Pokémon has always been weirdly behind the curve in terms of presentation. People were frustrated by how late they went full 3D and how long they were reusing sprites and sounds, and rightfully so.
I think some of why the GBA games are more fondly remembered is because the one time their visual ambitions and their underlying hardware lined up at all, short of the original games.
I’ve never heard a reasonable explanation for this, honestly. I’m hesitant to say it’s just greed or laziness. I bet the answers are way more interesting.
Myeeeeeh, I don’t know about that. Pokemon is deceptively late, given how rudimentary it looks due to being a GB exclusive. Blue and Red are 1996 games originally. Shin Megami Tensei had been doing monster capture and collection dungeon crawlers for a decade and six games by that point. Final Fantasy VII was less than a year away. Dragon Quest V and VI had done monster capturing and VI had “trainer battles” in an arena.
Pokemon was first to break big in the West and the idea of monster capturing as deck building is executed in a very particular way, but it was definitely pulling very directly from existing sources.
Pokémon has always been weirdly behind the curve in terms of presentation. People were frustrated by how late they went full 3D and how long they were reusing sprites and sounds, and rightfully so.
I think some of why the GBA games are more fondly remembered is because the one time their visual ambitions and their underlying hardware lined up at all, short of the original games.
I’ve never heard a reasonable explanation for this, honestly. I’m hesitant to say it’s just greed or laziness. I bet the answers are way more interesting.
The best explanation I’ve heard is that Game Freak just flat out refuses to ever hire new people.
It is worth pointing out that the first few generations were legitimately groundbreaking for mechanics as well.
Myeeeeeh, I don’t know about that. Pokemon is deceptively late, given how rudimentary it looks due to being a GB exclusive. Blue and Red are 1996 games originally. Shin Megami Tensei had been doing monster capture and collection dungeon crawlers for a decade and six games by that point. Final Fantasy VII was less than a year away. Dragon Quest V and VI had done monster capturing and VI had “trainer battles” in an arena.
Pokemon was first to break big in the West and the idea of monster capturing as deck building is executed in a very particular way, but it was definitely pulling very directly from existing sources.