What if the Pokémon main series ended after Generation II?

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EmperorofPaldea

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Pokémon Gold, Silver and Crystal represented quite a step forward for the young franchise when they released in 2000. The games introduced Pokémon players everywhere to the new region of Johto, 100 new Pokémon and a new storyline, not to mention numerous mechanics that become franchise staples, such as a day/night cycle, Shiny Pokémon, held items, Pokémon genders, the ability to breed Pokémon and the ability to play as a female player character.

Many Pokémon fans consider Gold, Silver and Crystal to be some of the franchise’s best outings, and the developers at the time seemed to agree. According to this Iwata Asks interview, Pokémon Company CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara says that when development began on Gold and Silver the developers thought they would be the ultimate in Pokémon games, and Ishihara himself worked on the assumption that after Gold and Silver were complete his work on Pokémon would be done.

Now, I know this might be a stretch… but what if in an alternate timeline the other developers agree that they cannot outdo Pokémon Gold, Silver and Crystal, and decide to end the main series there? So all main series Pokémon games past Gold, Silver and Crystal, maybe excepting the Gen I and Gen II remakes, are butterflied away, the anime ends after the Johto arc, and the franchise focuses on spin-offs from now on. Given the excellent reception that Gold, Silver and Crystal received in OTL I imagine Nintendo would end up regretting this move down the line…
 
This would be a massive letdown to millions of people across the world. Their works would also be a lot more buried, less recognized by today's generation.
 
Simply put, it wouldn't be anywhere near as popular as it currently is today and I dunno, a different franchise like Digimon or even Shin Megami Tensei would be seen as the king of monster collecting franchises.

Anime wise that would have meant that Ash would have been given an ending much earlier and one that would close the book on the show completely (Ash not only beating Gary but winning the whole Johto league, defeating Team Rocket entirely with Pikachu and whatever else they'd have wrapped up).
 
Lot of people wouldn't be Pokémon fans since many started playing the games after Gen 2's era. Most notably lot of Gen Z.

Pokémon would be seen as a nostalgia franchise that gets mentioned occasionally and has some characters in Smash.
 
Well, for the Pokespe manga, I think GSC would be a pretty amazing ending. I'm happy the manga continued on of course, but GSC would work really well as a final arc.
Kinda similarly for Anipoke actually, Johto isn't like, amazing imo, but it's pretty good and the Johto League was fun. Of course, if it was the end than in this hypothetical Ash would win the Johto League and it would finish there. I'd be satisfied with that.
That being said, I was born in 2005 so I don't know if I'd be a fan. I'm a Nintendo fan, so I might know about Pokemon, this niche series from the 90s that was so popular it got a show and cards, but idk if I'd ever play the games or watch the show
 
SarahSango said:
That being said, I was born in 2005 so I don't know if I'd be a fan. I'm a Nintendo fan, so I might know about Pokemon, this niche series from the 90s that was so popular it got a show and cards, but idk if I'd ever play the games or watch the show
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I guess also in the Smash series although Pikachu who would be seen as a retro rep of the 90s like what happened with Banjo.
 
The main series, but not everything else?

The Pokemon Company would milk the franchise as usual and the side games will have more attention and sales due to being the only Pokemon games.
The Mystery Dungeon games in particular will take the center of attention and keep going after Super

New Pokemon would get designed and released on a regular basis instead of every 3 years, keeping the merch fresh.

There will be even more TCG related crimes as it's holds even more popularity due to not having to compete with the video games for competitive collecting and battling.

The franchise will be even more successful due to a more constant flow of new Pokemon to make merch and cards of, and more people burn a hole in their wallets collecting the cards.
 
theres some cynical part of me that wonders if the creature collection genre of video games would have been better off as a result. like maybe we would have had a greater selection of creature collection games from many different developers with a wider variety of mechanics?

i know creature collection games outside of pokémon have always existed and we have a couple of popular indies out there now too. but pokémon is just so … huge within its genre? i think it might have intimidated a lot of developers away from trying to make their own creature collectors. so i think the genre has possibly not progressed as much as it could have done due to lack of competition within the space
 
okay this post is months old but I was googling this topic out of curiosity and stumbled upon this thread so joined to comment .

I think everyone here has made good points but I think the best point was made by Vixi.

the franchise would never end and it wouldn’t become a “forgotten fad” either. if anything I see it being like Mario or Sonic in that the characters stay the same with new characters very rarely introduced and the same games being re-made or reissued with tweaks and changes for future consoles.

Pokemon R/B/Y & G/S/C would probably be viewed as like Mario Kart or Super Mario if they had stopped at Gen 2 with new mons.

I think in this alternate timeline there likely would’ve been new mons every remake, maybe evolutions or pre-evolutions of the existing mons and if the Pokemon Go boom happened, then also new ones in general IE Melmetal & Meltan.
 
Gen 3 and onwards start to have very different vibes from the first two generations (mechanics more complex, plot more high-stakes) so i feel like it really would shape the view of Pokemon in a bizarre way. Silvally upthread wondered if itd make the monster catching genre have more variety but im not so sure...before Pokemon there really werent very many games of that genre that got localized; Monster Rancher is the only one I know of off the top of my head

According to various developer interviews Nintendo of America initially wanted to make Gen 1 more "appealing" to western audiences by redesigning all the Pokemon. thats another weird thought experiment to chew on
 
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