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Pokémon games have become consistently ugly, and it's alright to wish they weren't
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this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2025
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Something selling in the tens of thousands of millions at every release has zero reason to do better.
If any, it has all the reasons to find the lowest point in which they keep selling that much so they can cut effort as much as possible while maintaining the income.
Pokémon has always been weirdly behind the curve in terms of presentation. People were frustrated by how late they went full 3D and how long they were reusing sprites and sounds, and rightfully so.
I think some of why the GBA games are more fondly remembered is because the one time their visual ambitions and their underlying hardware lined up at all, short of the original games.
I've never heard a reasonable explanation for this, honestly. I'm hesitant to say it's just greed or laziness. I bet the answers are way more interesting.
They are probably highly understaffed. Also underfunded, and working on yearly releases.
There is reason for this: either greed or incompetence. Or both. There is no reason for game freak to keep their studio so small if not to save money or because they can't manage more people. They have the most profitable IP in the world, it can't be a lack of funds.
I wish they never had gone to 3D. Black and White still look gorgeous to this day. Leave 3D to Stadium/Revolution style battle arena games and keep letting your incredibly skilled traditional pixel artists doing what they do best.
Yeah, that's a very reasonable stance right now. I don't even particularly disagree, although I'm not a huge Pokemon fan in the first place.
But at the time? When they just kept pumping marginally better looking top down handheld games in a market that didn't give a crap about handhelds and Nintendo home consoles kept not getting mainline AAA Pokemon games? People were pissed.
Careful what you wish for, I suppose.
Nah, at the time I was also like "holy shit why do you want game freak to go 3D?". And I say that as an unrepentant Colosseum/XD stan. Black and White's unique animated sprite style was absolutely gorgeous on the DS and still is.
Sure, I'm not saying you specifically, but you sure sound plugged into the franchise enough to remember that frustration existing. If not in the more hardcore fanbase, such as it is, definitely in the larger gaming space.
This made me go back to check press reviews of the time and, man, they are funny. There are open requests for everything from "a nice long epic that makes the GameBoy series wish it could compete" to this one guy outright claiming they want it turned into an MMO (so of the time), a bunch of requests for voice acting and lots and lots of "fans will enjoy it, everyone else stay away". I miss the 2000s.
In any case, I'm sure a bunch of those reviewers are firmly in "no, not like that" territory today.
The frustration existed mostly as mockery from people that didn't play Pokémon anyway, and didn't suddenly start playing Pokémon when XY came out.
The best explanation I've heard is that Game Freak just flat out refuses to ever hire new people.
It is worth pointing out that the first few generations were legitimately groundbreaking for mechanics as well.
Myeeeeeh, I don't know about that. Pokemon is deceptively late, given how rudimentary it looks due to being a GB exclusive. Blue and Red are 1996 games originally. Shin Megami Tensei had been doing monster capture and collection dungeon crawlers for a decade and six games by that point. Final Fantasy VII was less than a year away. Dragon Quest V and VI had done monster capturing and VI had "trainer battles" in an arena.
Pokemon was first to break big in the West and the idea of monster capturing as deck building is executed in a very particular way, but it was definitely pulling very directly from existing sources.
Fair.
I suppose it is groundbreaking in the same way as World of Warcraft and League of Legends are groundbreaking.
Neither of them actually introduced new concepts. But they put them together in a way that no one else had before.
I use the phrase codified. For example Ocarina of Time and Mario 64 didn't invent fighting or exploring in 3D, but both established a baseline of what it should feel like.
Pokemon took what SMT/Dragon Quest/Mother was putting down, simplified and refined the vibe and made it more accessible.
No? The first few generations were behind the curve even then.