Did 3D ruin Pokemon?

[Child Amnesiac]

You know, I keep hearing certain things from the fandom.

I hear people keep saying "Gen 5 was the last good one" and stuff along those lines.

That's got me wondering:
Did going full 3D ruin the Pokemon franchise?

If you think about it, there's a lot of evidence to point to yes.

Comparing the things that previous games brought (held items, abilities, the physical special split ect.) to the things the 3D gens brought (Mega Evolution, Z-Moves, Dynamax) they kind of stopped being innovations and started being gimmicks, you could argue this started with Gen 5 and Triple and Rotation battles. But the 3D gens may be suffering from "Final Fantasy Syndrome" IE. graphics over substance. But here, it's flash over substance.

If you think about it, Gen 6 was like "Hey look: a Pokemon game in 3D, and check out these flashy Mega Evolutions!" Gen 7 was like: "Hey look: we can switch up the formula, and check out these flashy Z-moves!" LGPE was like: "Hey look: another retread of Kanto with Go's catching mechanics! It's just like your childhood, but with a flashy new way to catch Pokemon with motion controls!" and Gen 8 was like: "Hey look: a traditional Pokemon game on a console! Also check out this flashy Dynamax thing!".

You see what I'm getting at right? They seem to care more about flashy fancy mechanics to put in advertising and on the back of the box as well as to sell merchandise rather than creating a memorable quality adventure.

From the looks of things, and how the fandom reacts to new games. You could very well infer that 3D in fact ruined Pokemon. I don't really stand by this notion (Gen 7 is my second favorite after all), but I can see why people would.

But, what do you think? Do you think going full 3D ruined Pokemon?

 

[pkmin3033]

Gen IV was the last good one, but I digress.

I wouldn't personally say that the change from 2D visuals to 3D visuals is what "ruined" Pokemon...honestly, looking at it impartially, I would say that Pokemon hasn't been "ruined" at all, because it hasn't changed in any meaningful fashion since Red and Blue...and that is precisely what "ruined" it, if anything. They're releasing Gameboy titles on current generation hardware. With the visual upgrades and most basic level quality-of-life improvements that comes from enhanced hardware. Pokemon's problem is repetition, and the reluctance to really push the boundaries of its gameplay, instead treating any additions to that core formula as gimmicks that are dropped after a generation. Recycling the exact same narrative and just swapping the Legendaries and NPCs around without giving them any identifiable personalities. And now, introducing modern practices without adding any additional value.

I do prefer sprites to 3D models, but I wouldn't say that the shift really contributed all that much.

 

[Nah]

Going fully 3D didn't really do anything to harm the franchise

If anything is ruining the franchise, it's the apparent lack of will to take the time to make a truly outstanding Pokemon game. What happened was that it was around that time that people finally started to get sick and tired of how the main series games have basically just been repeating themselves over and over since the very beginning, with a lack of content to boot. XY was a horribly disappointing entry for a lot of people, largely because everyone was either hoping that Game Freak would be able to outdo themselves if they thought that Gen 5 was great, or that this would be the chance for Game Freak to do things right if they thought that Gen 5 was bad. And all the entries afterwards have kind of been a repeat of that.

Not that it's ok for graphics or flashy mechanics to be pushed at the expense of other things, but it's more a symptom instead of the cause really.

 

[Palamon]

No, 3D didn't ruin Pokemon. Yes, some Pokemon looked especially bad in 3d compared to 2D. Imagine if Pokemon never went 3D, though, people would complain that "Pokemon is so behind the other franchises".

 

[Mab]

Honestly? The aesthetic of individual Pokémon in battle is a big appeal of the franchise and I can say with confidence that 3D did ruin that. Gen 5's sprite animations were cute and expressive and had so much personality individual to the Pokémon. The 3D games have generally ugly desaturated models (though they've been getting a bit better at that part), lifeless model animations (they mostly just bob up and down instead of anything individualized), and often bad move/effect animations, as has been well documented.

I don't agree that people would complain either way. Plenty of popular games are still nailing the 2D aesthetic, and on top of that, janky animations are much more noticeable in 3D, at least to me. It's kind of like an uncanny valley thing -- with sprites I'm subconsciously much more willing to overlook animation weirdness, but when it's a model it's closer to reality and the inconsistencies with things like move animations seem super glaring. My point is that I think they could have a much more polished looking product if they'd refined the 2D aesthetic rather than jumping to 3D before they were ready for it.

 

[budube]

First of all, sorry for the long post and sorry for too many spoilers as well.

I don't think it actually ruined Pokémon but I do think they didn't do it well enough with the official games. I guess it's fair using Stadium and the Genius Sonority games as a comparison, where every Pokémon had about three attacking animations, their own fainting animation and hurt animations and all of them were full of personality.

For reference, I think everyone is familiar with Honchkrow's fainting animation in Battle Revolution? If not, it's spoilered down there.

Spoiler:

We went from this, to only having the Pokémon crying and falling before going back to the PokéBall.

Now, I wont say the main series games have been doing everything wrong with 3D. At times they give us things like Cinderace's Pyro Ball animation, which is beautiful. Probably my favorite animation from the latest games.

Spoiler:

But at the same time, we get things like this, which I think a lot of people are tired of seeing and honestly I am too because it's atrocious. This was understandable on 2D but these animations should be worked on better on 3D, and I say should because if they are going to overlook this, there's no really a point in jumping from 2D to 3D.

Spoiler:

Another problem of 3D is how horribly scaled the bigger Pokémon are, Wailord being the main affected of this imo. I mean, its main appeal is being the biggest Pokémon in the world. How are we supposed to know that if it looks like an inflatable float? Not having a correctly sized Wailord was understandable in sprites because they were more size limited. 3D models have limitations too, but those limitations are far from what we have in the main series games, and the fact that Gen 8's gimmick is literally "big Pokémon" is enough proof of that.

Spoiler:

What I'm trying to say is that Pokémon can look good in 3D, but if they are going to go that way at least they have to be consistent with it, otherwise, there's no point in it. That inconsistency could be product of the yearly releases problem, maybe not, that's not important because no one asked them to go 3D to begin with.

People would complain if they stayed in 2D, of course. But the fandom is like that, nothing to do about it. In my opinion, they could do well going back to 2D or staying in 3D but being consistent about it. As Rainbow said above, there are games that stay at 2D and look pretty good.

 

[Child Amnesiac]

But at the same time, we get things like this:

Spoiler:

I would like to address this point here.
The Gif evidence you provided was a Wailord using Darkest Lariat, a move which can only learned by Incineroar in Sun and Moon.

The only way Wailord can learn it is through hacking and modding, which the person who created the video the GIF is made from clearly did.

Looking at Incineroar using the move it makes a lot more sense, it's preforming a spinning move. You could argue it makes no sense how it spins, but look at something like Gyro Ball, which has a similar animation to DL. The model spins, and attacks the target.

I would say the animation only looks bad because Wailord is using it, and Wailord isn't intended to use the move.

Just thought I would point that out.

 

[budube]

I would like to address this point here.
The Gif evidence you provided was a Wailord using Darkest Lariat, a move which can only learned by Incineroar in Sun and Moon.

The only way Wailord can learn it is through hacking and modding, which the person who created the video the GIF is made from clearly did.

Looking at Incineroar using the move it makes a lot more sense, it's preforming a spinning move. You could argue it makes no sense how it spins, but look at something like Gyro Ball, which has a similar animation to DL. The model spins, and attacks the target.

I would say the animation only looks bad because Wailord is using it, and Wailord isn't intended to use the move.

Just thought I would point that out.

Whoops you're right, my bad. I had to check that one better. I edited the post, but I think my point still stands.

 

[CF1994]

3D is not a bad omen, as long as the budget is there.

The problem these days, is mainly both Game Freak and TPC's overall laziness and complacency from owning the world's highest-grossing franchise of all time. And we're kind of responsible for putting up with it for years, even when it got to the point of omitting over half the National Dex.

Since Gen VI, they have been dumbing down difficulty, pandering to the audience with too much Kanto, chase the gimmicky Butterfree for three years before moving on to the next shiny toy, and so on. They've just kept excuse after excuse, after excuse for outright abandoning beloved features like DexNav, Mega Evolution, Seasons, etc. over "muh mobile gaming".

 

[pkmin3033]

3D is not a bad omen, as long as the budget is there.

Now that you mention it, I would actually be very interested to know if the budget IS there when it comes to Pokemon games. Considering that Game Freak reuse models and move animations - even between console generations - it begs the question as to whether they're lazy or whether the budget just goes entirely into the new content (those new attack animations are pretty spectacular in some places) with nothing left over to bring the old up to a similar standard. I would LOVE to know what kind of budget the core Pokemon titles have to work with, and how that's allocated between resources.

Either way, I think it's either not there at all, or it's there and just VERY badly managed. Whilst the latter seems more likely, considering how small Game Freak actually is, you never know...

 

[Bellsprout]

This might be my NOSTALGIA talking, but I love the look of sprites. So from an aesthetic stand point, yes, I do believe 3D has ruined that aspect of Pokemon. But I don't believe going 3D has ruined Pokemon as a whole.

From my memory I felt everything from Gen 1 to Gen 4 was fine. It was the same formula and all that, but it was still only four generations in at the time so I wasn't tired of the lack of innovation yet. When the 5th generation came around there were two distinct parties that I can recall. Those who loved the games because of the story and those who didn't care for them because the Pokemon designs were so bad. I've always been apart of the latter group, but I will say it was the last game that had that Pokemon feel to it and I think that may have to do with the aesthetics.

It might be in my mind or my age, but it has definitely felt more kiddish and lackluster since the 6th generation on which I think just so happens to be when they made the switch to 3D.

 

[jynxbewaifumaterial]

Yes! Pokemon ended after Unova for me. 3D looks cringe af. Now all I'm waiting for is a game with all regions regardless of 3D processing.

BRING BACK 2D DESIGNS! :D

 

[Child Amnesiac]

So, what I can get from this thread was the following:
3D didn't necessarily ruin Pokemon, they just weren't ready for 3D, and only jumped because of pressure from fans.

I'd also like to remind everyone that Gen 6 was the time GF started monetizing transfer methods.

In previous games, transfer methods were built in, now you have to pay for them.

Just thought I'd add that as an addendum to the first post.

 

[colours]

i think Game Freak's implementation of 3D is certainly what turned many off from the idea of it, but i don't think 3D by itself ruined pokemon by any means. low-poly models like in Colosseum/XD/PBR certainly show what's possible in regards to 3D expressiveness and Game Freak most certainly could've taken that a step further, but for whatever reason, they didn't. alas.

 

[Megan]

It didn't ruin it but it's also not played to its full strength. One thing in regards to the in-battle models: as the generations progressed the 2D sprites kept evolving up until their peak in gen 5. The 3D models haven't really changed from gen 6 to current. Even the animation loops seem the same.
Even if they don't want to completely replace the models; they could still very much change the animation cycle, be a little more experimental and therfore give every generation more of a charm that way.

 

[PageEmp]

No. In fact I'm sick of people saying random things ruined the franchise when it clearly AND obviously did not.