When did Pokemon become so different?

[Ss4gogeta0]

Excuse me for posting this, but as someone who grew up with the series and cherishes my childhood with Blue & Gold. I would like to know what happened in the past 16 years? A few years back I logged into Smogon and selected a squad of pokemon based on a squad I had when I was a little kid and I played a couple matches where I lost to people who used similar pokemon and they would talk about how my pokemon were low tier and I should get some pokemon that I have never even heard of at the time... I started looking up these things and coming across forum after forum of calculations and whatever for stats aswell as specific pokemom groups that should be used with phrases like "Mandatory squad building" and stuff like that.

when did pokemon stop being about personal preference and become more about what pokemon are best to use?
I mean, back in the days of old, people used to use pokemon they legitimately liked, that they trained and cared for and beat the Elite four with. Sure people considered Mewtwo to be the best back then, but catching it was more for bragging rights instead of to beat everyone with. People still used the pokemon they formed a bond with... which is another thing...

The whole point of pokemon was to form a bond with the pokemon you captured. much like having a pet. going all across the world and facing many different situations in order to strenthen that bond. The worst thing you could ever do is treat a pokemon as a tool for battle, I dont care if Pokemon is just a video game or not. You wouldnt do that with a real pet, so why do that with a virtual one? There are people like me whose pokemon roster hasnt changed much since the 90s, I always run a Totodile/Feraligatr, Rattata, Pidgeotto/Pidgeot, Houndour, Spinarak, Dunsparce. with some switches between other pokemon that I caught back then like Noctowl, Psyduck (I never evolve it), and so on... I even have a particular moveset for each of them that I always set.

Im not trying to sound like a crotchety old man, but Pokemon is a series I hold dear to me and right now its like watching someone you love die in front of you... Pokemon Gold helped me through alot of tough times as a child, alot of abuse and stuff... so I take things like this very seriously...

Hopefully people will atleast have enough fortitude to actually read the post before they call me a troll or whatever

- Jordan, First Generation Pokemon Trainer (1998)

 

[Keiran]

Well you deliberately went into a space meant for competitive battling..it comes with the territory. The Pokemon game you know hasn't changed at all. Smogon is just a community of people that enjoy a different aspect of the game than you do.

 

[Elysieum]

It isn't really Pokémon that has changed as you say, it's more that the appeal of Pokémon has grown so vastly and in such a varied way. Many people view and use Pokémon in the same way you do, with an emotional (and probably nostalgic) connection to childhood, but many other people are drawn to it for other reasons - to me, Pokémon was similarly valuable to my childhood as an escape. It was also and introduction to the wider culture of gaming.

However, it is also sometimes just a tool to decompress with at the end of the day. A fun, get-up-and-go game to distract myself while dinner is in the oven. Other people draw pleasure from it purely through competitive battling. And why shouldn't they?

I echo Kieran's point - in Smogon, competitiveness is the name of the game. Of course people would suggest how to improve your team - that is their goal, after all.

I don't think the fact that people enjoy Pokémon for such disparate reasons is really a bad thing.

Im not trying to sound like a crotchety old man, but Pokemon is a series I hold dear to me and right now its like watching someone you love die in front of you... Pokemon Gold helped me through alot of tough times as a child, alot of abuse and stuff... so I take things like this very seriously...

I would urge you to take a lighter view. Pokémon is not dying in front of you. It is one of the most celebrated and unifying forces in the gaming world today. Look at us now, speaking across countries about it.

Recognise that your experience of Pokémon is not equal to everyone else's, that every individual may make their own connection to it and take pleasure of it in whatever capacity - and that makes it all the more wonderful.

 

[illumine]

Firstly, you weren't playing Pokémon, you were playing an online spin-off. Secondly, that kind of thing is still mostly quite marginal - the original purpose of link cable battles was generally that you had a team at that point, based on your journey, and a friend also had one, so you could have some fun with that while it had some in-game interest - so it shouldn't perhaps be taken for people's primary views of Pokémon, although it might stand out more because the series has become significantly more obscure, despite trying harder to cater to fans. The other thing is that the more Pokémon have little identity or become samey, the more they are seemingly reducible to stats, which obviously doesn't suit the earlier ones. That said, Pokémon, although it's unlikely to offer that much of an 'escape' given who it was put out and edited by, hasn't necessarily shifted in that direction, and as such may still be of interest.