This week, the Pokémon franchise turns 30 years old. In line with that, MeinMMO author Johanna took a look at one of her favorite games: Pokémon Soul Silver for the Nintendo DS. She concludes: The 4th generation is the best for her, and the franchise shouldn’t have added any more Pokémon afterwards.
When the Pokémon games were released on the Nintendo DS back then, I bought every game without exception right away. My pocket money had only one purpose: to be saved so that I could start the new Pokémon adventure.
Pokémon Soul Silver grabbed my attention directly in 2009: The remake of a game I hadn’t played before. Set in the generation I like the most: The fourth.
Recently, I dug my Nintendo DS out again to dive back into Soul Silver. Quite fitting to the 30th anniversary of the Pokémon franchise. While I’m wandering through the polished Johto, I remember why I love this game so much:
- In Pokémon Soul Silver, we can not only become the Champion of the Johto region but also of the Kanto region. This means the game offers a huge amount of content even after the actual main game.
- The Pokémon run after you. Admittedly, they don’t have a real running animation, but even those few pixels behind my character have a lot of charm.
Let’s get to the strong opinion in this article: I believe Pokémon should have ended after the 4th generation. For me, the peak of the Pokémon franchise has been reached.
The latest game in the Pokémon series is Pokopia:
Which Pokémon now?
What bothers me the most: Too many Pokémon! There are now 9 generations, each introducing over 100 new Pokémon. As of now, there are 1,025 Pokémon, which I think is at least 532 too many.
I also find many Pokémon designs no longer particularly creative. There is one Pokémon that is just a keychain.
Moreover, I simply don’t like having so much choice. I want a Water-type Pokémon for my team, yes, but which one of the many that can appear here?
Another possibility would be to allow only the Pokémon that are new in a generation to be included in a game to narrow down the selection. But then I’d rather play with my Luxray as my Electric-type, and that wouldn’t work. Also silly.
Furthermore, the distribution of types is not always consistent. In the 4th generation, for instance, there are very few Fire-type Pokémon.
Being a bit self-critical: I am fully aware that I am also wearing nostalgia glasses here, no question. However, I was also able to get excited about newer parts of the Pokémon series. Pokémon Legends Arceus was graphically a disaster, but I had a lot of fun with the new gameplay mechanics.
Ah, maybe it’s just because it took place in an earlier time in the Johto region. That could certainly be.
The new generations simply don’t cut it
I’ve played all the generations that came after the fourth, but I haven’t had nearly as much fun as with the fourth. The 5th generation with Black (2) / White (2) just had too much story that wasn’t even exciting. You were constantly being bombarded with unnecessary stuff.
The 6th generation made a good jump to the 3DS, but it made the game way too easy. A trend that seems to have carried through to the latest games. The simplicity of the battles sometimes ruins the fun for me.
For me, part of the Pokémon experience is also being completely overwhelmed by NPCs. Cynthia made me despair in 2007. That woman just had such an amazing team and brought me to my first nervous breakdown at 10 years old. When I finally succeeded, the feeling of success was all the greater.
Amidst all the complaining, I also have to say something neutral: I simply stick with the games that I enjoy. Right now, it’s Soul Silver, then I might play Diamond again. The newer Pokémon games are not for me, but that’s okay.
A somewhat opposing opinion comes from MeinMMO editor Niko Hernes. He believes that a major criticism of the upcoming game Pokopia is that not all Pokémon from all games are represented: Pokémon Pokopia is already better than Legends Z-A in an important aspect 3 weeks before release, but that’s still not enough
