Pokemon: The Franchise GameFreak has Never Deserved. 

terrible video you just hate pokemon

The fact that when I saw that Ingo was in PLA, one of the first things I thought was, "Man, I can't wait to finish the game to see what the fans have done with his character! Cause there ain't no way in hell gamefreak is gonna make it important." says a lot about the writing of mainline Pokemon games.

this is what happens when a franchise is never compared to anything outside of the same franchise

From what I remember, an anonymous game freak employee said that they wanted to make sword and shield a good game, but they were denied a delay to make any fixes to the systems, animations, world design, etc. they easily could, and want to, but the 3 year release cycle isn't letting them. combined with the fact that the team is likely cut in half at game freak itself, well.

Wow, I can hear your frustration in this video and that's proof right there of your love for this franchise. That bit about "others would kill to have their game be as popular as pokemon" really stuck with me. I personally quit playing pokemon after sun and moon but like countless others it has, is and will always have a special place in my heart.

If I told someone that there's a video game franchise that cannonically has Superhumans, fighting Godlike Dieties, Familiars that you can summon to assist you in combat, and the connection between Humans and these Familiars has lore that ties them together, and a highly advanced society cable of creating Clones and other futuristic technology, and that said world is created by an Eldritch Level God, you'd think it's anything other than Pokemon automatically. Pokemon has some of the coolest lore, concepts that are introduced and SHOULD have more detail upon them, but it doesn't. When you actually think upon anything in Pokemon, it becomes something that should have way more weight. Korrina can literally smash rocks with a single kick, Sabrina and the Psychic Trainer class all have ESP, Channelers can actually channel the dead, and so on and so forth. It's a damn shame Pokemon doesn't like exploring any of it's concepts beyond a surface level or at it's worst "Yeah, we can do that" I often find myself indulging the thoughts the series gives me and either write or imagine scenarios with the context given. This series has basically infinite potential, and they're committed to expanding on nothing. I honestly would be completely okay with Pokemon if they stopped making new Pokemon and Generations going forward used what they have to craft a story with what they have. Hell, I feel like this is why regional variants have stuck around. But god it's depressing. Pokemon is an amazing and incredible franchise, it's games however leave so much to be desired. It's honestly impressive that Pokemon hates it's fans so much when the fans have so much passion after years loving this series.

I’ve always felt that Pokémon was always like, a B- in terms of quality with every game. Like, not even the best of the best mainline Pokémon games can compare to even moderate competition from other franchises. It’s just been successful because, well, it’s Pokémon. To draw a comparison, it’s like Marvel now. No matter what they put out or what the public reaction will be, it’ll succeed on brand recognition and nostalgia alone. Such a shame because I absolutely love the franchise, but have to admit that it’s never been a “quality first” series.

In the master ball segment, I am reminded of how, in I think one of the manga, they established there that capturing the legendaries weakens their powers somehow, and that's why Cyrus hands over the master ball, because he wants palkia/dialga at their full power to remake the universe.

The Gen 1 games are so barebones because the gameboy couldn’t handle anything else. But once Gamefreak got access to better hardware, they only used it to slap a nicer coat of paint over the same awful game design. Look at Final Fantasy. They started out with the exact same 8-bit hardware limitations, but they actually innovated their game design as they got better hardware. In 14 years, they went from Final Fantasy to Final Fantasy X. Compare that to Pokemon, which took 27 years to go from Red/Blue to Scarlet/Violet. The lack of innovation over such a long timeframe is astounding.

I think after Black and White wasn't as well received by fans after trying something a little bit different, they never tried anything different and pretty much kept everything the same for a whole decade and a little bit more. I'm hoping S&V will finally be above a 7/10 unlike almost every other Pokemon game.

Warning: This thing is *long.* I went way to hard on this. I don't even have a tl;dr except for "great video". Read at your own risk of time. I have been sitting here, after watching what was essentially a short film of someone ranting about one of my favourite franchises, just thinking about what I wanted to say. There's just so much to take in, I'd have to watch the video a second time while taking notes to talk about everything I want to within this video, but like Gamefreak making a game, I don't have the time nor work ethic to do so, so I'll try to get everything I want to say here on the first go. Bravo, you did amazingly detailing all of your problems with this series, with points I've never even heard from anyone else. For example, the NPCs. What I felt like would be an overblown nitpick about characters most people wouldn't care about's dialogue, turned into a genuine critique on the abnormalities of 90% of what are supposed to be regular people and the stuff Gamefreak lets dribble out of their mouths, some of which literally warping our perception on things that we wouldn't have thought about and making us ask questions they don't want to answer. We always see glimpses of what Pokemon could do, small little peaks into how varied and interesting this world could be, only for GF to burn it at the stake and go back to basics every single time. It's like I'm watching an episodic show that had someone make steps towards character growth only for them to be back to square 1 as if nothing ever happened because the writers are scared of writing outside a status quo they made. It gets so frustrating when there are kept around for no reason other than "they were there before" (unless you were cool and interesting in which they will strip you of it because, paraphrased from their own words, "we want each new gen to have unique things so there's a reason to go back to them" which is a whole nother can of worms). Why do they go out of their way sometimes to put time and effort into stuff like the stupid battle flavor text. You don't need to do this guys, I can live without you telling me I buffetted a Sanstorm. I personally love gyms but we don't need them as the final narrative hurdle everytime. And for the love of god I don't need any more evil teams, as far as I'm concerned, we peaked at Skull (SM not MD, I haven't played the games so I can't speak on anything there) and Team Yell exemplified what happens when no innovation was made to a tired trope. I *wish* there was more immersion with your Pokemon. I have to actively try to make them special by doing stuff like looking at their nature to get a template for a possible personality (something I think the games would do). Amie and it's two brothers haven't fully scratched the itch I have cause it feels like the bare minimum. You wanna know one of the reasons I love the anime (okay "love" is a strong word for Journeys specifically but for the argument let's use it), the Pokemon feel like distinct creatures. Ash's Sceptile has a twig in it's mouth and likes to play it cool. Iris' Excadrill had a storyline dedicated to it trusting her again. Dawn's Piplup is literally just a full character. This is mostly what I want. Speaking of what I want, something a tiny bit more edgy (not the bad kind). Yes Pokemon is for kids but 1. Kids can endure strong themes if done well and 2. This a universe with literal furry bait, allusions to a guy being beaten by golf clubs, Serena sympathizing with a madman who wants to an alive an entire planet and a psycotic man who ruined the end of a good Pokemon game trying to unalive *children* on two seperate occasions (good time to bring this up, I like Ghetsis' blind evil but they chose the worst game to put him in). I don't want grittyness for the sake of it, that's a problem a lot of Pokemon Rom hacks have. I just want simple but interesting narritive complexity with well written characters in a story that feels important. With all of these complaints it makes me wonder. *Why* am I a Pokemon fan. These rushed pieces of wasted potential are only getting sadder and I'm still into it. The truth is, I don't know why I continually subject myself to mediocrity. I've seen I have my limits to what I'm willing to buy with not getting BDSP but I'm still gonna enjoy Pokemon because try as I might, I'll probably always love it and always gonna be a part of my life for the forseeeable future even though it never stops going downhill. I am a Sonic fan so inconstent quality is not unfamiliar. This video hurts but it's necessary because critiquing what you love is necessary. Blind hate is bad, but blind love can be worse. Speaking of critique, I do have some small flaws with this one. First, the point about Pokemon realeasing trailers for like every single Pokemon isn't entrely true. SM did that and it was annoying but SwSh and now SV hax most of their dexes hidden only showing max 10 Pokemon so they have gotten pretty tame with that. Secondly somecof your new battle ideas are cool but I'd probably want them on a toggle for some things such as feuds during double battles. I value choice in pokemon games and while these all sound fun, I personally wouldn't be fond of some of them on repeat playthroughs and such. But that's about it.once again famtastic job dude, this was a great watch.

At this point Pokemon is run more by the fans than by Gamefreak. We are the ones giving meaning to the poor work done by them. Our creativity fills the gaps. And that's why I think that it would only take two actions for us to have the perfect Pokemon game: Give the next mainline title to another developer to make, and give them more than a measely year to make it. Three years minimum, five recommended.

My biggest takeaway from this is that I need to replay the PMD series. As a teen I thought the Dusknoir character was genius, but later thought it might have been just because I was a teen with a simple brain and no better story to compare to. After this vid I'm glad to feel justified on my initial impression. That game had a plot that actually cared.

This video is even more relevant after Scarlet and Violet.

GOD DAMN YOUR TAKE ON THE POKEMON BLACK STORY MADE ME TEAR UP IT WAS SO GOOD

The fucking Mario games have better worldbuilding then Pokémon could ever hope to achieve.

If Ghost Pokémon are said to take away life force, why does it feel like it is just restricted to the Dex Entries at times?

your point about kids being less innocent now is spot on I heard some like 4th standard kids or something just swearing talking about really inappropriate stuff for their age

I had to get out of incognito mode to comment this. This is golden. You communicated my feelings towards these games so damn well and then some. I was on the verge of tears at the end. Pokémon nowadays just doesn’t know what it really wants to be. I don’t even know how to feel with this series. Should I fight for the boundless potential Pokémon has, knowing in the back of my mind it’s a losing battle? Or should I run away, soaking myself to other RPGs like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Shin Megami Tensei, but undoubtedly feel pity for the generations of people playing this archaic empty husk of a game series? I feel paralyzed. I don’t know what to do. Pokémon to me now is just more content for FurAffinity or something. The soul is gone… They treat players like they know literally nothing. Insulting as someone who’s played games since I was 4. I don’t know how people still care to buy new games, when it’s just the same thing over and over and over again. I also want to say, despite how hard it must have been for you, thank you for genuinely sharing your emotions through your commentary. Emotion is what makes people care the most about things, and not enough people do that, probably because they fear of getting labeled as whiny or something. When you slowly and gradually reached the tipping point at the 1-hour mark, I freaking felt it. I was shaking in amazement. This needs more views before Scarlet and Violet come out. People shouldn’t just buy these games solely based on brand identity. We want our own meaningful, challenging, customizable journey where the world is alive and not like we’re the center of the universe. For this, I say thank you. You earned a like and subscribe. I’m gonna share this with my friends now.

N could solo the entire franchise with just slightly better writing, god damn

I've been a pokemon fan probably my whole life, ever since I saw the Diamond and Pearl anime playing on Cartoon Network as a kid. I still love Pokemon. And despite this I agree with *every single opinion you've made here.* This is honestly my favorite pokemon essay of all time. No other big name poketuber can come CLOSE towards this level of care and polish and raw, unfiltered PASSION you put in this video. You are BASED as FUCK. You are my fucking brother in arms with these FIRE opinions, god bless upon ye. Although I'd say that I actually liked Gates to Infinity better than Explorers of Time even though the game's easier cuz the characters are much much better imo, although EOS is also pretty damn good. The characters of Post Town and beyond just felt so alive, so full of personality, and I always rooted for them even though I got spoiled of the game. Compared to EOS GTI has the more lively set of side characters who aren't exactly random town NPCs - Emolga, Dunsparce, Virizion, Espeon and Umbreon, etc.; and I love how *actually involved* they all are in the story, *even at it's climax in the final dungeon! Like hOLY SHIT what a way to make me feel for these goobers!* One thing I'd say is that the main group of baddies is much weakly written than the antagonists of EOS (even though said evil group of baddies' leader is actually kind of a really well written and depressing character). Also I ship Emolga and Virizion so damn hard,,, just lil flying squirrel man and his nature deity goat wife who's four times his size amiright- Anyways so many people critiquing pokemon only talk about the gameplay, and not the story itself. You are the first person I've seen ever TALK ANYTHING about what's wrong with the narratives of pokemon games, and you did it so *so extensively.* I've seen Sun and Moon get a lot of hate because "tOo MuCh HaNdHoLdInG" and while that was a pretty legitimate critique to give to a game, I still enjoyed it. Gen 7's still my favorite pokemon generation of all time, because it gave us some of the sickest and most unique designs for pokemon (the Ultra Beasts are still some of my favorites I love these eldritch horror alien goobers so much), and improved on a lot of things that I did NOT like about X and Y including the game's difficulty and it's storyline. Even though the storyline had some wasted potential, it was still an *actual storyline with actually memorable characters*, and it made this game much more fonder for me. Also Team Skull (the other one, with the humans) is fucking hilarious and is my favorite out of all of the evil teams ever holy shit these guys are so fucking funny just a big found family of thugs doing wacky shit and crimes together what's not to love Honestly I love Pokemon as a *concept* more than a game. I've seen many fan comics and fanfics that have their own interpretations of the pokemon universe and I can't fucking explain them all BUT whenever I want to go back to pokemon, I just look at fanfics and fan art and fan comics and headcanons, because they tell a story far FAR greater than anything Gamefreak has done. By the moment people knew Ingo was stuck in the past in Hisui, it was almost as if the separation anxiety angst fanfics of his twin brother Emmet now being left devastated and haunted by the sudden vanishing of his brother and him not showing up for possibly *months or even years* just... WROTE THEMSELVES IN AN INSTANT. Everytime I check the pokemon tag on Tumblr, all I see are a thousand different AUs on all the different ways on how the subway boss brothers my or may not reunite or cope with the situation. And it's almost all hauntingly beautiful. Even though these two barely have any character in the game's they debuted in, they still managed to get a death grip on thousands upon thousands of fans. Because fanon is one hell of a drug. And fanon is what brings me back to pokemon. Pokemon is a franchise of infinite potential. And by that, it has unintentionally become the ultimate playground for the fanfic writer or fan artist, young or old, novice or a veteran. Anyways that's it for the ramble byeeeeee

The ending gave me deep chills. It's hard to believe and accept how bad this franchise is because we as players and fans always try to see through the surface and immerse ourselves in the world. But gamefreak really has given us nothing. And it's heartbreaking I guess that's how they got the "freak" in gamefreak

This got recommended to me from pretty much nowhere (I have recently been watching Pokemon Challenge runs), so hopefully this video is reaching a lot more people than normal.

I was _just_ about to suggest the Pokemon Adventures manga to you when you mentioned it. Your point about the mainline games featuring Pokemon but PMD actually having them as characters was my favourite part of the video.

Plot of gen 10 is dialaga is an alcoholic and the other 3 are trying to help

If lysandre's plan had just been to kill team flare, and THAT was the purpose of the entry fee (making sure everyone who joined was a garbage human being) he would have jumped from easily worst villain to easily best villain

I remember when I first played The explorers games, as well as Bowser's inside story. Probably the first times video games showed me they could be much more than just a couple of levels. Sadly mainline Pokemon has yet to reach that feeling for me, and after branching out to other games since, I doubt I can ever go back to play those games unless major changes happen. Unfortunately, looking at how well they continue selling, I don't think it'll ever happen.

The lack of side character autonomy, the world revolving solely around the main character and everything playing out the same way no matter if you win or lose battles are all valid points I agree with. Wouldn't it be great if your potential failures had consequences to the story or if characters remembered things about you and their battles against you and pertinent world events? I do agree, that there are some wacky NPCs with wild dialogue but saying that they all contribute to a world that doesn't feel lived in is just incorrect. I'd recommend RU-vidr Droomish and his recent video "The strange and beautiful NPCs of Gen 3 Pokemon". It does a great job at highlighting the dialogue of certain NPCs that definitely add to a world that feels lived in. The one thing you forget to consider regarding dialogue in these games is that these games aren't English; they're Japanese. Accurately translating these two languages is one thing and that can already be a massive failure sometimes but conveying the correct meaning of what was written is a whole nother story. So critiquing the dialogue from a standpoint as if it was originally written in English when it was in fact written in Japanese and then translated to English might account for the uncanny effect it can have. I'm not saying that it makes the actual dialogue any better but rating it's actual quality would be much more sensible by actually reading the Japanese dialogue and grading that. For all I know the Japanese dialogue could be just as crap of course. Then we should remind ourselves, that the dialogue is also in a game, that's first and foremost marketed to toddlers. Little kids aren't stupid of course but they certainly aren't able to appreciate sophisticated, poignant, meaningful and structurally well written dialogue in the same way adults can. That's not a real excuse to exclude it from the get-go; I'm just highlighting how executives and game developers think about these things. Target audience is a real factor for things like this. If I'm writing a novel aimed at 5 year old children instead of the average 35 year old it's highly likely I'm going to put less effort in and for certain I will simplify things and themes so that the children will actually be able to absorb them properly. For the point about putting in less effort: Ideally that's not how it should be but it is how human beings tend to do things. As an older fan of pokemon, I'd certainly wish for a new main line pokemon game that is more serious, explores deeper themes and has some stakes and consequences for the decisions you make. I too really enjoyed the Mystery Dungeon games. I completely agree that the main series villains are mostly tame and trash. This is often due to circumstance though and not necessarily because of the character's actual traits. It's hilarious how quickly a villain like Lysandre becomes bat shit insane and a crazy threat if he actually pulled through with his plan. One small caveat: saying that it's a bit dumb that everyone ignores the insane shit he says isn't stupid imo. He's a rich and powerful individual. We have enough of those in our reality who say a myriad of insane shit and most people flock around and admire them nonetheless for no reason. I agree his plan makes no real sense but does it have to? Can't he just be an insane lunatic with power and money? But I definitely agree, that a lot of the dialogue in gen 6 makes no sense and is pretty infuriating if you actually try to wrap your head around it like you did. A smaller point at the beginning of the video about the technology that exists in this world and whether it makes sense or not is something I find a bit tricky to be honest. This is a fictional premise and you're trying to put the relativity of our real world onto it. A lot of fiction fails under those guidelines. Almost no superhero stories make sense that way either. I do agree that yes of course, they have so much insane technology that's just taken for granted and used for completely moronic things but this is a video game and they're just used as tools and mechanics to make level design really low effort and easy. The financial economy of the pokemon world makes absolutely no sense either for instance. But these are all things I'd argue you really shouldn't think about in order to enjoy a game that is about cockfighting with fictional monsters and is mainly made for the target audience of six year old children. You use the exact opposite side of this point later in the video to not discuss Magcargo's pokedex entry. Could they nonetheless try to improve on this in the future? Yeah, of course. Will they? Idiots keep buying the garbage heaps that are the newer games so no, probably not. That's the main problem really. Ever since its inception, pokemon prints money. Nowadays the games don't even make up a fifth of the revenue anymore of what is the biggest media franchise on the planet. They clearly do not give a shit about the main series games any longer. That's pretty evident with the slop that's been released in recent years. You've got enough morons buying it anyways along with a new horde of 5 year olds who don't know any better and will probably feel nostalgia for this trash in 15 years time. I'm not opposed to Dex-it either if it meant we'd get more refined animations and gameplay but yeah we didn't, did we? And I get why some people take issue with it because pokemon's old motto once was "gotta catch em all" which is kinda hard to do if all of them aren't even in the game. They've changed it since but I don't think it's a hard concept to grasp that your consumer might have some discontent if the main slogan of your brand conveys one thing and the product conveys another. I absolutely agree about the tutorials and the handholding. There's nothing much else to say about how pointless and annoying it is and how it has ruined the modern iterations of the games for experienced players. Yeah the Master Ball really doesn't need to exist. This is again about children and instant gratification for the box art legendary though. The horribly slow and stretched battle animations could be intentional to stretch gameplay time artificially and require less optimisation but who am I telling this to if you said you study game design. I also hate it. People spamming the A button is a wide spread habit amongst pokemon players for a reason :D One thing I would say is that these games weren't ALWAYS garbage as the thumbnail says. As the video goes on, I'm understanding this was more just a thumbnail to grab views and attention. Nonetheless I will say that the original first few games were marvels of optimisation and the teams working on them were small and had little to no money. They were products of genuine vision and passion and the world wide success they attained is a testament of that. There are so many facettes to the 2D pokemon games that are absolutely fantastic: music, world lore, certain location designs, small side activities that have so much depth put into their mechanics that it's actually mind-boggling (like gen 3 pokeblocks), the pokemon designs and character designs themselves, etc. I agree however, that as the franchise progressed and got bigger it is quite obvious that Gamefreak isn't the company that should be at the helm for the further creation of these games. Gireum Red's video "I exposed what's really going on at Gamefreak" where he looks at employee reviews of the company's work culture is rather eye opening as to the state of how they take on the endeavour of making modern pokemon games. They really do not care anymore. Like I previously mentioned: these main line games aren't what's driving sales for the Pokemon IP any longer but toxic morons still eat up this slop and slam any criticism of it with vile hatred. As long as people keep buying every horrible dev crunched new game on release in the millions, nothing will change. Sorry for the long comment btw but you did make a pretty long video to comment about :) Nicely done vid. Overall, I agree.

I totally agree with pretty much every point you brought up. At this point, while I play every game released, the Pokemon games just became an inspiration for independant creators for me. Rom hacks, art, even Fanfictions! You would be surprised what masterpieces there were created, just 'The Natural' or 'Borne of Caution' alone are greater than every Pokemon story created by the Pokemon franchise (except Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Sky, but I think we all agree that thats the best game Pokemon has and will likely ever released)

WOW! I am throughly impressed with the points and editing of this video. This is big poketuber level quality in terms of production, and I really enjoyed the video

YES! FINALLY it's not being held captive on your computer anymore and it's premiering tomorrow hooray!! I can't wait to see all the fun edits and clips that you've done I'll be sure to watch it live!

On a platform famous for creators screaming into their microphones, this is the best example of that volume being EARNED that I can think of. Feels weird to praise a RU-vid Video for yelling, but you had me so engrossed I only noticed it when you cut away. Thanks for putting a voice to the years of frustration I and many others have felt with Pokemon.

Pokémon’s poor world building is a huge issue. I remember how distancing it was even as a kid to be playing the game and then see characters IN WORLD holding DS’s and doing things like trading or battling Pokémon with them???? WHAT????????? Even at the age of NINE i was entirely taken out of the story and left with many many concerning questions that left me somewhat disturbed.

Thanks for being someone who finally mentions the darn NPC dialog in these games. I swear, you are correct: Everyone in these worlds is a bunch of _weird_ sociopaths. This is one of the worst non-gameplay things about these games, it's crazy that so few people mention it.

Just a thing; but could you like hold the footnotes for like a second or two longer, you have so many of them and they pass by pretty fast.

Wow dude. Why don’t you have more subs? This is sublime. You make a lot of good points and even more great ideas Game Freak should implement. Personally, Sword and Shield was the de facto point when I felt betrayed by Game Freak, that nothing of interest is happening. And funny enough, it was Digimon: Cyber Sleuth and Hacker’s Memory that made me realize this. It was a game with 2 versions that were actually different (One side, you work with detectives, the other side, you’re a part the secret society of hackers), substantial paid DLC, dynamic side characters, actual stakes, agency from the main character, and meaningful ways that the game acknowledges your bond with your Digimon. This was a game I sunk 100 hours into without ever feeling I spent even 50 hours into it. It was just so engaging. Pokémon had so much time to just do something, anything, different and meaningful, and it didn’t, it doesn’t. Meanwhile, in Digimon Cyber Sleuth/Hacker’s Memory, I meet one of THE most terrifying things in my life within the first 20 minutes of me playing. I felt emotions in Digimon. I actually had a bond with everybody in there. Pokémon really is a cookie cutter adventure and I hate it, like you. It’s the reason I’m going to be cautious with Scarlet and Violet. I’m thinking about not even buying the game and just getting the experience from osmosis. I’m definitely thinking about buying the next Digimon game though. That stuff is fire and not afraid to experiment. Also, you Fossil Fighter Frontier review summarizes EVERYTHING I hate about Frontier. It’s great. So thank you for the great video essay and I hope to see more from you.

I’ve tried getting into Pokémon because so many times because people hype it and I really love the Pokémon designs and enjoyed the anime as a kid, but no matter which game in the main franchise I played, new or old, I could never finish it because I got too bored, even though Im one that very often finishes games. It’s always people saying “no these are the games that are good, the other newer games are bad” (or the opposite rarely), but they all just feel the same to play with a new coat. I love RPGs but these games don’t have interesting gameplay or an interesting story/characters imo. Still love the Pokémon designs tho they kinda rock

After the Spaceworld '97 ROM was leaked, and I spent considerable hours dissecting the components, it became obvious to me that the franchise has always been plagued by development issues. Now, there's a part of me that wishes Pokémon had ended with that version of Gen II, complete with whips and Pokémon being used as weapons of war by the military. Red and Blue have these cyberpunk and post-apocalyptic undertones that are just so much more interesting than the brightly colored world of family friendly dog fighting the series has become. Had the franchise continued in that direction, or just ended at Gen II as a solid send off rather than the unfinished mess we got, I think Pokémon would have the same mystique as any other obscure classic. It would have endured as a fond memory rather than languish in mediocrity it has now embraced.

You going fucking nuclear at random points while making solid points always makes me come back to this video.

The fact that there’s so many NPCs that bring up the ethics of storing Pokemon in data form is so bizarre. Not even other mon catching games are safe from this. TemTem, for example, goes out of its way to paint the in-game PeTA equivalent as unambiguously correct. In family-friendly games revolving around capturing creatures, why the hell do the edgelord implications of animal abuse get tossed at the player? Do the devs want me to catch mons or not?

Characters in pokemon really just stand around. Waiting for you to talk to them so they can give you a tutorial or exposition. And then go back to just standing there. Final Fantasy is far from perfect with this, but seeing the students of Balamb Garden walk around, or the people of Kilika repairing their town are things that are so small but add so much.

i don’t know how i discovered this channel but this is so engaging to watch

I love pokemon, but I absolutely agree, gamefreak keeps dropping the balls and I hope they fix it cause I love this series but they've bent it over there knee and spanked it to bits

Completely agree that the mainline games need better stories like PMD2, but it is a little tiresome that everyone uses that PMD as the example. Like the other three don't exist. I know 2 is the one most people played and is probably the best, but 1 and 4 deserve recognition

So glad this underrated channel has such a quality video in my Recommended, it is awful to see the direction the Pokemon games have gone in. It's been so hard for me to play through a Pokemon game the last few years because the constant hand-holding and irrelevant storyline is a slog to get through. I could only imagine how amazing a Pokemon game with mature themes, a real story and PASSION put into it would be. Unfortunately as we know, Nintendo like to strike down anyone who makes a Pokemon-inspired game. :/

God, I remember a bit, I don't remember which gen, where you get asked from the start if you'd like to have something explained and you get to answer yes or no, and even when you press no the game just disregards this and explains the game mechanic. It's like Gamefreak is either too lazy to program in the other option or they're so inept they don't know how to deal with giving the player that choice, at which point I got to ask WHY EVEN PUT IT IN THE GAME?!

@ 39:40. Even a sun will pass away after at least 1 billion years since its formation. The only thing that is constant is the universe's unstoppable march to its ultimate degradation.

Great characters like Zinnia, Marnie, N could've been so much more had they been given further story time. Marnie wants to prove herself and is basically Vegeta if he was never evil. Except Vegeta gets a fleshed out story while she gets... one rematch a day in the post game? Zinnia is a hero with a grey moral compass, goal achieved (kind of) then just up and vanishes. N is great, well written, enjoyable, relatable to an extent. Then he's done and thrown to the side indefinitely. Meanwhile Red comes back again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again solely for nostalgia pandering which even that has worn incredibly thin among fans because as cool as Red is, he's a fairly boring, one-note character with no compelling story outside of "Hey! I played as this guy that one time!" As for the games, Generation 1 had flaws but was overall a fun time, Gen 2 sucked, barely any pokemon, no real value added and it's sole winning point was that you could play generation 1 post game? Gen1: 2 Gen 2: 0 Generations 3 - 5 are universally loved, except it took Emerald and Platinum to perfect Gens 3 and 4. 6 has potential, but copied inferior versions of great material which killed a lot of potential Gen 7 - 9... exist. But Pokemon Legends had a good foundation for something more. Not counting spin-offs since Pokemon Colosseum is just Dead or Alive but with cool monsters and powers instead of boobs and weird angles and Pokemon snap is Uno just with Pokemon instead of broken trust and friendships. We need fleshed out characters, good narratives like Pokemon Emerald where villains actually achieve something and aren't just a minor inconvenience. A loveable cast like Brendan and May. Maybe alternate stories, like a story mode for Pokemon contests and another for the standard champions league with both contributing towards a full pokedex instead of cheaply locking a handful of pokemon into a 2nd version of the same game just with a whale instead of a lizard. Instead of "Here's a new region with some mediocre new additions and a "champion" who's weaker than past rivals, they could further flesh out a pre-existing region, like how Hoenn adds Mega Evolution, incorporates Rayquaza into the story with more than the original "Giant lizard scary, monster behave now" plot line. and add more exploration like how gen 1.5 let you travel Kanto after you beat Kanto but slightly more saturated, or "Johto" post game. Pokemon deserves better, frankly it's criminal how they treat this franchise.

I had a serious nostalgia attack when you mentioned Bakugan, I loved the show and the toys. My grandma would always take me to Target so I can collect more, and we would watch the show together at her house. I remember the show being on at 6 in the morning before school, oh I miss those days. The plot of the show was actually interesting! The Bakugan themselves are living creatures getting separated from their homeworld and end up stuck on Earth. They decide to team up with humans to try to win the battle for their home. The first 2 seasons were amazing, the last 2 seasons were all weird for me... I know a lot of people hate the series because of the merch being constantly advertised to you, but I loved it. It was my childhood

the biggest problem for me with DEXIT and why i switch to PKMN SHOWDOWN is team diversity. Now i may never be able to have a team with typhlosion, rillaboom, and greninja. Several pokemon combinations are now impossible, because they arent in the same game together. i feel like a solution for dexit is a battle simulator like showdown. they could of uses the style from black/white version for simplicity. To me if PKMN home, PKMN showdown, and PKMN GO can have all PKMN in it then why cant the main games. pokemon home has several different animation for mons in it, but they seem ok with it increasing in mons but not the main games. im fine with mons not being in the game (looking at you legendaries) or not catchable in the game, but most pokemon should be transferable.

Nearly finished with the vid, love the overall message even if there are some things I personally dont see eye to eye on (though its smaller things, the big points I fully/mostly agree on). Only major complaint id like to point out with this vid is a structural thing: the walls of text that require pausing if you want to see the full conversation. I usually wanna watch through a video completely without having to stop bar some outside exceptions that require attention. Having to pause the videos to read a wall of text (which I say "wall of text" but really the amount of text itself isn't an issue at all) feels really pace breaking, though the ones i read did seem like the addressal of counterarguments that likely would've slowed the video's progression, so I think it mostly passes. Just a small nitpick since they sorta interrupt the flow a bit, but other than that i think this is a solid video. What's weird to me though (and mind you Ive only played through sinnoh in platinum), is that I SWEAR that the ice lake area was stuck behind a rock climb wall where Barry basically said "hey dumbass go beat the gym so you can climb up and help me". Is that something I'm mistaken on, or is that just a platinum fix that they didn't add to BDSP since "haha faithful remake" excuse? Cause I also remember getting the reaper cloth for dusclops up there I'm pretty sure.

Someone needs to make a romhack of gen 5 with that revised plot

this reminds me of Pokémon Uranium [my favorite Pokémon game because it ACTUALLY TRIES], which does a lot of things that Gamefreak WISH it could do - but y'know, they took it down so... I guess we die. really, I just wish anyone but Gamefreak did Pokémon.

It really shows how badly they manage the ip when almost every fan project does way better with it.

Watching this reminded me that the most enjoyment I ever got from playing pokemon came about by ignoring everything GF did. I did my first nuzlocke playing Pokemon Black when I was 20- I had grown out of pokemon for a time so I didn't even know they'd made a new game- and I went into it completely blind. Everything was new, I didn't know what _any_ of these pokemon were, I was losing mons constantly... and it was amazing. I barely cared about the plot (because the best pokemon narrative is still just a pokemon narrative and I've consumed media not just aimed at teenage boys) and ended up making my own plot that I proceded to extend to nuzlockes of Sapphire, HeartGold and Black2. I was invested in this story of my own making in spite of Game Freak, and I actually managed to trick myself into thinking that I enjoyed playing their games for another whole generation. Then I suffered through Moon and that illusion was shattered so completely that I haven't played a non-fan game since. The series only exists because the creator remembered the fun he had catching bugs and that _that_ was an adventure. I think the reason everyone creams themselves over gen 1 is because it's the only generation that feels like you, the player, are having an adventure. You're just some random shmuck, a dime a dozen, you just wanna win dog fights and rub that in your dumb neighbor's face. You have _some_ degree of freedom in chosing what gym you take on next. You're not fighting to save the world, you're just beating up local thugs because, let's face it- you're a sociopath who only sees other people as vending machines that spit out money and exp if you hit them hard enough. But from gen 3 onwards, you're the most important person in the world and there's no build up to it- you just _are._ You aren't just "some shmuck"- you are God's chosen one and the narrative never acknowledges that! I miss being able to _choose_ if I wanted to find the legendaries. I miss being able to kill them because that fit into _my_ adventure. I miss the games being simple enough that _I_ could actually "role play" instead of watching Generic Anime Protagonist #12 be dragged around to save the world by their Best Friends(tm) who are _totally_ relevant to the plot and whose names I _absolutely_ remember.

Watched your Fossil Fighters video a while back, and had some great flashbacks from the good old days. Came back after recognizing the name in my recommended, and I gotta say, for all the effort and heart you put in your videos, you deserve more attention in this website. For what it is worth, you have a new sub.

I think a lot of this is valid - but missing why despite all these factors it’s the most valuable franchise of all time. People replay Platinum, HGSS, Fire Red several times, not thinking about plot or world building or graphics all of which Pokémon has never excelled at any point. The replay value comes from using a new team of Pokémon each time to play through the game. The Pokémon themselves is what makes Pokémon so attractive globally. The canon of the PC isn’t really a thought on 99% of the players, especially when a majority of players are under 14. I think some people - especially older fans - want a triple A game with amazing graphics and story telling, but I can tell you Ghost of Tsushima that has it all is probably played by 90% of people just once while many people continue to replay 15+ year old Pokémon games. PMD has a great story, but again you can only play it once or twice cause it will be exactly the same experience every play through, even if the two Pokémon protagonists are changed. Sure you can recruit Pokémon to your team to use, but several story based dungeons stop the player from using more party members. Also the lack of evolution and small stat changes until post game also takes away from the game, it just feels like the Pokémon are just skins and the differences are minimal. The story and world building are amazing, but I’m never itching to play through it again right after finishing, maybe after several years.

As someone with no nostalgic feelings toward the Mystery Dungeon Explorers games, I am of the opinion that they’re massively overrated. A lot of people say that Explorers of Sky is the best Mystery Dungeon game, and it is, but it’s still only a C tier game, tied (in my opinion) with Super Mystery Dungeon. If even the best stories and worlds in the Pokémon franchise are that mediocre, it’s clear that there’s a systemic issue. With the Mystery Dungeon games, It took literally turning Pokémon into Digimon to make them interesting. For context Digimon Adventure season one first aired in 1999. Red and Blue rescue team came out in 2005. A list of similarities between Adventure 01’s setting and Mystery Dungeon’s setting: - The human and monster worlds are separate but connected. - The main character(s) are humans who have been sent to the monster worlds. - The monsters speak and live in societies. - The monsters have local legends and cultures. - Specific monsters are able to evolve largely because of the protagonist being a human (in most games). - The human main character(s) were brought to the monster world to solve a problem. On their own these seem innocuous, but these are the elements that make Digimon and Pokémon’s settings (specifically their settings) unique. It just feels weird that some of the best stories and characters in Pokémon are in the least Pokémon-like games. It really speaks to how suffocating Pokémon’s formula has gotten for the franchise, and Game Freak isn’t going to start innovating any time soon. Like you said, Game Freak needs to start focusing on the quality of the writing in their games in order for them to improve.

This is all Explorers of Sky propaganda and I'm all for it. But for real, I think the spin-offs tend to be so much better than the mainline series precisely because of this. They feel way more focused, the world makes much more sense, the gameplay feels refreshing in comparison to the mainline games! Hell, the stories tend to be more interesting. People say Scarlet and Violet will be better but... sure, we might get another competent game like SM, but what'll happen next? More mediocre games so they can give us another competent game a couple of generations after? Game Freak AND TPCi are just... not good at dealing with one of THE largest media franchises of all time. It doesn't make sense.

"I'm not too old for this series, I'm too old for the way this serise treats me" a perfect point

Just finished watching all the way through, and you've really helped me come to terms with certain negative thoughts I've had about the Pokemon series that I handwaved away because nobody else seemed to feel that way about certain parts of these games. This video was a great use of my time. Keep up the good work, and I hope video reaches a hell of a lot more people

This is the first video I’ve ever watched of yours, and it struck a chord with me. While I did play Pokémon Ranger growing up, I did not play Mystery Dungeon, but I might now. I have lived with and loved this franchise ever since I was little, and as apart of the theory community, I have searched for years for real meaning among its superficial world building and contradictory lore details. I resonate with what you’ve made here. I think you would really appreciate the fan regions that have found their home on YT from various creators I’ve watched: HoopsandHipHop, Bird Keeper Toby, Lockstin and Gnoggin, Truegreen7, and, most of all, I think you’d appreciate the storytelling of Mr. Buddy. I’m not sure if you wrote the section on Ultra Wormholes having already watched his take on it, or if it was just coincidence, but his passion project on Alola is magnificent. I am currently writing a years in-progress fan fiction with what I believe to be a mature story using my deep knowledge of the games’ lore. I’m re-writing the Pokémon timeline with my integrated magic system, and videos like yours help reignite my passion for mature Pokémon projects. I hope you continue the good work.

Damn, I wasn’t expecting tears to well up when you went on the “imagine this” tangent

Ah yes, my chikorita and Glaceon can't be in the same game for "new" animation that is not the same rehash of Pokemon wobble with a special attack effects to make up for the lack of animation!

I fear none of this will be realized until one thing changes: the intense crunch and short development cycle ceases. I feel like people pretend the earlier games never had this problem of being rushed when it's been proven time and time again that its simply not the case. Diamond and pearl had their betas leaked back in 2020, and they were in a borderline unplayable state, worst part is that these betas were *a couple months* from release. Slapping on sprites for the next games would simply be putting a bandaid on a massive open wound, it's not Going to fix the terribly short development cycle and dev crunch they go through with these games, a complete overhaul with how they're made is the true way to fix it.

This was a masterpiece and you truly embody the storyteller that this property needs

Pokemon only got as big as it did because of the actual Pokemon themselves

Gireum Red made a vid named "I Exposed What's Really Going On At Game Freak" gave a decent insight about the decline in quality of Modern Pokemon titles. The employees that work/worked at the studio made reviews about the company detaling Game Freak's shortcomings.

The biggest problem with dexit isn't that you can't encounter literally every mon in game. Until gen 8, starting back in gen 3, you could always transfer the pokemon that mattered to you forward. Maybe if you were lucky it was your first starter. Maybe it was a shiny raquaza. Whatever the case, you could always bring your favorite pokes into the current game. Since gen 8 the calculus has changed to "keep paying nintendo money in perpetuity and pray to whatever god you believe in they don't cancel pokemon home (something they're famous for doing) before they come out with a game you can transfer them to."

I just watched the ending of The Indigo Disk, and I have to say it’s really, really anticlimactic. The dream theory would have made perfect sense, but “alternate dimensions” is apparently the excuse for every single miracle Terapagos performed, which leaves a whole lot of unanswered questions. I can’t tell if I’m just acting entitled or I’m completely justified in being so disappointed. Things like this are why the TCG is my favorite depiction of the Pokemon world. Simple snapshots of daily life, not held back by the crappy writing of the games or anime.

Great video bud, glad to finally get to see it! I am looking forward to your next video. Perfect amount of passion, insight and humor.

Pokemon like sonic is too protected for it's own good. Imagine pokemon from software or sonic from platinum games, the ego and laziness of these ip holders are huge.

"The amount of Pokémon" is no excuse for the animation quality in my eyes. A, that has nothing to do with specific cutscene animations; those concern themselves with specific models doing specific things in specific scenes. B, there are numerous large JRPGs out there with wide enemy and party pool with _more_ individual animations than a Pokémon has - and they _don't_ have Pokémon money to work with.

I cannot believe this video only has 7k views and this person has under a thousand subscribers. This is a crime. Brilliant video, and the amount of effort oozing through every second of it is incredible. Liked and subscribed. Hoping to see more awesome content.

I used to be so into Pokémon, especially when I was younger. I got into the franchise in 2011, but before that I was more into Bakugan and Kirby. But as I got older, I noticed things were getting stale with Pokémon. My first Pokémon game was White and I enjoyed it a lot. But the more I played the new games, my enjoyment slowly went down. It's very repetitive and all the games feel the same. The last Pokémon games I enjoyed were Sun and Ultra Sun. I agree with your points a lot and now a days, I do still care for Pokémon, but not as much. I'm more into Kirby then anything, but I'm curious to see what Scarlet and Violet has to offer... (Sorry if my wording sucks, I suck at talking lol)

Honestly I feel like Game Freak isn't at all sure why they got popular, and they keep around the cruft because they're terrified of dropping any element just in case it was the load-bearing beam. So the gameplay loop doesn't feel that much different from the first pokemon game, down to the battle beats. But honestly, having gotten into the franchise from the start... the battle beats in the original game sucked. But they kept you engaged anyway because of the original appeal of Pokemon. And the original appeal was, honestly, actually being able to have an RPG team battler that gave you TOTAL control over how your team developed for 100 percent of the game, PLUS had a TON of appealing options for team members that you can swap out at any time for any reason at all. It's really astonishing how nobody stumbled upon this combo until Pokemon. And the marketing made it work even better because, while the gameboy game definitely had its limitations, you were supposed to project yourself into this world and imagine yourself on adventures with your friends. The later games never capitalized on this. And after a while it started to become apparent it just wasn't because of limitations anymore. Game Freak was just not at all interested in the thing the players wanted to play. Game Freak is under the impression that the narrative appeal of this game is the "adventure" part, and so builds these perfunctory adventures in which you can save the world, but like... who cares? You do that in every game. Pokemon was supposed to be the one where you did it *with your friends*. It wouldn't even matter if the world was never in peril. We wanted actual drama that brought us closer to our chosen companions. It happens in the anime all the time! But in the games, all you get are these NPC buddies (not even rivals anymore) thrust upon you, and your pokemon themselves never do anything at all except play minigames. It's compounded by the fact they never let any aspect of the gameplay drop, even if it was clearly a limitation of the system it was originally for. One-on-one battles should be a *tournament formality;* any time it's serious it should be six-on-six (LIKE IN THE ANIME). Four moves each? Why? Why didn't they change it out for some kinda elemental MP system the moment it was technically viable? Why does there need to be a hundred new pokemon every generation? Why do they keep resisting going true open world? Why do they have to keep the gym badge system every game? Why is so much of the potential gated behind endgame content? I just stopped caring at some point because it just never lived up to the potential they very, very clearly promised. No wonder Nuzlockes are so popular right now. They are trying VERY hard to squeeze some actual pathos out of the core concept where Game Freak continually refuses to give any.

I entered this video expecting a simple rant about where Pokémon is heading, but god was I pleasantly surprised. Really good video, I look forward for more of your content. However, I did notice something that held my enjoyment of it a little, which are the multiple interruptions in the video to further elaborate these points. They worked for me once or twice, but after that, it started becoming tiring, having to pause the video, getting out of the flow of it. It's just a little nitpick, though. Your points are really solid, and the use of other Pokémon entries really help to prove your point. I wish this video got to so many people, it's genuinely very good.

The video editing and depth of analysis here is insane! Great watch!

Man, you did with the retcon from 1:18:57 hfd more power than whole franchise (except for PMD series). It hits harder than a goddamn truck! I replayed Explorers of Sky month ago and it still bears so much emotional force (although I'm 28 and found out this game only 4 years ago). And music there is gorgeous! Your words ring true and for that I respect you.

Thank you so much for this video. I find it really annoying how pokemon games are only ever compared with each other (at least for the main series) which i believe is one of the things that holds them back more than anything else. Now despite what some people might say, pokemon has always been the highest selling franchise in the world even at times where its popularity was at its lowest and because of that almost no one ever takes a step back to ask themselves if the games can be done better or what can pokemon learn from other games to improve itself.

Such a sad sight that many, honestly willfully ignorant people, will choose to not even watch this amazing video based merely on the title and thumbnail. They dismiss you another Modern Pokemon "H8r", some even having the gall to call you Verlisify of all things. They can continue to enjoy their poorly written kiddie game with non-existent story, where they're mashing B to skip over dialog anyways, and be perfectly fine with forced Catching tutorials that insult their intelligence.

Yeah, pretty tired of how people call Ultra Sun and Moon horrible games for its failures when Pokemon has always been this way. Gen 3 story is even more barebones and ridiculous than the Ultra games, Emerald adds barely anything to the games outside of a cutscene with Rayquaza and a better battle frontier which realistically nobody actually cares that much about. You point out a very important issue with the franchise that didn’t “start” in Gen 6, people just started getting tired of it in Gen 6. And the decrease in difficulty of the games exacerbated the issue, but the idea that old games are good and new ones are bad fundamentally isnt true. I mean I love Pokemon, I play it more for the sake of collecting that I binge with a cup of coffee and maybe a cat sitting on my lap. But Id hardly call it riveting or deep. It could be so excellent though if gamefreak really puts in the effort.

I’m pretty late to the party on this one, but after finally watching it, this video was amazing, the editing and humor within the editing, it blended with great points all around. I agreed in that games like BW, they had such amazing potential for storytelling, only for ghetsis to steal the show for all the wrong reasons. BW’s climax from a narrative perspective is the epitome of tripping right at the finish line in my opinion. But my favorite part of the video were your points dissecting how the NPCs with their stupid sociopathic dialogue and their blind pokemania, alongside really weird writing, putting things like poke-ball theories or pc storage into a weird sometimes darker light is something I’ve never heard anyone mention before despite me thinking of it a lot whenever I noticed it.

Another note about Palworld is that, imo, a good chunk of the edgyness comes from being upfront with stuff Pokémon itself implies or says off hand, like the brainwashing capture balls or the lack of "normal" animals to get food from. This, ironically, elevates Palworld above the "kids character(s), but they swear lmao" tier trashpost into a kinda interesting parody.

One thing I thought of would be to mix both methods you mentioned of improving Pokémon animations while still keeping the National Dex. Make a game with a "small" amount of Pokemon(like say, low 100s), make more diverse and complex animations for that set alone, then next game, choose as many Pokemon that fit with it's setting while still staying in the amount I stated, do animations for those, and allow the Pokemon from the previous game that used this method to be transferred over since those animations are already done. Now, I may be missing things like engine limitations or the like, but the reuse of assets is such a common practice that I would be surprised if it's not at least theoretically possible over of course of many years.

surprised you never mentioned how food works in the pokemon world it's weird how the games never acknowledge that your miltank on the team will be grilled and seasoned to be put into a delicious burger one day or how the scrambled eggs you had for breakfast was actually a sawk egg

N was the only decent Pokémon villain, and even then, they still refused to do anything with him.

Personally i loved triple battles and rotation battle. It was a fun mechanic

Tbh the only thing most people care about in Pokémon is the Pokémon. To please the majority of the fan base all you need is updated game with passable graphics and their favourite Pokémon. The reason people are mad about dexit is because everyone has a different list of favourite Pokémon. If you remove half the Pokémon you make half of your audience upset. If a Pokémon game releases with only 1 of the Pokémon I like I’m probably not going to care about or play it. Why would anyone play a game if they literally don’t care about the characters. It would be similar to yugioh removing half of its cards or archetypes. I try not to have expectations and enjoy everything for what it is. It’s good to have some form of standards I suppose but if your expectations are high for everything you will spend your life unhappy. I think you’re being a bit dramatic and nit picky with some things but I do get the sentiment and agree that game freak doesn’t deserve Pokémon or the fanbase.

i feel your frustrations on a deeply emotional level homie. Game Freak and the Pokemon Company have gotten away with being mediocre for way too long.

And this is why I give monster tamer games a chance instead of dizzing them on the notion of calling them Pokémon-clones outright, because at least most of them give a DAMN about giving out some quality stuff for your bucks and don't dare treating you like you're mentally impaired.

I got ORAS for my 15th birthday as it came out a day or two before it, and I played the fuck out of both of em. Seeing the whole "Battle Frontier coming soon" model in the battle resort made me think "hmm I guess we'll get the battle frontier as DLC" NAH. WE DIDN'T. This is something I will *NEVER* be able to get over. Yes ORAS did a lot right to make hoenn a wonderful and beautiful experience, however it doesn't excuse Gamefreak removing key features repeatedly, and this bullshit started here man... 2014 - Battle Frontier removal 2016 - National Dex removal (in terms of its existence, however the pokedex was still able to be completed 2019 - Complete removal of the national Dex and entire pokemon as well, some given back to us via DLC (aka unfinished content Gamefreak shoved in when it should've actually been postgame content) idk about y'all but we SHOULD NOT have to pay $90~$100 for a "completed" pokemon game. Period. Also the removal of mega evolution started with SwSh Also the fact that Gamefreak straight up lied about needing to remake the pokemon models as the reasoning for why we lost the national dex will never cease to piss me off. The audacity to lie about this and then REUSE THE FUCKING MODELS FROM THE 3DS MAKES ME SO DISAPPOINTED. See, the models for the pokemon are just fine, thats not the issue. Its the fact Gamefreak said they needed to remake the models, and didn't even do that and they STILL haven't followed through on this even with SV... (The pokemon models are still the same from the 3ds era, polygon for polygon) Also if that wasn't enough, I know GF could definitely make way better animations for pokemon other than them just standing there barely moving. If Pokemon Stadium, Coliseum, XD Gale of Darkness, and Battle Revolution can do it, fucking Gamefreak can do it. But they won't because they'd rather shit out garbage every 1.5years than actually take time to make a game that has a wide variety of expressions, voice acting, all the pokemon, and maybe multiple regions. I feel like at this point its not much to ask of GF to give us another game with say Kanto Johto Hoenn and Sinnoh all in one with voice acting, cutscenes, etc. BotW and TotK took like 6-7 years EACH (BotW started development in 2011/2012 after skyward sword ended, and TotK after BotW's DLC was completed, as the Zelda team said there was so much they wanted to add to BotW, yet decided that all the ideas they had deserved a new game) so I REALLY DON'T SEE WHY GAMEFREAK CAN'T DO THIS AS WELL. But at the end of the day this is apparently too much to ask for, according to some "pokemon fans" :/

So we're ignoring the fact that Lillie was cheerful and bright in design because her mother pushed it on her, a pacifist likely because of how her mother treated Pokemon (like keeping her pokemon in crygenic boxes) and was on the run the entire time from a gang that her mother paid off to go find and retrieve her and the Pokemon that the girl escaped with because she couldn't stand the thought of her mother mistreating it? And this is completely missing that Lusamine merged herself with an alien parasite, which is the most nightmare fuel Alola gives you. Without even counting the USUM games where even the music with the post-game fights implies the seriousness of what happened. Alola targeted familial trauma, abuse, and mending from that. Which is something that a lot of media doesn't even try to tackle. It is closer to Encanto which is still very mature, but focuses on themes that are less violence and more psychological. We're ignoring the fact that tv shows and video games are different mediums, therefore have different standards and different things they're meant to communicate and be rated by? Or that many of those examples were an entirely different genre. Or meant for kids who were closer to tweens when most people started playing Pokemon at 5. The PMD games were a good example but then you also gotta consider that when Pokemon hurt each other it comes across as horrifying only to adults (the drowzee scene just feels like a pedo scene waiting to happen), and if you saw Guzma for example actually hurt the main character that's visible child abuse on a screen which people sometimes don't want to see their children watch all the time. There's a degree of separation psychologically that might influence why they made those design choices in terms of game storyline. Not to mention Detective Pikachu is also a different medium and possibly intended indirectly for another demographic. Palworld is a bad example because 1. not everyone wants the edgy themes in that game. 2. people have problems with the child soldiers trope all the time. What would make kids getting hurt in these games visibly unless their pokemon were there any better? That's not even getting into how games like Palworld probably require more motor controls than young kids like 5 year olds want to regularly put into a game. You could age up the protagonists, but then are the characters really going to be relatable to a kid? Not to mention Pokemon being a turn based rpg makes a lot of sense when it comes from Japan, which is where a lot of classic rpgs started as turn based strategy games.

Seeing mystery dungeon npcs being compared to regular Pokémon npcs makes me wonder if humans and Pokémon actually got their brains swapped and that's why every human npc acts like a literal drooling moron, talking about shorts for no reason, saying one word over and over again, or talking about bringing their Pokémon to work in secret yet everyone else there also has their Pokémon, so what's even the point? Yet the npcs in mystery dungeon actually act like real people even though the Pokémon themselves are pretty much normal animals in the Pokémon world. (With expectations of course)

46:02 if Pokémon battle revolution can house every Pokémon on the Wii then the switch should’ve been able to handle all of the new Pokémon. The fucking 3DS could do it. And then they had the nerve to resell us all of those old Pokémon via DLC where there should’ve been a post game. Nope. Fuck Dexit. They get no quarter here with me.

"My face is reflected in the water. It's a shining grin full of hope... Or maybe it's a look of somber silence struggling with fear... What do you see in your face?" This quote is said by a random kid looking at his reflection in Petalburg in Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Omega Ruby, and Alpha Sapphire. It feels out of place for multiple reasons: 1) It sounds like the kid is depressed or thinking about some seriously dark thoughts. 2) It catches you off guard as it is the 3rd major settlement of the game and nothing bad has happened, yet. 3) His dialogue has NEVER been changed across all Hoenn releases. I love it. Instead of me getting mechanics and location-based gameplay exposited at me ridiculously to an insulting degree, you get this dialogue that breaks the mold. I strangely love it.

1:17:35 "There is no excuse for every Pokemon game to be Terrible" *There is.* It's _Flimsy_ But... When you brought up the sales for the franchise, more than half the sales are in merchandising products with Video Games being second, no where near matching the sales for merchandise. The fact is this franchise, despite all the revenue it has, does not focus it on the primary vehicle for that presentation: the games. We could've gotten to a point where Pokemon could just drop the games and still be a profitable franchise without the thing that made it a phenomenon in the first place. On the other end, every Pokemon game has been on a technical note been running off the same code since Gen 3, and the studders and everything have been present since Gen 4 - So when you're using old code on newer hardware, it's going to hiccup and need more changes in order to run. I don't doubt that if GameFreak could, they could have a Pokemon game made entirely the way we envision it, running perfectly, had they built the game completely from scratch - and if they want to preserve compatibility between older games: do what they did for the VC releases of RBYGSC and recreate the transferred Pokemon to the updated Gen's new code. But no, they'd rather do the bare minimum and patch any excuses (and cloning glitches) instead of making a decent game. Then people complain the Switch isn't powerful enough, which it is, but Pokemon's quality isn't the issue a more powerful system can handle, it's GameFreak's coding that isn't up to snuff. ... That said, I'd like to make a counterargument on the design of tone. Not that it's not needed, don't get me wrong, just - many of the examples you used were of Western Animation franchises: Many of which likely would not be known to a Japanese focused company and even if they were probably wouldn't have the same impact: Many anime that are popular amongst teenagers and young adults were intended for kids in their home country. I mean for fuck's sake "Values Dissonance" on Tv Tropes used to have the page image of the Pokemon Adventures Manga, where Norman was appluded as a "good father" for going after his runaway son Ruby and beating the shit out of him before letting him continue his journey. A Japanese company isn't going to look towards American animation, and incorporate its tone into their games when most of the time, those showrunners let those aspects slip by the companies as a whole (Just consider the whole controversy Disney tried with getting rid of The Owl House for its LGBT content - Pretty sure the creator didn't indulge that story element when the show was initially pitched, if it did, I'm sure it would've been shut down - so, props to the creator.) Hell, Pokemon the anime's target demographic in Japan is _younger_ than the 10 year olds the franchise frequently talks about: We're talking close to Dora the Explorer age target demographics. ... At the end of the day, I like this video. I agree with... Most of it. There are things I wish it covered, like the whole technical aspect of the game being underwhelming, which the move animation thing and the buff/debuff aspect sort of highlighted. There were things that were great, like the idea of NPCs sort of living in this world, but then you have the tonal arguments in relation to western animated media which... Yeah it could talk down less to their audience, but I just doubt that a Japanese company is going to look at this and get inspired from media that they for all intents and purposes would not watch, or not match the demographics they intend for the games.

Honestly, I haven't thought critically of this, or any series till 2015. Watching this opened my eyes of both the franchise and other games as a whole. In this series, my favorites are Legends Arceus, Rangers Shadows of Almia, Explorers of time/darkness/sky, Diamond/pearl/platinum (gen 4 overall being my first intro to the games), and slowly gen 5, though can slowly understand why some may not be as fond to. I normally wondered why the games listed and even outside of the series (Night in the Woods, Sonic Frontiers, Telltale's TWD, etc.) are my favorites and this vid summarized it all up perfectly. I really enjoyed this vid! :D

Can they just hire the fans for the writing team please that black and white part towards the end was genuinely fantastic and i feel even more robbed then before /gen

Fantastic video and I hope you make more in the future! -Usually, when I talk to my buddies about Pokemon, plot is normally the biggest thing that comes up along with some basic mechanics. I normally refer to the pmd series because of pretty much most of the points you made using it. -I've played a lot of TemTem and while there are some things I didn't like about it, I did like the idea of mainly double battles like you pointed out in your video. It would encourage people to actually use moves that help other mons rather than trashing them for 95+% of gameplay. It also made people formulate more complicated strategies with abilities and particular moves that changed the tide of battle when implemented correctly. This definetly made it more skill based and less "my over leveled singular pokemon move fast and hit hard" strategies for the main game. I definetly wouldn't be mad if that was simply an option for pokemon as a whole along with options to skip the tutorial and maybe have a difficulty setting for experienced players. -I also liked the reference to other games that had nothing to do with pokemon or did but were completely different from the main series. Particularly, I liked your mention of Palword (really looking forward to that coming out bc I played a lot of craftopia and they share the same devs) and pokemon arceus. Arceus, while a flop in several ways including poor terrain and lack of most abilities, I think it was a massive step in the right direction for the future of pokemon if they learn and improve upon it. This is especially true if they don't do the monster hunter aproach to going to areas and unlocking the sub camps, that was just weird. Anyway, enough of my ranting, thanks again for such a neat video! Also, have you played TemTem? I think you would find it interesting if you haven't, it's definently not for the feint of heart.