Pokemon Is Honestly Still a Good Series; People Are Just Old

Every time a new Pokemon game comes out, the fandom seems to split into two: those who enjoy it and those who claim that GameFreak has reached another layer of rock bottom. When Pokemon Scarlet first came out, my opinion was close to the second camp due to the numerous bugs and the lack of interesting new Pokemon in the early game. But then, I finally decided to get the DLCs and actually clear Scarlet, and you know what I realized? I was wrong. Pokemon didn’t get bad or go downhill or anything like that at all. It still gives the exact same feeling as it did when I first booted up the game as a kid.

Pokemon is one of those franchises that suffers from having a huge fanbase. With most popular series, people know what they want and what they’re getting into. It’s not like Person A can play, say, Final Fantasy XVI in a way so different from the way Person B does that they come out of it with an entirely separate experience. But Pokemon is like The Sims. There are so many people with so many different expectations or wants that it’s virtually impossible for GameFreak to please everyone. Players who only care about the story, characters, or Mon collection aspects probably don’t care as much about the meta or the difficulty. Hence, their opinions on various aspects of the game will greatly differ from those who play Pokemon mostly for the PvP elements. It’s a precarious balancing act with no right answer outside of simply making separate games for separate demographics.

I’m a player who cares about clearing the story, taking pictures with my favorite NPCs, putting together cute outfits, and completing the PokeDex. My friends are the kinds who make OCs. It’s pretty similar to how I play, except there’s an additional layer of imagination involved. Our conversations are different than the ones I have with my friend who plays more competitively. Reading and listening to people compare the stats or movesets of Pokemon A and B in order to decide who they want on their team is like watching my favorite show in an unfamiliar language. And I doubt they can relate to my having Froslass on a team for no reason other than “It’s Ice/Ghost and pretty.”

Everyone’s way of playing Pokemon is valid. It’s not like we live in the Pokemon world where Paul’s method of picking and choosing Pokemon based on their stats is regarded as villain behavior. Since I’m not a competitive player, I don’t quite understand the beef that people had with mechanics like Dynamaxing or Terastalizing. I don’t engage with them beyond story battles, so they’re about the same as Mega Evolution, which the PvP people apparently loved. Not to sound like the most stereotypical female gamer ever, but the only things that can truly bother me about Pokemon now are a lack of interesting characters and avatar customization. Surprise! I care more about hanging out and looking cute than I do about battle mechanics. For those thinking, “God, I bet her favorite Eevee evolution is Sylveon (derogatory),” yeah, you’re right…it is…

But does that make me less valid a player? It really shouldn’t. That would be like saying kids who only care about collecting a team of legendaries are playing the game wrong. Heck, you can argue that they’re the actual target audience for GameFreak. That’s something we should all keep in mind. These games are E for Everyone and yes, that includes the little kid who doesn’t bother looking at whether a move is a Physical or Special one when letting their Pokemon learn it.

A common complaint people have about Pokemon these days is that they’re too easy. Mechanics like camping and Amie make raising Friendship a breeze. Even if it’s up to chance, Friendship in NPC battles can feel overpowered. NPC trainers challenge you with only one or two weaklings in their team. The universal Experience Share severely reduces the time and effort it takes to level up a weaker Pokemon. Honestly, I feel like the old method of starting with a weak Pokemon you want to train and then swapping them out with something stronger was annoying as heck. It wasn’t fun and it didn’t make the game harder. Tedium doesn’t equate difficulty, and difficulty doesn’t equate fun. I’m on Team Universal Experience Share. But yes, it sucks we can’t turn it off.

What got me thinking about how Pokemon’s quality is just as good, if not better, than the previous games is the feeling of excitement. Isn’t that what the games are all about? Exploring Paldea reminded me of when I first set off from Twinleaf Town, and the newer Pokemon games giving gym leaders and rivals more depth beyond one or two traits makes the game actually feel like an RPG.

I know people hated Sword and Shield, but I personally really enjoyed it for the character writing and camping. Bede, Marnie, and Hop all had such satisfying character arcs throughout the story, and the gym leaders felt more fleshed out than ones in the past games. I’m glad that GameFreak continued this with the rivals in Scarlet/Violet, as they were really the best parts of the game. Yes, I’m aware that characters like Lillie and N existed, but I felt like their games only had one or two really interesting characters compared to the Switch generations.

Okay, Scarlet has a lot of issues. There’s a reason I dropped the game for as long as I did. The open world is really buggy. There are also way too many old Pokemon. This is its own problem with very little resolution outside of something similar to Black/White where older Pokemon are only available after the story. Some people really like using or catching Pokemon that debuted in past entries. Others prefer new ones. The camping mechanic was terrible compared to Sword/Shield’s. My biggest beef is with the marketing. While it’s not impossible to complete any plotline or challenge any gym leader/Team Star boss/Titan in the order you want, the lack of level scaling can make it either much too hard or much too easy for your team.

I appreciate GameFreak’s half-successful attempt at doing something new and ambitious. It didn’t always work and games are too expensive now for the “Well, you tried!” participation trophy. But if a major complaint from fans is that the games are stagnant and never change up the formula, then being mad that GameFreak did change up the formula feels silly. Also, this is yet another problem with the huge fanbase. Not everyone dislikes the fact they follow a formula! I didn’t care, but I still liked the way Scarlet went about fusing multiple storylines together. If the new direction of Pokemon was to focus on the story and characters at the expense of PvP, I’m perfectly fine with that. Granted, from what I hear, the current meta is genuinely enjoyable so now I’m not quite sure why people talked about Scarlet and Violet like it’s irredeemable trash.

Honestly, every time “New Pokemon games SUCK!” discourse comes across on my timeline and I read through it, I never see an actual concrete complaint. It kind of feels like people like Pokemon the franchise, but they haven’t quite accepted that the Pokemon games were never so difficult that they’d present a challenge to someone with a general understanding of game mechanics. GameFreak always designed them with children in mind. With GameFreak remaining mum on what’s in store in Pokemon Legends: Z-A, as well as the future of the mainline games, it’s hard to tell what we’ll see next year. Here’s hoping the fan reception will be better than past games.

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are readily available on the Nintenedo Switch.