Should Pokémon Get A Mature Version?
Since Pokémon Yellow was first released in 1998, its no secret that the vast majority of the games have been kind of... copy/paste. The stories are varied and a lot of mechanics are updated as the generations go on, but at the end of the day, "you are [BLANK] and you live in/move to town [BLANK]. Your rival/friend [BLANK] wants to beat you every time. You both get a Pokémon from Professor [BLANK] and both decide to do the gym challenge. Along the way you do errands and quests from people who you meet and they give you rewards that help you advance in the story. Along the way you meet Team [BLANK] who is trying to [DO BAD THING] and their leader [BLANK] who thinks you're a stupid kid, even though you keep beating him/her and his/her goons. Everybody tells you over and over again how great your bond with your Pokémon is, and once you finally beat Team [BLANK] you fight/catch [LEGENDARY POKEMON] and then defeat the Elite Four and your rival for the last time and become the champion."
It's all like a chocolate chip recipe: all of the pieces work, and the end result is widely enjoyed, so there's not a reason to change the core elements.
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Now, of course there are different types of games such as Detective Pikachu, Pokémon Colosseum, and Pokémon Sun and Moon which try to shake up the formula a bit, with mixed success, though again, the core elements are the same, they just renamed the gyms as "island trails" and changed up some of the looks and types of the classic Pokémon, but the core elements are the same. It can feel like a form letter. There are some variations here and there, but that's the core of the main games.
But what if it didn't have to be that way? What if Nintendo/Game Freak took a risk? A real, real risk. A few days ago, I read an article about a risk that Nintendo/Game Freak was going to take. It was called Pokémon Blood Diamond, and it was going to actually take a more mature direction. According to the article on the site HardDrive.net, who quoted Game Freak narrative designer Bert Prancer:
"We thought we finally had a way to deliver a new, more mature Pokémon experience by setting it in a war-torn region of the world where blood is shed in the name of profit and a young trainer is caught in the middle. However, when we ran that idea up the chain along with some concept art surrounding how Pokémon could be leveraged in subjugating a local population, we got a sternly worded letter filled with terms like ‘gross misunderstanding of the IP’ and ‘mandatory counseling.'"
The article also went on to quote Nintendo PR executive Britt Malkin:
“Put quite simply, the idea was too dark for Pokémon. Events like murder, subjugation of indigenous peoples, and genocide might fly in our other IP like Zelda, Metroid, or Kirby but those concepts are too weighty for Pokémon which, at its core, has always been about gambling on government-sanctioned animal fights.”
Now may be a good time to mention that HardDrive.net is a satirical site, it's a gaming version of The Onion. Nintendo has not now, nor will likely ever, have a Pokémon game with the subtitle "Blood Diamond" which, all things considered, is probably for the best.
But that still does beg the question; should a more mature Pokémon game be made? Not one like above, but one where players get to be the bad guy? If there's one thing that Pokémon players have wanted to do since the very first game is join Team Rocket! We want that. We all want that. Don't just take my word for it. Cracked.com did an article asking their readers to give them their best video game ideas that will never get made. To quote one of the entries;
"Give me a Pokémon game where the goal is to take over the world. Same classic start-up; you get one low-level Pokémon. But instead of capturing Pokémon for sport, or for some Professor somewhere, you're building an army. I want to ride on the back of a Charizard and light Silph Co. Tower on fire. Give me hundreds of Pidgeys and let me go Hitchcockian on Pallet Town."
To me, the best way to go about something like this would be a Knights of the Old Republic-like morality system. Your choices affect the story, but also your Pokémon. If you push them unreasonably or make them do bad things, they're not going to turn out as well as if you treat them well. In the main Pokémon games, no matter what you do, or how you battle with your Pokémon, everyone around you will gush at the bond you share with your Pokémon and how close you get. Again, going back to the KotOR mechanic where if you go down a darker path, you can bring your companions right down that path with you.
People like myself who have been playing Pokémon for 15-20 years are dying for something new. Let's Go Eevee/Pikachu was fun, but it was just updated Pokémon Yellow. I get that Nintendo/Game Freak want to also keep the younger audiences, but think about some of the other games that Nintendo has released. The Legend of Zelda and Metroid Prime aren't always (read; rarely are) all happy and sunshine. I think that the pieces are there for Pokémon to take that risk. At the end of the day, there is inherent darkness to the franchise. The "Pokémon...at its core, has always been about gambling on government-sanctioned animal fights" quote above isn't exactly an exaggeration.
So, I implore Nintendo/Game Freak to take a risk. Dip your toes into a more mature Pokémon game. We're not asking for blood and guts and murder. Just maybe a more complex morality system. If I may humbly suggest;
You grow up with your best friend, and you both have some issue about the way the world is. Maybe your region's team is doing horrible stuff. You and your friend go through the game, building up your Pokémon with either love and support, or pushing them to their absolute limits, using them as tools, not friends, both of which affect them either positively or negatively. You make moral or immoral choices in your quest to improve things, which affect the story. Finally you hit the major choice: take over the team or do the right thing. Whichever you choose, your friend chooses the opposite. One of you becomes everything you fought against with the final mission requiring you to defeat your former friend.
It would be a risk, but I'd rather see a risk fail than an assembly line product keep being okay. Change things up and take a gamble.
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Source(s): HardDrive.net, Cracked.com