialogue from NPC trainers.)

But the sheer vastness of Paldea, and the generous open-world format, just was not utilized to anywhere near its full potential. A world that size worked in Zelda: Breath of the Wild because there were dozens of side quests that had you romping all over the landscape and taking on a variety of tasks, not just for the reward at the end, but because every quest gave you some tantalizing (and often entertaining) insight into the world and its inhabitants. Even the enemies had some really advanced combat AI, which combined with the variable environment ensured that every battle was a unique experience and exercise in strategy. In Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, it's like the developers assumed everyone would want to keep themselves occupied with randomly roaming around repetitively battling wild Pokémon for hours on end. Maybe there are people out there who enjoy that, but I don't, and that sort of thing is not what I like about or expect from a core series Pokémon game.

The Teal Mask portion of the Hidden Treasure of Area Zero expansion vastly improved on this--even though the storyline was linear, it was compelling, and the smaller map of Kitakami actually meant that it fit the amount of story content better than Paldea did with its plotlines. The Indigo Disk took a step back, though, and I got quickly bored with the entire gist of the plot being "go beat the Elite Four". In Scarlet and Violet in general (including the DLC), the gameplay just doesn't feel balanced--if you're driven by lore, there's absolutely no reason to go poking around the maps instead of just zooming from one objective to the next. 

Pokémon also needs to up its character development game from Scarlet and Violet. Ever since the days of Red and Blue (and Green), Pokémon has been known for its quirky and endearing characters. As technology improved, the depth of the characters in the games expanded as well. The main NPCs became people you shared your journey with (for better or worse), people you learned from and who learned from you, people who helped you shape the fate of the world you shared. The human characters in Pokémon are as essential a part of the franchise as the creatures themselves.

Which is why I was not pleased with how some of the characters were handled in Scarlet and Violet. With three main storylines and a main character for each of them, one would hope that all three would be equal in terms of writerly sophistication, but sadly this is not the case. They run the spectrum from extremely relatable for introverts (Penny) to started-interesting-but-fizzled (Arven) to just plain annoyingly one-dimensional (Nemona), which is a terrible shame because I wanted to like all of them, I really did. 

But having a main character whose sole personality trait is being obsessed with battling is just sloppy. Even the academy faculty have more to their personalities than Nemona. By the end of Area Zero, everything about Nemona as a person is a letdown--her character arc can be summed up as "there's this girl who really loves Pokémon battles, but in reality... she still just really loves Pokémon battles". It simply doesn't mesh well with Penny's and Arven's complex psyches, and while I get that maybe the writers wanted an emotionally simpler character to contrast with the other two, they went too far in the other direction and gave Nemona a one-track mind that would put a hyperactive five-year-old to shame.

And I also think it was lazy of the writers to get the player really emotionally invested in Arven's situation, and then have him, at the end, unrealistically just drop all the anguish and trauma he's experienced throughout his entire life and decide he's okay now. They didn't even have the decency to give him some real closure when he confronted the AI version of his parent at the end, just whisked the AI away into the time machine while Arven yells for them. It's the sort of thing you'd expect from a melodramatic 1960's anime and it's not remotely realistic or satisfying.

Another think that got on my nerves is that, the entire time in Area Zero, the player character's three friends are just arguing and belittling each other and trivializing each other's struggles. It was especially weird to see so much vitriol coming from Penny, who as a bullying victim, and the mastermind of the Team Star debacle that proved why trying to get revenge is a bad idea, should certainly understand the value of treating others with kindness and respect. Overall, I just don't think these three were solidly written, which is not a desirable trait in central figures of a plotline who you are supposed to connect and empathize with.

As for the DLC, I actually really enjoyed what the writers did with Kieran and Carmine, having their attitudes toward the player reverse, which is a great lesson on not judging people based on first impressions. But the whole last part of the plot of The Teal Mask, I was literally yelling for Kieran to just take Ogerpon if he wanted her so badly. I am not superficial enough to claim a legendary Pokémon for myself at the expense of someone's emotional well-being. I also got kinda annoyed at The Indigo Disk for introducing some fun characters and just not doing a whole lot with them. I was excited at the fact that it takes place in Unova and there are quite a few Generation V references, but it was frustrating how they were no more than teased, and I really hope Game Freak doesn't use The Indigo Disk as an excuse to not do Gen V remakes (but they have to be actually good remakes, more on that later).

Overall, in Scarlet and Violet it felt like the writers came up with interesting ideas for characters but didn't fully commit to them. It was as though the developers wanted the main focus of the game to be "look you can run around and battle Pokémon", but as an RPG, running around battling Pokémon is just the vehicle for the real meat of the core series: exploring lush, well-thought-out worlds and having a satisfying adventure. So I really hope that future Pokémon games keep this in mind. I thought this was something Pokémon Legends: Arceus did really well, so I was surprised to see Scarlet and Violet backslide so badly. 

Pokémon has always been an intelligent franchise that's got far more beneath its surface than cartoon monsters beating each other up. While I understand that the battling strategy and metagame holds a lot of appeal to a segment of fans, there are plenty of other fans (myself included) who aren't as interested in battle gimmicks and complicated tactics, but who love an immersive world and a good storyline. I really hope that Pokémon doesn't forget about this segment of its player base and devolve into a mechanics-centric franchise with a tacked-on plot. Which leads us nicely to this next section, because a sorry amount of recent side Pokémon games have this very issue.

Better side games

I debated on what to call this section; the running title was "Less pay-to-win mobile games", but I wanted to go ahead and address side games in general in this section, including console games.

I feel like lately, Pokémon side games have been few, far between, and lacking. I have not been impressed with most of the side games that have come out in the past few years; Detective Pikachu Returns was linear and effortless and not as fun as the first one, and I would much rather have gotten a completely new Pokémon Mystery Dungeon game than a mostly-faithful remake of the first two games (more on that later). Pokémon UNITE is just not my vibe at all as it's really just an e-sport with nothing to offer non-competitive gamers. (I did enjoy New Pokémon Snap, though.)

Mobile games, with a few exceptions, have also been rather lackluster. Pokémon Rumble Rush was utterly brainless and Pokémon Duel was overcomplicated, so it doesn't surprise me that they both tanked early. Pokémon Quest was a fun idea, but once you beat the storyline (which didn't take long), there was no reason to keep playing--except in China, where they actually got updates to the game that the rest of the world didn't. (Again, I don't understand why China keeps getting a better mobile gaming experience than the rest of the world.)

I also find Pokémon TCG Pocket to be utterly off-track. It's barely even a game, more of an app where you collect virtual cards for no good reason. At least with collecting real Pokémon cards, there's a bit of satisfaction from owning a physical object, but in TCG Pocket you're just hoarding pixels. And I hate how they dumbed down the TCG gameplay to the point where it's just a mockery of the actual game. The simplified rules take away 90% of the strategy of the game and reduce it to a race to see who can get their heavy-hitter card out fastest. (And 20-card decks, seriously? Talk about completely throwing strategy out the window; if you want games to progress more quickly, just limit the amount of Prize Cards.) A big part of the appeal of the real TCG is the tactical depth involved, and a good combination of Pokémon cards and Trainer cards used at the right time can debilitate even the toughest powerhouse. That appeal is completely lost in TCG Pocket, and it makes me a bit irate that this travesty of a mobile app was the only new Pokémon game ("game") we got in 2024. (Anybody else remember the Pokémon TCG Game Boy game? I loved that one. I really want a mobile game that takes a similar RPG-like approach to the TCG.)

And both Pokémon Masters EX and Pokémon Café ReMix suffer from the same issues of predatory gacha mechanics, aggressive microtransactions, and being the sort of game where you can technically progress for free, but if you want anything outside of the most barebones experience, you'll have to spend inordinate amounts of money. (Seriously, Masters EX, $30 for 10 gacha pulls? That's just greedy. And I hate how many Pokémon in Café ReMix are locked behind a paywall, and how they purposely make those the Pokémon that would really help in the current event.)

Mobile games don't have to be that shady. One of the reasons why I like the Cookie Run franchise (besides the excellent writing, family-friendly vibe, beautiful visual design, awesome voice acting, and addictive gameplay) is how much it respects its players, and how the developers seem to understand that the real key to making bank off of mobile games is to make the games really, really good and really, really fun and fulfilling to play for free, and then you'll build a loyal fanbase who will throw money at you just because they love you so much. Or, you could go the Disney Dreamlight Valley route and just make the game and expansions available for a base price, with microtransactions that are totally unnecessary to fully enjoy the game. Either option is much more preferable than how shamelessly most mobile games try to snag your money.

Two Pokémon games that don't fall into this trap are Pokémon GO and Pokémon Sleep, both of which I enjoy (although since moving to a less populated area, GO has been more difficult to play on a regular basis, sadly). GO does a really good job of keeping things fair and balanced regardless of how much you may or may not be spending on the game, and Sleep just feels like the developers aren't desperate for your money, which is extremely refreshing. (It helps that it's by the same devs that made Pokémon Magikarp Jump, which I greatly enjoyed and was also not pay-to-have-fun.)

Maybe I'm just feeling nostalgic, but I feel like around the time of Gens II-VI, we got a lot of really solid Pokémon side games. But in the past few years, that number has really dwindled, and the overall quality has gone down too. An integral part of the fun and charm of the Pokémon franchise as a whole, for me, is the side games that allow you to experience the world of Pokémon in different ways than the core series. Without a steady influx of quality side games, the franchise is just feeling a bit barren right now, and I hope that's not permanent.

More emphasis on cooperation rather than competition

If you haven't figured it out by now, I'm a very non-competitive person. Games that are solely about competition and don't even pretend to have anything else to them (like UNITE) don't appeal to me at all. That's why it annoys me when Pokémon starts trending in the direction of emphasizing battles, as if that's the only reason the franchise appeals to fans. I've become a bit tired of all this hoopla over the video game and TCG championships--while I'm happy for the people who do enjoy those things, I'm simply not interested.

That's part of why I struggled to really engage with the plot of Pokémon Sword & Shield--while I liked just about everything else about the game (including the fact that Galar is based off of the UK <3), I couldn't quite get myself to care about my character's quest to become the next Champion just for the sake of the glory. If that had been real life, I would have totally thrown the championship match to Hop and been very happy to see him enjoy being Champion. Actually, I never even would have competed in the first place. I just want to doink around Galar with my Pokémon buddies. (Honestly, few things are as off-putting in an RPG as the player character having a goal that the player doesn't actually want.)

I loved how Legends: Arceus greatly deemphasized the competition aspect to the point of near nonexistence. A game with plot objectives based around exploration and research (with a bit of saving the world thrown in for fun) is way, way more up my alley than just "prove you're the strongest Trainer and win a shiny prize!!!!!". I'm concerned that with another Legends game on the way, Game Freak might essentially split the core games into two lineages--Legends titles would focus on exploration and plotline, while just plain "Pokémon" titles would lean more toward competition and battling. 

And that's not something I want to see, because I think what makes the core series so great is that it's generally very good at striking a balance between exploration and competition. A core series Pokémon game that solely focuses on battling, at the expense of things like lore, character development, and just other things to do in the game besides battling (kinda like Scarlet and Violet), is a core series game I'm not sure I'd even want to play. (That's pretty much what they did with Pokémon Stadium, and my favorite part of that game was the minigames that I'd play with my sisters over and over.)

I guess the main issue here is that I feel like an emphasis on competition in Pokémon is a holdover from the Game Boy days. In the era of limited programming capacity, pitting your critters against someone else's was one of the only viable ways, besides trading, to interact in-game with other players. I'd argue that Pokémon was almost sort of the first MMORPG without the "online" part; I think one of the driving factors behind the first games' explosive popularity was the fact that everyone who played the games was embarking on the same adventure together, and could interact not only by simply talking about the game, but by actually taking actions that would directly influence others' in-game experience. It was a form of emergent gameplay that was simply unprecedented at the time.

But games nowadays have such exponentially greater potential that I would really like to see the Pokémon world as a whole move on and expand. Yes, Pokémon battles will always be an integral part of its universe, but after nine generations, the setting has gained so much more to itself that I think it's not currently being used to its fullest. I would love to see something like the Gen V Dream World again--a fully-developed side activity with more of a life-sim bent, that would allow people to just kick back and enjoy the colorful, fun, and deep world of Pokémon without the constant pressure of battles and competition. 

I want something more like the current Pokémon: Horizons anime, that focuses more on the characters exploring their world and having a grand adventure, than most of Ash Ketchum's doinking around on his endless quest for more shiny trophies. (I stopped watching the anime shortly after the start of the first Johto season because I was just so tired of how repetitive it had gotten, and because I realized that I simply did not care about whether or not Ash got a Badge or [insert female lead here] won her froufrou little performance competition. And Team Rocket's absolute inability to learn anything from their mistakes after twenty-five years of failing to capture Pikachu is totally infuriating and just plain bad character writing.) (Actually, I'd love to see a game based on Horizons, because the characters and lore in that series are vastly more interesting and tightly-written than most of what was introduced in the earlier seasons of the first anime.)

Again, I am well aware that the battling metagame is a huge part of the fanbase, so I'm honestly not sure how much Game Freak will stray from keeping battles at center stage in future games. But I wish they'd throw more bones to those of us who aren't as into the competition aspect.

(I may as well address the Copperajah in the room--yes, I would absolutely love an actual Pokémon MMORPG, but I'm skeptical we'll ever get one. Game Freak is committed to keeping the franchise kid-friendly, which means I don't think we'll ever see a Pokémon game with the sort of free communication that an MMORPG requires. Pokémon GO is likely the closest thing we'll ever see to a true Pokémon MMORPG.)

Better remakes

I love the idea of remaking Pokémon games. The series has been around for so long, and been through so many generations of hardware, that I think it's great fun to revisit beloved older regions and adventures with updated graphics and expanded programming. It's also helpful when you don't have those oldest consoles anymore and so no longer have access to some games. (I gave my niece my Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS, for example. She was playing Pokémon Blue at my house the other day and I had to walk her through where to go next, despite the fact that the plot is identical to Pokémon Let's Go, Eevee which she has already beaten. Ohhhh kids.)

However--I think remakes only work when they are able to deliver a satisfying experience to both people who have never played the original, and people who have. I have played every generation of the Pokémon games, so when we get a remake, I really need it to be different enough from the original to be interesting for me. I loved FireRed and LeafGreen, HeartGold and SoulSilver, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, and Let's Go, Pikachu and Eevee. I think they did the whole remake thing right, with oodles of added content, character and environment redesigns, and gameplay updates that played to the strengths of the console they were being remade on. For old fogeys like me, it was like playing a brand new game, a reimagining of the core ideas for a new age.

But Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl totally flopped. I'll be frank, I was not happy at all with how those remakes were handled. It was almost literally the exact same game as the original Diamond and Pearl, with maybe 5% new content. And they included almost nothing from Platinum, even additions that would have made a lot of sense (and were fun), like Charon and Looker, the super awesome Distortion World, and the Wi-Fi Plaza. And the aesthetic was just about the exact same as the original games, despite Switch hardware being capable of so much more than expressionless chibi characters and a rigid overhead camera. Slogging through Brilliant Diamond was downright painful, and it basically only served as a stopgap until Legends: Arceus came out. A core series Pokémon game should never leave a bad taste in my mouth the way Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl did. (No offense, but I really think they should not have outsourced it to another developer.)

So if The Pokémon Company does any more remakes in the future, I desperately need for them to not do what Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl did. Especially if they next decide to remake Black and White, which were absolutely amazing games and deserve nothing less than a totally spectacular remake, and/or Gold and Silver (and Crystal), my all-time favorite core series games, which I would love to see an innovative new spin on in the manner that Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee did for Red/Blue/Yellow. Because I'm not really sure I could stomach another updated-graphics-clone like Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl.

And there you have it, my long and ranty list of ways I think the Pokémon franchise could improve in the directions it's heading. Perhaps Legends: Z-A will allay some of my concerns. Pokémon has a lot going for it, and I think if it wants to continue in its success, the developers need to keep an eye on what makes the franchise so appealing in the first place--not just the superficial surface of cute mascots and an intricate battle system, but the deep roots of an engaging adventure, a compelling world, and consistently satisfying gameplay.

Bonus - Here are a list of nations/regions that I would love to see as the inspiration for future Pokémon games (in no particular order):

- China
- Indian subcontinent
- Africa
- Italy
- South America
- Canada
- Korea
- Australia and New Zealand
- Western United States (Unova was based off of the US in general, but actually mostly focused on New York City and the surrounding area; and I know Orre from Pokémon Colosseum and XD was inspired by Phoenix, Arizona, but those games are twenty years old now, so either remake them or let's have an entirely new game inspired by this geography)
- Mexico
- Shikoku Island (the only major region of Japan that has not yet been used; Cianwood City in Johto is implied to be based on the northeast coast of Shikoku, but I hardly think that counts)
- Germany
- Arabian Peninsula (including but not limited to Dubai)