@@captainmeaty_png it’s a joke referencing the Sonic the Hedgehog series and how it supposedly had a rough transition to 3D, which is a flat out lie meant to bully the franchise and its fans. And Sonic Adventure is, in fact, a wonderful game that was a technical marvel for the time, with better gameplay and camera than Mario 64, better voice acting than Castlevania Symphony of the Night and better facial animations than Metal Gear and Resident Evil (which don’t have facial animations or details at all).
@@Hynotama Actually, Sonic _did_ have a somewhat rough transition into 3D... but not because of Adventure, it's because of 3D Blast and R. :) And those aren't really "mainline" games, so it's not that big of a deal.
People keep talking about how Game freak should return to sprites, but imagine fully hand drawn Pokemon that look exactly like their official art, animation and all. That would be amazing
Agreed there's so much they can still do with sprites. Heck they could probably get away with some stylized art style (something like Okami almost) and that would even work better if they wanted to keep at it with the 3D
Or, just go with the style of Pokemon Colosseum & GO, but updated to the level of X and Y, then spend time to actually polish the game, finally adding the rest of the pokemon in slowly in paid DLCs. Should make the perfect pokemon game. Sure no one would be mad if they did that for a remake of Scarlet and Violet, make it an actual good game, add a few more secrets, and offer a digital discount and the ability to upload your save as reparations for how bad it was. Fans would be ecstatic!
A big issue I've often seen brought up quite fairly is how the 3D models are often very desaturated compared to the sprites the older pokemon had before. From a 3D design perspective it makes a lot of sense to scale the colors back so that the rendering engine can handle the rest but the implementation has just been so lackluster.
That definitely makes sense. I agree the models look a little muted in terms of color but yeah that's really just the tip of the technical problems imo. I think it's important to make the game functional before making it pretty
They did an amazing job translating them to 3D in Pokémon Stadium 1 and 2 so that's a very lazy excuse to justify Gamefreak simply not putting effort into their infinite money cash cow since they'll make bank either way
@@GameprojordanI think a lot of that has to do with how the models are designed. Stadium models were way more exaggerated, mainly due to hardware limitations, which worked out in Game Freaks favor since they could be a lot more animated. Meanwhile the newer games try their best to keep the models on model and it really suffers for that.
I personally really loved Sword and Shield's artistic choices for that: for the first time in years, the pokemons were finally colorful, and it felt really good.
I think it really shows when they remaster the older gen games. The rock solid core of the old gen games mixed with a fresh coat of paint sells like hotcakes. It is proof that it is not just nostalgia bias.
Agreed! We've gotten a lot of remakes that just did incredibly well and comparing that to some of the other titles it just shows that it sells well and people do still enjoy the formula
I don't know if that's true. Red, Blue, Green, and Yellow are not the best in any regard, but we get revisits to Kanto that sell amazingly well. A game's ability to sell is not an indicator of its quality. More typically, it just means that it markets itself well to people. Like there's a reason Pokemon Go did so well, despite being basically inefficient shovelware. And that's just that it started with the original 150 and you could get it on your phone, plus the AR gimmick offered something novel.
@@56ty_ the new games still haven't topped the original games sales in terms of units sold. Also gold and silver originals are very close to matching S&S as well as S&V. The remakes don't sell as much as the latest new mainline Pokemon titles but I never said they did and honestly nobody is claiming they sold more so that really isn't making a point.
@@gannonkendrick9343 imo Pokemon go did well because almost everyone has a phone and almost everyone loves Pokemon. It's fun and gimmicky. Sure, sales aren't a huge indicator I agree but to have constant steady sales title after title... There has to be some correlation. It's not just some well marketed one-off lucky title that didn't deserve its success. This is a two and a half decade old franchise. The first games are not the best but they laid the foundation that every mainline Pokemon release still goes by to this day. That deserves praise on its own. The newer games (particularly the last two mainline releases) are more flawed than the original games in my opinion. Buggy messes with a lackluster world.
I think that is in part true, I think the other part is that they're probably rushed for time. Cranking out one a year given all that they're trying to do is a pretty difficult task. However they're also backed by Nintendo so they could afford to hire more people you'd assume lol. I wanna believe they still care about the series but who knows at the end of the day
@Toaster6942 Which is true, but I think if they were more humble about it, I would be more willing to understand... instead, they've lied and attacked fans. Even calling them entitled.
@@captainmeaty_pnga game dev pointed out how having a lot of money and time and resources does not guarantee a good game. It gives room for the devs to create something great but it's not guaranteed. The issue of the richest company not being able to do X is sad, is it doesn't account for the time constraints and expectations.
With 500+ hours into Palworld and genuinely falling in love with the game to the point where i think about Pokemon less and less, looking back at the golden era of pokemon (gen 1 through 5) it really does feel like a lifetime ago that the franchise has felt any kind of special.
I find it incredible that there is still a big community that has a heart for the 2D games. There are so many Romhacks with fantastic ideas and graphics - Many of the S+ Tier are built on the Fire Red or Emerald Engine. Looking at Romhacks like Pokemon Unbound, Radical Red, Inclement Emerald etc. one can see what potential lies in the old 2d games. If someone reads this and has not played Pokemon Unbound it is really time for you to start the best Pokemon game there is
B2W2 is the best game in the series, but IMO USUM is the second best game in the series. I think the move to the Switch was where the series really lost its momentum, not the transition to 3D
That could definitely be the case. I think a lot of it has to do with the newer games being non linear and it just presents some odd growing pains for the series
Honestly I think it’s just a Gamefreak skill problem and a time problem. Their other non-Pokemon 3D games are also ass. They just don’t have 3D expertise. Nom-GF 3D Pokemon games look and perform well. Genius Sorority nailed the GCN games. BDSP looked fine. New Pokemon Snap was great. It can partly be put down to release cycles, but also there are certain things you can solve by throwing manpower at it, and one of those is animation. It’s a thousand+ distinct models/animations. That can be dealt with by hiring and delegating. It’s a necessary skill for AAA 3D games, and one Gamefreak doesn’t seem to have. I’d love to see the franchise handed to a different studio (and with more freedom than what was given to ILCA for BDSP). As an aside, when we anthropomorphise companies, why is it we always call them “lazy”? For Gamefreak, when it comes to 3D, they push out an impressive amount of content. The problem is, they’re rushed, and they’re just not very good at it.
Gen 1 art style just has that comic-book hand drawn charm, all of the character designs will forever live in my head. I think what is the most perplexing thing about the direction that modern 3-D Pokémon has taken is the fact that it’s the largest media franchise on earth. There’s just no excuse for it to suck; they could pay people that could figure it out, so the fact that it remains a lackluster product is super lame. They’re just phoning it in to some degree, maybe?
That's what I was thinking looking back at these games for this video. And true they have enough resources to hire some artists. I think maybe a change in art style could make the models look a little less bland but that's just an idea
I think 3d Pokemon should have stayed as it looked on colosseum. The characters were anime style and that's more fitting for Pokemon opposed to the bubbly cartoon look it has now. You'd be surprised at how the art style can change the feeling of the game or franchise. It could either make it or break it
In part, I think that part of the issue is pumping things out every year means that they need to take shortcuts. Back when it was sprite based pixel art, it wasn't that big of an issue to create new creatures and pump out a new game, but now that it is 3D model based, it takes far longer to make them now, especially with over 1000 of the creatures and you need to make new ones too. While I do believe that Gamefreak is taking too many shortcuts, especially with animations and graphics, which look worse in Sword/Shield (the last in the series that I played) than Battle Revolution, a game that came out about 18 years ago, I also find it somewhat odd that they aren't innovating in other ways. The formula has been largely the same for nearly the entirety of the mainline series' lifespan. Legends Arceus tried to be something different and many people enjoyed it. Optimization is another issue altogether, but I do think they should be ashamed about how poorly the games run on the Switch. However, that ties back into the whole time aspect as well. If they are rushed to put the product to market, then that's partially why the games are so poorly optimized. Story is another major issue. Personally, I loved Black/White when it first came out not just because of the animations and sprite work (I love pixel art), but also the story was actually pretty mature and touched on topics that I haven't seen Pokemon tackle before. Compared to Sword/Shield where the story was so off putting as Champion Leon just shows up, blocks you from investigating anything of interest, and tells you to just focus on the gyms, while he goes off to save the day and you're not told about any of the main plot until five minutes before the game ends. That was pretty awful. If Sword/Shield was an earlier generation game, we would have been at the forefront in helping Leon investigate what was going on.
Very well said! All great points. Honestly if they just took more time with these games and fine tuned them with the newer formula I think they could be pretty good
One of my personal most distinct dislikes with newer games is that realistic lighting of 3D games pales in comparison to hand crafted lighting in 2D games. Quite litterally. As the older games was way more saturated and had a lot more contrast between areas. In 3D space, it all just looks and feels desaturated and the same everywhere. Pixelart also leaves some wonder for the imagination, as opposed to geometry which actually needs to follow some rules to be acceptable to look at. 2D art has creative freedom that can't be conceiled when using 3D art. Making it loose a lot of the good satisfactory elements of a cartoon environment!
Very good point! It's sad because some of the areas were kinda pretty and in concept were cool. Yeah you can make some really realistic and detailed looking models but you can't really hide the flaws in 3D
@@captainmeaty_png In 2D you can also fake animation with sliding movement, and it still feels good. Cartoon effects also break realism on purpose to get more feeling of power to a punch or speed to a movement by allowing the body to shape in a weird way that would definitely look wrong anatomically in 3D, at least with a free camera. And they look more dull in comparison. Honestly, reality feels really boring in many aspects, which is why I seek escape from it in games. This general trend towards ultra realism and HD has not been a happy one for me. I heard some Dragonball or Naruto games went through quite the lengthy process of nailing their transitions. I have not evaluated their quality myself. But I got the impression they really did a deep job of addressing problems. Might be an interesting watch for this topic.
I’ve been saying this for YEARS. It would’ve been awesome if they just kept evolving it in a HD 2D way- kind of in the vain of the new Dragon Quest remakes 🔥 🔥
I'd love to see a return to something like BW2 but with some more of the updated systems. not that I hate everything from the newer games but I do think the 2D games and the flow of the gameplay just worked so well
i don't think GF is lazy, i think they're insane, trying to make a so called triple AAAAAAA videogame franchise in this day and age with the same amount of ppl as they did for handhelds... I think they need to... invest more money on hiring more people, as well as dropping that ridiculous yearly release thing... which they seem to be doing for the new legends installment, so im happy about that one, but im still skeptical.
What a chad. You have good taste my friend. Gen 2 is also my favorite, as much as I liked one and it kind of kicked off my love for the series I think 2 is just so much better in many regards
The only thing i absolutely love in ScarletViolet is an opportunity to interact more with your pokemon(even tho its still bland as heck). Having pokemon follow you and fight by themselves and getting box legendary travel with you since the very beggining of the game is really nice and cute. I want my pokemon to feel like pets and friends, not fighting tools
That's fair, that is a great addition. I thought it was crazy that some games let them follow behind you. It's little things like that, that add a ton to the atmosphere of the game
Gen 5 which were my first pokemon games and now recently Emerald are the only 2D games ive beaten fully, I've started HGSS but didn't get far, and there felt like so much personality in all of the areas in the games. Sun and Moon and Sword and Shield I honestly think look pretty good environment wise (minus wild area), not the most jaw dropping gorgeous graphics by any means but the still feel/look nice imo. I think if they did work on model and animation reworks those games would've been recieved much better. That being said, I do prefer the 2D artstyle. I know there are some ROM hacks and stuff of some of the 3d games turned into 2D ones using Gen 4 and 5 sprites and stuff, so I might give those a try at some point.
2d Pokémon is an era thats likely to never come back. And that's ok. I still hope and pray that Pokémon will eventually find a decent footing when it comes to quality but for now its looking rather bleak. If you guys are still longing a cool 2d Pokémon experience then I'd recommend fan games. Where gamefreak has fallen and left the fans decided to take action and alot of them are really creative
Just look at the models Pokerogue is useing for newer gen pokemons. It is gen 5 with animations and they feel alive. Most of them look great but in the actual games they look mostly bland with no soul
Gen 2 has ALWAYS been my favorite _specifically_ for the well-defined day/night cycle and real-time clock. And it wasn't just some gimmick, either. You could only get certain pokemon depending on what time of day it was. I was _heavily_ bummed when they ditched this in RSE. I totally get the preference for HGSS, but GSC just has a bigger nostalgia factor for me. HGSS is the best way to play Gen 2 for the first time.
Pokemon B&W to me is the last good Pokemon game, and aesthetically I like the 2.5 D it took a lot better than the 3D models. The modern 3D modern games currently just look so lifeless and too plastic-looking. B&W & B2W2 was the best direction for an angled camera, and moving sprites. There is something about though having 2.5D art that just looks good because its stylized as more with a camera that had more of an optical effect than just generic 3D.
As someone who played all Pokémon games since the release first gen before I was able to read: the big problem the 3ds era had was bad pacing (exempt ORAS), the greatest problem of the switch era (sword and shield were surprisingly fun to play) was the bad technical implementation. Frame stutters ruin almost every game. If you look back at the older gens: gen 1 was surprisingly fine, gen 2 had bad pacing. Gen 3 R/S were surprisingly great, FR/LG were good and E had atleast for me rather annoying pacing due to doubled up evil team bases . Gen 4 had bad pacing, I even dropped platinum and HG/SS bc it felt so annoying. Gen 5 was surprisingly good.
okay that is true that the pacing of Diamond & Pearl was bad and had an abysmal regional dex which both did get fixed in Platinum. but gen 4 was painfully slow and being where HM's were at their absolute worst with how many where required to beat the game (a grand total of 7....and 5 where needed to clear Victory Road and reach the league which is disgusting)
3D was a breath of fresh air by the time X & Y came out. In fact, it felt like it was long overdue. But GF has botched everything since going 3D. We all thought it would bring better animations, more exciting battles, more creative worlds, more interactivity, and the games finally beginning to resemble what we imagined when watching the anime. None of that happened. GF could barely program a functional game, so they cut as many corners as possible to just push out the games. Same formula, little to no innovation, tweaked gimmicks while dropping others, same lazy animations, slow battles, lack of modern QoL improvements, etc. Look at what Atlus does with just making their UI's & battles more engaging & fun to navigate. Pokemon goes the opposite route & slowly shows you each status effect, stat change, weather FX, etc. one at a time for each Pokemon, slowly dragging out each fight (especially in Scarlet & Violet considering the lag processing between turns). All the cool ideas fans dreamed of growing up never came to fruition. Even multiplayer has remained functionally the same. Where's the creativity? How cool would it be if YOU could make your own gym & upload it online for others to face? Design your own badge, gym name, layout, teams, etc and allow friends & others to tackle it, kind of like an expanded version of your hidden base? What about a more interactive world & actual role-playing elements? Legends Arceus did this to a small degree, actually having side quests & more reasons to explore & fill out your Pokedex, but that was about it. NPCs are still silent & one-note, aside from how technically awful they look & move. Then you have things like the dynamic camera from the Stadium & Colusseum games, giving battles more excitement instead of the typical angles we've had forever. Not these games though! The Switch can play much bigger, prettier games like Xenoblade & Zelda, while also offering tons of other things going on, but not Pokemon! Despite raking in even more money for decades, it gets treated like a small AA game that can't afford a competent dev team.
I don’t know if there’s a connection, but the shift to 3D also was when there was a shift in the philosophy of the game development that difficulty had to be lowered. X and Y starts to overpower the EXP share, within a couple of generations you can’t toggle it off! The Battle Frontier being excluded from ORAS except for a model of a building on an island was straight up explained on it being seen as too difficult for players, when the challenge was exactly the appeal of the Frontier. You also have Sun and Moon, as well as the Ultra games, being too linear and handholdy, where you had bridges blocked to tell you where to go and sequences you were mashing A or just waiting to get back to actually playing the game. It’s frustrating because Black 2 and White 2 added in a difficulty option feature, albeit as postgame and whether you unlocked easy or hard mode depended on the game you played, but that would have been a great step to cater to multiple areas of experience and challenge on the one game cart. The people doing a first playthrough or younger players less experienced with the franchise
I’m sick of seeing the Typhlosion used as an example of a bad 3D adaptation when ever since Johto the whole line’s think was that their back flames go up when they are _attacking._ so yeah, they’re not gonna always be out like in the sprite version.
Making this comment BEFORE watching, but opening thoughts: 1. Black and White 2 were still my favorite games before Scarlet and Violet. 2. I always thought the shift to X and Y was a downgrade, and I wound up HATING Sun and Moon. 3. Scarlet and Violet has a lot of strengths, at least in my mind, if you're willing or able to look past the game's technical flaws. Its story and soundtrack are both among the best of any Pokemon game, and the open world is diverse and varied - something fairly hard to pull off. World design is a fine art. Scarlet and Violet's gym leaders are also among the best character-wise, even if many of their teams leave a lot to be desired in raw power and strategy. 4. Terastallization is really cool and I don't know if you'll make me come around on that.
I agree. I never had much problems with the supposed bugs of the game. It is one of the very best Pokémon games. Great game play, great story, loads to do during and after the game. Lots of good Pokémon too. It seems to me people who don’t rate S&V just listen to social media rather than their own pleasure in playing.
Scarlet and Violet needed level scaling for the gym leaders for how you could do them in any order, and eight possible level plus move set configurations for each gym leader would have added replay value.
I think that you can do both in the same game and have a wonderful project. I always look at the Yu-Gi-Oh! Tag Force series and I always wonder why there was no such Pokemon game like that yet.
For the 3D experience you need Unity and Unreal. And a little bit of blender but I almost go with unity and blender It's up to you guys which programme that you guys want to use
Despite its flaws, 2D Pokemon was an era that just brought the whimsical nature of Pokemon, especially Gen 4 with Platinum & HGSS. And Gen 5? That was the best of the 2D era period and had this sensation of really understanding what the Pokemon world was all about with more of a stake in the game with Part 1 and more of the battling and exploration in Part 2. Something I wish Pokemon Company can let Game Freak do again with the 3D games, which I'm hopeful is happening with Legends ZA since Legends Arceus planted the foundation for it to happen.
At least the gen 6 and 7 games felt like there was some effort put into polish. Gen 9 is just an absolute sin. Runs and plays awful, with nearly no content and wild game balance.
Honestly I think of the earlier 3D Pokemon games were kinda peak like ORAS and especially USUM but after the jump to the switch (which Gamefreak didn't have much experience with making console stuff) the quality of the games did get worse.
Imagine a super stylised pokemon game like imagine having a hifi rush or okami type of stylised graphics. Pokemon would peak at that point in 3D bonus points if they animated it to be stylised and fluid, too
Im so glad people are talking about this more! Pokémon is the highest grossing media franchise ever in existence on Earth. They have the connections, ability, and MONEY to make the best video games we have ever seen. Yet, ever since S&S, we have gotten unfinished, under-baked projects (of course with redeemable qualities) that have the potential, but clearly don’t have the time and polish put in them. Ultra sun and moon was such a good step forward for the 3D era IMO but they dropped the ball afterward. They are choosing to ignore fan feedback at this point and seem to be using Pokemon games as a cash cow. There really aren’t anymore excuses.. I hope things can turn around with legends ZA and onward, but my hopes aren’t too high…
I definitely think the transition to 3d was a rocky one, which involved almost a redefining of the series as a whole. It can't ever be the same, but I think there is potential in this new direction. Game freak obviously needs time to figure this out though.
That's my opinion as well. I think there's a lot of cool stuff that they could do with it but I think they need to figure out how to make it work better
Modern Pokémon has definitely been a ride for sure. I’m glad things have been steadily moving forward to more copacetic circumstances in regards to scope (PL:Z-A being set in Lumiose City) and quality (in regards to models; Blastoise & Venusaur in SV) and time (next big title in 2025). It’s just so unbelievable that it will have taken a whole console generation to get this ironed out. I think the step to 3D has benefited the franchise in many ways _AND_ was necessary for the games to grow and evolve with hardware and concepts- however, the demand for it outgrew the pace of development, and slapped them right in the face at SV’s launch. So not just a console generation, but also one hefty pile of unoptimized slop to realize just how tied Gamefreak’s hands were. And also Ed Sheeran. But yeah, I’m hopeful for the future of Pokémon- despite the grudge I laid out earlier. I think with anything else, 2D and 3D mediums both have their place. There are a lot of magical moments 2D Pokémon has had with a lot of people, and I think many others have forgotten that 3D Pokémon is still continuing to do just that. The transition from handheld to home console really drove a nail into a lot of people’s heads- that it would be this steady stream into bolder, more beautiful games when- that stream couldn’t be more rocky. This Modern Era of Pokémon needs and deserves more time. Manpower, resources, QA. The whole shebang. And a whole lot more people need to realize that. also, not to be that guy, but PL:A wasn’t advertised as an open-world game. never has been. but i guess it depends on your definition on what an open world is-
No disrespect to the 2D/2.5 era of the pokemon games but: I think 3D is much better. The new friendship mechanics like pokemon amie, pokemon refresh, pokemon camp and pokemon picnics have increased the level of inmersion with your pokemon to the point where it's not even a contest. It's on a completely different level compared to sprites. You can play with them, you can feed them, clean them, heal them, bathe them, they can get close and interact with you directly, they can interact with each other and you can see/interact with more than one at the time and they even walk near you in the overworld. The pokemon have small reactions when they defeat a pokemon or when they're just waiting for you to command the next attack, they can literally decide to join your team if they're wild pokemon while using some of the buddy time mechanics (like in pokemon camp). They can even show expressions like getting angry or scared of other pokemon which already is more personality than what you can get watching a sprite. Heck, have you seen pokemon like Sudowoodo, Passimian or Mr. Mime fainting animations? You have more personality there than in the basic movement of multiple sprites. Not to mention that with 3D the pokemon in the wild either run towards you or straigh up attack you, act curious towards you when they see you, they react when you whistle at them or flee from you based on what their personality is meant to portray. And what can you do with 2D sprites? Oh yeah, you can see them from the front or from the back doing a pose at best and unless you're going to use a potion on them or revive them you basically can only see them in battle. Also let's be real, if the pokemon company would've stayed with 2D sprites right now we'll have a massive amount of "fans" whining about how pokemon is as big as it is and still doesn't jump to 3D yet. And people love to whine about moves like double kick or tackle on scorbunny, you know, those moves that you totally are going to keep in its moveset and not replace after the first 15 minutes or less of the game and forget that with 3D you get vastly superior inmersion when it comes to moves as well. Do people seriously think that moves like giga impact, flamethrower, thunderbolt or hyper beam are nearly as cool in 2D as they're in 3D? Of course not. But sure, "3D moves look bad". Heck, you can't even see the face of your own avatar with 2D. While on the other hand with 3D you can custumize the player character to look like you, you can see them throwing the pokeball to catch or battle againts other pokemon or trainers, you can even see the player character during battle and not just the back of the pokemon and you can also see the trainer doing movements when you order a pokemon to do a move. "I like to use my imagination" is not a great argument when you consider that this kind of games heavily rely on connection to your team. And with 3D you get far more interactions which in turn, get you more connection because you can actually experience more things with them than just watching them from the back during battle. Sorry for the ridiculously long comment. I just wanted to share my opinion and I tend to write a lot.
Tbh the defense just crumbles when you look at Shin Megami Tensei 5 Atlus picked Unreal Engine 4 for completely unknown reason, so they essentially have to make most of the stuff from scratch and have to learn a new game engine. In the end, the game looks beautiful, very "charming", quite cinematic, runs at almost 30 FPS in the open world, actually fun to play In the enhanced version, SMTV Vengeance, they added so much new stuff, its practically a new game. They added demons that never been in 3D games, they didnt have to do that Pokemon as a whole makes more money than Disney, yet, they cant spare a penny to make sure the game have enough people to sustain its scope. Or pivot, like cutting over half of the Pokedex to create more nuanced and detailed experience. Imagine you could play with your Pokemon like how you play with your dog, that would make incredibly endearing moment... unlike whatever that shit they did in ScarletViolet They couldve open a division that is dedicated to R&D-ing new technologies to be implemented in future Pokemon games
I wouldn't have minded too much if Game Freak _did_ reuse assets from older games. It's because they said they wouldn't, but did so anyway, that they damaged the trust between them & the fans. Ideally, but probably not possible, I'd love for them to reuse models & animations from the Hoenn Pokémon from *Colosseum/XD* & the Sinnoh Pokémon from *Revolution* so they can save a bit of time to create new assets for the newer gen Pokémon as well as revamping the older *Stadium* models, while keeping the animations. Of course, I could only dream.
It's super common to do and it does save a lot of time and effort but don't lie about it lol. If there's nothing wrong with the assets don't fix them I suppose but that's only if they're good to begin with
17:40 I highly doubt any of SwSh models look worse than the reused N64 models for the wii game. I know SwSh is everyone's favorite punching bag when it comes to switch games as of late but we should realize the good stuff it did as well. We could still customize our clothes fully unlike gen 9, we also could hunt the older legendaries without them being shiny locked in max raid adventures whereas they're still shiny locked in the DLC making it feel pointless, and it gave us a dope gym theme.
I think a big part of the problem is the push for a new Pokemon game every year without fail. Allowing more time to perfect things even if it takes longer is something Nintendo should be willing to do for a better game.
The reason why Black n White so good, even extended to a sequel in the same generation, bcz back then people believe 2012 is the world's end. That's why GF/Nintendo/Pokemon Company pushed thier limitations to create a *final* masterpiece 2D pokemon games before the world's end. Having nowhere to go after the greatest 2D pokemon game, as it's might be as far as 2D can go or perhaps the brain behind Black n White has *gone, instead of keeping the performance they're going to improve* their game by going to 3D. And here we are
Okay. After watching, I think I can say you're being a little unfair, and maybe STILL approaching this through a lens of nostalgia. 1. In spite of what you might think, each town in Scarlet and Violet does have its own distinctive personality, and feels different. It's in the layout, color palette, surrounding environment, and soundtrack. There are two or three big cities, but you'd be hard-pressed to confuse them if you'd spent any time in them. 2. Open world does create the problem where not every NPC says something interesting, and most buildings are empty. This is a technical limitation of open world though. You can see that problem with almost any open world game. (It's why Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom aspired to themes of desolation, creating a world that reinforced the necessary emptiness - there's only so much you can keep loaded, and the design time could take decades otherwise). It's why Skyrim and Fallout are a lot of copy and pasted assets. 3. Pokemon design hasn't gotten stale. Or if it has, you haven't offered a lot of support for that thesis. You haven't done much of a critical deep dive on 2D versus 3D. You kind of just lump 3D together. This deserved a lot more focus. The 3D games have a lot of strengths, even if there are glaring weaknesses. X, Y, Omega Ruby, and Alpha Sapphire feel unfinished and rushed because they were. Sun and Moon are glorified cutscene exhibitions, and the rental Pokemon are a joke. But for all of its flaws, there are many things the latest games have improved upon. We need a return to 2D, because Black and White 2 were banging.
I will agree I should have delved a bit deeper into each of the 3D games as to give a better analysis and I think because I do think some things in the 3D games were pretty good and if they weren't as rushed for time between each game I think it could have been very good. Personally I think more sprite based games would be nice but it seems like they wanna keep going in the direction of the newer games which is fine as long as they polish them up a bit more before shipping them out.
I dont think the 1k+ pokedex is a big ask since they are the top grossing franchise company. They abandon every staple and replace it with things we never asked for like terastilization when we just want mega evolutions and z moves. But above all we just want follow pokemon and a return of sprites or artwork. The 3D has just been cursed...
I will never forgive Gamefreak for butchering my boy, my son, my FIRST PARTNER with the conversion to Gen 6 models. It took way to long to give my boy his Flames back.
The sweet spot were gens 3, 4 and 5. gens 1 and 2 were still very basic, and the modern games took concerning direction. to me, games such as emerald, soulsilver and black 2 will always be example of what a true pokemon experience is
They wanted to move away from 2D so bad because of the kid consumer. Little did they know that years later Pixel Art made a fantastic come back (Octopath Traveler as an example) and sold millions. Even indie studios prefer pixel art and the quality is way better than Game Freak's lazy 3D.
It's sad because there's something so timeless and unique about good pixel art. Seems like every new indie game takes that approach, usually to great success and praise. Not saying good 3D can't be done but I think it works better stylized in a way
I'm also not convinced they learned from their mistakes, as there was never a performance update at all (Amy Western company would be KILLED for leaving their game in that state), and things actually got worse after the DLC released...
Genius Sonority showed us how vibrant and expressive Pokémon could look in 3D…on the GameCube. Game Freak, for whatever reason, has consistently failed to emulate that magic for over a decade now.
Ehh idk, I never cared for sprite art tbh, I grew up on the stadium, gale of darkness, and battle revolution games more and I just never found the sprite based games as enganging as a kids tbh. I always dreamed of pokemon going 3D and for B&W 2 I kinda skipped because I got bored of pixel art aesthetic. And when gen 6 showed up I got interested in pokemon again. Pokemon has had its issues I believe its because of time crunch and them needing to hire more people, now that they are given more time I kinda think they will improve moving foward with legends ZA, especially with how improved the models look for scarlet and violet. If pokemon did go back to sprite art I would be so disappointed tbh it would just feel like they called it quits and I would probs lose interest again, I just dont like pixel art or the aesthetic I kinda have always found it lame personally even as a kid. I kinda enjoyed 3d more because I love how the pokemon, pokemon battles, and gimmicks look, also imo the designs have been so much more creative and better than most pokemon that they created pre gen 4, alot of pokemon that werent the pseudos or fan favorites were all just filler mons that are pretty much forgotten and their only hope at being relevant again is by having a new form gimmick.
@@captainmeaty_png Oh, you replied. Well, if we are at it, I commented becaue I think XY has the best story, and UltraS&M has very good difficulty. I saw what you are looking for is deeply different than what I'm interrested in of the franchise, so I didn't even mind that much you skipped over the gen 6-7 titles...
Personally I'm not a fan of how story focussed the games became after gen 2. Gen 3 was great and the inspiration behind it's narrative and setting is very interesting and makes me appreciate those games more, and the gen V games have some strong personality despite some weirdness in those stories. But for me I find pokemon is at it's strongest when you're doing the mundane pohemon stuff, I find more times than not that the story distracts from the adventure and it's hard to feel like I'm doing anything when most of the cool stuff was pointed out to me be a forced cutscene or being completely sidetracked into a side area because god forbid we miss it. One thing I love in gsc is how Team Rocket are just doing scams and being a nuisance more than anything, and even in rgby they're just Yakuza gangsters acting the micky. In a weird way it grounds the world and makes it feel more like a lived in place than the setting to a story. I also like how the box legendaries of gsc are optional, you are given an item to summon them through regular progression but you never have to go to the Tin Tower, and even then there's never a big deal made of it, just you and the legendary either you catch it or you don't, nothing matters beyond that. The older legendaries feel actually mystical and legendary because of how mythical they're treated. In a weird contradiction I actually enjoy grinding levels and evolving my box pokemon more now as an adult than I did as a child, kind of mediative to do between work shifts, I'm currently playing Crystal on 3ds for the last few years playing around the post game, actually caught all the beasts, Ho-Oh, Lugia and Celebi. And all the daily stuff is fun too, have attended a few Bug contests and interact with the phone trainers, even went to the sale on the roof, though it was a little disappointing lol I would love to see a pokemon game like this again, even just a side game.
I think that was one of the biggest draws of gen 2 also. Since Team Rocket was less prevalent in that game you kinda just roamed around soaking in the sights of Johto and catching Pokemon.
Just as GameFreak had about mastered the top down format with 2D sprites, everything fell apart when they jumped to 3D. And despite how successful they are, TPC and GF have refused to invest in the games’ quality. And tbh they have zero financial incentive when these suckers still sell 20+ million. I have no faith things will improve at this rate. Some big changes need to happen.
That is true. Despite the games being a technical nightmare and one of the worst, SV still sold a ton so it's gonna look like they aren't doing anything wrong
Sure 3D has had it's hiccups, but it was a logical step for the franchise to jump to. but if there is 1 thing i can say was a positive, it was the removal of HM's from gen 7 onward, I was so happy they where removed because of how annoying they where and incentivized needing a mon you'd have to withdraw solely for the HM's you never wanted to have on your main team (Sinnoh by far was the worst offender). So i'm glad those are gone and STAY gone.
It makes sense for sure, and the first couple games are gonna have their growing pains but I'm hoping it'll be better as the series goes on. There's been quite a bit of quality of life improvements made to the game formula which I appreciate and the concept of a nice looking 3D open world game sounds great but I definitely think they need to take their time with them more
2d had more features a lot of features were lost in the transition to 3D and the older pokemon design were made with 2d in mind which explains why they look worse in 3D
I kinda had to take this video with a grain of salt as soon as you said pkmn's beginning was in 98. It in fact was in 96 with red and green. Something easily google-able.
I mean that's fair. Murican here, so that's my frame of reference and where I decided to start the timeline. You right though technically it was earlier with Red and Green but I focused on the US releases of the games.
@@captainmeaty_png makes sense. I dont mean to nitpick either, its just alot of your video, especially towards the end, doesnt feel concrete enough to warrent the argument you're making. There is no real way to know how bad or good gen 6-9 is if you havent fully played it yourself. I dont recall yoh talking about Gen 7's Alola, the story, the pkmn, or new mechanics. Same for gen 8. Id love to hear your perspective of every reigon other than key points everyone already knows and says ad nauseum. I really liked your gen 2 section, because it felt like it was the most personal to you. Though every section was short, that one was sweet. I suppose the only issue in that is you didnt speak upon GSC, you mainly spoke of HGSS and used that games footage for it. Just little things like that here and there that rob your work of nuance. But I hope you do keep making videos!! Dont stop if thats what your passionate about :>>
GameFreak finally needs to take their time with the games inbetween releases, instead of still trying to pump out a new game each year / new dlc. The potential is there, but clearly, they arent using it to its fullest
It is getting worse to me but that is mainly because i hate all those new versions of old Pokemon especially now because they are counted somehow in the dex.
You think HOENN didn’t have any lazy designs... REALLY? Wurmple: What if Caterpie and Weedle, but... FUSED TOGETHER? Plusle/Minun: Pichu, but TWO! Feebas: Magikarp, Generic Version. Azurill: Marril as a baby. Spinda: Knockoff Teddiursa. Tailow: Blue Spearow. Seedot/Lotad: Plant themed version exclusives? Where have we seen THAT before?(Oddish/Bellsprout) Hoenn was just as uninspired as most of the rest.
Nintendo should remake the original games but add in all the cut pokeon from gen 1 they had planned to add including gorochu. Make it retro sprite based. Always wanted to play as slowbros tail !
I feel like Pokémon is having an identity crisis. Every game implements wildly different mechanics and genuinely feels like they’re conflicted about what to do with each game. Open world was a big mistake for the mainline games. They should have done a split with the main games remaining linear, maybe with wild areas being a new staple so you still get a taste of open style pokemon hunting. They could have kept the open world to the legends series and just kept the 2 separate. Scarlet and Violet was so disappointing for me. I didn’t feel good to play and nothing in the region was memorable. Like what even is this region?! I sure hope they can do something to turn things around before they ruin the franchise.
Agreed. It's odd they spend time programming in new mechanics just to discard them next game for something probably worse lol. I like the idea of what they're trying to do with the open world games but I think Pokemon works better being a bit more linear
The old games made us use our imaginations way more, i think. Maybe the should stop creating new gens and mechanics for a while and try to bring that feeling back.
Yes. Because GamefrEAk still hasn't figured out the 3rd Dimension even after Genius Sonority did that for them back in Gen 3. And are just incompetent in general.
breath of the wild doesn't have a bunch of Pokémon running, flying, or moving around in the background. A better comparison would be Xenoblade but theirs drops in the quality of graphics with those games as well....
I agree pixel-art is better, but I think Gen4 was peak specifically HGSS. Gen5 fell off a cliff and the series never recovered, the battle animations and overall blurriness were nauseating and the Pokemon are boring and uncreative, almost the entire roster is just flatout derivative of previous Pokemon made worse. I love almost every Pokemon in the first four generations like easily 90% plus of each roster, but starting with Gen5 I have only liked maybe 10% of each roster at best.
Absolutely yes. These new games are garbage. They are just unplayable. I never even played fire red and leaf green when they came out until 2020 and I can't put them down. Trading with emerald setting up for the battle frontier. This is peak pokemon. Today's and just lifeless. And don't even get me started on the designs.
“Pokémon had a rough transition into 3D”
Only slightly rough lol
@@captainmeaty_png it’s a joke referencing the Sonic the Hedgehog series and how it supposedly had a rough transition to 3D, which is a flat out lie meant to bully the franchise and its fans. And Sonic Adventure is, in fact, a wonderful game that was a technical marvel for the time, with better gameplay and camera than Mario 64, better voice acting than Castlevania Symphony of the Night and better facial animations than Metal Gear and Resident Evil (which don’t have facial animations or details at all).
@@Hynotama Actually, Sonic _did_ have a somewhat rough transition into 3D... but not because of Adventure, it's because of 3D Blast and R. :) And those aren't really "mainline" games, so it's not that big of a deal.
@@Hynotamalmaooo i thot so
@@captainmeaty_pngNo, it's been rough. We need to stop sugarcoating.
People keep talking about how Game freak should return to sprites, but imagine fully hand drawn Pokemon that look exactly like their official art, animation and all. That would be amazing
Agreed there's so much they can still do with sprites. Heck they could probably get away with some stylized art style (something like Okami almost) and that would even work better if they wanted to keep at it with the 3D
Or, just go with the style of Pokemon Colosseum & GO, but updated to the level of X and Y, then spend time to actually polish the game, finally adding the rest of the pokemon in slowly in paid DLCs.
Should make the perfect pokemon game. Sure no one would be mad if they did that for a remake of Scarlet and Violet, make it an actual good game, add a few more secrets, and offer a digital discount and the ability to upload your save as reparations for how bad it was.
Fans would be ecstatic!
"Is pokémon getting worse?"
YES!
A big issue I've often seen brought up quite fairly is how the 3D models are often very desaturated compared to the sprites the older pokemon had before. From a 3D design perspective it makes a lot of sense to scale the colors back so that the rendering engine can handle the rest but the implementation has just been so lackluster.
That definitely makes sense. I agree the models look a little muted in terms of color but yeah that's really just the tip of the technical problems imo. I think it's important to make the game functional before making it pretty
They did an amazing job translating them to 3D in Pokémon Stadium 1 and 2 so that's a very lazy excuse to justify Gamefreak simply not putting effort into their infinite money cash cow since they'll make bank either way
@@GameprojordanI think a lot of that has to do with how the models are designed. Stadium models were way more exaggerated, mainly due to hardware limitations, which worked out in Game Freaks favor since they could be a lot more animated.
Meanwhile the newer games try their best to keep the models on model and it really suffers for that.
I personally really loved Sword and Shield's artistic choices for that: for the first time in years, the pokemons were finally colorful, and it felt really good.
I think it really shows when they remaster the older gen games. The rock solid core of the old gen games mixed with a fresh coat of paint sells like hotcakes. It is proof that it is not just nostalgia bias.
Agreed! We've gotten a lot of remakes that just did incredibly well and comparing that to some of the other titles it just shows that it sells well and people do still enjoy the formula
I don't know if that's true. Red, Blue, Green, and Yellow are not the best in any regard, but we get revisits to Kanto that sell amazingly well.
A game's ability to sell is not an indicator of its quality. More typically, it just means that it markets itself well to people.
Like there's a reason Pokemon Go did so well, despite being basically inefficient shovelware. And that's just that it started with the original 150 and you could get it on your phone, plus the AR gimmick offered something novel.
Whaf are you talking about? The new games sell x2
@@56ty_ the new games still haven't topped the original games sales in terms of units sold. Also gold and silver originals are very close to matching S&S as well as S&V. The remakes don't sell as much as the latest new mainline Pokemon titles but I never said they did and honestly nobody is claiming they sold more so that really isn't making a point.
@@gannonkendrick9343 imo Pokemon go did well because almost everyone has a phone and almost everyone loves Pokemon. It's fun and gimmicky.
Sure, sales aren't a huge indicator I agree but to have constant steady sales title after title... There has to be some correlation. It's not just some well marketed one-off lucky title that didn't deserve its success. This is a two and a half decade old franchise.
The first games are not the best but they laid the foundation that every mainline Pokemon release still goes by to this day. That deserves praise on its own. The newer games (particularly the last two mainline releases) are more flawed than the original games in my opinion. Buggy messes with a lackluster world.
Eeeeeh, Game Freak is extremely lazy and that's evident in the reused assets, cut content, TERRIBLE optimization, and bare minimum design quality.
I think that is in part true, I think the other part is that they're probably rushed for time. Cranking out one a year given all that they're trying to do is a pretty difficult task. However they're also backed by Nintendo so they could afford to hire more people you'd assume lol. I wanna believe they still care about the series but who knows at the end of the day
To be fair, there's only so much you can do when you're forced to rush out a game in less than a year
@Toaster6942 Which is true, but I think if they were more humble about it, I would be more willing to understand... instead, they've lied and attacked fans. Even calling them entitled.
@captainmeaty_png Yes, but is that a good enough excuse to backtrack on promised features and fixes then say it's the fan's fault?
@@captainmeaty_pnga game dev pointed out how having a lot of money and time and resources does not guarantee a good game. It gives room for the devs to create something great but it's not guaranteed. The issue of the richest company not being able to do X is sad, is it doesn't account for the time constraints and expectations.
The sprites in B/W and B/W 2 had more life and personality than anything since X and Y dropped
Absolutely
Peak
The issue is not 3D. The issue is the lack of tallent in Game Freak's Development team.
Actually problem solved they about to get more
With 500+ hours into Palworld and genuinely falling in love with the game to the point where i think about Pokemon less and less, looking back at the golden era of pokemon (gen 1 through 5) it really does feel like a lifetime ago that the franchise has felt any kind of special.
I find it incredible that there is still a big community that has a heart for the 2D games.
There are so many Romhacks with fantastic ideas and graphics - Many of the S+ Tier are built on the Fire Red or Emerald Engine.
Looking at Romhacks like Pokemon Unbound, Radical Red, Inclement Emerald etc. one can see what potential lies in the old 2d games.
If someone reads this and has not played Pokemon Unbound it is really time for you to start the best Pokemon game there is
Yeah it's really inspiring to see the work some of these Romhacks have dumped into them
It's also because the old engines are more modular and understood due to their age, availability and code.
B2W2 is the best game in the series, but IMO USUM is the second best game in the series. I think the move to the Switch was where the series really lost its momentum, not the transition to 3D
That could definitely be the case. I think a lot of it has to do with the newer games being non linear and it just presents some odd growing pains for the series
This is exactly why the video "the advantages of branching out from only playing pokemon" exists.
Honestly I think it’s just a Gamefreak skill problem and a time problem.
Their other non-Pokemon 3D games are also ass. They just don’t have 3D expertise. Nom-GF 3D Pokemon games look and perform well. Genius Sorority nailed the GCN games. BDSP looked fine. New Pokemon Snap was great.
It can partly be put down to release cycles, but also there are certain things you can solve by throwing manpower at it, and one of those is animation. It’s a thousand+ distinct models/animations. That can be dealt with by hiring and delegating. It’s a necessary skill for AAA 3D games, and one Gamefreak doesn’t seem to have.
I’d love to see the franchise handed to a different studio (and with more freedom than what was given to ILCA for BDSP).
As an aside, when we anthropomorphise companies, why is it we always call them “lazy”? For Gamefreak, when it comes to 3D, they push out an impressive amount of content. The problem is, they’re rushed, and they’re just not very good at it.
Gen 1 art style just has that comic-book hand drawn charm, all of the character designs will forever live in my head.
I think what is the most perplexing thing about the direction that modern 3-D Pokémon has taken is the fact that it’s the largest media franchise on earth. There’s just no excuse for it to suck; they could pay people that could figure it out, so the fact that it remains a lackluster product is super lame. They’re just phoning it in to some degree, maybe?
That's what I was thinking looking back at these games for this video. And true they have enough resources to hire some artists. I think maybe a change in art style could make the models look a little less bland but that's just an idea
I think 3d Pokemon should have stayed as it looked on colosseum. The characters were anime style and that's more fitting for Pokemon opposed to the bubbly cartoon look it has now. You'd be surprised at how the art style can change the feeling of the game or franchise. It could either make it or break it
In part, I think that part of the issue is pumping things out every year means that they need to take shortcuts. Back when it was sprite based pixel art, it wasn't that big of an issue to create new creatures and pump out a new game, but now that it is 3D model based, it takes far longer to make them now, especially with over 1000 of the creatures and you need to make new ones too.
While I do believe that Gamefreak is taking too many shortcuts, especially with animations and graphics, which look worse in Sword/Shield (the last in the series that I played) than Battle Revolution, a game that came out about 18 years ago, I also find it somewhat odd that they aren't innovating in other ways. The formula has been largely the same for nearly the entirety of the mainline series' lifespan. Legends Arceus tried to be something different and many people enjoyed it.
Optimization is another issue altogether, but I do think they should be ashamed about how poorly the games run on the Switch. However, that ties back into the whole time aspect as well. If they are rushed to put the product to market, then that's partially why the games are so poorly optimized.
Story is another major issue. Personally, I loved Black/White when it first came out not just because of the animations and sprite work (I love pixel art), but also the story was actually pretty mature and touched on topics that I haven't seen Pokemon tackle before. Compared to Sword/Shield where the story was so off putting as Champion Leon just shows up, blocks you from investigating anything of interest, and tells you to just focus on the gyms, while he goes off to save the day and you're not told about any of the main plot until five minutes before the game ends. That was pretty awful. If Sword/Shield was an earlier generation game, we would have been at the forefront in helping Leon investigate what was going on.
Very well said! All great points. Honestly if they just took more time with these games and fine tuned them with the newer formula I think they could be pretty good
One of my personal most distinct dislikes with newer games is that realistic lighting of 3D games pales in comparison to hand crafted lighting in 2D games.
Quite litterally. As the older games was way more saturated and had a lot more contrast between areas. In 3D space, it all just looks and feels desaturated and the same everywhere.
Pixelart also leaves some wonder for the imagination, as opposed to geometry which actually needs to follow some rules to be acceptable to look at.
2D art has creative freedom that can't be conceiled when using 3D art. Making it loose a lot of the good satisfactory elements of a cartoon environment!
Very good point! It's sad because some of the areas were kinda pretty and in concept were cool. Yeah you can make some really realistic and detailed looking models but you can't really hide the flaws in 3D
@@captainmeaty_png In 2D you can also fake animation with sliding movement, and it still feels good. Cartoon effects also break realism on purpose to get more feeling of power to a punch or speed to a movement by allowing the body to shape in a weird way that would definitely look wrong anatomically in 3D, at least with a free camera. And they look more dull in comparison. Honestly, reality feels really boring in many aspects, which is why I seek escape from it in games. This general trend towards ultra realism and HD has not been a happy one for me.
I heard some Dragonball or Naruto games went through quite the lengthy process of nailing their transitions. I have not evaluated their quality myself. But I got the impression they really did a deep job of addressing problems. Might be an interesting watch for this topic.
I’ve been saying this for YEARS. It would’ve been awesome if they just kept evolving it in a HD 2D way- kind of in the vain of the new Dragon Quest remakes 🔥 🔥
I'd love to see a return to something like BW2 but with some more of the updated systems. not that I hate everything from the newer games but I do think the 2D games and the flow of the gameplay just worked so well
maybe when switch 2 comes out, we would get a bw and bw2 remakes that are like that hopefully
I agree and I hope they go this route for Gen 5 remakes seeing as how they skipped it
i don't think GF is lazy, i think they're insane, trying to make a so called triple AAAAAAA videogame franchise in this day and age with the same amount of ppl as they did for handhelds... I think they need to... invest more money on hiring more people, as well as dropping that ridiculous yearly release thing... which they seem to be doing for the new legends installment, so im happy about that one, but im still skeptical.
Captain Peaky
gen 2 will always be my old man favourite as much as i love gen 1
What a chad. You have good taste my friend. Gen 2 is also my favorite, as much as I liked one and it kind of kicked off my love for the series I think 2 is just so much better in many regards
Gen 1 was the best...if you were there battling and trading like I was as a kid. Next level
The only thing i absolutely love in ScarletViolet is an opportunity to interact more with your pokemon(even tho its still bland as heck). Having pokemon follow you and fight by themselves and getting box legendary travel with you since the very beggining of the game is really nice and cute. I want my pokemon to feel like pets and friends, not fighting tools
That's fair, that is a great addition. I thought it was crazy that some games let them follow behind you. It's little things like that, that add a ton to the atmosphere of the game
Gen 5 which were my first pokemon games and now recently Emerald are the only 2D games ive beaten fully, I've started HGSS but didn't get far, and there felt like so much personality in all of the areas in the games. Sun and Moon and Sword and Shield I honestly think look pretty good environment wise (minus wild area), not the most jaw dropping gorgeous graphics by any means but the still feel/look nice imo. I think if they did work on model and animation reworks those games would've been recieved much better.
That being said, I do prefer the 2D artstyle. I know there are some ROM hacks and stuff of some of the 3d games turned into 2D ones using Gen 4 and 5 sprites and stuff, so I might give those a try at some point.
2d Pokémon is an era thats likely to never come back. And that's ok. I still hope and pray that Pokémon will eventually find a decent footing when it comes to quality but for now its looking rather bleak. If you guys are still longing a cool 2d Pokémon experience then I'd recommend fan games. Where gamefreak has fallen and left the fans decided to take action and alot of them are really creative
Just look at the models Pokerogue is useing for newer gen pokemons. It is gen 5 with animations and they feel alive. Most of them look great but in the actual games they look mostly bland with no soul
See that was the biggest draw for gen 5 for me was that the sprites and animations were so crispy
Gen 2 has ALWAYS been my favorite _specifically_ for the well-defined day/night cycle and real-time clock. And it wasn't just some gimmick, either. You could only get certain pokemon depending on what time of day it was. I was _heavily_ bummed when they ditched this in RSE. I totally get the preference for HGSS, but GSC just has a bigger nostalgia factor for me. HGSS is the best way to play Gen 2 for the first time.
That is very true I think the originals have a very specific feel to them that can't be replicated even by the remakes as great as they were.
Pokemon B&W to me is the last good Pokemon game, and aesthetically I like the 2.5 D it took a lot better than the 3D models. The modern 3D modern games currently just look so lifeless and too plastic-looking. B&W & B2W2 was the best direction for an angled camera, and moving sprites. There is something about though having 2.5D art that just looks good because its stylized as more with a camera that had more of an optical effect than just generic 3D.
Actually sun and moon is the last great entry in this franchise
As someone who played all Pokémon games since the release first gen before I was able to read: the big problem the 3ds era had was bad pacing (exempt ORAS), the greatest problem of the switch era (sword and shield were surprisingly fun to play) was the bad technical implementation. Frame stutters ruin almost every game.
If you look back at the older gens: gen 1 was surprisingly fine, gen 2 had bad pacing. Gen 3 R/S were surprisingly great, FR/LG were good and E had atleast for me rather annoying pacing due to doubled up evil team bases .
Gen 4 had bad pacing, I even dropped platinum and HG/SS bc it felt so annoying. Gen 5 was surprisingly good.
@_zantetsuken_ they rushed it
okay that is true that the pacing of Diamond & Pearl was bad and had an abysmal regional dex which both did get fixed in Platinum.
but gen 4 was painfully slow and being where HM's were at their absolute worst with how many where required to beat the game (a grand total of 7....and 5 where needed to clear Victory Road and reach the league which is disgusting)
3D was a breath of fresh air by the time X & Y came out. In fact, it felt like it was long overdue.
But GF has botched everything since going 3D. We all thought it would bring better animations, more exciting battles, more creative worlds, more interactivity, and the games finally beginning to resemble what we imagined when watching the anime.
None of that happened. GF could barely program a functional game, so they cut as many corners as possible to just push out the games. Same formula, little to no innovation, tweaked gimmicks while dropping others, same lazy animations, slow battles, lack of modern QoL improvements, etc.
Look at what Atlus does with just making their UI's & battles more engaging & fun to navigate. Pokemon goes the opposite route & slowly shows you each status effect, stat change, weather FX, etc. one at a time for each Pokemon, slowly dragging out each fight (especially in Scarlet & Violet considering the lag processing between turns).
All the cool ideas fans dreamed of growing up never came to fruition. Even multiplayer has remained functionally the same. Where's the creativity?
How cool would it be if YOU could make your own gym & upload it online for others to face? Design your own badge, gym name, layout, teams, etc and allow friends & others to tackle it, kind of like an expanded version of your hidden base?
What about a more interactive world & actual role-playing elements? Legends Arceus did this to a small degree, actually having side quests & more reasons to explore & fill out your Pokedex, but that was about it. NPCs are still silent & one-note, aside from how technically awful they look & move.
Then you have things like the dynamic camera from the Stadium & Colusseum games, giving battles more excitement instead of the typical angles we've had forever. Not these games though!
The Switch can play much bigger, prettier games like Xenoblade & Zelda, while also offering tons of other things going on, but not Pokemon! Despite raking in even more money for decades, it gets treated like a small AA game that can't afford a competent dev team.
I don’t know if there’s a connection, but the shift to 3D also was when there was a shift in the philosophy of the game development that difficulty had to be lowered. X and Y starts to overpower the EXP share, within a couple of generations you can’t toggle it off! The Battle Frontier being excluded from ORAS except for a model of a building on an island was straight up explained on it being seen as too difficult for players, when the challenge was exactly the appeal of the Frontier.
You also have Sun and Moon, as well as the Ultra games, being too linear and handholdy, where you had bridges blocked to tell you where to go and sequences you were mashing A or just waiting to get back to actually playing the game.
It’s frustrating because Black 2 and White 2 added in a difficulty option feature, albeit as postgame and whether you unlocked easy or hard mode depended on the game you played, but that would have been a great step to cater to multiple areas of experience and challenge on the one game cart. The people doing a first playthrough or younger players less experienced with the franchise
I’m sick of seeing the Typhlosion used as an example of a bad 3D adaptation when ever since Johto the whole line’s think was that their back flames go up when they are _attacking._ so yeah, they’re not gonna always be out like in the sprite version.
Making this comment BEFORE watching, but opening thoughts:
1. Black and White 2 were still my favorite games before Scarlet and Violet.
2. I always thought the shift to X and Y was a downgrade, and I wound up HATING Sun and Moon.
3. Scarlet and Violet has a lot of strengths, at least in my mind, if you're willing or able to look past the game's technical flaws. Its story and soundtrack are both among the best of any Pokemon game, and the open world is diverse and varied - something fairly hard to pull off. World design is a fine art. Scarlet and Violet's gym leaders are also among the best character-wise, even if many of their teams leave a lot to be desired in raw power and strategy.
4. Terastallization is really cool and I don't know if you'll make me come around on that.
I agree. I never had much problems with the supposed bugs of the game. It is one of the very best Pokémon games. Great game play, great story, loads to do during and after the game. Lots of good Pokémon too. It seems to me people who don’t rate S&V just listen to social media rather than their own pleasure in playing.
Scarlet and Violet needed level scaling for the gym leaders for how you could do them in any order, and eight possible level plus move set configurations for each gym leader would have added replay value.
I think that you can do both in the same game and have a wonderful project. I always look at the Yu-Gi-Oh! Tag Force series and I always wonder why there was no such Pokemon game like that yet.
Gen 4 and 5 were definitely THE PEAK of Pokemon.
No 2-5
2-4*
Kinda of minor point, but having Zora's Domain as outro music is actually really great. I dig it.
Right? I love it, it's one of the best tracks in video game music imo and works as a cozy ending theme
They should learn from Ni No Kuni... they got really cool 3d monster turn-based battles and it was launched back in 2011...
I've never heard of that one I'll have to check it out
Ni No Kuni is a great game!
For the 3D experience you need Unity and Unreal. And a little bit of blender but I almost go with unity and blender It's up to you guys which programme that you guys want to use
Despite its flaws, 2D Pokemon was an era that just brought the whimsical nature of Pokemon, especially Gen 4 with Platinum & HGSS. And Gen 5? That was the best of the 2D era period and had this sensation of really understanding what the Pokemon world was all about with more of a stake in the game with Part 1 and more of the battling and exploration in Part 2. Something I wish Pokemon Company can let Game Freak do again with the 3D games, which I'm hopeful is happening with Legends ZA since Legends Arceus planted the foundation for it to happen.
Yes sad to say but yes 2d pokemon Was its peak
At least the gen 6 and 7 games felt like there was some effort put into polish. Gen 9 is just an absolute sin. Runs and plays awful, with nearly no content and wild game balance.
I sincerely hope they can take peoples opinions into consideration and make better games going forward
Honestly I think of the earlier 3D Pokemon games were kinda peak like ORAS and especially USUM but after the jump to the switch (which Gamefreak didn't have much experience with making console stuff) the quality of the games did get worse.
That's a great point. For what they were XY USUM weren't too bad but I do think the decline hit hard when switching to the Switch
Fr fr
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Imagine a super stylised pokemon game like imagine having a hifi rush or okami type of stylised graphics. Pokemon would peak at that point in 3D bonus points if they animated it to be stylised and fluid, too
That's exactly what I was thinking! They could do the best of both worlds in a way
Im so glad people are talking about this more! Pokémon is the highest grossing media franchise ever in existence on Earth. They have the connections, ability, and MONEY to make the best video games we have ever seen. Yet, ever since S&S, we have gotten unfinished, under-baked projects (of course with redeemable qualities) that have the potential, but clearly don’t have the time and polish put in them. Ultra sun and moon was such a good step forward for the 3D era IMO but they dropped the ball afterward. They are choosing to ignore fan feedback at this point and seem to be using Pokemon games as a cash cow. There really aren’t anymore excuses.. I hope things can turn around with legends ZA and onward, but my hopes aren’t too high…
I definitely think the transition to 3d was a rocky one, which involved almost a redefining of the series as a whole. It can't ever be the same, but I think there is potential in this new direction. Game freak obviously needs time to figure this out though.
That's my opinion as well. I think there's a lot of cool stuff that they could do with it but I think they need to figure out how to make it work better
2d pokemon make rom hacks and fan games easier to make lol
Modern Pokémon has definitely been a ride for sure. I’m glad things have been steadily moving forward to more copacetic circumstances in regards to scope (PL:Z-A being set in Lumiose City) and quality (in regards to models; Blastoise & Venusaur in SV) and time (next big title in 2025).
It’s just so unbelievable that it will have taken a whole console generation to get this ironed out.
I think the step to 3D has benefited the franchise in many ways _AND_ was necessary for the games to grow and evolve with hardware and concepts- however, the demand for it outgrew the pace of development, and slapped them right in the face at SV’s launch.
So not just a console generation, but also one hefty pile of unoptimized slop to realize just how tied Gamefreak’s hands were.
And also Ed Sheeran.
But yeah, I’m hopeful for the future of Pokémon- despite the grudge I laid out earlier. I think with anything else, 2D and 3D mediums both have their place. There are a lot of magical moments 2D Pokémon has had with a lot of people, and I think many others have forgotten that 3D Pokémon is still continuing to do just that.
The transition from handheld to home console really drove a nail into a lot of people’s heads- that it would be this steady stream into bolder, more beautiful games when- that stream couldn’t be more rocky.
This Modern Era of Pokémon needs and deserves more time. Manpower, resources, QA. The whole shebang. And a whole lot more people need to realize that.
also, not to be that guy, but PL:A wasn’t advertised as an open-world game. never has been.
but i guess it depends on your definition on what an open world is-
Nothing beats Golbat's infamous sprite.
No disrespect to the 2D/2.5 era of the pokemon games but:
I think 3D is much better. The new friendship mechanics like pokemon amie, pokemon refresh, pokemon camp and pokemon picnics have increased the level of inmersion with your pokemon to the point where it's not even a contest. It's on a completely different level compared to sprites.
You can play with them, you can feed them, clean them, heal them, bathe them, they can get close and interact with you directly, they can interact with each other and you can see/interact with more than one at the time and they even walk near you in the overworld.
The pokemon have small reactions when they defeat a pokemon or when they're just waiting for you to command the next attack, they can literally decide to join your team if they're wild pokemon while using some of the buddy time mechanics (like in pokemon camp). They can even show expressions like getting angry or scared of other pokemon which already is more personality than what you can get watching a sprite. Heck, have you seen pokemon like Sudowoodo, Passimian or Mr. Mime fainting animations? You have more personality there than in the basic movement of multiple sprites.
Not to mention that with 3D the pokemon in the wild either run towards you or straigh up attack you, act curious towards you when they see you, they react when you whistle at them or flee from you based on what their personality is meant to portray.
And what can you do with 2D sprites? Oh yeah, you can see them from the front or from the back doing a pose at best and unless you're going to use a potion on them or revive them you basically can only see them in battle.
Also let's be real, if the pokemon company would've stayed with 2D sprites right now we'll have a massive amount of "fans" whining about how pokemon is as big as it is and still doesn't jump to 3D yet.
And people love to whine about moves like double kick or tackle on scorbunny, you know, those moves that you totally are going to keep in its moveset and not replace after the first 15 minutes or less of the game and forget that with 3D you get vastly superior inmersion when it comes to moves as well.
Do people seriously think that moves like giga impact, flamethrower, thunderbolt or hyper beam are nearly as cool in 2D as they're in 3D? Of course not. But sure, "3D moves look bad".
Heck, you can't even see the face of your own avatar with 2D. While on the other hand with 3D you can custumize the player character to look like you, you can see them throwing the pokeball to catch or battle againts other pokemon or trainers, you can even see the player character during battle and not just the back of the pokemon and you can also see the trainer doing movements when you order a pokemon to do a move.
"I like to use my imagination" is not a great argument when you consider that this kind of games heavily rely on connection to your team. And with 3D you get far more interactions which in turn, get you more connection because you can actually experience more things with them than just watching them from the back during battle.
Sorry for the ridiculously long comment. I just wanted to share my opinion and I tend to write a lot.
"Now" as if it hasn't been bad for a literal decade.
The DS games weren't that long ago right? God I'm old
@@captainmeaty_png black and white 2 are twelve years old
Tbh the defense just crumbles when you look at Shin Megami Tensei 5
Atlus picked Unreal Engine 4 for completely unknown reason, so they essentially have to make most of the stuff from scratch and have to learn a new game engine. In the end, the game looks beautiful, very "charming", quite cinematic, runs at almost 30 FPS in the open world, actually fun to play
In the enhanced version, SMTV Vengeance, they added so much new stuff, its practically a new game. They added demons that never been in 3D games, they didnt have to do that
Pokemon as a whole makes more money than Disney, yet, they cant spare a penny to make sure the game have enough people to sustain its scope. Or pivot, like cutting over half of the Pokedex to create more nuanced and detailed experience. Imagine you could play with your Pokemon like how you play with your dog, that would make incredibly endearing moment... unlike whatever that shit they did in ScarletViolet
They couldve open a division that is dedicated to R&D-ing new technologies to be implemented in future Pokemon games
I wouldn't have minded too much if Game Freak _did_ reuse assets from older games. It's because they said they wouldn't, but did so anyway, that they damaged the trust between them & the fans.
Ideally, but probably not possible, I'd love for them to reuse models & animations from the Hoenn Pokémon from *Colosseum/XD* & the Sinnoh Pokémon from *Revolution* so they can save a bit of time to create new assets for the newer gen Pokémon as well as revamping the older *Stadium* models, while keeping the animations.
Of course, I could only dream.
It's super common to do and it does save a lot of time and effort but don't lie about it lol. If there's nothing wrong with the assets don't fix them I suppose but that's only if they're good to begin with
17:40 I highly doubt any of SwSh models look worse than the reused N64 models for the wii game.
I know SwSh is everyone's favorite punching bag when it comes to switch games as of late but we should realize the good stuff it did as well. We could still customize our clothes fully unlike gen 9, we also could hunt the older legendaries without them being shiny locked in max raid adventures whereas they're still shiny locked in the DLC making it feel pointless, and it gave us a dope gym theme.
The only monster pal that hasn't suffered from the 3d sprite update is my boy Slowpoke. 😂
Slowpoke truly is an unstoppable force
I think a big part of the problem is the push for a new Pokemon game every year without fail. Allowing more time to perfect things even if it takes longer is something Nintendo should be willing to do for a better game.
Exactly! Which is strange because they're published by Nintendo who always preaches about taking time to make a quality game.
The reason why Black n White so good, even extended to a sequel in the same generation, bcz back then people believe 2012 is the world's end. That's why GF/Nintendo/Pokemon Company pushed thier limitations to create a *final* masterpiece 2D pokemon games before the world's end. Having nowhere to go after the greatest 2D pokemon game, as it's might be as far as 2D can go or perhaps the brain behind Black n White has *gone, instead of keeping the performance they're going to improve* their game by going to 3D. And here we are
Okay. After watching, I think I can say you're being a little unfair, and maybe STILL approaching this through a lens of nostalgia.
1. In spite of what you might think, each town in Scarlet and Violet does have its own distinctive personality, and feels different. It's in the layout, color palette, surrounding environment, and soundtrack. There are two or three big cities, but you'd be hard-pressed to confuse them if you'd spent any time in them.
2. Open world does create the problem where not every NPC says something interesting, and most buildings are empty. This is a technical limitation of open world though. You can see that problem with almost any open world game. (It's why Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom aspired to themes of desolation, creating a world that reinforced the necessary emptiness - there's only so much you can keep loaded, and the design time could take decades otherwise). It's why Skyrim and Fallout are a lot of copy and pasted assets.
3. Pokemon design hasn't gotten stale. Or if it has, you haven't offered a lot of support for that thesis.
You haven't done much of a critical deep dive on 2D versus 3D. You kind of just lump 3D together. This deserved a lot more focus.
The 3D games have a lot of strengths, even if there are glaring weaknesses. X, Y, Omega Ruby, and Alpha Sapphire feel unfinished and rushed because they were. Sun and Moon are glorified cutscene exhibitions, and the rental Pokemon are a joke.
But for all of its flaws, there are many things the latest games have improved upon.
We need a return to 2D, because Black and White 2 were banging.
I will agree I should have delved a bit deeper into each of the 3D games as to give a better analysis and I think because I do think some things in the 3D games were pretty good and if they weren't as rushed for time between each game I think it could have been very good.
Personally I think more sprite based games would be nice but it seems like they wanna keep going in the direction of the newer games which is fine as long as they polish them up a bit more before shipping them out.
gen 5 was peak, anything after that was trash.
Theres a good reason why i think infinite fusion is easily the best pokemon game released for normal fans, despite being a ridiculous mod
*Pokémon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum* 🥳
*Pokémon HeartGold/SoulSilver* 😍
*Pokémon Black/White* 🤯
*Pokémon X/Y* 😁
*Pokémon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire* ☺
*Pokémon Sun/Moon* 🙂
*Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu!/Eevee!* 😶
*Pokémon Sword/Shield* 🤢
*Pokémon Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl* 🤮
*Pokémon Legends: Arceus* 🤗
*Pokémon Scarlet/Violet* 😠
Honestly a very based opinion imo lol
@@captainmeaty_png after Scarlet/Violet, never again will I buy a Pokémon game unless the world-fans and critics alike-universally say it's good.
I dont think the 1k+ pokedex is a big ask since they are the top grossing franchise company. They abandon every staple and replace it with things we never asked for like terastilization when we just want mega evolutions and z moves. But above all we just want follow pokemon and a return of sprites or artwork. The 3D has just been cursed...
Gen 3 also gave us running shoes if I remember correctly
I think you're right! Yeah that was a very good addition
I will never forgive Gamefreak for butchering my boy, my son, my FIRST PARTNER with the conversion to Gen 6 models. It took way to long to give my boy his Flames back.
The sweet spot were gens 3, 4 and 5. gens 1 and 2 were still very basic, and the modern games took concerning direction. to me, games such as emerald, soulsilver and black 2 will always be example of what a true pokemon experience is
They wanted to move away from 2D so bad because of the kid consumer. Little did they know that years later Pixel Art made a fantastic come back (Octopath Traveler as an example) and sold millions. Even indie studios prefer pixel art and the quality is way better than Game Freak's lazy 3D.
It's sad because there's something so timeless and unique about good pixel art. Seems like every new indie game takes that approach, usually to great success and praise. Not saying good 3D can't be done but I think it works better stylized in a way
I'm also not convinced they learned from their mistakes, as there was never a performance update at all (Amy Western company would be KILLED for leaving their game in that state), and things actually got worse after the DLC released...
Genius Sonority showed us how vibrant and expressive Pokémon could look in 3D…on the GameCube. Game Freak, for whatever reason, has consistently failed to emulate that magic for over a decade now.
Ehh idk, I never cared for sprite art tbh, I grew up on the stadium, gale of darkness, and battle revolution games more and I just never found the sprite based games as enganging as a kids tbh. I always dreamed of pokemon going 3D and for B&W 2 I kinda skipped because I got bored of pixel art aesthetic.
And when gen 6 showed up I got interested in pokemon again. Pokemon has had its issues I believe its because of time crunch and them needing to hire more people, now that they are given more time I kinda think they will improve moving foward with legends ZA, especially with how improved the models look for scarlet and violet. If pokemon did go back to sprite art I would be so disappointed tbh it would just feel like they called it quits and I would probs lose interest again, I just dont like pixel art or the aesthetic I kinda have always found it lame personally even as a kid.
I kinda enjoyed 3d more because I love how the pokemon, pokemon battles, and gimmicks look, also imo the designs have been so much more creative and better than most pokemon that they created pre gen 4, alot of pokemon that werent the pseudos or fan favorites were all just filler mons that are pretty much forgotten and their only hope at being relevant again is by having a new form gimmick.
Interresting that you don't even take note on the non-openworld 3D titles.
I did briefly mention the gamecube titles but I should have went a bit more in depth with some of those good point!
@@captainmeaty_png Oh, you replied.
Well, if we are at it, I commented becaue I think XY has the best story, and UltraS&M has very good difficulty.
I saw what you are looking for is deeply different than what I'm interrested in of the franchise, so I didn't even mind that much you skipped over the gen 6-7 titles...
Personally I'm not a fan of how story focussed the games became after gen 2.
Gen 3 was great and the inspiration behind it's narrative and setting is very interesting and makes me appreciate those games more, and the gen V games have some strong personality despite some weirdness in those stories.
But for me I find pokemon is at it's strongest when you're doing the mundane pohemon stuff, I find more times than not that the story distracts from the adventure and it's hard to feel like I'm doing anything when most of the cool stuff was pointed out to me be a forced cutscene or being completely sidetracked into a side area because god forbid we miss it.
One thing I love in gsc is how Team Rocket are just doing scams and being a nuisance more than anything, and even in rgby they're just Yakuza gangsters acting the micky. In a weird way it grounds the world and makes it feel more like a lived in place than the setting to a story.
I also like how the box legendaries of gsc are optional, you are given an item to summon them through regular progression but you never have to go to the Tin Tower, and even then there's never a big deal made of it, just you and the legendary either you catch it or you don't, nothing matters beyond that.
The older legendaries feel actually mystical and legendary because of how mythical they're treated.
In a weird contradiction I actually enjoy grinding levels and evolving my box pokemon more now as an adult than I did as a child, kind of mediative to do between work shifts, I'm currently playing Crystal on 3ds for the last few years playing around the post game, actually caught all the beasts, Ho-Oh, Lugia and Celebi.
And all the daily stuff is fun too, have attended a few Bug contests and interact with the phone trainers, even went to the sale on the roof, though it was a little disappointing lol
I would love to see a pokemon game like this again, even just a side game.
I think that was one of the biggest draws of gen 2 also. Since Team Rocket was less prevalent in that game you kinda just roamed around soaking in the sights of Johto and catching Pokemon.
Once again I state that my hopes for the series have been pinned on gen 10 since gen 6 disappointed me.
Just as GameFreak had about mastered the top down format with 2D sprites, everything fell apart when they jumped to 3D. And despite how successful they are, TPC and GF have refused to invest in the games’ quality. And tbh they have zero financial incentive when these suckers still sell 20+ million. I have no faith things will improve at this rate. Some big changes need to happen.
That is true. Despite the games being a technical nightmare and one of the worst, SV still sold a ton so it's gonna look like they aren't doing anything wrong
Following the trend of shipping out half finished games? Pokemon and Gf pioneered that.
"On the hardest drugs known to man" that me laugh real hard
I'm so glad someone appreciated my dumb jokes 😁😂
Can't wait to watch a video essay that confirms my beliefs!
Hopefully it did not disappoint!
Sure 3D has had it's hiccups, but it was a logical step for the franchise to jump to.
but if there is 1 thing i can say was a positive, it was the removal of HM's from gen 7 onward, I was so happy they where removed because of how annoying they where and incentivized needing a mon you'd have to withdraw solely for the HM's you never wanted to have on your main team (Sinnoh by far was the worst offender). So i'm glad those are gone and STAY gone.
It makes sense for sure, and the first couple games are gonna have their growing pains but I'm hoping it'll be better as the series goes on. There's been quite a bit of quality of life improvements made to the game formula which I appreciate and the concept of a nice looking 3D open world game sounds great but I definitely think they need to take their time with them more
2d had more features a lot of features were lost in the transition to 3D and the older pokemon design were made with 2d in mind which explains why they look worse in 3D
I kinda had to take this video with a grain of salt as soon as you said pkmn's beginning was in 98. It in fact was in 96 with red and green. Something easily google-able.
I mean that's fair. Murican here, so that's my frame of reference and where I decided to start the timeline. You right though technically it was earlier with Red and Green but I focused on the US releases of the games.
@@captainmeaty_png makes sense. I dont mean to nitpick either, its just alot of your video, especially towards the end, doesnt feel concrete enough to warrent the argument you're making. There is no real way to know how bad or good gen 6-9 is if you havent fully played it yourself. I dont recall yoh talking about Gen 7's Alola, the story, the pkmn, or new mechanics. Same for gen 8.
Id love to hear your perspective of every reigon other than key points everyone already knows and says ad nauseum.
I really liked your gen 2 section, because it felt like it was the most personal to you. Though every section was short, that one was sweet. I suppose the only issue in that is you didnt speak upon GSC, you mainly spoke of HGSS and used that games footage for it.
Just little things like that here and there that rob your work of nuance. But I hope you do keep making videos!! Dont stop if thats what your passionate about :>>
it was peak, yeah, but we shouldn’t go back, we’re regressing devolution
GameFreak finally needs to take their time with the games inbetween releases, instead of still trying to pump out a new game each year / new dlc. The potential is there, but clearly, they arent using it to its fullest
Exactly! If they wanted to do something each year they could do some kind of spinoff game. Take more time for the mainline series
It is getting worse to me but that is mainly because i hate all those new versions of old Pokemon especially now because they are counted somehow in the dex.
I severly miss Fupachu ngl
Agreed it was a silly design but I loved it!
Zelda, Metroid, and Mario are Nintendo games Pokémon is Gamefreak, that a little behind the times of tech now
You think HOENN didn’t have any lazy designs... REALLY? Wurmple: What if Caterpie and Weedle, but... FUSED TOGETHER?
Plusle/Minun: Pichu, but TWO!
Feebas: Magikarp, Generic Version.
Azurill: Marril as a baby.
Spinda: Knockoff Teddiursa.
Tailow: Blue Spearow.
Seedot/Lotad: Plant themed version exclusives? Where have we seen THAT before?(Oddish/Bellsprout)
Hoenn was just as uninspired as most of the rest.
Pokemon is objectively at its peak with S&V. But yeah the 2d era was also good during the 2000s
I can definitely respect aspects of all of the games but I personally liked the 2D games more
@@captainmeaty_png hey that’s totally fair. I think most people here grew up with the 2d titles. I also love them.
Nintendo should remake the original games but add in all the cut pokeon from gen 1 they had planned to add including gorochu. Make it retro sprite based. Always wanted to play as slowbros tail !
it actually is possible to do this in one instance if you dig around and locate the gold and silver space world demo
That is a pretty neat idea! The space world demo is actually super cool to dive into. I love seeing beta concepts for games
@@captainmeaty_png my game involves fully fleshing the original ideas out!
I feel like Pokémon is having an identity crisis. Every game implements wildly different mechanics and genuinely feels like they’re conflicted about what to do with each game. Open world was a big mistake for the mainline games. They should have done a split with the main games remaining linear, maybe with wild areas being a new staple so you still get a taste of open style pokemon hunting. They could have kept the open world to the legends series and just kept the 2 separate. Scarlet and Violet was so disappointing for me. I didn’t feel good to play and nothing in the region was memorable. Like what even is this region?! I sure hope they can do something to turn things around before they ruin the franchise.
Agreed. It's odd they spend time programming in new mechanics just to discard them next game for something probably worse lol. I like the idea of what they're trying to do with the open world games but I think Pokemon works better being a bit more linear
Why 2D Pokémon was the FREAK of Pokémon ( ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) )
Based comment. what if instead of battling other trainers they sucked toes instead that would be crazy
@@captainmeaty_pngI mean shit, they’re game FREAK after all ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ lol
"New generations are creatively bankrupt"
As much as I agree about trash 3d models and downgraded gameplay, nah the designs carry modern games
Yes
Yes. Yes it is. Also the newest Poké look a little too weird
The old games made us use our imaginations way more, i think. Maybe the should stop creating new gens and mechanics for a while and try to bring that feeling back.
That's another point. They keep making mechanics that they use for one generation then never again. I kinda miss mega evolutions
Yes. Because GamefrEAk still hasn't figured out the 3rd Dimension even after Genius Sonority did that for them back in Gen 3. And are just incompetent in general.
I've been saying for years they should let Genius Sonority do another Pokemon game. Those were super fun
breath of the wild doesn't have a bunch of Pokémon running, flying, or moving around in the background. A better comparison would be Xenoblade but theirs drops in the quality of graphics with those games as well....
That's fair. I think it does run a bit better being set in a desolate Hyrule with less things in the overworld.
Pokemon Emerald was Peak
Nice video
Thanks so much!
It really has to do with color too
Very true! That really makes all the difference with certain games. I see the argument a lot about Pokemon recently that the colors are washed out
Hey man I wanted to watch the video but just some feedback, your mic kinda hurts my ears every time you pronounce the letter S.
Hey thanks for the feedback! First video with a new more powerful mic so I'm not quite adjusted to how far away and how loud to speak into the mic
I agree pixel-art is better, but I think Gen4 was peak specifically HGSS. Gen5 fell off a cliff and the series never recovered, the battle animations and overall blurriness were nauseating and the Pokemon are boring and uncreative, almost the entire roster is just flatout derivative of previous Pokemon made worse.
I love almost every Pokemon in the first four generations like easily 90% plus of each roster, but starting with Gen5 I have only liked maybe 10% of each roster at best.
Absolutely yes. These new games are garbage. They are just unplayable. I never even played fire red and leaf green when they came out until 2020 and I can't put them down. Trading with emerald setting up for the battle frontier. This is peak pokemon. Today's and just lifeless. And don't even get me started on the designs.
Did you speed up your voice?
Nah that's just my talking pace