AcademicSaucer
Member
poor kids
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Pokemon's #1 problem is its utterly insipid writing
- Thread starter Huge Succeeded
- Start date
poor kids
I'd like to see the franchise return to its roots of having a real douche for a rival, I remember not caring much about the story and the like, the idea of facing the trash talking rival you had and beating him just to make him regret facing me was motivation enough to my kid self to keep on going forward with the game
and to spend time power leveling my monsters just to be sure to win
Leatherface
Member
In my day we didn't need any stinkin' stories. We just played our games and liked it. Also, get off my lawn!
OP kinda has a point though as Game Freak of late have be scaling back on the difficulty and make the game so easy to play that the players doesn't get lost.
I mean in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire they straight up give you an legendary Pokémon for free attached with its mega stone, no other Pokémon games does that barring X and Y with Lucario with his Mega Stone.
I mean in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire they straight up give you an legendary Pokémon for free attached with its mega stone, no other Pokémon games does that barring X and Y with Lucario with his Mega Stone.
Doctor Ninja
Sphincter Speaker
I don't think telling a good story is what GameFreak is aiming at with the series. The series' main focus is collecting Pokemons throughout the varied areas, clear dungeons, defeat other trainers and competitive play.
Nights Owl
Member
I'm 22, and I don't really have a problem with the writing in Pokemon. I never really have.
I don't feel like the game talks down to me in any way either. It's a simple story. I don't really have a problem with that.
I think that's where I'd disagree the most. What you find to be stupid due to simplicity, I just feel like it's how it is, so I'm not going to put anymore serious thought into it.
When has Pokemon had genuinely good writing anyway? It's got a simple story, in every game. I think it's just how it's going to be. Like the TV show. From the first season to now. It's horribly simple... and it always has been. It's quite obvious gamefreak intends to keep it that way considering it's been that way for years.
Now, I understand the frustration with it. I love Adventure Time and Regular Show, and they do great. But I just think that not everything needs to be that same way for adults and kids to enjoy it.
Adventure Time and Regular Show are.... TV shows... Pixar Movies are... Movies. They RELY on you watching and listening to them to like them. Pokemon is a game, and I feel like it has different goals because of that. Story was never a huge point of Pokemon. It was the Gameplay, Music, Locations and the Adventure. (At least in my opinion)
So that's my thoughts on it I suppose. Sorry if you think it's a dumb or poorly thought out reasoning.
I don't feel like the game talks down to me in any way either. It's a simple story. I don't really have a problem with that.
I think that's where I'd disagree the most. What you find to be stupid due to simplicity, I just feel like it's how it is, so I'm not going to put anymore serious thought into it.
When has Pokemon had genuinely good writing anyway? It's got a simple story, in every game. I think it's just how it's going to be. Like the TV show. From the first season to now. It's horribly simple... and it always has been. It's quite obvious gamefreak intends to keep it that way considering it's been that way for years.
Now, I understand the frustration with it. I love Adventure Time and Regular Show, and they do great. But I just think that not everything needs to be that same way for adults and kids to enjoy it.
Adventure Time and Regular Show are.... TV shows... Pixar Movies are... Movies. They RELY on you watching and listening to them to like them. Pokemon is a game, and I feel like it has different goals because of that. Story was never a huge point of Pokemon. It was the Gameplay, Music, Locations and the Adventure. (At least in my opinion)
So that's my thoughts on it I suppose. Sorry if you think it's a dumb or poorly thought out reasoning.
As someone who generally dislikes children, it's interesting to see so many posts say that talking down to children is okay because they generally won't know they're being talked down to. Not even that Pokemon is intended for the very young, I get that. But posts that amount to "they're children".
SilverLunar
Member
To me going up through the ranks is fine as is, the bad guys conflict doesn't amount to be more than a side quest that is being forced to main game.
My opinion though!
They don't talk down to children in the Pokémon game. The assertion that they do is not based on any fact here.
Not true. You're just older. The writing back then is on par, if not worse since they had to fit in a lot less characters in the boxes.
I seem to recall one of the older games, either blue/red or gold/silver, literally advertising this on the back of the box.
JimJamJones
Member
Who the hell plays Pokemon for the writing?
Better writing would be cool if they could pull it off. I'm thinking about how rad Avatar: The Last Airbender was as a coming of age / friendship story and how well that'd fit into Pokemon. Honestly though, I've been pretty content just mashing the A button through the story bits in the Pokemon games ever since Red/Blue.
Hot Coldman
Banned
You're not wrong, OP. For some reason I don't give a fuck when I'm playing, but you're not wrong.
HawthorneKitty
Sgt. 2nd Class in the Creep Battalion, Waifu Wars
The same people that play it for its natural difficulty?
Kowashitai
Banned
I don't know, I found Fantasy Life's writing to be exhausting to read after a while and the writing combined with the large amounts of fetch quests just made me stop playing. Pokemon isn't any better but I feel like Yokai Watch might have been a better comparison.
Gen 4 and gen 5 had really good story and Game Freak pour a lot of detail into creating the region lore and backstory.
This was absent in gen 6.
PhoenixFyre
Member
Shooting down counterpoints as "shitposting" in the OP is a great start. And then calling the same counterpoints the usual Nintendo thread stuff? Kind of difficult to have a meaningful discussion when you try to downplay opposing views before anyone can even make them.
As for the actual quality of the writing, they clearly feel that they are doing just fine writing and scripting these games for the younger audience. It sounds like you're complaining that they're not doing the Disney/Pixar thing of throwing a bone to the parents who have to sit through the media their kids consume.
Considering parents typically don't sit there and watch their kids as they play video games, they probably don't see a reason to waste time and money doing that. Seems like a sound business decision to me.
As for the actual quality of the writing, they clearly feel that they are doing just fine writing and scripting these games for the younger audience. It sounds like you're complaining that they're not doing the Disney/Pixar thing of throwing a bone to the parents who have to sit through the media their kids consume.
Considering parents typically don't sit there and watch their kids as they play video games, they probably don't see a reason to waste time and money doing that. Seems like a sound business decision to me.
None of that seems insulting.
Also in terms of quality writing examples, Minions the movie about those gibberish Yellow things is one of the top 5 grossing animated movies of all time, beating much better written movies like Toys Story 3 and Finding Nemo.
So I'm not too sure Kids really care for a better written Pokemon game.
So I'm not too sure Kids really care for a better written Pokemon game.
You could open a book and educate yourself, you know.
All Japanese women sleep in the bottom left kitchen cabinet, the one bedroom goes to the child (because of Japan's One Child Policy) and Fathers sleep at the office because they are also all capsule loves hotels.
This is kinda cliche but the real story in Pokemon is the one you come up with about your journey and how your catches grow with you.
I agree that the writing could be stronger to facilitate this. Black/White is probably the closest the series has come to good writing and that's solely on the back of flirting with the idea that the series is fucked up conceptually and a crazy twist right at the end.
I agree that the writing could be stronger to facilitate this. Black/White is probably the closest the series has come to good writing and that's solely on the back of flirting with the idea that the series is fucked up conceptually and a crazy twist right at the end.
Visualante2
Member
If I were in charge of a franchise like that I'd be scared of making changes for fear that it would ruin the success they have had. Has the writing changed much in the past 20 years? When I was playing Red I found it to be quite well written when supplemented with the anime.
I'm still holding out for the day when they do a splinter series of Pokemon aimed at teens or young adults. Something darker.
I'm still holding out for the day when they do a splinter series of Pokemon aimed at teens or young adults. Something darker.
I thought 5 was pretty lackluster. I thought it had a decent premise that Pokemon are basically slaves, but the people who claim that also use Pokemon as "slaves," so the story made no sense at all.
JimJamJones
Member
Nights Owl
Member
I disagree with the Gen 4 thing. I thought that story was extremely bleh. I have *not* played any Gen 5 games though. Only Gen I haven't played.
So, my bad. ;u;
But theyre not even talking about LGBT rights or the Anthropic Principle! I need to be able to point to something concrete so I can tell Dad that Im not wasting my time playing this game marketed for children, instead of getting a job.
Y'all, theres nothing wrong with playing Pokemon and taking it for what it is at face value. Stop tying yourself up into knots self justifying. Its just a simple RPG with cute animals that fight each other, and everyone adores it for what it is. It doesnt have to be about The Meaning of Life
Not really, no. This comes across as fairly inoffensive as far as writing aimed at that age group goes. We're talking about a group of kids that lose their shit over emotive characters like "Minions" that don't actually utter any comprehensible dialogue.
It's also an RPG. Like, I get that you want this to be an "all ages appreciate" kinda thing, but these games don't have the same luxury of something like Toy Story which is a focused product. These games come out every two years and have to churn out tons and tons of dialogue that then get grinded through an English localization.
Children aren't retards. While children might be able to enjoy trash quality writing, that doesn't mean the quality of the writing for children needs to be crap for them to understand it.
Have you played the recent games? You already go through a judicious quantity of dialogue before picking a starter in X and Y.
I don't think anyone here is advocating for more dialogue; if anything, the copious amounts of unskippable text are what exacerbates the sub-par writing.
Sgt.Pepper
Banned
yes
I wish this was known and understood more.
Fbh
Member
Sure I get that. I'm just saying that being targeted at children shouldn't be an excuse for having bad writing.
I think that, as someone already posted, the fact that Gamefreak's goal isn't to tell a story but rather to focus on the collecting and battling of pokemon is a more valid explanation than "it's aimed at children"
br0ken_shad0w
Member
You can tell that game was rushed like hell. It went off downhill after the fireworks display/
ColtraineGF
Member
I haven't experienced any dialogue that I remember that talked down to you, the player.
The dialogue is mostly kept simple, but simple is not stupid/insipid/what-have-you. Complex ideas can be presented just as easily in a sentence of 3-6 letter words as they can in a 10-minute cutscene.
The dialogue is mostly kept simple, but simple is not stupid/insipid/what-have-you. Complex ideas can be presented just as easily in a sentence of 3-6 letter words as they can in a 10-minute cutscene.
No, I'm not.
No, it's not.
Yes, you are.
No, it doesn't.
No, you don't.
I mean, I totally agree that POKéMON does not have 'good' writing, and I would love it if better writing were introduced to the series, but you are massively overstating its importance to the franchise and also being pretty hyperbolic and preemptively aggressive. So I get the premise of what you're saying and agree to an extent, but not at all with how you say it and how important you think it is.
( Semi-related; I was going to make a not entirely too serious thread on how I think POKéMON type naming makes little sense to me but am now afraid it will be taken as something serious and negative. x3 )
MistaBowaa
Member
Pokemon's writing has charm to it. Not everything needs to be Shakespeare.
Exterminieren
Banned
Over everything else, I'd call Pokémon's writing functional. It's rarely actively bad, but it's very often bland- Black and White does occasionally make stabs at profundity, but boy oh boy, that's significantly worse.
Comparisons with passive media like Adventure Time and Toy Story are misplaced, though; their primary expression is through their writing, whereas Pokémon's is through the gameplay. This is not to say that they shouldn't improve it, or that there isn't significant room for improvement, but the comparison isn't a fair one.
Fair's fair- the idea that Team Plasma's mostly made up of hypocrites is pretty explicit in the text. The only one properly committed is N, and he releases his Pokémon throughout.
Comparisons with passive media like Adventure Time and Toy Story are misplaced, though; their primary expression is through their writing, whereas Pokémon's is through the gameplay. This is not to say that they shouldn't improve it, or that there isn't significant room for improvement, but the comparison isn't a fair one.
Fair's fair- the idea that Team Plasma's mostly made up of hypocrites is pretty explicit in the text. The only one properly committed is N, and he releases his Pokémon throughout.
evilromero
Member
Totally disagree of course. The number 1 problem is they're just not that fun to me. I could tolerate it when it first released. But by the third generation I had enough. Playing the demos for the recent games, it doesn't seem like they've changed enough to pull me back in.