Inside The State Of Pokemon: Games, Anime, And What Fans Want Next

Most Pokémon games struggle with consistency—some look stunning but are plagued by bugs, while others feel unfinished. But what if the future holds a bold new direction that balances innovation with polish? If you're a Pokémon fan craving thoughtful evolution rather than gimmicks, this episode is your must-listen.

Join us as we dissect the latest Pokémon titles, from Scarlet and Violet’s intriguing open world to Sword and Shield’s polished regional charm. Discover how recent games either succeed or miss the mark, exploring the reasons behind mixed reviews and soaring sales. We analyze core mechanics like Terastalization, wild zones, and character design—what works, what falls flat—and why the series needs to return to its roots of fun, discovery, and seamless design.

You’ll learn:

• Why Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s performance issues sparked debate despite record-breaking sales
• How Sword and Shield set a new standard for the franchise’s visual and gameplay quality
• The potential of future Pokémon titles, including Legends Arceus’ innovative mechanics and upcoming generations
• The importance of meaningful regions, memorable towns, and character-driven stories that make fans care beyond the battle
• Why certain gimmicks like Mega Evolution and Dynamax kept the series fresh—and why others like Terastalization felt underwhelming

Timing and experimentation are reshaping Pokémon’s future in unpredictable ways, but understanding what makes a Pokémon game genuinely engaging is essential for both fans and developers. Missing this insight risks missing the core of what makes Pokémon great—exploration, character, and genuine fun.

Perfect for longtime fans, newcomers, and anyone fascinated by game evolution, this episode dives deep into what’s next for Pokémon and how the series can reclaim its beloved charm. Don’t miss out—hit play and see why the best is yet to come.

Transcript

Welcome To Culture Credence

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome everyone. Welcome to our uh first episode. This is a new podcast we're doing, Culture Credence. And uh it's gonna be a weekly podcast every Tuesday where we'll talk about different pop culture, uh movie, video game things that we're interested in, maybe things that you guys are interested in. Um my name's Will, and with me here we have Nathan. Hey everybody. We're you know, gonna we're gonna do our best.

What This Show Will Cover

SPEAKER_00 0:29

We're gonna we're gonna try this and see see how this works. And we might eventually add a video element to this, but just for the time being, it's an audio-only kind of deal. For now, you get our little Discord icons. It's the best you're gonna get. Yeah, and our Discord icons, if you can see them, are Pokemon. And I mean, I've got Squirtle there. Squirtle's in my. Yeah, I wonder who that could be. Who could that yellow little yellow mouse be? So, yeah, I'm that was uh one of the topics that we definitely want to talk about on this show is Pokemon. It's one of both of our favorite franchises. We also talk some other pop culture type things. There'll probably be some Star Wars, some Marvel, uh Stranger Things. We'll talk some other yeah, Voltron. Me and Will are big Voltron legendary defender fans. So if you're so if you are a fellow paladude out there, we would love to hear from you. We'll be talking Voltron on here. We'll also talk some other franchises. Uh Gundam. We'll talk Gundam here in the next month or two.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

I think I think something we're gonna try to do. We'll have these like normal episodes where we'll have conversations and talk, and then you know, from time to time have a have a review. So could be a movie, it could be a game, um, just whatever, whatever comes to mind. Nothing specific. Um for the most part, I I don't know what you think about this, but you know, this isn't like a like a news kind of podcast. This is more of a discussion where we'll give our thoughts on things, kind of share opinions. We might have some of our friends on, talk with them too, and have a good time.

Today’s Focus: The State Of Pokemon

SPEAKER_00 2:15

We'll have a great time. Yeah, we just want to, you know, talk about things that are shared interests, and this is not a show where a lot of times people in some of these franchises feel like there's right and wrong opinions. That's not how we feel about it. And we just want, you know, everybody to get to share their opinion and say what they like about things, what they don't like. So we are really excited to start this podcast. So I think on today's show, we are gonna talk about some Pokemon. Oh, yeah. Uh kind kind of the state of Pokemon as we see it right now, some aspects about the games, maybe the shows, and on our next episode, we'll have a review of the latest Pokemon game, Legends CA. So you want to make sure and tune in and hear that.

Quality Debate And Expectations

SPEAKER_01 3:08

All right. Well, let's see. What do you want to get into first? Got a really controversial first topic here. I think, you know, in recent years, I I feel like we could go into the quality first, because that's that's the big one. That's the most obvious one that people are talking about. Um, whether you think the games are of high quality or not, it's fairly subjective, you know. Games could be triple A quality or they could be indie, which, you know, that doesn't mean anything about the quality of the game, but there is kind of what disparity.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

Well, it's kind of what your expectations are going in. Like you and I definitely we enjoy games that a large portion of the at least the vocal portion of the fans maybe didn't like. And I think some of that is sometimes people have r really high expectations. And there I mean there's a reason for that. Pokemon and Nintendo are very large companies.

Scarlet & Violet: Sales Vs Reception

SPEAKER_01 4:14

I mean, it's for us, it's a lot of money, but like$10 million and you're selling 60 million units, you know, that's that's significant.

Open World Wins And Online Woes

SPEAKER_00 4:26

Well, and that that might be one good place to start. I mean, we saw one of the most divisive controversial games in the Pokemon franchise has been Scarlet and Violet, which actually sold the most copies of any Pokemon game. So when you look online and hear the fandom kind of talk about it, generally speaking, it's a very negative reception. However, commercially, it was a huge success. And so the question is, are just a lot of people buying the game and then really not liking it, or is there a large section of the fan base that really isn't voicing their opinion on the games? Now, I am in one camp on this. In my first playthrough of I Got Scarlet, I actually loved it. I put more hours into that Pokemon game than I put into any one save file on any Pokemon game. Part of that is, you know, the open world nature of the game. You're looking for different things in the game, different Pokemon. Um, so just part of the design of the game lends itself to more time. And then there's the DLC, which I actually enjoyed the DLC, especially uh Blueberry Academy, the second part of the DLC. But most people did not like this game. And I do understand, especially if you played online or if you tried to join terror raid battles, a lot of times there were um performance issues, lagging things. The one time Will and I tried to play together, we had a lot of issues with the game. Uh it ran really slow. You basically couldn't even do it. You had together, it was also super just unorthodox, especially coming.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

It's really hard to EY, which I think is like the pinnacle. You have like your friends, acquaintances, and passer buyers, and you could just click and ask to trade, ask to battle. This one you had to was it like you have each had to have a code and you had to enter the same code, like you're launching a nuke or something, like yeah, yeah. We had to not one person, two two keys. It makes sense in theory, but like if you have someone on your friends list on Nintendo Online, why why are we doing this?

Map Design, Gating, And Difficulty Spikes

SPEAKER_00 7:00

Yeah, the online features of the game I I did not enjoy. And and even just doing the terror raids, I would get really frustrated with it took a while to get a full group of people in there, and then once you did, you know, there were a lot of times where the clock is ticking and you can't do anything because it's kind of lagging. Yeah, like everyone's just sitting still. And so the Pokemon's like doing all these animations and you can't do anything and it's taking forever, but the clock is still ticking. So those were things about the game. I agree. I I didn't like those things. I did, however, really enjoy the open world nature of the games. There were certain scenery that I really liked. I like, you know, I I thought a lot of the game was actually kind of pretty to look at. Sunsets and sunrises and stars and you know, things like that that I did enjoy. And it felt like I was getting to really explore and go on an adventure with Pokemon, and you could have your Pokemon out and uh do the picnic and sandwich mechanic, which we've talked about some. And I don't I didn't necessarily love that feature. Uh that was not something I really loved. I did like, you know, it was just kind of different, and you could take your own path that you wanted to. You wasn't necessarily set well path of what you had to do.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

Do have some beef with that. They say you could choose any path. If you went to the right side of the map first, you were going to get thrashed. Um, I was I had to like well over level my Pokemon to be able to play that side first, and then I got to the left side and way too easy.

Empty Towns And Visual Disjoint

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Yeah, it kind of seemed like so some of the situations it kind of seemed like there were areas that geographic, just topographical air um features were supposed to act as barriers to keep you out, which like like we were saying, you're supposed to be able to go any way you want, but a lot of times you don't have the mechanic to go where you want to go early in the game.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

However, I was able to go to some of these locations uh as I progressed through early on, but it was just too the difficulty level was higher.

Sword & Shield As A Return To Form

SPEAKER_00 9:24

If I went I think they did not expect that there would be ways to get around some of these geographical barriers, and as a player, you're going to do that. You're not you're going to want to explore, especially in the world. Especially after playing like Breath of the Wild and just like no clipping over a mountain or something, still being if you did do what I mean, both of us probably did at different times, you end up in a situation where you got somewhere you weren't supposed to go. And then you can run into a situation where it's overleveled. Um, or I ran into things where I went a different way than what the normal path was, and I realized later in the game that I had missed sections of the map and and where certain Pokemon were because I had not gone the way that the game intended me to go. And so those are some things that you could say are negative, or maybe you like that type of thing. Overall, I really liked the game. Yeah, go on. Sorry, I'll I'll get to mine. But I certainly understand what people had wrong with it, but I liked that they they tried some different things. I kind of liked some of the characters and friends you make and things like that. I certainly liked, I felt like there were a lot of different Pokemon from different generations. And I do have to preface this with when I played Scarlet, so I am a kid from Gen 1, I am a 90s kid, and so I was reaching this point where you say, Oh, I don't play Pokemon anymore after Gen 3. So I had not played Gen 4, 5, 6, 7 until even after I played Scarlet and Violet. The first game that I played post Gen 3 was Pokemon Sword. And so, and we can talk about that game here in a second. But so some of these Pokemon that I met in Scarlet and Violet, I had not really got to play as with those Pokemon before, or maybe even some of them were new or the mechanics were new to me. So that might be part of why I liked it, and so many people didn't, is I had not played a lot of games at that point in between, you know, a Game Boy Advanced game and a Nintendo Switch game. So that might be part of what I liked about it. But now I have tried to go back and play Violet, and I've you know maybe put 20 or 25 hours on it, but this is not a game that I really feel like I want to replay. It it's not a game where I've enjoyed the replayability. I feel like that factor on this game is a little low because a lot of it is built around you exploring the map and those types of things. So once you've done that, you know, it's kind of hard to make yourself want to do it again, especially if you put a lot of hours into it. So, but overall, I liked it a lot better than most people. But Will, uh what did you think of Scarlet and Violet?

Gigantamax Vs Terastallization

SPEAKER_01 12:32

I actually like you what you said about the map. Um, I'm gonna lead with that. It kind of felt like Death Stranding, and a lot of people had issues with that game too. Um, just from the aspect where you are meant to explore. Like the the world is a character in this game. Um and it honestly it makes it feel empty sometimes. Um like you're expected to find these little like moments in the world sprinkled throughout, but there's so much empty space between that it almost felt I I think that's where it felt unfinished to me. There was just a lot of like um like blank area. Like uh I'm trying to think. When whenever I I haven't played this game since it came out. I I finished the whole game. I didn't get through the DLC um but where was it? Going towards the electric gym at the Bing to the right, you know? Over by the water. Um I feel like there's a lot of areas in this game where you're just expected to know where to go or know to do an exact thing. And um like I don't need a game to hold my hand, but I feel like there was a lot of oversight on a game that's supposed to be super open-ended and I don't know, like explorable because it's it it just felt empty. I I don't know. Like uh you go into a town and there's five of the same sandwich shop, and then every other building is an empty husk of a model. I just uh I don't know. It felt like there was no soap.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

And that's that's yeah, you definitely can't you can hardly go in like any of the buildings.

Let’s Go Mechanics And Catching Joy

SPEAKER_01 14:27

Yeah, and it feels like Toontown, like that that Disney MMO where it's just like there's I don't know, it feels eerie almost because there's no one like around. I don't I don't know, like you'll find trainers and stuff, but there's just like Yeah, you're not really interacting with anybody other than main characters in the game. Yeah, and you're on like a perfectly mode for the most part, like island, and it's like, yeah, it's it just feels kind of off. Like there's something off. But I I did like the sunsets and everything, like I'd say anything above ground level to me was beautiful, but anything below kind of like left a sour taste after seeing Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee and Sword and Shield. I feel like Sword and Shield was a good return to form for the series. And since then I feel like this push for open world exploration has left the overall quality of the looks and the quality of I don't know, like linear progression through the story. But it they've just kind of left it behind. And it would be good if there was a plan for where they're going, but it's it seems like at the at the point that Scarlet and Violet came out, they were just kind of winging it. And that that's a little weird to me from you know a Nintendo published game, you know.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

I agree that there were things that felt unfinished and unpolished, and while I liked a lot of the graphics, um, a lot less harsh on it than most people are, it was rough. And there were situations where it wasn't clearly, you know, a high-end graphic. And we won't talk about Legend ZA much because we have the review of that coming out, but l just comparing those two games major improvement. And part of that is the better hardware if you have the Switch 2 system like we both have.

Legends Experiments And Design Tradeoffs

SPEAKER_01 16:38

Even on the Switch 1, uh where I played Scarlet Violet, I played Violet, I I never experienced any of the uh any of the graphical errors that other people had, any frame rate issues. It seemed to be fairly consistent, and I'm I'm I tend to be pretty picky about that kind of thing. Not that it would completely ruin my experience, but you know, it does get annoying whenever you see like a really jittery screen or like things are getting choppy, so I to its I I I don't know. Like I a lot of people were having the issue, but I didn't have that problem, so I I can't really attest to that. Um I don't know. Like over overall though, the characters really cool. I liked meeting all the characters in the game. The selection of Pokemon, I know it was controversial at the beginning. They didn't put all the Pokemon that had been in previous decks as in this game. But what they did put in the game was a lot, and you could catch evolutions of Pokemon as you played, so you didn't have to trade for Pokemon, you didn't have to train up Pokemon, you could actually explore and catch Pokemon in the decks kind of like they would in the anime or something. And um, I think that was a lot more enjoyable because I I I like catching more than battling. Um and uh it was it was good for me to be able to explore and do more of what I liked in the game. Or, you know, if you like to battle more, you like to train more, you could cat catch those lower level Pokemon, evolve them up, fill out your decks. So that's a way they gave an option that I really did like. Not to make this a review for Scarlet and Violet, but you know, this is one of the most recent games, and so I feel like using this as a benchmark is probably best before going back to these other games and kind of comparing some of the features.

SPEAKER_00 18:32

Yeah, and I mean there were things in Scarlet and Violet that were high quality of life features, things that made being a trainer, swapping out your Pokemon, leveling up your Pokemon a lot easier. And so those types of things were good. I I like you, it's see, I'm more of a battler trainer type than catching. And that was one thing that was kind of missing in Scarlet Pilot. It's really easy to not battle very many people unless you do like the story missions and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

Or if you choose the wrong route and you have to grind to take you through a fight against it, Carl.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

But you can easily avoid, there's not like long routes of trainers you have to buy play battle like in other games. You can easily avoid them. There's not very many of them. You have to find them. So that is definitely an element of change. And one thing though, we we talked about Sword and Shield. So this is another game that a lot of people in the fandom don't seem to like as much as we do. This is a game where both of us really like Sword and Shield. I the it's one of my favorite games, uh, to be quite honest. And I thought that was exactly what a Pokemon game should be. It it had better graphics than Scarlet and Violet had.

What Mainline Gen 10 Should Keep

SPEAKER_01 20:05

Looks very pretty, especially like on the base switch, even, not even the OLED, the the colors and the the richness of the environments is just very nice to look at. I I remember when the trailers were initially coming out for this game. Um, and it was like it was right off the coattail of uh Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee. And those were visually nice. You could see every chin hair on Pikachu, but you know, this game like it really captures in a I don't know, more true to the art style way, how beautiful the world is. Um without without it feeling artificial, because uh that's something that Scarlet and Violet struggled with. Like, it did have really nice skies, you know, there were some good textures on things, but there was this just discrepancy between anything land-based and anything sky or water, like Pokemon related, where everything just kind of had its own art style or things didn't look finished, like it was a model without shading or proper shading, it didn't have enough like extra textures because they're trying to load in a significantly larger portion of map at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

Even with wild zones. You would have stuff like totally like freak out on meld together and you know, and go through rocks and all kinds of stuff. But but I felt like Sword and Shield was, you know, pretty much perfectly executed.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

Yeah, it was a pretty short game. I I think it took me like twenty-five hours, maybe thirty, to beat this game. But then, you know, you have more game to play. You have the you know, catching all the Pokemon. You have the DLC, which was immaculate. I think the first one's just okay, but then the Crown Tundra feels like a whole new game. And you get these experiences that they don't feel too small, but they're digestible enough. I I they they feel more fulfilling than some of the stuff that I feel like was happening in Scarlet and Violet's DLC.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

Well, and like in Sword and Shield as a better game than Scarlet and Violet in a lot of ways, is one of the key elements of that to me is Galar feels like a real region with a real culture, and you obviously feel the the parallel between the UK and Galar.

Wild Areas Done Right

SPEAKER_01 22:56

And between I really enjoy the environments, all of it is very distinct to that region.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

Yeah, they really lean into Galar being its own thing, and it's really cool, and I love the whole story and the you know the ancient heroes and figuring all that out, and I like that they made things differently. You know, you have a tournament style instead of the Elite Four type situation, I thought was I prefer that. And I just thought that the game took big steps and on all these gambles, they all paid off, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

And the gimmick, like uh if you look at the gimmicks for the Gigantamaxing and uh Gigamaxing and uh Pokemon Sword and Shield, like I I feel like it was still unique enough, like where you would have, you know, Snorlax with an island on his stomach, or like Eevee with a giant tail, and like they're all getting hyped up in the stadium, and it's always a really exciting moment. But then in Scarlet and Violet, their whole thing is we have a crystal on their head, and it's you know, designed by whatever Pokemon type it is. It isn't even unique to the Pokemon and felt kind of uh lazy, kind of lame. I I never really wanted to use it because it just it doesn't look good. It it just kind of adds this plumage or growth on top of your Pokemon.

Memorable Places: Glimwood Tangle

SPEAKER_00 24:29

Dressalization is a big miss to me. It was I didn't enjoy it, I didn't see a huge advantage in it, uh, and like you said, I don't like the way it looks. I thought that that was something that could have looked cool, but it didn't.

SPEAKER_01 24:43

And if the Pokemon show you crystal or something, that'd be neat, or like, you know, some kind of different design, but it just it wasn't unique to the Pokemon whatsoever.

SPEAKER_00 24:53

Yeah, and I I definitely think Dynamax Gigantamax was, especially Gigantamax, uh, was a lot better than Terrasilization, which I think is one of one of, if not the worst, gimmick that Pokemon has tried. It's just very bleh. And so that's definitely something I didn't like about Scarlet and Violet.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

But I think a lot of these newer games have had really, really nice gimmicks like Z moves, Mega Evolution, like these are all like super nice looking, very fun. You get to collect the items, gives you more to do in the game, has more open opportunity for battling. So not only you have the collection aspect, the battling aspect, uh it's it kind of has this all-encompassing thing that celebrates everything the game is, but then you have trustwateralization, which kind of really only is battle-centric, and then even so, it just kinda falls flat because it it doesn't have that pizzazz that the other ones do, in my opinion, at least.

Characters, Gyms, And Elite Four Identity

SPEAKER_00 26:00

No, and like when they first introduced it, I was thinking, oh, this could be really cool, it could be really advantageous in battle. Like, like if you pre-ordered the game or whatever, you got these Pikachu with the flying pterotype and it nosefly. So I was like, oh yeah, this is gonna be great. I'll I can terrestrialize and then a ground type move won't be able to hit it. It just wasn't a good mechanic, and it just didn't really work, and it looked silly, and yeah, you know, so I loved the game by and large, but I did not like terrestrialization at all, and I barely ever used it. And uh, you know, they just Oh sorry, go ahead. Well, I was just gonna say that I feel like they're really trying to push it.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

And, you know, it's just not cool. And so Yeah, that's the biggest thing.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

The rule of cool is like primary. It's like we're we're not the target audience for this game. Like people in grade school. That's true. I mean, I I if I were still that age, I don't think I would think this was cool.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

No, I don't think so either. And so I mean, as far as the state of Pokemon, we we both really like Let's Go Eevee, Let's Go Pikachu. I thought Let's Go Pikachu was a great game.

Revisiting Mid-Gens And Remake Potential

SPEAKER_01 27:22

I haven't played the introduction for beginners. It's it's like it has everything that Pokemon has, except for fighting the Pokemon. You can fight trainers and a it has its own issues. Like you have long strings of trainers that you have to fight in a row with no gap, and that that kind of gets a little tedious. But you know, like it was a good thing for people who may not play the game to like ease into these other games because you know they may not want to play a traditional like JRPG experience, and this game offers something a little different. Also being able to use the Pokemon Go throw mechanic with the Joy-Con, that's something they just didn't bring back, and I I find that to be something that is super I don't know, I miss that a lot. I I think that having that option at all adds some kind of fun and whimsy to the game that you just don't get by clicking a button.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

Well, and I felt like what could have been really boring and tedious, the catching it rewards you enough that it's worth catching. And you do like there's it's not that there's no battling in the game, like you said, you still battle the trainers, right? You just don't have to do battles with all the wild Pokemon. So in a lot of ways, it's almost like an upgrade. And like you said, I thought it looked great. I thought, you know, it was funny how you could ride Pokemon in different ways and can fly on Pokemon, and being able to interact with them like you could in X and Y, even, you know, but to you know, a different extent.

SPEAKER_01 29:04

X and Y, you could do the Poke Yammy and interact with your Pokemon, feed them, train them that way. This game had a similar-ish mechanic, and now you just don't get that. Like Scarlet and Violet, you could feed your Pokemon sandwiches, but like I didn't really find myself doing that ever, because there was no advantage to me.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

So that was pretty and you could like for doing that? You did get um experience points. Your Pokemon did get XP for that. But I don't know, I don't know that it was as much as there have been in other games. Like I think you got more in Sword and Shield than you did. Like, I think you got more XP playing with your Pokemon in Sword and Shield than you did in Scarlet and Violet. And really, a lot of things about Sword and Shield were just a better version of what you would later get in Scarlet and Violet.

Are We In A Good Pokemon Era

SPEAKER_01 30:01

Yeah, it seems like But I mean. Oh go ahead. Oh no, you go ahead. Uh I've I've been noticing a lot of the changes that have been happening have just been existing features getting stripped of what makes them fundamentally good in favor of just some kind of like different thing. Uh I think the best uh places to describe this are like at least for m the the most recent one that I can think of is the uh catching mechanics in Legends Arceus moving into Legend C A, being able to like hide and cover, go back into hiding, throw a Pokeball from wherever and hit a Pokemon. They just completely missed in this new game. The um Legend ZA, you could throw it from anywhere, and that became a strategy that you would use to catch these Pokemon. But in in Legend ZA, um you you had to be like right up on them, and by the time you were on them, you're out of cover. You can't go back into hiding and cover, you have to be in an exact range to catch them, and by the time you're in that range, they see you. It's just like a lot of these features that were in a game previous that they nailed first try, they just put it in the next game and then strip the features from and take away what made it fun. And I think that's a missed opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

I think Pokemon is and however ambitious or adventurous they're being, you can debate. But I think Pokemon is trying to figure out what they want to do and where they want their games to go and different features and stuff. And you can kind of feel that they're experimenting with things and seeing how people are gonna like it, and you can do that because people are going to buy it.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

Right.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

And so, like, and we'll talk about this on our review, but you and I both thought, you know, a lot of people were, I don't want to do Legends ZA, I don't want to it to all be in one city. You and I actually like that. Now I think we both would have liked to have seen the rest of Kalos like that as well.

The Anime: From Ash To Horizons

SPEAKER_01 32:11

But it was very skeptical at first, but like, you know, the more you play, the city does become a character. There are a lot of very rich experiences that um are sprinkled throughout through side quest, main story, and I I think that was one of its strengths, actually.

SPEAKER_00 32:27

Well, and it kind of a lot of what people criticize about Scarlet and Violet and being empty and not having character and those types of things. Okay, well, they answered that with instead of this massive open world map, here's a city that we really polished, you know. Polar opposite. Yeah, the absolute polar opposite.

SPEAKER_01 32:48

There are no sandwiches.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

You're not eating sandwiches, donuts this time. You have to make donuts. Oh, yeah. And I that's a feature I don't like. I love donuts. It paid off like doing that and focusing on one city to me worked really well. Yeah. So I don't know what they're gonna do. So if we take, let's talk, say, the Switch games. Okay, so for Switch, primarily, if you're talking like more mainline type games, you have Sword and Shield, you have Let's Go Pikachu, Let's Go Eevee, you have Legends Arceus, you have Scarlet and Violet, and you have Legends. Yeah, I mean I wouldn't call them like main series games, but just as I didn't want to have to name like all the Pokemon Snap and Technical Pikachu and everything like that, but so the primary games that most Pokemon players are going to play, I feel like is a very positive group of games in a positive uh direction.

SPEAKER_01 33:53

Now there are things of games too. Like no two of these are the same. Not even in the slightest.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

Yeah, I mean, they're very different. You got a lot of games. I mean, they're putting out quite a bit of content. They might have been putting out too much content during this time period uh on one two systems. And but I am very hopeful about the direction of Pokemon. I I hope they don't just phone it in and say no matter what we make, people are gonna buy it, but I don't really see that that being the direction because I think they responded to people's criticisms really well in Legends ZA.

Why Horizons Isn’t Landing

SPEAKER_01 34:34

And we know there's a you know 10th generation announcement coming very soon, and allegedly they're already working on a third Legends game. So we'll see what they cook up with that, because having the first one be an ancient Sinnoh in Hisui, and then moving to a modern day setting five years after X and Y. Very different. You don't know what to expect. There's so many possibilities for stories, and being able to experiment in these games, uh, we talked about this in the Legends EA review. This is a great place for them to experiment in these Legends games outside of the main storyline. Like you can still have your core JRPG, baby's first JRPG kind of experience, and then in these games, you know, try something like Coliseum does, do a different battle mechanic, do a different catch mechanic, have a more in-depth story for something that may not get developed in a main story game. Um, I don't know. Very, very interesting things they could do.

SPEAKER_00 35:41

Yeah, and the the Legends games really do it's so many opportunities. And kind of the fan base kind of thought, oh, Legends is ancient stuff because that's what the first game was, and we all kind of expected that going forward. But that's not what it was. And so they could do anything with a Legends game. And like you said, I mean, that might be something that they need to think about is okay, when we make a main series game, when we make Gen 10 or going forward, maybe that needs to be very much the formula with some developments and changes that we've always had. And very linear, uh, you know, whether you want to be the eight gems, kind of like what we said earlier, Scarlet and Violet, you or uh, excuse me, Sword and Shield. You took the very linear type of game and expanded it, made it better. Graphics, those types of things.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

So Maybones, like the wild zones, you can have the best of both worlds and still keep your core experience while experimenting. And they they really show that that can pay off. These wild zones were you can say it's an open zone or whatever they wanted to call it, but it was a little bit of an open world experience. And you would go through these large areas, the weather would change, the time of day would change, and um I I feel like they pulled it off better than Scarlet and Violet did. It looked really nice in these wild zones, and I feel like if the entire map looked like that in Scarlet and Violet, a lot of people wouldn't have these complaints.

SPEAKER_00 37:16

No, yeah, I agree with you. And I mean, maybe it's better to do it that way, where that's only certain areas that are open world wild zones. And this was actually massive still.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

Like it's it's not like you aren't exploring if if they could somehow, you know, load the areas between these, have several wild zones as your towns or areas around towns, that that might be a good route to go in or something to try.

Regional Dex Strengths And Weaknesses

SPEAKER_00 37:46

Well, and you and I both we've talked about this a lot off the show, but there were locations in Sword and Shield that were so unique, so much character that we both really liked. And we talked about this, but one of my favorites in any Pokemon game is the Glimwood Tangle. Yes. I mean, the whole lead up to the town is you're walking through this dark and enchanted forest with glowing mushrooms, and there's Pokemon that are very mysterious and unique, walking all around, and you can interact with them. And you know, it's not just walking down a straight path, you're twisting and turning and climbing over things. And I just thought it was one of the best locations I've ever seen in a Pokemon game by far. And I would love to see something like that in a future game for sure.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

Yeah, I I agree. The towns for a while had been kind of lacking. Um, I cannot recall specific towns in a Pokemon game for a while, but you know, where they excel usually is the characters. Like they have some of the best character designers in games working on these. I've, you know, you have super iconic characters, or even if you know most people don't know them, you can recognize, hey, that is from a Pokemon game. And they all have their own sort of thing that they do or things that they um like or don't like. And I think Sword and Shield did a good job of that. Like, I can remember most of the gym leaders from Sword and Shield. I couldn't tell you the Elite Four as we were talking about from several of the other games.

Discovery, Filler, And Worldbuilding

SPEAKER_00 39:30

So well, that's definitely high quality. Like what you're hearing from the vocal fan base is generally, oh, you know, Generation Four, Gen 5 are the best, and all this kind of stuff. My personal feeling is like you said, I a lot of the stuff in the middle generation games is very generic, very bland, very unmemorable. You know, yeah, I don't remember a lot of the Elite Four members. I don't remember hardly any of the gym leaders, I don't remember the towns or their names. You know, it just even like Cinno. So in just the span of a few years, because like I said, I had not played the Gen 4 games, I played Shining Pearl, I played Legends Arceus, which is not really the same thing, but is in the Sinno Universe. Um, I played one of the original games, played Diamond, and then I played Brilliant Diamond. So just in the last few years, I've played all of those. I still couldn't tell you who most of the gym leaders are or what the town names are. I know the map in general, I know the general plot line, the Pokemon that are there and everything, but I don't remember all that. And really the rest of it is just kind of boring.

SPEAKER_01 40:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:47

And it's a really talking game, too. Yeah, oh, so much talking. And Gen 5, you know, we both kind of feel this way. You you had trouble even getting to where you could play Gen 5 because of the motion sickness issue. But Gen 5 and their remakes to me, okay. Like, you know, I I like them. They're good, but I'd be excited to play a remake of it.

SPEAKER_01 41:14

Because if they can do something like Sword and Shield does with some of the towns in that game, I think it could be really good.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

Yeah, and that's and that's part of why I feel so positive. Like the state of Pokemon going forward, some people are apocalyptic about it. I think it's very positive. You can take those old games and turn them into something lively.

SPEAKER_01 41:36

Even some of those are really boring, like desert segments could be wild zones. Like just I know more of that, but like that that is an opportunity. Like you have all of these items that you can use.

SPEAKER_00 41:51

Well, now that they're in the all of those, all of those routes you hated in those old games, caves and infinite surfing, those could be turned into really cool things, and where you're interacting with overworld Pokemon and not the random encounters, which I think is a big upgrade in these games, is not constantly having random encounters.

SPEAKER_01 42:14

But now you have scheduled uh day-night cycle shift cutscenes. Yeah. Unskippable cutscenes. Yeah. Yeah. Here's your Zoobat. It's a day-to-night cutscene. Ten hours of my hundred-hour experience are cutscenes switching from day to night in ZA.

Netflix’s Impact On Animation

SPEAKER_00 42:37

Yeah, there were some things about ZA where it's like, okay, can we not do that anymore? Yeah. But so I think we would say that it's right to be optimistic about the direction of Pokemon. Now, would we say right now is the best time of Pokemon games? I mean, that that's a debate we could have. I mean, I'm from Gen 1, Gen 2, Gen 3. So it's hard for me to say anything is better than those games and the character and the the soundtrack for sure. I love the way Pokemon games sounded in Gen 1 and Gen 2 more than any other game, probably. But if I look at even those games, take you know, take Fire Red and Leaf Green, which are two games that are beloved by everybody pretty much. It are those games, which obviously you're dealing with totally different capabilities at the time versus what we have now, do I like those games better than Sword and Shield, Legend, ZA? I've played them a bunch of times, but I don't know that I'd say I like them better. Maybe when I was a kid I would have, but I think I think right now everyone's complaining about Pokemon, but we are in a really Good time to be a Pokemon fan, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_01 44:08

Of course, Gen 3, when they tried to reboot the series immediately after like two hit successes. Um Gen 3 felt like a really good time. Uh Gen 6, they were celebrating everything up until that point with you know some anniversary stuff. We had a remake of Gen 3, let you collect all of the uh legendary and mythic Pokemon again. A lot of good stuff there. And then, you know, now we have everything we had before plus new stuff, and this new stuff is built upon how many years now? 30 this year of Pokemon? Yeah, 30 years. Crazy. So, you know, 30 years of Pokemon, you know, some people might say it needs to be further by now, but you know, like how much can you change in a game before it becomes a different thing, you know?

Final Thoughts And Listener Requests

SPEAKER_00 45:04

No, I totally agree. And like, this is Pokemon. If you want to play a game that is hyper realistic graphics with the type of game features that are in other games, go play another game. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:18

You know, this You know, they tried that uh with you know, Legends Arceus, they really tried a different genre, and I I respect that. And it it was good. I liked that game a lot. Um but you know, it's not on the main line, and it was a good place to experiment. But these mainline games, like we were saying, Sword and Shield is just a great return to form for the series, and it's a good good place for Pokemon to be, and I I really hope that they return to something similar to that at some point.

SPEAKER_00 45:51

Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree. I I'm hoping the negative feedback some people have given doesn't impact Pokemon's idea of going back to that. And you talked about Gen 6. I would be remiss if I didn't say I loved a Gen 6 going back and playing it as an adult, because obviously I didn't play it as a kid, but I've played X and Y now, and I loved both of them.

SPEAKER_01 46:16

And it was very serious while staying uh fun. Like, you know, a lot of sense of discovery with these new Mega Evolve Pokemon that we hadn't seen before.

Schedule, Upcoming Reviews, And Sign-Off

SPEAKER_00 46:29

And like you said, I mean it has a kid-friendly, happy tone to the game, but then there's a very serious, very sinister, very serious things going on, and I love the Kalos Elite Four situation. The way that is done in X and Y is so much more dramatic, so much more weight than the other a lot of the other Elite Fours. Definitely my I would say definitely my favorite Elite Four, the way that they designed it and everything compared to the other games.

SPEAKER_01 47:02

There was a lot of good design intent in that game, and I I think that's a something that's missing lately is you have a lot of features, but none of them are intentional enough. Like they don't jive with each other. I I feel like, you know, in X and Y, things were polished to the point where it made sense. All of the menus were connected in such a way that it felt natural. All of the features felt like they complemented each other. You know, in this these newer games, past Sword and Shield, it feels like I I don't know, like there's just this discrepancy between different features, and it makes it feel super disjointed and jarring when you're playing. And you can immediately tell when something's off. Like uh I like Legend ZA, but you know, it got to the point where after like the first gameplay loop, I could tell exactly what the gameplay loop would be of like dialogue, three side quests, three boss fights, and a what wasn't challenger ticket thing. And it would be those four items in order every time until the end of the game and in the DLC, and you could just immediately tell that they didn't really mesh together, they just kind of sat on their own and you could pick them apart.

SPEAKER_00 48:26

Well, and I think that's an aspect of the they want people to have more open world, have more control over what they do, I guess, but it it doesn't always work that well, you know.

SPEAKER_01 48:38

And if you played it as intended, where you do everything in the game, it makes it even worse.

SPEAKER_00 48:45

Yeah, it can get kind of tedious at times, you know, yeah, doing it that way, instead of, like we said, instead of the linear building up to the climactic points in the game, you know, type of thing that we're used to with mainline Pokemon games. Now, one thing I do want to say before we run out of time. So when we're talking state of Pokemon, there is one thing I am not optimistic about, and I'm probably more of a fan of the anime than you would probably be. More sandwich making in the anime, and I say this as I I understand the show was intended for kids, and I uh uh tried to give it the best chance that I could. I watched the first couple parts to Horizons on Netflix. I hate it, and I tried to like it. It I gave it a bunch of episodes worth of my time. I really don't like it. And, you know, I like that they're trying to be ambitious with it and do different things and use different characters and everything, but it to me it's just not working. I don't like pretty much any of the characters. I find the tone is I don't like it. And I, you know, it's just I think we're kind of hopping around, and I just don't really enjoy anything about the new series other than I think it it looks pretty good, I guess, but I don't really know what we're doing here. And for me, and I'll talk about this some on some other shows, but I felt like the original series, especially Kanto and Orange Islands, but also uh the Gold and Silver series and Johto and uh X and Y, Kalos, were probably the peak. I personally I understand that the I understand that the art style of the Sun and Moon Alola series made a lot of people not like it. When I watched the first episode or two of it, I was like, what is this? But I ended up loving the Sun and Moon series. It's so much fun, there's so much going on. Uh you get to see Ash finally become a champion. You know, I there's a lot of heart to that series, and it's fun, and you're seeing Ash interact with his Pokemon in a lot different way than you normally do. He's living with a few Pokemon at the time, and they live together to the old series a lot.

SPEAKER_01 51:29

Like it's fun for old generations and new, I think.

SPEAKER_00 51:33

Yes, I think that the Alola series has a lot for everybody, and like people say, oh, it's super kiddie and childish. It seems that way at first, but it's really not, just because it's upbeat and and funny at times and silly. There's a lot going on that can be pretty heavy. And honestly, if you want like emotional Pokemon episodes, there are episodes in the Sun and Moon series that are like gut-wrenching, especially compared to what you've seen in other Pokemon series. And definitely, I would say the saddest episodes I've seen were in that series. I also really I know it's polarizing. I liked the journey series, and I especially liked how they handled Ash and the World Coronation series and Masters 8 and all of that. The battles I thought were really good. I liked him going to different regions and seeing different Pokemon and not quite doing the same. That's the thing about the Sun and Moon series and the journey series. Rather than just like we were saying, the linear Ash collects eight gym badges and he battles in a regional tournament. It was a lot different. And Ash is doing different things. In Alola, you're seeing these same characters over and over, and instead of them just being one-off characters. In Journeys, you're seeing him interact with people he's already interacted with, going to places he's been before, going to new places, exploring Galar. So I really liked those series, and I know some people don't, but I really liked them. So I liked the direction Pokemon was going in very much in Gen 6, 7, and 8. I do not like the direction Pokemon is going in Gen 9, the series at all. And I don't know if that I don't so I love Ash. I know a lot of people don't like Ash. I have been attached to Ash since I was a little kid because I was four or five years old when he was on TV being my favorite protagonist. However, I don't think the series has to have Ash. I don't think the flaw is that Ash is not in the show anymore. I, when you look at the other media that Pokemon puts out, whether it be Pokemon Origins, Pokemon Generations, Pokemon Evolutions, or some of these shorts that they do, you know, Twilight Wings, things like that, those are excellent. And so, no, they're not a core series, but Pokemon can put out, you know, a TV show or a movie or a short series without Ash, and it'd be awesome.

SPEAKER_02 54:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:17

So the problem with Horizons is not that they don't have Ash. The problem with Horizons is it's not a good series and none of the characters are likable.

SPEAKER_01 54:27

And there's also this lack of like discovery, you know. Like, I I remember like in the original series, like some sometimes they'd go to you remember the ghost town that they went to? Like the old like mining town? Yes. There there were things like that where it's still in this established region, but it feels like such a unique experience from the other episodes, and you have this sense of like mystery and curiosity that you just don't get when all the characters know about every Pokemon there already is, you know?

SPEAKER_00 55:02

Like Yeah, and that's that's something that I think people miss about Gen 1 and what people tend to like about it is everything was new. All the Pokemon were new, everything about Pokemon was new. You were learning everything. The characters were learning everything.

SPEAKER_01 55:31

And they've tried to do that recently as well. Um I feel like Sword and Shield did that quite a bit, and I think that's something that I liked about Sword and Shield, is that most of the Pokemon you find are from Sword and Shield, not from other games. And, you know, you get further into it, and there are plenty of Pokemon from other games, but a majority of the Pokemon you're going to encounter are from Sword and Shield. Same thing in X and Y, another game that we both liked. They really focused on Pokemon that were from Gen 6 and not Pokemon from random other generations. So that's kind of it helped well end the narrative that this is a unique region with stuff exclusive to it and not just any other place, you know.

SPEAKER_00 56:15

And I think that's one of the weaknesses with Scarlet and Violet and thus Horizons the series. It's Pokedex, the Pokemon of that region are not great. Let's just be transparent. And I think that the Pokemon of other regions are by and large better. I mean, even the best Pokemon that most people like from Scarlet and Violet. Okay, whether that's Paul Day and Wooper, Claude Zire, you know. Uh Tinka Tink. People, that is, that is a new Pokemon. But a lot of the Pokemon either. It's hard to remember these names anymore, the new ones. But a lot of the Pokemon people like about Scarlet and Violet are just essentially regional variants, you know, whether that's Paul Day and Tauros, whether it's Toad School, you know, those are just Pokemon from another region and with a reskin. And I like them, but I don't think the Paul Dayan Pokedex is super strong.

SPEAKER_01 57:22

And so, you know I also don't think they were featured in a meaningful way. Like I'm gonna say like um Sun and Moon, I think they featured regional Pokemon in a very meaningful way. Um no matter what you were doing, there would be some kind of plot point relative to that. And there was a reason for them to be like that in that region, whether it's you know, Raichu having a surfboard and having a dual typing or like, you know, something else. Uh it's just not something that Scarlet and Violet really emphasized. They were just that way because they were that way.

SPEAKER_00 58:03

Well, and I feel like we've kind of lost you mentioned, you know, in Gen 1 some of these what we would call filler episodes, right? Gen 1 moved really quickly. If you go back and look how many episodes there were and how quickly he's going from one gym to the other, a lot of the so-called filler episodes end up being the most memorable episodes, and they are each like accomplishing a purpose of teaching you about this new Pokemon, uh, you know, that sort of thing. And Sun and Moon is the same type of way, and you get to see, like I was mentioning earlier, you get to see Rockruff and Lytton and Rowlett, you know, grow up together as like a family in a house setting, and you get to see, you know, Lytton is acting like a cat. How was a cat act like with a puppy Pokemon? You know, you're getting to see that in ways you wouldn't get to see that in other series. I just feel like I don't know. I don't know if Horizons is trying to do that sort of thing, but it's not working. And I I finally just got to the point where I was like, I can't watch this anymore. I mean, it's just it's a total waste of my time, and I just don't enjoy it. So, I mean, you could say, well, you're an adult, you shouldn't be watching it anyway, and that's fair. It's not for me, but as an adult, I don't I don't enjoy Horizons, and I don't feel like you're you're not, it's not like you're not watching these other series alongside it.

SPEAKER_01 59:34

Like you have very positive things about some of the new ones, and this one specifically falls flat for you.

SPEAKER_00 59:41

Yes, I am definitely not a oh, I'm a gen 1er on the animated series. I do think the original series might be the best or it might be my favorite. But to me, I see a lot of the series, you know, uh Gen 1, Gen 6, 7, 8, I see them as extremely comparable, and I have a very positive view of them. But I do not have Verizons, so please do something else, Pokemon, whether that's your other animation. But I also am kind of tired of Netflix having the streaming situation.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:21

And up until that point, super faithful to like the manga source material, really good. And then this last season that came out, they used a lot of like random CG that was like unfinished. They they put the first half of the series out as like at the same time instead of like trickling it, and then we had to wait like I think eight to ten months for the other half of the season. And it was I I don't know, they just don't handle things very well. For a while they were doing animated stuff super well, bringing on some like really talented people, but now they just kind of they're more of a producer, you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:00

Like they they don't and they don't even do that very well. Yeah, I feel like a lot of things Netflix has done over the last several years are not they're not good.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:12

They're like you if something was airing on Netflix, you would know that is airing on Netflix because it would be very well advertised, it would be very specific feeling to Netflix, very high quality, and I I feel like they've kind of been buying up way too many generic things and just kind of like left the more like more polished animations to rot that they have. They had a big initiative for a while to like really work on some high-quality animation stuff, and it's just kind of fallen off.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:52

Well, and I that's a topic for another day. Yeah, we could definitely talk about Netflix on some of these episodes, but that's you know, I feel like the art style of the Gen 1 series, and we're okay so um we had a power outage, so might have a little bit of hiccup in the audio here.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:16

That's okay. But we were at the very end of the episode.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:20

Yes, we were just about done with the episode. Uh just putting a bow on the thought we had. Uh anyway, I was saying thought the Gen 1 and Gen 6 art style was really, really top tier. And then uh while I think Journeys and stuff had pretty good art style, I think that what Netflix what we have on Pokemon via Netflix uh and some of these other the the style that these newer series have been in aren't quite as quite as good, but so Will, do you have anything you want to add about the state of Pokemon before we move into closing this episode out?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:05

I think I've said all I want to say for this one. Um I will say, uh completely unrelated. Uh if anyone has any like opinions or topics you want us to cover, um just let us know. Uh like to gauge what everyone's interested in, and hopefully we can we can make some stuff that people want to hear about and stuff that we want to talk about. Um we're aiming for Tuesdays, right? Every Tuesday release schedule. Um and we'll try to try to get those d out as regularly as possible, you know. Um if we had to have to pre-record them, we will. And um reviews. Gundam one upcoming in March, maybe second week of March, we'll uh we'll look at for the original Gundam series, and uh we'll have some exciting stuff for Pokemon to talk about. Uh I know one thing that we've been discussing is having uh a discussion about um uh you know, each Pokemon from specific generations. Um and that might be a multi episode thing, but Oh, his power went out again. So we'll we'll call that an episode for now. Um thank you guys for uh listening or watching, and we'll hope to catch you on the next one. Thank you guys.