I’m talking about a new game but made with old graphics and mechanics similar to Megaman 9 & 10.
I personally think such a thing could sell gangbusters and honestly go on record as one of the greatest Pokemon games ever made, especially in recent years.
Honestly, I’d rather see another studio take a crack at the franchise. I don’t know whether Gamefreak have lost a lot of important talent over the years or if they just got lazy because their games are guaranteed to sell no matter how poorly they’re produced, but they do not know how to make games in the current era. Full stop. The last handful of mainline Pokemon titles have been unacceptably poor quality, and Nintendo won’t light a fire under their ass because… why would they, when they’re already printing money?
I think it would be wildly beneficial to the health of the franchise if a completely new studio took the wheel for a minute. They don’t have to reinvent the game mechanics or take the story in some dark and gritty direction or anything like that, but if they just made it functional that’d already be a huge step up over Gamefreak’s last few releases.
Personally, I’d love to see Retro Studios take a crack at a mainline Pokemon title. They’ve already got a very close relationship with Nintendo, and have released nothing but bangers.
Just go play pokemon unbound. It’s better than anything nintendo would come up with.
In general, Pokémon ROM hacks are cool and fans of the 2D or old game style like me should definitely give these more attention.
Wow I had no idea this was a thing and it looks A M A Z I N G. Thanks for mentioning it!
Yup. Fan projects and indie games can fill this niche. Pokemon is the most profitable media franchise EVER. They should be innovating and improving, not chasing nostalgia.
I mean, this is just Cassette Beasts, and it is indeed a damn good game.
Such a good vibe game.
Old mechanics? No. Old aesthetics? Yes. Pixel graphics are best.
What new mechanics would you consider to be in the ‘can’t live without’ category?
Sorry, I should have phrased that a little differently. What I mean to say is the game should not be limited to just the mechanics of the older games. There’s so many small mechanics they’ve added since the days of the 2D games on GBA that shouldn’t be ignored just because they aren’t retro.
One mechanic I’ve always loved in any game it’s been in is the ability to have a hideout/home/etc that you can deck out with furniture and whatnot to make it your own. It’s just a comfy mechanic to have.
I remember this from Gen 3, which is as far as I’ve played. I’m curious what other mechanics are around now that people consider must-haves.
In HeartGold/SoulSilver specifically (and then not again after for some reason), you could toggle the running shoes. So much nicer than having to hold B all the time. They also allowed for two Select items (items you can activate without entering the items menu), which also never carried over to other games.
I seem to remember one of the more modern games allowing you to view move details (description, power, accuracy, etc) from the movelist screen during a fight, rather than having to go to Pokemon > [Pokemon] > view moves, or whatever it is. I think one game also allowed you to see if the move you’re about to use is super effective or not, but I’m not really a fan of that one. Learning type effectiveness is part of the game imo, but my opinion on this isn’t too strong.
Not really QOL but I loved mega evolution and would like to see it come back. It was exclusive to Gen 6, which was the last Gen I played, but I heard they never included it in following Gens. It was basically a temporary “evolution” (a different form) for specific fully evolved Pokemon for just the fight. Only one Pokemon can mega evolve per fight though, so you gotta choose wisely. Gen 6 competitive battling was peak imo for just that reason.
I really liked the EV training in Gen 6, not sure if that carried over but it made it much easier to increase EVs, rather than having to fight the same Pokemon over and over again.
HMs eventually disappeared. Gen 4 had a whole bunch, then in Gen 5 I think there were still a lot but most weren’t required for progression (I think in order to beat the game you only needed one of the HMs, I can’t remember which. The rest were just for optional stuff I think. It’s been a while though). I think in Gen 7 they finally removed HMs. The moves are still available I think, but they don’t do anything outside of battle.
I’m sure there’s more I’m forgetting, someone else can expand on this list.
Being able to trade with anyone around the world is pretty dope. It was much harder finding another kid with Pokemon Blue so I could get a goddamn Pinsir.
I dont know which game but they did add a QoL feature that tells you whether a move is effective, super effective, or ineffective vs monsters youve fought before, based on typings.
I remember that being the “feature” which really highlighted the dumbing-down of the game. Work things out for yourself? Look them up? Remember what you’ve learned? No, we’ve solved the puzzle for you, don’t worry.
It’s not meant to be a rote memorization game. That sort of feature is meant to enhance the true point of the game.
A game they make for children, btw.
Not to blow my own trumpet, but I was able to memorise basic type relationships as a small child!
That is a summing-up of the criticism that I’ve seen a few times though: they refuse to accept that their players grow up and only ever aim the games at youngsters, difficulty-wise.
I want a Pokémon MMO
I want a real 3rd person open world coop Pokémon game, instead of Nintendo attacking indie devs that are eating their 30 year old lunch Nintendo never felt like eating.
I want to see pokemon red/blue/yellow absolutely fully maximum modernised. I want to go through the world in VR. I want to throw the poke balls into battle for real stashed on my belt. I want to be able to yell commands to a living, breathing pokemon dancing around in the arena.
An old style game would be perfect for mobile. Not too graphically intensive so battery won’t drain as fast as Pokémon Go and should run on even budget phones.
They could then keep the 3D games for consoles.
Absolutely yes. I much prefer the 2D Pokémon artstyle to the 3D models.
Also !pokemon@lemm.ee might like this question—kind of saddened to see things that would fit in active niche communities only ever get posted in a giant Games community, but it is also very unfair of me to expect everyone to know every community ever, and you generally get rewarded with more engagement in the big tent communities. Went and crossposted it myself, people answered
That’s called corromon. But yes in several ways the old sprites were better
3D was a mistake. Gen 5 is peak graphics
If you would like to see something just like it, https://store.steampowered.com/app/1218210/Coromon/ scratches that itch.
Coromon is a great attempt with great mechanics and alright visuals, but man, did the pacing just kill it for me. I felt like the entire game was the tutorial, not because it was easy or anything, but because it was the slightly boring do-everything-once-to-learn-it slog that a very well done tutorial is. When I beat the game, I was excited to start playing before I realized it was, actually, seriously, the end.
Did you have the game on a higher difficulty? I didnt have that experience, but I put it on one of the higher difficulties initially. I forget which but I found that more fun.
Its fair though, it wont be for everyone. Kinda like TemTem. I wanted to like TemTem, but the puzzles really sucked. So much so that I stopped playing the game halfway through.
I originally had it on, I think, a medium or normal difficulty. It was a while ago.
Like I said, though, it wasn’t that it was easy. I liked the modular difficulty system a lot! The game just felt like a checklist. Pokémon gives you a mechanic (like the HMs of old or modern rideable Pokémon, or the bikes), and you really could play with them for quite some time exploring and experimenting. The only parts of Coromon I felt had that was the item finding app thing and the raft thing. The rest were just “get it, move on, never use it again.”
I will give it that if your only goal is to have a battle with your friends game, Coromon is amazing! But if you want to enjoy the world, maybe not.
Still worth trying for anyone who likes Pokémon for the mechanics.
Old graphics sure but mechanically Pokémon games kinda suck, especially the older ones. I’ll be honest I love the collection and monster part of the game but everything else is simply bad and I usually give up after 10 hours. It’s such a pointless slog.
I really stopped caring for Pokemon after X and Y, and Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. The switch games were big misses. I kinda liked Sword and Shield, but they had no lasting power on me. Scarlet and Violet are by far the worst Pokemon games to have ever come out of mainline Pokemon.
I didn’t play through
MarcusArceus at all, even though I own it. Maybe I will give that a shot.Isn’t this what Brilliant Diamond and Pearl were supposed to be? Granted had none of the fun stuff extras that omega ruby and sapphire added, but that was still the premise, right?
3d Pokémon can be done well and beautifully. Pokémon coliseum proved that years ago
I didn’t play those more than the first gym. ORAS was infinitely better.
Took me a little to realize Marcus was autocorrected Arceus. Pokémon Marcus sounds amusing.
Thank you for the laugh, I didn’t catch that. Will edit my comment
I’m not totally sure what that would add to the experience. The core battles are still the same, just with more added on. I like pixel graphics and old gameboy music, but I don’t see why people would buy it. It’s seems strange considering it would be the same game as before, but less.
Pokémon: Violet except: it’s 2D, scarcely animated, without double-battles, without shinies, without several types, without terastallizing, without the open world, without the rideable legendary, and so on.
That was me imagining it if it were limited to gen 1 gameplay. Maybe there’s a case to remake regions in like a style like emerald, but I still think it’s just a game that already exists but with less.
If you don’t know about them already, you should look into pokémon rom-hacks. Some are kinda like what you described, but they add their own twist like changing the story, adding new types, or adding newer pokémon or mechanics. A lot of them are really well made too.
You know, sometimes less is more.
Just because there’s more “stuff” in a game like Violet doesn’t mean it adds to the overall experience. Sometimes it detracts from it. A lot of times it detracts from it.
This is of course all subjective and if you enjoy the additional mechanics, it’s good you have them. There are of course others out there who would disagree with you and appreciate a more “core” experience in a Pokemon game.
Pokémon: Violet except: it’s 2D, scarcely animated, without double-battles, without shinies, without several types, without terastallizing, without the open world, without the rideable legendary, and so on.
In my opinion, they can keep everything you’ve mentioned except terastallizing, a rideable legendary, and probably a good amount of your “and so on.” I’m pretty sure Pokemon games have had an open world since the beginning, but maybe some people have different ideas of what constitutes an open world.
If you want a pokémon game without new things, why want a new pokémon game? That doesn’t really make sense to me. I don’t think most of the gimmicks they’ve made have throughout the gens have been very good, but I appreciate them for the splash of novelty and I just ignore the ones I don’t like because I know they’re not permanent. I almost never tera-ed my mons in violet, I just grinded levels and planned my party like I have for 20 years.
By open world, I meant being able to travel through most routes and towns without a black screen or loading screen.
That said I wasn’t making a quality statement. I was comparing the most recent game with the first and I don’t know how there would be a significant market for a much more clunky version of an existing game with a huge chunk of features removed.
I’d say Pokémon is one of the franchises to which the transition to 3D added nothing of value to the experience. Every 3D Pokémon has been ugly as sin.
I definitely think the quality on the 3D models could be better, but I think the move to 3D has made the game more immersive and things like the size variations are charming details that makes “your” pokémon feel more unique. I was mainly questioning whether a product like that would actually sell well enough to be worth the effort, not making any statement of which is superior.
Huge preferrer of 2D here, will admit the size variations made possible with 3D is a point in their favor for me.
If it means a return to random encounters, no absolutely not. There’s a reason I don’t go back and replay the older games even though I have fond memories of them. That reason is largely Zubat. Fuck you Zubat.
But also, aside from a handful of bugs and performance problems Scarlet/Violet and Legends: Arceus are the best the franchise has ever been. I’d rather they refine what they’re already doing and keep making things better rather then regress purely to appease someone’s misguided nostalgia.
