A Possible "Reset" to the Pokemon Games

It's no secret that Scarlet and Violet are the worst pokemon games to ever be released.

I'd argue that Sword & Shield are worse. They both have their own good points alongside the obvious issues that have been discussed ad infinitum, but I think Scarlet & Violet do represent a slight course correction in some areas (while introducing brand new issues with the open world format).

But I think we all agree that the Pokémon series is not in a strong place right now, and issues have been prevalent over the last decade or so of games, not just Scarlet & Violet.

As for the concept of a series reset, I partially agree.

It has been clear to most that a model that sees the release of three games in the span of one year is unsustainable. Many fans, even if they were disappointed by the inevitable lack of news and content following such a decision, were generally pleased to learn that Z-A would be delayed, and cautiously optimistic that the time could be used to address the issues that had become so apparent with recent games.

Unfortunately if recent leaks are to be believed, we are simply getting the same quality of game, just slower.

Anyway, besides the rushed development cycle, I think another key issue has been Game Freak's reluctance to change key parts of the forumla, ironically leading them to cut other key features like the Pokédex out of necessity due to bloat.

They don't want to kill the golden goose, but I do not think they truly understand what makes the Pokémon formula so successful, and which areas can afford to be cut. So they duplicate the forumla, warts and all, game-to-game, until they are forced to haphazardly hack parts off of it to meet deadlines.

Pokémon's core narrative and gameplay has largely remained unchanged since Red & Green.

You pick one of three starter Pokémon, you have a rival (of varying disposition and competency), you are given a Pokédex to complete (in early games as a core objective, in later games as a passing thought, almost an obligation), you beat gyms and collect badges while fighting a team (in early games a criminal or existential threat, in later games a nuisance) and you fight the Elite Four, then a champion (in the first game, a surprise reveal, now another obligation).

There have been tweaks to the formula, sure (captains and totem Pokémon instead of gyms in SM, and noble Pokémon in PLA) but it still largely adheres to this structure. Beat the mini-bosses, beat the end-game boss rush, beat the final boss.

The gameplay has largely remained unchanged, too. In the Game Boy days, with a small, monochrome screen, limited memory and few other ways to relate key information to the player, tedious messages spelling out every status change and effect was necessary. Especially when the franchise was entirely new and you didn't have fans with a lifetime of Pokémon knowledge and entire wikis of in-depth strategy and analysis to fall back on. In those days, if the game didn't tell you, you didn't know.

But these days, not only do we all know what poison does, we have massive HDTVs, and even our handheld Switch screens are capable of better resolutions than the CRTs could achieve back in the day, so there is a lot more real estate for status symbols and messages to permanently be displayed on the screen. The player need never even switch menus to know all status effects on Pokémon in battle if Game Freak utilised the vast quantity of empty screen space available during a battle.

PLA toyed with more symbols and flashing up all the relevant information in one text box, but SV immediately reverted back to tediously spelling out every single effect and status change in its own text box. It slows battles down to a crawl.

One of the keys to Pokémon's original success was customisation and individuality; picking your team, giving them nicknames, choosing their moveset, breeding for the desired status effects, customising your player room, and in later games, the player character themselves.

Cutting the Pokédex and available moves greatly reduced the gameplay options available, and now features players loved like secret bases and even player customisation have also been cut or reduced.

You can't even play the game your own way. Despite cries for difficulty modes and a greater challenge, particularly as the audience has aged, Game Freak instead saw fit to implement a mandatory exp. share and remove set battles, all to ensure that every player would have a linear level progression, regardless of their own choices and play style, and always have the option of switching to the most advantageous Pokémon possible in any battle.

Of course, you regularly receive free full team heals, many mandatory and unavoidable, so we can always guarantee the player will start every key encounter at full health.

Designing an appropriate challenge that can accommodate a variety of playstyles is hard, and designing several challenges for different difficulty levels is harder, so let's just put the whole experience on rails. Your whole team will be fully leveled and healed before every watershed encounter.

So while I don't think that the entire franchise needs a hard reset, I do think main series Pokémon games do need time to be deconstructed and redesigned for a modern era.

Trim the fat. Cut the wheat from the chaff. Cut out the bloat left over from 90s game design for a glorified graphical calculator, modernise where possible, cut out what is completely outdated and unnecessary, and preserve the core that people still adore to this day that keeps this franchise topping sales charts in spite of its myriad issues.

Unfortunately, I think when modern media companies hear phrases like "series reboot", they interpret it as "just make the first one again with prettier graphics".