Pokémon is no longer just a game – it's a lifestyle | Hacker News Reader

Pokémon is no longer just a game – it's a lifestyle

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49 pointsBrajeshwar67 comments

> For a franchise to retain relevance for as long as Pokémon, it must evolve

But why? You could literally show reruns of the same late-90s anime to kids and generate the same hype. They have no idea that the episodes are almost as old as their parents. You could probably even give them Pokemon Red / Blue and they would probably enjoy it as-is, even if the graphics aren’t up to par with modern games.

> You could literally show reruns of the same late-90s anime ... the episodes are almost as old as their parents.

See also bugs bunny cartoons, which are almost as old as their great-grandparents.

If you figure 25 years per generation, then it looks like the first Bugs Bunny cartoons are older than an 8 year old's great grandparents. Only one more generation to go until copyright expires! Of course any version someone will actually be able to obtain will be retouched with a renewed date. So maybe one day their grandkids will be able to freely share a copy from a VHS.

Those old cartoons are great. I was born in 1998, but most of what I watched as a kid was from 1960 or earlier.

It’s bit weird/curious to think about but I watched Moominvalley (90s series) when I was a young child. The “IP” is of course Finnish. Then when I was older I watched Pokémon. Only recently did I notice and find out that they are both Japanese anime. (I mean that Moonvalley surprised me)

When I was younger they showed Marvel cartoons for stories that were written 20 years before hand and the cartoon was created 10 years before hand. I showed some other kids the original comic book for one of the cartoons they refused to believe me that it was that old even though the comic book had a copyright notice for that year. "But I saw it on TV yesterday morning" was their reason for why the copyright notice was wrong.

You need to show them the copyrighted date at the end of the credits. Till you find you've actually been time travelling and it was actually created this morning.

Because the audience extends beyond children. The people spending big money on Pokémon are adults who grew up on it. Now they are in their prime earning years.

Remakes like Let’s Go Pikachu have sold well.

My sons are both (well one more than the other) heavily into Pokémon, and will quite happily flit between episodes from the first season and the latest ones without missing a beat. The sheer number of episodes across the whole series means it'll be years before they even see every episode once... and they haven't even got into the RPG yet!

and the newest games keep getting worse and worse. barely playable junk and people still buy it like crazy, sad

I totally agree. Pokémon should have stayed 2d same with Zelda. Crystal was the epitome of Pokémon but emerald was also pretty good.

I think it’s a matter of execution, not format.

I quite liked the 3D concept, it was pretty awesome. What I don't like is the shitty graphics and limited content.

Why do you think that Zelda should have stayed 2D? Some Zelda games, such as OoT, Majora's Mask and BotW to name a few, are considered to be some of the very best games ever made.

I’ve played every Zelda game and I’d rather replay A Link to the Past than any of ones you mentioned.

I've played every 3d zelda (most of them more than a decade after release and several playthroughs), and bounce off the 2d games every time I try.

Both are good, but I don't think either is capital B Better.

To some extent it probably depends on where you started with the games. I was about 6 or 7 when the original The Legend of Zelda came out. I had well over a decade of playing Zelda games before OOT came out, I was in college at the time. If I had been a kid when OOT came out then that, or one of the other 3D games, might have been my favorite.

I could never get into those. All the 3d Zelda games are not Zelda they are something else. Not saying they are bad, but they aren’t really Zelda.

The most memorable Zelda games are 3D though. Ocarina of Time, Majoras Mask, Wind Waker, Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom, Twilight Princess etc…

I think if you asked most Zelda fans to list their top 5, you’d get a majority 3D representation

Pokemon Arceus was very nice, actually.

I agree with all the games coming out in the "classic" line of Pokemon though.

The game was such a technical mess I couldn't get passed it, even though I thought the new gameplay was decent.

Agreed, I enjoyed it throughly. Even with poor graphics, was a lot of fun! The new mechanisms are great innovations for future games

One of the very few games in the past decade, which I can refer to as “actually got significantly held back by technical limitations of the host platform”. Same with Pokémon Scarlet/Violet and Shin Megami Tensei 5.

I am not picky in terms of graphical fidelity or anything like that, very happy to play older games, even those that don’t run that well. But I had to straight up step away from SMT5, despite how much i was excited for the game, because it felt like I was controlling a blob of pixels at under 30fps most of the time. While pokémon games i mentioned above had slightly more stable performance, Arceus was the most lifeless and depressing open world i’ve seen in a very long time.

Which is such a shame, because you could obviously see the devs tryng to evolve the pokémon formula in an exciting new direction, only for it all to be squandered and met with criticism due to not necessarily the fault of the devs, but the host platform. And that’s why I am upset about Switch being so weak. Would gladly play more games on it, but it is extremely unappealing when even a lot of the top tier AAA exclusives look awful (exceptions apply, e.g., zelda games), have lifeless worlds, and cannot even run at stable 30fps.

I am not asking for PS5 tier graphics or anything like that. I am even willing to grind my teeth and forego 60fps. But ffs make it at least a stable 30 and let the world of a game (Pokémon) that is supposed to be full of “wildlife” and nature not look like it was annihilated in a nuclear strike the day prior to the events of the game taking place.

At this point, i would only count first party mario-universe type of games to be not held back by anything (and maybe Zelda, but you can obviously see how the devs had to push it to the max of what’s even technically possible with it). And that’s pretty much how Switch ended up just as a “mario- and party- game machine” for me.

I was surprised with how little the Pokemon formula has changed over the past 20 years. Despite all the advances in graphics and such the core gameplay loop is still catch Pokemon and play rock paper scissors in a turn based battle system. Any new mechanics like mega evolutions seem to be just gimmicks that don't carry forward to the next gen.

Frankly the graphics are also kinda garbage and uninspired. They've been getting away with putting out crap for years. Kind of a shame.

To be fair, the rock/paper/scissors battle loop has 16 (17? Fairy type?) different types with many combinations to build a strategy on. This is why platforms like Pokémon Showdown exist, the "catch and train and breed and battle" loop is too tedious for my adult self.

I appreciate the battle system but the mainline games themselves were primarily designed for a younger audience.

> too tedious for my adult self

What? You don't want to breed 100 pokemon in the same lineage to get one with the perfect (hidden) EV/IV stats, attitude, and moves? How lazy!!! At least do it for 8 pokemon so you have one good team!!!! Get off your ass mate. /s

Yeah I can't believe they thought this was a good idea lol. Glad they are making the system easier. But way too japanese games have grinding mechanics just for gear.

Agreed, I feel like it's a hold over from when games were shorter and they had to add tedium to artificially lengthen the game, and since people were used to it they just never removed the tedium.

> I can't believe they thought this was a good idea

I don't think they originally intended to make players minmax entire teams, but to give an edge to those who spent some time training and breeding the right way.

Anyway, most people I've met who played at tournaments either admitted (privately) to using hacked Pokémon or denied it while blatantly using a full perfect IV team with some shiny. (I've think they're cracking down on hacked teams harder now, though.) So I think anyone still grinding for their dream team is actually doing it for fun.

Minmaxing in almost any game is excruciatingly unfun though, it's not unique to Pokemon. I can't think of a faster way to kill the enjoyment of any game than to try to minmax.

Minmaxing in RPGs is kinda expected and pretty fun.

I am thinking:

1. most bioware games

2. most fromsoft games

3. RTS games

4. tower defense games

5. bethesda games since morrowind

Minmaxing there is a natural outcome and often makes the game funner (because otherwise the difficulty is a lot).

Don't you just level up as high as possible in bioware or bethesda games? Not what I would consider "minmaxing". Skyrim is fun because I can get everything to 100 at whatever pace I choose but there is no "min" involved there for the most part. I haven't played one in a while but there really isn't an incentive to keep your level low in those games. There's only "maxing" with no "min".

Souls games have the community agreed level cap of ~125 for PvP matchmaking, so minmaxing makes sense here - but there barely ever any RNG involved in making a Dark Souls build and you just level up and beeline for the things you want while playing the game "normally" (beating levels and bosses, sunbro'ing to get additional XP along the way, etc..). That said, there's an argument to be made that when ignoring the multiplayer aspect that getting to level 300+ to beat NG+7 is way more fun than minmaxing a 125 build and trying to beat NG+7 that way (my preference, of course).

If there was additional RNG involved with weapon stats or anything like the EV/IV system in a souls game I would never play it, for sure. It's simplicity is what makes it amazing. It's why I hate the bloodgem and chalice dungeons in bloodborne, despite it otherwise being my favorite souls game.

RTS and Tower Defense games I'll give you, since the meta strategy is efficient resource management and maximizing damage to obliterate your opponents with as little resources used as quickly as possible.

You aren’t forced to play the game like that though.

You run out of things to do fast if you dont.

There are eighteen Pokémon types. Initially fifteen, dark and steel introduced in generation II and fairy in generation VI.

Besides the technical problems, I had a lot of fun with violet. I really like the game, which makes the missing polish even sadder. Though I haven't bought a new Nintendo game in years. I only buy used, because I don't want to directly support these development cycles.

What I just can’t understand is why pokemon go is not made into a full-blown game? Like, it literally could be the most popular game ever, if only they would take the logic out of one of the nintendo games, and implemented it for pokemon go. It is popular enough as is, but it would literally be a killer combo, and they already have all the logic/datatables/animations/license in place. It might hurt the sales of nintendo hardware, but you would target at least an order of magnitude more customers with it. Add some pay-to-win elements (e.g. full restore could also be bought with real money), but also make them drop, but rarely in the game and you will have insane profits.

But to just throw balls at pokemons, is just a disgrace to the very well made original games.

Perhaps you missed Pokémon Let’s Go (Pikachu/Eevee) on the switch which was Pokémon Yellow with Pokémon Go style gameplay

But Pokémon Let’s Go doesn’t have the real world component that Pokémon Go has. I think that is what the parent was talking about.

Too much control and influence for an American company I expect.

Japanese companies have some behaviour that may seem odd, naive or lacking the best of capitalism, but they are what they are.

Nintendo regularly get this sort of criticism.

The game is also a data collection tool for Niantic, rather that to be a great game. Someone would have to give up control to change it all.

> Like, it literally could be the most popular game ever,

The most popular game ever for next 25 years? They have been making and remaking the same game(1996) ad infinitum for longer than Google(1998) existed. They are not going to need that kind of a quick exit path.

But it shouldn’t have to be an exit path. It could be a game+community in one go, that forever produces profit. Bit like wow and stuff like that, but much more popular.

I honestly enjoyed Pokemon Arceus. It has a 3D open world game and there is a fun mechanism of throwing the Pokeball. I think they found a great formula for future games. The graphics are somewhat disappointing at times, but it's so fun. Hopefully future versions of the Switch will be more powerful to play 3D open world games.

It's a kids' game.

Super Mario is also a kids game and those games run flawlessly with nice graphics and innovative gameplay.

Kids like to play good games too.

Evidently they also play bad games. Idk why it matters.

PokéTsume sounds like dreary corporate propaganda, like when your boss keeps comparing your Agile software dev team to a sports team. Pokémon was inherently individualist adventure fantasy for kids, because kids are the last people who can be themselves in Japan[0]. Even the famous song "Omoide wa Okkusenman"[1] deals with this as a theme: the freewheeling individualism of childhood compared with the rat race of adult life. PokéTsume is like "Plug yourself into the system and be a good little corporate drone, and you'll have adventures just as fun as those in Pokémon!" Which is just... no. They are not the same. Everybody being good little drones is why Japanese society has stagnated.

[0] Japanese anime and manga often have a theme of kids being powerful, but they lose their powers upon reaching adulthood with an implicit expectation that they "set all that aside" and become productive members of society.

[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Lsj0mY13t9s

I got back into Pokemon collecting for a bit during the pandemic, like many others . And boy it showed how fun and awesome collecting the original cards were in the late 90's/early 00's. Then with the 25th anniversary, they did a great job marketing it with special releases and a lot of hype!

I also went to a Pokemon TCG conference in Toronto last year, and it was amazing! There were around 10,000 people there. People of all ages, parents and kids, older collectors. It really showed the longevity and cultural brand power of Pokemon!

Somewhat related, Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast just had an episode with the original creator of Magic: The Gathering:

> Since bursting onto the scene in the mid-1990s, Magic the Gathering has become one of the most popular games of all time, with millions of players collecting cards to battle each other in an imaginary fantasy realm. But Magic's early success came with a problem: the price of the game's most powerful and rare cards surged along with its popularity. Eventually, Magic's creators worried that the game would become too expensive and was at risk of becoming a short-lived fad. So, how do you pop a bubble in collectibles without completely alienating collectors? In this episode, we speak with Richard Garfield, the creator of Magic the Gathering, and Arka Ray, a long-time game developer at Microsoft who's now CEO of Richard's new gaming studio, Popularium. They talk about the surprising parallels between MTG and central banking, what they've learned from Magic, and how they're applying those lessons to Chaos Agents, Popularium's first new gaming launch.

* https://omny.fm/shows/odd-lots/magic-the-gatherings-creator-...

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hfi4_o_8Uxw (audio-only)

Heh, I can remember the signs "there are -no- Pokemons inside this building".

I don't remember this at all, and I played all of the games from Red/Blue to Crystal I think. Was there shortages of cartridges or something in some countries?

It was about the Pokemon Go game.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Go

i think they're talking about pokemon go, where people would wander around like zombies and enter into places that may or may not want them there to "collect" pokemon

Ah, but it was not like zombies! It was actually a very social phenomenon. I played during that summer (2016?) after not thinking about Pokémon for 15+ years. It was "dumb" but it was cool to have a shared mission, however arbitrary, with so many others. Coworkers pooling money to buy lures, strangers on the street recognizing what you were doing and pointing you the right way wishing good luck, massive groups in city parks.

You are correct that respect for private property or business purpose was likely violated by Pokémon Go players. But "zombie" is not a good description.

Sometimes I wonder. Did nobody end up someplace they shouldn't have been as kids/teens/young adults, even without Pokemon Go leading them there?

I was just looking at my phone while walking down the street, not even playing Pokémon Go, and a group of people on the other side called out and said, "Hey, there's a Poliwhirl just up the road there." I felt like I had entered into a new, bizarre, wonderful social reality.

I was a bystander to this, but I was always amused to see flocks of doting grandparents (I presume) with clipboards of 2-6 phones in the park by my house during school hours...

More Consoomers than Zombies.

It sounds more like a Pokemon Go related warning from just a few years ago... people were wandering into all sorts of places where they shouldn't have been, trespassing, sometimes even getting injured or killed, just looking for Pokemon.

Back when that was new, some dark part of me imagined a future of mobile gaming where hoards of kids were running amok playing wildly active games with other players that we muggles could not see.

I didn't want to see any kids get hurt (which would probably happen due to the complexities of navigating multiple realities at once--you have to dodge the bullet and the shopping cart), but I really wanted to see Walmart security be overrun by kids who were mostly trying to ignore them. I just like chaos.

Oh; I thought this had to do with schools curtailing or even banning trading Pokemon cards and playing the Pokemon TCG for various reasons, some more arbitrary than others.

*Pokeymans

I played the original Pokémon Red and Blue on Game Boy as a kid back in ~1998. In that decade, Pokémon was seen as a media franchise for children and young gamers.

Little did I expect that in 2016, the smartphone game Pokémon GO would take the world by storm and became popular with a very wide audience. It was heartwarming for me to see people 20, even 40 years older than me learn the same Kanto species that I did ~20 years earlier and to experience all the adventures and wonders of the world of Pokémon. To this day, I see people young and old incorporate PoGO into their commutes and walking routines. PoGO has made it crystal clear to me that Pokémon is not just a game; it is a lifestyle.

Best pokémon games lie in romhacks: Polished crystal, Radical Red, Brown+Prism, Unbound, Light Platinum...

In order to apply IPS patches on Linux/BSD, get IPS.pl, run it with

    cp baserom.gb baserom.gb.bak

    perl ips.pl baserom.gb thepatch.ips

Now baserom.gb has been patched. Baserom.gb.bak it's the old one.

Honestly, growing up, I never got into Pokemon.

But now, by virtue of my young son being so enthusiastic about it, I end up, at my age, learning about it and even reading articles about it on HN!

I guess it really is a testament to its longevity.

Nah, it's a game.

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