There's More To Pokemon Than Just Battling

 

            God-fucking-dammit. GOD-FUCKING-DAMMIT. Every time I make a post, EVERY TIME, I think I should be good for a while, nothing should come up, but as soon as I hit that “post” button more fucking thoughts come into my head. I had this idea for a post before but just never did anything with it but the whole Yakuza thing from last post got me thinking. If, IF they can fill this city with small minigames and shit then maybe, MAYBE I’ll be interested.

            I want to do more things in the world of Pokemon. I’m tired of battling for the sake of battling, I’m over it, I’m old man. I’ve been the best that ever was so many times. Let this champ chill and retire, please dawg. Somewhere in Knights of the Old Republic 2 one of the surviving Jedi says “…traveling across planets, killing hundreds, only to become stronger. Why do you think that was?” I think for a lot of people at the time it made you take a step back and question what you were doing, I know I did. Even though I was playing light side and was more or less defending myself or cutting down villains it didn’t change the fact that I only got stronger through acts of violence. The whole point of Pokemon, mostly, is to battle, win and see what your Pokemon evolves into. As I get older though I don’t WANT to subjugate my Pokemon to dog fights, I want to be able to do other things with them. In Legends Arceus it made more sense, you were in the wilderness, defending yourself, so I was okay with that. What’s my reason in Legends ZA to use my Pokemon for battle? I just watched through Pokemon Concierge and a Hoppip evolved simply because it was so god-damn happy.

            This was on a wish list post of mine a few years back. I would like them to branch out with Pokemon and do like Pokemon Sports or something. So in this town, in this city of Lumiose, there could be a sports complex sort of place where you can play tennis, a batting cage, fuckin’ whatever, bowling, basically if it’s in Wii Sports/Resort then it can be here. I don’t know what indoor sports complexes have to offer. Kahili is a professional golfer on the elite four in Sun and Moon so they have sports in this world, let me do that. Again, it could just be a small thing, a side quest/mission that isn’t part of the main story but it’s there and I’ll just happen to spend all of my time there. Kind of like with Assassin’s Creed 3 how there’s a story to complete but all I want to do is play with the boats. Wasn’t Kukui a pro wrestler in Sun and Moon as well? I don’t know how you’d do it but let’s do some wrestlin’! There could be an arcade with the actual Pokemon Pinball game from ’99 in it! That would be sick. Could be some kind of clubs to go to where we can play guitar hero like rhythm games. It’s Lumiose, based on Paris, so we could have some cooking minigames or make patisserie for Pokemon. Fishing derbies, bug catching contest, there’s a million things we could do.

            I’ve been playing these games since I was a kid, I’ve grown up with Pokemon and I just thought we’d have some semblance of the anime by now. Something that shows some form of coexistence and not just NPCs standing in place, something other than battling. X and Y are one of my more favorite generations so I want to enjoy this game. I’ve mentioned before the ad for Pokken Tournament and Sun/Moon felt like Nintendo, Game Freak, the Pokemon Company, whoever, were like “we see you older fans, Pokken is for you, for the kids, Sun and Moon,” which I could get behind, and I feel like that was kind of the same vibe from the recent Pokemon Day stream. There was Pokemon Champions, which looks like they’re response to some bootlegged, probably illegal Pokemon game I’ve seen around before, but it also looks like something that is for the people who are really into THAT aspect of the game. I have some friends? acquaintances? that would be all over that. So the hardcore battlers get Pokemon Champions and everyone else gets Legends ZA. I’m just not hopeful that ZA will be for me. You know, it’s fine if it’s not, it’s like I said recently about Monster Hunter, Wilds may not be the one I really want to play but I will play it and I will have some enjoyment from it regardless so maybe ZA will prove me wrong but only time will tell.

            Okay! Seriously think that should be the last you hear from me for at least a month unless I run into some crazy shit in Monster Hunter. OH! Assassin’s Creed comes out soon! Shit! I’m sure there’ll be nothing to gripe about there… okay… until later times. Bye-bye. Oh yeah, comment me your thoughts on my thoughts. Please and thank you. Bye-bye.

            (Before posting this I came across this video and he makes some good points. For one, the game I was thinking of that I thought was similar to Champions is an unofficial game called Pokemon Showdown. Two, he makes the same point that I had made for Ghost Recon Frontline, that Pokemon Champions could be THE multiplayer battle game and any future mainline game could be its own entity. That way in say ZA they don’t have to worry about making Pokemon balanced for PvP and PvE. I imagine in a Scarlet/Violet style game we’d still have a multiplayer aspect, I can’t imagine them NOT having some form where you could battle your friends. Also they could add less Pokemon to a PvE game instead of trying to put absolutely EVERY Pokemon in each game. Okay. Bye-BYE.)

            (Addition after posting: It would be nice if because of Pokemon Champions we got some actual end game content for mainline games. THAT is something I truly want.)

            @AztecSauce