Pokemon needs to stop being afraid of innovation.
- Thread starter immortalfrieza
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I hear ya, Yellow and Emerald were hands down my favorite. And without a doubt I've put more hours into Pokemon than anything else. 'Sigh'
I have heard the whole shpeel that you are giving many times before. In the majority of your points, you are just trying to turn the game into something it isn't. What you propose would turn it into an action RPG, the problem is that Pokemon has always been and will always be and turn based RPG. The mechanics are built for turn based combat and such combat is perfect for the game because it is about well thought out strategy not, split second button mashing. Considering the game's history, changing it so drastically would kill the game sector of the franchise.immortalfrieza said:
Besides it has been changing plenty, I wouldn't buy a version from each generation and remake if they didn't change it.
On the leveling, I've never really encountered many people that do such "power-leveling" of just one or two team members. With every version I have played since Gen-1 Red, I have got my starter and eventually caught the team I planned to use, and I leveled them all evenly, every time, always even. On rare occasions I will have one pokemon that has seen too much battle in a short segment of story and it gets to be two levels higher than the rest, but I end up putting it at the bottom of my six list and wait for the rest of the tame to catch up.
So far in my White version, I leveled up my first team to 75(as of late I stop there until I get a wide roster), then I picked a new team and got them even in levels and began training them evenly to 75. Today, I am on my third team that I am leveling to 75, they all have 20 levels to go. It should take just a couple weeks or less to get them there. I really don't see the point of raising just one at a time, when it is far easier to raise whole team evenly.
Power-leveling and just using one or two pokemon seems like a tactic to try and make the game go faster, that the player tries to win with brute force of high level instead of having a team to work strategy with and win together.
On the evolving, pokemon evolve at certain levels for a reason. They are given a certain move set for their type(s) and certain evolutionary stages only learn certain moves. So there is also strategy on whether or not to evolve at the evolution level or stop the evolution and possibly learn some moves earlier than if the pokemon had evolved.
On what you mentioned on catching pokemon, if players were just allowed to faint a pokemon and then catch it, then there is no strategy or challenge to catching the pokemon.
Besides, your reasoning in comparing the game to what happens in the Pokemon Anime is faulty. The game came before the Anime(And the last and current series of the show is proof of this, because they are named after the games, Diamond and Pearl, Black and White. Also watch the intro sequence of the very first pokemon episode, it is of the game). Nintendo/Game Freak isn't going to change something in the game because what the writers of the show did, they did because they were writing around some of the game mechanics to make the show feel a little more real than just video game strategy points.
In all, from looking over your original post and your other comments in the thread, it looks like you want to make it an action RPG that removes a good deal of the strategy and decision making involved on the part of the player. What it seems like is that you want them to remove the parts of the game that take time and hard work on the part of the players if they want to succeed and also do well against real life opponents. You want a button masher that will remove all the number games that players have to pay attention to. The problem is pokemon isn't that game and it never will be. I would see where it would be fine if the series of games started out that way, but they didn't and have a mega-ultra-sized fan base that expects the game to be a certain way at the core. What you propose would be a reboot, it would basically be a start from scratch and removing the core of what makes pokemon games.
I will finish with this, the Yahtzee video doesn't do anything for your point. It doesn't add any wait to your argument because Yahtzee opinions don't represent the be all and end all of what games should be. He isn't always right and Pokemon is one of those times. What you have stated as problems are just opinions. What I said about the core of the pokemon games is fact. If they changed it to be an action RPG, it would be a totally different game. It was a game built not just for kids, but for people that love turn based RPG. Mind you, turn based RPGs are the majority of Japanese RPGs are setup as with their battle mechanics. It is what Japanese players want, and since the main customer group is Japanese, it is how Nintendo/Game Freak set up the pokemon games.
My girlfriend saw this thread and had to put something, so I'm letting her.
I am sick of Generation 1 fanboys complaining about how Pokemon's going down the drain. YES, the plot needs to be advanced if they want to make it into more than a kids game. Maybe a game where's you're more linked in the espionage of taking down big organisations with your pokemon or something. But tell me this. If the games suddenly changed, wouldn't you see people in forums just like here complaining about how Pokemon has changed and "sold out"? Either way, Nintendo aren't going to win with everyone on every thing.
The thing that a lot of fanboys don't realise is that POKEMON IS A KIDS GAME AS MUCH AS A GAME FOR US. I still play it at 19, and I know it's pretty much for everyone, but it is a game that its players tend to start very young. If you start having games have more mature plots to it, of course kids are going to want to get their hands on it. The only way you could combat this is to separate the market of kids pokemon games and adult ones. And even then, yeah, kids will still want it.
Also, what the hell is this about being able to catch fainted pokemon? What happened to the challenge inside people, man? The frustration adds to the feeling of pure joy and badasserry when you DO catch the pokemon! Walking around, trying to find those rare little idiots, and BOOM, one hit KO. It makes you mad, oh yeah, but then you go for VENGEANCE. And when you finally catch it, it's a happy feeling. OP is saying he wants pokemon to have a better plot andf be harder, but he wants to be able to catch a pokemon passed out. That is fundamentally...Poke-rape.
Oh yeah and:
9. Finally, one of the most important, stop releasing 2 games and eventually a third every generation. It wouldn't have to be easy to do, but there should only be 1 version where all the Pokemon from that generation could be caught in one game. The reasons for this are simple, many gamers may NOT have many friends which actually play Pokemon games, because trading is a long and completely unnecessary process that, if you don't have somebody else to link up with, you'll be forced to purchase 3 versions of the game, another of whatever handheld it is on, and a link cable, and most people that play these games and their families are NOT made of money. Linking should be solely for Pokemon battles between players and nothing else
Which is pretty much why they have the Nintendo Wi-Fi connection integrated into the games now.
GOOD NIGHT, AND HAVE A PLEASANT TOMORROOOW.
I am sick of Generation 1 fanboys complaining about how Pokemon's going down the drain. YES, the plot needs to be advanced if they want to make it into more than a kids game. Maybe a game where's you're more linked in the espionage of taking down big organisations with your pokemon or something. But tell me this. If the games suddenly changed, wouldn't you see people in forums just like here complaining about how Pokemon has changed and "sold out"? Either way, Nintendo aren't going to win with everyone on every thing.
The thing that a lot of fanboys don't realise is that POKEMON IS A KIDS GAME AS MUCH AS A GAME FOR US. I still play it at 19, and I know it's pretty much for everyone, but it is a game that its players tend to start very young. If you start having games have more mature plots to it, of course kids are going to want to get their hands on it. The only way you could combat this is to separate the market of kids pokemon games and adult ones. And even then, yeah, kids will still want it.
Also, what the hell is this about being able to catch fainted pokemon? What happened to the challenge inside people, man? The frustration adds to the feeling of pure joy and badasserry when you DO catch the pokemon! Walking around, trying to find those rare little idiots, and BOOM, one hit KO. It makes you mad, oh yeah, but then you go for VENGEANCE. And when you finally catch it, it's a happy feeling. OP is saying he wants pokemon to have a better plot andf be harder, but he wants to be able to catch a pokemon passed out. That is fundamentally...Poke-rape.
Oh yeah and:
9. Finally, one of the most important, stop releasing 2 games and eventually a third every generation. It wouldn't have to be easy to do, but there should only be 1 version where all the Pokemon from that generation could be caught in one game. The reasons for this are simple, many gamers may NOT have many friends which actually play Pokemon games, because trading is a long and completely unnecessary process that, if you don't have somebody else to link up with, you'll be forced to purchase 3 versions of the game, another of whatever handheld it is on, and a link cable, and most people that play these games and their families are NOT made of money. Linking should be solely for Pokemon battles between players and nothing else
Which is pretty much why they have the Nintendo Wi-Fi connection integrated into the games now.
GOOD NIGHT, AND HAVE A PLEASANT TOMORROOOW.
I have to question this assertion.ZeroMachine said:
WarCraft 3 almost completely redefined what it meant to be a WarCraft game. There was suddenly a HUGE focus on plot, the factions were completely different, there were unprecedented RPG elements introduced into the game, both in single and multiplayer... and upon its release, it was the best selling PC game of all time. Critical acclaim, the whole shebang. So I'm not quite convinced that "changing a series" is as bad as you make it sound.
...
Having said that, almost every counter to the OP's suggestions seems to boil down to some version of "why fix what isn't broken." The target audience is kids, the franchise is unbelievably profitable, there's just no incentive.
So why don't we... just... shift this entire conversation over by agreeing on this "new" Pokemon being a spin-off? A spin-off series, if need be. Seems an easy enough solution, Nintendo doesn't lose its cash cow but actually gets a second cash cow. No one loses, everyone wins, we can keep talking about what precisely that game would entail? A Pokemon-inspired game for adults, with visceral combat, lots of plot, interesting characters, superb visuals...
It certainly seems like there'd be a market for it. I know I'd buy it.
My advice for the Pokemon franchise: just stop already. We all get it, you make crack for kids and that's fine, but enough is enough. 
As for the OP, seems like that wishlist changes almost all of the fundamental rules/mechanics that make up the foundation of the series.
As for #3 in particular - and I do mean this with all seriousness - maybe it's a *hint-hint-nudge-nudge* that it's about time for you to move on? Indeed, Pokemon does very little in terms of serving the tastes of older players. I'm certainly not judging you, but it's marketed strictly towards kids for a reason: it's a child's game. Yes, there have been directors and movies that take a child's story and twist it into something "dark and edgey", but that goes against the very nature of Pokemon. Pokemon is a coming-of-age story about a boy or girl setting off on an adventure to beat the random evil Team of the day, find a couple legendaries, and go on to become Champion of all Pokemon. You're not playing a classic Final Fantasy here, you're playing a game about a kid and his/her adorable plushy reality-altering pet!
As for the mechanics you want to change, seems like you're just wanting to cheat (free EXP for everyone, evolve whenever you want, pick any pokemon you want as a starter, etc)
TLDR: Perhaps it's not the games that need to change, perhaps it's time for you to let go. As you said: for every group of people that outgrow the game, a new group comes in to replace it. As such, there is absolutely no incentive or need for them to change.
As for the OP, seems like that wishlist changes almost all of the fundamental rules/mechanics that make up the foundation of the series.
As for #3 in particular - and I do mean this with all seriousness - maybe it's a *hint-hint-nudge-nudge* that it's about time for you to move on? Indeed, Pokemon does very little in terms of serving the tastes of older players. I'm certainly not judging you, but it's marketed strictly towards kids for a reason: it's a child's game. Yes, there have been directors and movies that take a child's story and twist it into something "dark and edgey", but that goes against the very nature of Pokemon. Pokemon is a coming-of-age story about a boy or girl setting off on an adventure to beat the random evil Team of the day, find a couple legendaries, and go on to become Champion of all Pokemon. You're not playing a classic Final Fantasy here, you're playing a game about a kid and his/her adorable plushy reality-altering pet!
As for the mechanics you want to change, seems like you're just wanting to cheat (free EXP for everyone, evolve whenever you want, pick any pokemon you want as a starter, etc)
TLDR: Perhaps it's not the games that need to change, perhaps it's time for you to let go. As you said: for every group of people that outgrow the game, a new group comes in to replace it. As such, there is absolutely no incentive or need for them to change.
Holy thread necro...pure.Wasted said:
I'm just going to respond to your original comment about what I said (because I would love to see a real-time combat Pokemon spinoff myself, and the OP was talking about changing the core series).
Warcraft 3 went through some major changes, yes, but it was still, at its core, an RTS. Click, drag, point, click, build, etc. Plus, it was Warcraft's 3rd game (obviously, unless you count 2's expansion). That's 2 (or 3) games before the change to Pokemon's 18 (20 if you count Black and White 2).
What the OP suggested (almost a year ago
) was that the core series changed it's combat system entirely. From a creative and marketing standpoint, this makes no sense. At least the changes from Warcraft 2-3 weren't about what the core of the game's combat was all about: actions per minute building an army and base.The change would alienate more old fans than the new Pokemon each generation adds, and it wouldn't be as easy for newer fans of the series to get into. There's a reason I got into Pokemon as a kid- it was fucking easy to play. It was nice to be able to sit back and basically use a single button for everything after getting my reflex workout in Megaman X or another game.
See what I'm talking about?
Oh, yikes. Wasn't me! >.> But it seems this is that time of the year again, apparently it's a recurring topic around these parts.ZeroMachine said:
I do see it. I can understand where he's coming from, though. It's pretty easy to feel alienated by a franchise you once held so near and dear to your heart when it doesn't do a single bloody thing to get your attention for like a decade.What the OP suggested (almost a year ago
The change would alienate more old fans than the new Pokemon each generation adds, and it wouldn't be as easy for newer fans of the series to get into. There's a reason I got into Pokemon as a kid- it was fucking easy to play. It was nice to be able to sit back and basically use a single button for everything after getting my reflex workout in Megaman X or another game.
See what I'm talking about?
Say what you will about Michael Bay's Transformers, but at least the franchise is proving it can be more than an obsession for 10 year olds, with a very hefty price tag attached. And I feel like Pokemon still wants to cross that hurdle, both because of how heartfelt it was and how strong that connection remains for EVERYONE who used to be a fan, and because of the stranglehold it seems to have over the entire concept of a world built around monster collection. But despite how much easier crossing that hurdle would be than, say, going from a Saturday morning cartoon to a major Hollywood blockbuster action summer event was for Transformers, they just insist on not taking that final step.
I think that's the more important thing to take away from the OP. Does it sound like the guy would be satisfied if he was the only person in the world who got this game? No changes to the "core title," no spin-off franchises either. Just one game given to him.
I think it sounds that way, yeah. So from that we can agree on spin-offs being the more reasonable route, and proceed onward and upward, with a spring in our step and a feather in our cap!
I think Pokemon could use some minor annoyance fixes... but fundamentally changinc what kind of game it is? Eeehhh... I like turn-based RPGs, and we don't get enough of those, so Im not sure.
That entire block of whatever isn't Innovation. It's suggestions on how to improve the game. Suggestions which have been stated. Before. WAY before. As in after Red and Blue were released.immortalfrieza said:
The games are fine being added in one little bit at a time. You make a cake in layers, putting them on top according to size. If you put a bigger one on top you risk taking it all down. Of course, game freak currently have a perfect cylinder when it comes to their cake.
err 1 and 2 are the same suggestion.
1/2: not every game has to be story oriented; go play mass effect! Seriously, who plays pokemon for the story? It would be like if I played Minecraft for the awesome graphics.... it's not intended to be good], it's just there, and it fulfils it's pupose.
FYI: they attempted a story in black and white
3: if you feel like you've grown out of the game, you don't need to play it. Beyond the childish theme and easy single player, there's a surprisingly deep game to play (especially since they added online play back in diamond/pearl)
4: They release pokemon games other than the main turn-base franchise; they don't sell as well as the main franchise.
see pokemon rumble blast and nobunaga's ambition
5: see above
6: I never found capturing pokemon to be all that challenging; I don't see why they would need to make it easier
7: I wouldn't agree with having "ANY" pokemon, but a little more variety would be nice.
8: No! that's a terrible idea! level 5 venasaur? why would bulbasaur or ivysar ever need to exist, it would just be redundant?
It would be like playing a survival horror with full weapon upgrades unlocked at the start!
9: I sort of agree, but trading is a fun part of the game and this would make it sort of pointless (especially with your "make catching pokemon easier" suggestion); besides, you don't really need friends any more because of internet connectivity. Anybody who buys more than one colour on release just to be able to catch them all is a complete sucker : \
1/2: not every game has to be story oriented; go play mass effect! Seriously, who plays pokemon for the story? It would be like if I played Minecraft for the awesome graphics.... it's not intended to be good], it's just there, and it fulfils it's pupose.
FYI: they attempted a story in black and white
3: if you feel like you've grown out of the game, you don't need to play it. Beyond the childish theme and easy single player, there's a surprisingly deep game to play (especially since they added online play back in diamond/pearl)
4: They release pokemon games other than the main turn-base franchise; they don't sell as well as the main franchise.
see pokemon rumble blast and nobunaga's ambition
5: see above
6: I never found capturing pokemon to be all that challenging; I don't see why they would need to make it easier
7: I wouldn't agree with having "ANY" pokemon, but a little more variety would be nice.
8: No! that's a terrible idea! level 5 venasaur? why would bulbasaur or ivysar ever need to exist, it would just be redundant?
It would be like playing a survival horror with full weapon upgrades unlocked at the start!
9: I sort of agree, but trading is a fun part of the game and this would make it sort of pointless (especially with your "make catching pokemon easier" suggestion); besides, you don't really need friends any more because of internet connectivity. Anybody who buys more than one colour on release just to be able to catch them all is a complete sucker : \
There was a game called Azure Dreams it was set in this randomly generated tower and each time you would try and get further and you would capture different monsters to help you.
Something like that would be very cool with the mechanics of Pokemon they already have in place.
Something like that would be very cool with the mechanics of Pokemon they already have in place.
1&2 are different. #1 asks for improved quality for the story, #2 asks for the Pokemon developers to stop putting in the same story over and over again. Same ends, different means.geK0 said:
People may not play Pokemon for the story, but a better story wouldn't hurt.
I've played games back when I was 5-10 years old that I loved and still would play right now, games that were simple enough for kids yet complex enough that even adults can still get enjoyment out of them. In fact, these days I'm going back to older systems and finding plenty of games that I never had the chance to play back back then that fit the above. What's wrong with wanting the Pokemon series to be that everbody of all ages can enjoy?geK0 said:
I haven't even heard of either of those games before you mentioned them, which means that they failed because they did an awful job marketing those games, not necessarily because they were bad. In fact, I looked them up, and Pokemon Conquest got good reviews, despite probably being as far away from Pokemon's formula as you can get. Besides, even if they did suck and sell well it wouldn't be because it's not turned based, but because they did a crappy job with it.geK0 said:
I've never found it hard either, it just tedious to spend several minutes to even a few hours walking around tall grass fainting or running away from Pokemon you've already caught to find this ONE Pokemon in the grass. Tediousness is never good, I just want to remove tediousness, there's nothing wrong with.geK0 said:
Whatever you want, as long as what our starter Pokemon quit being so limited.geK0 said:
Once again, the point of this is to help remove tediousness. Leveling up just a single Pokemon simply to get their evolved forms into the Pokedex can take hours, even with the faster ones, and there are dozens of Pokemon every generation that can only be evolved through leveling. If they want to catch em all the player hast to spend hundreds of hours getting every Pokemon in their Pokedex because of this, not to mention if they want to get every Pokemon from every generation.geK0 said:
Besides, if you look at #8 closer you'll notice that I also said, more or less, that max evolution Pokemon that are acquired through forced level would be nerfed to keep them from being overpowered. For instance, their statistics and levels wouldn't rise as fast if the Pokemon were instantly max evolution when compared to if they evolved through level to balance this out. That, and they could just make it so that the means by which you could force the evolutions can't be accessed until after the end of the game, which is when most people probably put real effort into catching em all anyway.
You made my case for me. If I could use the internet to get Pokemon from one version that I'd otherwise need another system and the other version to get, then having multiple versions is rendered pointless anyway. Besides, not every pokemon player has the means to get all the Pokemon through the internet like you seem to assumegeK0 said:
If people have wanted this for a long time, that only proves my point. Besides, innovation IS improvement, innovation is the creation of better or more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas.Terminate421 said:
A little bit at a time? They hardly add in anything at all. They change the Pokemon and maybe add it a minigame, if that. The only real additons that they've made have been in the spinoff games, and those typically aren't marketed very well, so they don't sell well, so their features don't become standard, even if they're very good features.Terminate421 said:
Innovation, in most people's eyes, has been seen effectively as what Fallout 3 did to Fallout 2. Make it better by completely changing everything at once while discovering new ground for the gameplay to unfold into, for better or worse.immortalfrieza said:
Pokemon isn't really afraid of innovation as much as changes along the way that help to improve the experience.
Improving is different from innovating. The suggestions you mentioned seemed to be more like improvements than innovation.
Besides, most innovation testing is done in spin-offs. Why do you think Mystery Dungeon 2 was fucking awesome?
