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How optimistic are you about the future of pokemon games?

I'm not expecting Game Freak to make any huge leaps and bounds with regards to gen 9. I think Pokemon games have had a simple, standard setup from the start, and I doubt they'll change it because the franchise still sells like hotcakes no matter what they do or don't do. That being said, odds are that I'll still enjoy whatever games come out in the future.

But if I had to be optimistic about something, it'd be that the games'd probably get a bit more open-world-esque in the future. They seem to be experimenting with that in the Wild Area, and I can see free-moving cameras being a thing on routes and in towns in the future. It kind of makes me feel a bit better about exploration in the main series, since I feel that it could be used to hide a lot more secrets than the standard topdown view the series usually had in the past.
 
Not optimistic, but not as pessimistic as some.
Sword+Shield had some excellent quality of life changes and made it a lot easier to get competitive/postgame facility Pokémon, but featured a disappointing campaign with poor dungeons and limited exploration outside the Wild Area. Isle of Armor was a promising upgrade in that regard, at least.

I suppose it's possible they were getting used to developing for the switch in the same way Diamond/Pearl and XY had some obvious flaws corrected in later releases and next generation will see improvement but I can't get too excited over "maybe".
 
I'm optimistic about the future of Pokemon, character and region designs, because Gen VIII has some of my favourites to date. Game Freak clearly has some very talented artists and designers who never fail to deliver.

I'm also optimistic about the future of storytelling in Pokemon games, because in recent years we've seen a greater focus on character development as well as some surprisingly mature themes. But Game Freak needs to realize that you can tell a good story without interupting the player every five minutes! This is something which no doubt annoys adults and children alike, so I'm not really sure who they're targeting. Perhaps people in Japan have greater attention spans and enjoy reading dialogue more than we do in the west?

It's the more technical gameplay aspects, and Nintendo/Game Freak's business model, that I'm less optimistic about. Since the series moved onto the Switch, many features that used to be in the game are now either sold separately or locked behind a mobile app, despite the games themselves being significantly more expensive than they used to be. Barring non-smartphone users from downloading a shiny Zeraora was unforgiveable in my eyes (especially as Sword and Shield have their own Mystery Gift function), as is using Dexit as a way to "trap" players into paying their Pokemon HOME subscriptions indefinitely so that they don't lose their collections.

The games have become less accessible to children (and adults on a budget!) because they're so much more expensive to play than they used to be.

Sword and Shield have been such a mixed bag for me. In terms of the art and design aspects I mentioned above, they're my favourite games of all time - I live in the UK so Galar has a special place in my heart. But the paywalls and Pokemon HOME (not to mention joy-con drift) have soured the experience considerably. It's been quite heartbreaking to see my favourite region being given such bad treatment by its own creators.

I don't think it's true, though, that Game Freak doesn't care about the series or their fan base anymore. I think it's more likely that the issues we're seeing are the fault of Nintendo, who are putting more and more pressure on Game Freak to milk as much money out of the franchise as they can. We don't see what goes on behind the scenes at Game Freak - I imagine there might have been quite a few arguments and upsets in their office over the past few years, especially regarding Dexit.
 
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Honestly, I'm more cautious than optimistic. Mostly because of the way The Pokemon Company is hijacking the ability for the series to actually improve. It all depends on whether the consumer base can discourage the spinoff-and-merchandise overload in order to relinquish the franchise back to Game Freak - and perhaps even Nintendo itself - so they really can make better games.

Remember: The mainline games are shackled to the schedule of all the other Pokemon media. The Anime, TCG, Spinoffs, Mobile, and General Merchandise are still tied to what the Mainline games introduce. And it still seems like Game Freak is still stuck with introducing content of some kind on a yearly basis, whether it be DLC, Let's GO, Remakes, and new generations.

There's no way that they can really improve and make a Mainline Game at the quality of Gen IV/V at the rapid schedule and minimal staff they have right now. I dare say that there needs to be a hard decline or crash in the franchice - Particularly in the mobile, TCG, and merchandise areas of Pokemon - before Game Freak can even have a longer schedule to make such a game. And sadly, I don't see it happening anytime soon.
 
I think there would have to be a pretty spectacular sea change in something (I'll offer no comment on what that might be) at Game Freak to convince me that the plateau in the quality of recent games could be materially shaken up. I don't think it's very controversial to say that the 3DS games were met with a lukewarm reception by fans (well, relative to the praise showered on HGSS and BW in particular), and though it had moderate improvements by series standards it's still a bit of a bad joke that SwSh is on an honest-to-god home console - what gets plugged into the TV and everything - and looks like that, with that level of content.

However, given the strength of the older species designs, the evergreen nature of the core mechanics, and the fact that engaging with the franchise can mean so much more than just playing the games, my enjoyment of the series isn't massively dependent on a yearly cadence of core titles. I still like the art design of the monsters, characters and regions, too. The franchise is also clearly selling gangbusters across multiple product lines, so I've zero concerns about the short or medium-term longevity of said games.

No, what I'm more worried about is individual games just... fading from public consciousness shortly after release. It's very difficult to put my finger on it, but both XY and SM seemed to lack a certain post-release 'vibe', and I think it's telling that so many memes, fan animation and broader culture revolves around the GBA and DS titles. I don't know if the current state of play is capturing many new hearts.

Sword and Shield have been such a mixed bag for me. In terms of the art and design aspects I mentioned above, they're my favourite games of all time - I live in the UK so Galar has a special place in my heart. But the paywalls and Pokemon HOME (not to mention joy-con drift) have soured the experience considerably. It's been quite heartbreaking to see my favourite region being given such bad treatment by its own creators.

Oh man, it was rough to have Blighty associated with one of the most 'bad feels' major title launches in years. It would have been so neat to be able to do the first playthrough in my homeland with my faves, but virtually none of them made it in and we were led to believe they wouldn't ever be coming back. That left a pall over my initial experience, definitely.
 
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I’d say I’m a mix of both pessimistic and optimistic, leaning more pessimistic.

On the optimistic side, it definitely feels that GameFreak is slowly coming out of their comfort zone the past two generations, even with LGPE. SwSh in particular had a lot of changes and additions to it, such as the reformatting of TMs and the introduction of TRs for example, that feel more innovative and experimental. That's not to mention the baby steps it seems GameFreak is taking to openworld stuff. There's also the great QoL improvements we've seen these past two gens. I kinda feel like GameFreak listened a little to fans in SwSh.

On the more pessimistic side, SwSh to me was lackluster and underwhelming, indicating to me that GameFreak can't really produce a Switch game that's up to snuff with such a short development time--and I fear that the huge success SwSh garnered will make GameFreak feel less pressured to deliver too, if that makes sense. I also feel that GameFreak is getting more... greedy in a way. USUM should have been a third version yet was split into two games, LGPE lacked a lot of features and ultimately didn't take advantage of the Switch in my opinion, not to mention the fact that Mew from GO cannot be sent to the Switch in an attempt to encourage Pokeball Plus sales, and SwSh feels like you need to pay more to get a good experience. To elaborate on my third point, SwSh I'd say has the most blatant "paywalls" so to speak out of any game (though not a huge amount of them):
  1. Raids generally aren't enjoyable unless you play with other people due to the frustrating AI. While I understand that playing locally with friends is free, not everyone has friends with a Switch, and I think in many, if not most cases, you have to jump through more hoops to play with friends compared to just playing online. And playing online costs money.
  2. Similarly, the standard Wild Area tends to be pretty bland in my opinion unless there's human players there in it as well. And you either need to have local players or pay for NSO to see human players in your game to my understanding.
  3. To add onto the Wild Area stuff, the Wild Area section of the DLC has been praised for being complex and having things like caves, which begs the question of why the base game Wild Area is rather empty in comparison. Actually, to expand on this, the DLC as a whole has been praised for its focus on exploration while the main game is pretty linear and empty in my opinion. Had SwSh been a gen 4 or 5 game, I'd argue that at least one of the two DLCs would've been included in the base game as post-game content.
  4. The ability to give Pokemon the Gigantamax Factor is restricted to the DLC. And, to my understanding, Hidden Ability capsules are also restricted to the DLC and while they can be traded to players without it, that still requires you to either have NSO or know local people who have access to the item, which is pretty inconvenient for such an item. There's also a few other features that I feel should've been in the base game, such as following Pokemon, but I think that's more subjective.
 
I'm also optimistic about the future of storytelling in Pokemon games, because in recent years we've seen a greater focus on character development as well as some surprisingly mature themes. But Game Freak needs to realize that you can tell a good story without interupting the player every five minutes! This is something which no doubt annoys adults and children alike, so I'm not really sure who they're targeting. Perhaps people in Japan have greater attention spans and enjoy reading dialogue more than we do in the west?

It's the more technical gameplay aspects, and Nintendo/Game Freak's business model, that I'm less optimistic about. Since the series moved onto the Switch, many features that used to be in the game are now either sold separately or locked behind a mobile app, despite the games themselves being significantly more expensive than they used to be. Barring non-smartphone users from downloading a shiny Zeraora was unforgiveable in my eyes (especially as Sword and Shield have their own Mystery Gift function), as is using Dexit as a way to "trap" players into paying their Pokemon HOME subscriptions indefinitely so that they don't lose their collections.

The games have become less accessible to children (and adults on a budget!) because they're so much more expensive to play than they used to be.
Honestly, I'm more cautious than optimistic. Mostly because of the way The Pokemon Company is hijacking the ability for the series to actually improve. It all depends on whether the consumer base can discourage the spinoff-and-merchandise overload in order to relinquish the franchise back to Game Freak - and perhaps even Nintendo itself - so they really can make better games.

Remember: The mainline games are shackled to the schedule of all the other Pokemon media. The Anime, TCG, Spinoffs, Mobile, and General Merchandise are still tied to what the Mainline games introduce. And it still seems like Game Freak is still stuck with introducing content of some kind on a yearly basis, whether it be DLC, Let's GO, Remakes, and new generations.

There's no way that they can really improve and make a Mainline Game at the quality of Gen IV/V at the rapid schedule and minimal staff they have right now. I dare say that there needs to be a hard decline or crash in the franchice - Particularly in the mobile, TCG, and merchandise areas of Pokemon - before Game Freak can even have a longer schedule to make such a game. And sadly, I don't see it happening anytime soon.
These quotes pretty much sum up my opinion on the future of the Pokémon franchise. In other words, Game Freak is trying to make the games better, but are beholden by TPCi to meet yearly deadlines and hold off a good bit of content behind paywalls since the latter company has been getting infected with corporate greed recently.
 
if dppt remakes are as lackluster as S/S or god forbid LGPE (haven't played either but have watched a longplay on both) i'm still gonna play it b/c it's gen 4 in 3D dummy.

if gen 9+ is, then I'm never touching Pokemon again.

This is GF's last chance with me 124uf02.png
 
Optimistic in terms of world design. Galar looks really pretty and the Wild Area and Isle of Armor are decent and great attempts respectively at rewarding the exploration of an open world encountering Pokemon, items and sidequests. They'll have to take the decision of sticking with Wild Areas for a few years or go straight into Open World, but whatever it is I'm sure it will be a good way to spend my time.

Pessimistic in story and hand-holding. We've gone three generations in a row with the same complaints without any apology or justification (except Gen 7 story which is decent), and we just crossed the barrier where GF just doesn't care about villains anymore, placing undercooked ones in the main game and zero villains in the DLC. There's also the difficulty stuff I mentioned in the respective thread, most of the game feels designed for toddlers.
 
It depends on what I would want to be optimistic about:

Am I optimistic that they are going to go in the exact direction I want them to? Not really.

Am I optimistic that Pokémon in general will continue to be a successful IP and generate record revenue? Yeah, I am.

They seem to have an increasingly good understanding of how to capitalize on the volatile gaming market. Whether or not that interests me specifically, is another question. I did (and still do) genuinely enjoy Sword and Shield, so I guess that’s a good sign.
 
I'm not expecting Game Freak to make any huge leaps and bounds with regards to gen 9. I think Pokemon games have had a simple, standard setup from the start, and I doubt they'll change it because the franchise still sells like hotcakes no matter what they do or don't do. That being said, odds are that I'll still enjoy whatever games come out in the future.

But if I had to be optimistic about something, it'd be that the games'd probably get a bit more open-world-esque in the future. They seem to be experimenting with that in the Wild Area, and I can see free-moving cameras being a thing on routes and in towns in the future. It kind of makes me feel a bit better about exploration in the main series, since I feel that it could be used to hide a lot more secrets than the standard topdown view the series usually had in the past.

Pretty much this, for me. There won't be any total revolution in terms of how the games are imagined and produced, but what they make now works just fine for me so if they're going to keep doing that, then I'll still have games I enjoy.

Like, I may be disappointed by how the Gym Leader battles walk back what made Alola's Totem Battles awesome, but at the same time, I think SwSh do a lot of things a lot better than SM. And the next go-around will most likely be the same sort of experience. No Pokémon game has or ever will hit every note correctly, and I just accept that at this point.
 
My optimism for this series is about a 3/10 right now. They are improving the games’ exploration and QoL features which I like, but everything else about the game seems to be heading in the wrong direction and the games are getting cheaper with less polish and content with little hope of improving. I think I may be quitting the series for good soon.
 
a little worried, but mostly optimistic since I love Pokémon so much. I enjoyed SwSh and even though it didn't bother me much at all, the corner-cutting was a little obvious in places (such as Hop's animation where he flails his arms being taken from Hau in SuMo). these issues could be more noticeable since the community was (and honestly still is) very vocal about their complaints though, which makes people pay more attention to them. I won't deny that could be the case for people.

one thing I'm happy about is the lack of second/third version-level games this generation. when you think about it, Alola was pretty much four nearly-identical yet full-priced games - this is pretty crazy. having two versions is already weird enough in this day and age and Pokémon only gets away with it because it's Pokémon. no other series would be able to get a pass on selling two games at full price that are pretty much the same as each other. DLC is the much better option imo, even if $30 seems a little steep for what we have so far.. but I know crown tundra is supposed to be the bigger expansion, so we'll see how I feel once it's released!

that and if we get DPPt remakes anytime soon the Pokétch won't work as well as the originals since we have no dual screens like the DS with the Switch. and that was a big quality of life change at the time; something I miss constantly when hatching eggs in Shield since I keep having to go back to my party to remember how many eggs I have/if my party is full before grabbing the next egg. takes a few clicks and can be a little tedious at times, while in DPPt I could've just looked at my bottom screen. so when it comes to the Sinnoh remakes, I'm definitely worried about how they'll end up when put on the Switch (though still mostly excited, honestly).
 
the corner-cutting was a little obvious in places (such as Hop's animation where he flails his arms being taken from Hau in SuMo).
I also thought that they gave him the wrong animation when Hop was talking about his injured brother. It looks off.

I am still hopeful about future games.
 
One thing I will add that gives me hope is that GF are consistently delivering on the ingredients for great stories, especially in the character department. Ever since BW the designs have been interesting and the personalities distinct, coming to a perfect head in SM (have I ever mentioned that I loved Lillie's, Lusamine's and Guzma's arcs in this? Because I loved Lillie's, Lusamine's and Guzma's arcs in this).

This isn't to say that every story actually turns out any good - the writing for XY was pretty dire and SwSh almost certainly had development issues that frustrated the full realisation of what could have been a truly great narrative - but it won't take much for the lightning to strike twice given how much effort and creativity goes into the groundwork.
 
I'm not optimistic. The handling of Gen. 8 releases was less than stellar, full of half-truths and outright lies. It's not that I don't care about Pokémon, it's just that I no longer care about GF and hope to see the main videogames being delivered to and by other studios and the halting of yearly releases.
It was hard in the last ten years to not spoil myself on reveals about new games due to curiosity but to reach a point where I have to spoil myself just to make sure that my money is well spent says a lot on how cautious and suspicious I am.
 
Depends. In terms fo characters and culture, they are doing really well. (I personally loved the Galar culture. You could feel it through your screen.)

In terms of story I have already long accepted that there will never be anything even close to Gen 5. It was more so an 'incident' than anything else, since after it, we never really got anything again that even closely resembled a story that dragged over the entire game.

And I'm personally fine with that? Like, yes, of course a good story is absolutely great. But I also quite like it if there's room to fill in some blanks for yourself or where some stuff is left up to your own interpretation. And as long as they keep doing a good job on the characters and the culture they've been building (In combination with the very good Pokémon designs in SwSh. They outdid themselves this time compared to Gen 6 and Gen 7.) I can certainly accept a story that's lacking or has some holes in it.

Will they go the direction I want them to go in? I don't know. As far as Pokémon games are concerned I'm quite easy to please (Even though this goes for most anime/games). Nice designs, nice characters I can appreciate, some kick ass moments and I'm good. (It also certainly helps that I don't really care about post-game elements.) But I do just wish that they didn't have the need to reinvent the wheel constantly with stuff like battle mechanics.

Do I expect it will all turn out alright? Yes, but they will need to get their head out of the gutter regarding the models of Pokémon. They feel really bland and lifeless and I think it would already help out a lot of those were just more lively.
 
Depends. In terms fo characters and culture, they are doing really well. (I personally loved the Galar culture. You could feel it through your screen.)

In terms of story I have already long accepted that there will never be anything even close to Gen 5. It was more so an 'incident' than anything else, since after it, we never really got anything again that even closely resembled a story that dragged over the entire game.

And I'm personally fine with that? Like, yes, of course a good story is absolutely great. But I also quite like it if there's room to fill in some blanks for yourself or where some stuff is left up to your own interpretation. And as long as they keep doing a good job on the characters and the culture they've been building (In combination with the very good Pokémon designs in SwSh. They outdid themselves this time compared to Gen 6 and Gen 7.) I can certainly accept a story that's lacking or has some holes in it.

I personally feel that the original Sun and Moon were almost as good as the original Black and White, story-wise. Those are the only two pairs of games that I feel really pushed the boundaries in terms of storytelling. The fact that Game Freak have impressed me with their storytelling twice, in two different generations, makes me hopeful that they could pull it off again.

I also appreciate characters and culture in Pokemon games. The other regions all feel very alive to me, despite their stories not being the strongest. Galar had some particularly memorable characters and some of them (like Hop, Sonia, Bede and Marnie) got some great development too.
 
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