Is catching Pokemon fun? This is sort of a Rorschach test of a question, but hear me out. The point of catching Pokemon is most aptly comparable to the act of adopting a pet in the real world (albeit very forcefully). What if you could just take any animal out of the wild and immediately domesticate them, then you use your bonds of friendship to grow stronger together? It's weird to compare Pokemon to real life since it is essentially more complicated dog fighting except positive(?), but it's important to see the basis of how we think about this mechanic anyhow. Still doesn't answer the question though:
Is catching Pokemon fun?
Well if I were a layman (I am), I would say that it is simply one aspect in the gameplay loop that Pokemon creates. One brick in the wall if you would. The benefit of catching Pokemon is that you get to choose your party members as opposed to a typical JRPG where the party members are handed to you as part of the story. In fact there isn't even much commitment to your party members as well, you could have 6 of the same character and have a potentially functional team. This allows for flexibility and allows for the battles, trading, and everything else within the game to function properly. Perhaps it is the flexible lifeblood that allows the series to stay engaging start to finish.
Still we haven't quite answered the question here, so let's re-word it a bit off of the layman's ideas:
Is catching Pokemon innately fun, or rather, Is catching Pokemon fun on its own, without the rest of the system?
Well anecdotally speaking I think it's clear why I came to such a system approaching the answer. Growing up until after I graduated college, I only considered playing Pokemon only one way: Decide the 6 Pokemon I want, catch only those mons when they become available, catch legendaries when they show up, beat the game using all the tools I can with only those 6 Pokemon. It's hard to say that this is the pattern that came naturally to me through the flow of the design or if it was something more socially ingrained into me. All of my friends (who were male of course, what do you think I wanted cooties?) would do the exact same method. Multiple best friends, my brother, even casual acquaintances in after school care all played the exact same way. We each treated the team of 6 as an expression of personality to compare ourselves with. It wasn't until Pokemon Go came out that I began to recognize other peoples methods of playing the series. My friend who I grew up with told me about one of the friends he made in college who in Let's Go Pikachu would just sit around the 3rd gym and catch pokemon. They never challenged the gym, just 100 hours of catching the same Pokemon over and over again.
Of course maybe it's my fault for considering them the same. Each one is a new member to the team and party so who's to say that all 20 Ekans aren't different entities. Does this specifically mean that catching Pokemon is innately fun? Have I been playing the game wrong? Is this person just a fool?
So let's talk about Legends Arceus. Does Gamefreak think catching Pokemon is innately fun? They basically made a whole open world TPS based off the idea so that must take some confidence in the idea right? Unfortunately as we are all aware by now, this is a
If you make a game where you lazily toss balls at different mons and watch numbers increase as your only means of engaging the player, you’re bugging.
Is catching Pokemon fun?
Well if I were a layman (I am), I would say that it is simply one aspect in the gameplay loop that Pokemon creates. One brick in the wall if you would. The benefit of catching Pokemon is that you get to choose your party members as opposed to a typical JRPG where the party members are handed to you as part of the story. In fact there isn't even much commitment to your party members as well, you could have 6 of the same character and have a potentially functional team. This allows for flexibility and allows for the battles, trading, and everything else within the game to function properly. Perhaps it is the flexible lifeblood that allows the series to stay engaging start to finish.
Still we haven't quite answered the question here, so let's re-word it a bit off of the layman's ideas:
Is catching Pokemon innately fun, or rather, Is catching Pokemon fun on its own, without the rest of the system?
Well anecdotally speaking I think it's clear why I came to such a system approaching the answer. Growing up until after I graduated college, I only considered playing Pokemon only one way: Decide the 6 Pokemon I want, catch only those mons when they become available, catch legendaries when they show up, beat the game using all the tools I can with only those 6 Pokemon. It's hard to say that this is the pattern that came naturally to me through the flow of the design or if it was something more socially ingrained into me. All of my friends (who were male of course, what do you think I wanted cooties?) would do the exact same method. Multiple best friends, my brother, even casual acquaintances in after school care all played the exact same way. We each treated the team of 6 as an expression of personality to compare ourselves with. It wasn't until Pokemon Go came out that I began to recognize other peoples methods of playing the series. My friend who I grew up with told me about one of the friends he made in college who in Let's Go Pikachu would just sit around the 3rd gym and catch pokemon. They never challenged the gym, just 100 hours of catching the same Pokemon over and over again.
Of course maybe it's my fault for considering them the same. Each one is a new member to the team and party so who's to say that all 20 Ekans aren't different entities. Does this specifically mean that catching Pokemon is innately fun? Have I been playing the game wrong? Is this person just a fool?
So let's talk about Legends Arceus. Does Gamefreak think catching Pokemon is innately fun? They basically made a whole open world TPS based off the idea so that must take some confidence in the idea right? Unfortunately as we are all aware by now, this is a
If you make a game where you lazily toss balls at different mons and watch numbers increase as your only means of engaging the player, you’re bugging.