How Pokémon Lost Its Magic - The Story of Pokémon on the Switch

pokemon's 25th anniversary direct was recently broadcast unveiling the new pokemon diamond and pearl remix as well as the first installment in a potentially new series pokemon legends it's no secret that pokemon has had some controversy and drama on the switch and especially with the recent announcements i certainly have some strong feelings on the matter but how did this happen anyway for almost as long as it's been around pokemon has been one of the most beloved media ips in the world and these recent controversies surrounding the company have largely been as of the switch's release but what is it about pokemon's new stance on the nintendo switch that would cause such uproar in today's video essay we'll be discussing the story of how in my opinion pokemon and the switch lost the magic the series once had namely through the aspect of being able to create your own custom teams of whatever pokemon you like and continue taking your old favorites along with you as the series went on and the aspect of cooperation friendly rivalry and the ability to bring people together the series has been famous for [Music] this will be a solid mix of factual storytelling along with my own analysis on the matter it's perfectly fine if your opinion is different from mine and any criticism i offer is purely because i want to see this franchise that's meant so much to me be the best it can be [Music] may 2018 just about a year after the release of the switch the pokemon company announced their first major title for the console pokemon let's go pikachu and let's go eevee these games were intended to be a crossover between main series games and the mobile game pokemon go it featured crossover features with pokemon go with the player able to transfer over their pokemon into the go park on the switch and unlock meltan in the mystery box in pokemon go i kid you not at the time several people working in my workplace played pokemon go and asked me to bring my switch in on a regular basis with let's go so i could keep unlocking the mystery box for them in pokemon go another feature of let's go was the option to play with a pokeball controller which featured a stick press in the stick as the a button and press the top of the ball as the b button this device doubled as a pokemon go plus allowing go players to continue catching pokemon and spinning stops by tapping the ball when it vibrates without having to unlock their phone screen and let's go however menu navigation wasn't exactly always seamless since the a button involved pressing in on the only stick which meant that miss inputs by accidentally hitting a direction on the stick while you're in the process of pressing a wasn't exactly uncommon to top things off with this device it wasn't exactly cheap buying the game with this device was a bit more than buying one and a half games no idea what kind of crazy person would buy such a thing of course i bought it there were some neat features added to this game such as interacting with and customizing pikachu and eevee or playing together and co-op with friends and family even if it did make the game incredibly easy these games were remakes of the generation 1 game yellow version marking probably the 50th time gen 1 got remade this was not intended to be the pokemon company's next big main series game they've been talking about for a while intended more so as a spin-off to open up to the more casual pokemon go player base many of whom had experienced pokemon for the first time because of go as for how it was received a lot of people were pretty mad at the initial announcement many interpreted it as the next big pokemon game even though that wasn't the case the game still got good reviews but a lot of people criticized it for several reasons one point of criticism was it was once again a gen 1 remake which is a fair point it would have been neat had it been its own region or take place in virtually any region but kanto since it focused on gen 1 pokemon as what pokemon go started with maybe it could have been a new original region with gen 1 pokemon inspired by kanto but still a completely new world to explore even though it made the game incredibly easy the co-op feature was honestly a really cool way to incorporate say family members who want to join in and play together and i would say i really enjoyed the remastered soundtrack as well because of the difference in gameplay compared to standard main series pokemon games and because one could only use generation 1 pokemon this title would remain as a spin-off remake of sorts this was a main series spin-off but not an actual main series game if that makes sense there are definitely several things i'd change if i were supervising this game but in general i did honestly enjoy my time with this game and over time it seemed more and more people began to feel the same then come february 27th 2019 the next big installment in the pokemon series was finally announced and the first ever main series home console pokemon game sword and shield these games got a lot of hype when they were first announced excited fans of an all new generation of pokemon to enjoy on the switch but later came one of the biggest bombshells about the game there was to be no more national decks in sword and shield all the pokemon just straight up wouldn't be available completely at the discretion of the developers pokemon gotta catch some of them determined by no other factor than those the developers figured were worthy of being in the game this is where a lot of people suddenly jumped on the heat train i was not one of them at the time it took me a long time of playing sword and shield especially after pokemon home was added to really consider what kind of an impact this really was pokemon is literally the world's largest grossing media ip this didn't happen by chance there's a reason for this when pokemon first released there were already plenty of turn-based rpg adventures out there by this time what set pokemon apart was its customizability and multiplayer interactions players could catch any pokemon they find out in the wild and use them in their party make their own personalized team of six in whichever way they liked every player could experience this adventure with their own unique party and pokemon they grew attached to ever since the gameboy advanced games onwards this theme has been upheld to an even greater degree by allowing players to transfer any of their old pokemon to modern games you could transfer over any pokemon you needed for the decks or any old favorites or teams and it would feel like you're welcoming back an old friend though the games may continue to go on and evolve your old teams and favorites can continue having adventures with you and then there were the multiplayer features you could trade and battle with your friends or really anybody you meet the different game versions meant that no one person could ever catch them all with only one console and no outside help this brought people together and ensured cooperation to mutually benefit both parties this whole theme is something still carried until today i know several people at my workplace who play pokemon go and when a raid happens they'll suddenly meet people working in other nearby buildings on campus who also came to the raid and start conversing and getting to know one another the magic of pokemon is that everyone's team is their own which they get to carry with them as the years go on and that it brings people together i would argue these are the two biggest factors that give pokemon their magic but by removing the national decks you've essentially taken away a significant chunk of the first reason why pokemon is so magical every pokemon that was refused to be included shoots down someone's passion for that pokemon it may be insignificant to some but important to others the game all about having whatever team you want still lets you have whatever team you want unless they're from the group of options the devs deemed not worth including in the game oh but you can buy the dlc to suddenly have some more options again but still not even the full decks the full gravity of this wouldn't dawn on me until i actually tried transferring pokemon with the release of home but people were really mad at the announcement of the national decks being gone rightfully so to have one of the key defining features of pokemon be butchered in such a way game freak defended the decision by saying that by not including every pokemon they took more time to work on animations and graphics this had people settle down a bit and tall people began to notice something strange the animations weren't anything particularly special sure some of the animations were really nice but a lot of them just kind of did the bare minimum the amount of pokemon that return a ball and the camp by just carrying it on their heads is hilarious having a closer look at the textures people began to note that things like trees turned out quite well honestly before nintendo 64 standards at least this wasn't even an issue in titles like let's go so why is it an issue here now i'm usually not a huge stickler for graphics and animations and i'm sure a lot of people who complained about it at the time probably don't care too much about it either the problem was this was the excuse gamefreak had for why not every pokemon could be included if you're cutting one of the most key features of your entire game series with the excuse that it was to focus more effort on graphics and animations and the graphics and animations turned out so bad that modders took the liberty of improving it not even two weeks after your game's launch then you've done something so so very wrong modders could do this in two weeks which game freak couldn't even bother to do in the years this game was in production yet they somehow defended their decision to remove the namesake of the games of catching them all because they were going to focus on better graphics and animations people weren't mad because the graphics were bad they were mad because they were lied to one of the most magical features of the series was removed and the excuse was a lie this wasn't the only issue with sword and shield anybody who's played these games knows that there's frame rate and lag issues in the wild area which shouldn't be an issue considering how the switch handles games like mario odyssey and breath of the wild which just goes to show how unoptimized this game was a lot of people complained about the region being relatively linear going more and more north unlike siri's past where you often had the whole region mapped out in front of you which you take crazy routes through on your adventure as you continue to gain access to more areas this wasn't a complaint i personally had but i certainly understand where people are coming from with this complaint and i do think back fondly on my time with titles such as diamond and pearl where i get to look at the whole map and see my progress see and wonder about places i've yet to be and when i finally get somewhere new i'm like whoa i'm finally at that place on the map a lot of people also complained about the soundtrack being bland personally i actually enjoyed a lot of the soundtrack most notably the battle themes like marnie and beads themes [Music] as well the way the champions theme uses light motifs such as the series hall of fame theme i thought was incredible and is probably one of my favorite champion themes in the series [Music] for another example of light motifs how the final boss with zasia and zamasunta use the slumbering wildlight motif in conjunction with light motifs from throughout the adventure was like the music was telling you that this is the culmination of your journey and this is easily my favorite main series pokemon final boss theme i do generally think most of the battle themes of this game were really good though none of the routes ever really stood out to me route themes are usually some of the most stellar parts of several pokemon games but i didn't really find that to be the case in sword and shield only other complaint with a soundtrack is why does holbury sound like it should be a wild west kind of town instead of a port town like it should be [Music] like was there some miscommunication in the office or something another complaint the general player base had was there was next to no post game the official in-game activities you can do after beating the main story are the following battle tower raid dens league rematch and that's it really for unofficial game activities you could always shiny hunt or pursue competitive but at the end of the day there's not really a whole lot to do after beating the game it's definitely not a point i feel is strongly on to some but i can definitely get where people are coming from it's nice to be able to continue having more adventure in some way and have some new goals to progress towards new characters to meet and more of this world to explore which sword and shield has in the form of paid dlc instead of base game post game content at the end of the day i really don't think sword and shield are bad games i enjoyed my time with them got to listen to a soundtrack that was great in a few respects and generally had fun with the experience but i still can't help but feel bad about knowing that i and countless others were lied to concerning the reasons of the cast being chopped down and i can't help but feel it's an unpolished unfinished game and despite the drop in standards in several regards it is one of the highest selling pokemon games ever [Music] [Music] after sword and shield got quite a bit of heat from the fans it should come as no surprise that the expansion pass announcement will get some great criticism as well each dlc promised to be its own new area to explore new plotline and new pokemon which was almost completely just bringing back a handful of old ones one of the biggest criticisms was that after not every pokemon was in sword and shield there was this paywall put over getting some of your old favorites back and even then this still wasn't every pokemon animations were still as basic as in the main game of sword and shield and a lot of the features introduced are things that probably should have just been in the main game instead of being behind a paywall such as the ability to toggle whether a pokemon can gigantomax or not or being able to catch every previous legendary which was a base game feature in the last games of ultra sun and moon but is now behind a paywall as well the highly requested feature of pokemon falling behind you was finally implemented again but only within the dlc areas for some reason maybe because the wild area was already so laggy and unoptimized and the expansion passes defense though pokemon is one of the few game series that can just get away with releasing virtually the same game with slight differences the following year or two yellow crystal emerald platinum then finally black and white 2 were actual sequels why can't we get more stuff like that nosy version gen 6 really got so little love for the generation that first decided to introduce a new major gimmick being mega evolution especially considering each gen since then has introduced a new major gimmick of their own and then ultra sun and moon ultra sun and moon had several additions to sun and moon but i struggled so hard to find the motivation to get through that game because it just felt like i was playing the exact same thing over again so assuming the expansion pass had not existed what was to prevent a new sword and shield that just included what would be the expansion pass from being released the following year regardless either releasing a new game with improvements the following year or releasing the dlc the following year is still putting more content behind a paywall which on its own isn't necessarily a bad thing if you're really adding content on that wouldn't have been in the base game but pokemon games before this fact typically have a post game [Music] so the fact that sword and shield has virtually no post game makes it feel like this was a stunt to starve the player of more content which could then be put behind a paywall instead of fleshing out a proper post game like siri's past at the end of the day yeah i'd say that i largely enjoy the dlc content but in retrospect it largely just kind of makes up for the lack of post game content within the main game except behind a paywall but before the actual release of any dlc came pokemon home the new way to manage and transfer pokemon around your games you could transfer over pokemon from the old 3ds service pokemon bank or even move pokemon from the let's go titles and move them into sword and shield only you couldn't if it was one of the ones not allowed in sword and shield those ones need to remain in home and you can't move them back to the old games either they're now stuck in pokemon home either until the end of time or they're available in some future game again which we can only hope for at this point now this wouldn't be such a big deal if it wasn't for the fact that pokemon home is a paid service being 21 here in canada for a year let's crunch some numbers shall we here in canada a full-priced game such as pokemon sword and shield are 80 and there's no discount for buying them together in a bundle putting it at 160 total for both games yes you're technically not supposed to have both to encourage trading with other people but the pokemon company knows that there will always be people who buy both it's satisfying to have both on the shelf and be able to access whatever you need from either game and as a content creator i've picked up both games and dlcs now the expansion pass is 40 canadian only for some reason the pokemon company decide to list the expansion pass in the eshop as separate dlcs for both games meaning if you own both sword and shield you actually need to pay 80 dollars the price of a third game if you want the dlc in both this brings our total up to 240 dollars for both games and dlcs basically the price of a switch light but if you're playing pokemon of course you're gonna want to play and trade with your friends that's going to be 25 canadian a year to gain access to nintendo's online service and then because it's counted as a completely different service from switch online because nintendo will never get tired of printing money pokemon home is another 21 a year if you want to transfer some of your old pokemon to modern games and trade between games of yours and because you can't transfer over all your pokemon into sword and shield you can't just buy a one month subscription to transfer everything and unsubscribe everything that isn't allowed in sword and shield is now stuck in home you can't transfer it to the current games and you can't ever send it back to the games it came from you now are forced into a situation where you need to keep paying the money if you don't want your pokemon to be deleted with no way to take them out of the system your pokemon are literally held hostage with a price you need to continue paying to keep the pokemon company from pulling the trigger on them do you know what this is ransomware your data is being held hostage under the threat of deletion if you refuse to pay except unlike ransomware you actually need to keep paying every year so let's add the annual cost of nintendo's online scam to their ransomware cost and you've got 46. canadian every year to use the basic pokemon online services all together this means that if you won the full experience of pokemon sword and shield you're paying 240 for the full games themselves and then about an additional 50 annually to both use online services and pay the ransom costs on your old favorites so you're set at about 300 in costs for your first year and then about another 50 or every following year you want the full sword and shield experience which i mean you've still at least got to keep paying in the case of home if you don't want your old favorites deleted even if you haven't touched sword and shield in forever the pokemon company doesn't care want to know the real reason why not every pokemon is available in sword and shield it's not because they took the time to make better graphics and animations or anything like that it's because the pokemon company knew that pokemon unavailable in sword and shield would be a workaround for them to employ a legal version of ransomware [Music] believe me we'll get back to that but how well does pokemon home work as a service anyway like it's basically just menu management it can't be that hard to get right and if it's legal ransomware it better at least be good right well let's share my experience with the service within home you have the same menu management options as in sword and shield you can move around one pokemon at once or group them together which can be handy for transporting several pokemon i'm somebody who's actually been crazy enough to catch them all and i had all my pokemon organized in pokemon bank in numerical order since that makes the most sense so if i wanted to fill the decks in a particular game card whether it be my own or my friend's game when i would literally have a few friends in high school who would give me their game cards to put in my 3ds to use my bank to complete their pokedexes for them i would just transfer things over an entire box at a time in the same order they're in open the game and go back into home and move them all back into their box and done that all took maybe five minutes in a home however while you can still select up to 30 pokemon an entire box at once if you try to place that in sword and shield and there's even a single poke one anywhere within that selection of 30 that's unavailable in sword and shield it puts the entire selection back where you got it it doesn't even transfer over all the valid ones and leave the invalid ones be which would still allow you to transfer over at least everything you could quickly by group selecting each box of pokemon and then easily putting them back in place the same way later because i'd caught them all over the course of years i figured in sword and shield i'd only need to catch the new gen 8 ones because i could easily transfer over all the hard work i'd already done years prior this should have taken like 5 minutes to do it took 2 hours reason being there's no easy way to just check the gal or dixon home so i had serbia's galler decks open on another monitor as i went through the entire decks identifying every non-gen 8 pokemon tracking down their location at home and moving over each valid pokemon individually and now the order of my pokemon is completely messed up from the numerical order that it used to be in i haven't bothered to put all my pokemon back and home again in numerical order because i know it's going to take me a couple hours to do so home is essentially a cloud service menu management and has genuinely got to be some of the worst menu management i've experienced in my life largely due to the fact that group selection is becoming worthless just has any potential ease of using the service fall apart so not only is it ransomware it's a trash surface that barely even gets its job done by forcing the player into a situation where they need to do more work i caught them all already and just needed to transfer that progress to sword and shield that process shouldn't take me two hours of manual menu navigation i can say without a doubt that pokemon home is the worst subscription service i've ever used the pokemon company knows what they're doing wrong but it's pokemon no matter how many corners they cut to make a quick buck they know that it'll sell like crazy because it's pokemon [Music] do [Music] now the recent pokemon direct addressed some interesting information pertaining to three particular titles the first was new pokemon snap which is honestly beautiful it really proves that pokemon can be an absolutely beautiful world and that the pokemon company is capable of pulling it off it's just a shame they haven't bothered to do so more than once on the switch but what i want to bring attention to is what the talk of the town about pokemon has been lately brilliant diamond and shining pearl finally the highly anticipated gen 4 remake was announced but to conflicting reception to understand the present let's first go back to the past the previous remakes have been fire red and leaf green heart gold and soul silver and omega ruby and alpha sapphire sure these were remakes of previous generations but they could still interact with the other modern games ruby sapphire fire red leaf green and emerald could all interact with one another trading pokemon having battles and whatever heart gold and soul silver could interact the same way with diamond pearl and platinum as those games could with one another these were all remakes but were never an exception to the rule of being part of that generation if i had heart gold and a friend had pearl version we could still trade and play with one another as much as we wanted i could give them some cantor johto pokemon they may not have and they could do the same with me for sinnoh pokemon each of these games were also in the style of the modern other main series titles at the time in addition to having new unique content of their own like heart golden soul silver for example which introduced the pokewalker which i still have to this day do you still have one let me know in the comments and other additional features such as being able to catch the gen 3 legendaries or the poka athlon and it had events around it for things like the gen 4 legendaries heart gold and soul silver were remakes sure but they felt like the natural next title after platinum the next successor to become the most recent main series pokemon installments but the game i'd really like to draw attention to is a mega ruby and alpha sapphire released during generation 6. think of mega evolution what you like but it was the big main gimmick of generation 6. after introducing it with x and y omega ruby and alpha sapphire expanded on it it was a remake of gen 3 sure but it built off of the main gimmick of generation 6 mega evolution in addition it introduced new features to the series such as the dexnav that ladies ladies saw and it included features such as every previous legendary or new story content through the delta episode sure it was a remake of ruby and sapphire but playing a mega ruby and alpha sapphire was not like playing ruby sapphire and emerald it was like experiencing the world of gen 3 with a modern take on gameplay and new additional features that make it feel like you were playing a new modern pokemon release it was a new original main series pokemon game under the guise of a remake things like this have helped make recent pokemon remakes such as omega-3 alpha sapphire so magical because they're not just remakes they're something new and special [Music] the biggest issue with brilliant diamond and shining pearl from what we've seen is that so far it looks like it's just a remake heart gold soul silver was the next natural main series title after diamond pearl and platinum a mega ruby alpha sapphire was the next natural main series title after x and y but brilliant diamond and shining pearl just aren't the natural next main series title after sword and shield they don't expand on what sword and shield introduced both in terms of art style and gameplay the magical thing about pokemon remakes is that they put a modern twist on classic titles imagine experiencing pokemon diamond and pearl with main character models akin to sword and shield customizable looks a camera from behind you instead of a bird's eye view to really be able to appreciate sinnoh in a new light or a system of wild pokemon where they actually exist in the world instead of being random encounters what an incredible fresh new way to experience sinnoh this would be but we're not getting anything of that sort instead of expanding on modern standards we're getting a re-skinned version of the exact same games we've already played before sure it's only just been revealed and i'm sure there's still plenty more information to come but from what i've seen so far what reason do i have to bother paying 80 dollars or 160 for both when i can just go play virtually the same thing on my ds with platinum heart gold soul silver and omega ruby alpha sapphire are great examples of giving the players something familiar to them alongside with a healthy dose of something they've never tasted before and being able to experience these classic titles in new modern standards brilliant diamond and shining pearl or seemingly none of that just feeding you back the exact same experience you've had before to make a quick buck off of your nostalgia not too dissimilar from another game i have a video essay criticizing [Music] the only thing that seems to be different so far from the originals is the direct upscale and how it looks where i'd prefer playing with the charm of the original sprites anyway if you're not going to give the models a modern new charm say what you will of sword and shield the main character models were beautiful instead of giving these classic games a modern look it's essentially just been made into 3d and hd which even doing that could have gone way better i kid you not thinking about the hands has kept me up some nights and the running animation compared to the original it went from charming to low budget derpy and when looking at the full character models in battle i'm just so so confused about the shading like you need to look so closely at barry's hair to see any shading at all it's like somebody just clicked his hair with the ms paint fill tool to fill it with a single color and that's it thinking back to old remakes another one of the most magical things about them was they truly were a part of that generation both in terms of their own gameplay and look which is not the case at all in brilliant diamond and shining pearl and how they interact with the other games of said generation i could trade and battle with any other friends who had a game of the same generation that's all that was needed i can use heartgold or silver to interact with diamond pearl platinum in the exact same way that they can with each other and though it hasn't been officially stated anywhere there's absolutely no chance of these remakes having interactability with sword and shield which we know because sword and shield doesn't include every pokemon want to take your brilliant diamond team in favorites like starraptor to battle your friend who has shield guess what star raptor is not available in sword and shield so tough luck tell your friend to buy the remix 2 to pass this paywall of being able to play together all three instances of previous main series remakes have been modern versions of classic titles which could still interact with the other games of the same generation but we already basically know that brilliant diamond and shining pearl won't be able to due to the nature of sword and shield itself a fire red and leaf green were gen 3 games heart gold and soul silver are gen 4 games and omega ruby alpha sapphire gen 6 games despite all being set in different regions brilliant diamond and shining pearl are not gen 8 games they're almost certainly just up to gen 4 just like how let's go was just up to gen 1. again it's not officially stated or anything but i'd be willing to bet that these titles will only go up to gen 4 considering sword and shield couldn't bother to include every pokemon so why would this dinky look and remaster another fact about this game is that it was developed by the same team who worked on pokemon home i guess after they proved themselves capable of creating barely functional menu management ransomware the natural next step was to try their hand in developing one of the most highly anticipated titles in the entire pokemon series sounds about right to me at the end of the day previous remakes felt like new modern takes on classic titles but brilliant diamond and shining pearl isn't at all that this doesn't feel like a triple a modern remaster it feels like a random fan project have you showed me the trailer for this game and told me it was a fan game i'd believe you and then comes pokemon legends let me be frank this game has so much potential if it's well executed it has the opportunity to be an insane open world breath of fresh air into the pokemon series this game could be absolutely fantastic only i don't think it's going to be now i'm not the kind of person who needs each game i play to always hit 60fps or whatnot but if your game can't even keep up 30 during basic gameplay and for a trailer no less then that's never a good sign even worse than the game's overall fps is some of the pokemon fps who is responsible for looking at a clip of 3fps looking chingling here and saying i love that let's put it in the trailer it'll be a great selling point the frame rate of so much pokemon movement is just so jumpy and then there's the models where we seemingly have the three starters presented to you by vr chat like i'm usually not a huge stickler for graphics but there has to be at least some semblance of standards if you're developing a triple a title of one of the world's largest ips your models can't look like they were directly ripped from say user created garry's mod models these look like they're fan models from gary's mod or vr chat not aaa nintendo models presenting pokemon legends coming to the nintendo gamecube [Music] i know the switch isn't exactly the most powerful console but remember this is the switch we're talking about the console that can almost run breath of the wild nintendo put so much effort into making their games play smoothly such as mario odyssey breath of the wild splatoon animal crossing so why does pokemon not get the same treatment i'm certain the switch can run a title like pokemon legends if they take the time to optimize it but showing the game in a trailer where it can barely even be run it just shows such disrespect to the fans to show them yep this is the standard we have for our games now we're willing to cut production costs to make more money because we know you're gonna buy it anyway i've been a pokemon fan for a long time but lately i've been ashamed to be a pokemon fan because of the standards the pokemon company has for its games nowadays that they figure they can just get away with because it'll still sell well just by the nature of being pokemon pokemon legends has the potential to be a fantastic game and some game companies do make incredible strides and improvements between a trailer and release but considering the pokemon company nowadays aren't exactly shining examples of fixing things before release i don't plan on getting my hopes up [Music] pokemon has always been so magical for two big reasons the first reason was being able to create your own custom dream team in any way you like and continuing to have adventures with your old favorites as the years and generations go on sword and shield and pokemon home is what killed this first magic by creating a system where you can no longer catch them all your options are taken away you'll get more options by going through a dlc paywall but still not all of them because if you could actually keep all of your pokemon to sword and shield then pokemon home wouldn't be the ransomware cash cow it is the second reason pokemon is so magical is the interact-ability bringing people together encouraging cooperation trading and battles amongst friends the entirety of pokemon on the switch so far is what killed this one in the past if the games were main series and from the same generation of development you could trade battle or even do other activities in several cases pokemon was always about bringing people together encouraging cooperation or even friendly rivalries but on the switch we no longer have any interact-ability between any different games one way transfers to home don't count let's go pikachu and evie can interact with each other and that's it sword and shield can interact with each other and that's it and now brilliant diamond and shining pearl are almost certainly only going to be able to interact with each other as well considering let's go only goes up to generation 1 and sword and shield couldn't be bothered to include every pokemon for the sake of their ransomware scheme each of the sets of pokemon games on the switch so far are only mutually interactable with each other killing the magic of bringing people together in the same way the series has been so famous for in these ways pokemon has lost most of the magic that has had such an impact on people in the past these are the sacrifices the pokemon company is willing to make because they know it's what will make them more money buy more games buy our dlc buy nintendo's online service buy or ransomware can't play with your friends or play in the way you want to guess that means you haven't paid enough for certain games or services pokemon on the switch has tried its best purely to make as much money as possible as at little cost especially with pumping out more pokemon on an annual basis we got let's go in 2018 sword and shield in 2019 rescue team dx along with sword and shield dlc in 2020 brilliant diamond and shining pearl in 2021 and legends in 2022 pokemon isn't exactly a stranger to having many different games and releases but back in the day we had the separation of home calls on handheld that pokemon games would be developed for along with countless spin-offs you had things like mystery dungeon ranger stadium coliseum gale of darkness rumble conquest poker park dash channel pinball and countless others i'm missing there was always something for everyone and while pokemon was always releasing something sometimes it'd be a main series game other times a spin-off and all kinds of games were released on both of nintendo's consoles at the same time but now on the switch home calls the land handheld all of a sudden for whatever reason the pokemon company has developed this need to push out a major release every year and with much less care than any of nintendo's other ips and the only spin-offs we've been getting from pokemon in the past several years apart from the remake of rescue team is pay to win mobile games part of this reason for this crazy push of major releases is definitely the fans the pokemon fan base has a bad habit of asking for things they wind up regretting when's the new gen 8 finally going to be coming to the switch how have they not revealed it already come on just give us a release date for gen 8 pokemon already and then actually getting it and all of a sudden oh my god sword and shield was so bad it's such an incomplete game why is everything so linear why are the animations so simple the graphics so awful and then of course these exact same people later during every single nintendo direct i would see things on twitter and youtube comments like how have they not revealed gen 4 remakes yet gen 4 remakes when no gen 4 remakes announced incredibly disappointed with this direct what are they going to get gen 4 on the switch already and i'm sure these same people are going to be complaining once the almost certain lack of interactability of brilliant diamond and shining pearl with sword and shield becomes common knowledge i can't help but feel like this push for a major release literally every year from 2018 onward is in part due to the fan base in a constant cycle of trying to get as much pushed out as fast as possible and being disappointed when it's not up to par it's come to a point where the pokemon company has seemingly just said screw it let's just push this out then it's pokemon it'll sell well anyway so may as well save on production costs by skipping on graphics that modders could literally fix in two weeks and probably a shorter time span if this is the state that legend ships in save on cost by not including every pokemon his sword and shield and then lie to the fan base for the reason why and then make more money on pokemon home ransomware by refusing to let certain pokemon be stored anywhere other than home save on production costs on a diamond and pearl remake and push it out much sooner by just remaking it in the same style except 3d instead of making a new modern take on a classic title like literally every previous pokemon remake did and by giving it to the pokemon home team to whip it up it's come to a point where the fan base hates the pokemon company and the pokemon company now seemingly hates the fan base pokemon used to have so much effort put into it even for things that couldn't make it to the final release like look at sun and moon for example every single pokemon in existence at the time so all the way up to generation seven had a walking and running animation programmed that wound up being scrapped before release probably because the 3ds couldn't handle it but still the care was here to do this for literally all of the 700 something pokemon at the time just to bring back an old feature that fans loved and then by the time sword and shield rolls around where they say that they're not including every pokemon so they have more time to work on animations and then the animations just turn out subpar where in the entire last game they programmed a crazy set of animations for every single pokemon in the entire decks which just wound up getting scrapped before release honestly what happened pokemon has come to a state where your options continue getting more and more limited and you need to continue having deeper pockets to be able to get the intended experience i can't in my right mind recommend a friend to pick up a game like sword and shield when i know full well they need to pay an additional 40 bucks for the full game experience and then an additional 50 dollars annually if they want to actually play with me and transfer over their old pokemon to be held hostage only then to not be able to play with me anymore by the time the new game rolls around unless they too pick up the new one since none of the released switch games can interact with one another other than their direct counterparts [Music] pokemon used to be about creating your own dream team your way and bringing people together by encouraging cooperation and friendly rivalry but both of these magical things have been butchered and lost their meaning because of a need to satisfy the unending push of fans to get things out as fast as possible and to make as much money as possible i don't think it's an understatement to say that pokemon has lost its magic at least in these key regards if i could say one message to the pokemon company pokemon is something so near and dear to my heart my friends and i used to play it with cards or games each day after school in elementary and it proved to become an incredible part of my childhood it helped to spawn my fascination with games that got me down my current path of studying game design and university i used to be so passionate about pokemon because i could feel the passion exuded by the games i played but nowadays i can't help but feel like that passion has been replaced by the need to pump things out on a regular basis to satiate the very vocal and demanding fans and continue making as much money as possible i know you've been treated harshly especially during the beginning of the switch era but i don't think that's reason enough to take advantage of the fans it makes me feel bad knowing that i and countless others were lied to for the reasons behind the national decks being cut it makes me feel disrespected having something near and dear to me just pushed out in a timely manner rather than being given the proper care deserves it makes me feel betrayed having my pokemon under threat of deletion if i don't continue to pay an absurd premium price it's like something that has helped me grow into the person i am has just suddenly turned to take advantage of me i feel hurt disrespected betrayed i'm sure countless others feel the same i don't want to feel this way i don't want to think of pokemon as the series that resorted to underhanded tactics such as ransomware i want to go back to being able to talk about pokemon passionately to be able to wholeheartedly recommend friends new games in the series that help me develop into the person i am today and enjoy experiencing it together with them i want to again experience the magic that got me into this series in the first place if it takes more time to bring back that magic then so be it we can wait if it means we get the fleshed-out experience of most of series past but please pokemon company in nintendo please stop with the lies please stop with the underhanded tactics please stop skipping the basic production time and costs that no aaa developer can respectfully do please just stop with the level of standards so low for no other reason that it'll still sell anyway because it's pokemon i just don't want to be heard anymore to see something so near and dear to me used in such malicious ways i just want new players to be able to feel the passion i felt all those years ago that got me into the series that would change my life please just prove to me and the fans that it's not too late to bring that magic back [Music]

Channel: AcousticHarmonia

Views: 1,035,139

Keywords: pokemon diamond pearl remakes, pokemon on switch, pokemon downfall, why is pokemon hated, pokemon history, pokemon story, pokemon review, pokemon home, pokemon sword shield, pokemon brilliant diamond, pokemong shining pearl, brilliant diamond shining pearl, pokemon legends, pokemon legends arceus, pokemon company, nintendo, nintendo switch

Id: njZSYPwGWRA

Length: 46min 22sec (2782 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 15 2021