Ok, let me elaborate on my opinion. I think Pichu is a really good chibi. Just perfectly sized head, body, limbs. It's all proportionally perfect. And the pink cheeks accent its yellow fur better than red, to me.

Raichu has kind of an oval shape that has been a little smooshed like clay? It's very blobby. And I think that's a nice look for a rodent. And I prefer the orange color and countershade belly. Somehow speaks more "electric" than yellow does to me. Alolan Raichu also feels very huggable. It has really good paws I feel. And the tail surfing thing is neat, but I think it would also be cool to see it floating, mid air like Mew does. Overall it manages to feel lighter and softer than Kantonian Raichu, it's a nice contrast.

And the Mega forms of Raichu, they are kind of funny, goofy in how they need to be X and Y shaped... But it's good that they emphasized Raichu's tail and ears. In such a way that it's like. ZAP! POW!! SHOCKED!!! They feel rougher than base Raichu. I would probably add claws to them if I draw them, to give a more feral feeling.

So then, uh. Pikachu. I do like the "original fat design" most. Particularly how it's drawn in Pokémon Special, where it feels like a Ball of Rodent. But there are little things that don't grab me. It's kind of flat colorwise. And I dunno, it doesn't look as nice as, like, Jigglypuff's flat pink. Yellow is kind of hard to do without more accents. Also, despite it being round in the early days, it also had too much of a cube form to it? Which doesn't feel so nice for organic mammals, I guess. Sorry, I feel like I'm nitpicking a bit...

Well, I can't say hype backlash isn't a large part of my disdain for Pikachu. I'm just tired of seeing it everywhere. Gen 1 has cooler and cuter Pokémon to me. And even some of the Pikaclones build on the electric rodent concept in more fun ways that make them stand out more in design and in battle.

#gamersteak

I was never interested in Palworld
because the designs vaguely resemble Pokémon. Yeah it's "obvious" that's where the visual ques come from, but besides that they are not that similar. The entire vibe of the universe is different, the gameplay is not that much of a turn based RPG, the way the monsters are talked about also has a different feel, as do their relationships to each other. I wish the set design was more stylized, but this is an issue in nearly every non-platformer 3D game in the modern day. But my point is I don't like Palworld "despite" or "beyond" the Pokémon influence. That was never a factor in my enjoyment.

Nobody else can move past that aspect though and it's so annoying. Not like it's the first game with a monster bestiary to be compared to Pokémon. In fact, the collective video game fandom LOVES comparing everything to everything else. It's everywhere, not much to be done I guess, but it makes it hard to enjoy stuff within a community, if that makes sense. Some things I just have to enjoy in an isolated way.

#gamersteak

I got sleep. So anyway. I still like Pokémon and want to follow it. But I also resent the massive success. I don't think this is a series that should have the mainline go on for 30 years. At some point you just exhaust the amount of completely separate island "regions" you can have. Not to mention ideas for mythology and lore. I don't feel like the dev team behind mainline are that passionate about it anymore and it shows in the detail, the lack thereof, the lack of optimization, etc. I can't blame them I guess. When you have to release like 1 game every 1-2 years you don't have time to sit down and really plan and make something special. They are not afforded the same privilege as the devs of Super Mario Wonder.

Even if they did, what else is there left to do? This formula is not very malleable imo. Only so much you could do before it's the same thing over and over. You know, people wish Star Fox and F-Zero would come back, but I am glad they "stopped" eventually. I wouldn't want it to force itself to continue into repetition.

And I have noticed and missed the lack of spinoffs. I was basically begging for something like Pokopia. Different takes on the world and mechanics. This kind of thing just died after Gen 7, and it's put a damper on my excitement for the franchise. I don't know about anyone else but I think that was what kept me coming back. I think PMD is fun and the stories are memorable enough. I didn't like playing Pokémon Ranger but it's still unique. Pokémon Snap is an adorable concept that more games should try.

There was this encyclopedia book that came out right after the inital release of Red and Green. There was extra bits of lore, species building, world building stuff. I doubt it's even canon anymore, and something like it probably wouldn't happen these days. It's not well documented in English, and it goes for at least $170 on ebay, but it's scanned on archive. https://archive.org/details/pokemon-illustrated-book-of-pocket-monsters-character-art-book-encyclopedia-poke/page/n8/mode/1up I think it's sad we'll never get something like this again.

I don't know what else to say at this point. It's not like the older stuff has disappeared completely so I can still go back to it whenever. And I guess I can make up stories with my friends. But I am just not that inspired by Pokémon like I was when I was younger.

#gamersteak