4mo ago

When did Pokémon switch and put the story first?

I grew up with Pokémon red and gold. In those games, you can kind of just ignore the story and play through the game.

At some point Pokémon seemed to switch, and have so much more dialog forced upon you, especially in the early game.

When did this start? Was it with Pokémon X and Y or did it come later? I know Sun and Moon felt that way to me.

12 comments

Black and White.
- Thanks! I plan to replay them up until that point.
  A follow up question, I’ve never played diamond/pearl. Should I play the switch or the ds versions?
  
  I've only played the DS versions, so can't say, but I would presume the Switch versions fix the most notorious problems (like the inexplicably slow Surf speed) so assuming they don't also do something stupid and unnecessary like nerf the difficulty or rewrite the dialogue, they'd likely be best.
I think I really started noticing it in X and Y. I got to the second city and they introduced like 4 kinda-rivals and I'm like "I really don't care about any of these people".
I want to go collect magical animals, not go to school or whatever the most recent one is.
- Yeah! Exactly. I rarely care about a games story and Pokémon doesn’t let you skip any of that stuff.
  Each time it comes up it’s like a boring interruption to the game.
  It’s the main reason that I stopped playing those games.
  I think I’ll play up to black and white 2, but if there is too much story, I’ll just drop it.
- It was White version for me. I quit halfway through because of the story stuff and didn't touch the series again until Sword was a few years old. The last straw was the 3rd or 4th time I got to a gym and the leader told me to go do plot crap with Team Villain before I could challenge for a badge. I don't care and it's not my job, I'm fuckin 10.
  With Scarlet you can take hours getting to school while you collect everything in the first couple of areas, then after 20 minutes of plot you're back in an almost completely open world (barring the post-game area). It's the best it's ever been if you're just into collecting stuff.
  
  I dunno. Ive only played white in japanese and didnt notice any real difference

12 comments