Wednesday Ramble

Haven't done one of these in a while, but let's talk about that new Pokemon game, huh?

First, let me say how glad I am that the environments aren't stuck on a grid like Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee. People said they were only like that because it was a retro remake, and I think that's still a bullshit reasoning, but at least it hasn't infected the mainline series. Galar looks like the terrain has contours and gradients, it's an extension of Sun/Moon's aesthetic.

With that said, I'm still disappointed Gamefreak has once again refused to take that next step in terms of presentation of the world. The camera appears locked at a fixed angle again, and you'll be funneled through clear routes. I'm not saying Pokemon needs to become Breath of the Wild and turn into a completely open-ended game that tosses you into the world with no direction, but I do think it's about damn time the games stepped up to where Ocarina of Time was 20 years ago.




Give us a camera we can control, and open up the world a bit. I don't care if we're still guided from one area to the next by progression-blockers, but let us actually explore the world. Sometimes I think about those tableaus from the ending credits of the early Pokemon movies, and wish the actual games came anywhere close to conveying the same amount of scale and mood.



It's honestly disgraceful that the most successful JRPG franchise in the world, finally on a platform that it can't claim performance issues with, is still doing basically the same thing it's always done. Meanwhile, look at Dragon Quest XI! It's still a turn-based, linear storyline game, but managed to innovate enough to have rich environments and a proper 3D camera.

When your JRPG series is more conservative than Dragon Quest, you know something's wrong.

But even less forgivable is that from the looks of things, following Pokemon are gone. The one unambiguously good improvement from LGPE, and they nixed it. Again. If they really brought that mechanic back just to quarantine it in a remake yet again, I'm going to shit and die.

Now, maybe they could still be waiting to reveal that feature? They waited 7 months to confirm that custom clothes were returning in Sun/Moon, after being a main feature in X&Y. But like, why not have just one Pikachu running around? They got all the animations, they've had them since Sun/Moon and only used 151 of them in LGPE. Speaking of clothes, I didn't see any of that in this trailer, but like I just said, they did the same trick with Sun/Moon, so I'm assuming it'll be in the final game.

Man, I don't want to be that bitter old hater guy. And to be clear, there's nothing I see that I hate - it's the stuff I don't see that upsets me. Because I know Gamefreak has the resources to do better, but not the gumption. Because this franchise deserves better.

Here's hoping the new crop of Pokemon is good, and the story/characters are engaging. At the worst, it'll just be Another Pokemon Game. which is still pretty dang good, all things considered.