The Pokémon franchise is beloved by many fans, young and old, including myself. As a longtime player of the Nintendo games, anime watcher and card collector, the nostalgia is something I hold close, as I spent much of my childhood curled up on the couch buried into my Nintendo DS with Pokémon “Heart Gold.” Despite its immense success and love from fans, the recent games have sparked discourse about Pokémon’s loyalty to its fans.
After its boom in the '90s and early 2000s, people all over the world adored “pocket monsters.” Specifically, the craze was referred to as “Pokémania” from 1998 to 2000. A second spike in the company’s popularity happened in 2016 with the creation of “Pokémon Go,” and sparked a second time during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
It has been difficult to pinpoint a single time when the franchise was at its “peak,” furthering the idea of Pokémon being so successful among all ages. IGN rated Pokémon “Heart Gold” and “Soul Silver” as the best mainline Pokémon games of all time, scoring 8.5 stars out of 10. The game sold 12.72 million copies, generating $763 million in gross revenue.
The franchise clearly formed a gold mine of an idea, and instead of capitalizing on the best parts of each game to build off on, they made a turn in the wrong direction. Although games should change a certain amount with each release, they should also improve in quality, something we have not seen from recent games.
Pokémon’s most recent mainline game releases were Pokémon “Scarlet” and “Violet,” which came out Nov. 18, 2022. Not even a month after the release, Pokémon had issued an apology to players for the absurd amount of bugs in the game and patched them up in an update. Currently, the game still sits at a low six stars out of 10, according to IGN.
The Washington Post had called the games’ graphics “historically bad” after previous releases had warranted the same issues after switching to a 3D game. The fans would agree for the most part, disappointed in glitches, unrealistic shadows in the game and poorly animated Pokémon sprites. As the highest-grossing media franchise of all time sitting at a hefty net worth of $92 billion, there is no excuse for poor quality.
Franchises similar to Pokémon have acted on fanbase backlash, a prime example being the reanimation of the “Sonic the Hedgehog” film in 2019. After the appearance of the first teaser, people were nothing less than horrified by the humanoid looking hedgehog the fanbase had known and loved.
After X, formerly known as Twitter, had its fun with memes circulating about the appearance, the movie got a reanimation for what went on to be a rather successful movie. Dedicated Pokémon gamers are hoping for the same to be done with future mainline games, despite receiving no acknowledgment of the game’s backlash other than a few patches for bugs.
Despite receiving similar comments online about the quality of gameplay, Pokémon still refuses to acknowledge its lack of effort in recent games. The franchise has the ability to partner with better game developers as well, as they have in the past for fantastic looking games like “Pokkén Tournament” and “Pokkén Tournament DX.”
Fans are insanely dedicated to the fantastical world Pokémon has created for them to grow up with. However, they’ve also been incredibly patient with the franchise and deserve a beautifully made mainstream game with a storyline resembling that of some of the first available games. A win for Pokémon game lovers is long overdue.
Abby Jenkins is a junior studying journalism at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnist do not reflect those of The Post. What are your thoughts? Let Abby know by tweeting her @abbyjenks18 or emailing her at aj205621@ohio.edu.
