Gonna play devil's advocate and say this move isn't the "business suicide" people are making it out to be.
It's gonna piss off the Pokémon diehards but Gen 1 is far and away the most iconic Pokémon generation overall to the wider public. It's still gonna sell, and kids will eat up anything with the name Pokémon on it. On top of this, the majority of people complaining about it are still gonna buy it because they're Pokémon diehards, and it's still the first HD, main series Pokémon game, and is STILL handheld as an option.
Personally, as someone who "fell out of love" with main series Pokémon games due to them basically just relying on new 'mons and new forms for old 'mons without actually making many meaningful advancements to the gameplay since about Gen 3 or 4, I would actually really like a Pokémon game that goes back to basics in terms of the Pokémon line-up and returning to Kanto if it meant they could really experiment with the gameplay, which is what the series really needs.
At the end of the day, it's the first HD, main series Pokémon game. It was never going to have the biggest line-up of Pokémon, and you'd be a fool if you thought they could design tons of new Pokémon in HD while also making HD models for old Pokémon. This game seems like it's going to be very much a stepping stone and will be very experimental. Personally, I really appreciate that thought. If how I'm feeling about the project is any indication, it will be the Sonic Mania of the Pokémon franchise - a game that aims to bring in people who used to love Pokémon, but fell out of touch with it, rather than solely appealing to the fans who buy everything with the name "Pokémon" on it already.
I see where you're coming from, but I gotta say I can't see it going down that way, even as a thought experiment.
Biggest reason is most of the innovative new whatevers have already been tried. If I'm the only person in the thread who's heard of Magi Nation, Azure Dreams, Robopon, or Dragonseeds, guess why. Wasn't because they were bad games (excepting perhaps Dragonseeds), it's because when it comes to monster training simulators Pokemon's explored most of the major mechanics already, so there's really just not that much you can bring to the table other than more monsters.
Pokemon's got tactical team-building and careful move, nature, and EV selections if you want to get deep enough into it, and it's had more than a few of those from day one. The stat spread for most mons is considered so that it fills some or another kind of niche, several have gimmicks or secondary purposes, and even figuring out how to make them evolve has a lot of variety to it. There's tiers, of course, with some doing it better than others, and legendaries typically beat all, but there's a wide variety of viable end-game mons.
That beat out Robopon's equipment loadouts, Azure Dreams' dungeon exploration and town building, Magi Nation's story-driven execution, and whatever Dragonseeds brought to the table. Outlasted every relevant Monster Rancher and Digimon game. It all looked shallow by comparison, because it mostly
was - it became
exclusively a series of big monster eats littler monster choices, so you just grabbed bigger and better things and hoped you could win out, and once you had the biggest and best things there was nothing left to do (in many cases, there was nothing left to do long before that).
There wasn't much in the way of specialization, there weren't cool ways to build things out or rewards for doing so besides bigger monsters and more EXP. Even the ones that included rudimentary RPS systems were just that - rudimentary. There were slightly different aesthetics and focuses, nothing more.
The only games in the market giving it a run for its money on its own terms now are Dragon Quest Monsters - if you still count it relevant off Joker 3's 2016 release - and Yokai Watch. After that you're basically resigned to mobile gachas.
You could argue that it's hard to compete with something as large as Pokemon, but I propose it's just hard to do it better than they do. And they're aware of that as well. You'll note that every time TPC wants to innovate in Pokemon, they go one of two directions - incremental mechanics on their base monster-training-RPG framework core (every current main series game), or a spinoff which introduces mostly new mechanics and existing characters but has no other relation to the primary series (Snap, Trozei, Mystery Dungeon, Conquest, you could put Coliseum here if you like). The former is careful to not break too many of the systems that give the game its tactical depth (though they'll break
some - see Mega Evolutions), and the latter can be enjoyed or dropped depending on what does and doesn't work without harming the core series in any meaningful way (Gates to Infinity may have been a disappointment coming off Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky, but Gen 6 sales didn't even slow).
Fact of the matter is, I get you might not find it exciting just because it retreads the old ground so many times, but so far the base mechanics have been very much "if it ain't broke don't fix it" and that's unlikely to be shaken up by anything, including a move to Switch. Not because they're concerned for the fanbase, not even because it needs a shakeup. Just because there ain't much else really to
do.
Give it a better story, maybe? A more compelling world to play around in? Sure, that's possible. Would be welcomed. I'd argue Sun and Moon did a respectable job on that front, but it still had enough familiar beats I'd understand if it wasn't enough on its own.
But you're gonna be training EVs and picking four moves and throwing balls in whatever this next game is just like you were in the last one. Even with the caveat that you were mostly running devil's advocate, I'm afraid I've got some bad news.
...weirdly, I missed this longer-winded back and forth. Obliged for drawing it out of me.
I don't find Eevee playable in Smash too likely myself. But that's more due to how to make its iconic gimmick work well.
That also.
More aimed tat the leaks as a whole with this, but they're setting it up between Pika, who had Yellow, has one evolution, and minimal versatility, versus Eevee, the literal Swiss Army Mon.
I've had my hand on the bull**** button from day one just for that, but I'll take an Eevee headliner if I'm wrong.
The fact that foxcat has about as much chance to get in Smash as
I do is only not common sense by merit of Jiggs' existence, which bumps it to an "incredibly unlikely" instead.
Holy crap... I just got accepted for a study abroad program I applied to that’s going to Japan. ;-;
After being declined once and not getting off the waitlist for another one, I can’t believe that it’s happened now.
Nice.
Grats man, keep us posted on your adventures there.
I have a tendency to give what I get.
It's not the most moral, but I draw my line where anuses draw theirs.
Hell even Mania kinda puts a bad taste in my mouth due to the fandom and I know full well the makers of that only had good in their hearts. A corporation going full pander for the sake of a few people that either are just certified nostalgia blinded morons or have wild illusions about the endgame of a purge that inevitably won't come true is entirely worth my frustration.
Everyone has constant freakouts about every little singular thing Nintendo does and they're perfectly justified. I have one place where I draw a hard line and a particular subfandom type that ticks me off to no end pretty much for constantly telling everyone that everything they love sucks because it wasn't like how it was when they were a child and I'm an overzealous, toxic fan?
Then hell yeah, I'm a ******* overzealous toxic fan. **** planet earth and everyone on it, **** everyone who ever lived and ever will and **** me too.
Oy now.
You know I'm a nostalgia blinded moron. I freely admit every part of that's correct.
But **** the haters, Cori. You love what you love, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Me?
Prank?
Since when?
GOD LEFT ME UNFINISHED!!!
