Most of Nintendo’s high-end franchises have been able to “evolve” except for Pokemon. Even the proven -to-always-work ones have taken great steps forward. For a franchise based on an RPG that honestly has plenty to pull from it’s resistant to make itself better. The progression of a pokemon game becomes to expected and bland and to some extent it stops making sense in its own world. People have been making suggestions for years now and it’s pathetic they refuse to listen to it’s base. Scarlett and Violet should have been it’s death but people still bought into it so again, it works for sales so why would they need to add in extra resources? Once I picked up on the gimmicks (z-power and gigantamax) I knew it was getting ridiculous. The game just straight up relies on predictable concepts of grinding and higher levels encounters through progression yet it tries to pass itself off as openworld and non linear when you have orher games who clearly do it better. If a pokemon game held it’s same concepts and was called somethings else like Master Catcher or Battle Critters it wouldn’t even be considered as “great” as it is. You can’t say the same for the other franchises.
God mega evolutions we’re such a great addition in X/Y. Z moves were lame and I haven’t played a new Pokemon game since alpha Sapphire. Like yeah it’s Pokemon but it just feels like a product at this point. I know the point is to make money but maybe they should take a break. Pokemon games almost died in black and white because they haven’t changed.
In a vacuum Megas were fun, but I think they were a net negative to the games as a whole.
In the single-player game, it’s basically an instant-win button. I don’t think pokemon needs to be difficult- I find most rom hacks and nuzlocke runs tedious and annoying. But having one button that just wins felt bad. The whole concept of temporary transformation felt like something that didn’t belong in pokemon, probably because its absence was something that separated Pokemon from competitors like Digimon and Yu-Gi-Oh.
Before Megas, new mechanics were usually things that made sense. Things that fit neatly into the world, may have been in the anime early, and were pretty logical conclusions that were only not in earlier games due to technical limitations. Splitting Special into SpAtk and SpDef, splitting moves within types by Phys/Spec, adding Steel type, Held Items, abilities, double and triple battles, breeding. To me, Megas felt drastically different, as do Z moves, Dynamaxing, and Terastillizing.
You’re right that mega evolutions were great in that it gave certain Pokemon a second chance to be useful however even that took a wrong turn when they mainly focused all mega evolutions to to all the popular Pokemon who were already great to begin with. On top of that, it did continue forward which I feel would have been another opportunity to give those not-so-great pokemon that chance.
It's why all the side games made by other groups are often so much better than the mainline games, despite having a far smaller budget to work with. Because they actually try to do new and innovating things with the franchise.
yeah i have enjoyed the new games but none of them have really been able to capture the magic of the old ones. dexit also didnt help.
somehow collecting all the pokemon felt more fun in the old games? i mean it was always a chore to do, but i remember being much more excited finding a rare pokemon in the older games than the new ones haha
I would argue Pokemon has “evolved” too much, to the point where the game is bloated with way too many mechanics and is trying to be too many things.
You mentioned Z-mkves and Gigantamax. I would add in Mega Evolution, the Fairy type, Dynamax, Raid Battles, open areas. There’s a ridiculous amount of unique and dumb evolutions. There’s about 3x as many items as there should be. They keep on writing epic “kid saves the world” stories instead of “kid pushes back against the inconveniences imposed by small-time criminal” stories.
A lot of Nintendo’s franchises have had BOTH transformative new games AND new games in the older styles. Mario has consistently had both 3D and 2D releases, on top of all of the sports games and other spin-offs. Metroid had the Prime series and then Dread. Donkey Kong had 64 and then went back to 2D. Zelda has had 3D games for sure, but they have also had 2D games like Link’s Awakening on the Switch and previous handheld games.
I think GameFreak needs to grow and split into 2 teams: one to focus on 3D open-world Pokemon (like the Legends series) and one to focus on more traditional, 2.5D. Each team could take 2 years/game and they alternate releases. The 2D studio could add in re-makes as well: I am hopeful we get a Gen 5 re-make soon, but we are also getting to the point whete slme of the first re-makes are starting to need re-makes, like FRLG and HGSS.
One would think the rational response from a development perspective is to make fewer releases but just as regular (ie.: change the release freq from “one per year” to “one per three years”).
Yeah it's a common complaint of Majora's Mask, too, even though it's less of a time limit and more of a timeline that you repeat over and over. It's just that extra mental barrier for people to deal with, that seems like it affects some people more.
As someone who gets random fragments of time for spare time (due to being a key participant in too many family activities to have a consistent schedule--aka, parenting) any game that requires me to optimize a non-trivial activity to fit into a specific amount of time is rarely even worth my checking out. I have between 2-5 hours per week, in increments from 25m to 90m, for gaming. Often I'm exhausted from trying to fit things into my schedule during the day. I don't need to think about doing stuff for a schedule in my 'fun' time.
How do games like Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, and some of the Super Mario platformers with timers fit into this? I ask because they're more on the casual side of the spectrum compared to something like Zelda.
Never felt like I made progress in Stardew Valley. Graveyard Keeper was ok at the start because all the tasks were pretty close together and time didn't matter as much, but later in the story it got too busy.
Animal Crossing doesn't feel like I'm making progress. Enjoyed the original GC one, but that was before getting married.
I did try BotW, and that was fun as long as I was just doing dungeons, but the less constrained parts were much harder for me to justify putting time into because they spanned multiple gaming sessions and I'd always forget what I was doing last time.
Mario's great, but the kids have the Wii U. :P
Some games I find myself playing more of these days: Donut County, Grow: Song of the Evertree, FF13, Noita, Pixel Puzzles.
Outer Wilds was decent. Its loop is approaching an order that works for me. Ideally I want to do a minimum of 2 loops in the time I have available, to feel like I'm spending my 'fun' time productively/getting better, and often I only had time for 1 loop.
@spriteblood I don’t know anything about Pikmin but I’ll confirm the time limit in Majora’s Mask made it basically unplayable for me. I don’t know why. I even tried it again maybe two years ago and with having to relearn all the controls on an emulator plus the Zelda puzzles, plus deal with the time limit, I found myself looking up how to complete things more than just organically playing through and never made it far
I absolutely loved the Pkimin 4 Demo. Having played all 3 prior games, 4 resonated better with more emphasis on exploration and removing the “you have X days” pressure. Made it far more enjoyable personally.
The only thing I really wish they hadn’t eliminated was proper co-op. My son was very disappointed that all I could do was throw rocks and items rather than run around the world with him.
What? That was going to be the main reason I played this. It was so good for me and my girlfriend to play togsther, she loved it. What the fuck is with these companies not making coop games anymore? Do they think noone has friends?
Technically Pikmin 3 also didn’t have co-op when it first released, that was a feature added with Pikmin 3 Deluxe. However definitely extremely disappointed they removed it for 4. Maybe it can be added later, but likely not until they release DLC or another Deluxe version…
I would be extremely happy if they kept the series going. I’ll never say no to more Jet Set or Bomb Rush.
A direct sequel would be cool, with new places, characters, moves and music. Or a dance/rhythm game like they mentioned in the article would be interesting.
Considering Sega is most likely live servicing their Jet Set games, a sequel is a much better outcome. That said I’d like to check out anything they do seeing as it’s a good developer
I feel like it was best when it came out, but the single player was fun atleast. I get that it wasn’t your vibe tho, one of those “best at high level play” games
This could mean that there is a new game coming (I hope), but it most likely (also) means that they are gearing up to port all of the Ace Attorney games to a new system. I love the series, but they really squeeze every cent out of it.
Hopefully they will port the game engine and then feel confident enough to release a new game.
Hashimoto said Ace Attorney seems to “have lots of fans in their late teens and early twenties, especially from North America.” With the Apollo Justice re-release, Capcom “made sure the contents of the game were also something new fans could buy too.”
Cynical reading “These fans have not played all of the previous games and don’t have the older systems, so we need to get the games on the new systems that they own.”
While I try not to delve too deeply into marketing speak, I think they are only porting all the games because they are selling well, and if they are selling well enough, new entries would surely follow.
Capcom is doing well for Resident Evil, by both remaking older inaccessible games and creating new ones, hopefully they will do the same with Ace Attorney and their other franchises too.
Makes sense to port them in this case. More than in most series with an overarching story, lots of context in later Ace Attorney games is missed if you haven’t played the earlier games. It’s not to Kingdom Hearts level (the above only really applies to the main entries, you don’t need to play Investigations or GAA), but still more than most.
I’m totally on board with the ports, but I actually don’t like people pushing the idea that you have to play every single one in order, especially since some don’t age well.
The first I saw of the game was a playthrough of Trials and Tribulations. The twists were shocking, and the best part was, nothing I saw really spoiled me on the appeal of the prior games. They didn’t bring back any prior villains/murderers, and I knew what I needed of core characters.
I’d argue the same could even be said of Apollo and Trucy in later games. “This guy is an apprentice lawyer. This magician is Phoenix’s adopted daughter.”
Part of that to me is that the main appeal is the individual mysteries, and not the character progressions - of which there hasn’t been much. Phoenix himself doesn’t really even change past the end of his third game.
To me, voice acting can be a mixed bag. It can make a game much better, but can also make it much worse. The big issue is pacing and delivery - I can read the discussions about exactly how the victim fell down really quickly, but with VA that becomes a laborious affair.
It also isn’t great for writer adjustment. If a game has late changes to one piece of evidence presentation dialog, they may cancel it if it’s unfeasible to re-record the lines given by the VA.
The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles had VA for certain key scenes, and it worked out pretty well, but ultimately you should expect these games to be very text-based.
Lives were so plentiful in Wonder that they didn’t really exist. I remember having max lives and max coins, so I just bought a bunch of the poses because there was nothing else I could do.
As they noted in the article, Wonder Flowers still have a timer. Assuming the timer exists to give you a sense of urgency I think it worked well enough being attached to the flower.
Although the only time it really worked was the first special level that was themed around rhythm. Maybe one of the hippos.
Maybe some sort of time attack would be fun. Although less like the battle stages and more limited timer.
ive never cared for the timer, it doesnt really add anything. Feels like something to put in an arcade game to stop players from hogging the cabinet for too long without paying up, same as lives.
If you mean the one released in the US, it didn't even come to Japan until the SNES days, IIRC, at which point it was called "Super Mario USA". It was a re-skin and some reprogramming of another Japanese game.
I wouldn’t call it “speed running” because I was never that good at it but I got really good at using Luigi to beat SMB2 level 6-2 without waiting for the birds. There’s a sequence of jumps only Luigi can do where you can beat that level and go on with your day.
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