It’s a few short minutes of musical bliss precision engineered to toy with our deepest emotions, bringing me and several others to tears as we bear witness to a love letter to our own childhood. Not only is the song a banger, but the music video is a stupendously animated homage to Pokemon’s history, clearly intended to be an emotional tearjerker to those who grew up with the games, anime, characters, and iconic designs that have helped make Pokemon one of the most established properties on the entire planet. While all of these examples are excellent in their own right, I think my favourite piece of Pokemon media in recent memory is the music video to Bump Of Chicken’s Acacia. We’ve been chronicling each and every Pokemon film as part of a weekly column if you fancy checking those out, while the anime has even entertained the idea of writing Ash out of the main narrative after several decades in the spotlight. The 25th anniversary celebrations featured gorgeous collaborations with the likes of Post Malone and Katy Perry, while the anime is always reinventing itself with the introduction of new characters and plotlines that aren’t railroaded by the main series’ obsession with tutorialisation. It’s the anime, films, and supplemental media where the personality of Pokemon is really given a chance to shine. It’s a shame that earning or purchasing them highlights the cynicism at its core, but it’s doing something new with the world of Pokemon that is sorely needed. The genre it occupies, alongside its free-to-play status, means it must constantly keep players invested with creative spins on existing creatures alongside seasonal events that place a major focus on adorable cosmetics. While it doesn’t land in the original series, I’d say Pokemon Unite is far more visually interesting than Sword & Shield or Legends Arceus. Brilliant Diamond &Shining Pearl are similarly expectant, faithfully recreating two beloved classics with the knowledge that it can’t stray too far from the source material without attracting the ire of fans. Arceus could and likely will change the formula forever, but its graphical identity remains somewhat archaic and underwhelming. Once again, that’s no bad thing, and I’ve previously written about how the Switch hardware is likely holding Pokemon back from being something truly special, but it’s hard not to shake my head in disappointment when Pokemon continues to knowingly go through the motions it has stuck by for years. It’s fascinating, but in terms of visuals, it still remains very familiar. The game’s Sinnoh region, or Hisui as it’s known in the feudal era, is one where humans and Pokemon are yet to form meaningful partnerships, so you will likely spend much of the campaign forming relationships and establishing societal norms that will form the basis of everything this property has stood by for decades. Pokemon: Legends Arceus will likely bring this vision to its completion, taking advantage of a period setting and removing so many of the usual conventions we’ve come to expect from the series. Related: Netflix's Cowboy Bebop Captures The Original's Spirit, But Will That Be Enough? Sword & Shield modernised many of these criticisms with an infinitely larger scale and a greater focus on customisation, but it maintained so many of the series’ staples that it never pushed the evolution it strived for far enough. Every Pokemon game is someone’s first, so it makes perfect sense to maintain this cadence, yet it also highlights a number of unfortunate shortcomings. There was a change of hairstyle here, a ditching of Megas there, but it was always the same basic friend. There was a sense of comfort with each new generation, like we were catching up with an old friend with all of the quirks we’d come to expect from them. To be clear, I don’t believe this to be a bad thing. Even as it transitioned to 3D, the act of exploring each new world, battling with trainers, and becoming the very best like no one ever was always felt familiar.
Bump of chicken ray artwork series#
From an aesthetic perspective, Game Freak’s Pokemon series has maintained a consistent identity ever since its inception several decades ago.
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