#what the fuck is the pokemon company and game freak thinking

[milesluna]

My Favorite Games of 2023.

Hi. Hello. Thanks ever so much for clicking on this page. Happy to have you.

First thing's first: I'm a little freak when it comes to video games. I don't feel the need to beat most games I play. From Software is one of my favorite studios in the industry and I've never finished a single one of their games. This means, fortunately, that I get to play a LOT more games than the average bear.

I've written up some blurbs about my top ten favorite games from 2023, but before that here's the list of every game I remember playing this year that left any sort of lasting impact on me (in no particular order):

Dead Space Remake Resident Evil 4 Remake F-Zero 99 Humanity Dredge Metroid Prime Remastered Anemoiaplois Alan Wake 2 Baldur’s Gate 3 LoZ Tears of the Kingdom Counter Strike 2 Hunt Showdown El Paso Elsewhere Jusant Slay the Princess| Remnant II The Finals Street FIghter 6 Lethal Company BattleBit Remastered Don’t Scream Homebody The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog Pizza Tower World of Horror Super Mario Wonder Mr. Sun’s Hatbox Fifa 23 Sea of Stars (Demo) Half-Life (25th Anniversary Update)

And the games I played that were NOT released in 2023:

Unpacking Persona 4 Golden Picross 7 The Order 1886 Shovel Knight Dig Lost Planet: Extreme Condition Spider-Man: Miles Morales Pac-Man Championship Edition DX Project Zomboid Quake LoZ The Minish Cap Drill Dozer Wario Land 4 Pokemon Pinball Resident Evil Revelations Summer of ‘58 Trackmania TwinCop We Were Here Visage Cursed Halo CE Half-Life 2 (I probably play this once per year) Witch Hunt Red Dead Redemption 2 Cyberpunk 2077 Borderlands 3 Brutal Legend Cultic Slay the Spire PUBG Rez Infinite Batman Arkham City Alan Wake Alan Wake: American Nightmare Max Payne LoZ: Majora’s Mask 3DS Metroid Prime Metroid Prime 2 Tunic Everhood Final Fantasy VII Final Fantasy VII Remake GOODBYE WORLD Yakuza: Like a Dragon Critters for Sale Dome Keeper Phasmophobia Hades Nintendo Switch Sports

Now that you understand the kind of freak you're dealing with…

Let's dive into my top ten favorite games from this objectively fucked up year.

10. El Paso Elsewhere Developed by Texas indie studio Strange Scaffold, El Paso Elsewhere is a Max Payne-clone with vampires, an opinionated narrator, and lots and lots of bullet time. As a small studio punching well above their weight class, Strange Scaffold leans into abstract, PlayStation 1 minimalism when it comes to visuals and pairs them with a soundtrack that will make your hands sweat. The vibes are here and they're ready for the end of the world. I'm personally also a big fan of everything this studio stands for.

9. Mr. Sun's Hatbox I want you to imagine Metal Gear Solid V. Now I want you to imagine that game as a 2D, level-based, slapstick platformer you can play with up to three friends. If you think that sounds stupid, you'd be right. And it's beautiful. As you build up a secret army of soldiers with various skills (and disorders), you'll start to develop *favorites*. This game constantly asks if you're willing to send those favorites on a harrowing mission and risk losing them forever… or if you'd rather send an idiot you recently captured who blinks constantly and can't kill anyone without fainting.

8. Dredge Every year I feel like I find one game that falls into the “just one more round” category, and baby… Dredge was it for 2023. As a weary fisherman in strange waters, you'll make the most out of your 12 measly hours of sunlight only for your daily voyages to inevitably pull you into the darkness of night, and night is when things get weird. Rocks emerge from the fog that you swear weren't there before, your equipment malfunctions, and you're pretty sure you just saw something in the water… something big. Despite only containing a small collection of islands, the world of Dredge manages to feel vast - perhaps vast enough to swallow you whole.

7. Resident Evil 4 Remake I was curious to see what sort of changes would be made to the timeless classic and father of modern 3rd person shooters, Resident Evil 4. I wasn't let down. RE4 Remake takes all the things that didn't age well about the original, tossed them out, and replaced them with only good things. And MORE things! It's campy, fun, and better than a game of bingo.

6. Jusant I really feel like this one didn't get the recognition it deserves. Jusant is a rock climbing game that combines the quiet contemplation of Journey with the mechanical specificity of Death Stranding. Unlike Death Standing, though, there is very little story to interrupt your flow. There are plenty of collectible bits to find for those curious to learn more about what happened before the events of the game, but the environmental storytelling does most of the heavy lifting. For me, the joy of the game comes from how it feels. Right trigger controls your right hand grip, and left trigger controls left hand grip. Plan your route, manage your stamina, and climb high above the clouds in search of answers.

5. F-Zero 99 This. Shit. Slaps. I've never been a big F-Zero guy, but this MADE me one. The “battle royale”, 99 player format is the perfect fit for the ruthless, high octane world of the game. Races last about three minutes, and friend, they are the most intense, white-knuckled three minutes of your life. The decision to make your boost meter the same as your health meter started in F-Zero 64 (I believe), and it is so much more HARROWING in this game when another player could side-swipe you mere meters from the finish line and blow you to bits. Sadly it's only playable via Switch Online, but it made me cheer, laugh, and scream enough this year to earn a spot in my top 5.

4. Alan Wake 2 Remedy makes weird games that also manage to exist in the AAA space and for that I will forever love them. Although Alan Wake 2 resembles a 3rd person shooter survival horror, I'd honestly say it's more of a narrative game than anything else. There's sidequests, there's puzzles, there's upgradeable skills, but at the end of the day the characters, world, and story are what kept me playing. If you haven't checked them out recently, you should definitely watch a story recap of the original games before diving into this sequel, but the wild swings for the fences this game takes are well worth that small price of admission. There's a god damn musical number, for Christ's sake.

3. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom I've really got nothing to say about this game that most people don't already know. It's incredible. The fact that Nintendo made a game that redefined an entire genre and then made a SEQUEL to it that ups the ante is remarkable. To be honest, I've only cleared the Rito, Zora, and Goron cities. I got a bit tired of exploring the depths and guiding Koroks to their friends, but I can't deny the sheer level of complexity and polish on display here. I saw someone on TikTok build a functioning Mecha Godzilla in this game. Good God. I've heard that the ending of this game is one of the best in the franchise, and if I'd seen it this year then it may have wound up higher on my list, but for the time being I'll continue picking up this masterpiece from time to time, chipping away at it until the day comes that I can finally smack the tits off thicc Ganondorf.

2. Half-Life (25th Anniversary Update) I know I'm gonna get shit for this, but I don't care. This year was the 25th anniversary of Half-Life and Valve released an update that made playing it (and it's online Death Match) much more accessible. I threw it on my Steam Deck out of curiosity, expecting to play for 20 minutes. I could not put it down. It is unbelievable how modern this game still feels. I simply had so much fun sprinting through the corridors of Black Mesa with a dozen weapons strapped to my back, blasting aliens and military Spec-Op chumps as a 24(?!) year old theoretical physicist.

1. Baldur's Gate III This game is fucked up, man. The sheer amount of writing in this game scares me. We can all talk about how BIG this game is, it deserves it, but the thing BG3 does better than any other role playing game I have ever experienced is actually encourage roleplaying. I've played through Act I four times now, with four different groups of friends, and it has felt fresh every time. I have seen the same events play out in so many different ways that it boggles the mind, but in every one of those play sessions I see players asking themselves “What would my lil guy do here?” rather than "what is the best thing to do here?" The game rewards players constantly for just trying shit and the D&D 5e rule set means playing like the character you said you were from the start leads to frequent Points of Inspiration. Maybe one day I'll see the end of this story (probably not), but I don't have to in order to feel a connection with BG3's world, characters, and most impressively, the characters I made myself.

Honorable Mentions for 2023

5. Dave the Diver 4. Homebody 3. Sea of Stars 2. Humanity 1. Super Mario Wonder

Top 5 Favorites NOT from 2023

5. Metroid Prime 4. Final Fantasy VII Remake 3. Cursed Halo (Halo CE Mod) 2. Red Dead Redemption 2 1. Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (3DS)

Games I didn't have a chance to play from 2023 but still want to when I find more time...

Viewfinder Venba Chants of Sennaar Thirsty Suitors Hi-Fi Rush Moonring Armored Core VI Laika Aged Through Blood Bomb Rush Cyberfunk

OKAY THANKS BYE!

#video games #2023 #GOTY

[lllllllllllines]

(I urge that you read this to the end, as I know some of you will take pieces of what is said here and use it as ammunition for more drama. I can't really do tl;dr because i feel like it would ruin a lot of my points)

I don't usually like to deal with drama or discourse in general leaves a bad but I feel like this needs to be said.

This discourse is stupid, a lot of different points on either side due to several reasons at least in my opinion.

Ive seen many people who were against palworld use claims for stolen designs, mentions of AI art as well as lots of people either acting in defense of game freak/TPC/Nintendo as well as some acting in defense of artistic integrity.

I've seen the people who were for the game act in one singular way while just trying to have fun with it(which i cannot deny, it looks fun as fuck).

This being them claiming that they are just kissing the boots of Nintendo, though i don't think its quite fair to put them in the same category.

Just have fun with the game, no need to engage with the hate if you don't want to(even though i know it's difficult, especially when it's staring you in the face).

For those who are for, I only have a couple things to say.

Companies are not faceless entities, I know that this sounds like basic knowledge but I've noticed that's not something people usually mention.

Not everyone who attacks this game, cares for pokemon. Im gonna go in more depth when i get to them, but i feel like this needs be said.

While there are many good things on the internet, the internet as a whole, especially nowadays, is chaos and pain.

So many different opinions, leading to low self-esteem and rage.

You just want to have fun, you probably don't like pokemon, or if you do, you probably don't like what they've been doing with it.

You've seen the early trailers and had a laugh, found out this year that it came out, sought it out be cause hey, could be a bit of a meme.

But soon you start to actually have fun with it and hope it succeeds, despite some of the designs not being totally original, and you don't care.

But soon, like usual, you find that there are people who dislike the game.

In the real world, it doesn't matter to you, it rolls off you like nothing, because you don't know them, maybe you get into a heated argument with a friend.

But as soon as you hit the internet, you feel as though people are personally attacking something you like, (emotions are hard to convey through text) so you defend.

Not really caring about how it sounds to those you desperately fight against.

But in the end that's just adding fuel to the flame.

(though I can say that this discourse is great publicity for the game, good or bad it still lets people know that it exists.)

So just have fun with it.

(Unless dealing with discourse like this is fun for you idk)

For those who are against,

I am first going to speak to those who seem to want to defend Game Freak/TPC/Nintendo and those who speak for artistic integrity.

Why do any of your thoughts matter when it comes to a company.

as I had stated earlier, people usually associate companies and conglomerates as faceless entities.

They don't see them like systems, heavily broken systems, like if a beehive were born from an unloving tyrannical queen.

The ones at the top exist to fill their pockets while those at the bottom suffer for it.

I bet around half of the people speaking of artistic integrity don't really know the names of the designers of each pokemon(and to those who do, I'm glad, cause then I know you know what you're talking about.)

I feel as though speaking of artistic integrity only works when you're talking about an individual.

Which means, by extension, that a company like Nintendo, or the other two companies that own or work on the ip, those that see only the product and the work.

To them, artistic integrity is dead.

Why else would the shoot down fan works so heavily?

To keep their product close to the chest.

But what about the claims that they stole from fakemon artists?

To my knowledge, (please let me know if im wrong) there has only been one claim of such a thing, and it was soon taken back as they soon found out that the palworld model was older than their's.

Which im pretty sure proves that claim false.

And to the people who are against AI art, don't get me wrong, I hate the idea as much as you do.

But AI image generation like many things is a tool.

And if used properly, tools can be useful.

like say for example, you have an idea you want to draw, but you can't fully figure it out in your head.

There are no pictures that fully convey what ur thinking in the depth you want for a reference, you could use an image generator for reference.

Add to an image in your own way, while removing the parts that were taken by the algorithm.

Be creative.

When tools are used properly, they can do a lot of good things.

The reason people hate AI art, is because people are being stupid and lazy with it.

Hell, i think pocketpair realized their mistake a long time ago as not only has that game been absolutely shat on in the steam reviews, but you cant even find it on their website, or at least i haven't.

Lastly, I'm gonna show you a trailer for a game pocketpair is also making, it should be coming put Q1 this year.

A game I have not heard mentioned this whole discourse.

As an honest question, what part of this looks AI generated to you?

Its a 2D sidescrolling platformer, said to be a mix of a metroidvania and a roguelite, also with base building elements since that seems to be a commonality for them.

The only things i could see that were taken or inspired by are the backgrounds, which feel very hollow knight, and the main mechanic being a possession mechanic which loosely reminded me of super mario Odyssey.

I've seen AI 2D animation, and it's usually pretty jarring due to how quickly everything warps and changes as things move.

I don't see that in this.

Nor do i recognize any of the monster or character designs.

I could be wrong and both palworld and never grave could be scams, seeing as both are in early access.

And if or when i am, then that's egg on my face.

Those that were all happy to play a new and exciting game, will seeth and mald.

And you can live happily, i guess.

But it at least shows they know some integrity.

I mean, as long as they make any of the new pals that come out more original than the 111 that they have now, we should be fine.

The only time we should be outraged, is if there is sort of harm coming to the workers, and I don't think I've heard any news on that.

If it bothers you that much, make your own game.

Actively do something about it rather than complain on the internet.

Like, I can't even imagine how difficult that is.

Especially for a smaller company.

Pokemon has it easy, It doesn't need defense.

Defend it from itself before defending it from others.

Stop paying for shit that doesn't work out the gate.

Do something to force the people making the bad game to do better.

And stop trying to shit on the little guy for your own ideals.

Criticism is fine, yelling over a game on the internet is not.

Not by a long shot.

But hey I don't think anyone is gonna read this.

Much less to the end.

Because I've scrolled passed shorter posts for less.

#palworld #never grave #pocketpair #craftopia #nintendo #Youtube

[zozo720]

dumb vent because I spent like 8 hours playing Indigo Disk I would just like to personally congratulate Game Freak, The Pokemon Company, whoever, on making the WORST fucking decision I've ever seen So, remember how Walking Wake and Iron Leaves were "teased" through a Tera Raid event where you could only get one of each? Hope you didn't pass them up because you hate Tera Raids (like me) expecting them to be in Indigo Disk with the others. Because they're not. They're event-only. Forever.

So yeah, if you missed out on them for any reason, enjoy your incomplete trio of Past Beasts/Future Swords, chump. Maybe next time you should torture yourself with our barely-functional online raids if you want your game to be complete.

And yes, I know Wake/Leaves aren't in the Blueberry Dex, and YES, I know event Mons have always been a thing. But this is the stupidest implementation of them I've EVER seen. And as a "preview" of the DLC, they piss me off even more, because... remember Sword/Shield's DLC preview? A special little event where you could catch a brand-new Galarian Slowpoke, and then do anything you wanted with it. Train it, shiny egg hunt it, EV train and IV breed it, whatever. And then as the DLC areas dropped, you could access it's evolutions. And guess what? That event is PERMANENT content. Literally right now, you can get your Switch, boot up Sword/Shield in a new save file, play until you get to the Wild Area, go back to Wedgehurst Station, and there it is! Free Slowpoke in December 2023 (NO HACKS).

I don't think I've ever been this insulted by a mythical/event Pokemon in my LIFE.

#tw swearing #lopunnyposting #pokemon #walking wake #iron leaves #pokemon scarlet and violet #pokemon dlc #the indigo disk

[nebuletteart]

it's pretty annoying seeing so many of the people crying out to support artists and that ai is unethical (both very true takes) playing palworld and shooting down anyones justifiable criticism. I avoided the whole thing for awhile, thinking the talk of plagiarism was greatly exaggerated twitter beef and seeing a lot of big gaming channels jumping to its defense. Wasnt interested in the premise and was content to let it pass by, happy that the game would put pressure on the pokemon company to actually give game freak time to develop a good game for once. And then I saw this.

This is outright stolen, like. laughably stolen. There are other designs too, that outright steal or are questionable. but how the fuck can you say you give one shit about artists and then simp for a game that steals what was most certainly an overworked artists design wholesale? If that was the end of it, I'd side eye loud supporters but not comment.

(Fakemon designed by EtherealHaze)

Yeah. they also pretty blantently stole from a fakemons design. someone already made a post breaking all of everything down it outright steals but i trust ones eyes to see it immediately. I've seen plenty of people cry "but it's always ok to steal from corporations!!" (even if i think that excuse is fucking dogwater when it comes to art) well then, here's your example of them stealing from independent fucking artists!!

Pirate the game if you must but dont claim you care about artists and then turn around and bite our heads off the moment we point out that the game that very clearly plagiarizes artists! Also on the ai thing, even if it hasnt been proven the team used ai for any of the designs, the studio has apparently dabbled in it in the past and the ceo is an ai supporter. so. that sucks also.

#generally i avoid making opinionated posts like this but i wanted to rant somewhere about how annoying the palworld craze is #from the perspective of an artist who didnt care until a few hours ago #also dont want to rain on someones parade for liking a problematic media or whatever #you can like cringe! i like cringe! there are plenty of things i like that have people behind it who suck #or have glaring issues #just like #dont completely dismiss artists anger as just drama or nagging! #as someone with a passion for character design this is deeply scary to me #it makes me not want to share my designs on the internet #in fear some studio will steal them and make it rich #and ill be left in squalor

[lastoneout]

hi idk if you're a huge kalos fan but how are you feeling about the direct

I haven't watched it yet, but ngl Kalos wasn't my favorite OR my least favorite pokemon game, I was pretty neutral on it overall. My main complaint was how annoying the map was to traverse before you got fly, but aside from that it was fine, introduced some cool pokemon and had a decent plot. Tbh for the next Legends game I would have preferred Jhoto, but eh. It's not a huge deal to me.

My real issue is that it's a little hard to get excited about it when I know how bad crunch is at Game Freak and that despite saying they were reevaluating their tight release cycle bcs like, ScarVi was borderline unplayable at launch and Arceus got abandoned the second they were done with it despite being the most popular game in years....I just have no faith that this game will be good, or at least it won't be anywhere near as good as it has the potential to be :/

I hope I'm proven wrong tho, and I don't think it's wrong to be excited about the game, something something no ethical consumption and I'd be a major hypocrite if I told people to drop any game company that has bad practices bcs almost all of them do, I just can't get hype. I was really, really hoping Game Freak would slow the hell down and stop making new games for a couple of years, put all of their focus on gen 10 and release that maybe in 2026 or 2027, but nope gotta make that money even if the games we release are falling apart at the seams and our devs are working on two or three projects at once.

And like, given the current trend in decreasing quality I'm genuinely unsure if the game is even going to be functional enough to be worth playing, especially since I figure to hit a 2025 release they probably started working on this right after Arceus came out, and there has simply not been enough time to make this game good. Plus there were a lot of points in ScarVi where I legit just wanted to put the game down and stop playing entirely bcs the graphics and glitches and framerate drops started to make me annoyed and dizzy, and once I was done with the main story I lost like all motivation to keep playing(I like finishing my dex, I did it in Sw/Sh and Let's Go and have almost done it in BDSP and Arceus, but I don't care about ScarVi's dex at all), and I haven't even bought the DLC yet. Tbh I'm probably not even gonna pre-order this, I'm waiting till it's out to decide if I want to buy it or not.

Anyway sorry to be a buzzkill, I don't fault anyone for being excited, I've loved Pokemon for more than half my life, it helped me meet my fiancé, it really means so SO much to me, so I get it, but like....I think I love the series too much to get excited for this. Seeing what Pokemon is turning into is just...painful and sad. I hope y'all enjoy it tho, and who knows, I could be wrong, maybe it will be fantastic and super polished and we can all breathe a sigh of relief bcs they got their shit together! That would be nice.

Edit: I do want to say I'm glad it has been 3 years instead of the usual 2, and I'm VERY glad they didn't announce gen 10, but unless the scope of this game is narrow as fuck and they also don't release until like November-December 2025 AND this team was NOT the same team who worked on ScarVi's DLC that is still not enough time to make a game with the scope they've been establishing as their new baseline. TOTK took SIX years to finish. Elden Ring's DLC was built on top of an existing game and it still took TWO whole years just to make it. Most open-world games take a really, really long time. Adding an extra year is great, but they need to be taking a lot longer than that between games. This is a step in the right direction, but it's not enough to inspire confidence.

#pokemon crit #most of the modern gaming industry gets by releasing a new huge game every like 6 years or so #and they're promising shit on the scope of TOTK or Elden Ring especially with that $60 price tag #I just don't think three years is enough time to make a game like that #especially especially since ScarVi's DLC literally JUST came out #and it was a big one

[arthoure]

Pokemon Violet and Open-World Design Hell

I’ve got Quibbles with Scarlet/Violet -- the performance, the clunky intro that takes a thousand years and would be tedious even for the 8-year-olds it’s aimed for, the lack of scaling at gyms (which is something even I know how to code, unless you’re building on top of some kind of spaghetti code monster with all sorts of hidden variables and restrictions, which is actually more than likely) -- but I’m not going to voice anything in depth, because there’s only one thing I want to say about those games.

So far they’re fun, and that is a miracle, and the developers who worked on it should probably be praised for what they were able to accomplish, because a three-year dev cycle is not enough time to put together an open-world RPG for a global audience.

There are a million things about this process for an IP like Pokemon that take up extra time in that very small dev window, too. The localization. The rigorous art and design iterations that have to go all the way up high ladders to get approved because so much money is tied up in this franchise, and because the merchandising is so tied to it. The testing and iterations for any new mechanics that the players will expect from a new installment, and the balancing of previous mechanics within the new system. The QA!!! OH GOD THE QA!!!!!!!!

Now add the challenges of open-world design to that. Non-linear plotting. Balancing freedom of motion with a sense of direction and purpose for the player so they don’t feel lost. Balancing levels and pokemon types in a game where your level is always changing, which is now impacted by where you go and what you do and whether you stop to catch everything or plow through to gyms or fight every wild pokemon you come across or run away (ETCETERA! ETCETERA! ETCETERA!), in a way that’s fun for adult players but not challenging for small children. Placing new sights, activities, and rewards in ways that encourage exploration while having to avoid the repetition of these placements so players don’t get bored or predict what’s next--unless you’d like them to predict what’s next, to build a sense of anticipation! Open-world design is fun as hell to tinker in; it’s also an absolute monster.

I’m not aware of the conditions at Game Freak, but I’m having a hard time imagining any of this was accomplished without a significant amount of overtime and stress. There are no lazy developers. Every single person working on a Pokemon game right now--I mean the ones on the floor, the artists and coders and designers and QA and all the rest--they’re there because they fucking love video games, they fucking love Pokemon, and they beat out hundreds if not thousands of other qualified applicants for their personal position. When you see a game that arrives as some kind of disaster, it’s because some kind of disaster was happening behind the scenes. 

It’s OK to criticize the Pokemon games. They’re not nearly as polished as their price point warrants, which is frankly insulting to players from a company that regularly makes record-breaking amounts of money on its IP. The bugs have created frustrating jams for people, even forcing unsaved restarts (though the game does autosave a lot, thankfully). It could be a lot better, and it’s easy to see exactly how, and that’s very frustrating. But the game is still fun, and it’s trying a new format in a way that I believe is ultimately a success, and considering the restrictions imposed upon the devs, I personally think that was an impressive feat. I’ll be continuing to play during my next little snatch of free time.

#arthoure talks about video games

[kob131]

... How the fuck is anyone supposed to respond properly to something like this?

7 hours. 7 fucking hours. If you don’t agree with what this person says, does, acts or sounds in any way- you will not be able to sit through the entire fucking thing.

You know what, fuck this. If you’re going to rely on the sheer mass of your argument to look good, I’m just gonna cut one of them out and use it to represent the entire thing. Don’t like it- be concise.

The ‘National Dex’ section covers how including all the Pokemon in the games wouldn’t actually increase the file size of the game all that much. Which I can see.

What I can’t see is the ‘justification’, which is ‘mOnEY!’ Which is actually pretty fucking stupid if you think about it.

See, the justification is that Game Freak/Pokemon Company/*Insert Company Bad Guy Here* sees Pokemon Home as being more profitable than just giving the Pokemon to you. Even trying to cite the Expansion Passes as ‘selling them to you.’ But wanna know what’s even more expensive and profitable than a $16 subscription and a $35 expansion pass?

$40 game and $100 game system.

See, the thing is that this method isn’t actually all that new. Ever since Gen 3*, you have NOT been able to catch all the Pokemon available in the games. Gen 3 had many of the Johto AND Kanto Pokemon being completely unobtainable until Fire Red and Leaf Green/Emerald brought them back. Often being spility among all five of the Gen 3 games, since Emerald (the definitive edition of Gen 3) EXCLUDED a few version exclusives like Zangoose so you STILL needed one of the other older games to get them. So it wasn’t just a $40 game, it was TWO $40 games. 

Well, that’s a misnomer.

It’s more like four $40 games.

Because technically, you’ve never been able to catch every single Pokemon available in the games. Because Pokemon has these things called ‘version exclusives’. While you could trade them with your friends to help complete the Pokedex-

If you don’t have friends or they don’t have the opposite game(s) as you, tough shit. Fork over your cash.

There isn’t even really an excuse for this in the early gens. The games ALWAYS had the data for the Pokemon, you just couldn’t access them. This included Pokemon you couldn’t get even with BOTH versions of the game and thus needed a remake version or something else. And the same logic applies to his issue with the Legends Arceus example!

‘Oh you like Blazekin? Well, did you know there are other Pokemon like it called Charizard and Typholsion? Oh, they don’t exist in this game. You need to buy this remake I’m selling at full price and this game that’s basically the same as the one you got! Better buy another one too since you can’t get Swampert or Sceptile without restarting your save and losing all your progress. Hm, better buy another gaming console too.’

So when you compare $16(more like $3 because you can just buy a 1 month plan and transfer all your Pokemon when you’re ready and just renew when you need to do it again)+$35 (More like $0 because the SwSh expansion passes weren’t necessary to transfer them from an older game) vs. $40+$100 minimum...

Yeah, kind of looks like a steal huh?

Now, you would think that a video like this would address this to showcase that this has been going on for too long and that Game Freak/The Pokemon Company/Whoever needs to knock it off.

... But no. Not even considered. Which is strange, given ignoring this blatant disconnect drastically weakens his argument.

Unless of course the subject you’re talking about is such an acceptable target that things like ‘consistency’ can be ignored so long as you pander in the right way.

Gee, I wonder where that can apply to...

[capucapo]

It isn't every day that Mokuba is able to make it out of work before the end of visiting hours, but today he makes damn sure to leave Kaiba Corp with time to see his brother. Exhausted and gloomy as he feels, he holds his head high as he walks past the nurses' pitying stares through the now familiar halls of Domino hospital.

"How are you doing today, Big Brother?"

He knows there won't be an answer. He knows that today is no different from the day before. Or the 63 days before that.

63 days.

It feels like it's been a year since he's heard his brother's voice. But it feels like just yesterday, too.

Mokuba bites his lip, staring down at his hands. He can't even look his unconscious brother in the face.

"...I think I messed up today, Seto. Real bad, I... I totally freaked out in the middle of a meeting... with the Big 5... um. Nezbitt called it a temper tantrum, but one of the interns said it was a uh. a panic attack--"

He cuts himself off, goes quiet for a second. His little chest burns, but he won't let himself cry again, won't let himself be weak again. He gives the side of his head a few heavy handed thumps with the bottom of his palm as either a distraction or punishment for his show of emotion.

"--I know. It doesn't matter what I call it, it was really unprofessional. You'd be so mad at me if... You'd been there. I'm sorry... I'm trying so, so hard to be strong, but everything keeps getting worse, Seto, and I..... I.."

Voice cracking, a few stray tears betray him.

"I really don't know what I'm doing. I know you trusted me as your vice president but I just keep fucking everything up so bad. I really need you to wake up, big brother. I don't know how much longer I can keep your company going, our stocks keep falling and investors are pulling out and now Pegasus is talking about canceling our partnership for Kaibaland and- and-- and we might lose the licensing for that stupid....dragon you love so much... Please wake up, Seto...."

Silence falls on the hospital room, broken only by the beeping of a heart monitor and the choked, restrained sobs of Japan's youngest corporate vice president.

Some days he turns on the tv, making jokes and comments on the shows as if Seto could hear him. Sometimes he brings his Switch to show his brother his progress on Pokemon. Sometimes, he brings his deck of trading cards for that game he claims to despise so much, to show him how he's going to beat him some day.

"...I'm heading home now. And I'll fix things, I promise. I'll work harder and I won't freak out again.... I'll make everything okay sssso... so you can smile again when you wake up."

Today, he simply sits in silence. With nothing left to say, Mokuba stares down at his hands in his lap, too ashamed to even look at his brother's sleeping face. After several minutes, or hours, he isn't sure, the teenager finally picks himself up from the uncomfortable chair beside Seto's bed.

#ooc #instead of doing my job I accidentally drabbled oops #writing

[kathuman]

FINAL message from me and I will be done: About “They’re human people they are allowed to be political. If you disagree with their politics, that’s fine?”, If they are politicians or in private, yes. The problem is that when actors go publicly political (liberal or conservative), they drag the IP out of escapism and into the political field and cause division. Even worse, if some actors years later turned out to be abusers, it will trait the brand. Best way to avoid that is no actors at all.

Nah. You can't limit discussion of politics to just politicians, this shit affects literally everyone, especially when civil rights stuff is going on. People need to be vocal and have every right to be, especially on their OWN accounts.

NO ONE owes you silence on things affecting their lives, or the lives of others, just so you can live under a rock. Like legit just don't follow them, mute/block liberally and curate your own timeline to avoid what you don't want to see. It's on you, not other people, to avoid what you don't like.

Frankly fandoms cause enough division themselves with nonsense infighting over absolutely nothing so 🤷🏼‍♀️ That's always gonna happen regardless. I mostly keep out of fandoms because so many are hostile places. Even Monster Hunter, the one fandom I'm really active in, is filled with weird ass arguments, harassment, and bullying.

But yeah, like it sucks finding out people you thought were cool are garbage terfs/ think not everyone deserves human rights/etc, but if they speak that stuff publicly then companies can choose to no longer work with them. (Whether it's just to save face or because they actually do care)

And as for the abuser shit, yeah, that can happen whether there is voice acting or not so I don't see how that's an argument here. Some people suck ass is that a reason to tank an entire chunk of an industry just so you can have false peace of mind? Doesn't make sense. Do you feel that way about live action actors, authors, and other folks in the creative field? I mean twitch streamers and youtube folks are constantly showing their whole asses but does that mean no one should make videos? To me that is not really a logical argument against VA. Its impossible to avoid that some people in any industry will be bastards, the key is when its found out they need to be ousted (unfortunately that part doesn't happen as perminantly or regularly as it should but that is a separate conversation)

Also we desperately need more time between pokemon games. Game freak is putting out buggy, fucked up games because their alloted time is not enough to make a solid, polished title. I feel genuinely bad for the devs. They work on a 100% unreasonable timeline. So idk delaying their games might be good, or could put them in even more crunch. Though frankly idk why you think they'd have to delay it for voice acting? If they decided to add VA it would likely be at the start of the dev process, not at the end of it, so they'd get that all reccorded in time for everything else.

#not art #anon

[achillesmonochrome]

Yes! It was a very boring Pokemon Direct! And thank fuck for it!

There are many, many things to complain about the Pokemon Company and Game Freaks; you can point of most of them with the last mainline games.

Yet the last thing that I had seen popping up lately is making me wonder what the fuck are you all thinking.

All I had been seen is people complaining how boring was the nintendo direct, asking for X or Y game, or so on.

And at this point I am wondering why you want any of that.

In a span of a year, we got three mainline pokemon games.

November 19, 2021: BDSP.

January 28, 2022: Legends Arceus.

November 18, 2022: Scarlet and Violet.

And how did that go?

BDSP: A remake that the pokemon company didn't actually make, probably because they were busy with Arceus and Scarvio.

The excuse of being 'like the original' ended up making it an extreme dull remake; even the people who weren't deterred for the art style didn't seem to like it too much, and I even know of youtubers who abandoned gameplays of it; and those are the people that do it for work.

Legends Arceus: I really liked this game, so I watched many videos and gameplays of it, want me to tell you something I came across multiple times "If you gave it a year or two extra, all of these issues wouldn't be there."

Popping issues, errors here and there, so on. Arceus came with its fair share of problems.

Scarlet and Violet: I could list every issue it has, but honestly I bet if you haven't encounter issues yourself, you have seen the funny videos or at least see the reviews because I'm pretty sure the ratings of anything that lets users vote the rating ended in the slumps because of their issues.

And what are you all complaining about? Games.

Scarvio and Legends were made in parallel to each other, most probably two teams (and this company isn't exactly big, is a bit more than 150.) Not sure how many people were working on Scarvio once Legends came out, but it clearly not enough.

Scarvio is still, getting updates for bugs, and I swear the popping keeps getting worse.

Now please someone explain me why anyone want a new game in these conditions.

The last year or two were poured into mainlines games and it wasn't enough, even if they would had announced a Mystery Dungeons or similar, I doubt it would had been any polishing in it.

Because in case you guys forgot, we have THREE Nintendo Directs a year.

And if you haven't notice, they don't do the things you will see in E3 of saying "yeah we are working on this game and it may take us another 5 years before launch." Oh no no.

Want to hear something funny? I remember when I first heard the rumors of Pokemon doing a Region in Spain; I heard it from Spanish friends since there were News of people of the pokemon company in Japan going to the european headquarters in Spain; and people caught on that detail because something similar happened with sending people to Hawaii and then we had Gen 7.

If you notice a bit of doubt while saying this story, is because it happened years ago; before Gen 8 was announced.

Not when Sword and Shield came out, before we even had an announcement. We didn't even know about Galar yet.

And before someone call me out saying there is no way they had been working on Scarvio this long and still came out this messy- If people were sent there, was because that was the earliest of the stages, planning. They wouldn't even have a title for it yet.

But this means it has been in the planning for awhile, and when did we hear first about gen 9? Last year, the same year it was coming out.

And this isn't even getting into how the pacing for these games is not slowing down, and they should.

It took this company longer than it should get with the times, it really isn't totally yet there to be honest.

The games are getting more and more complex in every possible way and there is no way they can keep up if they continue insisting we need to have mainline games this frequent.

Like seriously, had ANY of you thought of how much more complicated this is getting? My first generation was the fourth one, the sprites of the protagonist for example had an animation for walking, running, for pulling the pokeball to fly, and if someone remembers anything else please tell me.

Our MC in scarvio? You can go down, you have an animation for sneaking, you have idle animations, if you go to a specific part in the menu you have different ones as well alongside poses and so on. And this isn't even getting into the level of customization that believe me, in my generation? Not even in our wildest dreams.

And even then the MC still needs a lot of polish. Like even if we have different expressions a lot of times it feels mechanic.

Again, I am not saying Game Freak is exempt for criticism. Complain about the bugs, complain about the graphics.

But don't fucking come at me saying you want games and shit with every pokemon direct. We have three a year, of course we are going to have boring ones, and frankly we don't have enough, BECAUSE THE GAMES STILL COME BROKEN.

You guys don't think that I am frustrated? I love Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, I adore the story and the characters it has; the ending is the best this franchise ever had (and I will die in this hill.) The fact that you can take any gym, titan or stair raid is brilliant because now you establish your own pace. Oh you don't want to do this bit of story yet? That's cool, you can just do anything else; is not like in previous games where if you want to see more map but didn't want to evil team raid despite the story saying so, well you were out of luck.

If Scarlet and Violet came without the bugs and had a good scaling system, it would had been without a doubt, the best pokemon games we got up to date.

And what we got was such a buggy mess Nintendo was giving refunds like this is 2016 and we are playing No Man's Sky.

I'm absolutely furious that we could have gotten something so great and we didn't get it, and why was that? Oh yeah THEY DIDN'T HAVE TIME.

Hell want me to be honest? It scares me how the only things we have gotten for the DLC are art work; if they can't even give us a proper trailer it worries me how much they have done, and more importantly, how much can be finish by the dates we have.

Games aren't an easy task, hell I had seen books that had taken more time that pokemon games.

Complain that they have bugs, complain that they are not giving devs enough time, complain that we don't have enough devs- but don't fucking come crying about a Nintendo Direct being boring when not only we got a mainline game recently, it came broken because of it.

#pokemon #pokemon direct #rant #I may delete this later

[protagonistheavy]

I'm excited for Pokemon Legends Z-A like I haven't been before for a pokemon game in a long time........ but god do I just worry so much about what the final product will be based on game freak's track record.

I'm especially irked at the trailer itself -- a complete nontrailer of information, giving us literally nothing to think about except confirmation of a setting/region. Jfc. Pokemon Company is the only company allowed to do this, aren't they? Trying to think of any other game franchise that could get away with a trailer that just shows their mascot running around in a total non-game space.

It's annoying because it leaves us with so much to wonder and worry about. Yeah it's a 2025 release, it's very well a year+ away, but my god we can't even see a screenshot? A vista? Nothing? Jfc.

And the Nintendo tweet especially concerns me how it says the game "takes place entirely in Lumiose City." Not Kalos, Lumiose City. What the fuck does that mean? Because I'm sorry, there's no way youre convincing me that an entire Legends-style game is gonna take place in a singular city -- not when PLA had several regions to explore featuring different landscapes that required different ride pokemon to traverse. Lumiose was big, but not THAT big, and certainly not diverse enough. So what do they mean "takes place entirely in"? Do they just mean Lumiose is your hub town like Jubilife was? Do they literally mean you don't leave Lumiose ever?

Maybe if we saw actual gameplay we'd know! But god knows if they did show us actual gameplay I'd be upset at the 5 fps pokemon and the n64 trees all over again. Man it would be so nice to be hyped for a pokemon game and not be so fucking worried it's gonna be a mess.

[coordinator-coatl]

Friendly reminder that hating Pokemon Unite isn't just about ""no Sinnoh remakes or no let's Go Johto"".

Fucking Tencent is the one making it.

Tencent is known for spyware, punishes those who support the Hong Kong protests, are KNOWN to rip off larger companies or buy out larger companies if they're seen as competition, are extremely rampant with censorship of any kind, and were receiving personal information from Apple such as I.P Addresses, and the CEO is extremely honored by the communist party that supports Muslim concentration camps.

This company is absolutely fucking garbage and it's pretty obvious from the comment section of the video that everyone who knows about Tencent is chiming in with them dipping the moment they announced it was made by them.

And if that's not enough to stop you from wanting to play tencent has driven many players who actually did enjoy their games away due to the rampant cheating that occurs and isn't dealt with in their other online games. They're known to try and milk their gamers for money with pay to win deals and from the sounds of it ""free to start"" means you'll have to pay eventually no matter what and then continue to keep paying in order to succeed or advance in later levels due to the pay to win structure.

For those who are excited about this there are LITERALLY so many other games on this oversaturated market that spent time on their back grounds, and textures, and design that dont make them look like a dollar store rip off game. Please look into literally anything else.

Pokemon Unite is NOT the way to go

I'm sure that people in the videos comments did a MUCH better job of explaining the dangers of tencent instead of me and theyre most likely a lot more well aware of the first hand experience with them. But please just take my word for it when I say that the ""unfair hate around this game because it's not a Sinnoh Remake"" is bullshit.

There's hate for a reason

#pokemon unite #god i never wanted to get into anything serious here on my happy light pokemon blog but fucking hell #what the fuck is the pokemon company and game freak thinking? #also why do the textures look like a first year graphic design student did them wtf #discourse #coatl rambles #pokemon direct

[mister-geuse]

I'm on Tumblr a lot and my best friend is on Twitter a lot, and it's been such an experience to see the two sides of the whole Sprigatito Incineroar thing play out.

The Twitter mob is losing its shit as they always do about their fear that Sprigatito will be another Incineroar. You know, human shaped, bi pedal """Furry bait""". And as we know, the Twitter side of the Pokemon community doesn't necessarily have a *ahem* healthy way of expressing their opinions of the Pokemon Company's handling of the series as of recent.

The Tumblr side, upon seeing Twitter's worries jumped on the complete other side of the band wagon, basically saying fuck you I hope it's another bipedal wrestler cat.

I hate to say it, but I agree with the Twitter opinion. I really hope Sprigatito is quadrepedal, just because I'm not a huge fan of the uncannily human starters they have been doing recently.

All 3 starters from Gen 8 are very human shaped. They are plantigrade, 2 of them have fully anatomical human hands, 2 of them have pseudo clothing, and all 3 have human proportions.

I'm not gonna lie when I first saw the trailer for gen 8 where they revealed the starters I couldn't decide which one I would choose, but once I saw the final evolutions, I decided I would box my starter at the first opportunity.

On top of that, cat Pokemon have been some of my favorites. I LOVE purugly, delcatty, meowth, and torracat. I was so disappointed to see Incineroar because it was such a hard pivot away from Litten and Torracat.

On the contrary I also love Meowstick, Perrserker, and Zeraora. They still look very much like cats and they were already standing on 2 legs.

I think the main issue people have with Incineroar and the likes, is that he started on 4 legs and ended up on 2. This isn't necessarily a bad design detail but it makes for a really harsh rug pull when you're expecting a cat shaped Pokemon and end up with something that looks like there could be a literal person in that cat suit.

Additionally the series is Pocket MONSTERS. So the very human designs feel a touch out of place. Even in the past when they had human ish Pokemon like Mr. Mime, Jynx, and to a lesser extent Pokemon like Pangoro and Bisharp, they had very exadgerated proportions and look like animals who just so happen to be human adjacent.

I think people are scared that it will happen again. They saw the cute little weed cat and got really attached to it and are afraid Pokemon will follow their recent design trend of putting all their starter Pokemon on 2 legs.

Here's the thing though. I really don't agree with how Twitter talks to the Pokemon Company, but I do agree with a lot of their criticisms. The Pokemon company built their brand on catching them all and to take away the national dex it is really upsetting to people who have carried their Pokemon all the way up with them since R/S/E in 2002. And I do think that Sword and Shield were rushed or unfinished, with the render distance being 2 feet in front of your face and the animations being next to nothing, they even black the camera out and describe motion instead of actually animating it.

I do not believe this is the fault of the people actually making the games I think it's a problem with the strict schedule and crunch. If anything it's a problem with the way Game Freak/The Pokemon Company pushes their developers.

I think it's fine for the Twitter people to express their criticisms. The Pokemon Company is theoretically making games for the fans to enjoy, so if the fans don't enjoy what's being put out, they are allowed to criticise the company. If the Pokemon Company is alienating their base they're going to get push back. I just wish people would be more civil instead of what ever melt down they're having right now. If they don't like the game then don't buy it!

Now this is the part where Tumblr comes in. I know that we have this big war with Twitter, not just with Pokemon things but with almost all Twitter things. And I know that the Twitter crowd can be really cut throat when it comes to Pokemon. But I don't think this is a basis to throw out every price of criticism they have.

I do think the Twitter people can have a point sometimes even if they go about it the wrong way. That's the difficult part, picking through all the reactionary bullshit to find the very few good points they have. And I think this is one of them.

People are just trying to express their distaste with the recent direction Pokemon designs. I think that they are going about it in the wrong way but their criticism doesnt lose all value because of the way they express it.

I understand that we are afraid of being lumped in with the Twitter crowd and the way they spew hatred toward anything that moves. But I think we can also admit when they have a point.

Furthermore, always choosing the opposite side the Twitter mob takes is not going to do anything except create a very us vs them mentality and make it more difficult to accept when they are right for once.

It is ok to have an opinion that may align with the loudest most annoying sector of Pokemon fans as long as you yourself are not participating in the hate mob.

Although, at a certain point, if youre not enjoying the games to a point where you feel the need to act like this and say things with such venom, maybe it is time to take a step back from the franchise and move on to other things.

A lot of these people have been there since the beginning and I think they are having a hard time admitting its time to throw in the towel because Pokemon has been such a huge part of their entire life. As unhealthy as it may seem, a piece of their identity is tied to Pokemon. So to see the Franchise go in a direction they don't approve of can be very painful.

Maybe for some of these people, it's just time to let go.

On a similar note, if I am unhappy with this game, I think it will be my last one.

Thank you for your time and for reading my, well I guess this turned into an essay lol.

Please keep the reblogs civil. Thanks ❤

#sprigatito #incineroar #long post #pokemon #gen 9 starters #gen 9 pokemon #gen 9

[metfell]

absolutely not forced ofc but if you talked about why you dislike your most disliked pkmn gens... may i ask why you like your favorite gen(s) :]

hold on ill copy/paste my rant from discord also long fucking post under the cut

from discord: "CAUSE LIKE THE THING IS RIGHT IS THAT POKÉMON USED TO BE ABOUT EXPLORATION AND MAKING YOUR OWN STORY WITH YOUR POKÉMON

AND NOW ITS JUST THE GODDAMN POKÉMON COMPANY CHURNING OUT A FUCKING TELLTALE GAME WITH BATTLES INSTEAD OF QUICKTIME EVENTS

I HATE IT SO MUCH IF I WANTED IN HEART GOLD TO TAKE ON THE GYM LEADERS IN A DIFFERENT ORDER THAN WHAT WAS INTENDED THEN I COULD

AND THE ROUTES ARE JUST HALLWAYS NOW

THERES NOWHERE TO EXPLORE

HEART GOLD HIDES ITEMS BEHIND TREES AND COLUMNS AND BUILDINGS AND GETS YOU TO RUN AROUND AND BACKTRACK

AND BLACK AND WHITE WAS A MASTER CLASS IN EXPLORATION WITH THEIR GORGEOUS ROUTE DESIGNS

FUCK DUDE THE SINNOH GAMES WERE AMAZING

THEY HAD SO MUCH TO DO

NOW IT JUST FEELS LIKE HOW FAST CAN WE GET THE STORY OVER WITH SO WE CAN GET TO COMP BATTLES

THE FUCKING HEART HAS BEEN SUCKED OUT OF THE GAMES"

and then my favorite generations are 3 and 5 ^_^ hoenn has some of the best pokemon ever imo and gen 5 was when game freak peaked. i think their best games are the 2D ones i think they could handle churning out yearly games when they were 2D for handheld gaming like the gameboy or the DS.

i love hgss too i think if you combined the story of black and white and the walking pokemon gimmick of hgss with the route layouts of gen 3 youd have an incredible pokemon game maybe even the best.

i love the vibrant colors of gen 4 and 5 i think they pokemon sprites all look dynamic and i think hgss fixed a lot of the issues the sinnoh sprites had with looking a little lifeless, and then gen 5 added so much PERSONALITY into them its amazing you can tell exactly how each of these pokemon act just by their little motions during battle.

i love rotation and triple battle mechanics i think they provided a lot more strategy and planning ahead and they could have EASILY turned it into something REALLY COOL

in terms of starter design we'll never top sinnoh though. those are the PERFECT starter designs. absolutely gorgeous. perfect. they all balance each other out too. expert planning. sinnoh actually has a great map layout too with all the routes weaving in and out of mt. coronet it makes you feel like youre really going ALL OVER SINNOH.

also back to gen 5 THE BATTLES WERE HARD!!! THEY WERE HARD AND THEY WERE GOOD THEY HAD GOOD MECHANICS I WISH THEY HAD A FEW MORE POKEMON CAUSE THAT WOULD MAKE EVERYTHING FEEL EVEN BETTER BUT LIKE ELESA'S GYM??? INFAMOUS. LENORE? EVERYONE GETS ONE-SHOT BY RETALIATE AS A FIRST TIME PLAYER. THESE TRAINERS PACK A PUNCH AND CHALLENGE MODE TAKES THAT TO A WHOLE NEW LEVEL ITS AMAZING!!!!

it just feels like they had the time to put all the features in and polish them with care. and i think that the reason i hate all of the 3D pokemon games is they feel like theyre all rushed. save for like. x/y. that ones just not a good story tbh. its fine tho. but it is the decline of everything. sun and moon is a cash grab banking on you finding their characters likable and story interesting while it handholds you like crazy the entire game. team skull is fun at least unlike team yell. but neither it nor swsh feel like you as the player are really in the know about what the fuck is going on. at least you get to fight lily's mom in the end of sumo. unlike swsh where the story just kinda pitters out sadly while all the fucking grownups do everything and tell you not to worry about it and send you off to do another easy as fuck gym battle only made bearable by the amazing music.

#ask #long post #anonymous #do not reblog #i dont rlly like posts like this getting shared around hope u dont mind i just wanna rant

[sage-nebula]

the pokemon company be like *thinly-veiled misogyny*

To be honest, the sexism isn’t even really thinly-veiled if you think about it. Like off the top of my head:

— Professor Juniper was our first female professor, and it took until Gen V to get her. But whereas all the other professors got to stand on their own without needing anyone else, Professor Juniper had to have her father come in to provide answers to various plot occurrences that she didn’t know. IIRC, she also inherited her practice from him, which was also something that the male professors before and after didn’t have to contend with. It’s a miracle that this was averted with Professors Magnolia and Sonia in Gen VIII, both of whom are women.

— Speaking of female professors being screwed over, in Gen VII we’re introduced to Professor Burnet, whose practice specifically focuses on ultra wormholes and disturbances in space-time (which makes sense since she was previously working on the Dream Radar). Given how much of the plot concerns ultra wormholes, you would think that she would be the main professor of the story, or at least play a big part. But you’re wrong! Instead she’s only in one mandatory scene, and then is basically never heard from again. Meanwhile, Kukui shows up all the goddamn time even though his goal (to create a League) is literally meaningless in the scope of the overall plot. (And even that could have been cool if it had delved into the socio-political ramifications of what overthrowing Alola’s current system of government for another one would mean, but now is not the time to get into the failings of Gen VII’s plot. I’ve gone through that enough times.)

— Back to Gen V for a second, we’re also given two rivals in the first of the Unova games: Bianca and Cheren. While Cheren, the male rival, is taken seriously and has it talked up over and over how great of a battler he is, Bianca has her Munna stolen from her halfway through the story and spends the rest of the game talking down on herself and ultimately deciding that her father was right and she really is not cut out to be a Pokémon Trainer. Keep in mind that Bianca was the first mandatory female rival in the games, because while May could be a rival in Gen III if you played as Brendan, if you chose to play as her, both rivals (Brendan and Wally) were male. So on that note, our rivals so far look like:

Gen I: Blue Oak (male)

Gen II: Silver (male)

Gen III: Wally (male), optional May (female), optional Brendan (male)

Gen IV: Barry (male) 

Gen V: Cheren (male), Bianca (female), Hugh (male)

Gen VI: Shauna (female), Tierno (male), Trevor (male), optional Serena (female), optional Calem (male)

Gen VII: Hau (male), Gladion (male)

Gen: Hop (male), Bede (male), Marnie (female)

So, let’s see. We only have two mandatory female rivals (Bianca and Marnie), as well as two optional female rivals (May and Serena). Meanwhile, we have twelve mandatory male rivals, as well as two optional male rivals (Brendan and Calem). To cap this off, while the mandatory male rivals (outside of the useless Kalos ones) are always treated as strong, competent battlers who have important roles in the story, our two mandatory female rivals, well . . .

Bianca: See above

Marnie: Gets battled a whole grand total of two times and has basically zero impact on the plot despite the fact that her brother is the only Gym Leader who didn’t give into Rose’s vision for how Galar should operate and use Dynamax evolution

And even when it comes to the optional ones, since Brendan is treated as the default MC by TPCi, that means May is the one who gives up training to go be a professor like her dad. (Which is the exact thing they basically did to Bianca in Gen V, except she studies under Juniper instead.) Serena at least keeps battling if she’s the rival, but jeez.

So to say there’s definite gender inequality where the rivals are concerned is a bit of an understatement.

— Moving away from the rivals, let’s talk about villains! We didn’t get a female villain until Gen VII with Lusamine, and even then she wasn’t allowed to stay a villain because I guess Game Freak doesn’t want to accept the fact that women can be evil, too. Moreover, all of Lusamine’s achievements come from the men in her life, and all of her motivations revolve around her husband. To spell it out:

- She inherited the Aether Foundation from her grandfather / father, without having founded it herself like we’re at first led to believe.

- Her husband Mohn was the one who discovered how the ultra wormholes work, not her. IIRC, he was also the primary researcher behind Type: Null’s creation.

- The reason why she does what she does is because she’s looking for her missing husband Mohn, with an added dash of “women just go crazy (and abuse their children) without their husbands!!1!!!” thrown in for flavor. 

Compare this to Giovanni, Maxie, Archie, Cyrus, Ghetsis, Colress, Lysandre, and now Chairman Rose, all of whom formed their own organizations (Giovanni inheriting his from his mother is anime only and does not pertain to the games at all) and had their own goals and desires, versus relying on someone else for those goals and desires. And as if Lusamine not being allowed to form her own organization and have her own goals for her own sake wasn’t bad enough, they then had to go and make it even worse in USUM by turning her into a damsel in distress in the Rainbow Rocket plot, depicting her as not only less capable as the male villains, but also less capable than her male subordinate. Gag me.

— On that note, Oleana is sorely underappreciated by basically everyone except the Twilight Wings writers considering she’s the only reason anything Rose did got done, yet got none of the credit for herself. Damn shame.

— Stepping away from the games for a moment, Generations was a hot mess in terms of sexism. First of all, they only ever used the male MCs, pretending that the female ones didn’t exist at all, even in cases where the female MCs are vastly more popular (e.g. May, Dawn, Hilda). Second, most of the episodes focused on male characters from the series, and the ones that didn’t were either there so they could disrespect the best character in the series by not giving her the episode she deserved (Zinnia), or were told from the point of view of a male character despite that it was supposed to be a female character’s story (Emma). And lastly, there was whatever the fuck that mess with Cheryl was. It was animated in a way that made it look like an anime not suitable for anyone under the age of eighteen. Like honestly, what the hell.

— Leaf has been consistently and constantly disrespected all over the franchise. Despite there allegedly being four trainers who left from Pallet Town (counting Ash) in the anime, Leaf has never been seen or mentioned even once throughout the two decades that anime has been running. They had an opportunity to show her in at least a cameo form in the 20th anniversary movie, but they chose not to do that either, adding yet another disappointment from that movie to the list. She had no appearances in Origins, no appearances in Generations, they didn’t do what they should have done in HGSS by making her the rival atop Mt Silver if you chose to play as Lyra, she wasn’t a skin for Pokémon Trainer in Super Smash Bros. until Ultimate, I’m pretty sure they never made an Amiibo for her either, they replaced her with her Special counterpart in LGPE and her characterization absolutely bonkers to boot, and back to Masters, SS Leaf doesn’t have the Main Character designation for the theme skills that SS Red has, and is also routinely left out of any story bits that feature Red or Blue. It’s a miracle she was even included in the Battling Legends event or whatever it was. As far as TPCi seems to be considered, Kanto only has one main character and that’s Red.

— Oh and speaking of Iris, they gave her the Gym Leader theme designation instead of the Champion designation, instead choosing to act like Alder is Unova’s only Champion when he, no offense, didn’t really fucking do anything in Gen V. :’) We hate to see it.

— In the current run of the anime, the two boys (Ash and Gou) have gotten to go around and have adventures for ~50 episodes while the girl (Koharu) has had to stay home and go to school. You can argue, “She wanted that!” all you want, but you have to remember that she only wants what the writers tell her to want, and the writers said the boys get to have adventures while the girls stay home. She finally has an Eevee and will presumably go on adventures now, but we’ll have to wait and see. And don’t get me wrong, I like Journeys and I love Gou as a character, but it is absolutely a Choice to not have a female lead present in the adventures at all and it’s one that the writers deliberately made for whatever reason.

— On that note, let’s look at Ash’s female companions, shall we? 

Misty: A Gym Leader who has a vague goal (water pokémon master) and is largely out of focus during her run as a primary companion. She had no rivals or in-series (as in, concrete ones she could accomplish before leaving the main cast) goals of her own.

May: A coordinator. Does have rivals and has a story, which is nice, but battling isn’t her focus.

Dawn: Another coordinator. Even more focus than May (she was written as a deuteragonist), but also not primarily focused on battling.

Iris: A battler (her Gym Leader / Champion Status is written out) who actually does get decent focus and a cool arc surrounding her connection to dragons. 

Serena: A performer, which is a girls-only career path that doesn’t have battling in it at all, unlike contests. Does have a goal, but much of her character is written around her crush for Ash and at the end of the series she says that he is her goal.

Lillie, Lana, Mallow: Honestly I didn’t watch enough of SM to have an opinion on how these three were handled outside of hating how Lusamine didn’t get to be a villain in the anime either.

Koharu: See above, she’s only just now getting to be involved with things.

Now, don’t get me wrong: There’s nothing wrong with being a coordinator (and we do see male coordinators too, such as Drew and Harley), and I think that both May and Dawn are wonderful characters. But it does make me feel some kind of way that the female characters were often given the “girly” sidequest while the male main character got to go for the Gym badges, especially since AG and DP went on for a good chunk of years. None of the ladies so far have been treated as badly as Serena was (that performer stuff is just nasty, I’m not sorry), but again, it’s a deliberate choice and something to think about, especially since I feel the only reason they didn’t go that route with Iris is because of her Gym Leader / Champion status in the games. 

I could probably think of more examples of the casual sexism in the series if I thought about it, but this is just from the top of my head. As you can see, there is a lot. All of this being said, and I’m putting major emphasis on this since I don’t want anyone to get it twisted—

I love Pokémon with my entire heart, flaws and all. It has been my hyperfixation for 22 years and that is not going to change any time soon. So DO NOT even dare suggest that I hate Pokémon, or shouldn’t play it, or anything like that. I will be playing Pokémon on my deathbed and nothing and no one will stop me.

But that being said, I criticize because I care. Because I wish it would do better. Pokémon is for everyone. It’s for boys, girls, nonbinary folks, and people all over the gender spectrum. But the treatment of its female characters and the abundance of favoritism shown toward the male characters leaves a lot to be desired (though at least girls are at the table, whereas trans folk are relegated to background NPCs and nonbinary folk are nowhere to be seen :/). I think Pokémon can get better—Magnolia and Sonia felt like a proper apology for how Juniper in particular was shafted, not to mention Burnet—but it’s got a long way to go.

(And also, yes, you’ve understood this right. Twilight Wings is the only anime series to not fuck up at all when it comes to sexism. You go, Twilight Wings. Four for you, Twilight Wings.)

#pokemon critical #pokemon criticism #pokemon negative #let me know if I should use any other tags #long post for ts #stabbymattress #the treatment of Ash's female companions from best to worst has been: #Dawn - May - Iris - Misty - Koharu - Serena #and the Alola girls somewhere in the middle ig I honestly didn't watch enough of that series to know

[unovachampion]

personally i think the overworld style for the sinnoh remake looks cute. i like the chibi look.... and the actual battle scenes we saw looked.... fine i guess..... but its obvious imo that they need to work on the lighting cause if they just tweaked the lighting itd do wonders on the lets go textures/models theyre obviously using

pokemon legends arceus looks cool too but from what we were shown the overworld looks so barren 😭 thats basically my thoughts on that (but finally having a game dedicated to arceus is fucking epic ive been dreaming of this for years)

also.... the fact that game freak is finally outsourcing a mainline game to another company is good! it means less work for the dev teams (since they have their teams split into 2, and every year the teams apparently switch on who works on pkmn and who works on everything else to prevent burnout. dont even get me started on that)... but then if you actually look into the company they outsourced too, ilca (i love computer art) theyve never actually.... made a game before lol

their portfolio shows theyve worked on a few games like nier automata and yakuza 0, but they just do 3d graphics, not ACTUALLY making games...? which, if theyre doing a 1:1 remake (seemingly, at least, from the trailer) it wouldnt be AS difficult, and a decent start, but... its certainly a choice to depend on a company thats never developed a game with developing your remake that ppl have been asking for for a long time, even if they have something to work off of. altho lets be real its pokemon so it could literally be a piece of garbage in a switch case on people would still buy it lmao

#sorry i havent posted in forever my brain just sucks ❤️ #basically: it could be good or bad. who knows. i like the chibi art direction but im hesitant since ilca has never actually made a game.... #but im holding onto hope. please please please be good please