(Ed – This post is not by Gareth Newnham but a good friend of Laser Lemming – Sarah Clement. Enjoy!)
Woot! Another Pokémon game and with it comes some much needed updates. Pokemon X and Y are utilising the 3DS to finally rid the genre of the bird’s eye view sprites, replacing them with new directional movements and 3D customisable characters. The touchscreen now allows you greater interaction with your Pokemon allowing you to pet them and feed them improving your relationships. ‘Hoard’ encounters allow you to fight up to five Pokemon at a time whereas previously you could only battle up to two Pokemon in select situations, and the introduction of sky battles let you battle trainers at a distance using your flying Pokémon. Game Freak have also attempted to address numerous flaws that have plagued the series since Pokémon Red and Blue; by all but removing the inevitable trudge between town a and b which introduces players to the basics of Pokémon battles before finally being given Pokeballs to capture the only two normal types that will appear between routes for the foreseeable future, by instead, flooding the game’s opening with at least six new types of Pokémon to catch before you’ve even arrived at the first gym. Throughout the game they’ve introduced another sixty nine new Pokemon bringing our grand total to 718 to catch.
And herein lies a rather large problem with the franchise. When a new game comes out, a whole new bunch of Pokemon for us to remember come with it and the whole thing is getting a little bit unwieldy. There are a few things we automatically consider when we are confronted with a wild Pokemon that we might want to capture. With each Pokemon it helps to consider its type, learnset, evolution and type effectiveness otherwise we really have no idea what we’re catching or how we can use it as it grows. When we had Pokemon Red and Blue there were just 150 Pokemon to worry about and a supporting television series that gave us all the information we needed. I can barely remember the names of half the Pokemon let alone 718 learnsets, evolutions and types. It doesn’t help that every time a new game comes out the types are revised. Bulbasaur began life as a grass type but is now a grass/poison type, while the newest game has introduced the ‘fairy’ type retconning previously normal types such as Jigglypuff and Clefairy. The whole thing is becoming unnecessarily complicated.
Magnemite – Electric? Nah, I’ve always been ElectricSteel and I’ll thank you to not point out the problems that inherently brings when fighting a water type.
With the increasing number of Pokemon it is also revealing increasing lapses of creativity among the design teams and we end up with Pokemon that are largely irrelevant and just take up space in the Pokedex. There are a number of Pokemon that are obvious clones of previous designs; a Starly has the same number of evolutions at the same level as a Pidgey, complete with an almost identical moveset, so what’s the point? Likewise instead of three legendary birds from Generation I, Generation II really pushed the boat out with three legendary dogs, phwoar! Meanwhile we have those Pokemon that border on the absurd. Case in point; Pokemon #599 Klink, a steel type which looks like Magnemite, except it’s totally different because it’s gears not magnets! Klink goes on to evolve into Klang which evolves into Klinklang. *sigh*
Finally we have the same Pokemon taking up multiple entries for the slightest difference. #380 Latias and #381 Latios are two different Pokemon even though their only differentiating feature is that one is pink (female) and the other is blue (male). Likewise #480, #481 and #482 the legendary Uxie, Mesprit and Azelf are pretty much the same Pokemon with only the smallest distinction in their learnsets.
So instead of scraping the barrel to provide us with yet more Pokemon to remember, why not just improve the material you already have? Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver, remakes of the original Gold and Silver are among the biggest selling titles released for the DS, clocking up 12.67 million copies sold. No additional Pokemon required!
What do we want? More generic locations! When do we want them? NOW!
Remakes can only take you so far, however, so how about (here’s a radical idea) thinking up something new? As it stands each game that comes out gives us exactly the same narrative, objectives and gameplay. With the exception of the mini games or minor features nothing ever changes.Perhaps instead of simply adding more Pokemon and renaming the towns they might consider breaking out of what has long been a tired format: 1. Get Pokemon 2. Get gym badges 3. Defeat the Team Rocket equivalent 4. Become Pokemon League Champion and repeat for every game. Of course back in the day, after becoming the champ you could try and complete your Pokedex, but these days, with 718 Pokemon, good luck!
