I think this game has convinced me that I just don’t like Pokemon games anymore.

I went into this game with pretty high hopes. My gripes with more recent Pokemon games has been a shift away from expression through catching Pokemon and building your team in favor of weirdly grand and linear plots, forced legendaries, and hollow gimmicks that no one cares about. But everything from the gameplay trailers for this game made it seem like it could be great, potentially my favorite Pokemon game ever.

It was a remake of gen 4 which I enjoyed, I liked the aesthetic, and it had all the good roleplaying aspects of past games: clothes and following Pokemon.

At first it was everything I wanted. The grand underground in particular is very enjoyable to explore. It was doing everything right but at some point between two towns it dawned on me. Pokemon is not fun.

The actual gameplay part of this game is just not engaging. What’s the core loop of this game? You go from one town to the next fighting trainers that are 10 levels too weak and running away from wild Pokemon that are 20 levels too weak. There’s very little actual thought, I’m just mashing the A button so my starter can sweep the opponent with their strongest attack. Then the game tasks you to go through a building of Team Galactic baddies and fight the same 3 pokemon 5 times over. This is tedious, this is exhausting.

Catching Pokemon is a chore. Constantly catching or breeding guys until you catch the one with the right nature and ability is a nothing experience. Early in the game you can get a Machop and I’m not going to settle for one that doesn’t have an adamant nature. So on route 207 I have a 35% chance of running into the guy and a 3.3% chance of it being adamant. That’s around a 1 in 100 chance. If I wanted a specific ability it becomes a 1 in 200. That is not fun. I am not having fun. I caught like 60 and gave up. If I didn’t know about natures this would maybe be alright but I do and it’s a cancer on my brain. To steal a quote from Steeb, “the fact that I know so much about Pokemon’s mechanics is an active detriment to the play experience.”

All of this can be mitigated with held items and breeding but that’s all end game stuff. It is very strange to me that it’s just accepted that the main game is just not fun and you only get to have fun once you reach the battle tower in the post-game.

(DISCLAIMER: Now this part sucks because it is dumb to tell anyone how to make a game as a person who does not make a game but here it is anyways)

The solution to this seems so easy. They have all the tools at their disposal to create two game modes. You have this core experience of non-engaging early game combat. That’s what Pokemon is so you don’t want to get rid of that. Call it Classic mode.

Then just make another mode called Battle Tower Mode or something. Random encounters levels scale like they do in the grand underground, random trainers have competent teams, trainers in gyms and gym leaders scale your Pokemons level like they do in the battle tower. Since random trainers are harder you can have them give you potions along with money. Maybe the bad guy trainers don’t give you potions. Maybe the stores sell good held items.

Changing natures should be free, easy, and immediate. Make it so you can give a Pokemon to your Mom and tell her how to take care of them. Tell her to feed him sour food and be strict. Go one screen over and one screen back, grab him from your Mom, and now the Pokemon is adamant.

IVs should just not be a thing, max all IVs for everyone. I guess you can keep EVs but make it easier to remove them. Like a milkshake that just removes all EVs from one stat.

That’s it. I have solved Pokemon.

All the complaining aside, I did finish the game. I don't think a Pokemon game is capable of being below 3 stars. The core idea and world is just too good, but these games have so much more potential not being explored.

Also why do I have to beat the game before you let me catch like 50% of the species. Who does this serve?? Oh god I have to stop typing about Pokemon I could literally go on forever.

I made a no good video about this game. The main point was that deckbuilding is way better than experience points.

Please, whatever you do, don't watch it. Thank you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhvUGrxfqnk

Pure kinaesthetic bliss. The immaculate aesthetic aside, just the sheer act of rolling stuff up in this game is incredibly satisfying.

First game is good but this game cleans up the mechanics and has a lot more level variety. I personally like the soundtrack more too.

I know Takahashi didn't want to make this game but I'm glad Namco seemed to force him into doing it. There's a weird push/pull balance between him and Namco that worked out really well. Like Takahashi didn't even want there to be a time limit on levels in the first game. Namco kind of set him straight on some of the more accepted video game standards. The first game was probably like 90% Takahashi and 10% rigid business suit boys and this one seems more like 85/15 which I think is juuuust right.

But that's all just a theory. A GAAAAAAME THEORY.

This and Taco Bell are the only good things to come out of Capitilism. If you haven't tried the 2 dollar Fiesta Veggie Burrito you got to get on that. It's incredible. It does have guac in it though so watch out if you're alergic.

The first three stages are very detailed and fun to play.

The last one is also fun but a bit cornballs. A little too on the nose and when the NPCs start walking around the jankiness of it all kind of takes away from the overall experience.

The additional gidgets and gadgets are great.

It's like if Tony Hawk didn't have a skateboard and just had to walk around. The level designs in a Tony Hawk game are really impressive when you think about it. They take these normal locations and have to skateboard-ify them. Create rails and ramps that seemlessly flow into moer things to trick off of. Umarangi Generation is in a similar boat where it needs to create levels with interesting things to take pictures of and have those things work at multiple different angles. And it does a really good job of that. Its got excellent environments and excellent enviromental story telling.

ThorHighHeels also really knocked the soundtrack out of the park.

Pure kino.

When I first had Spicy Nacho Doritos as a child they used to be so spicy. They are not spicy any more but I'll still try them from time to time, hoping that they will be as spicy as they were when I was 10, but they never are. They had to have changed the formula at some point in like 2005 or something.

This game kind of feels like the Spicy Nacho Dorritos from my youth. Not in an old is better kind of way but the very particular kind of spice and hotness. This games got it. The spice.

Episode 2 in particular.

This games got good fishing.

I want little to no mechanical depth to my fishing in a video game. Fishing in real life looks like it sucks eggs and the further games get away from that the better. What makes fishing good as an activity in a game is that it forces you to idle. People went buck wild for the benches in Life is Strange because sitting in a game rules and fishing is like advanced sitting.

You want to fish because it forces you to stop interacting with the game mechanically and start admiring the world. Find a place to fish, cast your lure, and then pan the camera. The gameplay is not catching the fish, the gameplay is panning the camera. Fishing is the sightseeing skill. It's the skill you should focus on if you just want to be a tourist in the world of FFXIV and I swear they designed it around this idea.

Training the skill gives you an ability that makes you not aggro monsters way above your combat level thus allowing you to explore the higher level areas way before your ready to from a combat perspective. It levels up super fast, opening the world to you immediately. The fishing mechanics are the same from start to finish and the only variable is the location you fish. You have to thoroughly explore the maps looking for bodies of water. The entire gameplay is explore and admire. Admire the world, admire the water, admire your characters fashion.

And then at the end you get a tiny tortoise pet.

I played like 80 hours of this game without realizing my controllers right analog stick had really bad drift. I literally kept telling people "Nier: Automata is really good but the camera is terrible."

Despite that I still gave it 4 stars. I think that says something about its quality.

Just a cool game with a wholly unique aesthetic in atmosphere, environment, and music. Cool cool game.