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This Week in Games - Pokémon Hits The Big 3-0

This has officially been the hardest TWIG for me to cover. Not because of the Pokémon Presents, but because I was laid up with a rather nasty flu the entire week I was writing this.

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This has officially been the hardest TWIG for me to cover. Not because of the Pokémon Presents, but because I was laid up with a rather nasty flu the entire week I was writing this.

Damn you went all out despite that.

Hope you’re feeling better.

And while I echo a lot of the criticisms that folks have towards the Epic storefront, they're right about one thing: Steam's 30% revenue cut is outrageous.

So? That is the exact same figure as Nintendo's cut on titles in their store.

But you're right. They're both too high..

As for Wind and Waves, surprising they're going immediately on the Switch 2 instead of doing cross generation for a tad longer. I guess the Switch 2 sales have them confident of people buying it.

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And while I echo a lot of the criticisms that folks have towards the Epic storefront, they're right about one thing: Steam's 30% revenue cut is outrageous.

So? That is the exact same figure as Nintendo's cut on titles in their store.

But you're right. They're both too high..

It doesn't help that Steam is about the only reliable PC sales platform; GOG is reliable for older titles, sure, but Steam has the momentum of its massive install base and tons of capital.

Now, Sony closing the barn doors after the cows get out isn't going to help them if they don't actually put games out; their past seven years have infamously been squandered producing too many live-service games (many of them getting cancelled mid-development). While Sony does have some exclusive titles, they're few and far between. Really, Sony should've started hitting the pavement with non-live-service games the moment Astro Bot hit it big.

The real question is why Pokémon X D was chosen before Pokémon Colosseum; Colosseum was the first original Pokémon game on the Game Cube (it also has a very dedicated fanbase). Heck, I had assumed it was already on the NSO+ service, even! I can only hope it's added in the future.

So it's here that we can talk about the starters! We have, left-to-right, Browt, Toby Fox Pombon, and Gecqua.

Bad news: after about a decade, LET IT DIE is shutting down its online servers. But the good news is that an offline version of the game will still be available to play, and anyone who owns a current copy can acquire the necessary DLC to prep for the offline version.

Ultraseven famously introduced children to the "Capsule Kaiju," a team of friendly monsters that the United Science Patrol could call upon if Ultraseven was ever in a pinch.

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Ultraseven famously introduced children to the "Capsule Kaiju," a team of friendly monsters that the United Science Patrol could call upon if Ultraseven was ever in a pinch.

As someone who watched Ultraseven not too long ago I feel the need to fedora tip and mention that it's only Dan, a.k.a Ultraseven himself, who uses them.

But man, they were used way less throughout the series than you'd expect. Something like 6 times in total. And uh, they never really that much help either.

And while I do think that the earlier eras of Pokémon involving tidbits of Japanese culture were a factor in their time (early episodes of the anime touch upon Hinamatsuri, Children's Day and Tanabata), I don't think that was enough to maintain the franchise—especially since the games have long since begun basing their regions off of other countries worldwide to consistent success.

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And while I do think that the earlier eras of Pokémon involving tidbits of Japanese culture were a factor in their time (early episodes of the anime touch upon Hinamatsuri, Children's Day and Tanabata), I don't think that was enough to maintain the franchise—especially since the games have long since begun basing their regions off of other countries worldwide to consistent success.

I do miss the early gens of Pokemon when the franchise and anime especially felt Japanese and had all those kinds of references and culture baked into it in addition to Japanese-only format media like Drama CDs and stage plays. These days Pokemon seems very unrecognizable, and almost feels like Sonic where the international branch has a huge say in things. My hot take would be maybe things shouldn't last 30 years if it means they have to lose their soul and identity in exchange for doing so. The first five or so gens will always be special to me but seeing the franchise being the mass marketed and carefully curated state with all its edges sanded down just don't do it for me anymore.

In that regard I can say G.I. Joe at least has that over Pokemon. The original remains timeless and what fans flock to and what gets focused on while all the attempts to modernize and reboot it have been instantly rejected by the fanbase. God help us if we had to actually live with that new Snake Eyes continuity they tried to push on us because it was successful like what happened with Pokemon Go being the global hit it was. Dodged a bullet there.

Well, let's break this down.

Arguing that the allusions to Japanese culture were "the heart and soul" of the games doesn't quite work because even though Kanto was based off of the greater Tokyo area and Johto was the larger Kyoto area, that doesn't mean much for the games outside of a handful of girls in kimonos in Ecruteak City. Even the original Kanto games didn't have much in the way of real-world allusions outside of a smattering of references to real-world animals and a reference to the Lunar Landing or the Columbia shuttle, which aren't inherently Japanese either. The references to Japanese holidays were in the anime--popular enough to border the mainstream, sure, but also a unique continuity to the games. (Ash isn't Red, Gary isn't Blue.) For anyone in the U.S., the episode with Ghastly and the festival was just Ghastly crashing a coastal festival and Ash and Misty dancing in kimonos for a bit. If we're going by the notion that somehow these references were the "heart and soul" of the games, then the modern games are still better on that front because they're so much more open about presenting the local cultures and traditions that inspired their specific regions: Galar and the United Kingdom's football culture or history of Punk fashion. Alola and Hawai'i's native traditions based in tribal leaders. Lumiose City's metropolitan reconstruction, a la Parisian reconstruction--and the headaches that came from it. Unova and the architectural wonder of Manhattan's many bridges. Remember, the sense of wonder and discovery isn't just for people in America--it's also for kids in Japan, to whom these traditions are old hat. Luaus are just as exotic to kids in Japan as Hinamatsuri is to us.

There's also how leaning into Japanese tradition would've been an obstacle for Pokémon as a franchise abroad (specifically, the rest of asia), since a lot of countries have laws about Japanese propaganda (see: Korea). So leaning into exclusively Japanese culture not only limits what they could do in the first place, it limits where they could sell their own games. And that's where we get into the whole issue of "It would be better if this thing loved by millions all over the world that's inspired generations and brought joy to so many had actually died years ago because at least it would've maintained 'ideological purity'," whatever that means and whatever that's good for.

I dunno, feels weird to look at a series about discovery and sharing and go, "Would've been better if they only discovered these specific things."