Where Did Pokemon Go Wrong?

[Papasmurf]

While Pokemon Sword and Shield have gotten good reviews (not saying much when Fire Emblem Fates got good reviews, and they're usually agreed to be other than in gameplay), most long-time Pokemon fans agree that the these games were the bottom of the barrel in even modern Pokemon's standards, standards set by those cashgrab UltraSun and UltraMoon games that barely did a thing different from their predecessors and were just glorified DLCs essentially.

So where exactly did Pokemon go wrong? Even though Pokemon had humble beginnings as an expansion of Tajiri's concept of collecting and trading bugs through the link cable, the Red and Green versions were a big enough hit that we soon saw a third version distributed to magazine readers, multiple manga and an anime franchise only a year after the games were first released. And they were as big of a hit in the US and elsewhere as they were in Japan, with popularity rivaling or even surpassing the likes of Yu-Gi-Oh! and Dragon Ball. Gold/Silver/Crystal kept up the games' uphill rise in popularity with a hundred new Pokemon and were well received in almost every conceivable way, and although Ruby/Sapphire were controversial for limiting players to a single region with 4/5ths of older Pokemon made unavailable, the release of innovative new games such as FireRed/LeafGreen and the Battle Frontier-containing Emerald made up for it.

Even Generations 4 and 5 continued to make top sales and while containing small flaws like slow surfing/battles and mediocre sprite animations in the case of Black/White, those games still had that old Pokemon charm you'd come to expect from GameFreak.

But with the release of Generation 6's X/Y/OR/AS, things started to take a downturn. While X and Y's lackluster aspects were somewhat excusable when they were the first 3D games and programming over 700 fully functional 3D animations into the 3DS' memory was probably a daunting task, the ORAS remakes were nowhere near as good as the remakes before them, overtly refusing to use the innovations created in Emerald and basically recycling the entirety of Ruby and Sapphire's story with barely any changes. Even the postgame was pretty lackluster, with a mary sue character being responsible for stringing prior villains along and there being a complete cop-out for why the Battle Frontier wasn't added when it was an innovation introduced in Generation 3.

Unsurprisingly, according to GameFreak Iwata's death severely impacted the company, as it was he who even allowed Gold and Silver to contain a double-region story even in the limited hardware capacity of the original GameBoy (seeing as GS were built for the original GameBoy, but playable in full color on the GBC) by condensing the file size of the game. But there's bigger problems than Iwata's death - the newer games, Generations 7 and 8 especially, show a striking lack of innovation or "care" being put into the gameplay and even begin to remove age-old features that were pretty much the series' identity such as the National Pokedex despite us transitioning into hardware with MUCH more memory. What happened to Catching 'em All? Why are beloved Pokemon including legendaries and mythicals being removed from Sword and Shield and more and more content being made DLC-exclusive to milk the cash cow?

Where did Pokemon go wrong?

A possible answer could be that they now feel a greater demand than before to put out new games more quickly as more and more kids move onto basic Smartphone games, although I doubt that explains all the recent bitch moves made by GameFreak.

 

[Captain Cadaver]

With the exception of maybe Gen 8 (and even that had some positive elements from what I've seen despite the many steps backward), there isn't really a single game with which to pinpoint a downward spiral or steep decline as each Gen after Gen 2 had their positives and negatives compared to prior ones.
Gen 3 was an improvement in graphics and FR/LG was superior to its Gen 1 template in every way, yet Hoenn's plot was lacklustre due to the dumb motivations of the villainous team and the post-game was nowhere near as expansive as Johto's, with the games also having the flaw of being unable to transfer Pokemon from prior gens. It also didn't help that the amount of Pokemon you could catch post-game was severely limited and in some cases required assistance from the Gamecube games, making catching all Pokemon a near impossible task.
Gen 4 was for the most part an improvement in all regards bar how slow the battle system was, some major examples being how the physical/special split was entirely corrected. Diamond and Pearl were flawed in the pathetic amount of fire types they had available (something that stands out when a supposed fire type expert has to rely on Lopunny and Steelix, though I wouldn't say it's any worse than Bruno's fighting type team containing Onix or Lance's team in general) and many new evolutions and their line being unavailable until post-game, but Platinum thankfully fixed nearly all the faults with the exception of the slow speed. HG/SS are probably the peak in gameplay for the franchise with how it not only had the expansiveness of Gen 2's post-game, but added far more to the story with Team Rocket's new leaders being actual characters rather than generic trainer types as well as the event with Giovanni furthering both his and Silver's characters. You also have things such as the rematches with gym leaders that show their fully improved teams and many possible Gen 3 and 4 legendary encounters.
Gen 5 was a definite improvement in terms of story and characters with how it branched out to do something different and question the ethics of Pokemon battles as well as the rival characters growing to become their own people without the need of a timeskip like Blue. The way TMs were utilised was also far better than Gen 4 with them being reused and not being something you had to risk making sure you gave to the right Pokemon. Whilst not as expansive as HG/SS' post-game, Black/White's was still a definite #2 with the great amount of Pokemon to catch and the difficulty spike with the huge jump in levels making for a challenging and efficient way of training your team. B2/W2 was a step down in story, though its character writing was still pretty good and they still offered some good features such as the Pokemon World Tournament. Whilst it seems that HG/SS are considered the peak of Pokemon games in general, I'd say Gen 5 was the best generation as a whole.
Gen 6 had some decent positives such as the Fairy type changing the game, Mega Evolution bringing new life into some Pokemon and others miscellaneous features such as the Pokemon menu being heavily improved with the item switch and restore options to make organising your team far less tedious. The EXP Share was also an improvement. Despite being touting the games as too easy, a lot of this comes down to keeping the exp share on, with things being very different if turning it off or using it sporadically when considering the last gym leader has Pokemon that are almost level 60. Also, playing on easy mode isn't really a valid criticism when you can shift your play style to match it such as testing out new teams with Pokemon you'd otherwise not use to add an extra challenge, with it not being like Sword and Shield where the exp share can't be switched off and the game offers you easy level boosts through exp candy. Where X/Y fail, however, is with its story and characters being pitifully generic and the post-game being lacking when it comes to new areas. OR/AS was a mixed bag. Some aspects of the game were damaged when it came to the story for reasons covered very in-depth in the infamous 7+ hour review of it on YouTube as well as more noticeable problems such as handing you one of the eon duo or the Delta Episode being a wild goose chase for a very simple plot, though there were some improvements such as Wally being handled a lot better, post-game material fleshing out Archie and Maxie more as well as offering a good in-universe explanation as to the existence of the remake timelines.
Gen 7 was mixed as a whole with Sun/Moon as a whole being fine whereas US/UM were better or worse in several areas. The Ultra versions improved Lusamine's character, added an increase in difficulty with the Ultra Necrozma boss battle, handled Hau's character better and had a lot more to offer for the Ultra Beast mission, yet was far more of a return to standard otherwise with characters such as Lillie sticking around rather than having a conclusion to her character arc, the battle with Kukui being cut and Necrozma being caught in the main story adding less to what could be done post-game, something that was already pretty barren. The Ultra Wormholes offered a more believable manner of encountering past legendaries than the mirage islands from ORAS, but were more tedious when it came to using them as there was only a small chance of finding a dimension with a legendary. The various islands for placing Pokemon in your boxes was a good way of boosting levels, EVs and obtaining items, though it may have been too easy compared to Super Training in Gen 6 requiring the player to put effort into attaining these rewards.

All that said, there's not one main series game that can be cited as the decline of the franchise until Sword/Shield, though elements of franchise fatigue can be seen sporadically now and then as early as Gen 3 as well as innovation to make the next games an improvement in every way not being fully realised since HG/SS and Black/White.

 

[Mystic]

It seems that they've just made the games too easy, and more powerful hardware has exposed how stale and formulaic the games have become. As I've mentioned before, Zelda and Mario had near perfect Nintendo Switch debuts, and you had other great games like Splatoon 2, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Xenoblade and Smash Ultimate (I'm blown away still by the amount of content in this game). So it's only natural that expectations were high for Pokémon. Not only is it one of Nintendo's "Big Three" franchises, but it's also a series that has suffered for decades with hardware limitations. With every generation you can see GameFreak's vision not being perfected, as the hardware simply was not capable enough. The Nintendo Switch however is more powerful than the Wii U, which was more powerful than the PS3. Sword and Shield definitely had the potential to be the definitive Pokémon experience, a masterclass in cinematics and gameplay, while also taking new risks and shaking up the formula. Needless to say the games fell short of that, and I guess it's our fault as enthusiasts for expecting that. GameFreak played it safe and were vindicated when the games broke sales records. They had no reason to go bigger and now they never will.

As for the other games, I feel like messing with the Experience Share was a big factor. I like having it as a hold item so I can train one specific Mon while not having to battle with its weak ass. X and Y made it optional, but Sword and Shield doesn't give you the option. I've played a bit of that game and leveling just feels really cheap.

ORAS offers no real challenges and has way too many legendaries.