Pokemon: The Franchise GameFreak has Never Deserved.

terrible video you just hate pokemon

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

This video is even more relevant after Scarlet and Violet.

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.

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 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 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.

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 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.

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