be honest: how do you feel about the future of pokemon games?

title. do you feel optimistic or pessimistic with regards to gen 9 or dppt remakes as well as beyond?

mixed :( swsh was controversial and I feel there is less to do in that game than other games, plus the cutting corners (like hop's animation being taken from hau in gen VII, among other things) has become more obvious to me. maybe it's from all the community complaints about it that make you pay attention more (highly likely), but I also feel things like that are more noticeable in 3D games than when the series was still pixel-based. I prefer DLC to a full-priced new, nearly-identical game version though, so that's a plus, but the DLC we recently got just doesn't seem worth $30 to me so far. we'll see how the crown tundra shapes up though, since that's supposed to be the major one.

that and if we get dppt remakes anytime soon the pokétch won't work as well as the originals since we have no dual screens like the DS with the switch. and that was a big quality of life change at the time, something I miss constantly when hatching eggs in shield since I keep having to go back to my party to remember how many eggs I have/if my party is full before grabbing the next egg. takes a few clicks and can be a little tedious at times, while in dppt i could've just looked at my bottom screen. dppt were already great, and I'm not sure how much better they'll be just because they get 'upgraded' to 3D, and will possibly have the same issues swsh has.

Yeah, I'm extremely pessimistic about the series' future and I feel it's more of the Pokémon Company's fault for rushing out the games because a deadline has to be reached. And it shows, while 3DS have various flaws, it definitely shows in SwSh. They are the most unpolished games in the series with barren content, shoddy graphics, stiff animations, archaic battle system that feels slow (not because it's turn based but because it feels like a lot of things can be resolved together instead of separately), framerate issues, cut Pokémon and moves, and even many of the Pokémon designs are lackluster (I did love some however).

Every time I see DPP remakes discussed, I think to myself I do not want them, especially with that they have done with ORAS in terms of watering them down. If anything, I'd much rather have DPP rereleased in the Switch/3DS eShop.

If possible, I wish the games were delayed so more time (more staff would help too) can be spent with polishing the games to be up to par because Pokémon feels like it's stuck in the past and is many steps behind compared to other Nintendo franchises and other RPGs. If they have to delay releasing the anime, TCG, other merchandise, etc. so be it. If they wouldn't take this, I'll probably end my journey in Galar.

personally... i'm not quite sure where i stand, here.

i think there's reason to be cautious about the future. even if you take the complaints about swsh as nitpicky, there are many areas of improvement, here. the base game's wild area, for instance, pales in comparison to the isle of armor's wild area. the inclusion of different kinds of biomes should've been in the base wild area from the start instead of being this big open field. @__@; not to mention the plot being hamfisted at the very end, but i think most people agree on that. whether you (generally speaking) want to blame this on Game Freak's inexperience on the Switch or plain incompetence, is up to you.

that said, credit where credit is due on the work that Game Freak has done in the past. for all the crap they've (rightly) gotten for not including a battle frontier in oras, at least soaring was a good mechanics and mega evolutions (imo, at least) was fun. hgss was also cool and i think is highly regarded among a lot of people, and while i don't personally like frlg, i think some people think they're decent? of course, this could be because this is handheld sprite-era in GF's glory days, but it at least gives me some confidence that they won't botch up a dpp remake, at least that badly.

as for future generations, i can't say. Game Freak has a history of always starting out rough and smoothing out rough edges in later games and it seems to be the case pretty much every single game. sm/usum i think are smoother and more fun to play imo than xy. if that holds up, then i'm curious to see what sort of improvements gen 9 would offer... if any, that is.

Game Freak really needs to work on their online infrastructure, though. it's a hot mess and i don't get how things could get worse after PSS.

I think it's a tough one, cause Game Freak seem to be going backwards from the 'glory days' and remove a lot of features, switching some out and just being inconsistent in my opinion. For me, the lack of post-game in recent years has been a serious problem in Pokemon games, and the general quality pales in comparison to other AAA titles and even some other Nintendo titles, take Zenoblade Chronicles or BotW for example.

I think the DLC is a good idea though, it adds extra content for the players to go through and fixes some of the problems/adds some new features that are much needed! That being said though, we shoudln't have to pay an extra £30 just to get stuff that should have been in the game anyway. I think DPP remakes would be amazing on the Switch and would do well for the series, but I still think Game Freak have got a few things to get right for the future of Pokemon.

Pokemon is doomed, it's stuck to a formula that works, with mechanics that were outdated even at the time it was released (See: Chrono Trigger/ Final Fantasy 4, 5 and 6). It has become a soulless corporate franchise that's only kept alive to make money. Soon, Pokemon will die and we will all remember the glory days when it was good, and it's painful death.

The franchise won't have a 10th generation unless The Pokemon company wakes up and smells the flowers, and this point that's not happening. The Pokemon company has become worse than EA or Bethesda. Because at least they can make a good game every once and a while.

Pokemon is a franchise on life support, and I think the plug should be pulled. Pokemon has become the new COD.

Refer to this post when the franchise inevitably dies.

I don't feel optimistic at all, but at the same time I respectfully disagree with the above post.

No matter how lazy they get, there's always going to be mass appeal with the less vocal casual audience. I believe Sword and Shield reached #4 highest sold main series Pokemon games. The reason is simplicity, as they realized it's the formula that sells and appeals. It's a franchise that can sell by brand name alone.

The DLC just feels gross. Sword/Shield already felt bare, and it feels like being asked to pay for stuff that should have been part of the original $60. I would hope this isn't the norm, but I don't feel optimistic there. I'd much prefer a third version, because at least they were three full games.

I'm optimistic that the franchise will continue well into the distant future, but pessimistic about how good a thing that is going to be.

The quality of Pokemon games has done nothing but decline and it's not going to get any better, because there is no need or motivation for things to improve from a business standpoint. If they can get away with selling garbage like Sword and Shield, and DLC on top of that, they can get away with anything. Combine a generally incompetent team of programmers with an extremely tight deadline and you have the recipe for a very poor video game, and that's exactly what we've been getting and will likely continue to get, because at the end of the day Pokemon is only 20% about games and is 70% about merchandise.

One thing I think that people forget is that Pokemon is not just a video game series, and the days of the games driving the franchise forward are long gone. They owe past success to the video games, but continued success is not dependant upon them when they have other methods of promoting merchandise sales, most notably Pokemon Go. The card game is also worth about as much as Yu-Gi-Oh, and that's a franchise about card games. If Pokemon's sucess was dependant on the games it would have died off long before now. The core games are only going to get worse and worse because of their low priority in the grand scheme of things, and the increasing complexities involved in development that just do not allow for a good game to be made to such a tight deadline when the people in charge have absolutely no idea how to manage their time or resources properly, or even how to make use of them and decide to just throw in excess models or spend months tinkering with grass animation.

If you think Pokemon is going anywhere anytime soon, you're kidding yourself. But if you think the games are going to get any better, you're also kidding yourself. The only way the games will improve is if they're divorced from the rest of the franchise, put in the hands of a competent and significantly larger development team with a more flexible deadline (because crunch is NOT acceptable) and if they're given more creative freedom. None of these things are going to happen as long as Masuda is in charge of Game Freak, and as long as the games they do put out continue to sell as well as they do relying solely on brand-name recognition rather than any actual merit as video games. At this point they're just another marketing tool.

But the only way the franchise will die within the next decade is if something else replaces it - and enough have tried that for us to know it's not even remotely possible, the closest was Yokai Watch and that was only in Japan - or if humanity itself comes to an end. Nothing is going to change any time soon.

I'm a bit worried about gen 9's Pokemon designs. I really like pokemon with normal designs like Pidgey, and I don't mind multi colored Pokemon like Chatot but I felt like gen 8 had too many crazy designed Pokemon. Some pokemon like Cufant, Yamper, Bruxish look like they just took an animal and then had a toddler color them in. I hope gen 9 has more simple designs.


In terms of playing I can't speak on gameplay as I don't really play new generation games.

Pessimistic like most people here. Most of my issues stem from the lack of content and challenge in the games these days. I was willing to overlook a lot of the issues I had with XY but the novelty of playing a fully 3D Pokemon game wore off long ago. I wish they'd at least throw us a bone and include a Battle Frontier in every main series entry from now on. Even if only 10% of players claim to use these in-game facilities they still add an enjoyable challenge for those who do and once the online playerbase and servers inevitably die off a Battle Frontier is just about the only challenge you can hope for.

It's not all bad. Some of the changes they've made help streamline the player's experience in a positive way like when they removed the HM system but there's a difference between streamlining and outright hand-holding. The latter feels like condescension. Yes Pokemon is targeted towards kids but so were the older games and outside of maybe Gen 1 I think they generally did a better job of balancing challenge and rewards back then. Having my in-game rival heal my team every 2 minutes or receiving items from every NPC I talk with doesn't feel rewarding, it feels like I'm being coddled.

The spin-off games aren't exempt from these problems either. Take the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon remake that came out this year for example. You have a chance of your selected move hitting the target twice without even having to unlock this overpowered mechanic as a perk, it's just given to you from the start. There's also a map layout of each dungeon you enter for the entirety of the main story. You acquire money, items and AoE TM's much easier too. Even the moves you start off with could potentially carry you through most of the dungeons if you level them up enough. When you factor all of this in it removes almost all of the challenge and suspense from the original games. They also skimped out on giving us proper friend areas and cut down on the number of floors of several dungeons so the remake suffers from a lack of content compared to the original too. It's a step backwards in just about every area other than graphics.

On a positive note my dislike for the newer games has allowed me to appreciate the older games more, even games I couldn't fully appreciate when I was younger so that's where I try to put most of my time and energy.

Maserati777 said:

I'm a bit worried about gen 9's Pokemon designs. I really like pokemon with normal designs like Pidgey, and I don't mind multi colored Pokemon like Chatot but I felt like gen 8 had too many crazy designed Pokemon. Some pokemon like Cufant, Yamper, Bruxish look like they just took an animal and then had a toddler color them in. I hope gen 9 has more simple designs.

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As someone who prefers the newer designs over the older ones, I do have to agree the many of the Gen 8 designs were underwhelming not because of the craziness but how incomplete they feel plus how disappointing it is that we got a number of repeats. While I also like simple designs, I personally feel if the design is too simple to the point of forgetfulness then it would go against it. I honestly feel Gen 5-7 had a lot of simple designs that hearkens back to the classical games so maybe they can do that for Gen 9?

Also, Bruxish is from Gen 7 not 8. Its colours, while vivid, do make sense because it's based on a reef triggerfish.

Design wise it's not as coherent but that doesn't bother me as much. Each generation of Pokémon has it charm. I haven't gotten myself a Switch or SwSh but I doubt I will. I'm sure I'd enjoy it though.
Most people have accepted the Dexit concept but it still bothers me quite a bit when the original catchphrase was "Catch 'em all".

I understand the target audience that they're aiming for but I quite dislike the difficulty getting lower and lower. Exp share for all members? Type effectiveness typed visible next to the moves?
To each their own but I value these elements more than the graphics.

Optimistic. There are still avenues that the pokemon games and world have yet to explore or show us, additionally compounded with good stuff from gen 8.

I'm cautiously optimistic. Pokémon is an endearing franchise and sales numbers are higher than ever, so I have no doubts we'll see 9th, 10th, 11th, etc generations. I just hope Game Freak really starts paying attention to the wants of the players, instead of cultivating the experience they think we want. I'm okay with formulaic gameplay, Pokémon is meant to be as hard or easy as you want it to be, but there's definitely things that can be done to improve the overall experience.

The fact that literally all the animations are reused is just unbelievably lazy. That would be a fix that would most certainly reigning my faith. But the world they've made is so large and has so much potential, there's no way more fantastic stories and creatures can't come from the Pokémon universe.

[ Mimi ]

Somewhat pessimistic if I'm being completely honest. I love Pokemon and I'll always love it, but it feels like they're going in the direction of just doing things for money and pandering. There seems to be issues with overworking their employees and pushing to release a game every year. I really hope maybe these issues will be addressed and we'll state seeing moves that feel like they have more heart/passion to them, but a part of me is worried that might not happen.

The crown tundra dlc has given me more hope than I've had before. The story with Calyrex was good, and I found the battle music awesome overall too (mainly the Galarian birds). Dynamax adventures are also really fun. I really hope future games will get as fun/creative as this dlc, it was the first time in quite I bit where I truly felt like gf really capitalized on the series' potential. Wasn't perfect, but still very good imo!

Oh I was going to lie but I won't since you said be honest. 😉 I'm not super excited. I don't think a solid game has been released since B2W2 and I think the DLC is a great way for GF to monetize the game and by holding Pokemon back that we want, they guarantee that the DLC is bought. A floating deer with a brain tumor riding a horse is the worst legendary design I have ever seen and that thing was the draw to Crown Tundra? Eventually I will wise up and not buy a game but my 90$ won't really be missed anyway and as long as I buy the games I can really only complain so much. Hopefully TemTem gets better and we can have a legitimate option to Pokemon.

Honestly, I think things will very much turn out fine.

But honestly, if we get a third Normal/Dark regional variant of a 2 stage route 1 normal mon like we did in the past 2 generations, i will be greatly disappointed. I don't care if you are gonna do something to make it slightly different, just no. I would have expected everyone to have learnt from the Fire/Fighting incident.