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- Aug 11, 2017
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Pokemon needs change with each generation no doubt, but a drastic sudden change like this would do more harm than good. Especially considering that it is their first Switch game. Also sure Zelda went through changes but even with the open world, the game remained an action-adventure game with mild puzzle solving. Changing a very well established turned based system in their first attempt at a console level game would be a very big risk. Abilities, items and stats would all have to be revamped to some degree.To give an example... If The Legend of Zelda had remained 2D, it would have been a series of improvements. But it made the jump to 3D, it reinvented itself, and it massively paid off. Compare A Link to the Past (2D) to Ocarina of Time (3D, reinvented the wheel) and A Link Between Worlds (2D, made improvements, didn't reinvent the wheel). ALttP > ALBW is essentially what Pokemon has been thus far. Just a series of improvements.
Quite the false equivalency. Breath of the Wild sold 4.7 million on a completely new (and expensive, naturally) console, on a market where it's competing with other 2 home consoles who are doing quite well. Sun and Moon sold much more... On a console that's been alive since 2011 and has sold over 80 million hardware units, it already has a gigantic install base. That's not a proper comparison.
And to go further... At just a glance, you can see that BotW has an infinitely greater scale than Sun and Moon, by virtue of being a home console 3D title with the appropriate development budget, and got critical acclaim for everything it did to change things up - and doing it right. Pokemon simply won't reach such heights with linear improvements.
Pokemon gets a lot of heat for "Not changing" but frankly a lot of long running series with more than 6 games in them have similar elements. That is what makes the core of the gameplay. I like the multiple changes GF seems to be introducing. Especially with Gen 7. Something of the same level but more refined would make for a good first game in my opinion.