>>48517263>The gen that killed PokemaniaIt was already dead by 2001. That's why Masuda was so nervous during the development of RS and the games were released several months early.
"At the time, the atmosphere and general thinking was that the Pokémon fad was over and there was huge pressure to prove people wrong. The next time I visited it was all Star Wars. Everyone was saying it was on a downtrend, the fad’s over and I really felt that pressure to make something amazing.
I got really stressed out and had to go to the hospital and had some stomach issues and had to get a camera inserted and they didn’t know what it was – very stressful. The night before release I had a dream that it was a complete failure, a total nightmare.
We at Game Freak took that as a challenge and said, ‘It’s not dead. We’re going to show you guys you’re wrong!’ The morning after, the day of release, I went into the local shop and saw people lining up to buy it and was extremely relieved. It was close. Super scary at the time."
Source:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/olliebarder/2017/08/16/junichi-masuda-explains-why-pokemon-ruby-and-sapphire-were-the-hardest-to-make/Inb4 *Crystal destroyed Pokemania*. No, it didn't. Pokemania was a fad and like all fads it had to eventually die.
