Dogasu's Backpack Discussion

[Garren]

Yeah, I've heard Yokai Watch's battle system isn't really deep (and won't have competitive legs like Pokemon), but I've heard the scenario is far better, and for me, that's something I prioritize honestly. I really want to play it and hope it's localized soon.

As for it "killing Pokemon", I don't care really. Pokemon's been around for years, and I think no matter what Game Freak does, it's probably on the decline for good (not in terms of quality necessarily, but popularity), and I think that's something we just have to accept as fans. I don't think it will completely disappear anytime soon of course, I still foresee us getting plenty of games and the show will probably continue at least another decade, but I think even when Yokai Watch falters in popularity (as Level 5 stuff apparently does I've heard), something else will pop up and pose as an obstacle to Pokemon.

of course Masuda seems to be more concerned with mobile gaming than Yokai watch for some strange reason

I'm pretty sure mobile games are a legitimate concern for Japanese developers. As for Masuda being more concerned with that, it makes sense...I imagine there's probably a big cross-over between those who play Pokemon, and those who play Yokai Watch, it's probably not mutually exclusive. Yokai Watch helps sell 3DS', and I imagine kids who buy 3DS' for Yokai Watch probably find their way to Pokemon. Yokai Watch may be competing with Pokemon popularity wise, but I don't think it's exactly stealing sales from it.

 

[R!ck]

The advent of Youkai Watch will definitely keep us from getting any off years, I think. If only to eat into the sales of Youkai Watch with its ever increasing output, I think we shall see two games a year from henceforth. Fall 2015 seems ripe for a return to Kalos with two sequel games, continuing the line of thought from Black 2 and White 2. Let's assume these are 'XZ' and 'YZ', with the 'Z' meaning both 'Z' and '2'. From there, with 2016 being our fair franchise's twentieth anniversary, remakes of Red and Green would be nice. In fact, with the advent of Mega Evolution perhaps these would be Mega Red and Mega Green, remakes or sequels that allow Mega Evolution. It would also be a great chance to introduce a Mega Lizardon Z and give an extra Mega Evolution or two to the other Kantou starters. From there 2017 would be the beginning of Generation VII with 2018 as a remake or sequel to Diamond and Pearl, eventually coming to sequels to Generation VII in 2019.

Hit hard and hit fast, I guess.

I think it's more likely the Generation VII games will be released in 2016, I don't think XY has enough fuel to last until 2017. Black and White 2 were released in June 2012 and then a year and months later was the XY games launch, we'll see.

 

[Dogasu]

Well I would if they ever release a PAL version demo, but until/if one is released watching videos is the only way I can go about it.

Then maybe you should refrain from making dismissive posts about the games until you actually get a chance to play them yourself? "I was bored by a video I didn't understand of a game I've never played" doesn't really add anything to the conversation.

With Yokai watch being aimed at younger audiences than Pokemon's current base

No, Yokai Watch and Pokemon are both very much going after the same age groups. Hence the constant comparisons in the Japanese media.

On a side note, Pokkén is definitely aimed at older fans--I wonder if TPC did this so that they can free up the clearly-for-kids arcade machines now that they realize there's also an adult fanbase to milk.

I don't really think the existence of Pokkén will keep the Pokemon Tretta nerds from hogging those machines. It might decrease slightly but I don't think "clearing up the kids' arcade machines" has much to do with why Pokkén got greenlit.

Its part of the problem in getting new fans, and obviously hurt their Diancie movie sales (I can't imagine that many older fans wanting to watch it).

Are you talking about the fact that it stars a "girly" pokemon like Diancie? Because while I'd like to think that sexism wasn't a part of the low ticket sales of that movie my gut tells me that it probably did play a role. Which is shitty, but it is what it is.

of course Masuda seems to be more concerned with mobile gaming than Yokai watch for some strange reason

A large percentage (if not the majority) of games presented at last year's Tokyo Game Show were mobile games. I'd say Mr. Masuda (and all game developers, really) have a good reason to be concerned.

I've heard Yokai Watch's battle system isn't really deep (and won't have competitive legs like Pokemon)

To be fair, the first Pocket Monsters games' battle systems weren't that deep either. It only has the competitive legs that it has now because of nearly two decades' worth of revisions.

I imagine kids who buy 3DS' for Yokai Watch probably find their way to Pokemon. Yokai Watch may be competing with Pokemon popularity wise, but I don't think it's exactly stealing sales from it.

Both franchises had games released during the holiday season. While I'm sure there are some parents out there who bought both games for their kids I'm also confident that most of them chose one over the other. So in that scenario yeah, Yokai Watch probably did steal some sales from ORAS.

I think it's more likely the Generation VII games will be released in 2016, I don't think XY has enough fuel to last until 2017. Black and White 2 were released in June 2012 and then a year and months later was the XY games launch, we'll see.

The 3DS had already been out for about a year and a half by the time B2W2 came out. Generation V might have lasted an extra year if every other franchise hadn't already made the jump to the new system.

We don't know how long the 3DS will last. Nintendo doesn't really have much of an incentive to rush out the system's successor given how it's pretty much what's keeping Nintendo afloat these days. If there's no 3DS successor announced before the end of 2015 then there won't be any reason to rush Generation VII out the door.

I mean, I don't think it's unlikely that they'll release Generation VII games in 2016 but I also think the Red Green remakes are perfectly plausible as well.

 

[Silktree]

We don't know how long the 3DS will last. Nintendo doesn't really have much of an incentive to rush out the system's successor given how it's pretty much what's keeping Nintendo afloat these days. If there's no 3DS successor announced before the end of 2015 then there won't be any reason to rush Generation VII out the door.

Yes, there is. The New 3DS is comparable to the GBC in that it can enhance graphics as well as gameplay even for non-exclusive games. One of the questions in an ORAS-related interview (in Portuguese) pertained to the New 3DS. Masuda explained that ORAS weren't designed to have New 3DS features since they're meant to be compatible with XY; he thought it would be unfair to make XY players buy a new system for related games. He said that he had nothing to announce right now regarding the New 3DS, but he thinks that the system will work well for them (even though he's worried about the extra buttons confusing children).

We can infer from this that no Generation VI game will utilize the New 3DS for the same reason ORAS don't, but some games will. The obvious conclusion is a new generation, which may be playable on the 3DS but still designed around the New 3DS much like Gold and Silver for the GBC.

but I also think the Red Green remakes are perfectly plausible as well.

If there were going to be that many games in this generation, we wouldn't have access to all the non-event Pokémon between XY and ORAS.

 

[Adamant]

Are you talking about the fact that it stars a "girly" pokemon like Diancie? Because while I'd like to think that sexism wasn't a part of the low ticket sales of that movie my gut tells me that it probably did play a role. Which is shitty, but it is what it is.

My first thought when I saw the cover to the home DVD/blu-ray was "Will 9 year old boys really want to buy/ask for something this incredibly pink?"

So yeah, definitely played a role. Which is a shame, since I really liked the movie.

 

[Dogasu]

I was thinking the exact same thing.

There was also that early teaser for the English dub where they referred to Diancie as the "leader" instead of the "princess," which made it seem like they were going to de-gender Diancie to make the movie "more appealing to boys," as ridiculous as that is. Luckily the actual movie itself decided against that.

 

[Moe]

We can infer from this that no Generation VI game will utilize the New 3DS for the same reason ORAS don't, but some games will. The obvious conclusion is a new generation, which may be playable on the 3DS but still designed around the New 3DS much like Gold and Silver for the GBC..

I wonder how difficult it would be to unlock the increased processor power on the new 3DS, just to improve the frame rate during battles? Other than that, I can't think what functionality of the new 3DS they would use - if they were desperate, they could start selling event legendaries as NFC figurines perhaps? But that is planned to have an addon for the original 3DS anyway.

 

[Piplup]

There was also that early teaser for the English dub where they referred to Diancie as the "leader" instead of the "princess," which made it seem like they were going to de-gender Diancie to make the movie "more appealing to boys," as ridiculous as that is. Luckily the actual movie itself decided against that.

It was "ruler" not "leader", just saying, but your point is obviously still valid. Although personally I thought their intention was to avoid implying gender for two reasons:
1) pkmn in general are officially referred to as "it" so technically they may rather to avoid giving them gendered titles even if they're clearly of a certain gender
2) Diancie is of the "unknown gender" in-game. Which honestly is completely stupid... they really should've done it female-only, same for Meloetta... and I'd say Manaphy (and Phione?) should've been male-only too considering it is the PRINCE of the sea... but these are the same people who, come gen 2 when genders arrived, looked at the gen 1 pkmn and decided that the Machop line can be either male or female, while the Tyrogue line had to be male-only, so maybe I shouldn't even try finding logic in their awkward decisions.

Maybe it was a combination of all reasons though, I don't know. I'd like to point out that the anime in general seems to have shied away from some girly elements that it adopted before but now abandoned. AG gave us a girly girl with her own story, DP worked from there giving us an even girlier girl with the same kind of story (and let's face it DP Contests were way flashier and girly-ish than AG Contests) and a proper starring role mostly being an equal to Ash. You'd imagine they'll keep growing from there trying to appeal equally to boys and girls right? but starting from BW they dropped all of this. So maybe it IS true that they have some stupid fears of making pkmn "too girly"... that's a shame.

 

[Adamant]

It was "ruler" not "leader", just saying, but your point is obviously still valid. Although personally I thought their intention was to avoid implying gender for two reasons:
1) pkmn in general are officially referred to as "it" so technically they may rather to avoid giving them gendered titles even if they're clearly of a certain gender
2) Diancie is of the "unknown gender" in-game.

Japanese promotional material for the movie went out of its way to outright refer to Diancie as 彼女, so that makes absolutely zero sense.

 

[Piplup]

It was "ruler" not "leader", just saying, but your point is obviously still valid. Although personally I thought their intention was to avoid implying gender for two reasons:
1) pkmn in general are officially referred to as "it" so technically they may rather to avoid giving them gendered titles even if they're clearly of a certain gender
2) Diancie is of the "unknown gender" in-game.

Japanese promotional material for the movie went out of its way to outright refer to Diancie as 彼女, so that makes absolutely zero sense.

The people at TPCi handling the English dub and layout for all other dubs may have had a different approach to it.

 

[Garren]

Both franchises had games released during the holiday season. While I'm sure there are some parents out there who bought both games for their kids I'm also confident that most of them chose one over the other. So in that scenario yeah, Yokai Watch probably did steal some sales from ORAS.

Perhaps. I'm just thinking in the long-term, that it's probably a bit better that their competitor is on the same system...

Maybe I'm going by my own experience as a kid, but everyone I knew who was into Pokemon naturally migrated and tried out all the other 'Mon games that came out like Monster Rancher, Digimon, Robopon, Meta-Bots, etc.

 

[Adamant]

It was "ruler" not "leader", just saying, but your point is obviously still valid. Although personally I thought their intention was to avoid implying gender for two reasons:
1) pkmn in general are officially referred to as "it" so technically they may rather to avoid giving them gendered titles even if they're clearly of a certain gender
2) Diancie is of the "unknown gender" in-game.

Japanese promotional material for the movie went out of its way to outright refer to Diancie as 彼女, so that makes absolutely zero sense.

The people at TPCi handling the English dub and layout for all other dubs may have had a different approach to it.

"We should go out of our way to specifically avoid implying what the guys who actually created this thing went out of their way to explicitly state."
That makes horrendously little sense.

 

[SammyW27]

That makes horrendously little sense.

Ah heck, that describes TPCI in a nutshell!

 

[Piplup]

It was "ruler" not "leader", just saying, but your point is obviously still valid. Although personally I thought their intention was to avoid implying gender for two reasons:
1) pkmn in general are officially referred to as "it" so technically they may rather to avoid giving them gendered titles even if they're clearly of a certain gender
2) Diancie is of the "unknown gender" in-game.

Japanese promotional material for the movie went out of its way to outright refer to Diancie as 彼女, so that makes absolutely zero sense.

The people at TPCi handling the English dub and layout for all other dubs may have had a different approach to it.

"We should go out of our way to specifically avoid implying what the guys who actually created this thing went out of their way to explicitly state."
That makes horrendously little sense.

They don't view things the way you do, or me or any of us for that matter. They're definitely making it a rule to avoid stating genders unless they absolutely have to, and even then they're trying not to. I'm sure it was at least part of what made them initially want to go with "ruler" instead of "princess". But you're free to believe whatever you think.
(also, many things about this franchise and the various groups of people that handle it, especially localization-wise, hardly make sense, so...)

 

[Azure Butterfly]

Back when DQIX came out, I wondered if Level-5 would make a mon-training game seeing as how they certainly had the talent and resources to do it. Seeing it come true is pretty cool because I love their games, but I do worry about what Game Freak's going to do next. It seems like Masuda-san is going to pass the title of Director on to someone new sooner rather than later (it's especially telling that he let someone else direct ORAS, because RS was the first set of games he directed solo - Crystal was co-directed by Masuda and Tajiri), so whoever's in charge of the newer games may take them in a completely new direction. With an actual competitor (this is the most attention I can ever recall a mon series other than Pokemon getting) and new leadership, the new games might break tradition more than ever before.

Or both series might lose to mobile games.

 

[Rex Kamex]

So I was on the Archives page and I came across this...

Lots of Updates here and there...
July 29th, 2000 (12:22am ET)
-A rant with an opinion opposite of my most recent rant can be found here. This rant talks about the evidence supporting the idea that Pokemon is still strong. Whether it's mega-popular or not, this site will be up until way after the bitter end of the series in Japan. Shoot, I could see myself working on this site in five years! I'm definitely here to stay...I was a Pokemon fan the day it made its American debut BEFORE it was a big deal, and I'll be one after, too.

Quote like these I find amusing considering how long ago this one was......................

 

[OneShot]

The beginning of the end of Pokemon? Who would've thought...

 

[Piplup]

The discussion from a while ago about genders mentioned in the dub was in this thread, right? cause I'm just watching the dub version of the Korrina gym battle eps and...
Serena: "Fletchinder's totally graceful!" -- in the Japanese version she said it's dancing like a ballerina, obviously implying it's a female.
A similar case happened back in Season 9 when in the Japanese version May is reacting to Aipom putting flowers on its head by clearly saying it is a female, while the dub changed it to "it looks like a flowers crown"...
So yes, I'm still going to insist the reason they planned to go with "ruler" with Diancie at first was to avoid implying genders rather than "princess sounds too girly" (although that may have been part of it too)
I really don't understand why it hurts them so much to imply genders... like they can still refer to them as "it" and all, so what's the point of "covering" it? The games have a male or female symbol near the player's pkmn all the time and that's not a problem, so why the anime has to be different?
(and yes I know there were other occasions they left gender-implying statements in, but you can't pretend there isn't a recurring "let's change what they said here to make it gender-neutral" thing going on)

 

[Moe]

Though I can't think of examples off the top of my head - the dub seem to swap over to using gender specific language once there's direct confirmation - commonly recently by the scenes of using Attract that brought it up for a lot of Unova Pokemon.

It's probably just down to the dub being worried about killing Brock's mother, by picking a side and going with it is riskier than being gender neutral - you can throw a hint with those kind of throwaway lines, but once you commit to a gendered pronoun, you would need to be consistent, which could mean an embarrassing episode down the track if it's confirmed the other way.

You could interpret a line about Fletchinder being like a ballerina as being because Serena is interested in dancing and performance stuff - a relevant comparison to her experiences, rather than an implication of gender.

As for not calling Diancie a female - it's a genderless species, and given male Gardevoir, appearance isn't totally conclusive. It's obvious and logical by the dialogue and setting that Diancie is female it'd have been impossible to write avoiding that and they made the right decision with the final result - but I can see why they have to think about that stuff.

While the best solution would be for the dubbers to just talk to those making the episode and check the intended gender - I'd wonder how fixed it is in production, as except for where Pokemon are visually different - it's easier to sit on the fence and leave it open to whatever decision is more plot convenient later on.

I think a better solution would be making nicknames a feature for the Pokemon on the main cast, which would be easier to work into more natural dialogue - avoiding using 'it'. But that's not a change they could just drop into the dub.

 

[Piplup]

the dub seem to swap over to using gender specific language once there's direct confirmation - commonly recently by the scenes of using Attract that brought it up for a lot of Unova Pokemon.

They usually stick to "it" even when the gender is clearly confirmed in the dub dialogue, but that's not my issue. I support sticking to "it" regardless of gender just like the games are doing. I'm just annoyed at them changing some lines that clearly intended to let the viewers know a certain pkmn's gender in the original Japanese version.

It's probably just down to the dub being worried about killing Brock's mother, by picking a side and going with it is riskier than being gender neutral

You can't use this excuse to completely changing May's line outright calling Aipom a female. There was no "risk" to take there.

You could interpret a line about Fletchinder being like a ballerina as being because Serena is interested in dancing and performance stuff - a relevant comparison to her experiences, rather than an implication of gender.

It's a cartoon though. The dialogues are usually intended to send a message to the viewer. When they're throwing away that kind of comments, it's to let us know that a certain pkmn is male or female. No way they'd ever compare a male pkmn to a "ballerina" which is a rather gender specific term. If the intention was Serena being interested in dancing rather than that Fletchinder is a female, they could do with her being excited over the way it's dancing, rather than specifically choosing the word "ballerina".

As for not calling Diancie a female - it's a genderless species, and given male Gardevoir, appearance isn't totally conclusive.

First of all, the official term appears to be "Unknown Gender" rather than the fan-made "Genderless" (it's been the official term ever since gen 5 at least, where pre-gen 5 I don't think they ever named it. both games and anime are using it now. see: Pokédex 3D Pro and some of XY's dialogues for games and the Decolore Rotom ep for anime)
Also, unlike many others, I don't find a male Gardevoir THAT hard to believe. Diancie and Meloetta though? They're SO obviously female no matter what anyone says, and the anime clearly treated them as females despite the game's awkward "unknown gender" thing.