Kai_Mao on 27 February 2019
| PAOerfulone said: You know that scene from Thor: Ragnarok, just before the climax of the film, where Thor is giving a speech to Loki about life being about growth & change and he's basically giving Loki crap for doing the same thing over and over again when he could be so much more? That's what Game Freak is doing with Pokemon. Replace Thor with Nintendo/Mario, and Zelda, and replace Loki with Game Freak/Pokemon, and that's why people are upset/disappointed, myself included. You look at Mario, Zelda, Smash Bros., and all of Nintendo's other 1st party franchises and they're constantly changing, evolving, and moving forward, trying to do something different with each entry in an effort to break the bar they set for themselves before. Sometimes, they'll fall flat on their face like Sunshine and 3D World for Mario, or Skyward Sword (although I love that game to death) for Zelda. But when it pays off, it REALLY pays off - (Galaxy and Odyssey for Mario; Breath of the Wild for Zelda). Those games didn't just raise the bar on their respective franchises in more ways then one, they SHATTERED them! That's the standard we are holding Pokemon too, because we've seen it now from many of Nintendo's other 1st party franchises. While Sword/Shield doesn't look bad by any means, it looks no different from what I, and many others have already played before. It's the same old shit! We've reached a point now where Pokemon is essentially like Call of Duty or FIFA. If you've played one, you've played them all. At the moment, nothing about Sword/Shield stands out to me that truly sets it apart from Sun/Moon or X/Y. HD graphics be damned. Whereas most, if not all, of Nintendo's other 1st party developers are trying to go above and beyond, Game Freak just seems to want to put in the bare minimum or just enough to keep people satisfied instead of really WOW'ing them. Just like Loki, Game Freak/Pokemon just wants to stay the same, while Thor/Nintendo is trying to grow. I remember I did a thread back in July/August 2016, when Pokemon GO was at the peak of its craze, and hype was building for Sun/Moon during the series' 20th anniversary, Pokemon seemed to be as high and as popular as it had been since the original phenomenon. In that thread, I asked if Pokemon had surpassed Mario as Nintendo's #1 franchise. And now, nearly 3 years later, I finally have that answer for myself: A big, fat, NO! |
Eh, its all opinion I guess. Factually, the Pokemon brand is the #1 highest grossing IP in the world, beating the likes of Hello Kitty, various Disney properties (including Marvel and Star Wars), Mario, Shonen Jump, and Harry Potter. Even on a relatively low expectations, Pokemon Let's Go sold about 10 million units in about 2 months. That's like saying prime Tiger Woods played his B game. Take that for what you will. We can argue who is the #1 Nintendo franchise till the cows come home, but its hard to argue that one completely eclipse the other or vice versa. I mean, would a proper Mario movie create hype that Detective Pikachu is garnering?
