>>49103120It's less that RS specifically saved Pokemon, and more like anything that was reasonably decent would have saved it. This was a time when even Nintendo was rushing out their games a little too soon (Super Mario Sunshine and The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker come to mind specifically) and a lot of people ate it up. I think RS are alright, despite the overworld sprites looking like ass and the borderline experimental lategame route design. It's not perfect, but it didn't need to be, it just needed to come out. This just validated some of the things Masuda learned from the development of Gold and Silver, and arguably how we got to the annual release thing going on now. Compare that to Nintendo themselves, who generally only release one game per franchise per generation (notable exceptions for consoles that sell really well, usually on the same engine to save some development cost). I guess I'm just bitter that Pokemon became a franchise over a video game in the long run, but I'm trying to make my peace with it.
