It was fun being part of the Pokemon, Trails, and Tales of fandoms. Keyword being was.
Pokemon
It was nothing but joy up until 2010. Everyone had their favorite gens, their favorite Pokemon, and their favorite characters from the anime. There were the usual shipping debates but they never really went anywhere; it was just all in good fun as people exchanged headcanons regarding characters who never even as much as had a hint of romantic affection for each other in the show. Generally, bliss.
Then BW hit, and for the first time, the fandom had been truly split. For players, many detested the fact that they couldn't initially find Pokemon from older generations until they were nearly done with their first playthrough. Others despised the "globalization/Americanization" of Pokemon as for the first time, we had a region explicitly based on a location other than Japan. Etc. For fans of the anime, they were incredibly disappointed to find Ash Ketchum - character who had been consistently growing since the first ever episode - to have his progression reset to a dumb idiot. People were upset with the companions, as Iris constantly insulted the protagonist, and many felt that Cilan was a discount replacement for Brock (personally, I feel that Brock had become a hollow caricature of himself by D&P, so Cilan was actually somewhat of a step up). This was also around the time that people began to become really jaded with the anime. In prior seasons, Ash was consistently climbing up the ladder in the League Conferences and was on his way to becoming a Pokemon Champion. People were upset with D&P's ending because Ash's victory was snatched away by a trainer no one had heard of before who whipped out a rack of legendaries. No big deal; Ash ended at the semi-finals that time. Ofcourse he'll push to the finals the time, right? Nope. Ash backslides from top 4 to top 8...
Then XY hits. Game wise, people start getting frustrated with GameFreak for what they consider to be "Gen 1 pandering", as there is heavy promotion of Gen 1 Pokemon over the other generations (Gen 1 starters given to the players during the story, Gen 1 gets far and away the most Mega-Evolutions, etc). For GameFreak's first 3D mainline entry, they expected more out of XY, and it dropped several features that were beloved in previous games, such as the Battle Frontier and Pokemon Contests. On the anime side of things, things started out really optimistic. BW Ash was completely retconned out and XY Ash starts off where his development in Sinnoh last left off. The man is back! Furthermore, XY had Serena, a PokeGirl who was actually romantically interested in Ash (which caused an uproar among fragile shippers as their headcanon crack pairings were threatened by canon). As we entered into the XYZ season, GameFreak began hyping up Ash's league victory really hard. Combine that with the XY anime having a tremendous leap in production quality - art, animation, episode pacing, etc - and you saw a large influx of teenage and adult viewers coming in to check up what's the big deal. Then he loses. Again. And Serena's relationship with Ash dissipates as she is left behind to never return again. At this point, people were just done with the anime, feeling that the Pokemon Company will never allow any significant changes.
SM hits, and community morale continues to decline. The game is simply XY 2.0, with hardly any improvements over the prior game and missing essential features that made the first five generations so revered among gamers. Even the beloved soaring feature of ORAS did not make a return. No new Mega-Evolutions were introduced, replaced with new gimmicks in the form of Alolan formes and Z-moves. People began to fear (and rightfully so) that GameFreak was just whipping up ideas for a game and had no intention of reusing or developing them. Furthermore, the pandering towards Gen 1 intensified, with only Gen 1 Pokemon receiving redesigns as Alolan formes and the LGEP remakes. Anime wise, when it was revealed that Ash would not be traveling on the road collecting badges, but instead had been reverted back to a "bumbling idiot" (much like the hated BW Ash) and enrolled in a school, many people simply dropped the anime and didn't look back. Making matters worse is that Ash's surprise victory in the Alolan League felt unearned (he fought with his weakest team and won against Hau because of a rules technicality). It felt like an insincere consolation prize for having lost the hyped up Kalos League Tournament.
As we approach SwSh, morale among the Pokemon fandom has been plummeting at an unprecedented rate. GameFreak has made a fool of themselves by refusing to take advantage of their billions of dollars in revenue from the franchise and the resources Nintendo offers to give their fans a quality product. GameFreak introduced people to Mega-Evolutions and Z-moves, and took them away from people who loved them. We are being drip fed information about SwSh, which - knowing GameFreak's behavior - indicates that there very little content in the game.
Overall, I'm just exhausted by the Pokemon Company's behavior over the past several years. I will always cherish my time with the series, but at this point, I - like many others - have decided enough is enough.
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Trails
I've talked about this topic so many times, I'm too exhausted to write up yet another essay about it. In general: people shitting on the Trails of Cold Steel games and worshiping at the foot of the 'Sky and Crossbell games when they committed the exact same things those people accuse Cold Steel of doing. Doesn't matter whether or not I go to SomethingAwful, the Animesuki, the SpaceBattles, Neogaf, ResetERA, r/JRPG, r/Vita, r/Falcom, the Falcom Discord, Steam or wherever. It's nothing but non stop shitting, and woe to anyone who actually likes those games. It's like the Prequel trilogy/Gen 5/FE Awakening/Zestiria hate all over again. I just can't be bothered to interact with that community anymore.
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Tales of
*sigh*
After the Zestiria hate train... I just can't. Not anymore. I'm done with those people. |