>>56602894>>56602997Let's look at their criticism objectively with hindsight now. This seems to be from July 2022, so they're likely talking about SV.
>Sugimori: "I don't care about the truth behind someone's death. I want the protagonist to [to have a bigger role].">Iwao: "The focus is too much on human characters[...], I want to know what the writers truly think."Sugimori is likely referring to the mystery of Turo's death. As a story factor in SV, he's right. This wasn't something people cared about. It wasn't really in focus, at least. The Turo story is related Arven stuff, and Arven story was entirely about the bond between him and his Pokemon. The Turo stuff just comes up later as an extension of it. Sugimori is also right about the protagonists, and the recent protags dwindling popularity validates him.
Maybe the writers believe this complaint is overblown. Because there is a large amount of focus on the bond between people and Pokemon, with Arven and the legendries, it's just that there is also a focus on the human characters alongside it. Whether you agree with Iwao or not, the reception to these human stories has been pretty positive. SV got a lot of negative reception, but that was largely in regard to its buggy, half-baked gameplay side of things. The reception to its human characters' story was very positive.
>Iwao: "Even if we want to attract female customers, the current plans are half-baked in many ways."Rejecting a demographic of female fans entirely is... an approach. But that aside, Iwao saying that the current plans are half-baked rings hollow. Both SS and SV got a very large following from female fans. They actually succeeded in this. SV in particular got a lot of female fans, even with its females characters. Rika and Penny were very popular with females. There was little bromance in SV, and the males got much less attention in SV from female fans, which does suggest that the female fans liked bromance. The current approach worked.
