The Pokemon RPG games are awesome. They have been since Red and Blue back in the old millennium, and thanks to the constant generational churn, they’ve somehow managed to stay interesting over the years. The fact that the core recipe hasn’t changed in the slightest over a dozen games and half as many platforms hasn’t exactly done much to help that though.
While each new color, metal, type of crystal or just plain version brings a host of minor, inconsequential things to do instead of bashing other people’s pokemon over the head, they’ve essentially all just been the same game, rehashed in different flavors. And while I’ve enjoyed almost all of them, it’s about time we got something new to shake things up, and ironically enough, the addition of 3D might be what actually does it for Pokemon, thanks to the upcoming Pokemon X and Y. First time for everything right?
Thus the advent of the 6th generation of pokemon finally sees sprites being abandoned in favor of full 3D models for each and every pokemon, as well as all the environments. The exact impact this will have on the games is still anyone’s guess, but the combination of platforming and other interesting mechanics that are suddenly possible with the quality we’ve seen from the Black & White series certainly has me eager to play. Here’s hoping the new generation has some good pokemon in it, as there’s been a lot of hit and miss in the last few.
