Age-Old Pokemon Features That Need Refreshing

With Pokemon Legends: Arceus, Game Freak has the potential to really revitalize the series and change a lot of mechanics that are due for a refresh.

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The Pokemon franchise has been around for quite some time now and has gained quite a following over the years. Many have grown to love the games, including most of the mechanics involved in them. With Pokemon Legends: Arceus on the horizon, many fans are speculating how that game will play compared to the mainline series. There are some Pokemon mechanics and design choices that may not have aged as well over time.

Some key features, including some that are iconic to the series, are due for a refresh to really give the series a feeling of being new. Both new and long-term fans would likely love to see some new innovation from the team behind Pokemon, and with Pokemon Legends: Arceus potentially changing a lot of things, now is as good a time as any to really shake up the franchise.

Route and Map Design

Easily the most impactful part of every Pokemon game is the regional map. It dictates the flow of the game, how players experience the region, and how the moment-to-moment gameplay flows together. Each region introduced in the Pokemon series so far has felt unique, as each region is based off of different parts of Japan and large areas out in the rest of the world. Many regions are based on different sections of Japan, but some regions like Galar, Unova, and Kalos, are based off other iconic places in the world.

While it’s neat to have regions based on familiar areas, that premise can also be a bit limiting in terms of designing town and city layouts, as well as making the routes that connect them. Game Freak should start being more creative with its region designs and ditch the real-world comparisons. Not only will this open up limitless possibilities for what the region can look like, but it will also allow them more freedom to try new designs for routes, cities, and more. Fans may see a bit of this start with Pokemon Legends: Arceus next year, but that remains to be seen.

In redesigning the maps for Pokemon titles, Game Freak should re-evaluate how it handles the routes that connect major points on the map. If Pokemon Sword and Shield were the test run of a redesigned route system, then Game Freak is on the right track. Pokemon Sword and Shield’s Wild Area served as a great open map that players could wander around in, and it even connected a couple key areas of the map together. It was Game Freak’s first dive into a new type of route, and despite its shortcomings, it is generally a well-liked addition to the series.

The Gym Challenge

The Gym Challenge has been a staple of the mainline Pokemon titles from the very beginning. The challenge itself has received little improvement over the course of the entire series, with only Sun and Moon/Sword and Shield making any real changes to the format. In Sword and Shield, after defeating all eight gyms, players squared off in a tournament-style event and challenged a handful of the leaders again with updated teams. Granted, this is more of a change in the Elite Four than the gym challenge itself.

In Sun and Moon, the gyms were replaced with “Trials” though the premise was still the same: puzzle and type-specific Pokemon. Sword and Shield did feature unique gym leaders (at least a couple), at least, depending on which version of the game players picked up, which was a nice change of pace, but more needs to be done to revitalize the gym challenge.

While it’s fun to be able to plan ahead and concoct a team that excels at decimating a specific type of Pokemon, it would be a lot more interesting if the gyms had a theme that was something other than Pokemon type. Some fan-made Pokemon games have experimented with this idea, but gyms should be more than just a test of knowledge of type match-ups. Gym Leaders are supposed to be trainers that rise above the standard fodder found out along the player’s journey, with the Elite Four and then Champion even better than them, so these prestigious trainers should be a feat to take down.

Perhaps each leader could feature a full team of Pokemon that are significant to that Leader, if Game Freak wanted to make the characters more impactful. Or perhaps a team revolves around a specific battle style, like setting up hazards or using specific move types and strategies. This could go a long way toward helping ease players into competitive Pokemon battling, as no trainer is going to really use a mono-type team in VGC. This would be a huge improvement to the series and overall make the gym leaders much more interesting.

Starter Pokemon

Every Pokemon journey starts off with a pivotal choice: which starter Pokemon to choose. Each game features three starter Pokemon (one fire, one water, and one grass), that are rare and not able to be found in the native region. These are usually new Pokemon that are the first Pokemon in the regional Pokedex. Pokemon Legends: Arceus actually features three starters that follow a different theme than the usual starters do. While this is a good start towards shaking up the tired Pokemon starter formula, Game Freak should go all out and really change up how they handle starter Pokemon going forward.

One easy way would be to introduce three starters that aren’t Fire/Water/Grass and choose three types that are less commonly used. Any combination of three would be nice, and it doesn’t even have to be weak/strong against each other. Just some variety in Pokemon choice can go a long way.

If it really wanted to shake things up, itcould introduce one Pokemon of every type that can just be caught later in the game. This takes some of the pressure off of initial starter choice, and allows players to pick whatever type they want without fear of being locked out of the other Pokemon. This type of approach was used in Nexomon Extinction, another monster-catcher style game that handles the genre a bit differently than Pokemon.

Being able to choose any type of Pokemon lets players do a number of things differently. One, they can start formulating a possible team comp for the rest of the game. Two, they get to choose their own difficulty in that some types are better early on, while others struggle at the early levels. It gives players a lot more choice in a game where impactful choices are often so limited. Having so many options at the start of the game can really make a big difference in how players approach their Pokemon journey.

While there are many things that are great about the Pokemon franchise, there are some things that are seen as “tradition” that are due for an update. Things like route and region design, starter Pokemon, and even the gym challenge could do with a bit of a refresh to keep the series interesting to those players who have been playing since the very beginning. The series has some things that could be fixed, and may be fixed as soon as Pokemon Legends: Arceus releases, but if Game Freak wants to keep fans invested for even more years to come, it should take time to shake things up instead of playing things safe.

Pokemon Legends: Arceus is currently slated to launch in early 2022 for Nintendo Switch.

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