Is too much of a good thing still a good thing?
If The Pokémon Company were a U.S. tech company, Congress would be talking up antitrust action and grilling Tsunekazu Ishihara in a seat beside Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg. Twenty-six years after Red and Green dropped in Japan, the Pokémon franchise has evolved into an unstoppable entertainment behemoth, spanning the worlds of film, television, literature, trading cards, and video games (and that doesn’t even include the decades worth of plush and plastic merchandise that’s built up in our homes). Sadly, as the company has evolved, I’ve merely gotten older, and where once the Pokémon Face-Off series was a staple of the blog, I now barely keep up with ongoing developments in the series. I nearly missed last weekend’s “Pokémon Presents” presentation, and when I discovered that it was happening, my reaction was far more muted than 2016 Kyle would have tolerated. The company just dropped G4 remakes and a Legends game that completely reimagined how we interact with Pokémon, I figured. What else could they have to show us?
It turns out the answer was “quite a bit.”
We’ll get to the big reveal at the end of the presentation, but for me the biggest takeaway was just how massive Pokémon has become, even within just the video game sphere. There’s a Pokémon game for darn near everyone now, and The Pokémon Company has a lot of irons in the fire as it continues pushing the franchise in a million different directions. All together, it’s a massive and impressive undertaking, and the fanbase has grown immensely because of it. However, the mainline RPG games remain the core driver of Pokémon, and as people continue to question the quality of each new iteration (honestly, I’m starting to think moving Pokémon to the Switch wasn’t a great call; it created a new set of expectations that the series has struggled to meet, especially on the technical side), my question now is this: How much is too much? In the face of an accelerating development cycle, I’m wondering if Game Freak and The Pokémon Company are spread a bit too thin.
My specific thoughts on the presentation are as follows:
- So Pokémon Go has been out for almost six years now, and you’re telling me they’re only now adding G7 monsters to the game? The “slow rollout” approach to a game’s full cast has always frustrated me, and with Pokémon Go now a long way removed from its ‘phenomenon’ status, I think they should release monster generations more quickly to let players get the full experience. (In fact, I’d synchronize Go to the mainline releases and drop G9 monsters the moment those games go live, so they can piggyback off each other’s success.) I mean, it’s better to have Alolan Pokémon now than to never get them at all, but I don’t see why the game has to continuously play catch-up when other aspects of the franchise (say, the anime and the mainline games) are synchronized so precisely.
- So Pokémon Masters EX is…a thing, I guess? I’ve seen announcements and updates for the game over the years, but I’ve never truly seen the appeal of it. It feels a bit more character-driven than most Pokémon games, and not being able to easily customize your team seems like it would take all the fun out of it. I’m sure it’s making money because that’s what Pokémon does, but it’s not a notable part of the franchise.
- I’m not really interested in Pokémon Café Remix either, but at least the game’s existence makes sense to me: Puzzle games expand the player base by bringing a different demographic to the franchise, the game is a good fit for mobile phones, and they’re still a collection aspect to the game by recruiting monsters to join your staff. Still, it’s not a game that generates a lot of buzz, and part of the reason I think they tossed it and Pokémon Masters EX in here is to remind people that they exist.
- Pokémon Unite doesn’t seem to have the buzz it once did either, which is kind of a shame given that it felt like it was well-positioned to challenge established MOBA titles like Dota 2 and League of Legends. The new character reveals have really lost their luster (Hoopa looked interesting, but was anyone actually excited when Duraludon was teased?), and the constant balance issues and pay-to-win problems have really sapped this title’s momentum. It was a good idea, but it hasn’t done enough to establish itself as a true contender in this genre.
- Back in his review of Pokémon Legends: Arceus, Zack noted that the game was fairly short, and with the Daybreak update being released so quickly with a whole bunch of new postgame missions, it really makes me wonder about Game Freak and TPC’s strategy: Is this more slow rolling? Or is it an admission that the game was trimmed down to make an ambitious deadline and they’re now getting around to filling in the gaps? Still, there’s something to look forward to here: The new missions so far tend to focus on mass outbreaks, and there’s a chance this mechanic could be a gateway to including different types of Pokémon in the game, so there’s a good chance the developers will continue to expand the game and bump up its Pokémon roster. Slow rolling or not, and the end of the day it’s more Pokémon, and this is never a bad thing.

- Finally, we got the big reveal: Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, the ninth generation of the mainline Pokémon series. (Looking at the timeline on Wikipedia, I feel like this shouldn’t really have been a surprise; it appears to be about time for a new generation.) The trailer opened with a bizarre, pointless security-guard scene at Game Freak’s “offices,” which never really tied back to the reveal and felt like a failed attempt to copy the misdirection/mystery of Smash Bros. character reveals. The graphics, much like those seen in early Legends: Arceus trailers, are nothing to write home about (there was still some noticeable stuttering in the videos, especially those wind turbines), but the key reveal was that the game was confirmed to be taking the next step beyond Legends: Arceus and becoming a true open-world experience, fulfilling the promise that Sword and Shield flashed a few years ago. The starting starter designs were shown off (Sprigatito, Fuecoco, and Quaxly), the new default Trainer look was revealed, and a vague “late 2022” release date was provided at the end of the trailer.
While I’m excited to see another Pokémon game on the horizon, I’m also confused to…well, see another Pokémon game on the horizon. I mean, Legends: Arceus has only been released for about a month, and Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are only three months old—schedule or no schedule, did we really need another Pokémon game to suck all the oxygen out of the room? (To say nothing of the other games it threatened to overshadow, like Triangle Strategy and Kirby and the Forgotten Land, although the latter game should be fine.) I’m starting to worry that we’re going to hit the Pikachu saturation point, and if the games continue to exhibit technical issues (seriously, the Let’s Go! games were a total mess), I would counsel Nintendo and its partners to focus on depth over breadth, and take the time they need to make sure these games are done right.
Of course, judging a game’s quality on a pre-pre-pre-release trailer isn’t terribly useful either, and given how things seemed to improve between Legends: Arceus‘s reveal and release, I think these games should turn out okay as well. Lots of people have been hoping for a 100% open-world Pokémon, and it’s still refreshing to see The Pokémon Company try to breathe life into what was a pretty stale formula. At the end of the day, it’s Pokémon, and even their “bad” games are still fun to play.
So where does that leave us with the presentation? Honestly, I’d call it pretty meh overall: Even with the big G9 reveal, there was a lot of time spent trying to remind us just how much stuff Pokémon is actually involved in, and I’m not sure it’s a good thing. (Anyone heard anything from Pokémon Sleep lately?) I’m not sure The Pokémon Company has found its footing on the Switch just yet, and it’s a fair question to ask whether it attention is too divided to give its bread-and-butter offerings the time and attention they deserve. Still, I’ve enjoyed every mainline Pokémon game I’ve played (yes, even Let’s Go! Eevee had its moments), and I’m sure I’ll have fun with the next generation. I may not get to have fun with it until 2024 given how much my game backlog is growing, but I’ll bet I’ll have fun eventually.