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SwSh Is Pokemon losing steam?

Grass Type Gardenia

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First of, I'm not saying that they're running out of ideas, I'm just saying that since Gen 6, GF and The Pokemon Company have began to downgrade themselves. Everything is there, but they're starting to forget their true roots aside from Gen 1.

This is how I see the whole situation of Pokemon and the state of Game Freak at the moment...

Gen 1 - 3 (The Rise)
Gen 4 (The Peak)
Gen 5 (The High Noon)
Gen 6 - 8 (The Decline)

Perhaps it's to do with the changing times we're living in where mobiles and transactions are all the rage, at least Pokemon are trying to be generous compared with most. I don't think they'll ever be like the past 5 Gens since transitioning to 3D, in which is already proving to be more than they can chew. What people will think is a renaissance is but a bubble rising from the sinking wreck that is about to burst hard unless they turn things around.

I truly want SwSh to succeed, I am buying the games because I've longed for them, however I don't think they would make it as impressive as Gen 3, 4 or 5 were, and instead just want to be safe by making it something like Gen 7. Until they come out, I am trying to give the games some hope of improvements.
 
“Is Pokémon losing steam?” Short answer? No.

Long answer:
There are two ways to look at it; from a business perspective and from a completely subjective perspective (which is how your post seems to be framed).

Business-wise, Pokemon is doing terrific as usual. It’s still the highest grossing video game franchise ever. They did see some decrease in sales for gen 7 and likely will see some again in gen 8 due to Dexit, but I doubt this will have any significant impact in the long run. I guess you could argue this means they are losing steam, but based on your post it seems like you’re implying something more permanent. Let’s also not forget that they are way bigger than just the games.

Subjectively, I think the growing and more visible sentiment that Pokémon is dying comes from people that are sad about Dexit and many of them are just being dramatic. Note: there are plenty of reasons to dislike gen 8 and Dexit is a big one. But there are plenty of reasons to dislike every generation. This is nothing new. I and many others are still very excited to purchase and play Sword and Shield. As (arguably) the first main-series Pokemon Switch title, it’s going to be popular.

tl;dr people need to stop overestimating Dexit’s impact on Pokémon. It isn’t doomsday, be calm.
 
"their true roots"

That's nostalgia bias talking. Gens 1-5 were not all specifically a part of some cohesive vision that they have now departed from. Maybe Gens 1 and 2, at the most. Everything since then has just been them reading the terrain and adapting the games to take advantage of new advances in technology.
 
No, it's not. People can dislike certain games or grow tired of the 'formula', but it's not losing steam or becoming any less popular. Actually, it's become more popular since Pokémon GO let the franchise become 'cool' again, leading to the sales of SM being so great and USUM selling so well despite being enhanced versions of existing games.

And each games since RS have had their own thing to try and reinvent the formula, so it can't even be that... RS had a new story unconnected to the existing Kanto/Johto plot/lore, DP had the new evolutions for old Pokémon, BW had all new Pokémon, XY had megas, SM had z moves and Alola forms, SwSh have gigantamax and Galarian forms.
 
It is generally agreed that the post-game since XY has been shallower than that of Emerald, Platinum, HGSS and B2W2. People who don't care about battle facilities or contest-like features would probably limit that list to HGSS, though.

Other than that and the number of new Pokemon (which has never been constant and arguably should be lower than 100), it is hard to approach this topic objectively. We don't know how successful SwSh will be relative to the 3DS games.

Personally, I'm feeling general fatigue for various reasons. SM had more new ideas than SwSh do (it's rather late for a big surprise) and weren't posited as "handheld games for a hybrid console". Even then, they were only good for about two weeks of slightly above average entertainment.
 
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What I mean about roots and nostalgia is looking at what works and incorporate it into something new, like an original Disney film with a traditional feel, rather than live action remakes. Sure you can get away with some remakes, but only when the time is right, or are so lacking that they needed it for today's world.
 
It's already had ups and downs. In a post-GO world, it's probably due a downturn. Having said that, the 2010s have been the biggest Pokemon decade since the 90s. Hollywood mainstream movies, mobile games that seemingly everyone has tried. We've probably just passed it's second highest peak (the summer of GO).

Personally, purely in games, I think it's been a downward slide ever since BW2.
 
It's already had ups and downs. In a post-GO world, it's probably due a downturn. Having said that, the 2010s have been the biggest Pokemon decade since the 90s. Hollywood mainstream movies, mobile games that seemingly everyone has tried. We've probably just passed it's second highest peak (the summer of GO).

Personally, purely in games, I think it's been a downward slide ever since BW2.
Since SM, let's just hope aside from the graphics that SwSh would turn things around for the better in the 2020s
 
It's actually to do with heart for me, nothing to do with Gen 1 and all that.I'm just saying they could do something impressive for the story.
I'm sure they will with an unnamed villain harnessing Eternatus and you having to get Zacian or Zamazenta in order to stop it.
 
What I mean about roots and nostalgia is looking at what works and incorporate it into something new

I think it's pretty clear that they're "looking at what works" (note: "what works" in terms of making the games successful with mass audiences here should be read as something distinct from what clusters of people on the Internet like to reminisce about) and adapting those things into the newer games, it's just that they're not looking at some arbitrarily defined "roots" (aside from elements that people on here would be more likely to complain about, like the prominence of Charizard and other Gen 1 Pokémon), but rather the things that have relatively recently drawn a positive response from audiences, such as the more story-driven nature of Gen 5 that made those characters so popular, or experimenting with bringing GO features into the main games.
 
I been watching a lot of Super Mario games on YouTube, and I been thinking how cool would it be if there was a Super Mario game with all pokemon characters as enemies instead? We have quite a lot of turtle pokemon. The only thing we don't have is a plant that shoots fireballs. The piranha plant is based off a venus flytrap, and Carnivine is the only pokemon equivalent of 1 (Victreebel is based off a pitcher). So imagine a Grass/Fire version of Carnivine and we'd be complete.
 
It's actually to do with heart for me, nothing to do with Gen 1 and all that.I'm just saying they could do something impressive for the story.
I'm sure they will with an unnamed villain harnessing Eternatus and you having to get Zacian or Zamazenta in order to stop it.
You say that but yet your listed "peak" is Gen 4 with its weak story and somehow everything after Gen 5, a series of games with actual story, are a decline?
 
While I definitely think gens 6 and 7 had some stumbling blocks such as less post game content, I don’t think that means the (main series) games are losing steam. Gen 7 felt like a step up from gen 6 in my opinion with pretty much everything (more difficult, a little more post-game, better story, better music, better Pokémon designs overall, etc.) despite the fact that USUM lack enough change to warrant being the secondary pair of the generation. And SwSh seems rather ambitious outside of the visuals, what with the Wild Area, expanded regional variants, and the Pokémon league for example. It has a lot of potential to have a great story and fun gameplay. Of course, it’s very well possible that SwSh is a bad game, or at the very least continues bad design choices for a lack of a better term, but it’s too early to be sure.

Once SwSh releases, I think I’ll be able to make a more accurate statement on whether the games are becoming worse, but right now I’m inclined to disagree.
 
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The reason people think Gen 1-2 were the best is purely due to nostalgia. If you really look at it, the stories were meh and the pokemon could be really boring and unoriginal. They were mediocre. Gens 3-5 were where Pokemon starting stepping up their game, having better graphics, cooler pokemon, better story lines, etc. But the reason everyone hates Gen 5 is how they "have unoriginal pokemon". This sentiment makes me so mad. Are pokemon like Chandelure, Golurk, Victini, Leavanny, Volcarona, and Heatmor "unoriginal"?! Gens 6-8 are actually doing really well. The graphics look great, the Pokemon are amazing, the stories are awesome, and yet people hate Galar because it won't have pokemon that fit into the feel of the region. Is it really that big of a deal that Tropius won't be in Galar? NO! That's like being upset of a 24 pack of crayons when you wanted 48. That's not the amount it will have. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
 
Does anyone think the anime and movies however, went on a pretty downward trend? Hence a live-action Detective Pikachu movie to change some of that.
For the movies, not since the AU reboot. Before I Choose You, it had definitely been stale for years. The live action is kind of its own thing, though.

As for the anime... yeah, hence the art style reboot there, I think, but Alola's setting hasn't really allowed it to get better story-wise.
 
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