Originally posted on my blog years ago, edited with just the parts that talk about Pokémon Red. Note that since this was written a while ago, it doesn't fully reflect how I write nowadays or think about the game today, although I stand by the general idea: https://xatornova.blogspot.com/2018/06/pokemon-toy-adventure.html
Pokémon was born out of Satoshi Tajiri's will of sharing his experiences as a child to search for, capture and collect insects outside his home, alongside the curiosity to see the creatures and the ingenuity to get them. To him, the games of his era could be better, which is why this fixation could help him to reach the desired level of sophistication. Many elements are in fact coherent with this approach: The focus on capturing wild enemies, their differences with domesticated creatures, random encounters exclusively on wild areas, the intent of making each creature unique in elemental affinity and moveset, the turn-based combat as a representation of giving orders to your creatures, etc. To achieve this, Pokémon needs a world where the player can navigate through, explore and discover. Game Freak would take for this the established structure by Dragon Quest as a stat progression through accumulation of experience points to gather levels alongside a lineal advance led by a narrative, and the one by SaGa as a progression of stats depending on the player's decisions during battle. The problem arises because of this: By using established mechanics, the developers didn't take into account how they diminish the creatures' importance and destroy the interest on its world, failing thus in its communicative intent.
Japanese role-playing games that are inheritors of Dragon Quest's formula allow to increase stats according to the amount of defeated enemies, and the issue shared by them is the possibility of confronting enemies indifinitely without penalization, since it's possible to position oneself near a healing spot while obtaining experience. The consequence of this is that by accumulating enough levels, enemies stop being a menace due to the player having stats so high that the opponent cannot compete with them. Due to this procedure being allowed to the player as an unlimited free resource, its presence, regardless that it's optional, is enough for the player to unconsciously lose respect to the given world, since how to get through the world becomes solvable and predictable. A lot of games attempt to mitigate this issue due to status effects that are hard to compensate, instant death, reduction of experience gain in high levels, or adjustment of enemy parameters to the player's level.
Pokémon Red doesn't just lack something to prevent this, but it worsens it by allowing the player to heal without fee and save anywhere, and by adding the stat progression system inherited from SaGa to represent the superiority of trained creatures against wild Pokémon. By making an enemy faint, one obtains stat experience according to the type of enemy that increases a certain stat. Since these points are added directly to the current stats, and enemies lack access to them, there's a considerable superiority from the player above other trainers even on the same level. There could be a nuance in customization by deciding which stats to increase, but in Pokémon Red this doesn't happen since it's possible to get the highest possible stats on every stat, as well as a lack of transparence of the system to the player, and finally because there isn't a single enemy in the game that poses a threat enough for such customization to be relevant. Not even the final bosses, alluded by the game as the most powerful foes, are saved from this because their creatures' movesets are barely even designed, with choices as rancid as using basic moves or without type variety to exploit elemental effectiveness. For example, the final boss's Arcanine has Ember, the weakest Fire-type move, and his Rhydon has Fury Attack, a weak move that doesn't even have the Pokémon's same type and is more proper of non-evolved enemies from the start of the game than an endgame boss.
In addition to these elements, the player has the capability to use items during combat, from healing items or reviving items to statboosters of cumulative effect to four times the original value. Here opens itself another gap between player and opponent, since the few enemies that have access to items are just limited to healing, have them in very little amount, and they use it with a very deficient artificial intelligence. Since these items are available in shops to be bought repeatedly, with a maximum of ninety-nine of the same type in the inventory, the player's creatures become invincible tanks, capable of eliminating opponents in one or two hits, regardless of the type of their move, except for total immunity to a certain type.
These two qualities promote a playstyle focused on raising few, if not just one Pokémon, generally the one received at the start, and because of this, the relevance of other creatures is offset. If just one monster is needed to complete the game, regardless whom the player uses and who the opponent is, what purpose does serve then to differentiate the fauna beyond cosmetics if they work similarly on a mechanical level? What's the practical incentive to gather different Pokémon beyond their appearance? At the end, the sentiment left by the game is to be looking for collectible cards instead of searching and catching different beings, and in a game where its fauna is in the foreground, it's disappointing that their importance is superficial. Pokémon Red attempts to lessen this issue by limiting the progress with artificial barriers, only solvable with special moves to lighten dark areas, pushing boulders, cutting trees or swimming in the ocean, thus forcing the player to look for creatures who can learn these moves.
This approach only turns looking for Pokémon into a task, a forced process in an artificial way instead of being born out of one's own interest, but above all, it leads to the second big issue: The implausibility of the world due to its eagerness to be servile to the player. The aforementioned elements contribute to this, since allowing the player advantages that the enemy doesn't have suggests an environment to the protagonist's mercy, but this is increased by how much the player is handholded through the game. Since the cities are visited in a specific order, the path is structured as a hallway, and the progress is limited by arbitrary barriers that are only unlocked once the player defeats a boss, the development of the player isn't natural, and one is conscious of a repetitive sequence of defeating the level boss an accessing the next level, turning the perception of its world in less the natural habitat that it wants to suggest and more a series of levels designed for the player not to be lost into.
Game Freak didn't have much confidence when creating Pokémon Red, since a lot of the planned content was cut, and this game is plagued by programming errors that can render the cartridge unusable, which is why it's no exaggeration to call it an unfinished game. The developers were conscious of the limitations of this system, and because of it the sequels would complete the original idea or adjust the formula to attempt to lessen its gravity.
[...]
In spite of the lackluster design and programming errors, it's precisely the first generation the one closer to [its] ideal and the one that expresses it with most strength. It's probably unintentional and a result of technical limitations, but the first generation is the only one that abstains of any forced explanations, without tutorials, without a type chart, or even an explanation of what moves can do, relying exclusively on the player discovering by themself the innate effectiveness of their creatures. It's also the one whose simple story is more fitting to the innocent perspective of a child that runs away from home and discovers the world, in contrast to the plots filled with ideological, apocalyptic conspiracies that flood the series from Ruby onwards, which regardless of their quality, dillute the approach of the personal journey by relegating the player to a secondary role [...]. Finally, because in spite of its artificiality, it's the game that's built the most around mystery (one of the most positive of Dragon Quest's influences), with the Victory Road accessible from the start, but impenetrable without badges, with the wonder of what's there beyond with each unlocked limit the more one ascends to the summit, and the most powerful creatures are optional, barely even alluded by other characters, and hidden in the depths of the earth (Zapdos, Articuno, Mewtwo), or behind numerous levels of training (Dragonite), without forced events, and the merit on obtaining them is on the player. It's an effect that its remake cannot simulate properly due to the additions from the third generation that removes some of these aspects [to "fix" and "update" the game]. Unfortunately, this isn't worth much and doesn't save the game because it vanishes quickly, and relies exclusively on the game being unbeknown to the player. Once the inner workings of the game are deciphered and the unbalance is noticeable, the mystery disappears. Precisely because of this, Pokémon has been uncapable of replicating the social phenomenon that it was back in the 90s, when rumours about what was possible or not in the games ran rampant, and legends about hidden mythical creatures like Mew were in the word of mouth.
A notoriously deficient combat system alongside a linear navigation in hallways in a game where fighting and exploration is the main action results in an anodyne experience, but one that could be compensated by other aspects. However, that these two aspects undermine Tajiri's original intent drastically results in a failure. [...]
When one starts a Pokémon playthrough for the first time, a Pokémon expert welcomes us with the promise of a legend unfolding upon our path in a world filled with dreams and adventures. Though nowadays, coming back to the games as an adult makes one realize about the unfulfilled promise, and that the adventure that took over our dreams isn't more than a toy. A simple plastic trinket.
Pokémon was born out of Satoshi Tajiri's will of sharing his experiences as a child to search for, capture and collect insects outside his home, alongside the curiosity to see the creatures and the ingenuity to get them. To him, the games of his era could be better, which is why this fixation could help him to reach the desired level of sophistication. Many elements are in fact coherent with this approach: The focus on capturing wild enemies, their differences with domesticated creatures, random encounters exclusively on wild areas, the intent of making each creature unique in elemental affinity and moveset, the turn-based combat as a representation of giving orders to your creatures, etc. To achieve this, Pokémon needs a world where the player can navigate through, explore and discover. Game Freak would take for this the established structure by Dragon Quest as a stat progression through accumulation of experience points to gather levels alongside a lineal advance led by a narrative, and the one by SaGa as a progression of stats depending on the player's decisions during battle. The problem arises because of this: By using established mechanics, the developers didn't take into account how they diminish the creatures' importance and destroy the interest on its world, failing thus in its communicative intent.
Japanese role-playing games that are inheritors of Dragon Quest's formula allow to increase stats according to the amount of defeated enemies, and the issue shared by them is the possibility of confronting enemies indifinitely without penalization, since it's possible to position oneself near a healing spot while obtaining experience. The consequence of this is that by accumulating enough levels, enemies stop being a menace due to the player having stats so high that the opponent cannot compete with them. Due to this procedure being allowed to the player as an unlimited free resource, its presence, regardless that it's optional, is enough for the player to unconsciously lose respect to the given world, since how to get through the world becomes solvable and predictable. A lot of games attempt to mitigate this issue due to status effects that are hard to compensate, instant death, reduction of experience gain in high levels, or adjustment of enemy parameters to the player's level.
Pokémon Red doesn't just lack something to prevent this, but it worsens it by allowing the player to heal without fee and save anywhere, and by adding the stat progression system inherited from SaGa to represent the superiority of trained creatures against wild Pokémon. By making an enemy faint, one obtains stat experience according to the type of enemy that increases a certain stat. Since these points are added directly to the current stats, and enemies lack access to them, there's a considerable superiority from the player above other trainers even on the same level. There could be a nuance in customization by deciding which stats to increase, but in Pokémon Red this doesn't happen since it's possible to get the highest possible stats on every stat, as well as a lack of transparence of the system to the player, and finally because there isn't a single enemy in the game that poses a threat enough for such customization to be relevant. Not even the final bosses, alluded by the game as the most powerful foes, are saved from this because their creatures' movesets are barely even designed, with choices as rancid as using basic moves or without type variety to exploit elemental effectiveness. For example, the final boss's Arcanine has Ember, the weakest Fire-type move, and his Rhydon has Fury Attack, a weak move that doesn't even have the Pokémon's same type and is more proper of non-evolved enemies from the start of the game than an endgame boss.
In addition to these elements, the player has the capability to use items during combat, from healing items or reviving items to statboosters of cumulative effect to four times the original value. Here opens itself another gap between player and opponent, since the few enemies that have access to items are just limited to healing, have them in very little amount, and they use it with a very deficient artificial intelligence. Since these items are available in shops to be bought repeatedly, with a maximum of ninety-nine of the same type in the inventory, the player's creatures become invincible tanks, capable of eliminating opponents in one or two hits, regardless of the type of their move, except for total immunity to a certain type.
These two qualities promote a playstyle focused on raising few, if not just one Pokémon, generally the one received at the start, and because of this, the relevance of other creatures is offset. If just one monster is needed to complete the game, regardless whom the player uses and who the opponent is, what purpose does serve then to differentiate the fauna beyond cosmetics if they work similarly on a mechanical level? What's the practical incentive to gather different Pokémon beyond their appearance? At the end, the sentiment left by the game is to be looking for collectible cards instead of searching and catching different beings, and in a game where its fauna is in the foreground, it's disappointing that their importance is superficial. Pokémon Red attempts to lessen this issue by limiting the progress with artificial barriers, only solvable with special moves to lighten dark areas, pushing boulders, cutting trees or swimming in the ocean, thus forcing the player to look for creatures who can learn these moves.
This approach only turns looking for Pokémon into a task, a forced process in an artificial way instead of being born out of one's own interest, but above all, it leads to the second big issue: The implausibility of the world due to its eagerness to be servile to the player. The aforementioned elements contribute to this, since allowing the player advantages that the enemy doesn't have suggests an environment to the protagonist's mercy, but this is increased by how much the player is handholded through the game. Since the cities are visited in a specific order, the path is structured as a hallway, and the progress is limited by arbitrary barriers that are only unlocked once the player defeats a boss, the development of the player isn't natural, and one is conscious of a repetitive sequence of defeating the level boss an accessing the next level, turning the perception of its world in less the natural habitat that it wants to suggest and more a series of levels designed for the player not to be lost into.
Game Freak didn't have much confidence when creating Pokémon Red, since a lot of the planned content was cut, and this game is plagued by programming errors that can render the cartridge unusable, which is why it's no exaggeration to call it an unfinished game. The developers were conscious of the limitations of this system, and because of it the sequels would complete the original idea or adjust the formula to attempt to lessen its gravity.
[...]
In spite of the lackluster design and programming errors, it's precisely the first generation the one closer to [its] ideal and the one that expresses it with most strength. It's probably unintentional and a result of technical limitations, but the first generation is the only one that abstains of any forced explanations, without tutorials, without a type chart, or even an explanation of what moves can do, relying exclusively on the player discovering by themself the innate effectiveness of their creatures. It's also the one whose simple story is more fitting to the innocent perspective of a child that runs away from home and discovers the world, in contrast to the plots filled with ideological, apocalyptic conspiracies that flood the series from Ruby onwards, which regardless of their quality, dillute the approach of the personal journey by relegating the player to a secondary role [...]. Finally, because in spite of its artificiality, it's the game that's built the most around mystery (one of the most positive of Dragon Quest's influences), with the Victory Road accessible from the start, but impenetrable without badges, with the wonder of what's there beyond with each unlocked limit the more one ascends to the summit, and the most powerful creatures are optional, barely even alluded by other characters, and hidden in the depths of the earth (Zapdos, Articuno, Mewtwo), or behind numerous levels of training (Dragonite), without forced events, and the merit on obtaining them is on the player. It's an effect that its remake cannot simulate properly due to the additions from the third generation that removes some of these aspects [to "fix" and "update" the game]. Unfortunately, this isn't worth much and doesn't save the game because it vanishes quickly, and relies exclusively on the game being unbeknown to the player. Once the inner workings of the game are deciphered and the unbalance is noticeable, the mystery disappears. Precisely because of this, Pokémon has been uncapable of replicating the social phenomenon that it was back in the 90s, when rumours about what was possible or not in the games ran rampant, and legends about hidden mythical creatures like Mew were in the word of mouth.
A notoriously deficient combat system alongside a linear navigation in hallways in a game where fighting and exploration is the main action results in an anodyne experience, but one that could be compensated by other aspects. However, that these two aspects undermine Tajiri's original intent drastically results in a failure. [...]
When one starts a Pokémon playthrough for the first time, a Pokémon expert welcomes us with the promise of a legend unfolding upon our path in a world filled with dreams and adventures. Though nowadays, coming back to the games as an adult makes one realize about the unfulfilled promise, and that the adventure that took over our dreams isn't more than a toy. A simple plastic trinket.
CasteHappy
3 days ago
Esos últimos párrafos son algo en lo que siempre he pensado cuando Pokemon me pasa por la mente, y probablemente el motivo por el que, aun siendo un niño, nunca pude interesarme por ningún juego después de las 2 primeras generaciones.