>>56542704>As in, being more family friendly is such a point of the brand identity that it's impossible to have something with a darker tone without it feeling unfitting?yes, I am saying that.
>Would you argue this is due to the inherent concept of Pokemon (monsters you can capture and train), or due to the direction Gamefreak has taken the series over the years?the latter. the concept itself really has nothing to do with it. SMT, another series I love, has a very similar core concept, but the subject matter and tone of the universe is much more mature/edgy. and again, if there was an SMT game with a Pokemon-like tone and they removed all the references to religion, violence etc, I think you would agree that it would be quite jarring. so, it's the same in reverse. the world of Pokemon has an established tone and games that deviate from it strongly stick out. that's really all that I'm saying.
and that tone is really baked into the fabric of the universe. introducing these elements brings up so many questions and implications about the Pokemon world, people's relationships to Pokemon etc. all of the established logic about the world breaks down at that point.
even in Gen 1 when there were seedier elements like gambling and trainers who whipped Pokemon and stuff like that, it was never really presented as having serious consequences. the Pokemon world is inherently utopic, and some of the basic premises of the series rely on that, like 10 year old kids being able to go out on a solo adventure.
I can see how some of those ideas would be interesting to explore and subvert, but instead of being a game set in the Pokemon universe, it makes your game its own universe that just happens to have Pokemon in it. if that makes sense.
