Daely Snack: No Hoenn Games This Year, Please

Warning, controversial opinion inside. Read the article instead of commenting right away, at the risk of whatever I can throw at you ;).

When I’m on the internet reading stuff about Pokémon, nearly the only thing I see are people screaming for Ruby and Sapphire remakes. There have been two remakes before, and it isn’t a far of a stretch that Ruby and Sapphire will see a glorified version for 3DS, too. They where both great games, with the best crafted region the games have ever seen. I can’t hardly wait myself for the games to release. But please Gamefreak, not this year.

Stop this annualisation of the franchise. Five games in the mainline series have been released in the past five years in the US. Annualisation is what is killing COD, it is what made Battlefield 4 such a hot mess and it might make the consumer grow tired of Assassins Creed too. It makes you rush out to release a game that year, just to make a quick buck, instead of wanting to make an actual good game. It makes you run out of ideas quickly. And you try to circumvent that by putting in ideas sparingly. You don’t want to make this one game the best, because you want the next one to sell.

Pokémon Black and White 2 and Pokémon X and Y are perfect examples of this. BW2 was just a recycled BW1 with a worse story. XY showed lots of potential but eventually fell short. Where’s the endgame? What is going on with that frame rate? I can understand you wanted to rush the game to save the 3DS, but the 3DS doesn’t need to be saved anymore.

Just take your time this installment. Try to craft the best game you can. Forget all this moneymaking shenanigans, and listen to Nintendo’s vision about games. “Make the best game you can, and it will sell by itself.” Make people love Pokémon again. I can take two disappointments, even three, but I seriously begin to doubt everything after four and will likely quit after five. And I might not be the only one.

I can wait an extra year to play the remakes. The same goes for XY2 and certainly for XY3. The 3DS’ life may not be that long anymore, but there’s no need to rush out to bring your ‘vision’ to the console if there’s no way you can completely fulfill it.

Pokémon doesn’t deserve to be milked out. Pokémon should maintain the quality of its livelong existence. Video games should be art, not a way of printing boatloads of money.