I appreciate this video a lot! There are so many times I've heard people call Let's Go or Legends Arceus spinoffs when they aren't, and its nice to see a video essay that goes over why. Pokémon fans have always been in an awful habit of overcategorizing things throughout the years. X Thing is Y because ABC criteria... except for this one because vibes. Has always driven me nuts, haha.
In my opinion, Game Freak, The Pokemon Company, and Creatures Inc. have the final word on which of their games is the mainline and which is a spin-off, even if some players disagree with them. For example, they have defined the Legends titles PLA and ZA as part of the mainline. Yes, they are different, but the decision-making power over this is not in our hands, it is in the hands of the companies that make the games.
Let’s go and Legends are both spinoffs to me, because they deviate so drastically from the main games. It’s not that they are just a cool shake up, but a pretty different experience. I really can’t consider them mainline if they drop several normal mechanics, add so many new ones, then almost none of those changes are in the next game
My take on if a Pokémon game is a spinoff is if it’s vastly different as well as part of a series. I will always consider PLA a spinoff as it was meant to test to see if it would be a good series/test how mechanics could work in future games. I get why people think PLA is a mainline but me personally, now there’s legends ZA, we can put the legends games in their own little bubble now
I appreciate this video a lot! There are so many times I've heard people call Let's Go or Legends Arceus spinoffs when they aren't, and its nice to see a video essay that goes over why. Pokémon fans have always been in an awful habit of overcategorizing things throughout the years. X Thing is Y because ABC criteria... except for this one because vibes. Has always driven me nuts, haha.
This guy gave his thoughts on the internet.
In my opinion, Game Freak, The Pokemon Company, and Creatures Inc. have the final word on which of their games is the mainline and which is a spin-off, even if some players disagree with them. For example, they have defined the Legends titles PLA and ZA as part of the mainline. Yes, they are different, but the decision-making power over this is not in our hands, it is in the hands of the companies that make the games.
Let’s go and Legends are both spinoffs to me, because they deviate so drastically from the main games. It’s not that they are just a cool shake up, but a pretty different experience. I really can’t consider them mainline if they drop several normal mechanics, add so many new ones, then almost none of those changes are in the next game
My take on if a Pokémon game is a spinoff is if it’s vastly different as well as part of a series. I will always consider PLA a spinoff as it was meant to test to see if it would be a good series/test how mechanics could work in future games. I get why people think PLA is a mainline but me personally, now there’s legends ZA, we can put the legends games in their own little bubble now
The biggest reason why people think PLA is a mainline game is that the Pokemon Company and Game Freak themselves say and count it as a mainline game.