Pokemon Remakes 4th Generation of Games

Pokemon is the largest franchise in the world, comprising all sorts of media, and with millions of fans. They have access to some of the finest minds in the video game community to help develop their games. So why is it that they’re going downhill? The answer is complicated but it basically boils down to this: corporate greed.

But that’s not what I’m here to discuss. I’m here to discuss the new Sinnoh remakes coming out. For all those who don’t know what a Sinnoh is, it is in the 4th generation of Pokemon, released in 2008. This generation is widely lauded by fans but personally, it’s not that great. People are blinded by nostalgia. Anyway, since this generation was the penultimate in using 2D graphics, fans have been clamoring for a remake since Generation 6 came out, in 2013. 8 years of waiting for the remakes we so desperately wanted. Generation 7, released in 2016 completely skipped this and fans were baffled. But finally, in Generation 8, released in 2019, gave us the remakes. And uh, they’re something alright.

The remakes, rather unusually, comprise two game types. One is a typical linear Pokemon experience, and the other is a sort of prequel to the mainline Generation 4 games, blending elements of multiple generations and genres. The mainline games are Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, and they are certainly… unique in the pantheon of Pokemon remakes.

So these games seem to be trying to replicate the 2D sprite feel of the Sinnoh games… in 3D. Fans, including the author of this article, are skeptical about this, as many are seeing it simply as a way for GameFreak to cut costs. Personally I agree with the latter opinion. But what about the other game, the prequel. It’s known as Legends of Arceus and it combines elements from several regions and games. An example is that despite being in Sinnoh, it uses starter Pokemon from several different regions. Unfortunately there’s not much info on either of these games so the understanding is rather limited at the moment.

At the end of it all, it doesn’t seem to matter to GameFreak. They are making bank off of Pokemon and at this point they aren’t working on any other IPs. It seems we are going to see a decline in quality for a long time, until sales start telling them what we really think.