"Can we all agree that GameFreak, as a developer, excels in disappointing the fans more than wow-ing them?"

I'm a long time Pokemon fan, but I tell you what, dealing with modern Pokemon is a bit like an abusive relationship (I mean that more in jest, in no way am I demeaning actual abuse). We want Pokemon as Pokemon fans. We love the core gameplay loop and the franchise. We get excited to see the little things. Overall, it feels like modern Pokemon from GameFreak is usually involved in controversy or fan disappointment more often than not these days.Case #1: GameFreak loves to remove fan-favorite features for (seemingly) no good reasonTake trainer customization, for instance. It was a huge hit in XY, and absent from ORAS. GF's explanation of this was twofold - one, ORAS was a remake and there was no customization in RSE, so there would not be in the remakes either (although Battle Frontier was in the original and NOT the remakes but whatever). The second excuse was that customization was special to XY because it fit their theme of France (https://ift.tt/3ejBBjL) The fan disappointment on the removal of the feature is likely why it returned for Sun/Moon.Case #2: The games do get easier and smaller over the generationsA lot of us aren't kids anymore, but it isn't hard to go back and play the older games and then the modern ones and see the discrepancies in difficulty here. Masuda has made it clear he believes kids won't spend time on long or challenging games, and that smartphones are the main competition to Pokemon (not other video games), hence why the overall gameplay has simplified. In a lot of ways this has brought a lot of QoL issues for getting into competitive (IV checkers, full EV training with vitamins, Mints, etc), but it's killed the story and general things to do in the games that aren't self imposed. (https://ift.tt/2Ni8C3W #3: The dex cut and the DLC additionIt doesn't matter what your opinion is with the dex cut, the fact is it happened - the developers stopped a previously prominent and beloved yet taken-for-granted feature for whatever the reasons might be. This has been argued to death, I won't argue it here.Case #4: SwSh has some really janky graphical issues and poor optimizationYou can like or dislike the art style, but I think the difference between the Wild Area in the base game and the IoA speaks for itself. The Wild Area in SwSh was simply unfinished. It lacks polish. The YComm is even more broken today post DLC than it was. The game continues to lag and stutter to immense degrees.Case #5: Even the reps have no idea what is going onThe oft-repeated "SwSh has 18 gyms!" fiasco, the inaccurate level scaling explanation to IGN recently, the Nintendo/GF reps who deal with the public and journalists are woefully wrong about game features frequently. Do the developers just not explain anything to their reps before an interview? Or do the developers not see fit to put someone who actually knows information about the game in the interview chair?Case #6: For better or for worse, Pokemon makes enough money that they should have the resources to iron out these problems"The franchise makes the money, not the games."If GameFreak only earned $1 of profit per game sold they would earn 8-15 million a year. GameFreak are also partial owners of TPC, so it's not like they don't benefit overall from the entire franchise sales. In comparison, Horizon Zero Dawn sold 10 million copies in two years. Pokemon beats it in sheer numbers - especially because they have churned out games nearly annually. Now, I say this not to do a 1 to 1 comparison, but to prove that plenty of games make less money than the Pokemon franchise and massively outdo GameFreak on the basics - models not clipping through the wall and online features that actually work, for instance.I bring this up because I totally believe Pokemon can, and should, do better. I'm not an "ungrateful fan" (seriously, that's such a dumb argument, it's not like GF is making Pokemon games as an altruistic favor to us, they're doing it to make money from us). I want to see the games improve. I want to stop feeling disappointed in my favorite game series. Don't you? via /r/pokemon https://ift.tt/37MRe0F