After a shaky year containing disappointing titles, it’s time for the Pokemon franchise to return to its roots in 2024.
There’s no denying that the Pokemon franchise has had a rough year, at least in terms of critical and fan response. The series continues to print money as a multimedia entity, so The Pokemon Company might not care much about online reception as long as the games sell.
And sell they have. Despite Pokemon Scarlet & Violet being criticized for their shoddy performance, poor visuals, baffling removal of long-standing QoL features, and an underbaked open world, they sold incredibly well, approaching the best-selling entries in the series in terms of sales.
As of the time of writing, no new Pokemon games have been announced for 2024 (except for a free Pokemon Scarlet & Violet epilogue). This likely won’t stay true for long, especially with Pokemon Day fast approaching, but hopefully, the lessons of 2023 will be on display in whatever new games are released.
What went wrong with new Pokemon releases in 2023?
Pokemon Scarlet & Violet launched in a sorry state, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a game is condemned forever. Cyberpunk 2077 proved in 2023 that it’s possible to update a game to the point where it becomes incredible, leaving the empty husk of the launch build behind.
For Gen 9, this could have happened with The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero expansion for Pokemon Scarlet & Violet, which featured two DLC updates: The Teal Mask and The Indigo Disk.
The fans hoping for a performance update alongside the DLC were left disappointed, as the games are still just as big of a mess now as they were at launch. There are still bugs in Pokemon Scarlet & Violet that haven’t been addressed in over a year.
The DLC was also a letdown. The Teal Mask was incredibly short and didn’t offer much that wasn’t in the base game. The Indigo Disk had a bit more content, but it felt like a tacked-on post-game segment, the kind that used to be part of the games for free.
Outside of the Gen 9 games, there was also the underwhelming Detective Pikachu Returns and the bizarre Pokemon Sleep, both of which were forgettable and quickly lost fans’ interest.
What’s wrong with the Pokemon series in 2023?
The issue with the mainline games is that the Pokemon franchise isn’t ready for the open-world style, at least not in the way the developers have been attempting.
Pokemon Legends: Arceus was an excellent release, and it managed to create the feel of an open-world game while having a segmented overworld. Meanwhile, the mainline games have been trying to emulate that grand scope, but have been falling short.
The worlds of the new Pokemon games feel underwhelming because of the aging Nintendo Switch hardware struggling to keep up with the ambitions of the developers and a brutal schedule that cannot be messed with, as new Pokemon games are tied to the multimedia franchise.
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The comparatively short development cycle of the Pokemon games means that the production team just doesn’t have the time to create these vast worlds, especially with the Switch chugging away in the background.
Outside of Gen 9, you have Pokemon Sleep, whose concept tries to make falling asleep into a video game despite that action being the opposite of engaging. Meanwhile, the buzz surrounding the Detective Pikachu spin-offs has long since died, so why make more, especially a low-effort title?
Pokemon needs to go back to its roots
There are a few candidates for the next Pokemon games: the Gen 10 games, another Pokemon Legends, another Pokemon: Let’s Go, or the rumored Gen 5 remakes.
Whatever the case, the best thing for the Pokemon franchise is a title that matches the series’ strengths. We need Pokemon games that harken back to the classic JRPG style that built the franchise. This would be a Pokemon game in the traditional style, one that focuses on a smaller setting.
The Gen 5 remakes would be an excellent candidate for this approach, as would Let’s Go games set in the Johto region, especially considering the popularity of their original games.
It would also help if these games reversed some of the ridiculous QoL changes put into recent entries. The Pokemon Company could prove that it’s listening to fans by bringing back things like a removable Exp. Share or the ability to skip battle animations.
This more streamlined experience doesn’t necessarily have to be put into the Gen 10 games. There’s room for a Pokemon side series with a retro feel that appeals to old-school fans, dare we say, one that’s more challenging than the mainline entries.
This isn’t to say that the Pokemon franchise should never experiment with new ideas. After all, Pokemon Legends: Arceus might be the best entry in the series on the Nintendo Switch.
It’s just important for the franchise not to lose sight of its identity and for its team to recognize the limits of what it can accomplish in the time allotted.
If the rumored Nintendo Switch successor is a technical powerhouse, then maybe that will be the system to host an amazing Pokemon open-world adventure and do the concept justice. That time has yet to arrive, however, and The Pokemon Company needs to work on winning back the fans alienated by Gen 9.
