Pokémon Odyssey (2025)
I haven't played a mainline Pokémon game to the end in over ten years. My last ones were X/Y and OR/AS which left me feeling very cold. I've also never played a Pokémon ROM hack or fangame before. I think it speaks to Pokémon Odyssey's considered construction that I both finished it and had a good time throughout despite not being in its target audience even a little bit.
To my eyes, there are two big mechanical changes in Pokémon Odyssey versus the GBA games it's based on. 1) QOL additions make it much easier to raise the team you want. Big changes are reusable TMs, easy EV (stat variance) editing, buffs for weaker Pokémon, UI that tells you outright if a move will be super effective or resisted versus the enemy, and free level-capped rare candies to help new Pokémon catch up. 2) The trainer fights and especially the bosses are much more crunchy and technical. All trainer fights are double battles and almost no one has monotype teams. It's up to you to build a quality squad that can handle a variety of threats, and the QOL additions make that process much less tedious.
My arc with the game is that it kicked my ass early on (again I've never played competitive Pokémon or any other ROM hacks). Around the third stratum, I nearly gave up because it felt like every single fight was a grueling ordeal. Then I retreated back to the overworld, explored, and did side quests for a few hours. I found the EV editor and some good TMs, and leveled up my mons. I put more thought into my type coverage and team construction. Then I went back into the third stratum and crushed it. The process was very very satisfying.
I got cocky and switched to hard mode briefly after the fourth stratum. I barely scraped by one minor boss, then tried the next boss maybe fifteen times before switching back to normal. I didn't have much trouble with the rest of the game, but I wasn't bored either. I think the balancing here is smart: normal mode requires you to make use of the tools you have access to and build a quality team, while hard mode requires you to build many quality teams so you can tailor your party to individual threats. I wasn't up for that level of engagement, but I think it's cool that the option's there for folks.
Despite the Etrian Odyssey aesthetic trappings, I don't think Pokémon Odyssey functions as a dungeon crawler. The economy collapses early and healing becomes essentially free. The maps themselves are gorgeous, winding, and a joy to explore, but they're functionally extended Routes from the mainline games, more trainer gauntlets than real RPG dungeons. I did start to feel the slog later on, and took a week-long break after the fifth stratum. The overworld and towns are very pretty and a good inclusion, but they ultimately make up a small portion of the actual game (which is wise, this is an Etrian riff after all).
The story stays in the background for the first third or so of the game. The writing is cute and goofy and made me laugh out loud several times. Once the real conflict is introduced though, the cutscenes grow longer and longer, and I don't think the writing chops are there to justify the sheer word count. The story expects you to keep track of too many characters and villains, and the main story resolution didn't hit for me (which is the big reason I didn't continue on into the post-game). There's an endearing webcomic charm to the story still, which helped carry me through the game. It's also excellent at deploying boss fights in unexpected dramatic ways — the game set me up to expect "eight stratums with eight captains at the end of each," and I was delighted by how much they shook up that basic shape.
I haven't played many ROM hacks or fan-games, I don't respect mainline Pokémon as an institution, and I'm disconnected from "fandom culture." I have criticisms obviously, but Pokémon Odyssey was a very positive first impression of a creative scene I'm largely unfamiliar with and was predisposed to dislike. I'd be happy to see this crew make more (ideally smaller) RPG-shaped stories. They're plainly capable of good, weighty RPG design, and with more stories under their belt I think their writing will catch up to their design chops quickly.
Pokémon Sun (2016)
Something immediately striking about Pokémon Sun is how soft, pleasant, and safe the world feels. This applies to the aesthetics of course, the tropical vacation theming and the lovely soundtrack. But it applies to the story too. The main quest of the game is a Fun Obstacle Course explicitly set out by adults to help you and your Pokémon grow. The villain squad is a goofy non-threat. Nearly everyone you meet is personally rooting for you to succeed, to have a fun adventure, to find yourself.
That feeling of safety applies to the play language, naturally. This is a rigidly on-rails RPG. You have a diegetic mini-map constantly telling you where to go. Non-essential paths are blocked off until later; you can never stray too far from the critical path. Actual dungeons are nearly non-existent. The Pokémon games I played as a kid on GameBoy were gentle and accommodating, but this is on a different level.
None of this felt grating to me, somehow. There’s a charm to playing a game for nine-year-olds that’s in large part about the relationship between adults and children. Because Pokémon Sun is itself an artificial obstacle course constructed by adults for the joy and edification of the children playing it (and their parents’ money). That interplay between the game's form and theming is interesting to me.
The story gets its teeth from a pair of scared and mistrustful children. I love both characters with my whole heart. They aren’t used to trusting adults – the main adult in their life growing up was a narcissist who saw the Pokémon, adults, and children in their life as toys to play with, resources to exploit. The real heart of the game is watching these two grow from the support of their friends and the grown-ups that actually have their best interests at hear.
The main conflict of the game is between you and the asshole adults, introduced later in the story. The contrast between the friendly adults and the assholes is stark. It makes the villains feel scarier than they do in other Pokémon games. But thanks to the support you got throughout the game, you’re ultimately strong enough to take them on, much to the assholes’ surprise. Then you get to go home and meet the good adults head-on, now as equals. There's a strong catharsis to both the main story's resolution and the epilogue on Mount Lanakila.
The energy I feel from this game is that people who helped make it wanted children to play it and feel empowered. That they can affect change in the world, help the people they care about, and stand up to people who hurt them. To make friends and care about them, to not look at other people as tools or objects.
That’s what adults should want for children. The most wonderful thing in the world is a kid figuring out the person they want to be. The best, most righteous thing adults in that kid’s life can do is support that journey. In grand ways by friends, family, teachers and the like, and in tiny incidental ways by near-strangers, or even game developers miles or half a world away.
I want to be clear: most of the game is just going through the rote motions of Playing Pokémon. You fight five hundred trainers in a line and level up a team until you can take on the boss gauntlet at the end. My whole read here is rooted in pretty flimsy characterization that demands a lot of filling in the blanks. The main villain would’ve really benefited from a few more scenes before their big turn, and I would've liked a few more scenes between Lillie and Gladion near the end.
But I think the bones are there. The story struck a real nerve and earned the tears it wrung out of me. I don’t think this is an essential modern RPG, not when the play language is this relentlessly basic. But it’s a warm nice thing, and I’m glad I played it.
