The headline of this article is kind of silly. Heck, it might not even make sense once broken down into its core components. It’s there for a reason though – it’s there because Pokemon, as a franchise, is just as ludicrously nonsensical. So much so, that Game Freak has no chance of actually breaking the curse brought on by decades of success. So totally not clickbait. Probably.
I was the generation that got sold the original concept for Pokemon. I was a ‘Gen One Kid’, and you better believe single-digit me lapped this series up and helped finance a near-monopoly on cute animals fighting to the not-quite-so-death. As time has passed, Pokemon has changed as much as it has stayed the same. Here’s the thing though – the community has changed drastically. So much so we have a disjointed ‘fiction vs reality’ scenario on our hands, and I would love to dive into all of that.
The Perceived Pokemon Mechanical Ideal
Since the dawn of time, otherwise known as the late nineties, Pokemon has sold itself on one thing – catching them all. But at the same time, not really. That is the ultimate mechanical goal of early Pokemon – the intended ideal. But the intended and the publicly perceived are two very different beasts. It’s like comparing a Clefairy to a Jiggly Puff. Both are pink little weirdos, both share the same DNA (Type), but they are very different in execution.
I think it’s safe to say people went into Pokemon on the premise that catching a bunch of monsters was awesome, but what ended up happening was people caught the ones they thought were cool. You know, the funky stuff. Beedrill, to this day, is a staple in my team because that goofy bug speaks to me on a deeply emotional level. Awful stats and poor Typing be damned.
Game Freak gave players a world of monsters to track down, and people flocked to the concept of catching a cool dragon, or a funky bird holding a leek. Has this mentality changed after almost 30 years? Not really. I have three kids, and you better believe they don’t give a single Hoot-Hoot about catching a Luvdisc. Nah, they are all about riding dragon-shaped motorcycles and catching God because the colour gold “is cool”.
How does this translate to mechanics though? Well, Pokemon games are easy. At no point in any given Pokemon game is there a real challenge. Grinding was never really a thing, and today it’s a thing of a non-existent past. You don’t need to put any real thought into your team – just take what’s cool, and the game will take care of the rest.
Even the traditionally difficult Elite Four don’t pose that much of a challenge compared to practically every other RPG known to man. These are easy games, and that’s fine. It plays into the ‘catch anything you want – make the team of your dreams’ ideal that has spawned from decades of play.
The Bonkers Pokemon Reality That Defies The Ideal
Pokemon as a concept is everything I just said. This is the sales pitch that writes itself. But Pokemon is a fascinatingly complex and mechanically driven experience that deserves way more praise than it gets. I could wax lyrical about the hours invested into making the perfect team – or as close to the perfect team as I can.
This is because the reality of Pokemon is that the hardcore fans of the series play Pokemon for the depth of systems and the competition. The replay value that comes from Pokemon is battling online, and if you want to do that, say goodbye to your team. Competitive Pokemon is wild. Teams can be made up of all kinds of things, but one thing is certain – if you want to seriously compete, you are going to have to abandon everything.
That Charmander you found 15 hours ago? Absolute garbage. Does it matter that you took it from birth all the way to the Elite Four? No. Hot trash. Pokemon is a game about being a ‘Pokemon Breeder’ more so than a ‘collector’ or ‘trainer’. You can spend hundreds of hours hatching eggs to find a Pokemon with the perfect assortment of stats, distributions, growths, natures, and more. Then you have to meticulously fight certain Pokemon to force its stat growth down specific paths – or use copious amounts of cash to inject them with steroids.
Throw in things like moves being locked behind breeding and the prestige of having a perfect shiny as the jewel atop your crown, and the ugly face of Pokemon rears its head – I love it. The people who engage in this side of Pokemon are incredibly vocal. Deafeningly vocal in fact. They are also the minority, but one that has seen consistent growth.
If you love Pokemon, you will inevitably go down this rabbit hole, and then Pokemon is never the same again. Game Freak never had to add any of this stuff, but they did. The sales pitch, public perception, and reality are three very different things but they all make Pokemon what is – unfathomably successful. This isn’t without problems, of course.
Harcore Pokemon fans want the depth of the mechanics to have an impact on the core game. They want their dedication to be supported outside of just being able to battle online. They want Pokemon to, in a sense, grow up and embrace what it’s mechanics are suggesting. Casual and new players don’t know any of this exists and just want their cool monster game. Many who discover the hardcore mechanics will bounce simply because it doesn’t fit with what they want or perceive. Now you have two disparate camps and Game Freak are caught in the middle – success be damned.
Why Other Pokemon-Like Games Don’t ‘Succeed’?
Despite this decades-long clash within the community, Pokemon stands tall as a franchise that earns enough money to buy half the planet. In fact, they are uniquely successful, because many other games within its genre simply don’t find as much success. Nowhere near enough to be uttered in the same sentence by your standard enthusiastic ‘Pokemon Trainer’ at the very least.
It’s a complex mixture of success buying more success, timeless design, brand recognition, a dedicated fanbase, and the unshakable desire to buy into the fantasy of catching cool stuff. Very few – if any – monster-catching RPGs have the paradoxical depth and simplicity of Pokemon whilst feeding off of recognisable character design. Heck, the ones that do simply aren’t Pokemon, they are imitators in a sense. A nasty word that is inaccurate, yet measurably tangible.
As good as traditional Pokemon-likes may be – things like Temtem or Nexomon – these games simply don’t have the same pull. These games are of course successful, but Temtem selling 1-2 million copies at indie prices is not the same level of success as a full retail Pokemon title dropping 25 million every couple of years. That’s not shade on those games at all, their success is awesome to see, don’t get me wrong.
The Cursed Cycle
I am not going to go into why Pokemon succeeds. I think that’s pretty obvious from everything I have said. But I am going to touch on the wonderful and cursed cycle Game Freak has found itself in. One that they don’t seem all too interested in breaking either.
For a competitive game like Pokemon to stay relevant, that game needs a constant supply of fresh players to fuel the meta. Meta’s are incredibly prone to stagnating. If people start to believe a game is stagnating, then they start to leave. The idea is infectious, and the moment one person asks on Reddit “Is this game dead”, you are in a lot of trouble.
New players bring fresh eyes and new ideas. They absorb the knowledge of the ancients and build upon it in ways that old eyes might not be able to do. Since Pokemon is already so inherently successful, new players flood the scene every time a new game is launched. Why play Pokemon over literally every other game in the genre? Because the player base is alive and well.
Despite the community friction and reality-shattering realisation that exists within the core of Pokemon, it all feeds into itself. The strong competitive community keeps the game relevant. New players hop onto the newest game, have a blast, and then slowly funnel into the competitive scene. It’s like an Ekans-shaped ouroboros, and I love it. We all love it.
That’s all I have to say on Pokemon for now. Check out our other guides, lists, and features for more Pokemon content.
