Giens Peninsula, Hyères, Côte d’Azur. 22.20.
Something I’ve done to pass the time out here in Hyères is to download one of the newer releases in the Pokémon series, of which I’ve been an on-and-off devotee for years. Are you surprised? I imagine not. It tallies extremely well with my lifelong obsession with teaching myself the names of all the birds and beasts around me.
The game in question, Pokémon Champions, is a very different game to the ones I’ve played before, in that it is exclusively targeted at what is known as PvP (player versus player), being arguably the most accessible method yet for players around the world to test their mettle against each other. In principle, at least, it’s a great idea.
Rafe and his friends seem to have been playing Champions for a while, so I thought I’d give it a go, being something of a veteran player of the series (I got my first game – Pokémon Ruby – when I was around ten and was into the TV show well before that). I might even have gone so far as to call myself something of an expert.
Or… so I thought.
After winning through the first few rounds (against what was clearly a generous AI opponent or two) I got absolutely mauled in the later tiers. Unlike the mainline games – which used to have a proper challenge for competent players in the postgame in the Battle Tower and its variants – Champions pitches you immediately against the rest of the world, most of whom prefer to play with the current titans of the competitive metagame.
I can take a loss, but it was a bit disheartening to be able to go no further with my favourites. The real heart of the Pokémon series – which, let’s face it, is a sanitised modern take on animal baiting – was and always has been about going on a journey with your chosen team, developing a bond with them as you go. The battles were the main appeal of the game, it’s true, but they made a lot more sense when you’d gone on an adventure and grown together. Victories and losses felt keener, more interesting, more deserved.
Champions necessarily strips that all away so you can get straight to business – and, in so doing, it loses its heart. I thought I might enjoy the challenge, but I’m nothing if not stubborn, and I don’t like the idea that progression means switching out the team that I have named and grown up with for monsters that will get the job done better. Stripped down to competitive PvP, it becomes much more about prediction, calculation and synergy. It’s the endgame all Pokémon trainers have always been working towards, no doubt, but it’s a lot less enjoyable that I expected.
It reflects a frustrating trend in the series of late, dividing the franchise between the mainline games – which have become so defanged in their difficulty level as to become stultifying at times – and the competitive environment of the VGC. For those of us in the middle – competent players who have dedicated a lot of time to the series but aren’t that interested in smashing teams we have no connection to against each other just to climb the ranks – there is no middle ground.
For the first time in the franchise’s history, I won’t be getting the next game in the series (Winds and Waves) largely on account of the fact that I can’t justify the expense of a Switch 2, but also because it’s getting to the point where I’ve outgrown what the series has become. It feels like Pokemon used to have a lot more heart and a lot more of a challenge, except the two were kept in balance, while they have now been almost surgically separated.
I can’t knock Champions’ concept. It’s just missing the more sheltered element that the mainline games had which let you train against computer-controlled teams, which were a lot more forgiving while still posing a genuine challenge to experienced players. If it had that small tweak, I might just be convinced to return.
Come on, Pokémon. Remember when you had one of your own characters convey arguably the most important message in the whole franchise back in Gold and Silver? We do!
Strong Pokemon. Weak Pokemon. That is only the selfish perception of people. Truly skilled trainers should try to win with their favourites.
Karen, Johto Elite Four
Sure, they had an NPC completely contradict that memorable quote in the Ruby and Sapphire remakes (which was a really callous thing to do). There’s been a lot of that retconning lately, such as dropping the famous “Gotta catch ’em all!” tagline when the franchise became far too big to accommodate them all in a single game.
All the same, I think it’s sad that the company has lost a lot of its heart and soul. For the sake of future Pokemon fans, I hope they see the light and start to try to move the series back toward its humbler roots. BB x
