Category Archives: Pokemon

Pokémon’s latest shiny distribution is being grossly mishandled.

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Image from eBay, sadly.

Let’s hear it for the highest grossing intellectual property in all of human history, because they have really done it this time.

Starting Friday, September 26th, a special distribution event for special characters for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet was to commence. This event made shiny variants of special legendary Pokémon available to players, and which one they got depended on the version of the game that they played. It was Koraidon on Scarlet version, and Miraidon on Violet version.

For most of the world, the event went well. But for the distribution in the US at GameStop locations, the distribution ran into problems, quickly. Really quickly.

I have my own experience, but I’ll save it for the end, because it might be infuriating, depending on who you are.

Here’s how the event was supposed to work: players who visited GameStop could request a scratch-off code card, which they got for free, no purchase necessary. Then, the code could be redeemed on a Scarlet or Violet game, and the shiny legendary that the player got depended on which version they were playing on. And GameStop benefitted from increased foot traffic, which is great for retail outlets. Everybody happy, except for those who hate Pokémon and the people who play it, but life has always sucked for the haters.

Now, for how it really went. I probably only need to tell you the limiting factor, and you’ll probably figure it out from there.

There was a strict allocation of only 50 code cards per store.

Yeah. To put that into perspective, there are GameStop locations that sold over a thousand combined copies of Scarlet and Violet.

Many stores ran out of code cards in the first hour, which is ridiculous considering that the distribution was intended to last for weeks. If you weren’t among those who were in as soon as the store opened, you probably had to do without.

And this is in spite of some stores limiting the distribution of codes to one per customer. Remember how I said that more than one legendary was made, and which one you got depended on which version the code was redeemed on? A limit of one per customer means that many players only got one, even if they got both versions, like many of the huge fans do. That would really suck for players who wanted both legendaries, because they’d only get one, assuming they got a code at all.

As was the case with scalpers who swooped in and hoovered up the code cards for shiny variants of the Sword and Shield legendaries, so it was this time, but worse. They proceeded to hock them on eBay for a quick buck, while screwing over the hobby that’s enjoyed by many millions of fans. Currently, the codes are going for around $30. To put that into perspective, a new copy of Scarlet or Violet is $60 (prior to the DLC package, which might bring it to $95).

As far as I could tell, the US is the only country that has this problem, which suggests that the problem is with GameStop. In other countries, the method of distribution may vary, but based on what I’ve heard, it generally goes that players could request a code, it gets printed on a receipt, and there’s no limit to how many codes can be printed.

Which is a far better way to handle the distribution, even if a little clunky. But why do codes, at all? Why not do it through geolocated distributing through the mobile version of Pokémon Home? Did The Pokémon Company forget that one of their biggest mobile apps has this feature? Or, why not use Pokémon Pass? Did The Pokémon Company forget that they developed a mobile app specifically to handle this kind of situation?

There is some good news, however. GameStop has announced on X that they are getting more codes to aid in the distribution. And this time, they will be printed on receipts, like the distribution is handled in some other countries.

That’s great, right? That means an unlimited number of codes, ensuring that players who make it to GameStop before the event ends can get at least one code, right?

Except no, because the codes are once again limited to 50 per store. Even though the codes are printed, and therefore, should be without limit.

So, with 100 total codes per store, and 2325 GameStop locations in the US, this means that there are only 232500 codes distributed. Which sounds like a lot, until you consider what the sales numbers for the games likely are. I don’t know what the US sales numbers are, but the global sales for the Scarlet and Violet versions are over 26 million. Using that number, less than 1% of players got at least one code. But considering only US sales, I imagine the number is closer to 5%. But 1 in 20 doesn’t sound like satisfying demand.

It actually gets worse. The first day of the distribution, September 26th, just so happened to be the release date for 3 different TCG expansions. One of which was for the Pokémon TCG, so scalpers were already doing what they were gonna do, the code cards would have been a little extra money in the bank.

There was some Magic: the Gathering crossover with Spider-Man. I haven’t played the game in decades, so I don’t know what is up with some of these crossovers, some of which don’t seem thematically appropriate.

There was also some flipping Yu-Gi-Oh! expansion that at least one person hypothetically cares about.

GameStop basically spent an hour or two being a Disneyland for TCG scalpers, and code cards for distribution of shiny Pokémon were getting swept up in the hurricane.

So how it ended up going is that a distribution of characters that are digital, and could therefore be limitlessly multiplied, had arbitrarily low allocations placed upon them for no apparent reason, except maybe to spite players.

I said that I’d share my own experience, so here we go. On September the 26th, at about the time GameStop was opening, I was already out for something else. So, knowing about the distribution, I went to a GameStop. There was only a handful of people there.

I shopped around for a bit, thinking that if I were to buy something, that would be a little something extra to come away with. As I was shopping, I overheard someone asking for a code card. He got one. So, I asked for one, too. I got one. Then, I asked if I could get one more. I got a second. Cool!

I kept shopping, but none of the anime toys marketed to grown-ups caught my eye. So I left, two code cards in hand.

After I got home, I redeemed them, one for Violet, and one for Scarlet. After that, I found out on YouTube just how rare those code cards are.

Please don’t hate me. I had no idea the distribution would turn into such a fiasco.

My Impressions of Pokémon Presents 2025

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Continuing with tradition, The Pokémon Company has dropped a Pokémon Presents show on the anniversary of the debut of the first Pokémon games.

As one might expect, the Direct initially focused on a bunch of mobile games, most of which most fans might not care much about. Cresselia and Darkrai are interesting Pokémon to bring to Pokémon Sleep, and that’s cool for whoever is playing that. Pokémon UNITE is bringing Alolan Raichu to the roster in April. I might check that out, considering I like Raichu.

Pokémon GO is running a Unova-themed event, which culminates with Pokémon GO Tour Global, but it doesn’t seem the announcement told us anything new about it. A new season, called Might and Mastery, is coming up, and it seems to be themed around Urshifu.

Also, an event is coming up in Pokémon Cafe Remix. I played the game for maybe a couple days when it first came out, but I don’t really care much for it, now.

A new mini-set is arriving for Pokémon TCG Pocket, and it’s arriving tomorrow. That doesn’t give us much time to save up pack hourglasses. The mini-set is themed around Arceus, and the appearance of a new Raichu card suggests that Pokémon in the set might work together well with Arceus.

I don’t know how many players still care about Pokémon Masters EX, but I sometimes peek back in to see what’s going on. It seems there will be new versions of Brendan and May who will have Groudon and Kyogre respectively, both shiny and both capable of Primal Reversion. I may spring for the new Brendan, so I’ll have a strong Ground type that’s ahead of the power creep.

It seems as though Scarlet and Violet aren’t behind us, just yet. There are a few new events planned for the current core Pokémon titles, including redeemable codes for in-game phone cases, with the case available depending on the game version, and an upcoming Mass Outbreak event themed around certain red, green, and blue Pokémon.

What has me excited in SV is the announcement of new upcoming Tera Raid events featuring Pokémon which have the Mightiest Mark. So far, I’ve caught each Pokémon featured in Tera Raids with the Mightiest Mark, some of which were quite challenging, and I’m looking forward to more!

In my opinion, the biggest announcement of the Presents would be Pokémon Champions, which shows itself as being the next generation of link battles! The program is coming to Nintendo Switch, Android, and will also be available to those who haven’t gotten around to ditching iOS.

Pokémon Champions focuses on battles, according to the gameplay mechanics of the core games. But Champions looks to be encompassing, as it will connect to Pokémon Home, allowing players to battle with their own Pokémon, and include the major gameplay mechanics of Mega Evolution and Terrastalization, in the same battle!

Consider the implications of that!

Will every Pokémon be eligible? Maybe so. Will other mechanics such as Primal Reversion and Z-moves be available? Perhaps. It’s looking like there’s going to be a lot of potential for new and old strategies to emerge!

(EDIT: It’s been revealed that not all Pokémon are going to be in Pokémon Champions, initially. Kinda disappointing, but the implications of this depends on which gets left out.)

It’s been one year since the last announcement about Pokémon Legends Z-A (hereafter ZA, because brevity), and GameFreak finally has something new to say about it!

We got a look at the three starters, which are Chikorita, Tepig, and Totodile. Players are probably already forming factions. I’ll probably go with Chikorita this time, because I’d like to see a Pokémon that’s been getting picked on succeed, perhaps by reason of a great new form. And if not, then I’d probably be enjoying a challenging playthrough. If Chikorita doesn’t change, I’d at least have an idea of what to expect.

We got to see more Mega evolutions, but I didn’t notice any new ones. Still, it’s cool that we’re getting many of them back.

What I find interesting is the new battle style where moves have an RTS kind of element, where placement can influence outcomes, and moves have areas of effect. It’s interesting, and I look to seeing how it works in the game once it releases.

And I’ll have to be patient about that, as ZA is to be released late this year!

With Pokémon, it’s easy to be enthusiastic, as there’s usually a lot going on. This year’s Pokémon Presents reflected that well, and was easily among the strongest of them. But I’m still wondering how GameFreak will incorporate Switch 2 into their plans. Is it too soon to ask? GameFreak has historically been hesitant to develop for new hardware.

Is this the future of slop?

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For those of you who don’t want to watch the video, I’ll explain what’s going on. A player is exhibiting gameplay for Moon Gaze, an open world action RPG developed by Wang Yue.

A quick web search didn’t find much information about the developer, aside from that he was maybe a lone developer in China, though it’s conceivable that he has the assistance of a development team. If someone has more information, feel free to share in the comments, and hit me with a “nice research”.

When I say that the game is heavily derivative, I’m not kidding. It lifts gameplay elements from Genshin Impact, Grand Theft Auto, Tears of the Kingdom, and there’s a creature collection mechanic that’s perhaps reminiscent of Pokémon.

As derivative it is might be, I still wanted to play it. But seeing it got me to thinking: Is this the future of slop?

When you think of slop games, you probably think of low-effort licensed games that are pushed out to make a quick buck, or derivative me-too games that are purchased by parents who can’t tell Pokémon from Monster Rancher. They’re not always bad, but they usually are. And sometimes, we like them, even if it’s just because we’re forgiving of it because it has our favorite brand stickered on it.

But it looks like slop is changing, and that’s because the game development landscape is changing. For one thing, because AI is becoming a tool that can be used in game creation, and a person might not even need to be a seasoned game developer to use it effectively. A person would only need descriptive prompts. People might even be able to generate games at home, using prompts issued to personal AI agents.

If it got to that point, game development studios might end up becoming mostly superfluous. Which could mean the end of the game industry as we know it. Game devs would be quickly replaced with something different.

What’s more, game development has opened up in the Chinese market, where the legal structure is apparently different as compared to the United States and Japan. Recently, Nintendo has gone after PalWorld over how derivative the game is, perhaps to the point of using assets from Pokémon. Both studios are based in Japan. On the other hand, we’ve seen the release of Wuthering Waves, which is basically the same as Genshin Impact, but with a more technological theme, and seems a bit more edgy. Yet Mihoyo, the company behind Genshin Impact, doesn’t seem to have plans to legally confront Kuro Games, the maker of Wuthering Waves. One studio is based in China, the other, Hong Kong.

If some small game studio in China wants to make some Android game that takes heavy inspiration from a Nintendo game, Nintendo might have no choice but to groove with it, especially considering that there’s nothing stopping us from side-loading it onto our Android devices.

Thus, the landscape of slop is changing, from low-effort licensed drivel to high-quality derivative games, perhaps monetized by microtransactions. In a sense, this shifting landscape reminds me of the “video game crash” from the 80s. The game industry speaks of it as though it was a disaster, because for them, it was. But for consumers, it was great, because it meant that we could score piles of games for cheap.

So it is with the changing of the game landscape. Users and small studios are starting to make the games they want, and share them with the world, which has been going on for a while with freeware games, but is now expedited with advanced tools and apparent immunity to legal interference.

Considering this, one might ask: why buy Nintendo games, or games from other developers? The answer is obvious: it’s because people like their games, enough to justify purchasing them.

That might just be what keeps these game makers going in the near future.

A bit of advice to Niantic about Pokémon Go

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From Serebii on X

Niantic has just announced a rewards roadmap for Pokémon Go. Just hearing the name Reward Road, you might get the idea that it’s a new way to reward participation in the game.

Nope. It’s just a way to encourage whaling.

Basically, the more players spend in the shop, the more points that players get. And, to make it clear, it’s not enough to spend the in-game currency of PokéCoins in the shop, the Reward Road feature rewards spending real-life money in the shop, for in-game assets like PokéCoins.

I don’t claim to know the particulars of how Pokémon Go is monetized outside of its in-game shop, but I would have guessed that Niantic had ways of profiting just from the fact that FTP players played the game. But if they’re trying to goad people into spending more money with something as blatant as Reward Road, then things are probably not going well.

I don’t expect Niantic to take my advice, considering that I’m just a guy who doesn’t have a deep understanding of how mobile games profit, and especially considering how obvious it is that Niantic hates the people who played their games. But assuming that they give a shit, then this is something that they may benefit from having gotten out there: People might want to spend money in Pokémon Go if Pokémon Go was actually fun to play.

And the fastest way to achieve this would be to make Pokémon Go a quality experience.

I honestly have no idea what Niantic’s philosophy is when it comes to making mobile games. But at this point, it’s apparent that it involves continually making poorly implemented features that sometimes don’t even work properly, and ignoring all player feedback as they move on to the next poorly implemented feature. And if anything gets rapidly corrected, it’s usually an oversight which has the potential to actually benefit the players who take advantage of them.

Even now, years into the game, players get falsely-accused of driving while playing, with the only way to dismiss the prompt being to tap “I’m a passenger”, despite merely sitting in their living room. Why is this even still a thing? Niantic should have figured out that GPS drift occurs, even when a person is standing still.

And while I’m complaining about Niantic, we can talk about the obvious honeypot events that are designed to catch cheaters, but can result in bans for players who somehow find a way to participate in line with the rules. Like with the recent Gigantamax raids, which can only be participated in in-person, but required something to the tune of three dozen players with optimized teams to even stand a chance of successfully completing.

How is that in any way reasonable?

And among the players who somehow got a raid train together to complete some of these raids, some of them have gotten their accounts banned. And for what? Getting a few dozen other players together to get the raids to actually work out? What a blatant disrespect of the real-life efforts of some of the most dedicated players!

And that’s just what grinds my gears. This isn’t just some game that players are sitting down and playing while completely stationary, Pokémon Go encourages players to “get up and Go!”. If a player goes outside and participates in a raid for an opportunity to catch a Raichu, it would be infuriating if the same player was banned after immediately going outside and walking a mile to get to the raid before it expires.

If Niantic can’t respect the time and real-life efforts of its players, then they’re not the company that should be running a game like Pokémon Go.

I really don’t have much expectation that Niantic is going to change for the better anytime soon, even under duress. It’s because of this that I think it would be better if The Pokémon Company were to somehow reclaim its IP, so that Niantic couldn’t further use it.

When it comes down to it, Niantic never learned to make a decent mobile game, they just benefited from getting their hands on an absurdly popular IP.

This Is the Most Legendary Pokémon Leak of All Time

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Sometimes, something happens that’s so huge, so massive, and so legendary that it will be talked about for years to come. Last Friday, the data from an immense GameFreak leak went live, giving fans the world over insights as to the internal creative decisions of GameFreak, the makers of Pokémon, the highest-grossing intellectual property in human history.

This post won’t go over each of the details of the leak, which is a developing story, with fans still combing over the gigabytes of information. This post is more about the implications of the leak.

For one thing, the leak is acknowledged by GameFreak as containing personally-identifiable information on a number of their thousands of employees. In saying so, GameFreak has indicated that the leak is authentic.

But it also adds to the potential legal consequences that could be faced by the hacker(s), which Nintendo is likely to hunt down like a shiny Pokémon.

To briefly touch on what the leaks contain, included are, among other things, documents involving the creative direction of the gens 3, 4, and 5 games, many images of Pokémon that were redesigned before release, many Pokémon that were never released, possibly-scrapped plans for a sequel to the Detective Pikachu movie, and some amount of data for upcoming Pokémon games, including Pokémon Legends Z-A and the 10th generation of Pokémon.

And there’s more, such as the internal name for the Nintendo Switch successor, which was referred to as “Ounce”.

Without question, as far as hacks go, this is comparable to the “gigaleak” of Nintendo data a few years ago. But this one is different, as it specifically concerns Pokémon. Again, Pokémon is the highest grossing intellectual property in human history, and it has a fan base in the tens of millions, possibly many more. In the gaming world, the impact of this leak is seismic.

Also among the documents are those concerning the creative direction of the anime, such as concept drawings for the characters, and the reasoning behind the choice to conclude the story of Satoshi/Ash, and take the anime in a new direction.

Personally, I would’ve liked to see Gorochu. But maybe that’s in there, somewhere. Still, having seen the creative decisions being considered for it, I kinda wanna play the Sapphire version, again.

But as for the content concerning future Pokémon games, it’s not a bad idea to consider that things are subject to change. And perhaps GameFreak will gain a desire to change them, now that certain elements that they intended to be a surprise have gotten out there. But considering that the leak has shown us elements of past games that did change, it’s reasonable to expect that unreleased games will be subject to change prior to release.

Also, this leak is massive for the modding community, as it contains full beta versions of games from the DS era, and it sounds like it contains editors for at least one of the GBA games. Beta versions and developer tools are kinda a big deal.

There are also some creative elements that were probably better to leave out of the final products, such as a story about a woman with an injured foot who was attacked by a Vigoroth. That goes to show that the creators of Pokémon considered a lot, including stuff that wouldn’t have fit the tone of the games well.

Out of the unreleased designs, my favorite would be the unreleased Hoenn starter, Warabito (apparently Warabbit, a portmanteau of “water” and “rabbit”). While Mudkip may have fit in more with the other two, I’d have probably picked Warabbit, if that was an option.

There’s likely to be more to the leak to be discovered, as fans are still picking through them. It’ll be interesting to see what they find.

When a Pokémon Bears a Stronger Resemblance Than Intended

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A few years ago, I pointed out that a Pokémon resembling Donald Trump has been added to the Pokémon franchise through the Sun and Moon versions.

According to GameFreak, the makers of the Pokémon games, the Pokémon, named Yungoos, was not intended to bear a resemblance to Donald Trump.

Donald Trump, as you’re likely well aware, was nearly assassinated just days ago, the gunman only having succeeded in removing a chunk of Trump’s right ear.

Yungoos has an evolved form, named Gumshoos, which bears a stronger resemblance to Trump. Notice something about its ear?

Yeah, it’s got a notch in its ear.

To be fair, both its ears are like this, and some small mammals do have bifurcated ears. So, I feel inclined to say that this is just a coincidence. After all, why would GameFreak be able to see the future?

But I expect some people to point to this as evidence of the simulation glitching out.

My Impressions of Poppy and Tinkaton (Pokémon Masters EX)

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I’ve been out of Pokémon Masters EX for a while. But this morning, I learned from Serebii’s site that a new sync pair dropped, which is characterized by a combination of cuteness and overwhelming force.

Some might find such qualities mismatched, but such a combination of attributes appeals directly to my sensibilities, which could probably be called the most normal thing about me. So, I opened the app for the first time in months, and saw that I only had enough gems to run the x11 gacha three times. With a 2% draw rate for each of the 33 attempts I’d make, it was a roll of the dice. But it worked out with the 3rd x11 scout.

This time around, I scouted a character before even knowing the character’s kit. I’ve been through this enough times that I had learned from the pattern: the power creep had long since hit this game like a monster truck, so the newest character was probably the best by a long shot.

If Poppy and Tinkaton are not the best, then they are sure close. Their slap-you-in-the-face power can be likened to that of Steven and Deoxys or Erika and Leafeon, and certainly far beyond my first OP sync pair, Leon and Charizard.

Let’s give this kit a look, starting with the stats:

Yes, I already unlocked the EX outfit. What she’s supposed to do with that Sp. Atk, I don’t know, as her attack moves come off her physical attack. She’s got the glass cannon thing going for her, which is just fine, because you’ll place her behind two bulky support characters. Probably Red and Snorlax and Leaf and Eevee. Which go great with just about any attacker.

Here’s the move selection:

You could probably guess what Play Rough and Thunder Wave do. Play Rough will be the move you fall back on after your initial catastrophic barrage. There’s two moves I want to focus on, here:

The main setup move, which instantly cranks Tinkaton’s Attack stat to max, and makes the next move free. That’s gotten to be a standard convention for these OP characters. But now for her attack move:

A move only available each time Tinkaton uses a different move, which is slightly inconvenient, but with a catastrophic 450 power. While I’m not as impressed as I once was with such huge numbers (I’ve seen what power creep does to games like this), it’s still to be appreciated just how enormous this attack is. You do get to use this immediately after using the setup move, which means it can come off a maxed attack, for free.

Looking at passive abilities, she gets a couple good ones. For one thing, her stats can’t be lowered, so that increased Attack and whatever other stat boosts she gets from her allies isn’t going anywhere. This also ruins any strategy an opponent may try that depends upon lowering an opponent’s stats, but that doesn’t happen in this game very often. Speaking of, she also lowers an opponent’s Defense by two stages if her use of Thunder Wave is successful against them. Which is great if you want to slammify an opponent even harder.

But here’s the passive skill that I want to put the spotlight on:

So, on top of all that, her attacks are going to be critical hits. Unless the opponent is immune to those, for whatever reason. Assuming that critical hits work in this game like they do in other Pokémon games, this means that the attacks will do 1.5x damage, and ignore opponent’s defensive stat boosts. Because, you know, this kit needed even more irresistible power.

Reading Poppy and Tinkaton’s kit is like seeing that a character has a lot of damage potential, and as you continue reading, each ability the character possesses increases the damage potential further, for reasons that are simple and straightforward, and only require minimal setup, if any.

Basically, if a kid wanted to design a character who they wanted to win because they do a lot of damage, they’d come up with a kit like this. Except they’d probably also attach missiles and laser beams. Or is that just me?

If you’re interested, here’s Poppy’s character tags:

“Fancy” does not mean “nice”.

For those participating in her event, she can gain access to an exclusive Lucky Skill that brings down an opponent’s defense if they’re already paralyzed and survive an attack that Tinkaton uses against them. This sync pair is the total package.

And what’s more, at 6* EX, her sync move hits all opponents. Standard for an attacker sync pair, but hits a bit different considering the force behind it.

At this point, it’s clear why this game doesn’t have a direct PVP element. If it did, then most battles between players would come down to which ones can wipe out the other before the other can even make a move. This being the case, Pokémon Masters EX depends on in-game opponents to provide players with satisfying challenges. And it does okay at this with event battles.

Like with most RPGs, the objective of battles in Pokémon Masters EX is to lower the opponents HP to zero, before they do the same to you. Poppy’s kit shows that she’s very effective at this, and can accomplish it in a highly straightforward manner, with little in the way of elegance.

This sync pair may be diminutive in stature, but if you respect power (and admire cuteness), then it’ll quickly become a favorite. In my opinion, it’s definitely worth pulling.

Is Pokémon going woke?! And why isn’t Raizen concerned?

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It’s just come to the attention of the general community that The Pokémon Company has a job posting for a Director of DEI. This has resulted in concern that Pokémon has become the latest to fall prey to the woke ideology.

While it’s true that this is an unsettling development, I’m not as worried as others seem to be, for reasons that I’ll go into.

But first, I’ll go over why my fellow Pokémon fans are understandably concerned.

Wokeness degrades everything it touches. It’s concerned with the ideology rather than the quality of the product. Where it infiltrates, tokenism and virtue signaling become the order of the day. The usual consequences involve the quality of the product suffering, investors losing out on stock value, and in many cases, sales tank because customers disagree with the implementation of political ideology in a product that was otherwise less divisive.

So, if The Pokémon Company is looking for a DEI director, does that mean that Pokémon is falling to woke?

While this development is far from welcome, and may call for action on the part of the community, it does not mean that Pokémon is already a lost cause, as some might make it out to be.

For one thing, The Pokémon Company are not the main developers of the core Pokémon games. That would be GameFreak.

You might remember that Nippon Ichi Software America (NISA) was among the first companies to jump onto the anti-GamerGate bandwagon when game journalists initiated their slander campaign against gamers upset about the state of games journalism. One might imagine that Nippon Ichi Software (NIS) games turned SJW as a consequence.

But they didn’t. And here’s why: NISA doesn’t develop games. NISA is a localization company. The games were still made by NIS in Japan. The worst NISA could do is make changes to the original product in such a way which constitutes censorship, which one could get around by getting the Japanese originals and playing the games in their original languages. Whether NISA censors the games they localized or not, they must recognize that to do so would risk alienating their core audience of JRPG purists. And, as it so happens, NISA’s censorship has been minimal, if at all existent. The main issue with NISA is whether they can localize a DLC package without turning it into a buggy mess.

Knowing this, consider the fact that The Pokémon Company, which is largely a merchandising and localization company, is looking for a DEI officer. There wouldn’t be much expectation that such a person, if hired, could do much to damage the brand.

Now, I know that some might present the picture of the jacked woman from Scarlet and Violet as evidence that Pokémon has already been going the woke route:

Oh, hold on… That screen was from Pokémon Colosseum, released in 2003 (2004 in Japan and Europe). Here’s the one from Scarlet and Violet:

Aside from the fact that this is an obvious example of the cherry-picking fallacy, as there are many NPCs in SV that have many body types (the female protagonist is standing right there), it also overlooks that sometimes comically jacked characters are used for irony, particularly when they’re women. It’s also nothing new that sometimes ambiguous characters are used for humor, and for some reason, we’ve all collectively decided to overlook it when it was employed in FFVII and its remake.

Having said that, the fact that The Pokémon Company is seeking a DEI director at all is concerning. But there’s another side to this that’s not being understood: that the posting isn’t new. It was only recently discovered by the general community. Unless I’ve been misinformed, the posting is years old. Thus, the position hasn’t been filled, perhaps because The Pokémon Company wasn’t actually serious about filling it. What’s more, the posting was packed with buzzwords.

When you consider this, what it looks like to me is that the posting was formed to fill out some arbitrary checkboxes to satisfy some unsavory consultants, rather than a sincere desire to pay someone $200,000 a year to destroy a brand and piss off investors.

I know that taking a moment to look at a matter rationally might not be as fun as rushing out in some indignant rage, but it’s important that we understand the reality of the matter, so we can make more strategic moves.

Still, I know that some might see the posting, and feel tempted to flood it with joke applications and résumé’s. To this I say, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.

Now, if you want to reach out to someone who is in an official capacity to express your concern, the best way to go about this is to make your concerns known to the Japanese company, GameFreak. While you can try to reach out to Nintendo of America or The Pokémon Company, because they are largely merchandising and localization companies, they wouldn’t have much say over how their respective parent companies are run. Basically, it’s companies like Nintendo of Japan and GameFreak that hold sway in how the products are made, and the direction that their respective merchandising companies go in.

When writing to a company in Japan, it helps to know that the culture is way different. The Japanese are far more likely to respond to respect. If you come off as entitled or condescending, they’re not likely to listen to you. Also, it might not hurt to run your message through a translator to get your message in the Japanese language. There may be someone there who can read your message in your own language, but it’s less likely. Perhaps include a disclaimer that Japanese isn’t your first language.

Woke is coming for the things that we consider fun. It may be late in the game, considering the effectiveness of the boycotts against Bud Light and, more recently, Planet Fitness. Still, we can’t let the woke mind virus destroy the things we love. Even if the tide is turning in our favor, we can’t let up in fighting back.

Pokémon Legends Z-A just announced, but not much else out of Pokémon Presents.

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There was a Pokémon Presents today, I suppose.

I didn’t go in with high expectations, but I was somehow still disappointed. Just remembering last year, it seems like Pokémon Presents has basically come down to a bunch of announcements for some mobile games that I mostly don’t care about.

Pokémon Sleep? I tried it, and it got old after about a month. Pokémon Cafe Remix? I played it a few times, but it was basically a puzzle game with a Pokémon theme. Pokémon Unite? Did anyone really still care about Pokémon Unite a week after it dropped?

The new Pokémon TCG app looks kinda lit, but outside of that, what was there? Pokémon Go is still huge, but its announcement was yet another Pikachu with a hat. Anyone who has been playing Pokémon Go can tell you just how mundane that is. The Pokémon Horizons anime is great, so it deserves a better tie-in than to add its characters to the list of photobombs in Pokémon Go.

Here’s the Pokémon Go announcement that I want to hear: that Niantic will finally address the many problems that have plagued the game’s features since the inceptions of those features.

Instead, Niantic is probably just going to implement one flawed feature after another, not implementing fixes unless there’s an exploit that players could potentially benefit from, that they would issue a quick-fix for.

I used to really like Pokémon Masters. So I might have hoped for something that might have gotten me back into the game. Instead, they announced a new batch of variant trainers that you have to randomly pull from gachas. At this point, Pokémon Masters can be called a “try to pull your favorite waifu character from the gacha” game. Is that accurate?

The big announcement was for Pokémon Legends Z-A. That was completely unexpected. That might be exciting, but it’s not even arriving this year. Sure, it’s great that GameFreak is putting more time into their next game rather than going for the yearly scheduled Nov. 18ish release. And it’s from GameFreak and not another buggy ILCA mess, so it’s probably going to be great. And mega evolutions are coming back, so there’s that, too.

But overall, this year’s Pokémon Presents was a great disappointment. So, maybe I’ll give PalWorld a try.

Firing Off On Palworld

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Earlier this month, Palworld dropped on Steam, and since then, it’s raised some eyebrows with its resemblance to Pokémon.

I haven’t yet played Palworld, and maybe I’ll give it a try later on. It does look intriguing. This article is little more than my own opinion about the drama surrounding it, not my impression on the game.

In the Pokémon community, this game has stirred up some strong feelings, with many taking a side between supporting the game or not.

As I see it, Pokémon could use a bit of competition to stir them to improve. There have been issues surrounding Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, largely concerning performance issues, with some complaints being petty, and some being well-founded.

One of the matters concerning Palworld that has caught player’s attentions is that some of the pal characters bear a strong resemblance to Pokémon. As I see it, games like Digimon and Monster Rancher have done a lot more to ape Pokemon’s style, yet those games aren’t something that The Pokémon Company has had any issue with.

But there’s evidently something about Palworld that got their attention, as indicated by the following statement:

While one may interpret this as meaning that Pokémon is going to go after Palworld, what it comes down to is that it’s caught their attention, and they’re looking into it. Their statement that they didn’t grant the use of Pokémon assets is not a definitive statement that that Pokémon assets were used. It’s something that they intend to look into, and as the last sentence indicates, they intend to defend their copyright, if necessary.

And it might not come to that, because even though comparisons can be made between certain Pokémon and Palworld’s pals, they may be sufficiently different that no action would be needed to protect GameFreak’s copyright.

Remember that if a company doesn’t defend its copyright, they risk losing that copyright, hence Nintendo’s interest in defending Pokémon, which is the highest grossing intellectual property in human history.

Based on what I’ve seen, Palworld doesn’t infringe on GameFreak’s copyright, it merely imitates it, which wasn’t an issue when it came to similar games like Yokai Watch.

There have been comparisons made between the Pokémon characters and Pal World pals, and you may have seen some. Some of those comparisons may have been misleading, as one source of some more popular comparisons has admitted to scaling some Pal World models to make them more closely resemble Pokémon.

Having said that, I’m aware that there is something about Palworld that stirs up strong feelings among Pokémon fans, one way or another, particularly among those employed at Nintendo. There’s something about arming little critters with guns and sometimes eating them that goes against the established tone of the Pokémon franchise, and most games that plainly took inspiration from Pokémon. But that difference in tone can possibly be used to make the case that Palworld is sufficiently transformative to avoid legal trouble.

Another point of contention that has come up is that the developer of Palworld, Pocket Pair, has developed assets using AI. As I see it, this isn’t a big deal, as this is the direction that game development has been going in. In fact, as I see it, people in the future will be able to make their own games at home for personal use, by simple use of prompts. Imagine arriving home from work after a hard day, and asking your computer, “I’d like a dungeon-crawler JRPG.” Or, instead: “I liked yesterday’s game. I’d like to pick up where I left off.”

AI is already changing the way games are made, and the way things are looking, there’s more change to come. At some point, game design will become so trivial that you could just do it yourself.

While there has been many amusing takes on Palworld, you haven’t read the worst one unless you’ve seen PETA’s take:

However the situation develops, it’s already clear who the biggest losers are.