NintendoThe Pokemon franchise probably has one of the most vocal, passionate fanbases in all of gaming, which is me putting mildly. Most of us first likely had our first experience with the franchise at an early age, so those of us who’ve stuck with it over the years understandably feel a unique attachment to it.
With that attachment comes, perhaps, a sense of ownership. A sense that we know where we want to the franchise to go and what’s best for it. As such, when Pokemon doesn’t conform to those expectations, some of us can get rather… heated over changes we don’t agree with, or over a lack of changes where we feel evolution is needed.
NintendoJust look at the latest (and arguably biggest ever) Pokemon controversy. It was recently confirmed that Pokemon Sword and Shield wouldn’t feature a National Pokedex, meaning for the first time ever in a core Pokemon title, we’d be unable to “catch ’em all.” This unfortunately means that certain Pokemon are getting cut from the upcoming titles.
We don’t actually know which or how many of the older Pokemon won’t appear in Sword & Shield yet. It could be ten, it could be 100, it could be more. However many it ends up being, the fact is that an awful lot of fans weren’t happy at all. While I don’t agree with the childish, petulant way some of these fans handled the situation, I certainly understand their frustration to an extent.
One of the coolest things about the Pokemon titles over the years is the way Game Freak has allowed us to carry our collections over from game to game, even across different console generations. For example, I have a level 100 Salamance that I first raised in Pokemon Ruby on the Game Boy Advance, that I was able to transfer to the DS games, and then the 3DS games over the years.
I’ve had that exact same Pokemon across multiple games since I was ten years old, but if Salamance is one of the Pokemon that isn’t compatible with Sword & Shield? That’s the end of a 15 year run with one of my favourite monsters.
NintendoWhile the reality of not being able to have that Salamance come over to the new games would be disappointing, I’d personally get over it fairly quickly. I do love having him with me, but I don’t typically battle with him, as I prefer to build up a team with newer Pokemon for more of a challenge, and don’t really get invested in battling online after I’ve finished the single-player experience.
With that said, I totally get that there are those more serious players who have teams they’ve raised and trained since the days of the Game Boy Advance, teams they were probably excited to see in HD for the first time ever on Nintendo Switch and take into exciting new battles against other players online.
These new restrictions on which Pokemon can and can’t work with Sword & Shield means that these players, who are so invested in their teams, might see some or all of their precious lineup stuck stranded an older Nintendo system, unable to join the new games.
Honestly, that sucks for them, especially since the announcement of the Pokemon Home transfer service suggested all our monsters from the 3DS games, as well as Pokemon Let’s Go and Pokemon GO would be able to cross over. The announcement that this wouldn’t be the case kind of came out of nowhere, which really added to the sting of it.
NintendoOn the other hand, I get where Game Freak and Nintendo are coming from with what ultimately must have been a difficult decision. They certainly would have seen the backlash coming, at the very least, and wouldn’t have done what they did lightly knowing how people would react.
Game Freak producer Junichi Masuda explained to Famitsu that since the new games will bring the total number of monsters past 1,000, trying to include them all in one game would make for an unbalanced experience.
He also suggested that fewer Pokemon means the team can now focus on higher quality animations for the monsters that remain. Fair enough, right? Sadly, Masuda’s comments about better animation and visuals have inevitably opened up Sword & Shield to extra scrutiny from fans.
NintendoBecause of this, and the fact that Pokemon is no longer on the 3DS, members of the Pokemon community have now been examining Sword & Shield in a light they might not have before, criticising things like the texture on the trees in the game’s world, and animations that are, to be fair, not really good enough for a 2019 release on a home console, especially when we’ve seen that the Nintendo Switch can in fact handle good looking games.
In that respect, I absolutely sympathise with longtime fans of Pokemon right now who are upset about the lack of National Dex, especially if we’ve been told the National Dex has been sacrificed for certain features that we can plainly see aren’t there.
Unfortunately, I think the whole “Dexit” fiasco is representative of a shift away from hardcore Pokemon players, and an attempt to return the franchise to a simpler, more accessible time. While that might sting for longtime fans of the series, what I think we have to try and remember is that Pokemon’s core audience has always been young children, and that audience should be catered to first and foremost.
NintendoThe target audience of Pokemon has always been and will always be lil nippers. That doesn’t mean adults can’t still play the games and enjoy them (I know I will), but we have to understand that Nintendo and GameFreak aren’t necessarily making them with us older gamers predominately in mind anymore.
When Pokemon Red & Blue released all those years ago, the majority of us fell in the love with the franchise at an early age. We collected the cards, we watched the anime, we forced our parents to sit through Mewtwo Strikes Back in cinemas full of screaming toddlers. It was our time, and it was glorious.
While what Masuda suggested about sacrificing the National Dex for better visuals is questionable, I do think his comments about a better balanced game are entirely valid. I don’t know that having over 1,000 Pokemon to choose from and train would necessarily be the best or most appealing sales point for young kids.
I’m honestly not so sure I would have gone near Pokemon Red back in the day if you told me there were that many of the feckers to catch.
NintendoI’d also argue that this shift away from hardcore Pokemon players isn’t entirely that sudden. In fact, their desire to keep appealing to the young’uns is probably exactly why the Pokemon formula has remained unchanged for over two decades now.
There’s no way Nintendo and Game Freak haven’t heard the cries for a fully open world Pokemon game, or an increased level of challenge in the core games. In my opinion, the reason they haven’t done this is because they want to keep things as simple as possible for their core audience.
Features that we might want as older, more experienced players aren’t necessarily what’s best or most appealing to those ten-year-olds who had their first Pokemon experience with Sun & Moon, and are eagerly awaiting new adventures in the Galar region.
They hit on the exact right formula to do that back in 1998, and it seems to have served them well in the years since, as new generations of kids keep buying the new games as older fans start to realise that the franchise just isn’t for them anymore.
NintendoSo yeah, it sucks a bit to admit that we, the older fans, might be drifting away from Pokemon. You can be mad, and you complain that Game Freak isn’t listening or is abandoning dedicated fans – but the bottom line is that Pokemon has always been, and will always be a game for kids before anything else, and their interests should come above ours as a result.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.