The End of Pokemon...(Speculation)

[TrevorGruen]

Playing AS the pokemon has been done, as has making it more rpgish and realtime (the truly bad mystery dungeon games). but yeah that didnt work well, tho a fighter pokemon game could be cool.

daltonlaffs probably has one of the closest guesses iv heard so far.

I remember hearing something they could do that would be really cool, but unlikely a while back: make the pokemon badass and scary. i mean just stop making them all cutesy and fuzzy and portray them as they are: gigantic fuckin beasts that shoot energy from their body and can call lighting down from the sky, or roast u alive! they arent cute, if i saw a friggin charmander in real life i would piss myself.

 

[Johnnyallstar]

It will wake up when Ash finally snaps out of his comatose state, and dies from brain damage...

lol when you first said ash, the first thing that came to my mind was Evil Dead... that could be cool.

anyway, here are some more replies =D

sylekage: that wont happen, nintendo still milks pikachus fame too much.

Firoth: they could, but they wont. they make more than enough money with the minimal effort they do now, why the extra work?

r0kle0nZ: the series doesnt need to die, just needs improvements. Imagine if final fantasy was still 2d and had never gone 3d?

urgh76: now it wont, a franchise with so little improvement will fizzle and die or live on as a god.

Haha good reference, but the brain damage thing was in reference to this often linked article. [http://cartoonoveranalyzations.com/2009/04/09/pokemon-explained/]

Have a good read, but it is long.

 

[TrevorGruen]

It will wake up when Ash finally snaps out of his comatose state, and dies from brain damage...

lol when you first said ash, the first thing that came to my mind was Evil Dead... that could be cool.

anyway, here are some more replies =D

sylekage: that wont happen, nintendo still milks pikachus fame too much.

Firoth: they could, but they wont. they make more than enough money with the minimal effort they do now, why the extra work?

r0kle0nZ: the series doesnt need to die, just needs improvements. Imagine if final fantasy was still 2d and had never gone 3d?

urgh76: now it wont, a franchise with so little improvement will fizzle and die or live on as a god.

Haha good reference, but the brain damage thing was in reference to this often linked article. [http://cartoonoveranalyzations.com/2009/04/09/pokemon-explained/]

Have a good read, but it is long.

oh god i saw the sidebar on it and thought it was a god damned novel! i later noticed that half of it was comments.

 

[Elvoret]

Wait, the mystery dungeon games weren't bad...

Oh, and I don't see the series dying. It's got a populer formula for all the childrens to enjoy.I don't think it'd need innovation if it weren't for the existence of old fans.

 

[Johnnyallstar]

Haha good reference, but the brain damage thing was in reference to this often linked article. [http://cartoonoveranalyzations.com/2009/04/09/pokemon-explained/]

Have a good read, but it is long.

oh god i saw the sidebar on it and thought it was a god damned novel! i later noticed that half of it was comments.

Yeah, there are no comment pages for it, so the line of comments 3 years old keeps getting longer and longer. Still, the article is no slouch.

 

[mjc0961]

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

Uhm. what? Assuming that's true for a moment, then the obvious way to improve on it would be to make a better story.

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

...Okay, so you really just have no idea what you're talking about then. Good to know. Because anyone who did would be able to give an entire list of gameplay improvements and renovations, like so:

Splitting the "special" stat from Gen 1 into "special attack" and "special defense" in Gen 2.
Hold items to add another level of variety to combat were added in Gen 2.
Two new types (dark and steel) were added in Gen 2 to help balance out the previously ridiculously overpowered Psychic type.
Weather effects and moves were added in Gen 2 that could drastically change the battle under the right circumstances.
Breeding was added in Gen 2 which could be used to get moves on a Pokémon that it wouldn't normally know for an added surprise for your opponents in battle.
Double battles were added in Gen 3.
Abilities were added in Gen 3 to add even more variety and decisions for Pokémon that could have one of two different abilities.
Natures were added in Gen 3 so you can play with your Pokémon's stats a bit more.
Gen 4 really shook things up by getting rid of the previous "all attacks of these types use the attack and defense stats, and all attacks of these types use the special attack and special defense stats" method and splitting it up so that there are both physical and special moves for all move types.
Gen 5 added both triple battles and rotation battles.
And of course, new hold items, abilities, and moves were always being added in each new generation after the concept was first introduced.

But no, you're right. Gameplay hasn't had any real improvements or renovations, and aside from the more colorful graphics and better music, battling in Black and White is exactly the same as battling in Red and Blue.

Now, about this death nonsense. These games are hugely popular, especially now. You say last limbs? All the Black and White sales are laughing at you right now for suggesting such a thing. The series is still going strong, and even if the next games don't sell as well as Black and White, they'd have to experience a Guitar Hero 502 (or whatever the last one was, they never really numbered the damn things properly)/Rock Band 3 level of failure before they even thought about ending the franchise.

 

[Samechiel]

They will continue to pump out the same game with a new paint job year after year for as long as people are foolish enough to continue gobbling that crap up.

So basically, Pokemon will never end.

 

[Nostalgia]

How about a pokemon game that doesn't make you the trainer, force you to catch pokemon and beat gym leaders?

How about you are the pokemon? Or maybe real time battles? More RPG elements? A more intricate story.

Really, all nintendo is doing is doing the SAME THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN with relatively minor changes which makes doing the same thing over and over again easier.

This exists. It's called Pokemon Mystery Dungeon.
I wouldn't expect the main series of games to change too much. The spin-offs seem to be accomplishing some things that they don't do.

there has never really been any story to build on or improve, no real improvements or renovations in the gameplay (i.e. combat)

The story in the games are admittedly basic and can be vastly improved. Even if it's not in the main series of games, spin-off titles could fill this void. Black and White got a little better by not making the big bad inherently bad. You find out that yes, they have bad guy ulterior motives, but their cause and leader are just. They just don't go about it the right way and have inner corruption. It's a step up from something like Team Rocket, which is just a generic crime organization, but the story is still juvenile.
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon is the best it gets I think.

The combat has changed. There are improvements overtime. New types and new moves affect combat yeah, but I'm talking about things like abilities, special split, attack split, EVs/IVs, etc. The vast amount of Pokemon and needing to know what they can do and what they are will only add more complexity later on when you need to expand on what you know and the ability to counter what's thrown at you. Lots of Pokemon have multiple types too, giving them more resistances or immunities based on how they function with eachother.
Triple battles were also implemented, which seem to be much more strategy based than double battles were. There are positional requirements that prevent you from hitting Pokemon based on where they are from you and lots of crowd-control based moves were added, like Free Fall, to disable Pokemon for a turn, or things like blocks that will protect teammates from being hit by splash damage based attacks, etc.

It has changed, but it's the same turn-based formula it's always been. Maybe that's why people don't realize it.


Edit: beaten to it

 

[Jfswift]

Considering they reuse the same story with every iteration I'd say it's a safe bet the franchise has plenty of room to grow.

 

[teqrevisited]

I'd like to see the introduction of realtime battles, with speed stat affecting how fast the guage fills up, moves like string shot acting as temporary "Slow" status and so on and so forth.

And the option to go to every region. I know they probably dropped the idea for space (G/S didn't have cerulean cave, shorter Victory Road, some other things as a consequence) but if there's a larger capacity cartridge they're not using then they are missing a huge opportunity.

 

[Bags159]

Their lack of ideas for good pokemon is showing. I looked through all of the B/W guys and only found 5 - 10(Shiny Braviary, Garchomp, Krookodile, Archeops, Carracosta, Chandelure, and uh yeah, that's it) that I thought were cool or cute. If they milk it much longer I think even the die hardiest of the diehards will quit buying it. One of the legendaries has a jet-engine for a tail!

 

[farq1414]

maybe? i mean look at this

Spoiler: pokemon

pokemon

i think you would run out of ideas for pokemon when you make make one after a garbage bag.

Spoiler: but they didn't stop there

but they didn't stop there

they had to give it a evolution.

 

[ramboman88]

And speaking about Pokemon and new gameplay mechanics, "pokemon snap" for the nintendo64 was pretty fun in a "zen" kind of way, especially since it was the first time I ever got to see a pokemon in 3D. Regardless, the game only had a few of the (then) 151 pokemon, but it was proof that the franchise could work if it took other routes.

Hell, my browser whines and underlines "pokemon" and tells me it's "Pokemon". Does anyone know if "Pokemon" appears in a dictionary?

You'd think pokemon would be the next troll dolls, but it IS nintendo we are talking about, they aren't just gonna let their franchise die. Mario is still alive and kicking, but he's a defines, singular mascot... the problem with pokemon is that they a CRAPLOAD of them, that's why so many of the pokemon games recycle sprites.

But yeah, holographic pokemon... robotic pokemon... genetically engineered pokemon...

 

[Nostalgia]

maybe? i mean look at this

Spoiler: pokemon

pokemon

i think you would run out of ideas for pokemon when you make make one after a garbage bag.

Spoiler: but they didn't stop there

but they didn't stop there

they had to give it a evolution.

What? Kinda like sludge coming to life? Grimer is basically Trubbish's equivalent. Two-staged pure poison-type. Both are fairly ridiculous concepts.
Remember. The new region is based on the Manhattan Metropolitan Area. Sentient garbage makes sense when you're so close to Jersey.

 

[WolfEdge]

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.

I really want to see an actual attempt at a console pokemon game. The battle system is great and all, but it's just stupid in any 3-dimensional capacity. I'd be real interested in a game that featured real-time pokemon battles, where the player takes a more directive role as the trainer instead of deliberately controlling the pokemon's actions in combat. There's also a large sticking point with pokemon's constant message because, while every freaking npc in the damn game touts how important your bond is with your pokemon, the mechanics of the game itself urge the player to see these things as little more than tools (discounting the "follow" feature from heartgold and soulsilver), and while this isn't something easily addressed in the limited space of the handheld games, it could easily make for a compelling experience on a console to be able to interact with pokemon in a semi-meaningful manner.

If you can't tell, I've been waiting for a (real) console version of Pokemon since the days of the N64.

 

[Osaka117]

Pokemon aint goin nowhere anytime soon, that's for sure. It's still selling better than hazmat suits at the center of Chernobyl, and not to mention that the Japanese are way more rabidly defendant of their franchises despite declining quality/repetitiveness than anybody else.

Anyway I still find Pokemon fun, and had a great time with my copy of Black, so I don't mind it for the time being.

 

[farq1414]

maybe? i mean look at this

Spoiler: pokemon

pokemon

i think you would run out of ideas for pokemon when you make make one after a garbage bag.

Spoiler: but they didn't stop there

but they didn't stop there

they had to give it a evolution.

What? Kinda like sludge coming to life? Grimer is basically Trubbish's equivalent. Two-staged pure poison-type. Both are fairly ridiculous concepts.
Remember. The new region is based on the Manhattan Metropolitan Area. Sentient garbage makes sense when you're so close to Jersey.

a few things 1 is unova based after New York 2 i am aussie 3 what i mean is that they are running out of idears for pokemon

 

[Nooners]

Having not played a Pokemon game seriously since the original Silver, I really feel like I'm missing out with some of my friends recently, and want to pick up either Black/White or HG/SS at some point (would need to get a DS first, of course...). The point being, of course, that even though I haven't played it seriously in over a decade, I'm still wanting to play it.

 

[Nostalgia]

maybe? i mean look at this

Spoiler: pokemon

pokemon

i think you would run out of ideas for pokemon when you make make one after a garbage bag.

Spoiler: but they didn't stop there

but they didn't stop there

they had to give it a evolution.

What? Kinda like sludge coming to life? Grimer is basically Trubbish's equivalent. Two-staged pure poison-type. Both are fairly ridiculous concepts.
Remember. The new region is based on the Manhattan Metropolitan Area. Sentient garbage makes sense when you're so close to Jersey.

a few things 1 is unova based after New York 2 i am aussie 3 what i mean is that they are running out of idears for pokemon

Uh. Wow.
One: I said that. I guess it's define as the "New York" metropolitan area, but I hear both thrown around. Guess someplace in Kansas is also called Manhattan, fancy that. Either way, Kansas is no where close to Jersey. Kind of obvious what I meant.
Two: That's nice?
Three: Just because you don't like them doesn't mean that they are running out of ideas. The only reason why people say that they were running out of ideas when they made things like Mr. Mime is because it was the first batch. He's just as ridiculous or even more so than the newer Pokemon that people love to throw around as examples for Game Freak's apparent lack of imagination.