>>29990509>Pretty sure Tajiri and his 'tism have nothing to do with serious battle mechanics or balancing. Once again, I think he does very little to nothing anymore in terms of touching the games.I wasn't just randomly pulling theories out of thin air. I physically saw/heard Masuda say that Tajiri was involved in testing battle mechanics. There was a Q&A session in the Kyoto Pokemon Center sometime before TGS (Though it had no connection to TGS) called 'Focusing on the evolution of the Pokemon series' or something. It was streamed at the time (I don't think it was niconico) so you might be able to find some remnants of it online. I think it was supposed to be a big-ish event but only about 50 people were there and it was quite intimate.
The focus was on the future of Pokemon and was unsurprisingly average (Though there were some interesting infographics about the TCG that apparently were impressive), Sugimori said virtually nothing the whole time except when someone asked him something and he said that he wanted the future of the Pokemon games to be simpler and have less moves and items because there were so many duplicates (A sentiment he echoed in a translated interview around the same time/a bit later) Masuda nodded slightly but didn't say much to back him up which I thought was interesting.
Masuda reiterated that Pokemon was about communication first and foremost and that's where the main series will always go.
Tajiri was mentioned at the beginning when the Q&A started. Someone basically 'called out' (normal volume, they were very close) 'Where's tajiri-san?' (some people in the crowd laughed slightly, I think Sugimori smiled). Masuda said 'Tajiri-san is not with us today' then someone put their hand up and asked if he had any input in the games still. Masuda said (paraphrased) 'Tajiri still works with us, testing the battle mechanics and other things'.
