| BlowoverKing said: Honestly I play Pokemon game not because I want to have a relationship with my Pokemon but because leveling up my Pokemon and collecting them is very fun. It would be WAY too hard to make meaningful relationships with so many different creatures that can't really communicate with you by speaking to you. Especially if the system they use is like the social link system in Persona. So in that regard I think Pokemon is fine the way it is as far as interaction with the Pokemon themselves. In my mind training, breeding and capture Pokemon is enough interaction but I'm fine having my pokemon be a part of the story or character interactions. Where I find the games really lacking is in story and characters so thats why I'd rather them start focusing on those to elements. Rather than trying to give 700+ Pokemon set arbitrary personalities. And as far as what I said about the games being made more with older kids/adults in mind I don't mean them making the games have adult themes like sex, violence, drugs or bad language. What I meant is that Pokemon usual has really basic stories with very basic dialogue so that young kids can understand. The games can still be rated E but they would have a more complex storie and more meaningful/varied dialogue. |
I don't think it would be difficult at all to create a system allowing the player to form meaningful relationships with Pokemon without them talking. The Pokemon anime, for all its faults, proves that. Each Pokemon there has a distinct personality and many of them even progress as characters, while the Pokemon you have in the games have absolutely none of that. I get that you enjoy collecting and leveling up your Pokemon, but creating a system that allows the player to form tangable bonds with their Pokemon makes much more sense in a series that revolves around having friendships with Pokemon than wasting that effort on human characters that aren't the main point of the game.
Currently, Pokemon are nothing but tools used to progress through the game. Being that they are the titular component to the franchise, giving them realized personalies is anything but arbitrary, especially when the NPC already have ones.
While I don't see why they can't do both, I don't think that I could ever take a Pokemon story seriously when the Pokemon are described differently than how they function. Every game has a story where Pokemon are being abused in some way, and it's difficult to take that seriously when they function as tools in the games. Unless the plot and all of the characters outright condone the use of Pokemon as tools, which it never should or will, I don't see the story ever feeling deep or meaningful. Pokemon will always be refered to as creatures you are supposed to form an intimate relationship with - it's the whole reason mega evolutions exist. I just can't see how Pokemon can ever successfully attempt a deep and complex narrative with deep characters with such a glaring hole to that goal.
I don't play Pokemon because I want to build a relationship with my Pokemon either, but I wouldn't play any game to form relationships with the characters. Still, if I wasn't able to form relationships with the most important characters in the game, which in Pokemon are the player's Pokemon, I'd feel like that game failed to properly engage me in that way. I've been able to suspend my disbelieve before when the Pokemon were just 2D sprites, but it becomes more difficult with every iteration.
