Anyone interested in Pokemon Black and White 2?

[ray245]

Seems like Nintendo is spending quite a lot of effort in marketing it, by creating an anime trailer.

[someone_else]

I don't see your point. The entire pokemon saga of cartoons was produced by nintendo (or by the nintendo employees that made the first pokemon games anyway), which also happens to sell the (shitty, lame, boring) games. Obvious good idea, I doubt that they would sell a shit without the anime that brainwashes kids.

It's just the next generation of (shitty, lame, boring) anime made to sell the next generation of (shitty, lame, boring) pokemon games.

Lots of (shitty, lame, boring) pokemon anime series before it.

[Bakustra]

For fuck's sake, either all advertising is brainwashing or none is. Anyways, will they be doing anything substantial to differentiate B/W II from their predecessors? I might pick then up if they change it up enough.

[One Two]

For fuck's sake, either all advertising is brainwashing or none is. Anyways, will they be doing anything substantial to differentiate B/W II from their predecessors? I might pick then up if they change it up enough.

It'll definitely be a bigger change than Yellow was to Red and Blue or Crystal was to Gold and Silver. I'm not that into the series anymore and to be honest, I stopped playing Black the second I beat the Pokemon league the first time. But I'll check it out after I get my hands on a new DS.

[Vendetta]

Seems like Nintendo is spending quite a lot of effort in marketing it, by creating an anime trailer.

Nintendo spending a lot of effort marketing their second biggest franchise next to Mario should come as a surprise to absolutely nobody, even people who have spent the last 20 years living under a rock. On the moon.

Anyway, wake me when Pokemon Conquest is out, that actually looks quite fun.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Nintendo spending a lot of effort marketing their second biggest franchise next to Mario should come as a surprise to absolutely nobody, even people who have spent the last 20 years living under a rock. On the moon.

Which is funny given how much effort Nintendo goes through to stop Pokemon from moving on from where it's been since 1999. Pokemon has branched off into every single niche you can think of, but they refuse to actually make an actual Pokemon RPG dedicated to consoles or move on to exploiting the MMO market.

[Vendetta]

And yet they continue to sell bajillions of copies. Because, well, Japan. Frankly.

Pokemon is well suited to the way the multiplayer scene seems to work in Japan (and much of the longevity of Pokemon games is in battles with other people), where the dominant paradigm is ad-hoc local wireless play. This is why Monster Hunter is so successful on the PSP, but markedly less so on the Wii (it still sold, but half as much as Freedom Unite).

So, it turns out that iterating development of the main series on the handhelds by making small mechanical changes and expanding the roster regularly is the right way for Nintendo to sustain the franchise.

[SAMAS]

I always figured that to take the Pokemon series is a more "mature" direction (no, I don't mean blood n' boobs n' brown), it would be served better as a spin-off, before messing with the main formula.

[Xisiqomelir]

I don't see your point. The entire pokemon saga of cartoons was produced by nintendo (or by the nintendo employees that made the first pokemon games anyway), which also happens to sell the (shitty, lame, boring) games.

I think competitive Pokemon is pretty solid these days, actually. With 50 pokes in BW's OU tier, and much deeper strategic options in abilities/movepool than before, the game is much more exciting than the Spike/Rock/Wall/Sweep metagame from last-gen, or the RS bulky v bulky era.

No comment about the anime, which exists primarily as a source of fanfic inspiration from what I can tell.

[Ritterin Sophia]

And yet they continue to sell bajillions of copies. Because, well, Japan. Frankly.

That's an argument for keeping handheld games, not one against expanding the franchise beyond them.

[SAMAS]

That's why I say that a "Mature" Console-based Pokemon should be a spinoff, not the next iteration of the series.

[Vendetta]

And yet they continue to sell bajillions of copies. Because, well, Japan. Frankly.

That's an argument for keeping handheld games, not one against expanding the franchise beyond them.

See, here's the thing, what do you expand the franchise into on home consoles.

How do you capture the "collect and battle" format of Pokemon in a home console game. The "standard" format of JRPGs (which is what Pokemon is, albeit with a single character not three or four) for the last 20 years is slowly dying off on the home consoles because it's frankly too simplistic (it still has a place on handhelds, but menu driven combat just doesn't cut it any more for real toys), so "The same Pokemon but teams of six all out at once" wouldn't be a good expansion of the franchise, and moving into a more modern JRPG format like something like Xenoblade wouldn't be able to adequately capture the many squillions of mons that now inhabit the franchise with them all developed as unique feeling entities.

[Ritterin Sophia]

And yet they continue to sell bajillions of copies. Because, well, Japan. Frankly.

That's an argument for keeping handheld games, not one against expanding the franchise beyond them.

See, here's the thing, what do you expand the franchise into on home consoles.

How do you capture the "collect and battle" format of Pokemon in a home console game. The "standard" format of JRPGs (which is what Pokemon is, albeit with a single character not three or four) for the last 20 years is slowly dying off on the home consoles because it's frankly too simplistic (it still has a place on handhelds, but menu driven combat just doesn't cut it any more for real toys), so "The same Pokemon but teams of six all out at once" wouldn't be a good expansion of the franchise, and moving into a more modern JRPG format like something like Xenoblade wouldn't be able to adequately capture the many squillions of mons that now inhabit the franchise with them all developed as unique feeling entities.

Where are you getting Xenoblade and 'all six at once from'? Do you just really like the strawman or what?

[Vendetta]

Where are you getting Xenoblade and 'all six at once from'? Do you just really like the strawman or what?

How could I possibly me constructing a straw man of your arguments when you do not appear to even possess a coherent argument beyond "They should make a Pokemon game for home consoles" with no indication of what you would consider a valuable expansion of the Pokemon franchise into that space. (Presumably Stadium isn't it).

All I was doing was pointing out that the current structure of a Pokemon game does not translate into that market space very well due to the changes that the genre which Pokemon is part of is undergoing.