>>45735989I feel most games in the series don't take full advantage of the conceit of Pokemon, which is to say, I don't believe the developers ever ask "is this a story that can only be told in a world like this". Moreover, I feel the question "is this a story that would be told best in this setting" isn't brought up. I think if you fail to answer either of these questions, people will ask "why is the story being told" or "why is this a pokemon game and not a new IP", and the answers to those questions are both really cynical.
X and Y onward especially feel like they have no interest in working with the concept of pokemon so much as they use it as a hook to an otherwise pretty unrelated plot. I haven't played the ultra games, so I won't consider their changes to the story with what I'm about to say. Sun and Moon might seem to care more about the base concept of pokemon at first, because ultra beasts are designed to be in stark contrast to normal pokemon designs, which works in tandem with the ultra dimension and its inhabitants being completely otherworldly. However, I'd say even in Sun and Moon's case, its new ideas contrast what's been established without really adding anything. The introduction of ultra beasts into the main world is briefly portrayed as a crisis, and you're sent to pick up a few across the islands, but this is a short-lived post-game quest where you just snag a couple of basically-legendary pokemon, and beyond this point the ultra dimension has no permanent impact on the main universe.
In the first four generations, the stories were mostly simple sports-anime type plots where you might have a rival or a crime syndicate to curb-stomp, but progress and completion were gated by becoming a stronger trainer in the league.
cont.
