I Love You, Pokémon, I Do, But My God I Hate You Sometimes
- Dec 11, 2016
- 4 min read
Like many others around the world, I've been enjoying the latest adventures in the Pokémon franchise, Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon (review coming soon). Now, I'm a big Pokémon fan, really big Pokémon fan (proof here and here), but in recent years the series has really begun to annoy me. In fact, I'd go as far to say that there are some aspects of Pokémon that I literally hate.
Every Pokémon generation has had their fair share of monsters that were just a little bit too on the stupid / unimaginative side, and that's fine. Not every single generation is going to have every single one of its new Pokémon be an instant fan-favourite. My two favourite generations, Generations 1 and 2, had Exeggcute, a Pokémon literally consisting of multiple eggs, and Stantler, which was pretty much just a deer, respectively. I'd consider neither of these Pokémon to be stupid, but more on the unimaginative side. However, enter Generation 5 and we really see things begin to go down-hill.
There's no point dancing around it; I'm going right for the jugular: Trubbish and Garbodor. To the person who drew this up during development: are you sh**ing me? I should have known back then that this was going to be where things started to really decline. If you aren't familiar with either Trubbish or Garbodor, allow me to explain. They are trash bags. That's not a metaphor, either, they are actually trash bags. Look:
I could not believe my eyes when I saw this for the very first time. This is the series that has created such interesting characters as Pikachu, Hitmonlee, Gyarados, Mewtwo, Entei, Suicune (pictured above on the left), Lugia and Lucario. Each one of them interesting and instantly lovable. But this? This is just a bag of rubbish.
Thankfully, Trubbish and Garbodor were the worst of the fifth Generation, and I even found some Pokémon I actually liked like Reshiram and Zorua. The next two Generations were far worse, and for more reasons than just their new Pokémon.
I liked this one.
Enter Pokémon X and Y in 2013. The mainline series' first full leap into 3D. No more 2.5D camera angles and overly pixelated character sprites! Besides the leap into 3D, what else was there going for the (then) latest additions? For me, nothing. We started to get more bad Pokémon. We had a Pokémon based on cotton candy. We had a Pokémon based on a keyring. We had a Pokémon based on perfume. But my issues with Pokémon X and Y didn't end there.
In addition to offering the smallest amount of new Pokémon ever introduced in a generation (72), and having a notable number of them be just plain bad or boring, the generation's evil team, Team Flare, was just weird, the legendaries were merely OK, and the whole story was dull. I actually dislike Pokémon X and Y, and not just in comparison to other Pokémon games. I mean, I actually don't like these games.
Move forward to now, to Generation 7, and things are looking quite a bit better in Pokémon Sun and Moon, but the remnants of the series' last outing still remains. Imagination is visibly lacking, now more than ever.
The thing that pains me the most, however, is that there are a number of Fakemon (the word the fanbase uses when referring to unofficial Pokémon created by fans) that look genuinely impressive. Some fans even go as far as creating interesting backstories, methods of evolving of them and entire evolution lines. These are the people that need to be working on the main games. Not whoever brought us this:
Why can't these designs just be purchased? That way the fan can get his/her creation in the game, their name in the credits and some money in their pockets, the development team doesn't have to spend months coming up with designs that people might not even like in the end, and fans get introduced to some amazing new characters. That's not even mentioning the level of community that would be felt between fans and developers. Just look at the level of talent that can be found on DeviantArt:
Though Pokémon Sun and Moon are actually good games (I've sunk about 50 hours into Pokémon Sun so far and I'm not finished yet), there are still so many things that irritate me. None more than Team Skull, though. I cannot fathom how on Earth the development team thought "Yeah, they look cool. They're sure to go down well with fans." Seriously, a team that walks everywhere rapping and acting 'gangsta'.
What irritates me is that there's no reason why Team Rocket, the series' most famous team, couldn't appear in another game. They were the main antagonists in both Generation 1 and Generation 2, and they were a decent, non-cringeworthy team. In my opinion, the series doesn't need to have a new evil team operating in every single region. Bring back a fan-favourite instead making one nearly all of us dislike.
I would love to see a stronger emphasis put into making amazing, unique monsters, rather than rushing out shoddily-made Pokémon. I love you, Pokémon, I do, but my God I hate you sometimes.
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