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Transcript
00:00Last night on stream I watched the trailer for the new Pokemon game coming out this year,
00:05Pokemon Legends ZA, and I wasn't super impressed with what was presented.
00:11I wasn't sugarcoating it or pulling any punches, and my criticism of it drew the ire of many
00:17Pokemon fans.
00:19And as tempers flared, and milk spilt, juice boxes thrown to the floor in rage, unfortunately
00:26something tragic unfolded.
00:29I was excommunicado from the Pokemon fandom.
00:33They dubbed me not a fan of Pokemon any longer.
00:38Thus, it's not a game made for me, as I was just a hater.
00:42They cast me out from the continental of the Pokemon fandom, which is so fucking stupid.
00:48I like how just expressing that these games could and should be much better is all of
00:54a sudden just blindly hating on it just to be a scrooge.
00:58I'm gonna go over my thoughts on the trailer and talk about the things I think could be
01:02improved because from everything I've seen in the Pokemon Legends ZA extended look, it
01:07is a step backwards from the last Pokemon Legends, Arceus, which I was actually very
01:13positive and optimistic on.
01:14I hated Scarlet and Violet, like I still hate Scarlet and Violet, there's no amount of
01:19revisionism there that can convince me that the game was actually good, because it wasn't.
01:23That shit was insulting, it was embarrassing.
01:25And I stand by that.
01:26I also hated Sword and Shield.
01:28That game should have been one of their biggest leaps with the Pokemon franchise, and instead
01:33it was its most watered down and most barren.
01:36Somehow, they go backwards pretty often.
01:39Game Freak, I've said for a while, is just extremely lazy.
01:43They have what I believe to be one of the easiest jobs in the world where all they need
01:46to do is just copy and paste and fans will just clap for it most of the time.
01:50And yet somehow, they'll still find ways to fuck that up, like with Sword and Shield,
01:54where they just get rid of like half of the roster.
01:57Anyway, I'm getting off on a tangent.
01:59Point is, there are a lot of blunders here that to me make no sense, because Pokemon
02:05is the most lucrative property ever, like on the planet.
02:10So why aren't the games amazing?
02:13And why do the games oftentimes just feel exactly the same without any moving forward?
02:19Arceus was the first time in a long time I had actual optimism for Game Freak delivering
02:24a high quality Pokemon experience.
02:26And back when I reviewed it, I actually caught a lot of shit for being so positive on it
02:30because it did have flaws, but I thought all of the DNA and all of the groundwork laid
02:34a great foundation for what could be an amazing Pokemon formula going forward, and with Pokemon
02:40Legends ZA, I was expecting that to be improved upon, built upon, and be really impressive.
02:46But in this trailer, it feels like they just went backwards somehow, again, which they've
02:50done before.
02:51So I was pretty disappointed.
02:53Me critiquing these games and wanting them to be better doesn't mean that I just blindly
02:57hate Pokemon.
02:59I have been playing Pokemon games since the late 90s, well before the majority of you
03:03were even embarking on your zygotic adventure into this world in the first place.
03:09I am the furthest thing from just a blind Pokemon hater.
03:12I am just someone who wants the games to be as good as they could and absolutely should
03:17be.
03:18And I don't know why we have this extremely low standard where just doing the very bare
03:23minimum with this IP is all of a sudden serviceable and should be, you know, celebrated.
03:29Like oh look, Game Freak did the same thing again, yes!
03:33Anyway though, let me play you a clip from what I believe to be the laziest thing Game
03:38Freak has done ever from this trailer.
03:41And it's their Wild Zones.
03:44To help people and Pokemon coexist, the city has set up Wild Zones.
03:50These areas, located throughout Lumiose, give wild Pokemon habitats where they can thrive.
03:58To catch one of these wild Pokemon, aim carefully, then throw a Pokeball.
04:05This to me is a massive step backwards because now you don't even just have exploration going
04:12to different zones and biomes to find Pokemon.
04:15Now you just go into a city, go through a hologram, and you just see a couple Pokemon
04:21on the street.
04:22Like that one next to a car.
04:25What?
04:26Like how can you possibly defend that?
04:28That is beyond lazy.
04:30So now you just have the same fucking copy and pasted JPEG buildings and you'll just
04:34go through and then you'll see a couple Pokemon spawn and that's it.
04:38You don't even have the exploration.
04:39Now I'm sure the game won't just be Lumiose.
04:42At least, fingers crossed it won't.
04:44Fuck me in the face, turns out I was wrong.
04:47It's set entirely within Lumiose City.
04:50Wow.
04:51That makes me significantly more disappointed here, how your interaction with Pokemon in
04:56this game is exclusively through these Wild Zones, it seems.
05:01That is mind-numbing.
05:03I really think that is terrible.
05:07In my opinion, sucks major ass.
05:09I would even go as far up the food chain as saying it sucks kernel and maybe even general
05:14ass.
05:16It's just, it is watering down one of the most core features of Pokemon, which is going
05:22around exploring, going to different regions of the map and finding different Pokemon there.
05:28Here you just go through the city and just hit different Wild Zones that just put them
05:31in fucking parking spots like that Fletchling that was just posting up next to the car.
05:36Or there was another Pokemon, I couldn't quite tell what it was, that was just next to an
05:41umbrella.
05:42And one of the complaints I had in Pokemon Legends Arceus was you'd be exploring and
05:46then there wouldn't be many Pokemon that you could see because the draw distance was really
05:50bad and they couldn't spawn a lot on the screen at any one time so it felt a little empty.
05:55Well here, it has that same problem, but now you don't even have the exploration.
05:59Now you still have two Pokemon on screen, but they're just standing around in a really
06:05boring looking city.
06:07It'd be a lot better if you could leave Lumiose and I don't know maybe you can even though
06:11what I read says it takes place entirely in there so it doesn't seem like you can.
06:16But it'd be better if you could and like go out into the world and this would just be
06:19like the hub that also had the Wild Zones that would be a lot better, but it doesn't
06:24seem like that's the direction at all.
06:26So definitely not a fan of that and I really don't know how you can mental gymnastics an
06:31explanation for how getting rid of exploration and different biomes in order to just strip
06:39it down to just a couple of, well a couple, I'm sure there's gonna be tons of Wild Zones
06:44that are just again the city landscape with a couple of Pokemon sprinkled in there, just
06:49tiddlywinks of Pokemon placed around is somehow better than the exploration elements.
06:56I think it is just a massive downgrade.
06:58If you're having a hard time catching one, have one of your Pokemon use its moves to
07:03weaken the target, making it easier to catch.
07:09I just don't see how that looks like an exciting change.
07:12Maybe I'm crazy, maybe I'm on the stupid pills here, but fighting a Pokemon on a rooftop,
07:18cool one time, but not when all you have is battle a Pokemon on a rooftop or some streets
07:24or like an alleyway.
07:26That's lame.
07:27Like, I just don't, I don't see that as a positive thing at all.
07:32This game offers a style of Pokemon battling not seen in previous titles.
07:39Moves can have a longer or shorter reach or different areas of effect, so choose your
07:43timing and positioning carefully to gain the upper hand.
07:50Move your partner Pokemon through battles and dodge incoming attacks.
07:54Now this was a big change that people thought was very hype.
07:59I am of the firm stance it's not that hype, I'm sorry to say.
08:05Yes, the introduction of being able to move during the battles is nice because you can
08:09dodge attacks, and it seems like it's not just traditional turn-based, even though I
08:14like turn-based.
08:16It is a change for sure, but I think I'm a little more lukewarm on it than most people
08:22seem to be.
08:23This isn't like a, you know, call your grandma up just fucking, you know, hyperventilating
08:27over how huge this is.
08:29To me, this is what I would have expected more of because this is an extension of something
08:33Arceus introduced us to, dipping its toes in there with the boss fights.
08:37In Pokemon Legends Arceus, you might remember during the boss fights, you can move around
08:40during the actual encounter, you can dodge, then you're fucking throwing tomatoes at
08:45it.
08:46You're not actually throwing tomatoes.
08:47But you yourself are engaging with the boss fight and you're moving while doing so.
08:51And they took that mechanic and they're introducing it to normal Pokemon battles it seems, not
08:56just boss battles.
08:58Which I think is a solid direction to go, and I imagine it'll probably feel like a
09:01good quality of life change, but it doesn't feel like a completely new combat system for
09:07Pokemon that Game Freak has really went into the lab and they worked tirelessly night and
09:12day to reinvent Pokemon, you know, combat from the ground up.
09:16The gameplay has totally changed.
09:18It just seems like it's a nice quality of life feature that they probably should have
09:21had a long, long time ago.
09:24And it does feel like a tweak from Legends Arceus, which I think is good.
09:28And I wish they had done more of it, but it feels like instead of like building on Arceus
09:31or tweaking things from Arceus, it was more like stepping back from what they were exploring
09:34there.
09:35And this, to me, is a good change, but not super new.
09:41Like it doesn't beat the allegations of Same Freak just doing the same shit every time.
09:47It seems like they introduced something that will feel better, but I don't think it's
09:52going to be all that different or feel all that new.
09:56Now, in the trailer you might have also noticed that the moves appear to go on cooldown.
10:03That's also different, and it's what I meant when I said that it doesn't feel like it,
10:06or it doesn't seem like it goes like in a traditional turn-based system.
10:09And I don't know if that's necessarily even going to change it being pseudo-turn-based,
10:14because unless I'm misremembering, I didn't see any battle that was presented there that
10:19had two moves on cooldown at the same time.
10:22So it feels like you can use a move, it'll go on cooldown, but then you'll have to use
10:27another move or wait for that one to come off cooldown.
10:31I don't think you can go like, this move, then this move, and they both go on cooldown.
10:35At least I didn't see that in the trailer.
10:36So it feels like it'll probably still end up being somewhat turn-based, but I guess
10:40we'll have to wait to see more to see how that cooldown feature actually plays into
10:45all of this.
10:47And then another thing people were super excited for is they're bringing Mega Evolutions back.
10:52If you really liked Mega Evolutions, I'm sure you were probably, you know, stars in your
10:56eyes over the moon about that.
10:58But to me, again, it's not new, and it's not pushing it forward.
11:02It's just bringing back something a lot of fans probably would like to see be brought
11:06back with Mega Evolutions.
11:08But to me, again, this is still not like a massive leap for Pokemon games.
11:15To me, it feels like a step back from what Arceus was trying to push.
11:21And me saying that on stream, people were not super pleased with.
11:25But I just really think it's kind of inarguable.
11:29There's still no voice acting, which I think is going to be a complaint we'll be having
11:33for the next 50 years.
11:34I think at this point, it's just spite.
11:36I just feel like they're just doing it out of spite.
11:37We're not adding voice acting.
11:39We're not improving the visuals.
11:41We're not adding, you know, more Pokemon on screen.
11:44We're not improving draw distance.
11:46Suck our dick.
11:47Like, to me, it feels like it's just out of spite at this point.
11:50And I know people always point to hardware limitations, and yes, the Switch is very underpowered.
11:54Hopefully the Switch 2 fixes that.
11:55The specs that have released for the Switch 2 seem like it's going to be pretty powerful.
11:59But for the current Switch, yeah, it's barely more powerful than a calculator.
12:04But that doesn't mean that the games have to be like this.
12:07Look at Zelda.
12:08Look at Xenoblade.
12:09Like, come on.
12:11There is still so much you can squeeze out of a Switch that, for some reason, Game Freak
12:17doesn't for Pokemon.
12:19The most profitable franchise on the planet.
12:23Doesn't make sense to me.
12:24These games should be better.
12:26They could be better.
12:27People didn't like when I brought up this comparison, but I'm going to do it again.
12:30Power World has proven that this formula of creature catching has so much room for innovation,
12:36and that we haven't even begun to scratch the surface of what's possible with this genre.
12:42And Pokemon is just really content just cruising, going through the motions on idle mode, doing
12:48less than the bare minimum in many circumstances with this property.
12:53So yes, I know Power World and Pokemon, they don't play the same.
12:56They are very different games.
12:58But they do share very similar traits.
13:02And Power World did all of it better than Pokemon.
13:06Just I think full stop, Power World did everything better and ate Pokemon's lunch.
13:11And I just really hope at some point, Pokemon puts real effort into delivering a genuinely
13:18great game again, because it's been a while.
13:22Arceus has been their best attempt.
13:24People disagree with me when I say that, but I really do believe that Arceus was their
13:28best attempt at trying new things and actually trying to deliver a new experience with Pokemon.
13:36And with what we've just seen with Pokemon ZA, I feel as though they have now just abandoned
13:41that and are just going back to cruise control.
13:44So yes, I was not a huge fan of Pokemon Legend's ZA extended look.
13:50Hopefully as more comes out, maybe it looks better and better and I'm looking like a real
13:54fool because the game's stunning.
13:56It's actually amazing with so many cool new things added to it.
13:59But from what I've seen right now, it doesn't appear to be the case.
14:02That doesn't mean that I'm not a fan of Pokemon and just a hater of it or anything.
14:10So yeah, that's really about it.
14:11See ya.