Alright. I'm going to be 100% honest here, I actually really don't understand why the quality of Pokemon games always gets excused by everyone. Legends ZA has come out, I wasn't convinced if I should buy it, I watched multiple hours of gameplay and based on what I saw, have actively decided against buying it. I haven't enjoyed myself much playing a Pokemon game in the last couple of years (Legends Arceus being the only exception since the beginning of the Switch era) and this is the first time I'm actually skipping on a game. And it's been an absolute nightmare to openly talk about the reasons why or to openly criticize the game without instantly being bashed from all sides.
For some reason we put Pokemon to a completely different standard than every other gaming franchise. "It's good for a Pokemon game" "If you're a real Pokemon fan, then you don't care about graphics" "NPCs are always just standing motionless around in Pokemon games, what do you need more animation for?" "Pokemon games don't need voice acting - and it's too much work and too expensive for them to do"
Pokemon is the highest grossing franchise on the planet. By a mile. They have almost double the net worth than Disney does, a total revenue of 113,7 billion US dollars compared to Disney at 61,2 billion US dollars. And the Pokemon company is owned both by Nintendo, Creature Inc. and Gamefreak, it's not like the studio isn't seeing any of the money at all. And even if that were the case, there is no excuse for Nintendo to only invest a mere 13-20 million dollars into Gamefreak for a new Pokemon game. The costs for Legends ZA are the cheapest so far with only 13 million dollars, according to the latest data leaks. Like that's nothing compared to some AAA game titles on the market, where development costs can go from 50 to over 500 million dollars. Just this February TPC reported another record year of profit, with a profit growth of 38%. Yet Gamefreaks team remains the same size and seemingly refuses to hire people who actually know how to efficiently code and build a game.
Because this team still doesn't know how to do it, and I don't mean this as a blatant insult, according to the game code of Legends ZA, the reason why they so overly simplified the look of the entire city by using 2D textures for all buildings is likely because the entire city of Lumiose is one whole gigantic model being 100% fully loaded and rendered at all times. Which means even if the player is not actively looking at an area of the map, it's still there, it's still 100% fully rendered which must cost an immense amount of processing power, which is why for the game to still run smoothly they had to simplify a lot of the environment, instead of learning how to code for the game to only render what is currently visibly on screen for the player, like Breath of the Wild is doing for example. 23/10/25 EDIT: This claim has been debunked, the model in question was merely used for cutscenes and does not present the actual map [X]
Still, based on previous released titles, it has been obvious that Gamefreak is actively struggling to write efficient software and coding, resulting in immense performance issues and a low frame rate compared to any other Nintendo game such as Mario Odyssey or Breath of the Wild running smoothly on the Switch. It is not beyond reason to assume the immense simplifcation of Lumiose city is a direct result of Gamefreak trying to ensure a better performance.
And I don't understand why we just accept this level of incompetence. It's not only on a graphical level either, the games actively lose on details and gameplay mechanics with every new title, fewer and fewer parts of the world get exploarable, yet the price goes up. And we just buy it because it's Pokemon. We're not allowed to expect more because "It's Pokemon". What do you expect? This is great actually. It's great for a Pokemon game. There is this weird double-standard we hold for this franchise specifically, a complacently that Nintendo greatly profits of. Maybe we've simply grown used to this kind of quality. And maybe we're consciously putting a blind eye because we want the games to be good. We want to have fun, because it's Pokemon! We had so much fun with the games growing up, we want to have a positive experience with our Pokemon again!
And it's fine if you're genuinely still having fun with the games, more power to you. But the Pokemon Company has every resource imaginable at their finger tips to invest into a quality game and the marketing-tie-ins such as the anime could be working around this too to give the game developers more time. And fans are allowed to be disappointed and to expect more from the games. This is simply a test of seeing how low quality a game the company can get away with before they actually start losing money. And now they're manically patenting game mechanics since their lawsuit against Palworld, to stomp out any possible future competiton. Because they're scared what might happen if their fanbase realizes what kind of gaming experience they could be getting elsewhere, what might actually be possible if more resources and effort would be put into new Pokemon titles. (Granted, Palworld offers a different kind of gameplay than Pokemon aside from the creature-capture-mechanic, and yes, some of the designs are clearly infringements on existing Pokemon designs, but the measurements Nintendo is currently taking in this lawsuit are BEYOND reasonable:)
Some of these patents should not even be possible because you cannot actually patent a very basic idea, like Nintendo is genuinely trying to patent "summoning and battling characters", which is an incredibly broad concept and is used by MANY other games than Pokemon (most recent examples I could think of are games like Digimon Story Time Stranger or the recently announced Aniimo, but there are also other games who aren't specifically creature-capture-games that still SUMMON characters in battle)
It's actually technically illegal to patent concepts like these, but because of their wealth Nintendo might actually get away with it, which could bring unfathomable damage to the entire gaming industry. From my understanding of the patent laws, if this goes through then every future game that summons characters to battle with could get sued by Nintendo.
What I'm trying to say is Legends ZA may be good for a Pokemon game. And I'm glad if you're having fun. But it being good for a Pokemon game doesn't say anything about how good of a game it actually is or could be compared to other games you could currenntly be getting for a much lower price. And right now, Nintendo is acting incredibly scummy, doing everything in their power to eliminate any possible future competition, not just Palworld specifically.
Listen. I love Pokemon. And I don't blame you if you already bought the game and like it. But I'm tired of Pokemon being beyond criticism and any criticism being put aside with a "people just love to hate on Pokemon games". There is a good reason why "Pokemon fans are the biggest haters of Pokemon games" as the community says. It's because they care about the franchise and want to see it at its best. People don't just blindly hate every new release, most of them are frustrated at Gamefreaks inability to actually meaningfully evolve and the fact that they're unable to keep up with current industry standard. And I don't mean "evolve" as in completely changing the core gameplay of Pokemon or having hyper realistic graphics. I think "good" graphics is overall a confusing expression in the community, because "good" graphics doesn't equal "realistic" graphics imo. It doesn't have to have anything to do with the level of realism (speak RDR2 or Grand Theft Auto), but the art direction as a whole and the level of immersion you're being offered through elements such as atmospheric lighting and a certain level of detail in the environment, to make it feel vibrant and lived in. The Pokemon world as we see it in-game right now simply doesn't feel lived in. It feels stale and empty.
Pokemon fans are allowed to be disappointed and to wish for something better than what they're currently being offered. We have actively lost more gameplay in forms of mechanics, mini-games and engaging exploration than we gained with every new Pokemon title of the last decade, yet the price for each game keeps going up. By now you have to pay a solid 100 bucks if you want the full experience of Legends ZA. 70$ for the base game and 30$ for the DLC and actually let's not forget about the mega stones that are locked behind the Nintendo online service, that's another couple of bucks to get them all. And I'm sorry, but for the quality you actually receive with Legends ZA, +100$ for a game is simply an unacceptable price.
If you have not gotten the game yet, I'd recommend to sit this one out, I'm certainly skipping it. From my experience what drives our purchases the most right now is nostalgia and the fear of missing out, as everyone else is getting the game, which I can relate to. This is what made me buy Pokemon Shield back then, even though I had already cancelled my preorder and ended up having a terrible time with that game. And if you have bought Legends ZA already and like it, I don't blame you, it's not like the game doesn't have ANYTHING fun to offer. But in my opinion the price is completely unjustified and Nintendos behaviour towards competitors unacceptable. If we keep buying the games, Nintendo will actively dictate the market and be the sole provider of creature capturing games. So if we actually want the games to improve, the only way we can accomplish this is by drawing a line and skipping future Pokemon titles. A very tall order to ask of the pokemon community, I know, but please consider it. Support the competition, look into games like Digimon, Aniimo, Palword, ect... And draw attention to the unjust patents Nintendo is trying to push through right now.
No game company should be able to hold this much power.
