GBA, DS, 3DS, Switch, and my goddamn phone

Posted: 2024-05-12

So recently I’ve fallen back in love with pokemon, so I’ve been playing a little bit of every generation. sometimes i think the only reason i play so many other rpgs is so that the experience of going back to pokemon feels that much better It’s a comfort series and lately I’ve been experiencing more stress than usual (don’t worry, nothing bad is happening, I’m just getting served extra helpings of the usual stuff i normally deal with (^u^’)7 scratch that, my boss is stupid as hell and he’s thinking about sacking half my team (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻). I’ve decided to do some rapid fire reviews for the entire mainline games.

Gen I

I stand by my original assessment. An interesting novelty regarding mechanics, but not the best way to play Kanto these days. Including this one, there are at least 5 different versions of Kanto for players to enjoy. ¯\_(σ ‸ σ)_/¯

Gen II

I got a soft spot for this one. I don’t know why the tech in the gbc keeps surprising me but it does. Gen II is a better representative for a retro pokemon experience. Crystal is a standout game among them and I’m sad I dont own a copy. Getting constantly interrupted by phone calls from npcs is a lil irritating, but the day/night cycle, music, and double region generally makes up for this.

Gen III

Literally the first game i ever owned was Sapphire, and easily the game I’ve plugged the most hours into. (I still own my original copy. ) This gen has the gold standard for post game legendary catching experience. Decoding braille and solving riddles is exactly how tracking legendaries should go. Unfourtunately, this gen is mired by several design issues that will be fixed in later gens. I forgot how tedious and mean completing the pokedex in tolder pokemon games were. The FRLG remakes were my intro to Kanto, and it’s a decent way to experience the region.

Gen IV

My personal favourite. (ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ) Best music. Gorgeous visuals. This gen also includes HGSS remakes, which are the best way to play Kanto/Johto imo. The downside is that this gen has one of, if not, the slowest HP bars of any gen. (Fun fact: The guy who made that video is a co-worker :3) To this day Cynthia remains the toughest and most iconic Champion in the series.

Gen V

The consensus among pokemon fans is that these games are the strongest of the series. I don’t disagree. Frankly, I’m blown away that this gen was released to the DS and not 3DS. This gen really pushed the DS hardware, and showcases some of the best art and music of the series. Changing the low HP alarm to it’s own song was a genius move. The character N has a truly haunting backstory and arc that remains memorable to this day.

Gen VI

The switch to 3D was not kind to pokemon. I’ve mentioned the logistical nightmare of modelling, rigging, and animating hundreds of mons, and XY is no exception. If I had to describe this game in one word, it’s “lukewarm”. ¯\_(σ ‸ σ)_/¯ However, this gen did introduce the Pokemon-Amie. °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖° This is easily the best interactivity minigame of all gens. Fascinatiung that they nailed that first try lmao. This on it’s own makes XY a fun game to revisit. This gen also includes ORAS, the best of the remakes. Dividing the pokedex by route revolutionized the experience of catching mons.

Gen VII

I am a Sun/Moon defender. This one is the best of the 3D pokemon games imo. (im not counting the colosseum/stadium spinoffs, sue me ¯\_(σ ‸ σ)_/¯) The environments are gorgeous and the removal of HMs is a welcome change. This gen has what is easily the most chilling plot. Lusamine’s decent into madness is creepy as hell. The way Lusamine treats Lillie and Gladion is super uncomfortable. Her battle theme is already unsettling, and then the music changes after she does something truly fucked up. *spoiler* in the thumbnail. I dont like catching legendaries in the postgame for Ultra. It feels like a slot machine with more steps :/ I don’t own LGPE. I already own 4 different versions of Kanto. I don’t need a 5th. "=3=

Gen VIII

Galar is a solid region. Best gym music by far. I dislike that a lot of the postgame largely takes place in the Wild Area, especially when the rest of the region is visually amazing. The cinematography and framing in this game looks better in handheld mode. Pretty sure this game was originally developed for the 3DS which would explain that. The other major issue is that SWSH is not properly optimized for the Switch, which retroactively isnt so bad bc SV is so dogshit. I regret ever saying anything bad about the Wild Area. The Wild Area is generally more stable than SV, and clearly has more structure. I didn’t realize how important is it that humans pick sensible spawn points.

Legends Arceus has amazing gameplay but is otherwise so bare bones I cannot comfortably justify the full AAA price tag. My favourite region got a remake in this gen. I don’t own BDSP and I don’t plan to anytime soon. Look what they did to my boy!

Gen IX

Playing this gen makes me sad. Even without comparing to SWSH, this game is unbelievably buggy. The last time i played, my picnic table failed to render two days in a row. SV lacks the scenery of previous games so its not even a fun region to hang out in. The only unambiguously positive is the music.

Special mention Pokemon GO

AAAA AAAAAAAAAAA. AAAAAAAAAAAA A A AAA A AAAAAA A AAAA!!! i knew i was cooked when i started looking up pokemon availability charts ʘ‿ʘ

Game Boy

Ive played every other generation all the way through but never got to play the originals until now.

I thought i would better understand the appeal that gen wunners claim to have after playing but honestly, I understand it a lot less now. Gamefreak didnt really hit their stride until gen 2.

Gameplay-wise, the challenge was remembering what isnt in the game. There's no dark, steel, or fairy types. Duel types and abilities weren't introduced until later, and even type matchups were different. Everything is just off.

Neat relic, but less noteworthy than I would have guessed.

Switch

Another half baked entry.

The frustrating thing about pokemon games in the past 8 or so yrs is that there are clearly good games buried under the buggy, bare bones slop that gets released, and Pokemon Scarlet/Violet is no exception.

Among all the various IPs under Nintendo’s belt, Pokemon is one of the better candidates for an open world design.

There’s a solid foundation for a good game. The exploration is fun, although the extrinsic motivation for doing so is lacking. Aside from maybe rare pokemon, the only thing to really find is randomly generated item drops. At around the mid-game, these items are no longer worth picking up. I wish this game had some of the catching mechanics that were introduced in Legends: Arceus, especially the new pokedex requirements for completion, as well as being allowed to throw pokeballs at several wild pokemon concurrently. Also kinda wish I could turn the exp share off (or if there was a way to do so, I didnt find that option).

There were some QOL changes that were nice, but also felt overdue. Changing saving and nickname prompt preferences seem like they should have been introduced several generations ago.

The Let’s Go mode is almost good. This feature lets you walk around with the first pokemon in your party. Each pokemon has a different walking speed, which is neat in theory, but it also means slower pokemon are constantly returning to their pokeball. This is doubly frustrating with pokemon that require a certain number of steps taken to evolve, which reset whenever they return to their ball. These pokemon are slower than the players walking speed. For pokemon that are faster, they don’t have this problem, buuut they only have one speed. So their motions look jerky and unnatural as they only sprint in short bursts to move around. It may be unrealistic to normalize the walking speed of every pokemon, but I would guess it would look better overall.

As a result of the short turnaround time, newer pokemon games lack a lot of the extra features and side quests older and more polished pokemon games have included. There’s no mini game area, there’s no battle park equivalent. No contests or beauty pageants. No secret bases. Any extra gaming experiences outside of the core loop must have necessarily been cut. It makes for an emptier experience especially when older players remember how dense pokemon games used to feel.

Plenty of other reviewers, journalists and commentators have already covered how buggy the game is. I played Violet almost a year after launch, and the game is still a mess. You would think a lot of these problems would have been patched, but nah. Worse is that DLC is still being released for this game, so it’s not like development has stopped. While none of these bugs are game breaking, they do take away from the experience on an otherwise fine game.

I was personally irritated that one of my favourite pokemon had buggy collision and kept clipping through the ground. It happened pretty consistently and it was annoying to look at. I just want to play with my stupid bread dog. (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻

The characters and plot are pretty good. It’s pretty standard fair for a pokemon game for anyone familiar. There’s stuff about school bullying, child abuse, the existential crisis of the world getting consumed by extra-dimensional monsters and the constant danger of accidentally falling through a wormhole into another dimension and getting your memory wiped- y’know, the usual occupational hazards of living in the pokemon universe lmao

At least the music stays consistently good. Penny’s battle theme goes so fucking hard for absolutely no reason what the hell.

The battle system is great. Dont fix what aint broke. No notes.

Which brings me to address the donphan in the room.

Pokemon is a logistical nightmare.

I can only imagine a huge chunk of development time is dedicated to making sure the battle system doesn’t absolutely explode. Every generation, the battle mechanics are tweaked, and several mechanics are removed or introduced. I can only guess there are literally millions of battle scenario combinations and hundreds of edge cases the devs have to account for to make sure the game never freezes or crashes due to an error in the battle logic. This isn’t even accounting for the roughly 100 additional pokemon that get introduced each game. PLUS the hundreds of pokemon that get included from previous gens. AND modelling each pokemon. AND animating each pokemon. AND animating each move. AND planning and implementing different behaviours for each pokemon. Even with shortcuts, none of this stuff happens overnight.

Yet somehow, we get a new pokemon game yearly??? Get real. The development cycle between Zelda title releases is in the ballpark of 8 yrs now. You can’t possibly expect pokemon to achieve all that and put out a well polished game in only a year or two. I can’t imagine the current working conditions are healthy or sustainable either. (ᗒᗣᗕ)՞ Its why I waited so long to buy a used copy of the game, because I don’t want to condone this type of thing with my money.

I want to like pokemon games, I really do. Its so frustrating when you can glimpse the good ideas and hard work of the developers between the muck of graphical errors and buggy interfaces. These games just need more time to bake. I’d gladly wait several years for a well polished, good pokemon game.

Switch

Solid game. Overall great gameplay. Boss fights feel pretty good. Side quests are so well done. Actually really glad crafting was introduced so player can stay out in the field longer.

Wish there was more variety in catch methods. Everything can be distracted with basically any food, and you can retry catching as many times as you like without coming out of stealth. There are no alt. techniques or puzzles to catch pokemon. Every species is out in the open. Basically, i wish the game was more like Bugsnax.

The animation is fantastic, the dodge mechanic is very forgiving. Honestly getting run down by a pokemon is so novel that by itself makes the game worth it. This game is accidentally a survival horror and it’s great.

This game is also... not finished. Another entry by Game Freak that was rushed and half-baked. The biggest detriment is the pivot from RPG to open-world style gameplay. I’ve documented something like fifteen distinct graphical errors or oddities within 20 hrs of gameplay. I’ve had assets turn invisible on me. The UI has glitched out or displayed wrong information. The shaders in caves don’t work right. I wish the flight mechanic wasn’t in the game because flying around makes it so apparent the draw distance is incredibly short. That’s unacceptable for a triple A title from large studio.

Nintendo DS

Good game.

Suffers a little from overlong cutscenes and the game seems to know this. Lots if instances where a save prompt happens before and after cutscenes lol.

Alright plot. Great partner. Like other pmd entries, the emotional core of the game centres on the partner, and I liked this one. This partner had a little more depth compared to red/blue, and wasnt annoying or overly childlike like in super mystery dungeon.

I love the pixel work in this game. There are some great backgrounds and extra scenes that look amazing.

That said, its clear that this game was developed for the gba. The touchscreen wasnt utilized at all, and the duel screen was used rarely. The cutscenes that do use duelscreen can easily be adapted to single screen. Its also possible that recycling all the sprite work streamlined development. Switching to 3d assets is already pretty grueling, but remodelling and reanimating nearly 500 pokemon is a tall order. Still, the game using none of the ds features is the glaring indicator that this game was intended for the gba. Or, possibly intended for a duel system release like red/blue rescue team.

My point being, its basically a gba game.

I personally like that better. It appeals to my nostalgia.

Nintendo 3DS

Choo-choooooo! Talk about a railroady game. You only get two free dungeon dives between plot events and there is no way to circumvent them. So what happens is that by the end game you and your partner will be severely underleveled. This balancing issue is offset by the generous item drops in dungeons. So by the endgame, my level is like 23 while the final boss is level 45. This necessitated playing out of the inventory instead of using the pokemon moveset. I shouldn’t need to tell you why that’s bad gameplay design.

I didn’t really like the partner. Also the plot early on is super juvenile. (“But Zach, it’s a pokemon game of course it’s going to have a childish plot-” Shutup. Half the main games are about how child abuse is bad.) The first half of the game is about going to pokemon elementary school. Like. Its an ikensei, the point is escapism fantasy. Why would pokemon need elementary school anyways? As a result, the human is assumed to be elementary school age as well. I preferred the first PMD, which allowed for some ambiguity for the age and background of the human character.