I Just Caught Myself a Bad Idea

Source article: http://ca.kotaku.com/5842814/there-are-far-too-many-pokemon-to-care-about-anymore by Mike Fahey. September 22^nd, 2011

            In 1989 the GameBoy was created and took the portable gaming market by storm. Seven short years later with the creation of the vastly popular Pokémon Franchise, the GameBoy was pushed from an exception to a legend. The Pokémon game was revolutionary, it featured 151 unique monsters that kids could capture and train. The main selling point of the game was that players would need to trade with each other in order to get every specimen of Pokémon because neither game contained every Pokémon.

            Pokémon has since grown, releasing 20 games in their series. Nowadays, Pokémon are found within 5 regions and there exist 649 different Pokémon. Many players find themselves buying new Pokémon games when they come out, only to find the game play has not changed. All Pokémon games feature the same story; you are a young Pokémon trainer and are just setting off on your journey to become a Pokémon master. You will battle through gym leaders and trainers until you eventually find yourself vanquishing Team Rocket's (or a respective gang's) plan to conquer the world. Some of the only things that change from game to game are the Pokémon that you can catch. For many, this is not an issue. Being able to predict what will happen and plan your party accordingly. Additionally, fanatics know what to expect from new games, never being disappointed that their favorite game franchise has been changed.

            Familiarity in Pokémon is what makes it so successful. Players are never surprised when something happens in the game and never have to worry about one of their favorite features being removed or changed. Within all Pokémon games the core mechanics are the same, so much so that you can actually migrate Pokémon to later games. Unfortunately, it appears that the creators of Pokémon are running out of ideas. As there are 649 different Pokémon, each one is inspired from something in our lives. Many of the original 151 Pokémon were inspired off of animals such as Pokémon's mascot Pikachu, who is described as an electric mouse.  However recently, Pokémon are appearing in forms more contrived then before including gears, balloons, and even a refrigerator. On top of all of that, Legendary Pokémon; which can only be attained once in the game, have taken the form of every natural phenomenon including space, time and god itself.

            The Pokémon franchise is still popular but is on thin ice with fanatics. There are many options that the designers of Pokémon can take, one being slow down production of new species. Many fans believe that there are just too many Pokémon, and that if Pokémon wants to stay successful, needs to reduce the amount of new Pokémon released per game. Another option that Nintendo (the creators of Pokémon) could try is releasing a sequel or improving upon old games. Nintendo has just recently released their first sequel games Pokémon Black 2 and Pokémon White 2 and are doing surprisingly well. Additionally there exist many remake games such as Pokémon Fire Red and Pokémon Soul Silver. Finally, Nintendo has yet to release a Pokémon game for the vastly popular Nintendo 3DS. Taking advantage of this technology, and improving upon their existing market seems like the next logic step for Pokémon`s recovery.