The End of Pokemon...(Speculation)

[EcHoFiiVe]

I want it to end at the Ruby and Sapphire remake which, if following the trend, will be the next games they put out.

 

[Juventus]

i find it funny people hate on activision for releasing call of duty every year, yet nintendo gets a free pass for milking pokemon franchise. at least activison doesn't release two versions of the same game and call it different names simultaneously.

 

[Nostalgia]

dont be so quick to judge, what you are talking about (special defense, dark, double battles) those are all tweaks and minor changes. It has still been having six pokemon with 4 moves each in turn based combat since the begining. and did you even read my post before you started talking shit at me? i didnt say it was on its last limbs, i said it seems like it should be if not for the sales you ass. read, dont judge, and if your going to judge read what i said first you prick.

Necessary game-balancing tweaks.
He gave you an answer on how things have changed from the beginning and you start throwing a fit at him because that's not good enough? Then main series is still turn-based, oh no! Halo is still an FPS, oh no!
If you give people the ability to carry more Pokemon or give them more moves, isn't that redundant? The only reason you'd want to ability to learn and carry more would be to fill out the weaknesses on your team. By narrowing down options, it leaves your team open to be countered. Carrying more around just encourages grinding or the ability to send out dummy Pokemon to heal the rest of your team up in story-mode.

Perhaps the fact that they have kept the same formula while adding new things instead of changing everything is why a lot of people enjoy it and find it easily to come back to playing. Game Freak says that they enjoy the accessibility the core set of games provides for anyone to pick it up and play, and many older fans and newcomers can find that same enjoyment.
It's the same they show towards the core series sticking to handhelds that people love to ***** about. (guys, it's called Pocket Monsters)


What it really comes down to is that as you grow up, you don't like the same things as you did as you were younger. As you're growing up, toddlers are that age you were when you were getting into Pokemon and will probably be one of their first video game experiences and memories. The fanbase will continually recycles itself til they find it is no longer profitable. Not many people on the Escapist or in your little circle of friends will find that same enjoyment they had for it when they were younger, but kids just like you when you were younger might.

This is the main problem I see. Maybe people should stopped being concerned about the franchise growing to suit their needs and rather look at what it's really about. There have been major gameplay additions, tweaks, balance changes, etc in the franchise without killing it. B&W broke two NDS records (most preorders, fastest selling), so I can't see the franchise dying or "on its last limbs" anytime soon. Hell, Mario is still around and Pokemon is steadily climbing to beat his sales figures for best selling franchise ever without being out nearly as long as him.

 

[Mute52]

The ideas for new Pokemon are getting ridiculous, so much so that the new ones are pretty much a slight variation of an older one. I say just either make a game with everything, catch them all, every continent etc. Or do remakes or new series, a new pokemon snap and pokemon coliseum would be awesome!

 

[Cheesepower5]

My advice to Gamefreak: Don't listen to the fans.

...Not even me.

Not because the ideas are necessarily bad, but you'll never satisfy them. The more you cave the more they hunger.

 

[crazy_egyptian]

Trainer perspective. Makes more sense for role-play, and if I was being cynical, 600 pokemon to level up is much more of a time sink than one!
The legendary balance problem might still come up. Perhaps only allow one legendary per team? I'm not sure how you could explain that in terms of lore... perhaps make it be a pride thing for the more powerful pokemon.

It'd be interesting to see how the utility of each pokemon outside of battle would affect the team building. Tournament builds would be different from exploring builds. Land exploration builds would be different from sea exploration. And of course, PvP duels during the exploration would all be recorded in the context of the area leagues.

Hope Nintendo would hire an outside dev team to help make it though. The Japanese have a... traditional approach to MMOs, and that would kill the fun of a Pokemon world. Personally I'd get Cryptic in to do it, since they have an exceptional talent for building from a role play perspective.

Well, I would've thought that the legendary problem could be solved as having them as raid bosses or something of the like and not having them as available to catch, but I like the idea of having one, as that would appeal to the traditional strategy part of Pokemon in PvP due to having to choose the correct legendary to counter another person's legendary/psuedo-legendary/whatever, and having to utilize your Pokemon types for exploration/quest purposes sounds like a good idea theoretically, but what about the different environments? Should you, say, have a Fire-type with you while exploring underwater for whatever ridiculous reason, would said Pokemon take damage due to the environment or would another debuff of sorts be applied to it as an environmental penalty?

As for developers, I'm not really informed about good MMO devs past the fact that Blizzard did a pretty good job with WoW, but I will agree that Nintendo should hire someone else, because they might not do the best job creating it. Just sayin'.

 

[Tiswas]

HAHAHA! You'll never catch them all! MWAHAHAHA!

AKA: People seem to be still buying into it quite a bit. If it was ever on a 360 or PS3 or even a computer, I might even try it.

Mew won't be too much of a problem, it's on my Yellow version all I have to do is use my multiple generation versions and generation gameboys to ferry it to my White version.

I'll do it legit, none of this stupid hacking and cheating stuff that people talk about.

You can't trade from Gold/Silver/Crystal to Ruby/Saphire/Emerald IIRC.

Not like Mew is hard to get anyways. It was distributed via wi-fi last year and a few other times too.

 

[Ice Car]

It'll die eventually, but I don't see this being the last game, I expect at least 2 more generations and a few remakes sprinkled here and there.

It's not on it's last limbs, it's far from it really. The franchise, it's fanbase, it's popularity, etc. are still going strong.

I saw many improvements in Gen 5, and the pokemon, though odd at first, I find likable and designed fairly well.

 

[TimeLord]

How about you are the pokemon?

It's been done, Pokemon Ranger/Mystery Dungeon. And it was crap!

OT: I just want a Pokemon game where you can travel freely between every region and freely capture every pokemon. Obviously have some limits like 3 different games with 3 different sets of pokemon, like they do already. But dammit I want a Charizard in EVERY version I play dammit!

 

[Specks88]

I think its about time for a major leap forward type revelation with it. Instead of making it backwards compatable with the earlier games, they should make a new generation, with no new pokemon, allowing it to span ALL the continents and revamp their fundamentally flawed system. It is becoming unsustainable in my opinion, but as long as people keep buying it, they'll keep making stupid looking pokemon and repackaging their game.

A few improvements I can think of off the top of my head would be:
1. Do away with HMs taking up a move slot. Like completely. HM slaves are a painful evil
2. Instead of having 100000 moves to choose from but only about 10 good ones, have movesets that upgrade as pokemon level. Every few levels you're allowed to add points into improving a moves power, accuracy or adding an effect. etc
3. Cut the crap with team rocket, galactic, magma, aqua etc. If they're evil, make their actions have some level of peril other than ooh they're mean to pokemon. Blaaah
4. Like I said before, let it span ALL the continents so you can collect ALL the pokemon and beat every regions gym challenge and maybe even a new story for every region.
5. Try try TRY to make pokemon that aren't completely ridiculous.

Just some ideas I've had, but I think they need to innovate along these lines.

One idea a coworker and I came up with (mind you, this is a coworker that makes fun of me for playing Pokemon, but respects the mechanics/idea) is turn it into a kind of RPG...basically you play 3rd person, like WoW or Guild Wars, as the trainer, but when you get into a battle, you get to control the Pokemon, maybe in the form of a Mortal Kombat-style fighting. VERY easy to port to a 360/PS3 that way, or even the Wii. And add a feature where you can throw a Pokemon out at any time, kind've like the Bloodwing on Borderlands. Either where you can throw a bird Pokemon out to collect an item and still control the trainer, or you can control the Pokemon for scouting, or getting somewhere you, as the trainer, couldn't go (I.E, Pikachu to get in small places)

I think that'd get it out to more than just an RPG....more of an adventure along the lines of Zelda and follow the show a bit.

I know with White I'm finding that the story adds alot and is done in a way that's kept me way interested (not that I'd get bored, but I did with platinum....didn't really seem like there was a core objective). Unlike the other games, it seems there's more than just "Fight Gym Leaders, collect Badges, fight Team Suck, fight Elite 4, become Champion, catch everyone, rinse and repeat". the story with N is keeping me really intrigued, and fighting Plasma is something to look forward to, rather than be annoyed by...

and then maybe this is just me...lol

 

[spazzzz100]

if they made it MMO and people could start liek the normal game then become 'ace trainers' then do a gym badge 'quest chain' and start a gym, that would be awesome!

 

[Specks88]

I know there was an MMO of sorts awhile ago...Pokemon Online. It was run independent from Game Freak (independently coded, as well...only thing similar was the model from R/B/Y), but I think it was shut down for good...there were consistant downtimes when I was playing from that

 

[Sonic Doctor]

*Snip*

You can't trade from Gold/Silver/Crystal to Ruby/Saphire/Emerald IIRC.

Not like Mew is hard to get anyways. It was distributed via wi-fi last year and a few other times too.

Well, if that is the case, I'll have to find somebody as gullible as my cousin was way back when.

He was seven and I was 12 or 13. He wanted an Articuno and he just clueless on how to play the game properly(he couldn't even get the first bage).

I told him he didn't have anything I could possibly want. He told me some stupid friend of his gave him a Mew, I didn't believe him till he showed me. Since I had all three versions, Red, Blue, Yellow, and had three Articuno, so I got Mew and he got and Articuno he couldn't use because it was too high a level.

I completed my Dex, and got the little congratulations thing that could be printed out if one had the gameboy printer, I didn't.

Yeah somebody has to be gullible enough. Heck, I have two Palkia, I don't know why, but some Asian person(I don't know, that is what the language on it looked like), was trading a Palkia for some Pokemon that really wasn't that rare and I had like 4 of, so I picked up an Asian Palkia for the heck of it.

Edit: Luckily I'll be moving into a new apartment soon that will have WiFi.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

I know there was an MMO of sorts awhile ago...Pokemon Online. It was run independent from Game Freak (independently coded, as well...only thing similar was the model from R/B/Y), but I think it was shut down for good...there were consistant downtimes when I was playing from that

Yes it was, Nintendo took legal action and killed it. It was using a Nintendo/GameFreak copy righted stuff without their permission. Copyright infringement.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

This thread summed up: (Omg it will never end and it never changes!) times 141 posts as of this posting. Great job guys.

Not really, I don't think exactly that. I hope they keep going, but I believe Pokemon has changed immensely over the years.

If you compare Gen 1 with Gen 5, you will only be looking at 10% to 15% similarity. The only things that are the same at they both Gens have creatures called Pokemon, you pick a starter in the beginning, go around to fight gyms and fill up the PokeDex, and battle the Elite Four and Champion. That is just a shell, the rest is quite different.

 

[Soxafloppin]

They sell in hilariously large quantity.

But more importantly they sell whatever console there on!

My guess is they will keep going until they have ran out of colours/precious metals and stones.

Roll on Pokemon: Aluminium /Copper

 

[Ketsuban]

I don't really understand why people want to change the fundamental identity of the series. It's iterated on and improved its turn-based system for five generations now, why do you want to make it real-time? How does that improve things, other than the fact it's what Final Fantasy did in the late 80s/early 90s?
 

there has never really been any story to build on or improve

This was maybe true for Gen I and Gen III (one had little to no storyline apart from thwarting a criminal organisation, one had a dumb nonsensical environmentalist plot), but Gen II had a theme of rising to expectations (the final battle against the protagonist from the first game, the rival slowly realising there's more to being a Pokémon trainer than seeking out the strong, and the Rocket Executive desperately trying to please his old master Giovanni), and Gen IV engaged in some serious worldbuilding because we learn how the universe was created and shaped through the medium of a man who was so repulsed by his own emotional nature that he wanted to destroy the universe and remake it.

(Gen V doesn't try to construct a major storyline so much as break the formula they've followed previously and incorporate more cutscenes and more cinematic elements.)

no real improvements or renovations in the gameplay (i.e. combat)

Okay, Gen II was an expansion pack fixing the balance issues of Gen I, fair enough. Gen III shook the whole engine up by finishing the work Gen II started (Gen II suffered from having to maintain compatibility with Gen I) - it split Special Attack and Special Defence completely by making them separate IVs, changed the Stat Experience system into EVs which are more manageable, and introduced abilities as a sort of always-on fifth move. Gen IV split physical and special attacks, making a large number of previously little-used Pokémon useful, and turned entry hazards into a major gameplay mechanic.

after creating somewhere around 600 pokemon, how many more can they come up with?

Plenty, if Gen V is any indication.

This all seems to me like the franchise is on its last limbs, and yet the games still sell very well, there is still a large fanbase behind the games, and a tv show and card game that is still enjoyed today.

Isn't this a contradiction in terms? If everything about the franchise is selling better than ever before, how can it be on its last legs?

 

[Atmos Duality]

They're hitting the point where metagame expansion isn't feasible without direct redundancy.
Just as an example: How many useless flying and water pokemon are there now? (answer: A. LOT.)

Gamefreak hasn't made all that many significant improvements to the gameplay in a very long time. The last one I can think of being the move-specific (rather than element-specific) stat-typing.

Even still, Pokemon is popular with children. Even if they've already remade Red/Blue and Silver/Gold, they still have Ruby/Sapphire to remake. It'll survive another 5 years at least.