>>49202004I hate how true this is. I respect them for the world they gave us and the work they put in to bring it to life, especially in the beginning when they really were just a handful of passionate people putting everything on the line for an improbable dream. But so much has changed, even the staff who've been there from the beginning are not the same people they once were. It's about profits now, not sharing a dream with the world.
Masuda's music is iconic, sometimes I can hear the gen 1 intro or victory road in my head just walking around when I'm really hyped for something like when I started college or went for my first job interview. I'm not even sure if he composes anymore but the games just don't sound as memorable. He's an okay director, but most of his games are half-baked since tpc started planning to release a 3rd instalment from the get go instead of the rehashes being a spontaneous response to the demand for more the way yellow served as a bridge between the games and the anime while gen 2 was still in development. Sugimori's art improved a lot over the years then he just threw away his style in favor of something more modern, sterile and corporate. Less about the piece radiating character like pic related, more about being an easy template for other artists to follow and highlight what marketing is pushing. I remember around gen 3 organizing all my pokemon stuff and looking at some of his early, almost blocky art next to some of the gen 3 promotional art and thinking "wow, this is the same dude" and it brought home the realization that even the people you look up to are just people, they aren't innately perfect or untouchable, they had to start somewhere and they're always learning and growing too. Tajiri mostly fucked off, but the original games were his vision which newcomers don't fully grasp. Despite trying to cling to that formula the games keep straying further, ending up neither finding a new solid path nor continuing the old one.
