A lot has been said about the remakes of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, as well as the originals, but I still feel the need to throw my hat in the ring here. Pokemon Diamond was, until recently, my favorite Pokemon game. I still think fondly on my time in Sinnoh, using my Pachirisu as a store-brand Pikachu and still cutting through swathes of opponents with the help of my Staraptor, Scyther, and Garchomp.

But nostalgia and memories are strong with this one—I don’t remember much of the story, if anything, beyond the Pokemon title series mainstays; you are a young child of about 10 or 11, experiencing a wild act of parental neglect as you set forth into the world on your own with nothing but superpowered monsters by your side for you to unleash your wrath both with and upon, should you so choose. Along the way, there’s a team of bad guys either trying to take over or end the world, commit some sort of genocide or another, or the like that you find a way to stop (as a small child, you are obviously the best situated to do something about it). You’ll probably say something about revering the relationship between people and Pokemon, which is a nice proxy for talking about how humans need to be more respectful of nature rather than paving it all over and wondering why we have so many floods. It’s a battle-hardened core story and that’s fine.

However, what I do remember is the multi battle co-op system. Competitive Pokemon never felt right to me, and yes, when I was younger I liked battling my friends to show that I was a better trainer than they were, but as I got older, I found I enjoyed a more collaborative gaming experience. I no longer wanted to beat my friends; rather, I wanted to team up with them to take on NPC trainers and show these smug virtual bastards which pre-pubescent pairing is the real boss (I know I’m harping on this a lot and it makes sense because kids are the main the audience for Pokemon, but if you think even a little bit about the situations you get into as a Pokemon trainer, the entire world should be done in for child endangerment).

Some things did get an upgrade—Dawn has a Switch now, but that TV is definitely not 4K

By the time Diamond and Pearl came out, I was in college, desperately trying to figure my way through my own transitional period. The law said I was an adult, the rest of me didn’t really feel like it, but there was one thing I knew for sure; as long as you hide everything about yourself, people will think you’re cool, and that’s the only thing that matters (thankfully, I know better now, and it seems the younger generation knows better as well). My college roommate didn’t care about any of that; he wore Birkenstocks, had a ponytail, and would sing Jim Croce at the top of his lungs while walking around campus. But he was a Pokemon nerd and got me back into the games after I’d either fallen out of love with series or determined them to be some sort of uncool thing I should eschew as I barreled irrevocably towards adulthood. The Pokemon in the games were new and exciting, even if they didn’t feel like the Pokemon I grew up with. The game still felt familiar enough that I was able to jump right in. And most importantly, I spent hours and hours in late, late nights, sipping cheap whiskey and beer that felt fine at the time, but make me wretch now, playing this game with my roommate, battling our way through the post-game Battle Tower. That’s the overwhelming memory I have of Diamond (he had Pearl, we coordinated); these hazy, slightly drunk nights that turned into hazy, fairly drunk mornings, playing Pokemon all night with a fellow who would eventually become like family to me. I’m not saying we became such close friends solely because of Pokemon, but it helped.

So there you have it. Life changing experiences that forged lifelong friendships. Those aren’t big shoes to step into for a remake at all, are they? Others have gone into more depth on the game itself, and I’d like to point you to Giovanni Colantonio’s review of Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl if you want a deeper look at the games themselves. It’s a great piece of writing.

While the remakes aren’t going to take years off my life and give me a chance to rethink my choice to take Astronomy at the exact moment my $300 textbook became useless because Pluto stopped being a planet, they have sparked conversation as to what Pokemon should be and where it should go. I’ve found Brilliant Diamond to be strangely engrossing, surprisingly. The old formula still works once you get past the lack of updates (though the limited style changes, expanded Grand Underground, and use of HMs via the Poketch were all welcomed changes) and allow yourself to be swept up in the nostalgia. But clearly, relying solely on nostalgia isn’t a long term strategy. At some point, I will burn out on playing the same game with a different look to it year after year, even one as cute as Pokémon, and so will others.

I’ve long thought the anime needed an update, but for even longer, I’ve been craving more from the games. Sword and Shield were a good start, but I had a hard time getting excited for them because I couldn’t see past the disappointment. Since those college years and even before, Nintendo was the Pokemon company to me. I hadn’t owned a Nintendo console since the original NES, but I kept in handhelds generation after generation so I could continue to play Pokemon. I had an original Gameboy, a Gameboy Pocket, a Gameboy Color, a DS Lite, a 3DS, and a 3DS XL. Yes, I missed the Gameboy Advance years, that’s on me. When the Switch came out to be the handheld to replace all handhelds and the console to replace all consoles, I jumped at it once I learned that it would be the new home for Pokemon games. However, I set myself up for failure here. I’m not a Zelda fan—like I said, no Nintendo consoles since NES, so I just never got into them. In the midst of a worldwide Switch shortage, I happened to be living in Tokyo where I could easily get one. My PlayStation tucked safely away back home in the US, I had nothing to game on and needed a gaming outlet that was more engaging than endless Angry Birds editions. So I bought a Switch and Breath of the Wild. Granted, I still couldn’t get into BOTW—I tried, I really, really did. I just think it’s too open for me and I really hate the degrading weapons mechanic, but that’s a different story. What BOTW did, though, was raise the bar for the next Pokemon game so high, there was no way it could ever make it over. In my mind, anyway.

*Breath of the Wild*’s vast beauty set some unrealistic expectations for Pokemon Sword and Shield—for me, at least.

My mind ran wild—the world of BOTW was gorgeous, expansive, and highly interactive. The puzzles were challenging (sometimes too challenging, as I remember many times trying to use the Switch’s motion controls to roll a ball through a floating maze), the combat satisfying and intense at times, but it was that world that got my imagination going. I started to think about a more open Pokemon, similar to BOTW. Not necessarily a massive open world the way Zelda was, but rather a more interactive one, where I could forge a path and really live in the world of Pokemon. I hoped for more combat innovation; I had fanciful ideas of a Pokemon game where my little monsters could learn more than four moves, for example. But, that’s not what I got. I got a Pokémon game. A rather good one, sure, but a Pokémon game that felt like it did less with more than it’s ever had before, but still cost me 50% more than the brilliant Pokemon Sun & Moon, which is now and still my favorite game in the series. Sun & Moon revitalized the gameplay, took away things like gym battles in favor of other challenges, and took a lot of bold swings. Maybe not everything worked, but the island setting and the flow of the game just drew me in.

Player customization was pretty damn good as well, which is important to me, because representation matters in games, just as it does in any other form of media. And then Sword and Shield came out and it felt more like a return to form—yes, there were some big changes and I was happy about a fair few of them (the Wild Area and Pokémon in the overworld really helped with immersion and were great innovations), but when it came right down to it, I had allowed myself to believe the game that I wanted to see would be the game that would actually be made. Of course that’s not how it would happen; not only am I notoriously out of lock-step with many of the fanbases I “belong” to (try to find 10 other Call of Duty fans whose favorite game in the series is Ghosts, it’ll take a while), I’m also not the target audience for Pokemon, I’m not involved in game development, and frankly, it would be wild and worrying if all my private thoughts on the game were actually manifested.

I do think there’s room for improvement here, though. A lot of room. Obviously, I don’t want to leave the core audience behind, nor would I expect Pokemon, a multimedia series about cute little animals, to start catering to the older generation of Pokemon fans. I’ve said before that games are for everyone and, in a way, Pokémon embodies that more than any other single title or series I can think of. One of the joys of Pokemon is that pretty much anybody of any age or ability level can pick up the game, find something endearing, and wrap their minds around the gameplay; sure, they won’t breed for maxed out IVs or engage with the competitive meta, but they can level up a well balanced team and stick it to the Elite Four with the same enjoyment that I get out of doing it myself. So, as much as I’d want a Pokemon game that’s essentially Uncharted with superpowered thunder mice, I don’t think it should happen (well, maybe for a Pokémon Ranger side game…).

But you can still change the gameplay for the better without alienating the core audience. The formula for what Pokemon can do hasn’t changed a bit since the first game, with the exception of no longer needing HM moves to traverse the world; this means you don’t have to dedicate a Pokemon (or two, in some games) to housing these often underpowered, unforgettable moves (this is the worst part of going back to older installments). Otherwise, it’s been six Pokemon, four attacks each, and little variation. A few new types, a few new moves, but that’s about it. We’ve had selectable options in conversations before, but they always end up in the same place, no matter what you say. And despite the fact that the badge system is in place to keep you from becoming overpowered compared to your next gym, it’s relatively easy to make sure you grind your way up to a clean run.

I get migraines too, Cynthia, I empathize. But I’m still going to knock you off your throne.

I think the first thing that Game Freak could do to add some depth to the gameplay is to implement difficulty levels. Games are getting pretty creative with difficulty now, some of them having cute names even, but what I’m seeing a lot of now is that it’s no longer just easy, normal, and hard. You see things like “story mode” as a difficulty level, which lets players experience the story without worrying too much about struggling through the game’s combat. That’s pretty much where the Pokemon standard is right now, but if you add some higher difficulty levels, you’d be able to accommodate older players who are interested in having more challenging battles. Rarely do I complain that a game is too easy (though I did have a season where Gabriel Martinelli scored 200 goals for me playing striker for Leeds United; that was definitely too easy), but I would welcome some harder battles. I haven’t been knocked out in the middle of a battle since the first generation of game. At the very least, gym leaders’ Pokémon could have dynamic levels, based on the levels of your Pokémon, always keeping them either in the same range or slightly above. That would ensure the gym battles feel like they have higher stakes than your average trainer battle and would foster creative strategies to deal with these mini bosses, at higher difficulty levels. Leave them be for easy and normal, but for harder difficulties, level those gym leaders up.

Let’s keep it at six Pokemon, but I would like to see an expansion of the move set. Allowing each Pokemon to have more moves would give players infinitely more strategies to utilize to take down gym leaders and the like. I’m sure there are highly competitive players who have deep strategies going into battle, but for the main game, I generally play the same way I’ve played since I was a child. All six Pokemon have all four moves set as attacking moves (since PP restoring Ether is always a rare commodity and there are often long stretches of time you go without being about to hit a Pokemon Center to restore your Pokemon), usually one is the top of the line big boy move, then the one that actually hits, and two others that do some damage, but are usually less effective or off-type to diversify the moveset. The gameplay can get a little boring that way; getting through the entire game basically using only Flamethrower, Thunderbolt, and Leaf Blade on every opponent the second I graduate from their weaker counterparts and only using the bigger moves in a pinch since they seem to always miss when I use them, but that’s another issue. I’m not sure the best way to do this, but I think if they were to change it to six moves in total and have two of them be dedicated non-attack moves (status moves, healing, protection moves), it would really change up gameplay. That would ensure players didn’t just load up on more attack moves while giving everyone two free move slots to change the way they approach battles.

No Eevee until post-game, still!? Come on, I’m practically an Eeveelution trainer, I need a Leafeon and a Jolteon in my team, and I won’t say no to some Espeon, Umbreon, or Glaceon either.

And let’s get rid of the meaningless choices. I’d like to see real decision trees that actually affect the gameplay and the story depending on the choices you make. I’m not asking for a full on Paragon/Renegade system, nor do I want the extreme complexity of a game like Heavy Rain, with dozens of potential endings or something like that, but I would like to feel that making choices in the game could change how NPCs interact with my sprite and maybe put me at an advantage or disadvantage for gym battles, wild encounters, team battles, and the like. I admit, this is the hardest of all my suggestions to implement; but I think this is the one that would give the game the most depth and replayability down the line. I don’t know much about game programming—I’ve seen Console Wars and I wrote a couple text-based games in high school, but that’s about it—so I can only infer that this would be an undertaking. And I understand why there isn’t much motivation to do so, as Pokemon continually has a renewed player base. As the kids who grew up with it become adults and have kids of their own, they introduce their children to Pokemon and the cycle starts all over again. So maybe this is the biggest ask of them all, but I can’t stop thinking about a Pokemon game where I actually get to jump into my character’s Running Shoes and get down to business and play and react the way I want to. Pokemon has done a lot for immersion over the years—allowing players to choose gender, skin tone, outfits, and even allowing players to go hatless in recent generations has helped me feel represented and more connected to story—and this would be one huge leap towards an even greater level of immersion.

And on a simpler note, how about letting me have multiple saves on the same game? In the handheld days, the cartridge only supported one save, it wasn’t stored on the device. But now saves are local to the Switch and the only way to have multiple saves with the same game on the same console is to set up multiple profiles. There must be some sort of justification to restricting this, but I can’t figure what. Long after defeating the Elite Four and the Champion, sometimes I want to boot up and start again with a different starter Pokémon and change the composition of the team I take to top of Victory Road. But I’ve forged a relationship with these little digital traveling companions of mine; I’ve given them nicknames and earned accolades and have hours of NPCs telling me how important my relationship with my Pokémon are. Wiping my saved game to start anew feels like taking my cute critters to a river and drowning them one by one like a villain in an old-timey novel. I don’t like that feeling. But I also don’t want to create multiple profiles on my Switch just for this purpose. I’m kind of at an impasse. And lastly, how about a true multiplayer system so I can play co-op battles with my old friend again?

Walking with your Pokémon is back and expanded from the original game, much to my delight

Okay, so it’s a wish list. Some of the things I wanted earlier, like a more open world, exploring experience seems to be on the menu already, as things like the Wild Area in Sword and Shield were the first step in that direction and I’m hopeful that the upcoming Pokemon Legends: Arceus will go even further towards a more Breath of the Wild-like experience in traversal, while still letting the story stay more or less on the rails. I think these changes would help to ensure Pokémon’s relevance as its original fans grow older and its new fans grow up. Let the game grow with them and I think Nintendo’s pocket-sized giant will continue to reign supreme for decades to come.