>>33245612Zelda's situation is a bit tragic, because the fanbase kept deluding themselves into thinking it was all fine (and a lot still do this, instead proclaiming BOTW destroyed Zelda), despite the games being built on top and around of superficial elements that were only there for tradition, while the structure and spirit of the games themselves drifted further and further from the original vision that sparked the franchise in the first place, which was basically Miyamoto wanting an exploration game with a big world (inspired by his visits to countryside Japan) that combined light RPG fantasy elements with action gameplay. So in the newer games NPCs weren't there to just populate the fantasy setting anymore, "puzzles" weren't there to just give a deeper layer of item-environment interaction and world building, they were now all there was to the games and the absolute focus, these things became the core of the newer games, they became the ends and not the means, turning the games into big chore simulators with a structure so predictable you can sleep through it.
Pokemon doesn't have it nearly as bad as Zelda did, mainly because there wasn't such a shift in focus into shit that doesn't matter for nearly 20 years. Only real issue is the obsession on story-driven JRPG garbage that has taken hold since Masuda became director and has only gotten stronger, culminating in Sun/Moon. The reason this isn't as bad as Zelda's problem is that it's very easy to solve, there's no need to reinvent the entire game quite as hard as BOTW did, they just need to give a bit more player freedom, make the world more organic and bigger, and overall focus on the concept of a player-driven trainer setting out on a journey.
