>>57677644Pokemon has 3 distinct fanbases that don't really overlap, and is only successful because it panders to these 3 fanbases. They are: Kids, Men with statistical/badass monster autism, and Women with cute/mascot autism.
Despite outselling all of them, Pokemon's gameplay formula only exists as a subset of the gameplay of other older RPG series. Particularly, the first Saga game Demon Tower Saga for gameboy, and Megami Tensei 2 for Famicom. Saga and Megami Tensei 2 are very difficult, confusing, and long games. Gamefreak realized the main audience who would be into the monster collecting aspect (the 3 groups I already mentioned) was not into the demonic worldbuilding, confusing progression, heavy grinding, and trial and error elemental weaknesses, so they just dumbed down all of those things. That's pokemon's audience.
Big audiences of other long running games, RPGs and non-RPGs that have been around for 20+ years, have been excited for improved gameplay and story telling. We're talking stuff like Zelda, Mario, Elder Scrolls, Megami Tensei, Final Fantasy, and even fucking Sonic. Cutscenes, narration, better and more dialogue, entirely retooled gameplay, and more complicated and more involved stories. Pokemon has never done any of that. Game Freak has somehow got away with remaking Red & Blue with new monsters 9 times now. The only thing that ever changes is the region, bad guy, and pokemon. And they always add some gimmick that doesn't last for more than 1 game. But we're still stuck with text boxes for dialogue, because that's what Red & Blue had.
