Pokémon General Thread

Pokken didn't do much better on the Switch than it did on the Wii U, and virtually no one outside an incredibly niche even by fighting game standards community of players cares about it. It's rare to see a Pokken video get more than a 100 viewers on Twitch or 1000 views on youtube outside Worlds matches, and recently even those have tanked.

And Conquest came and went. It's just another weird thing they did that wasn't all that great and that hardly anyone talks about nowadays.

We'll find out tomorrow evening if I'm wrong, but looking at the history of their spinoffs I don't really see much of a future for any of them that isn't on a smart phone.

Edited by Hashil on May 27th 2019 at 7:21:09 AM

Weird... it seems like Pokémon Conquest is discussed all he time on other forums when it comes to spin-offs people want to see return, like Reddit’s r/pokemon (at least before it was hit by a possibly hostile takeover from the lowest common denominator of the meme community) and Twitter responses to Serebii’s posts.

Though I’ve always preferred games built to strongly cater to a niche rather than games built to loosely cater to a wide audience anyway, such as Xenoblade, and IMO, that’s the main thing holding back the Pokémon main series from reaching its full potential.

Edited by ShinyCottonCandy on May 27th 2019 at 9:28:09 AM

Really? I seen or heard anyone mention the name anywhere in years.

I honestly forgot it existed.

I see Conquest get brought up frequently other places when the subject of Pokemon spin-offs is brought up. Though it often involves people saying they wish they would make a sequel that improves on things, because the game as it was was pretty shallow.

Yeah, there was definitely that “first installment awkwardness” in the game, but the intersection of the strategy game fandom and the Pokémon fandom definitely enjoyed the core enough to want to give it another go with a more polished effort.

Conquest was a long time ago. What spin-offs in the last 5 years can we agree were of decent quality? Go (we know how that did), Pokken (which sold decently twice), Mystery Dungeon (seems to have fatigue), and what else? Maybe Detective Pikachu, but that's super-niche. It doesn't feel like they've been aiming very high lately compared to the DS era.

There’s barely even been any spinoffs, period in the last few years. From Serebii:

(Gen VII Games)

• Magikarp Jump
• Rumble Rush
• Quest
• Pokken DX
• Detective Pikachu

Plus continued support for prior releases:

• GO
• Shuffle
• Duel

And Pokken was an Updated Re-release, while Detective Pikachu was the conclusion to a first part released even further back.

Edited by ShinyCottonCandy on May 27th 2019 at 9:49:50 AM

Of those, only Pokken and Detective Pikachu were made for consoles.

Quest is on the Switch but was pretty blatantly a mobile game first.

I think what I’m ultimately going for is that I hope they at least try with the console spinoffs a couple more times before dropping that direction entirely. They just need to hand them off to the right developers.

Mobile spin-offs are fine if they're good or at least interesting. If Dena makes a fun gacha RPG that rakes in plenty of cash over time, great. Then they're back on track. But the stuff they've thrown out so far look bland at a first glance, and apparently don't have the gameplay to back them up. So we just have a dearth of good spin-offs.

Since they’re going to go mobile anyway, if it were up to me, I’d put Cygames at the helm. Those guys know how to make a gacha, especially with regards to FTP friendliness.

I'm not quite sure why Pokken tanked as hard as it did, though I wouldn't doubt that it had something to do having a rocky start on the Wii U. I loved the game but I didn't even get the switch port.

I would argue it had something to do with the metagame being awful but I haven't kept up with it since it dropped on the switch.

As for Conquest, I'm upset that I never got around to finishing it because the core gameplay loop was really fun and the characters were all at least mildly interesting. The issue is that in order to really finish the game you had to spend hundreds of hours doing the same thing over and over and over again...

I love Pokemon Spin-Offs overall though and I really hope they do more... though I doubt there's going to be as many as there used to be due to the cost of game production going up and not being nearly as cheap as it used to be on the GBA and NDS especially.

Still, mobile games just don't scratch the same itch, especially since I already play too many...

Edited by EpicBleye on May 27th 2019 at 11:15:24 AM

I've only heard praise for Conquest for years. Most recently, Game Informer's podcast from last week talked about it when the hosts were asked about underrated 3DS games (they were corrected when it was brought up that it was a DS game, tho).

My point is, even on lists of best Pokemon spinoffs or I think even best DS games (could be wrong, tho), it was on there somewhere.

Edited by AmethystLeslie on May 27th 2019 at 11:20:52 AM

No wonder they keep rehashing and rushing the main series, when the only relevant and thriving spinoff is GO. Even the weird main series-spinoff hybrid is GO-based.

Pidove:

I believe part of the reason that Pokken never really got the attention it wanted is because of how the game's camera is handled.

The 3D half of a fight has the camera go behind Player 1, with Player 2 in the distance. Which works fine if you're playing single-player or online, but makes things kind of awkward for playing on the same machine. To play on the same machine, one player is forced to use the gamepad, though IDK how the Switch version handles this.

Pokken's problem is that it's way undercooked. I really enjoy playing it and don't regret buying it twice. But it doesn't have the content or any real long-term support. Obviously Smash is a very different kind of fighter and has much a much higher budget, but saying Smash has 10x the content of Pokken is being generous to Pokken. It really doesn't compare well to most other big budget fighting games, let alone Nintendo's own star.

Nothing a sequel couldn't fix!

That's why it isn't a pikaclone, because it's just a mimic!

I just didn't like Pokken that much because I'm not into fighting games in general; I kinda liked it, beat shadow Mewtwo, but never hit the high ranks.

My favorite part was honestly the character customization.

For me, I think Pokken never really had a shot because it's rare to find someone who's a fan of both Pokemon and Tekken.

pokken would have worked better as a smash clone

That would have been problematic from a business perspective. There’d be the issue of competing with themselves, and there’s be cries of They Copied It, So It Sucks!, probably more than usual.

To get into Pokken past the surface appeal of a cool looking Pokemon button masher you had to:

• Like Pokemon
• Like traditional fighting games
• Like (or at least tolerate) arena fighting games
• Like a paltry 21 Pokemon in particular (there are 23 playable characters, but Shadow Mewtwo and Pikalibre are model edits of the obvious)
• Don't mind the game being bereft of content and filled with annoying little design flaws most fighting games are long past.

Maybe if they got rid of Field Phase, more than doubled the number of playable Pokemon and fixed its content problems, but I'm not sure how committed they are to the concept. It was probably one of their more expensive spinoffs and I don't think it paid off nearly as well as they'd hoped.

Edited by Hashil on May 28th 2019 at 8:57:52 AM

23 fighters is actually fairly high for a starting roster. The games with enormous numbers of characters got that way through having multiple installments