Gotta Fetch 'em All!

Turning 16 years old next February, Pokémon has become a near-perfect definition of the word "timeless". I love Pokémon, having owned every handheld version of the game except for Blue and Black, and even a handful of the countless spin-off games to boot. Many see the franchise from the outside as for children, which is probably true at least for the animé series in the States (personally it ran dry for me halfway through the Johto saga) and maybe a few of the video games, but multiple surveys have pegged the average age of a Pokémon player at around 20 years old. Unless the term "teenager" decided to go away and college students were considered full-blown children, I'm going to have to respectfully disagree, but I digress.

The story of the average Pokémon game is as classic as the Game Boy handheld it started on. Young trainer receives his first Pokémon, travels around the region capturing and training other Pokémon and battling gym leaders, earning their badges, then proceeding to defeat the Pokémon League's Elite Four and Champion. Simple, yet effective, and no matter what region you're exploring, it's always fun to see what surprises lie around every corner in every new region in every new game. New Pokémon, new gym leaders, and new continents have always kept us coming back for more.

How long can this keep going on?

Don't get me wrong, it is certainly fun to see what kinds of new creatures Gamefreak comes up with every time and seeing what lies in store in each new continent, but the general formula for the typical Pokémon game is getting a little stale for me. When I played my first game, Red version, it was fun talking to the NPCs, running into wild Pokémon (besides Zubat), battling random trainers, getting interrupted by your Rival, and trying to catch all 150 Pokémon. Today, there are 5 pairs of corresponding games, which not only comes to a total of 649 Pokémon, but when playing through my new White version this past year, it was very predictable what and when everything would happen. I could see the conclusion of the game before I started playing, I could generally predict when and where my Rival was going to show up and battle me, and it had its own token rodent/bird/bug variation that would always be found in the first patch of grass, just like the last 3 generations of games.

Other features like awesome handheld tools (step counter, in-game clocks and timers, Vs. Seeker), the pop-out graphics, the animations added to the Pokémon sprites, and the now near-perfect Wi-Fi functions added into the game have made them very worthwhile and at the very least replayable to an extent. Still, I could probably tell you what is going to generally happen in the next predicted Pokémon "Grey version" or whatever the next interim version will be called. It'll have the same exact storyline as Black and White with one major difference in the plot involving a different legendary (probably Kyurem), making changes as necessary to emphasize it. Having the same predictable story being retold to us each time is kind of annoying, and it can possibly pose a problem if Gamefreak runs out of Pocket Monsters to generate or new features to create.

This is why I have very fond memories of the two 3D games on the Gamecube: Pokémon: Collosseum and Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness. They had nearly nothing in common with the handheld games other than the prospect of capturing Pokémon, but even that was different than the handheld games. You could weaken and capture opponent's Pokémon, but only ones that had been affected by an evil type of shadowy contamination, which would be cleansed through a purification ritual. Nothing like that had ever been done before in any handheld version, and it still hasn't been done to this day.

I'm merely spitballing here, but in my opinion, it wouldn't kill the developers to try thinking outside the box. The main handheld series shouldn't go away at all, but wouldn't you enjoy a Pokémon game where you played something other than a young trainer on their journey, like say, playing as the bad guys or as a gym leader? It doesn't even have to be like that even. A whole new world could be made where Pokémon are used as essential slaves, and you're a somewhat lone believer in them being mutually beneficial creatures that can coexist with humans. I'm just chucking ideas here guys. I mean, for the love of Arceus, this is Pokémon! It practically sells itself! Trying new ideas on the franchise shouldn't be that hard to do! (Making endless amounts of spinoff games doesn't count either. I'm talking the main RPG series here.)

With that said, I eagerly await something new from the people over at The Pokémon Company. I'm anxious to see some kind of new innovation in their handheld versions, and I'm eager to see a new 3D console game that isn't a glorified item shop (Battle Revolution for Wii wasn't all that impressive. Don't get me started.)

Also, let's see a World of Warcraft-esque MMO. It's almost 2012 and this doesn't exist yet. I'd say most of your fanbase and myself included agree that this is a problem. :)