Pokemon The Pokemon Franchise

BlueEyedSteelix

Steelix Bait
Member
Hello everyone,

It is I, once again, and I want to make you think. A couple posts I've seen here recently got me thinking, and I'd like to share my thoughts and hear yours.

The Pokemon Franchise is really unlike any other... while many think that Game Freak is simply milking the series for cash, I truly believe they aren't. Consider this: the amount of passion, thought, and effort put into such a massive game with so many individual characters, entities, and events... it's truly mind blowing. 150+ COMPLETELY NEW characters... do you know what that means? That means over 150 new animations, calls, map locations, Pokedex entries. Once you truly consider the sheer massiveness in a game like Pokemon, I think you appreciate it a lot more.

Why am I bringing this up? Because nowadays, nobody cares or appreciates how much time goes into putting together a true masterpiece of a game (which I honestly believe Black and White will be, and I'll tell you why later). It seems to me that the up and coming generation (which unfortunately I am part of) only enjoys blowing the heads off of zombies and Russians, and really can't appreciate the scope of other games that really should overshadow what most kids play now.

Of course, the blaring example is the Call of Duty series, which I no longer play. Yes, I love shooting games; they truly give you adrenaline and provide you with great memories of playing with friends, earning challenges and achievements, and just relaxing. However, when you dig deeper, the Call of Duty series is being MILKED to the core. Activision has already signed on 3 new studios to milk the living hell out of the series... why, you may ask? For cash, without a doubt. The Call of Duty series was a truly great franchise, which, in my opinion, is really on it's way out. I'm not saying this because I don't enjoy the games, but in my eyes, they're slowing decreasing in quality and polish, simply because Activision DEMANDS they get pumped out on a yearly basis so they can hand out their bonuses.

Why am I bringing up Call of Duty? The Pokemon franchise has truly NEVER decreased in quality. What do I mean by that? Whether or not you thought one game was better than another, or you're only into the classics, you really can't deny that the amount of time, polish, and amazing moments is just breathtaking. To this date, I can't think of one Pokemon game that has not been up to par with the others, and Game Freak is showing no signs of slowing down. Game Freak does typically release one Pokemon game a year, but they are an amazing company in the sense that none of their games have ever been "bad", half-assed, or in any way detestable.

Now, this brings me to Pokemon Black and White. The amount of time put into these games is probably the most yet when you consider something like the C-Gear. In an interview, one of the head honchos of Game Freak (I can't remember his name, but look it up if you really need it) said that it took them THREE YEARS to develop the C-Gear. This wasn't just putting it together, but perfecting it so that upon release, it would work flawlessly and do exactly what they said. When was the last time Game Freak patched a Pokemon game... that's right, never. Have they NEEDED to? No.

In conclusion, being a fan of an incredible series like Pokemon is really something to be proud of. We, as Pokemon players, are really experiencing pure, legitimate gaming at it's finest. Black and White really do have the potential to be two of the best Pokemon games ever created. I am absolutely (and somewhat literally) DYING to play them. I hope you all are too.

Thanks,
-T :D
 

Gary Walsh

The Pride of Pallet Town
Member
Kudos, I appreciate your view. It gives me great pleasure to know that there are real Pokémon fans out there :).
 

BlueEyedSteelix

Steelix Bait
Member
Kudos, I appreciate your view. It gives me great pleasure to know that there are real Pokémon fans out there Smile.
Why thank you, good sir. I'm glad you do appreciate my thoughts and understand where I'm coming from. :)
 

catutie

Ahhhhh back.....er....kind of
Member
you have taken my thoughts and put them on a page :D. GF has always been that was with pokemon. its never been about the graphics it was always the quality and the experience. games like COD or halo are good but...ya when you just try to hold a game by graphics or how good the controls are...it well sucks lol. companies like GF are really underated. to bad we have reverted back to graphic wars...like when it was all about 16-bit (super nintendo) or 64-bit (ummm...the jaguar i think i remember my frind had it...the games sucked anus) its now become oh the graphics are amazing but really you can ask how is the gameplay and they will say oh its a FPS...thus meaning its no different than any other FPS out there. pokemon isnt like every other game out there. in fact they are usually the ones being imitated like fossil fighters (nothing against it...its a fine game...so far) where they take the same concept and just alter it a tiny bit.

i cant wait for march 6th...it will be better than when HGSS came out.
 

Card Slinger J

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Good article btw, Gameplay, Music, Quality, and Controls is what matters most not the Graphics because to sacrifice creativity for money IS NOT how to make and distribute video games. I know what you're talking about catutie and I'm seeing this problem with other video game developers especially Square Enix with Final Fantasy XIII and companies that create First-Person Shooters cause as I mentioned in a thread here there's TOO MANY OF THEM and it seems like the genre is oversaturating itself like how the Guitar Hero franchise died out just recently.

The kind of games we want to see being game rentals are now just being played via Online like on WiiWare, XBOX Live Arcade, or even PlayStation 3 Network. That sucks ALOT because it makes it harder for us to access those games without having to earn specific points to actually play those games on our systems. Why can't Sonic 4 be one whole game instead of being in Episodes? See where I'm getting at?
 

the crippler 18

Beware the Crossface!!!
Member
"Why can't Sonic 4 be one whole game instead of being in Episodes"?

Its called at the end of the day, all people seem to care about is the $$$$$$.

Yes, I agree J. I wish the Game was a whole as well and not this episode crap that we are getting.
 

XieRH

Aspiring Trainer
Member
BlueEyedSteelix said:
Now, this brings me to Pokemon Black and White. The amount of time put into these games is probably the most yet when you consider something like the C-Gear. In an interview, one of the head honchos of Game Freak (I can't remember his name, but look it up if you really need it) said that it took them THREE YEARS to develop the C-Gear. This wasn't just putting it together, but perfecting it so that upon release, it would work flawlessly and do exactly what they said. When was the last time Game Freak patched a Pokemon game... that's right, never. Have they NEEDED to? No.

I beg to differ.

I'd personally want a BW patch that restores the inventory system to the previous style, and to have gym leader rematches, etc. I hate it when an improvement is made in one gen, only to have it yanked out in another gen.

Also how do you patch a DS game?
 

Zorua

Zedd
Advanced Member
Member
Wow. That was one of the most interesting pokemon related articles I've ever read. Good views man, and theyre all spot on. Always the Russians....
 

DNA

Goodbye, everyone. I'll miss you all.
Advanced Member
Member
When was the last time Game Freak patched a Pokemon game... that's right, never. Have they NEEDED to? No.
If you want to be technical, though, there is a patch for the Berry Glitch existent in Ruby/Sapphire (I believe it makes berries stop growing after a certain period of time), which is installed into that cartridge when it connects with a FRLGE game. So to my knowledge, that is the first and only patch in a Pokemon game. (Wait, there's another - if you send in a Pokemon Emerald cartridge to Nintendo to get it fixed, the cloning glitch will be removed, so that can be considered another "patch".)

I really appreciate your take on the whole thing. Yes, you're introducing 100+ characters into every new game - that means you have to give each one a level-up set, TM set, egg moves, breeding group, base stats, typing, encounter rate, catch rate, sprites, cry...yeah, I could go on all day, couldn't I? Granted, the evolutions of other Pokemon wouldn't take as much work (e.g. Futachimaru to Daikenki), but even so it's quite a bit to do. (And even in the line I just mentioned, there's a drastic change in appearance.)

People may differ with you that the franchise has decreased in quality (I can see just by playing the TCG that it's steadily degrading), but for most, that degradation seems...small, insignificant, maybe even invisible.

The video games, though? Yeah, still as good as ever, as far as I can tell.
Also how do you patch a DS game?
Probably the same way the GBA game was patched - trading with a game that has the patch ready.
 

Cinesra

Aspiring Trainer
Member
I understand your point of view, but one could debate the orginality of Pokemon like Afrobull and Alomomola. Like XieRH, The lack of things that were added in previous generations bugs me, such as gym rematches, the HGSS menu system, etc. The fact that they're basically making another RBG could be seen as an example of how little GF actually innovates.
 

BlueEyedSteelix

Steelix Bait
Member
I want to thank all of you for your kind and thoughtful responses. It means a lot to me that you all see where I'm coming from, and most of you agree.
I beg to differ.

I'd personally want a BW patch that restores the inventory system to the previous style, and to have gym leader rematches, etc. I hate it when an improvement is made in one gen, only to have it yanked out in another gen.

Also how do you patch a DS game?
I was not referring to patch to bring back opinion-related things, but to fix game breaking glitches or unbalanced or broken gameplay. What you said is opinionated, not a flaw with the game.
If you want to be technical, though, there is a patch for the Berry Glitch existent in Ruby/Sapphire (I believe it makes berries stop growing after a certain period of time), which is installed into that cartridge when it connects with a FRLGE game. So to my knowledge, that is the first and only patch in a Pokemon game. (Wait, there's another - if you send in a Pokemon Emerald cartridge to Nintendo to get it fixed, the cloning glitch will be removed, so that can be considered another "patch".)

I really appreciate your take on the whole thing. Yes, you're introducing 100+ characters into every new game - that means you have to give each one a level-up set, TM set, egg moves, breeding group, base stats, typing, encounter rate, catch rate, sprites, cry...yeah, I could go on all day, couldn't I? Granted, the evolutions of other Pokemon wouldn't take as much work (e.g. Futachimaru to Daikenki), but even so it's quite a bit to do. (And even in the line I just mentioned, there's a drastic change in appearance.)

People may differ with you that the franchise has decreased in quality (I can see just by playing the TCG that it's steadily degrading), but for most, that degradation seems...small, insignificant, maybe even invisible.

The video games, though? Yeah, still as good as ever, as far as I can tell.
I actually was going to mention these but decided not to. You are correct, although I personally don't think that Pokemon is decreasing in quality at all (although I am not hardcore TCG player). I know for a fact the videogames aren't.
 

XieRH

Aspiring Trainer
Member
BlueEyedSteelix said:
game breaking glitches or unbalanced or broken gameplay.

Well tbh Gameplay-wise, pokemon isn't on the same level as some of the other games you highlighted in the PC world. If we broaden the scope a little, you'll realise that pokemon not needing to be patched for glaring technical issues isn't really a pokemon thing, other DS games are like that too. Pokemon isn't special in this regard.

In fact even as far as PC games are concerned, it's not like a ton of the games out there have unbalanced or broken gameplay. And tbh a lot of the so-called "unbalanced" problems are largely opinionated as well, stemming from people who may or may not even know how to play properly and hence, impulsively accuse the gameplay of being unbalanced. The Psychic type was like that in Gen I, subject to criticism of being "unbalanced". Even with regards to CoD and Activision, there's actually a similar thing behind the scenes with Nintendo and Gamefreak, and its the reason why you get things like a battle frontier and gym rematches not in DP but only in Pt, even though we already had that in Emerald (and assumed it would be standard in subsequent games). I mean... this is the same company that can spend 3 years on a C-Gear but not 3 days to code in a rematch system for gym leaders here (and history repeat itself for BW)

I do appreciate your posts but I can't properly debate since the entire topic seems to be more subtle gamefreak fanboying (using words like "DYING" to play the game) rather than taking a more objective stance towards the franchise (which is what I would personally have preferred). For what it's worth though I'm grateful you remain open to feedback on both sides.



Shadow Arceus said:
how little GF actually innovates.

...is actually the reason why people will say things like:

DNA said:
The video games, though? Yeah, still as good as ever, as far as I can tell.


... ultimately, Gamefreak stuck to a working formula and the formula still works for them. As far as the sales figures are concerned, it works for the fanbase too, and stuff like the "lack of originality" in one or two pokemon designs becomes a largely trivial matter. If the games have truly decreased in quality, that's equivalent to saying that the fanbase has decreased in quality of its tastes because as far as I can tell they're still buying the games.


DNA said:
Yes, you're introducing 100+ characters into every new game - that means you have to give each one a level-up set, TM set, egg moves, breeding group, base stats, typing, encounter rate, catch rate, sprites, cry...yeah, I could go on all day, couldn't I? Granted, the evolutions of other Pokemon wouldn't take as much work (e.g. Futachimaru to Daikenki), but even so it's quite a bit to do.

It's not being done by a single person. The data entry is probably handled by a bunch of people assigned to that task. And it probably takes less than 3 seconds to assign a breeding group, it'd be like the amount of time it takes you to type out your name... who knows GF might've even designed an input interface for it (look at Shoddy Battle, you don't manually type out your pokemon's nature and moveset do you?)
 

BlueEyedSteelix

Steelix Bait
Member
Well tbh Gameplay-wise, pokemon isn't on the same level as some of the other games you highlighted in the PC world. If we broaden the scope a little, you'll realise that pokemon not needing to be patched for glaring technical issues isn't really a pokemon thing, other DS games are like that too. Pokemon isn't special in this regard.

In fact even as far as PC games are concerned, it's not like a ton of the games out there have unbalanced or broken gameplay. And tbh a lot of the so-called "unbalanced" problems are largely opinionated as well, stemming from people who may or may not even know how to play properly and hence, impulsively accuse the gameplay of being unbalanced. The Psychic type was like that in Gen I, subject to criticism of being "unbalanced". Even with regards to CoD and Activision, there's actually a similar thing behind the scenes with Nintendo and Gamefreak, and its the reason why you get things like a battle frontier and gym rematches not in DP but only in Pt, even though we already had that in Emerald (and assumed it would be standard in subsequent games). I mean... this is the same company that can spend 3 years on a C-Gear but not 3 days to code in a rematch system for gym leaders here (and history repeat itself for BW)

I do appreciate your posts but I can't properly debate since the entire topic seems to be more subtle gamefreak fanboying (using words like "DYING" to play the game) rather than taking a more objective stance towards the franchise (which is what I would personally have preferred). For what it's worth though I'm grateful you remain open to feedback on both sides.
I don't think theres any question that Pokemon isn't at the same "level", but does it really need to be? Not at all. I think Pokemon has ultimately become its own genre in the sense that not many other RPGs like Pokemon with creatures (Digimon, Bakugan) can stand up to the popularity of Pokemon. Thus, Game Freak has really cleared the market with these types of games, and I think that's what makes Pokemon special.
I see what you mean by saying it isn't special in that regard, and you're right. I just wanted to point out the fact that it hasn't and really doesn't need to be patched.
I'm a PC gamer myself, and I fully understand what you are saying, and agree. I know that in many games people incessantly complain about one thing or gun they think is "unbalanced" and "overpowered", but that's not really what I was trying to get at as far as patching goes. What I was trying to say is that they ship the games out with no true flaws (other than the Emerald Cloning Glitch and Berry Glitch), so players can expect a completely working game. As far as balance of Pokemon and moves go, it's up to the players, but Game Freak lets the players decide with no true game breaking issues.
Okay, I really don't know why you keep bringing up Gym rematches. That is purely opinion and doesn't reflect the compitence of a company developing a huge game. What I mean to say, is while you may see it as an improvement to add Gym rematches, other people don't. Obviously Game Freak didn't. You can argue that point all you want, but its completely your own opinion. Like I said, Game Freak obviously doesn't agree. Would I like to see Gym rematches? Sure, but it's not a game-breaking issue.
I also appreciate your posts, so thanks. While I'm dying for these games, I'm by no means a Game Freak fanboy. I'm excited for these games because of what I see, not what console I'm "sworn" to.
 

XieRH

Aspiring Trainer
Member
BlueEyedSteelix said:
I don't think theres any question that Pokemon isn't at the same "level", but does it really need to be?

It does if you wanna compare it with other games at that level. Otherwise comparisons are meaningless, like saying how a kid can't run as fast as an athlete. I'm saying the very notion of PC games shouldn't even be highlighted here, because it's simply a different industry (and the industry does indeed only tend to compare games of the same platform). It'd be better if we cross-referenced to games like Ace Attorney or Golden Sun or any of the other stuff in the DS market.


BlueEyedSteelix said:
You can argue that point all you want, but its completely your own opinion.

That goes without saying. Everything here is opinions so far anyway, even your claim that CoD franchise is decreasing in quality and polish, or Shadow Arceus's claim that GF has little innovation, etc.
 

BlueEyedSteelix

Steelix Bait
Member
It does if you wanna compare it with other games at that level. Otherwise comparisons are meaningless, like saying how a kid can't run as fast as an athlete. I'm saying the very notion of PC games shouldn't even be highlighted here, because it's simply a different industry (and the industry does indeed only tend to compare games of the same platform). It'd be better if we cross-referenced to games like Ace Attorney or Golden Sun or any of the other stuff in the DS market.
I agree that PC games shouldn't be highlighted here, so I'm not totally sure why you brought it up. My Call of Duty reference was simply an example of how I feel games are decreasing in terms of quality and polish with all consoles aside. They are very different industries, both of which seem to be doing great.
That goes without saying. Everything here is opinions so far anyway, even your claim that CoD franchise is decreasing in quality and polish, or Shadow Arceus's claim that GF has little innovation, etc.
Yes, but saying you'd like to see a patch for Gym rematches is entirely your opinion, and therefore isn't a flaw in the game. When I said Pokemon games didn't need to be patched, I was talking about technical game-breaking issues. Gym rematches is not one of them, and therefore means nothing in the realm of Pokemon games having huge issues.
 

DNA

Goodbye, everyone. I'll miss you all.
Advanced Member
Member
XieRH said:
It's not being done by a single person. The data entry is probably handled by a bunch of people assigned to that task. And it probably takes less than 3 seconds to assign a breeding group, it'd be like the amount of time it takes you to type out your name... who knows GF might've even designed an input interface for it (look at Shoddy Battle, you don't manually type out your pokemon's nature and moveset do you?)
I agree with you; that makes perfect sense. I wanted to list all the possible things they had to design, but realistically, the ones that would take the most time is the level-up set, TM moves, and egg moves. They need to pick from the probably-over-600-by-now moves that exist, and out of them, narrow it down to about...say, 50 for each Pokemon, based on their appearance, typing, stats, and so forth. That would probably take the most tweaking to it - not that it'd be an impossible task, but it would certainly be a tedious one.

Oh right. And the cry. Some of the cries they give these guys are bizarre. Makes me wonder how they come up with this stuff.
 

XieRH

Aspiring Trainer
Member
BlueEyedSteelix said:
I was talking about technical game-breaking issues. Gym rematches is not one of them, and therefore means nothing in the realm of Pokemon games having huge issues.

To clarify, I wasn't implying that gym rematches = gamebreaking issues. I should've elaborated more on that: I don't believe you need to have game breaking issues before you start to consider a game to be problematic.

The idea of "huge" issues is not something that turns up a lot in the industry actually. It's not like there's a ton of games out there which crash or shutdown inexplicably most of the time, or are borderline unplayable. As far as I can tell, most game games actually work fine, it's just that sometimes, people go overboard when they complain about things they don't like, and make it sound like a game breaking issue. This is especially common with the issue of gameplay balance. In fact I'm even somewhat sceptical about your opinion of decreasing quality and am tempted to ask for a list of recent games which have true gamebreaking issues to illustrate how the so-called quality is so-called decreasing.
 
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