What if someone did a takedown of Pokemon that fully explores the implications, but the thing is that a takedown of Pokemon cannot be fun. If its fun then its just grimdark Pokemon. Its “do not do this cool thing” ludonarrative dissonance. Youre not getting anything truly cool out of that.

We it would need to be a pain to play. Like Spec Ops: The Line, but Pokemon. Or maybe Undertale: Genocide Run but Pokemon specifically instead of JRPGs generally?

Palworld is definitly not that lol. It revels in the fucked upness as far as i can tell. It doesnt even shame you so you dont even get the “do not do this cool thing” aspect. And it endevors to be fun (ymmv on success).

But Im wondering if a game that says to Pokemon what Spec Ops: The Line said to military FPSes is possible?

  • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    0·
    6 months ago

    Pokemon isn’t about dogfighting. Pokemon is about six year olds finding a cool bug in the woods and making up a whole story about how it’s a cool magic bug that can fly and shoot fire and stuff. Like someone said “all the descriptions of pokemon as having all these magic abilities or being cosmic gods is how small children make up imaginative stories about their dolls and toys.” The correct frame isn’t brutal dog fights. It children engaged in imaginative play.

    Who would this speculative brutal dog-fighting game intended to make people feel bad about playing pokemon be for?

    Spec ops has a clear audience. It’s speaking to fps players for whom actual warfare has been completely abstracted out of the games they play. It’s goal, more or less, is to tell players that the games they play are representations of real conflicts where real people suffer and die horribly.

    The direct equivalent would be to make a children’s game for children about catching bugs and frogs and then having all the bugs and frogs they catch die in an awful, emotionaly scaring fashion to, idk, convince kids that catching bugs is bad?

    Fps games are an abstraction of warfare. Pokemon is an abstraction of walking through the woods picking up grasshoppers and putting them in a jar to show to your family members.

    Personally, i don’t think pokemon needs to be deconstructed or problematized, or that the idea even makes sense. Afaik pokemon doesn’t desensitive people to the idea of putting frogs in your pocket to take home to show to your parents.