What I Want in a Pokémon Game (Realistically)

Everyone has their own wishlist for the next Pokémon game, but how many of us are considering the workload Game Freak takes on to make our dreams come true? In this video, I list what I want to see in a future Pokémon Game, while keeping the workload realistic for the hardworking game developers! How'd I do? Let me know down below!

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Thumbnail Art by the amazing Remy:

[ShnoodleMc]

My least favorite part about the Paldea region isn't how the region is set up. It's the fact that all the areas do not have a good name. Instead of South Provence Area One, why can't it be something like "Mezagosa Trail" because that actually gives it personality!

[apuapua]

I'm sorry, but while I can agree to skippable dialogue and cutscenes for the purpose of replays or folk like you who don't care about stories, I do for a fact care about the plot of a Pokemon game.

I'm not asking for a perfect narrative, but Pokemon is an RPG, and the point of an RPG is the story (including the story of how you build your team and progress and eventually beat the game). Scarlet and Violet was flawed in many regards, but one thing I cannot complain about is the plotlines: they're adequate, serviceable and fun.

[medom]

Guys, do you remember those sweet times where you would actually be rewarded for interacting with a city? When you could just walk into random buildings and each one would have a different NPC inside, which would often even give the player something or have some silly gimmick about them? Yeah, maybe they should bring that back instead of them just being a few cosmetic houses with zero content and a gym if they were lucky

[Sir_Noel]

I’m glad someone else likes double battles. They’re far more mechanically interesting and let you pull off more creative strategies. If there was an option to make every gym leader a double battle, I’d take it.

[Skimmer]

im kinda glad someone tries to think of smaller scopes than just screaming "its to simple" I am so so tired of the openworld trend being forced on games because people believe every game has to be like that to be good. Linear but polished as heck is where my interest lies

[nightfrostbreeze]

One thing to consider with limiting the amount of Pokemon available at the start of the game is that it can easily lead to “same team syndrome” if pushed too far. Like how seemingly every Sinnoh team has Staraptor and Luxray. It’s definitely a balance.

[r-altaccount]

game design major here who does c# programming. if there's no skip button in the next game, programming limitations will not be the reason. this is something that any average joe can do.

[yowza]

I think the main critique I'd make of this perspective is that there's some conflation of "being realistic" with treating the current state of GameFreak as immutable.

Like, yes, there are shareholders and pressures to meet deadlines that are, to some extent, unviable for GameFreak to ignore. That said, things like development time, dev team size, developer skill, and so on are not as immutable as this argument appears to treat them. For example, not creating an open world, maintaining Dexit, leaving out certain QoL features like cutscene skip or no battle animations, and so on were all supported by citing either too few developers or programming difficulty. But there's nothing unrealistic about GameFreak hiring more skilled developers. I think there's a balance to be struck between ambition and properly supporting the game development process.

That said, there are many good ideas for the franchise here! I personally don't need an open world, wouldn't mind fewer new mons per generation, and would love to see gym battles built around strategies rather than types.

[canaldecasta]

If you are going to have a volcano at least have the decency to make its mouth bigger than the rock dog that comes out of it.

[richarddavis]

Your insistence on being realistic is great and makes this video much more compelling than other people whose asks just basically translate to "more and better", with nothing substantive besides that.

However, Pokémon is literally the most profitable media franchise on the planet, and it's primarily driven through the games, since basically everything new that appears is introduced in them. I do not think it's unreasonable to ask for more money to be put into development at the expense of profits. In theory, they could even be a loss leader, since the more people that play the games, the more people will buy other merchandise.

However, since they know that people will buy the games anyway, and they don't seem to have the drive to make games good for the sake of making games good, I doubt we'll ever see that. It's a shame.

[shadowmarauder]

I like alot of these changes, however their are two aspects that I wholeheartedly disagree: lack of minigames and treatment of the story.

For minigames, i feel these help fans pass the time between training settions in the game and help expand on the region's culture and fun. Some like voltorb flip, mantine surf and the slot machines are excellent and should be brought back in some way, yet TPC seem determined to make people just keep training pokemon or shiny hunt. They still try to do some minigames now & again, but tie it to the multiplayer aspect and tend to make it boring forthose of us whom either don't pay for the online service or prefer to play alone.

As for story, I'm the complete opposite: I love playing games for their stories, seeing how characters grow and develop as well as the revelations of the world's history, lore and more. I do agree we need a skip button, as it does get dialogue heavy at times, but having a simple story temds to make things boring. Just look at SWSH.

[donovangunther]

"Realistically" *Exclusively for Game Freak standards, any other developer doesn't need to be begged to meet the bare minimum standards because that's the entry level

[RutgerKresnik]

youd assume that one of the biggest franchises in the world would have more than a small development team

[jakemcgoldrick]

I feel like sometimes when people argue in favor of dexit, they’re arguing for hoenn-style dexit where not everything is catchable but is still supported via trades and transfers, when the real problem people have is not being able to even use foreign pokemon

[ailemoonstream]

You keep saying if they cant make something well they shouldnt do it. But this is the highest grossing franchise on earth. They can afford to hire more people. They can afford to hire people who know how to do things. There really is no excuse not to have every pokemon with new animations new sound like saying their names, an open world that feels rich. There's none.

[kurosan]

Traversal is such an overrated thing. I don't know why devs think "if you can see it, you can go there" is a good thing for every game. Back when we can't access everything we see, the sense of scale was better felt. There is no sense of wonder when you can just call your legendary motorcycle pokemon with wings and fly everywhere you want.

[kamijoutoshirou]

I appreciate you going the realistic route, but man did it depress me. This franchise prints money but we get B-level games every other year? And that will not change for no other reason then gotta catch all dollars just blows. Indie games you can buy for 15 bucks have more love put into them then Pokemon after gen 5.

[kazzakoool]

My wishlist





1) Difficulty modes.
2) Nuzloke mode.
3) Voice acting.
4) Skippable dialogue.
5) Level scaling (if open world).
6) Post-game randomizer.
7) Grass/Gen 8 encounters.
8) Shiny sound.

[lukebytes]

People forget how carried gamefreak has been by spinoffs, and i don't mean that as an entirely bad thing.

You used to go to pokemon stadium for 3d competetive battling, mystery dungeon for a good story, rumble for the grind etc. Gamefreak didnt need to go all in on every single aspect of their games, because other outsourced companies could pick up the slack for them. That's why gamefreak has been a "small indie company" for so long, because they didn't need to be anything more than the guys who make decent pet raising rpgs.

But now those spinoffs are gone, replaced with remakes and mobile games that outshine gamefreak in everything except the gameplay. Gamefreak is now tasked with being a good competitive, casual, visual, and narrative experience, on the same platform as more focused games from seperate franchises that can beat them in all three. That weight is blatantly crushing them. Imo, an ideal but realistic pokemon game is a small scale one that's supported by outsourced spinoffs.

[Inka-zkwg]

I dont understand to this day why, after beeing established in the anime, you never can do anything else as main goal besides beating the champion to see the credits roll. I want a game where you can choose between champ and contest coordinator. S/V tricked us with the illusion of free choice. All three paths should have led to the area zero endgame on their own.