actually wait bc I’m the “really autistic about pokemon dev” guy and I assume stuff is way more well known than it is. do people Know that each Pokémon game is based around exploring a specific theme? usually a set of them represented by the legendaries of each game but also often a single more encompassing theme? the only partial exception are the original games which mostly explore themes that are in every piece of Pokémon media like nature and the spiritual and it coexisting with human advancement for both good and ill but like they didn’t know they’d get more games at that point so it makes sense. while light on plot at least initially pokemon games have always focused on telling stories through world design and player experience that explore diverging central themes and I think it’s neat. it is however a big reason as to why there’s some really baffling cuts in certain features (it’s why oras don’t have customisation for example) so swings and roundabouts but like. i do kinda respect that tbh. (of course the main reason is that everything I’ve been able to find about modern Pokémon development suggests the dev team are given very limited time on relatively tiny budgets for a game with the scope of Pokémon and have to deal with some baffling management, which is also true of game development in general, but it’s partially very weird artistic integrity)
