"It's really frustrating that Pokémon games are only ever compared to themselves and not to JRPGs as a whole"

In my opinion this is one of the things holding back the series almost more than anything else. Pokémon will always sell because of its mass appeal and simplicity, and nobody ever stops to ask "can this be done better?" or "what does the field have that Pokémon lacks?". This is not to say that Pokémon needs massive overhauls to its core gameplay – complexity is not necessarily improvement and the mass appeal of Pokémon is a staple – but it is to say that at the very least it should be compared to games that largely fit the same category. Would most people think, from a feature and scope and polish standpoint, the new Pokémon games compare favourably to Dragon Quest or Shin Megami Tensei or Xenoblade? Probably not.It's not just "a Pokémon game", it's "a AAA JRPG title from one of the world's largest and most profitable studios". I still don't know what magic they pulled to be able to escape that very obvious observation. via /r/pokemon https://ift.tt/2NUGMMz