Video Game Franchise Codifiers

From the trope description, my impression of this trope is that it's for cases when the first few games are totally overshadowed by the codifier, to the point the codifier comes to define the franchise while the originals are treated by most as a curiosity from before the series found its footing. I don't think "doing the same thing, but even better" would count as overshadowing the original, especially when the original is such an enormous success and is still what the public think of when they think about the series's "identity".

It says nothing about overshadowing anything, it just talks about how the codifier is the work that the other works borrow from; the work that alters the series forever. It's not "the same but better" (many would argue that a lot of Gen's 3 changes were a detriment over all) but rather it's "the games that set the standard for how the series should be".

I mean, the key is that if people think of the series, they think of the codifier and the works that followed. The only people who really see Gen 1 and 2 as the way Pokemon "is" or "should be" are the people who outright hate the newer generations; people who like the whole franchise tend to see Gen 1 and 2 as fun but archaic and outdated, with many differences from the modern formula.

Edited by WarJay77 on May 21st 2023 at 7:02:39 AM

"One work that future entries borrow heavily from" means "the original is overshadowed". Because otherwise, future entries are borrowing most of their elements from the original game itself, to a greater degree than the games that came later.

If the original isn't overshadowed by the codifier, then this trope is meaningless. It's Not A Trope. As Soy Valdo said, it's just saying "this is best game in the franchise".

No, it doesn't mean that at all. It only means that the codifier is the one setting the standard. The original work COULD be overshadowed but it doesn't have to be.

And, again, it's not at all making a statement on quality, just impact. Gen 3 wouldn't be a codifier because it's better and more popular than Gen 1, it'd be a codifier because it set the standard the rest of the works follow from then on (until the most recent games that play with the formula). Most pokemon works don't borrow elements from Gen 1 and 2 — everything from the way stats are calculated to the way battles work to the way the plot is scripted was set by Gen 3 and onward. Gen 1 and 2 suffer a lot from Early-Installment Weirdness and much of their specific tropes never come back. The only thing the future works really borrow from Gen 1 is the very basic "travel, catch mons, win the league, beat the bad guy, fight a rival" stuff, which is a pretty generic bare-bones structure.

Edited by WarJay77 on May 21st 2023 at 7:45:48 AM

I'm not saying your argument is "Gen 3 is best game in franchise", I'm saying that's what the trope is devolving into, and will continue to devolve into until it hits TRS and gets axed for misuse.

As for Gen 3, I could make a lot of those same arguments for Resident Evil 4. When it came out, it revolutionized the series with new controls and new mechanics. But it's not a codifier since the original games were hugely popular and influential for eight years, and had already defined the series before getting stale.

If the first game in a series is a hugely-successful cultural phenomenon, and then a future installment changes its mechanics and all future games follow those new mechanics, what is the cutoff point between "codifier" and "retool"? At which point does a franchise crystalize as "itself", and draw the line past which there is only retooling?

I mean, I don't play Resident Evil, so I can't say anything there.

And I agree that "best work" is a common decay and we should tackle this in TRS (after a wick check) but I don't think it quite applies to my argument about Gen 3. And like, if people don't agree that it counts... eh, whatever. I don't care too much about these things but I do think that there are a lot of arguments in Gen 3's favor.

Edited by WarJay77 on May 21st 2023 at 8:27:27 AM