What would it take to make the Pokemon world and games more interesting?
- Thread starter NihilSinLulz
- Start date
The gameplay needs to be slightly more challenging. If I could beat Super Mario Bros. 2 when I was a kid, kids today could stand a tougher challenge from Pokemon. Not too much, of course, I'd still like it to be a relaxing experience, but for the most part I was able to one-shot a lot of the Gym Masters even when I wasn't using Pokemon to whom their Pokemon were especially weak. That just ain't right, man. Ain't right at all.
Okay, how about this:
Have a storyline where the evil team turns out to be headed by your parents, who want you to join it.
However your parents also want you to prove to your fellow villains that you aren't simply there due to nepotism and send you out as a young trainer (as is traditional in the Pokemon world) to gather Pokemon and fill out a pokedex for the team's evil scientist.
Of course as you journey through the world you end up meeting new friends who sway you to the side of good, and saving the world rather than conquering it.
Or at least that is what they think, as straight after beating your parents you end up taking over the evil team and have a chance at running it competently, taking over the entire region post game.
Have a storyline where the evil team turns out to be headed by your parents, who want you to join it.
However your parents also want you to prove to your fellow villains that you aren't simply there due to nepotism and send you out as a young trainer (as is traditional in the Pokemon world) to gather Pokemon and fill out a pokedex for the team's evil scientist.
Of course as you journey through the world you end up meeting new friends who sway you to the side of good, and saving the world rather than conquering it.
Or at least that is what they think, as straight after beating your parents you end up taking over the evil team and have a chance at running it competently, taking over the entire region post game.
Skipping all of the debate or theories as to why Pokemon main game series stays nearly the same from game to game and generation to generation, I feel that the franchise in general doesn't do nearly enough and yet still pulls in loadsa money. Thus business-wise, gamefreak and nintendo doesn't feel the need to go beyond what they already have. This only encourages them to minimize development costs and thus ideas. They don't have to try hard to get people to buy the new games. Meanwhile the other -monster franchises innovate and reinvent themselves to stay fresh and attract new fans. Last time I checked, they're relatively bigger in japan as time went on and their presence is lost here.
To (roughly) quote a video commentary from the gametrailers staff, "Nintendo (and gamefreak), please give us the game we've been waiting for since the franchise was new." The fans will always support the newest games but the tired fans will just stop caring. If game freak and nintendo want people to care about pokemon like it was new again, they really have to start showing for it. This is why I fully understand why people suggest they go for a really robust mmo based on pokemon. Some have even tried. Personally, I still dream of a fully destructible environment.
I guess I spoke more on gameplay but by all means, making pokemon's story more interesting would be more than a plus.
Overall, pokemon needs more of both.
To (roughly) quote a video commentary from the gametrailers staff, "Nintendo (and gamefreak), please give us the game we've been waiting for since the franchise was new." The fans will always support the newest games but the tired fans will just stop caring. If game freak and nintendo want people to care about pokemon like it was new again, they really have to start showing for it. This is why I fully understand why people suggest they go for a really robust mmo based on pokemon. Some have even tried. Personally, I still dream of a fully destructible environment.
I guess I spoke more on gameplay but by all means, making pokemon's story more interesting would be more than a plus.
Overall, pokemon needs more of both.
In addition to pretty much everything said above:
A fully 3D home console version of Pokemon.
BAM!
Instant best seller. And I'm not talking about something as simple as Pokemon XD either, its gotta be a full game. I don't know Nintendo hasn't done it yet.
A fully 3D home console version of Pokemon.
BAM!
Instant best seller. And I'm not talking about something as simple as Pokemon XD either, its gotta be a full game. I don't know Nintendo hasn't done it yet.
It doesn't need a dense or dark plot, it just needs a more interesting world. The Pokemon world feels static, like everyone in it has nothing to do other than wait around for me to save them from whatever team is threatening them in that particular game.Racecarlock said:
Hell, I think Game Freak and Nintendo wanted to have a greater emphasis in the world originally given how interesting places like Lavender Town, and the Power Plant were in the original games. They felt like they had history to them, stuff had happened there that didn't revolve around the player.
Actually, I said I wanted a world and lore. I said nothing about making it 'mature'.randomthefox said:
Nintendo may be conservative with their business practices, but they tend to be very creative with the direction their franchises take. Case and point would be the Mario RPGs which manage to be very different from what one associates with a Mario game, yet still be great fun.
I don't see why Pokemon couldn't get the Mega Man treatment. The original Mega Man games games were great in their own right, but then Inafune wanted to give the series a more involved and interesting story/ world. Thus he created the Mega Man X series. Why couldn't Pokemon do something similar? Create an offshoot game and test the waters.
They haven't done because those aren't portable. Don't forget that Pokemon is short for Pocket Monsters and not On-the-floor-or-entertainment-center-monsters. Pokemon is meant to be a portable experience so a full home version is unlikely.Story said:
While your point is fair, I have to disagree. I believe a fully realized pokemon experience on the home console would be very profitable, even if it goes against the original intention of the series. "Mature gamers" tend to own more home consoles then portable ones, that's partly because Nintendo is dominate in that market but still it would give a certain audience that isn't interested in handhelds another way to play the series. And who's to say it has to be an isolated game? We have online connections now. Many people nowadays socialize and play online so the social aspect is still there.Semi-DemiFiend said:
Even a pokemon MMO we be amazing, though we all know that's not going to happen.
Put a twist on the plot. I'm tired of fighting team (insert name here). I'm tired of becoming Pokemon champion. Can't they have a story unrelated to this? For one thing I'd like to have follower characters to interact with. Give them their own story arcs. Create a world with more background. Also, make a game where I'm not the center of the universe. It gets old after a while. I'd love to see a console pokemon world where the pokemon are used for things outside of battle, and interact with each other in the wild. Basically make it more like the original show.
Also, what ever happened to Monster Rancher? I vaguely remember it as a kid. I seem to recall it being pretty good.
Also, what ever happened to Monster Rancher? I vaguely remember it as a kid. I seem to recall it being pretty good.
One of the things I liked best about Black & White was that the gym leaders all had day jobs, and the gyms reflected that. The triple-gym leaders ran a restaurant, the Normal-type gym was in a museum and the leader was the curator, the Ground-type leader was a mine foreman, etc. They travelled around in their spare time, and all seemed to be involved in the daily running of their respective towns. Plus, they took a much greater role in the fight against Team Plasma, culminating in the Gym Leader/Seven Sages standoff while you went after N. It really helped make the world feel more alive, like there were other things going on besides trainers battling each other.NihilSinLulz said:
Then X & Y went back to the old formula, where the gyms are just giant puzzle boxes and everyone stands around twirling their thumbs while they wait for you to come and beat them. Team Flare just seemed to pop up at random, and the only ones who cared were you and your friends. Compared to the world of Black & White, it seemed like a big step backward.
Another thing that really bugged me about X & Y's story was when people kept mentioning things occurring 3,000 years ago, which struck me as a stupidly long amount of time. 3,000 years ago in the real world, we hadn't even invented paper, yet in Pokeland we're supposed to believe they had huge baroque palaces and doomsday cannons that still survive to this day?
Don't digimon have fixed (and temporary at that) evolutions? I was suggesting that using, for example, a pidgey against lots of bugs would make it evolve into something like pidgeotto (pure flying) but using one against mainly water types would make it something more like a non-legendary Zapdos (electric flying). And it would be permanent rather than the digimon thing which only lasts a short while. Think of it as having branching evolution trees rather than the mostly linear evolutions.Semi-DemiFiend said:
It could even just be small changes, so it is still pidgey -> pigeotto but the stats and abilities of the pigeotto could change depending on what it had been fighting against before it evolves. Basically to make pokemon evolutions more like actual evolution (just a lot faster).
It's why I've let them pass me by in recent years, I could get just as much satisfaction (if not more) by drawing some myself and adding angrier eyes and more spikes to incremental evolutions.
You know they're scrapping the bottom of the barrel when they're nicking ideas from Digimon though.
You know they're scrapping the bottom of the barrel when they're nicking ideas from Digimon though.
I haven't played X and Y (plan to pick it up during Christmas or so), but it's easily the story that you're looking for. I'd like more... not exactly darker, but more of a weighty feel to your actions. Right now, I'm replaying through FireRed, and the one thing I found was that my actions were feeling as if they were propelled by wet paper.
I don't like that, especially with the world that Pokemon has. I'd prefer a more weighty approach, and I think that's what you're looking for, OP.
I don't like that, especially with the world that Pokemon has. I'd prefer a more weighty approach, and I think that's what you're looking for, OP.
Yes they are temporary but they are not fixed in the least bit. One Digimon can have multiple evolution trees and digivolve into something that isn't even remotely related to it's previous form, Agumon for example can evolve into Greymon,Centuarmon or Meramon and these evolutions have their own branches.CriticalMiss said:
a.imageshack.us/img293/6287/nyokimon.png
The link isn't coming out right so you'll have to copy and paste it but that little black thing evolves into all of that depending on factors i'm not entirely sure of.
At any rate a system like that seems like it would just add a lot of pointless fluff and tedium into evolution. it would have to be something only a few pokemon have (a la the eevee line or the other branch evolutions) otherwise there would be way too many variations of every pokemon and it would just be far too much to handle.
So, basically Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker?Bruce said:
maybe not word for word, but thats pretty much the plot of that game too (up until the post game idea anyway)
on topic though, despite people saying black and white 2 had the best story in a pokemon game, id actually consider them to be the weakest games in the series. X and Y my have a simplistic story but thats not necessarily a bad thing, only complaint i had was the lack of new pokemon. if they introduced at least 100 new pokemon each generation id be content.