Pokémon's ORIGINAL National Dex Controversy - Tama Hero 

This is an expanded version of an argument I introduced in the FireRed and LeafGreen review, although I tried to tone down the salt and stick to the facts this time. If you watch these back to back, maybe this video will make the other one make a bit more sense. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-GcLKCGGG340.html

Tama: "Let's talk about Sword and Shield!" Also Tama: **Talks about Gen 3 for half an hour**

I feel like the most important thing was the very last thing you said: "They're creating the problem they're selling the solution to." This can't be understated

As someone who really started getting into Pokémon during Gen 3, I’ve never felt so seen. I went through ALL of this. We only figured out how to trade our FRLG games with RSE because one of us convinced their parents to buy a guidebook. And then we had to strategically figure out when we could meet up to even do any trading, because we were kids with 0 control over our schedules. Had a friend who owned Colosseum, and we were stoked bc that meant we could get the remaining Johto Pokémon… only to find out his memory card wasn’t big enough to save on Colosseum. Plus I don’t even think he owned the GameCube to GBA cable. In the end, one guy got a GameShark, and then he became the king of the neighborhood, and we all had to pay him in candy if we wanted to use it to get mythicals or non-native Pokémon.

Speaking from a purely emotional attachment perspective, Gen 3's lack of backwards compatibility hit the hardest, but it sorta helped that at least the National Dex existed, that somehow, some way, any Pokemon can be obtained. With Gen 8 cutting out the Pokemon entirely, its very similar to the Gen 3 gap, but it feels worse that they aren't programmed in at all, so there's nothing you could ever do to bring your favorites to a game that they don't exist in. I never cared about Pokedex completion, I just wanted to bring my old buddies with me for every journey.

I saw you say on Twitter the other day how Gen 3 was the point where a huge chunk of Pokémon's original audience fell off the series, and it was nice to see somebody else remembers that! I was in high school at the time, and it was like RSE didn't even happen. Gen III might as well have started with FRLG as far as my peers were concerned (not that EVERYONE was playing it by any means, you still had a lot of "you're STILL playing Pokémon!?" types, but at least my fellow nerds were), and it's always felt like the main Gen III game to me too, because I played it so much more. xD

Nintendo: "WE MUST FIND A WAY TO STOP KIDS FROM PIRATING!!! >:(" Nintendo: *gives children the option to either cheat, or spend over $300 basically buying (and completing) the same game 497 times simply to trade pokemon*

I, for one, appreciate Tama's gradual evolution to that of Poké-historian, bridging the gap between real-life events and expectations and how they influenced one of the highest-selling game franchises of all time. Excellent, detailed video with a lot of food for thought (it's practically a buffet for gluttony). Thank you for all the effort you take to provide people with your voice and input. And for putting up with the GameCube games, lol.

I'm always impressed by how much newer information about these games you're able to present that other poketubers haven't covered.

I think this is how a lot of players (including myself) took x&y and omega Ruby&Alpha Sapphire for granted. The only restriction really was needing two Pokémon two trade and unlocking the ability, which didn’t require internet if by passerby. If playing x or y, you could trade as early as route 2 with no restriction on if it was in the dex or not. Same with omega Ruby/Alpha sapphire, you just needed to get the tutorial by Wally. Great video btw as always!!

You found the perfect tone to present such a controversial and serious topic.

One thing not mentioned is the move reset when traded to games in the same generation. I wanted to trade my guys from home (Iron Fist Infernape with Egg Moves) to do Battle Tower in Brilliant Diamond Nope. I basically gotta breed a whole new chimchar.

This video really puts things into perspective. I feel like perhaps the biggest factor in sparking the SwSh Dexit controversy was the fact that Masuda just straight-up announced that not every mon would be in the game at such a major video game event. It didn't take long before things were blown out of proportion after that. Makes you wonder how things would have been in the run-up to SwSh's release if Masuda hadn't said what he said at E3, and the players found out after the game was released instead, or even in a written statement on social media that wasn't live.

Completing the Dex in Gen 3 without glitches or hacking is one of the most herculean tasks in the series lol. I wasn't able to do it anyway.

This was a very hard pill to Swalot because of how much I adore Generation III as a whole. I was given Emerald as a birthday gift, and when I tell you it took hell AND high water to get every single mon, I mean it! You obviously know from your amazing video and experience, but I felt *so* accomplished for managing to ALMOST collect them all (384 out of 386, I think???). As a kid and even now, I love challenges in video games, so the whole "beat the whole game to trade between A and B" or "do this long sidequest so you can do XYZ" was very fun for me, but that doesn't mean I can't see the flaws and anti-player mentality. I'm obviously in a very small minority of people who enjoyed the challenge. I also recognize I benefitted from a household that COULD afford all the things you mentioned over birthday and christmas gifts (I have two brothers, and we all LOVED pokemon, so the gifts were a no-brainer). Over just a few years, we had everything you listed minus Sapphire and XD, so when I took the challenge to "catch them all" after the dust of the new games settled, I had a much easier time to do so: I had loads of free time, and I did not have to pay for anything as my family received them as gifts. I guess I'm just sad to know that something that I personally loved was actually a tedious, grinding, unfriendly, and greedy tactic used to maximize profits for others. I do not mean this in any negative way at all, Tama, but thank you for showing me the experiences of others and putting my childhood into perspective. I cannot imagine the frustration that kids must have had to have been restricted access to their favorite pokemon from reruns or seeing them at friends' houses due to money or esoteric game design.

I wasn’t expecting a punch to the gut watching this, but the: “It’s really funny to read back in the Serebii forums from 2005…” moment hit REAL HARD. Feeling real old, thinking back on the forum browsing days. Another really great video - love all of your Pokémon retrospective videos!

The main problem for me with the whole dexit thing was when it was demonstrated that the "redone-from-scratch assets" thing was a lie. Once the data files leaked from SwSh, people were able to compare the old models and new models side by side and show that they were the exact same down to the polygon, So not only was graphical fidelity not the best reason in some people's mind, it wasn't even the truth, and the outright lie is what made some fans like me upset.

I wouldn't mind the dex cut so much if pokemon home had more functionality than just a pretty prison for mons that had no appearance in a gen. Like- even just dumb pokemon amie-esque minigames to do with my mons would be great, but no. They're just sitting there, rotting until who knows when, IF they even get a game where they're allowed in, since they're not exactly the cash grabber mons. It's already been confirmed that some pokemon who didn't appear in gen 8 aren't gonna appear in gen 9 either, some starters being among them. I'm already 99% sure that means my fav is unusuable and held hostage inside pokemon home once again. It's shitty.

From what I've learnt from this video Nintendo has been focused on vertical integration for decades; wanting to control all levels of production to boost sales. This explains their attitudes towards filing cease and desists for romhacks and creating their own digital publishing services. It's all to maximise profits for full control of their products, which to me, is a perfect reminder that the Pokémon franchise is a distinct mirror of their times.

The reason Gen 2 to Gen 3 wasn't as big of a controversy was because they completely changed the data of Pokemon, which didn't happen from Gen 7 to Gen 8. Also, there was no way to link the GB games to the GBA games as far as I know. Definitely agree with FRLG and Emerald's trade restrictions. Made no sense to have those at all.

To be fair, I think you could hypothetically have bought a memory card and rented Colosseum a lot in order to complete it, since game data is stored on the memory card, not the game

Wow, all that information about how renting changed a lot of exports from Japan was fascinating. Thank you for that!

An important point about "rebuilding the models from scratch" that genuinely made it worse (for me, at least) was that people datamined the game, sun and moon, and let's go P/E and found that the models were *identical*. Not extremely similar. Not the same with higher polygon counts, identical. Line for line. If they rebuilt them from scratch, it was incredibly wasteful and unnecessary. More likely, that was a lie. And to follow that up - the reason that myself and many others expected came out very quickly: DLCs to re-unlock already existing mons.

A wonderful breakdown on how insanely hard it is to complete Gen 3 by design. Completing Gen 8 is at least theoretically less time-consuming, but that doesn't exactly make it fine either.

I was a casual viewer of your channel in the 2010s and just checked back in recently, and I gotta say I love where your content has gone. You went from a well-spoken pokemon youtuber to a full-blown pokemon investigative journalist and I'm living for it. Keep it up!

Also, back in the day, the target audience for video games was generally kids who have limitless time and very limited budgets. Whereas today, there's a big market for adults (and adults with kids) who have a lot of expendable income and limited free time.

Fun fact: The swsh models of old pkmn are the exact same as before! They literally had all the old pkmn models stored and ready to be put into new games. These stored models were exactly what was put into swsh. They easily coulda put them all in. They only cut some so they could go “hey look! We brought a bunch back!” In the dlc

So true! The gen 3 dex fragmentation issues were so annoying. I had Colosseum and so had access to Johto mons, but then my friend got Leafgreen and had a Squirtle! How can I not be jealous of gen 1 starters! With trading limitations, I ended up having to get FRLG myself despite *even at the time* recognizing the somewhat absurdity of having to play through the game again to get Pokemon that I still had access to on my RBY carts. Although it was kind of fun to be able to be the local broker for Johto Pokemon, it was unfair to my friends who didn't have a gamecube+gba link+colosseum to get it all going, and just wanted to recreate their teams from GSC.

This whole controversy along with the newer games just not being very good, has made me appreciate/ replay the older games a lot more. I think what bothered me the most about cutting the national dex was that it made it obvious Gamefreak no longer cared about non-competitive players. The newer games lack post game other than raising/battling competitive Pokémon. Cutting the national dex was one less thing for me to do. I feel very neutral about it. Yeah cutting the national dex sucked, but sword and shield weren’t good enough games for me to care too much. Legends Arceus implemented a limited dex much better. I would love to hear your thoughts about it. Here’s to hoping I will like gen 9 more.

Sometimes Game Freak makes decisions that just completely confuse me even if I love the Pokemon series a lot. I think you were in the stream for it, but I was trying to complete my 'seen' Pokedex on Pokemon White 2 so I could get the special shiny Haxorus for fun. Only to find out that for whatever reason you don't fight a single trainer with a Buneary in the entire game, meaning that yeah it actually seems to be impossible to do that in White 2 specifically without trading for one (which thankfully some extremely kind individual was willing to do for me but still). Also, I had no idea renting video games wasn't allowed in Japan? I didn't do it a lot and I may just be emulation scum because my 3DS has no space and the EShop is dying, but that seems kinda silly?

This really takes me back to being a kid, and going over to my sisters friends house every so often. He had a huge TV, all the GBA games, an action replay, and XD with link cables. It was like Mecca for someone growing up during Gen 3.

OMG TAMA i have been a fan since i was like 5 i love your vids and you!!! you made me the pokemon fan i am today thanks for the great vid!!!

Me in 2011 watching Tama's new video: :) Me in 2022 watching Tama's new video: :)

I look forward to each new video from you! I really enjoy these in-depth essays and reviews. Very eye opening, and informative! Thanks much for all the time you put into these!

This is quite possibly the best video you've made, Tama. The amount of effort you put in this from research to reasoning to delivery to editing is beyond top notch.

I love hearing the sardonic 'part 1'. It's the signal that I'm about to get lost in an informative and intensely interesting video essay about Pokémon. The videos Tama has put out since changing her name and video format are all seriously top-tier stuff. Some of my absolute favorite videos on RU-vid and always well worth the wait.

This was a great breakdown, great format, very well-structured and articulated. I learned a lot about how the rental market actually played into so many design and business choices back then. I was only a kid in the gen3 era, so all this just seemed 'the way things are', but to see the actual reasons behind it unpacked now was super interesting. And it seems like the type of thing that will get lost to time and understanding, since the rental market is such a thing of the past. Great video as always!

An interesting side-note from a Gen Z perspective: I came into the Pokemon franchise right around the time Diamond and Pearl came out, but I had a handful of GBA Pokemon games inherited second-hand from my cousins that I played on the DS Lite's GBA port. Trading with my friends on Diamond was super easy, because everyone had a DS and either Diamond or Pearl and you could trade between friends wirelessly, but trading with my friends on the GBA games was impossible because of the need for a link cable and actual Game Boy Advances. Thus, I was basically locked out of any pokemon not on Sapphire, even if I could have theoretically traded for them with someone who had Ruby had I been born just one generation earlier. The moment I saw a GBA Link Cable in a secondhand store as a teenager, I immediately bought it as a status symbol to myself of finally being able to own something that was an impossible dream as a kid, even though it was a moot point by then. Tl;dr: Diamond and Pearl have a special place in my heart for letting me enjoy the social features of Pokémon for the first time.

So glad to see another great deep dive into Pokemon games. I was a few years late to the rental gaming market, so hearing about how it connects to the game's structure is so interesting. Though I feel one of the standout differences between Gen 3's mess and Gen 8's mess is also hindsight and technology. By now, we've worked out ways to trade between Gen 2 and Gen 3, even GF has... but they probably didn't have that understanding back then, especially when we consider the new work (sprites, music, new EV system) GF had to do for Gen 3, alongside the history of programming difficulties GF has. The most difficulty Gen 8 had (to our knowledge) was matching pre-made models to the newer animations and graphics. There's also the matter of technology. While I bet GF and Nintendo definitely enjoyed dulling out heaps of accessories to buy, the Gamecube and Gameboy don't seem as inherently designed to connect, and the GBC and GBA have two different link cables that don't seem capable of connection. I think it's interesting how the debate around the NatDex was so much fluff instead of tackling the core problem. Especially now that we still have issues with gating content despite the transfer of data being easier than ever. Nowadays we don't really need special adapters, just wireless communication and the software to interpret that data. Though something I feel is actually similar between both situations is the disregard towards Dex completion. All the spending in Gen 3 really seems to communicate the idea that national dex collection is only something older, super dedicated adult fans would've completed. A young kid will probably just buy one game and maybe a Gamecube game to go along it. But the adult collector is definitely going to spend so much money and time on every game. So they continue to disregard that audience because they don't matter in the long run and the games will sell well regardless. Even with all the trade difficulties, the Gen 3 games are some of the best selling GBA games, and vice versa for the Gen 8 games. I think GF has mainly been learning what they don't have to do to hold and audience, especially with how big Pokemon is now.

You’re the best, Tama! Always exciting to see you pop up in my feed. 💕

It’s always refreshing to see Tama’s takes on the franchise, she tends to take into consideration things that many people don’t, like the gaming climate and market at the time. In this case the anti game rental designs. It’s made me appreciate some of the decisions made in the series going forwards, like the digital events and such mentioned in the video. Personally I now find myself questioning what I want out of a Pokémon game, as I consider Gen 3 to be my favorite and Gen 8 my least favorite, although that might just be because I’m a sucker for dongles and the connectivity between everything, even if it’s just limited to the post game. But at the very least it’s gotten me thinking and realizing valid critiques of my favorite Pokémon games and perhaps giving credit where it’s due with the latest generation. Quick side question if you happen to read this Tama, (or anyone else reading this that happens to know) but what model is the TV you had around 11:45 in the video?

I'm really impressed with your documentaries! I lived through these events as a kid, but I never stopped to think about why they were that way. Kudos! You are an amazing researcher!

This was incredibly great, so much information, already a great impression from your channel. Congrats on such a complete video.

Been a fan of your video analysis content for a long time and this one has got to be one of my favorites. Valid and compelling points being made across the board about National Dex completion. Keep up the excellent work!

From what I can tell, the multiple versions and focus on trading was primarily to get people interacting with each other. The plan wasn't originally for one person to get every game, but to go out and meet friends to trade with. The restrictions in Gen 3 regarding trading were still stupid and outright hindered the key focus. My sister and I each got our own Gameboy Advance and opposite versions, granted I wasn't much more social then than I am now and the trading mainly took the form of my sister getting all three starters. Meanwhile in the romhacking scene, I had a Pokemon I wanted in Unbound that wasn't available, not even in the game's National Dex, but I was still able to get a copy of Radical Red, catch the desired Pokemon, and then immediately trade it over with no issue. And it was _amazing!_

I really appreciate all the research that goes into your videos, I always leave knowing more about a product I thought I knew everything about. Thank you for your efforts!

I looove these types of deep, insightful videos. They help put so much into perspective

I've been watching your videos for what feels like a decade now and I can't quite emphazise how well you hit the nail on the head with these videos. wonderful video as always :)

Thank you for saying what I’ve been saying the last 3 years. Catching them all in Gen 3 was no doubt a complete nightmare, and that’s definitely why they dropped the old slogan from the RS boxart, because you just couldn’t! The original English slogan was “Catch ‘em if you can” which I feel fits much better these days! :P

Love the Robopon reference. I adored the GBA sequel Robopon Cross version. Love seeing a Tama video come out. I have really distinct memories of being unable to Catch 'em All in Gen III because I did not have the money to buy all the necessary games, nor did I have WiFi for a long time so even Gen IV was a bit off. It's incredible how history is repeating itself again but even worse.

I love the direction you took in your channel. These insightful vids are great, you really make me appreciate the game design of the old games a lot more! Keep up the good work

BRO! I've been looking for your channel for literal weeks! I had such fond memories of your videos from my childhood and I remembered you doing something with Pokémon Green in Japanese but I couldn't remember your channel name and just your voice. It's nice to be back here.

This was quite a deep and insightful video. I grew up playing the Gen 4 games when they were released in the U.S., so I had no idea that the Gen 3 games had this problem that is apparent in the recent games. Thank you so much for this, Tama!

This also makes the Braile puzzle for the Regis make more sense. You'd have to realize what you need to do, rent a book on braile from the library, and decode everything ALL during the rental period.

Always good to see a new upload from you Tama. Welcome back!

Thank you for your work! It's been a long week and some new Tama content was exactly what I needed to decompress~

THIS. This is what I was thinking during the Dexit controversy. My favorite pokemon is Teddiursa, so gen 3’s dex hurt me lol I love your voice and your videos! I feel like your content is perfect for people like me, and I appreciate your dorky charm. c:

Damn, when I was a kid, my brother and our friend and I all spent a summer collecting Pokémon across the different GBA and GameCube games. I remember feeling so lucky at the time that we all had each other to trade with. I still feel grateful for those days. Sounds like not everyone had that kind of experience.

I've seen people talking about this subject before, but it's the first time I hear about this background on videogame renting and that brings up a unique way of looking at the gen 3 national dex. I really love this about your videos, even on subject that are widely talked about you always bring up something unique, there's always something that I'm gonna find in your video but not on others.

Grateful for tama uploads and the research that goes into these. Pokémon history is really interesting

It annoyed me to no end when this happened and why they said. Like Pokemon is the biggest multimedia franchise in the world and they were acting like they made a ship to big to steer. Like they made their own bed on this one. This is the accumulative cost of all this success and new content each year. That's the promise they made.

I appreciate this channel and how it's grown over the years so much! Nuance without blind service to the franchise or outrage farming is so rare in the Pokémon Fandom. Not to mention how you talk about Pokémon beyond just the surface level and analyze it both as art w themes and a comercial product.

It’s nice to see you tama. I like to think that you have a nice relationship with RU-vid, making occasional videos without pressure or obligation, doing video ideas that you find interesting

Seeing a tama video is always so nice this video is so perfectly presented and well edited too. 10/10

Pokémon was a game that got me out of some bad times in my life. When complaints started creeping up around the 3DS era, I blocked them out, and I didn't start seeing the cracks until it was too late. Now, dexit has permanently ruined it for me, and I can't trust any more games that are put out. It's hard to still enjoy your favorite game franchise when you have the unfortunate enlightenment of knowing those games were made by conmen. Some poor child is gonna look at which Pokémon are compatible with what game, and they're gonna get so confused or frustrated, they drop Pokémon and never play it again.

Awesome video! It’s hard to know how frustrating all these restrictions are until you start collecting Pokémon. I don’t even want to collect the nat dex, but trying to send all my battle ready mons to my main emerald game is a huge pain in the ass. Having to finish Colo to get my swablu out is so depressing lol. It’s hard to see these restrictions as anything other than malicious. I also don’t think people necessarily even realize how difficult finding people to trade with was back then. I think I only traded with my brother, my cousin, and one elementary school friend in RS. Whereas in RBY/GSC I remember trading or battling with everyone in my class.

Great clip! Always happy to see a new upload 🙌🏾👏🏾👏🏾

I just wanted to say thank you so much for letting me contribute even a small part of my own Pokemon journey to one of your videos. The Gen 8 era of Pokemon was emotionally draining for a lot of people, myself included. There was so much hostility across the entire web that just made me feel like I was no longer welcome to enjoy Pokemon the way that I had been, nor was I able to find a place of belonging within the modern day of the Pokemon franchise. Your videos always go above and beyond in emphasizing not only what makes Pokemon special for the people who played it at the specific timeframe that they were released in, but also highlights the complexity of how these generations were formed and defined by the real world events and occurrences that took place in the lives of the people working on the games. Your passion on the subject always manages to reignite my love for Pokemon. And since I'm one of the weirdos who actually BEGAN my Pokemon journey in the Orre region, it was incredibly special to be able to provide the Colosseum footage for this video. :)

Thank you for being a calm voice of facts for such an important topic in this community. Your videos are always fun and insightful to watch. I also would like to point out that the code for some of the Pokemon left out in sword and shield was still present, those being the Pokemon in their planned dlc at the time. :/

Amazing video. I feel a lot of people don’t realize just how terrible gen 3 was when it comes to collecting mons, it took me getting all gen 3 mons from Ruby and Sapphire to realize this, and yeah in that sense the lack of ditto makes it absolutely dreadful. Though I love this look back through how the trading idea went from a risky shot in the dark into a greedy limiting choice. It just goes to show how even idea born from innovation can be twisted in ways that hurt the players. Hopefully the push back Gen 8 has had throughout its entire life atleast slows this down and maybe Gen 9 will try to get back on the right path

It's awesome to see you uploading! I loved what you had to say, and you presented some context surrounding these games I hadn't heard of until now, even having played the games when they came out as my first experience in the franchise! I love these informative type videos. I can't wait to see more from you!

You have been posting videos so long I finished middle and high school thank you for em all

I love the new direction of your videos! Super well and nice take on Game Freak's and Nintendo's history to look at a recent problem. I had all the games from gen 3 and did trade once in a while but was never my major concern I just liked playing the games themselves. This was a treat showing up in my sub box ^-^

According to some old interviews, every copy of the game was going to be personalized based on your trainer ID, something which is often forgotten to be in Gen 1. Miyamoto is the one said something like "let's make only 2 or three versions instead, so people can swap secrets like in zelda". Nowadays with randomizers, the fans have re-built the idea for themselves!

another great video. I always appreciate the angle you take with your analysis, your perspective is always really fresh and unique, gives me something new to think about with every upload. keep on doing you tama!

The first channel I _ever_ subscribed to, amazing to see new uploads to this day! Great job!

Although the situation was somehow similar to Gen3, in my opinion, there are still 2 main differences: 1. The Ruby/Sapphire games were programmed with all 386 Pokemon and the national dex from the get-go, meaning they intentionally left the option of putting back Pokemon into the game with future games. That is actually not the same with the 2019 Sword/Shield dexit, because the Pokemon that are not available was straight up not coded in the games, and GameFreak also denied the possibility of adding them back by DLCs. Of course we all know that they were lying and still added like 200 Pokemon back with the DLCs, but that's not all of the Pokemon in existence, we are still missing Pokemon from the national dex on the Switch even after the last game of Gen 8 is out. This is not the same as back in Gen3 they added all the past generation pokemon back with newer games. 2. When Ruby/Sapphire was released, Pokemon was just 7 or 8 years old, and as you said, due to game rental and the younger age of the franchise, not a lot of people have a dedicated collection of digital creatures they want to bring into newer games, therefore this wasn't a big issue like nowadays. Nowadays Gamefreak has been dedicated to including all Pokemon in every mainline game until Gen7 and also always provided a way to let players transfer their Pokemon up to the newer games since Gen3. That's a 15 year time span and a lot of players had become collectors within this time span for a lot of reasons, and that really makes a big difference to the players' reactions in these two different times. Even to date I still feel very upset that there are certain Pokemon unable to enter Sword and Shield, and I don't think GameFreak is planning to do any updates for this either. Still a great video, though I don't feel any better about the Gen8 dexit after watching it. It is a piece of history in the Pokemon franchise after all.

Thank you SO much for making this video Tama! It was a very much needed discussion about how Pokemon has always been predatory, and it's not something as recent as some people want to believe. You handled everything perfectly, and everything you put out is accurate and very informative! I don't know if this was a crazy coincidence, but I decided around a month ago to complete the original Emerald dex once and for all because I never got the chance when I was a kid, and now that I had all the legal resoruces, I wanted to try and see how long it'll take. After +4 weeks, I'm not done with the full dex yet, and I realized why I was never able to complete the dex when I was 7, and I highly doubt any normal kid would have completed the dex ever, without a cheating device that is. The time it takes, the resources, everything!! It's just awful, and I was amazed how little people actually pointed out the parallels to the current situation, and I thought that maybe I was overreacting,. After watching this video, I feel reasured that the way I feel is warranted and now I understand better why Pokemon and Nintendo did what they did (not that it makes any of their actions better though lmao). But yeah, thanks for the insight again Tama! It is very important to talk about companys' predatory tactics, and Pokemon shouldn't be inmune to them!

I binged watched your old vids. I love your channel and it was a trip down memory lane. Cheers

I'm pretty sure we all know about the inability to bring Pokemon from Gen 2 to Gen 3. And yes, it sucked, but *that* was simply because of hardware limitations. Granted, they were limitations they could have potentially gotten around if they tried hard enough, but still. They still had the data for the Pokemon in the games, and they did eventually make it possible to get them all using only Gen 3 games (including the GameCube games), you just couldn't bring them up from previous gens. The main issue with the Sword and Shield thing was that *they literally removed the actual Pokemon data, which made it flat-out impossible to use that species of Pokemon in those games.* So you can't really compare the two situations because they're not really *that* similar. Yes, they both prevented players from bringing Pokemon from previous gens, but one still allowed you to use all of those species of Pokemon and the other just flat-out removed the ability to use them. Though I will confess, those trading restriction were *really* bad. Also, the Let's Go games are Gen 7, not Gen 8.

I haven’t been into Pokémon much since 2019. But even when I was still a mega fangirl who breathed the series, I didn’t realize just how tedious it was to trade between the GBA games. I’m terrified to go back to emerald now considering it used to be one of my favorites.

It’s fascinating to learn so much about the history of Pokémon games, especially games that came out before I started playing. Great video!

Thank you for this documentary ! So well done and a lot of work was put into it.

What was really frustrating about arguing with people in 2019 as someone who didn't support "dexit" was that you would say you didn't like it because you wanted the national dex in the game. Then someone would claim that it was OK because they were redoing the models. This was proven false very early on, as you could simply watch the trailers and compare the models from previous games. They made minor improvements to the old models from 2013, and when you explained this to people who thought it was fine, they would throw some other reason that you could pretty much discredit. Claim graphics were going to be better, insert meme comparing textures to super old games and other games on the switch. Claim that they were adding more pokemon, proven false by leaks and still holds true to this day, very few new pokemon added. Claim that animations would be better, insert meme comparing animations from gen 1 to now (especially double kick) and memes comparing animations to pokemon stadium. You could go on and on and I guarantee that there was no actually good argument for removing the national dex. This led to many people who really liked pokemon becoming very, very frustrated and increasingly unwilling to talk about it. You even had many popular youtubers come out denouncing the people against removing it. It's like arguing with super religious types, eventually I figured it was pointless and moved from pokemon after being a huge fan for 10 years, but I am still a little bitter about the whole ordeal. I mean, I was well informed and I was right. They are a multibillion dollar company who put as little effort as possible into there games, yet even though you knew you were right and nobody could make a valid argument against you, the number of people who knew what I did was very few and the ones who didn't failed to systematize the information given to them. It's like extreme gaslighting or something, it doesn't feel good. The memes were funny though, phrases like "halve dex" or "but it is in the game! in lore." and photoshops of trainers of pokemon dressed up as other pokemon that were confirmed to be in the game pleading to border officers. They loved to mock the game devs official statements as well.

As a kid, I actually liked this system. It led to the lending of Gamecube games with friends and trading with friends felt meaningful. I was able to set up meet ups with friends and trade.

Excellent video. We’ve missed your content!

Always love seeing new videos from you, this was very well done and entertaining

Man I knew trying to trade in gen 3 was bad, but I didn't realize how *bad* it actually was. There are so many hurdles you needed to jump through in order to get like one or two Pokemon or in some cases even trade at all. When you finally reach that point though, there's really no reason to trade at. This was about as informative as it was kind of sad and what's sadder is that it feels like history is somewhat repeating itself for less of a reason.

There was also another factor limiting your ability to trade between people in Gen 3. The other person had to be willing to ACTUALLY TRADE a pokemon to you. Plenty of us were kids at the time. Why should YOU be the one to trade away your version exclusive legendary pokemon to complete someone else's pokedex? You could always trade and trade back, but of course you had to REALLY trust the other person to be handing over your rare pokemon for any length of time. If you want the other Hitmons, you'd better hope the other person completed the game, has a Ditto, and is willing to breed you a few Tyrogue.

Always look forward to your videos and never disappointed. Thanks Tama!

Great video! I very much appreciate the breakdown and insight into this topic as it's something that's always been in the back of my mind, but not something I've taken the time to research myself.

another banger, crazy how tama can't miss. i learned a lot here, and feel like i ended up with a more educated stance on the whole national dex crap with sword and shield. that truly was a monumental moment in the series history given that we're all still talking about it and are constantly getting new perspectives. gotta say though, production keeps going up on these video essays. your narration felt extra passionate this time and the editing was really sharp. loving your work, it's some of my favorite stuff on the platform!

Oh wow, I never even thought about how game rentals would shake up how video games were developed. That's a super interesting bit of inside baseball about the game industry! Well done 👏

Wow havent seen a tamashi video in forever! Glad to see you back at it! Great video as always :)

This is so fascinating thank you Tama Hero!!! Love your vids!!

I genuinely don’t mind mythical Pokémon being available through owning other save files, Because the alternative is just mystery gift events that people who buy the game late never get to access. I’d much prefer mythical Pokémon to be available late game like Deoxys and Keldeo, But if they’re set on not making them available to normal gameplay, then I find the method of used in legends Arceus a better alternative than mystery gifts

Thanks for putting this out I was never really aware of the rental market impact on game development. Money grabs suck

I’m happy to see more videos from you. Keep em up!

Oh wow, i thought you were gone. Welcome back and i look forward to the next vid.

My love for the series has certainly decreased a lot, and is not even about the lack of a national pokedex or the graphics, is about GameFreak doing scummy practices to make money without even caring for the players