#pokeon usum

[nestlefox]

dw guzma gone back to his regular skin tone

[pikachu78109]

Feel free to drop by my Ask Box for any Pokémon headcanon requests! I can do up to three characters. When requesting, please be specific about what HC’s you wanna see.

I usually do not do any NSFW requests, because I’m not quite at that level yet. Some topics that I can do are fluff, angst (some), general, or personal.

My Ask Box is always open, so don’t be shy in dropping a request if you so wish!

[shiny-pokedex]

Who's excited for Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon!?

Jen and I both bought Ultra Sun! For those who haven't gotten a hold of the new game, who are you going to pick as your starter? Or if you already have started playing, who did you pick as a starter?

Anyone going to try out Monotype teams? Let us know!

[fullmetalpokespe]

WHAT THE SSSJSJSJSJSJS I’VE GOT 25+ NOTES ON MY “I’M EXCITED FOR USUM” POST THANK YOU GUYS AHSSUXHJWBCUC8CHUCBHUERCBHYCBYUCIDWK;MSL,QOWEJIKSM

[the-rainbow-mafia-blog]

Y don't u care abt UsUm?

// Short answer; because I feel Nintendo doesn’t either.

And now a long answer because I’ve been sitting on this rant for ages and I bothered the Discord server enough with it. I want to put foward first that the opinions expressed here are my own. I am a big fan of Nintendo and this is something that bothers me. This is no way shape or form an attack to people who love these games to bits. This is also not meant to hate on a franchise or a company. The purpose of this rant is to put some arguments behind my statements.

Sources are linked in the text. I used Nintendo but I always meant everyone involved in the making of these games.

The reason I feel comfortable sharing it now is because people have their, rightful, concerns about the upcoming games; Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield, releasing in a few short weeks for the Nintendo Switch. Nintendo’s newest and most succesful baby. 

Why doesn’t Nintendo care about Pokemon, according to you?

First we need to ask ourselves;

How much does Nintendo make on Pokemon?

While I do think they care in a sense the numbers won’t lie. Pokemon has made around $95 billion US dollars since the franchise came to life in 1996. To put it in a way bigger number; they make about 4130434782.61 US dollars PER YEAR on Pokemon. (This is my own math, I do not know the exact numbers per year. I divded their total by the amount of years Pokemon has been alive.) That’s a lot of money and it’s with right the most financially succesful franchise to date. 

Only a part is made by the video games $17.138 billion. It’s merchandise makes more; $64.1 billion.

I could not find a reliable source on how much it takes to make a Pokemon game in monetary value.  What I could find however is that Pokemon is making less and less per game they release. Without counting Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, Sun and Moon made LESS than X and Y.  

The only main series game that made less than Sun and Moon (again not counting UsUm) was Black/White.

Nintendo knows people will buy their games anyway;

Dropping sales or no, Pokemon still manages to fatten the piggy bank over at Nintendo because people will buy it anyway. The Pokemon craze of the 90′s should tell you that. People would buy it if it had Pokemon on it. Those people are now in an age group that has money to spend, hell some even have kids. So Nintendo is smart and releases commercials like this one or this one.  This marketing is beautiful (and no, not only Nintendo knows how to do this) because they play on your feelings. Who didn�� make a friend because you both liked Pokemon? And if you grew up with Pokemon like the person in the second commercial the whole feeling and setting is famillair to you, hell they could’ve casted you and it would’ve make sense.  They compare the whole bleakness of adult life, having to work to pay the bills, having less time for video games, to that warm familliar feeling of coming home and playing Pokemon. They feed on your nostalgia; your desire to relive those moments or if you have kids, to share the feeling those games gave you with your off spring. Or your younger siblings or other family memmbers.  I catch myself doing it! When a young one comes up to me, or I see a kid play the game on the bus I get that familiar feeling of ‘Hey I used to do that!’ It’s smart and it’s a thing Disney is good at too. It zooms in on what was precious to you and now resells that feeling to you. 

“Hey buy our game to feel something again. The world sucks anyway but Bulbasaur is still cute!” This isn’t a bad thing! Nintendo is a company and at the end of the day they need to make money. That is fair and I am in no way bagging on them over that. But it’s my belief that Nintendo keeps making money on the Pokemon games this way. Which leads me to my next point;

The Pokemon games come across as lazy.

Again, opinion but it feels like that. Which is also why I don’t care for UsUm; it’s lazy.

I truly believe Pokemon has some decent writers who don’t get their chance to shine. The beginnings of great stories and characters are there but it feels unfinished. Like someone bought the ingredients to a delicious dish but forgot to make them. Over the years Pokemon has a colorful bunch of characters, and the ones that stand out the most are the baddies. They usually get the coolest designs, the sickest themes, one way or another they are present in the climax but again. It’s lazy. How many of them pretend to be good or have a high moral standing and then turn out to be absolute dickbags? Almost all of them. Then they have characters (Ghetsis, Lusamine and Faba come to mind first) do something horrible (abuse of minors and playing God) and they get away with it what is basically a slap on the wrist. 

And after you beat them… for me the story stops. Yes you can go and beat some very powerful trainers and claim your title as whatever the thing in this game is and yes often that unlocks some post credit content but it’s bare. The big threat is gone.

“But,” I hear you say “It’s a DS/3DS game. There is only so much you can do.” Disagree. Phoenix Wright, Ghost Trick, Professor Layton and The Legend of Zelda OoT 3DS and Majora’s Mask all released on the same consoles and have a much richer story and even more characters. All games keep their pacing and the story really feels like it ends when the credits role. 

Then there is the overal quality. The main characters in Sun/Moon looks like someone forgot to progamme their soul in: /Screenshot take from THIS video/

I, again, easily could compare this other games who have much more expressions but let’s take one of Nintendo’s own;

There is so much more emotion in the Legend of Zelda one.  It released a few years earlier than Pokemon Sun/Moon too.

Second the frame rate drops like a hat. While some framerate drop is expected this much is a little too glaring to ignore.  To compare it to BoTW or Red Dead Redemption on the PS4, who both also have some frame rate issues at times it only happens in certain locations, usually a spot with lots of effects of NPCs. In my opinion, Pokemon does not have the luxery of that excuse. It would random drop in almost every location i was in.

The story

Every Pokemon has a story and I get that it’s basic. It’s a game for all ages after all. I get it won’t have a deep story like other games have. The basic gist of the game is to still enjoy catching all these mon’s with occasional story woven into it. But here is the thing that irks me; The little sneak peaks of story that we do get.. it’s good. It’s just so unfinished. It’s like there is a constant battle in the developers room betweeing writing a deep and interesting story (I’m not counting Pokemon Lore, just the story given in a game) and focussing on just the gameplay. There are many examples of rich story games with little gameplay (Grim Fandango, The Walking Dead, Almost every Visual Novel ever, Detroit; Become Human, just to name a few.) There are games with lots of gameplay and little story (Mobile games for example) and there are games that mix story and gameplay perfectly (Red Dead Redemption, Left 4 Dead 2, Persona 5 to name just a FEW examples) 

I feel Pokeon TRIES to be all three of these styles of games but ends up failing at everything.

Storywise they lured peopel in with Team Rainbow Rocket, like mentioned before this is for most people the reason they get drawn in; seeing their old baddies return and getting to interact with them again. It’s the same reason for me. But it feels unpolished, same with The Ultra Recon Squad. They seem like GREAT characters but again, so little is done with them that I feel there could be so much more.

Don’t change a winning team. 

Pokemon has been selling the same game to us for years. Again, I don’t blame them. Why bother. People like it, why change it? They try new gimmicks now and again and I respect them for trying. I personally like the Let’s Go Eevee/Pikachu versions. While they were FAR from perfect I can at least applaud them for doing something new and interesting. While at the same time trying to lure people who only played the mobile app into the main series by remake the first game all over again. Again, I understand. I would too if I were them.

But with Sword and Shield they are taking something away; Pokemon. And with that the whole thing comes undone. This is supposed to be THE Pokemon game, the big one, the game that will release on The Switch; home of BoTw and Mario Odyessy but also the upcoming Witcher 3, Skyrim. Games that are all much bigger than Pokemon and yet they took a vital part out of it.

The video is deleted now and I won’t link to the Chinese Bootleg game as it does steal user data, but the whole issue was the animations.  The animations in the bootleg were GOOD. And if we remember the amount of Pokemon makes per year they can afford themselves a team of good animators. This isn’t some indie studio who employs 20 people and have to live of Kickstarter donations, this is GAME FREAK, this is NINTENDO. And it’s not like they can’t, please remember Pokemon Stadium.  Look at the animation on that. Now remember that Legend of Zelda, Ocarina of Time, ALSO came out for the Nintendo 64 and got a beautiful update on the 3DS. If they can do that, surely they can port the animations.

And yes, I’m hearing you. You say that there are a lot of Pokemon.. but they’re taking a lot of them out of Sword and Shield. So there is no excuse for the battles to look like this. And remember this is the same console that has BoTW, one of the most applauded games in recent gaming history. A game with tons of content, tons of NPCs, tons of Items and has almost none of the issues Pokemon has.

I don’t care about USUM because it’s a lazy cash grab that adds nothing new to the table except some side story that doesn’t do anything to the main story. Play UsuM, Play SuMo, you’re basically getting the same game. Nintendo is smart and tries to sell you the same game twice due to a Pokemon being unique to a game. Meaning that if you want them all, you’re going to have to fork over 120 US dollars and guess what? That version is almost sold out where I live. So it’s working. And I don’t blame them. I am impressed.

Because I get the feeling that, with absolutely minimum effort they are forking in insane amounts of money.  Nintendo is a company. They need money. I don’t blame them for doing the things they do. I am however, entitled to my opinion and despite everything said above I will see myself getting a copy of Sword or Shield in the future. Because that is how it always is. Because I too, want to relive the moments of my youth when the biggest concern I had was chosing my starter.