I think the most interesting aesthetic and mechanical thing that was abandoned as the Pokemon franchise entered the 21st century and the smartphone age began was how much of it was conceived from the perspective of Satoshi Tajiri witnessing the rapid industralization and urbanization, as well as the rise of the computer age.>most sophisticated piece of technology you have is a pokedex or other single-function gear>specter of war hanging over everything that a child wouldn't have born witness to but was vaguely aware of, with one gym trainer explicitly being a war veteran>have to go to a pokemon center or home to do stuff on the PC to exchange pokemon or items>now things are just crammed into smartphones and the pokemon universe is just a weird mirror to our world
>come home from a long day of training>boot up pc to check my pinned threads>rotomfags mobile posting drive by shit posts killed or derailed all of them
You can pinpoint the exact moment the soul was lost.
>>728912821holy soul resurgence with the gen 6 gba dex.
>>728912821What pisses me off the most is that rather than being a cool piece of technology, the Pokedex is now just another Pokemon.
>>728912821Ahh..hahah...the johtoians...
>>728912821Kalos design is unironically the best
>>728912821I don't understand the modern fascination with this gay rotom shit
>>728912362it's a bit sad that there are multiple pokemon characters that are in universe e-celebs who livestream and make videos for rotom social media. I guess it's relatable though
>>728913769Rotom has more merch potential, meaning it makes more money.
>>728913464The thing that kills me is that turning the Pokedex(and everything else) into a rotom thing was explicitly a response to Yokai Watch and its various gimmicks.Then as is tradition Pokemon abandoned pretty much everything about rotom gimmicks after Sun and Moon. But just kept the Rotom Phone around for some reason even though now it's literally just a sentient phone that can fly around and Yokai Watch hasn't been relevant in years.I get that ontologically in the world of smartphones and constant internet connections a dedicated device doesn't make sense vs just a phone that does it all, but still. Hell, pokemon professors these days barely talk about the pokedex as it is when it used to be their whole raison d'etre. Doesn't stop them from yapping about everything else though.When I was a child I thought that toy pokedex was the coolest thing ever. I dunno maybe Pokemon makes a decent amount of change selling rotom phone cases or whatever.
>>728912362I don't think gen 1 is supposed to be "retro-futurist" or whatever, it was just a reflection of 90s tech already, which only now seems kind of "retro".Its kinda like watching a 1930s movie and going "Woah that black and white aesthetic sure is an unique intention from the creator!" when that's just a tech limitation at the time.Sure, Pokemon has some sci-fi aspects but I don't think what gen 1 featured was some commentary by Tajiri or whatever. The bug-catching part that inspired the series sure, but not the tech.
>>728913769yet another mascot they can sell dolls of
>>728914645>Sure, Pokemon has some sci-fi aspects but I don't think what gen 1 featured was some commentary by Tajiri or whatever. The bug-catching part that inspired the series sure, but not the tech.Did you pay any attention at all? The industrialization of Japan alongside the advancement of technology and its consequences is a massive theme in Gen 1. Pokeballs and the Pokedex are considered standard now, but were a representation of technological advancement. Kanto is noted for its industrialization. Team Rocket is an organized crime group using technology and science to expand and seize power. Grimer and Muk exist because of human pollution. Lapras is nearly extinct because of overhunting. The fossil Pokemon are revived through human science. Porygon. Mewtwo. Pokemon Mansion. Silph Co. Pokemon Lab. Any of this ring a bell?
>>728912362It's amazing how much old Pokemon felt like an adventure through a living breathing world, while nu-Pokemon feels like a sterilized theme park ride. But, I suppose it was inevitable considering anime and anime stuff as a whole has gone in the same direction.
>>728913769>in the 90s it was cool and concurrent for the hi-tech "illustrated guidebook" on Pokemon to be a portable computer of sorts>now we have smartphones that can do everything you dreamed a slightly futuristic portable could do and more>the next step for bleeding-edge Pokemon world tech is having the computer/personal digital assistant be actually alive in some way (meanwhile the real world has boring and terrible LLMs)>so we stuck a Rotom in itIt's not a complicated process.
>>728916138Its not just old pokemon, a lot of these Japanese kid's series have become super sterilized over the decade. They used to be these crazy over the top cartoons selling children's toys on the side to something where Sesame Street seem hardcore in comparison. You had war themes, people nearly getting killed for losing a card game, an actual adventure to now where it feels like the characters are too afraid to leave their school or back yard.Its like Japan went to 4kids on advise on right before they went under on how to do a proper anime and Japan took that those advises heart.
>>728916010you fool
>>728912821The gen 1 kanto pokedex is still the most aesthetically pleasing. It seems more rugged and functional, like something meant to go anywhere and take a beating doing it.
>>728912362I liked the reel to reel tape machines in the back of a lot of places
>>728912821HG/SS when it was turned into a flipphone?
>>728916406Rape
>>728912821The soul starts rapidly dropping after the Hoenn Pokedex. The shapes start to not make sense with the opening flaps being too small and input panels jutting out to the sides instead of folding out. After that, actual buttons start disappearing entirely. Also, while even the Kanto Pokedex arguably had the vague silhouette of a GameBoy, its design made perfect sense within its setting, whereas later Pokedex designs too blatantly resemble the consoles they're on for no functional reason.
>>728912362>>most sophisticated piece of technology you have is a pokedex or other single-function gear....how is this any different from the other games? The Pokedex is the only tech you carry around outside the flippable bike and the phone that has been around since gen 2.
>>728912362All that stuff has another, simpler explanation: Pokemon has dialed back the amount it's trying to be "near future" over the years. Not because of a lack of personal inspiration on the part of any given writer, though that probably doesn't help. It's more because all the in-universe things that spring from the futurist feel are all already accepted as "pokemon things". Pokemon center technology, instantly healing your team for free, the PC, trading, all that got knocked out of the park first try. They don't need to surround it with other things that are presented as futuristic or industrial or technologically advanced lest it feel out of place.So they don't need to be so futuristic anymore, but remain mirroring the real world. Just due to creative inertia, it took time for this to be fully the case, but by Gen 7 the tech was pretty much completely contemporary, aside from specifically Pokemon related stuff. Because they didn't need anything fancier.
>>728916406It's strange how in the gen 1 games the Pokedex looks like a book. Oak calls it high tech but I'm pretty sure he also says it has pages. Also sex with Suiren.
Honestly I blame Porygon seizure.
It took me a long time to realize that storing your Pokemon on Bill's PC meant they were literally on Bill's computer in his house because on the early internet you would just connect to other people's computers like that. And your items are on the PC in your room at the start of the game.
>>728919709The sections of the pokedex are pages, the same way different parts of a website are pages. Are you retarded?
>>728912821I'll never forget how they ruined Rotom, he was a rare pokemon and most importantly, he brings chaos to electric things, it's not suited for helping people. That role was made for Porygon
>>728912821The Unova design kind of reminds me of the Doom 3 PDA. Back when everyone was adding PDA's as the new hip future tech before smart phones were a thing.
>>728920202>PDADamn, haven't thought about those in forever. The 90's was just full of weird in-between tech that got rendered obsolete as quickly as it came out.
>>728916406Man, even the girls used to be better.
>>728916707Digimon still has some edge at least
>>728912362This is not unique to PokemonIn Detective Conan the problem is much worseIt presumably has been only 6 months in Conan since chapter 1 but now Conan uses a smartphoneIn the early days you used to see Ran go to a phone cabin to call Shinichi etc.When you compare new Cocan to old Conan you can't help but feel the soul is gone
>>728913683>Kalos bestYou don't have a soul
>>728921636Shows that run for an eternity like conan or the simpsons have to catch up to the current year eventually, especially if they're aimed at children who are supposed to relate to it.
>>728921956At least Simpsons doesn't pretend it all takes place within 6 months like Conan doesYou're right though and this is what's shitty about series that run foreverBut anyways, modern tech's convenience really makes stories boring, less imaginative and less humane somehow
>>728922505Because having the ability to contact people, record anything, or use the vast wealth of human knowledge at any given moment plays havoc on a narrative. The only way suspense and a sense of adventure really work is if you pointedly remove smartphones from the setting, whether it means having a setting in which they don't exist or some stupid contrivance as to why the characters don't have one.
>>728920852It didn't really get rendered obsolete, it just came out too soon and was plastered by marketing.Smartphones didn't obsolete anything, they just make good impulse purchase platforms, because everything is on one device, so that's what companies tried to move everyone on to.>>728921956I disagree, it just makes them seem even more dated when they update to some new fad that lasts for maybe a few years that then also needs to be dropped because it ages faster than milk.
>>728913769>the pokedex was made when handheld gadgets like CD players and the gameboy itself were popular, all of those devices have been assimilated into the monolithic modern smartphone>rotom lets them implement a smartphone that today's children will be familiar with and still has a pokemon theme, while also being a more natural evolution of the blatant yokai watch ripoff rotomdex of gen 7>The rotom phone moves independently of its owner and is basically just a floating brick, so it's cheap to animate and they don't have to make any animations for characters actually interacting with phones
There truly is no greater example of soul vs soulless than old vs new Pokemon
>>728912362you get a rotom phone. and you get a rotom phone. and you get a rotom phone
>>728912821all the ones with flip covers are so fucking cool. I used to idly open and close my GBA SP as a kid because the sound and tactile feedback of it was so nice. we've lost so much over the last 15 years. we used to have pleasing mechanically operated technology, now all we have is rectangles with a glossy surface you smear your finger over
>>728912821>'ugh all the new ones that look like modern phones are so lame'>meanwhile gen 3's pokedex is identical to what modern phones looked like in 2003
>>728925082Pic unrelated? That is new-slop.
>>728925447Old phones looked coolSmartshit looks all the same, boring rectangles with no personalityIf these niggers are able to make the whole phone made out of a glass screen they will because zoomers hate bezelsSame thing happened to displaysCan't find a single TV or Monitor with a good bezel anymore because the industry is obsessed with getting rid of the bezel entirely because of ''muh immersion''
>>728926943nta but that looks decent and far from slop
>>728920057so what would happen if Bill's house burned down and he has no backups, are all these Pokémon just... dead?
>>728927051>no watercolors>shitty background>nu-shiny charizard colorsjust because it wasn't made with AI and it's only it doesn't mean it's not slop
>>728927887*and it's old, not "only". fuck
>>728912821Yokai Watch really did a number on this franchise
>>728912821>cool gadgets and tech completely replaced by smartphones in all of children's mediagrim
>>728912362It's weird how no one in universe seems to think there's something weird about the fact all Pokemon can turn into digital data and be stored in a PC
>>728912362>specter of war hanging over everything that a child wouldn't have born witness to but was vaguely aware of, with one gym trainer explicitly being a war veteranReddit take, one character being a war veteran does not mean the "spectre of war hangs over everything." Literally the only way you would come to that conclusion was if you watched youtube video essays instead of actually playing the game
>>728928517There is a literal ninja training academy for assassins as a gym in gen 1, and another gym that subjects small children to psychic experimentation.
>>728912362I miss old Pokemon so damn much. I still remember going to Target on my birthday and picking Blue out of the game case.
>>728928583Sounds like a typical fantasy world. Or is it supposed to be completely devoid of any conflict like it's the fucking kingdom of heaven?
>>728929154Right that's the point, none of the newer games have these undertones though. They do seem to take place in utopias where the only conflict is whoever the current Team Rocket equivalent is and their wacky hijinks of the moment.
>>728929357Which was the one where there were 2 eco-terrorists groups trying to awaken their respective elemental god mon?
>>728929576You mean the one with Team Rocket and Team Roocket?Just cartoonish villains, nothing at all like hinting towards greater international instability and global conflict.
And while we're at it, rentals was the single best idea for competitive pokemon and should have become a standard competition format rather than being just a thing people think is crappy from stadium 1 and 2.
>>728912821oof, gen 3 really did ruin absolutely everything
>>728929357>>728929708Gen 6 and the newest game have you pair up a literal war criminal, a war YOU ACTUALLY SEE and also see the results and consequences of, instead of shit you only see in a single line of dialogue and nothing else., who hides two weapons in plain sight, and that's supposed to be a good guy. In the postgame of this supposed "utopia" you help a young teen to stop sleeping on the street, stop eating literal garbage and call a cop to make her learn to read.
>>728928702>stadiumshit
>>728914113>put pokedex in your pocket>all the badges on the straps fly off
>>728912362>>728912821>>728928702>Modern Pokémon has no soul.Water is wet.
>>728930079
>>728912821It's just swapping from a stylized version of whatever tech is current at each release (PDAs to flip phones to smart phones). It's no different from how the MCs always had the current gen Nintendo consoles in their rooms. Making Rotom a pokedex is super lame albeit.
>>728930535do i want to know the context
>>728930961He's digging for gold.
>>728924021>>The rotom phone moves independently of its owner and is basically just a floating brick, so it's cheap to animate and they don't have to make any animations for characters actually interacting with phonesBingo. Just have it float out in front of everyone.
>>728930961>shadman
>>728912362>>specter of war hanging over everything that a child wouldn't have born witness to but was vaguely aware of, with one gym trainer explicitly being a war veteranwtf are you talking about it's one throwaway line by one throwaway character whose existence is to be an American stereotype joke, which is the only reason why war is mentioned. War is unbelievably irrelevant in early pokemon.
>>728912821That Kalosdex is sickAt least it peaked on a high note before it started with the rotomshitUnova is probably the worstAt least before they all pit thought I to the idea that you can't really jave an exposed screen on a device that you're adventuring and doing fieldwork with
>>728912362>>specter of war hanging over everything that a child wouldn't have born witness to but was vaguely aware of, with one gym trainer explicitly being a war veteranmeanwhile modern pokemon
>>728933357>Golurk, Rhyperior, Salamence, Steelix and Eternal Floette.That poor Magnemite is in over its head
>>728933038>you can't really jave an exposed screen on a device that you're adventuring and doing fieldwork withAs if every Mexican shoddily putting up a building in the US isn't carrying a smartphone.
>>728934295Yeah and they all have cracked screens
>>728934664Yes but how many cracked them at work vs being drunk in their off time?
>>728912362You're nostalgic for the turn of the millennium. Nowadays there is no true aesthetic or youth culture because companies cracked the code to keeping kids addicted without having to worry about that shit, so everything is soulless.
>>728912821>soul remains intactFavorites are Gen 1, Gen 4, Gen 6 (both), Gen 7 (Alola Rotom)
>>728929867No lolRentals are boring
>>728912821i like that the first couple gens kinda match their respective console
>>728912362>specter of war hanging over everything that a child wouldn't have born witness to but was vaguely aware of, with one gym trainer explicitly being a war veteranit's not that deep bro it has nothing to do with the pokeman war being in some epic pokemon war lmao
