>>43713867I feel like stressing the uniqueness of the region itself would be better, but his idea isn't ENTIRELY off base. Some things like poffins, curry, berry blending, contests, or region-specific things like z-moves and Maxing are fine as one-offs. The problem is when they remove features that just make the game better or feel more immersive, like following Pokémon, ridable Pokémon, ability to re-batlte gyms and trainers, some form of Battle Fontier, etc. It's even more egregious when these things can easily be built upon, like following Pokémon, and from now on, clothing customization. The animation assets are made and the clothing assets are made for models that likely won't be changing drastically anytime soon. Adding some features takes little effort because it's already been implemented before, makes the game objectively better, and removing these features only takes away from the game for the sake of being different in any way possible.
That's Masuda's problem. He thinks something like a returning bike is a "surprise." All those animations were made for Amie and they just dumped them all. There's too much wasted energy. It's more like designing a fireball mechanic for Mario, getting rid of it the next game for something inferior, and bringing it back two games later just to say, "hey, look, isn't it surprising that you can do a basic mechanic?" they should be focusing on polishing the experience, fleshing out the good bits, removing the necessary things (which they did with HMs after well over a decade), and adding to the games. The games don't feel much like they're progressing or getting much better because they specifically try to make the same game with some features removed and some added, cycling through them year after year, just for the sake of uniqueness. It's like they don't go in trying to make the best Pokémon game; they go in trying to figure how to make the same game look slightly different from the last one.
