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Speculation Gen 9 Predictions (Development predictions, New Regions, Version names)

Gen 2 and 5 are currently the shortest Gens and have received criticism for being rushed through, so I don’t know if GF will be willing to introduce a new shortest Gen in Gen 8 especially with everything else surrounding it.
Really? I can see that with Gen 2, but I rarely ever hear criticism of Gen 5 for being rushed through, that's usually criticism of Gen 6. People often talk about how they want to see more sequel games in the vein of BW2, so being rushed through seems at odd with that.
It had appearances from of a number of characters spanning almost all the Gens. And USUM had the Rainbow Rocket. It's debatedly not much, but it did celebrate the franchise...but mostly Kanto.
I don't know that I'd call that a big celebration- a few of them had major roles like Annabelle and Colress, but most of them were just brief appearances. Definitely welcome, but not something that seems like it was specially planned for as much as something that could have been done in any generation.
How so? BW2 was also an anniversary title and thus set the precedent for one happening within the generation.
BW2 was in 2012, that was the 16th anniversary. Not an especially remarkable date.
 
I think Gen 4 remakes are perfectly suitable to be released this year. Sun and Moon did do a little bit to celebrate Pokemon (keeping regional variants to only being of Kanto Pokemon, Red, and Blue's return with the Battle Tree), but they weren't anniversary games. Honestly, any game would make a perfectly suitable place to feature something celebratory of the franchise. Perhaps they could pull off something like the Battle Tree or Pokemon World Tournament, where old characters return so we could battle with them. They don't even have to feature something that celebrates Pokemon as a whole. I think just having a main series game released during an anniversary will boost the sales of it.

While I would really like them to spend a little more time on Gen 9 and wait till 2023, I am starting to lean towards the idea that we will see them next year. Of course, they could decide to do Let's Go 2, or Sinnoh DLC (or Sinnoh remakes if we don't see them this year but I'm like, 90% positive we will), or something else next year. But, I don't think TPC will allow them to go a year without some sort of release. So at least how it stands right now, with the company's statement of them not having plans for another Let's Go game and the likelihood that Sinnoh remakes will release this year, I think we will see the announcement of Let's Go in 2022. They're beginning to develop a bit of a pattern for announcements of new generations being on Pokemon Days, so that's when I think we'll see our first news of Gen 9.
 
It had appearances from of a number of characters spanning almost all the Gens. And USUM had the Rainbow Rocket. It's debatedly not much, but it did celebrate the franchise...but mostly Kanto.

Character cameos are near meaningless because we get them all of the time, and USUM didn't release on the anniversary. So those don't really count. A real anniversary celebration would've been something closer to what XY did with things like referencing/recreating areas like they did with Santalune Forest and Unknown Dungeon and handing out the Kanto starters. The only thing that SM really did in that regards was have Malie Garden reference Johto. Maybe if the entirety of Alola was like that and referenced a ton of past areas I could buy it being an anniversary game. But as is? Yeah no, those things don't scream "anniversary".

We would have received USUM-like games and you know it. And they wouldn't have released any Switch games in 2017, so it would have been a long wait.

And there's larger issues there too, but the point is they took the lazy way out and skipped an expansion game for a cheap and lazy new generation. The fact that everything else surrounding this series has also been cheap and lazy is beside the point.
 
A real anniversary celebration would've been something closer to what XY did with things like referencing/recreating areas like they did with Santalune Forest and Unknown Dungeon and handing out the Kanto starters.

But XY did those and got criticism... Gamefreak can just never win huh. I personally think the regional variants were a great way to celebrate the anniversary.
 
But XY did those and got criticism... Gamefreak can just never win huh. I personally think the regional variants were a great way to celebrate the anniversary.

XY wasn't an anniversary title and just did it for Kanto. It would've been more appropriate to do that for the anniversary, and with more regions than just Kanto. I'm talking not just a forest like Viridian Forest or another Unknown Dungeon, but things like an underwater cave like Seafloor Cavern, a snowy mountain like Mt. Coronet, a ruins area like Relic Castle, etc.
 
But XY did those and got criticism... Gamefreak can just never win huh. I personally think the regional variants were a great way to celebrate the anniversary.

I don't think there's a proper uniform way to do that, personally. A lot of franchises try it with crossovers, but crossovers always come with a lot of shit and people end up hating them more often than not.

But then when you do it a different way, like XY or other regions incorporating nudges to other regions, people complain it's 'not enough' or 'too much catering to one specific game'.

TlDr: there's no way to win, unless you do like, a seperate thing for every region. (For example, Yu-Gi-Oh! can do this with it's cardgame. It's currently in it's 25th anniversary and uses the opportunity to use the 3 years that's freed up from anime card promotion to give support to anime themes from all the series, so everyone gets equal treatment.) Unlike Yu-Gi-Oh! though, Pokémon isn't really in a position to do this unless they do a Twilight Wings for every region but people would want more episodes of bigger length than Twilight Wings was. (I know I do. Twilight Wings was the best piece of anime Pokémon stuff we got since ever.)
 
And there's larger issues there too, but the point is they took the lazy way out and skipped an expansion game for a cheap and lazy new generation. The fact that everything else surrounding this series has also been cheap and lazy is beside the point.

How is creating a brand new generation lazier than re-releasing an existing game with a few tweaks, though? I thought the decision to skip an enhanced version and move on to a brand new game was really refreshing.
 
I'm talking not just a forest like Viridian Forest or another Unknown Dungeon, but things like an underwater cave like Seafloor Cavern, a snowy mountain like Mt. Coronet, a ruins area like Relic Castle, etc.

I actually wouldn't have minded if Alola was full of such references. The Male Gardens was a nice touch. Also, Rainbow Rocket (even though it was only in USUM) was a great way to round off the anniversary celebrations imo.
 
Really? I can see that with Gen 2, but I rarely ever hear criticism of Gen 5 for being rushed through, that's usually criticism of Gen 6. People often talk about how they want to see more sequel games in the vein of BW2, so being rushed through seems at odd with that.
People expected ORAS in Gen V and wanted them before Gen VI, at least in the online circles I was in at the time.
 
People expected ORAS in Gen V and wanted them before Gen VI, at least in the online circles I was in at the time.

I'm glad they waited till Gen 6 to remake Hoenn. I don't think a Gen 5 Hoenn remake would have felt like a big enough upgrade from the original games, graphics-wise, to be worthwhile.

The fans who called for a Hoenn remake in Gen 5 probably didn't realise a massive graphical upgrade to the series was just around the corner, though.
 
I'm glad they waited till Gen 6 to remake Hoenn. I don't think a Gen 5 Hoenn remake would have felt like a big enough upgrade from the original games, graphics-wise, to be worthwhile.

The fans who called for a Hoenn remake in Gen 5 probably didn't realise a massive graphical upgrade to the series was just around the corner, though.
Yeah waiting a Gen was the right move. However, I think we were all expecting ORAS in Gen 5 at that point, especially since I think it was around the release of the original BW where they said they had no intention of going 3D anytime soon (which ended up not being true lol).
 
People expected ORAS in Gen V and wanted them before Gen VI, at least in the online circles I was in at the time.
I still don't understand how that's rushed, though. Not making an expected remake isn't the same as rushing another game in that generation- if anything, it's evidence against it.
 
I don't think there's a proper uniform way to do that, personally. A lot of franchises try it with crossovers, but crossovers always come with a lot of shit and people end up hating them more often than not.

But then when you do it a different way, like XY or other regions incorporating nudges to other regions, people complain it's 'not enough' or 'too much catering to one specific game'.

That's not a no-win scenario. The issue with XY's references were 1. the timing, as XY wasn't an anniversary game, so referencing a past area feels lazy and uncreative, and 2. they only did it for Kanto, not every region. That doesn't really speak to them trying to celebrate the series' history and failing due to an unpleasable fanbase, that's more they were trying to cash in on nostalgia because they just didn't feel like coming up with something new and the fans saw it as a cop out. If they'd have done something similar for SM and incorporated every region instead of just Kanto, it probably would've been better received.

Sonic did something somewhat similar with Sonic Generations for that series' 20th anniversary where the entire game was essentially a mix of levels from past games (albeit with completely new designs, but the environments, assets, etc. were all taken from past games). I saw 0 complaints about that idea, and Sonic's fanbase is even more fractured and harder to please than Pokemon's so that tells you just how receptive people would be to recycled content when they're up front about it and doing it to celebrate an anniversary.

I actually wouldn't have minded if Alola was full of such references. The Male Gardens was a nice touch. Also, Rainbow Rocket (even though it was only in USUM) was a great way to round off the anniversary celebrations imo.

I liked the idea behind Malie Garden, but I feel like they could've gone further with it to really make it feel like Johto, namely to let us actually explore the tower and possibly catch Lugia/Ho-oh there instead of it being another glorified background prop. Malie Garden itself doesn't really scream Johto either, since its environment and Pokemon don't really exist in Johto.

How is creating a brand new generation lazier than re-releasing an existing game with a few tweaks, though? I thought the decision to skip an enhanced version and move on to a brand new game was really refreshing.

Because we would've gotten 7th gen regardless, even if it didn't come out in 2016. New generation games are inevitable from now until the series ends, so we can't really "lose" a new generation game just because they make something else that year. It just means the current generation lasts a bit longer. Nothing said that they had to create a new generation in 2016 and only had to have 2 6th gen games. In fact, past precedent from the previous handhelds indicated otherwise, as both the first generation on the GBA (3rd gen) and the first generation on the DS (4th) were 4 years and had 3 sets of games, so it made sense to expect 6th gen to follow suit and have a 3rd set of games instead of just XY and ORAS (we did have 5th gen in between, but 5th gen was kind of a weird case because it was a second generation on the DS when Nintendo was already transitioning to the 3DS, so it could be excused for being a bit shorter than usual). The laziness comes from it being XY -> ORAS -> SM instead of XY -> ORAS -> Z/XY2/whatever -> SM. And quite frankly, any re-released game would've been better than the nothing that we actually got.
 
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And quite frankly, any re-released game would've been better than the nothing that we actually got.
I would disagree with that. When XY released I was considering leaving the franchise forever because I saw XY as going too much back into the basics. If they released Z/X2Y2 I would have left and not looked back because third versions were the other reason I almost left.
 
the laziness comes from it being XY -> ORAS -> SM instead of XY -> ORAS -> Z/XY2/whatever -> SM.
Is GameFreak really lazy for not pushing back the release of SM and instead creating a hypothetical third version? They still made a game after ORAS--it wasn't like all the staff of GameFreak decided to not work for three years. Laziness, to me, implies that GameFreak wasn't willing to do work or put effort in, which is obviously false since they created an entire game from the ground up. And before you say "well, with the Z/XY2/whatever-timeline we would've had more games," we don't know what affect a third version after ORAS would have had on the development cycle because it's all speculation past that point. Through the butterfly effect, that might've resulted in a game never getting created. In fact, I'd say that USUM would have probably not been developed if just the generation prior we got a third version, especially considering that would've pushed SM closer to the end of the 3DS's lifetime.
 
I would disagree with that. When XY released I was considering leaving the franchise forever because I saw XY as going too much back into the basics. If they released Z/X2Y2 I would have left and not looked back because third versions were the other reason I almost left.

XY going back to basics is exactly why it needed an expanded version though, and why it was so crushing that it never got anything.

Is GameFreak really lazy for not pushing back the release of SM and instead creating a hypothetical third version? They still made a game after ORAS--it wasn't like all the staff of GameFreak decided to not work for three years. Laziness, to me, implies that GameFreak wasn't willing to do work or put effort in, which is obviously false since they created an entire game from the ground up. And before you say "well, with the Z/XY2/whatever-timeline we would've had more games," we don't know what affect a third version after ORAS would have had on the development cycle because it's all speculation past that point. Through the butterfly effect, that might've resulted in a game never getting created. In fact, I'd say that USUM would have probably not been developed if just the generation prior we got a third version, especially considering that would've pushed SM closer to the end of the 3DS's lifetime.

That is laziness. It's lazy because they didn't want to spend more than 3 years developing a game or finish what they started, they just wanted to pump out half-assed games to satisfy their bottom line. At this point, it's pretty evident that that's their MO. And yeah, the release schedule might've been shifted around some as a result, but most of the games we got in the transition from 3DS to Switch were lazy too, so I wouldn't miss them either. The worst I could've seen happening was SM releasing on the Switch feeling like a 3DS port (and then USUM and/or DP remakes to round out 7th gen), but I could live with that if they were up front about developing it on the 3DS and then having to shift it to the Switch.
 
And make me pay again for the exact same game just for some extra features that I would most likely not use? No, thank you.

Even if it were a BW2 style sequel? I thought BW2 was different enough to feel almost like a completely different game, and it's a shame that was a one off for the series. I was hoping that would be the new normal for third versions and even remakes.
 
Please note: The thread is from 2 years ago.
Please take the age of this thread into consideration in writing your reply. Depending on what exactly you wanted to say, you may want to consider if it would be better to post a new thread instead.
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