With the release of “Pokémon Legends: Z-A,” fans have come for the throats of the developers once again for “lazy design.”
A trend that really started with the franchise’s switch from 2D graphics to 3D with “Pokémon X and Y” in 2013. Fans criticized the look of some of the Pokémon’s 3D models, saying their favorite Pokémon looked ugly in how it was rendered.
It’s true that in those games, a majority of Pokémon’s color palette was dimmed to fit the software of the Nintendo 3DS better, leaving them to look pale compared to their vibrant 2D spirits from the previous games.
These criticisms have only grown over the years, as the Pokémon Company has not stepped away from 3D graphics. When “Pokémon Sword and Shield” was released in 2019, fans were quick to point out that the environment looked bad. The game used “wild areas” instead of the traditional tall grass method to encounter Pokémon, which allowed players to run around open areas to find and capture Pokémon.
The thing fans chose to pick apart in these wild areas were the models of the trees. They took to social media, complaining that the trees looked like they came out of “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time,” a game released in 1998. Fans would also compare the trees found in other Switch releases to the trees found in the Pokémon game.
“Pokémon Scarlet and Violet” released with bug after bug. The game would lag severely when too many models were loaded in. Some players would experience their character model jump and stretch into horrific monstrosities. These glitches and much more just fueled the fire underneath the fans who were already complaining about the state of Pokémon games.
And with the newest game, fans were quick to point out that buildings do not have fully rendered doors or windows. Making the building look like a Looney Tunes sketch where Wile E. Coyote paints fake scenery to trick Road Runner.
While it sounds childish to some, the fans who complain about these things see the fact that the Pokémon Company is the highest-grossing media company with over $113.7 billion in revenue. With the video games they release, they cover around $30 billion of that revenue.
The fans know the company has all this money; however, they still pump out games that look subpar at best.
These fans look at other games released on the Switch consoles and see graphics that blow people away, while they have to deal with pale Pokémon and trees from the ’90s games.
Some fans side with the Pokémon Company, claiming that these fans who complain about the graphics are not “real fans” of Pokémon.
These fans say the company is still getting used to the 3D graphics that have been used for twelve years. They also point out that the ones who complain still buy and play the games they complain about.
To combat this, some fans have begun to boycott “Pokémon Legends: Z-A,” refusing to purchase the game due to its graphical performance.
They have also shared exactly what could work for these games to look the best they can. They wish the Pokémon Company would take a little longer to create its games, not releasing them within three years of each other like in previous years.
All in all, the fans who complain about the graphics of these games still love the Pokémon franchise. They just wish this billion-dollar company would release a game that looks like a billion-dollar company made it.