Pokémon games are given many labels. Chief among these labels is “formulaic”. There is no doubt that Pokémon has a formula which it has been milking successfully for the last quarter century. People cannot get enough of it.
The formula, in case you’re wondering, goes mostly as follows: you, the player, are ten years old. When kids turn ten, they became ‘Pokémon trainers’ and are eligible for a starter Pokémon from the region’s chief professor (whose name is always some kind of tree). Of the starter Pokémon, they can choose between one of three different creatures: a Grass-type, a Fire-type, or a Water-type. Once the player make’s their pick, their childhood friend, The Rival, also picks their starter, whose Pokémon usually has the type advantage over the player’s. Starter Pokémon in hand, the player is assigned to complete the region’s Pokedex, an encyclopaedia which will detail every Pokémon in the region, by capturing one of every Pokémon. In addition to catching all the Pokémon, the player must defeat eight local bosses, called ‘Gym Leaders’, who specialise in battling with a particular type of Pokémon. Along the way, the antagonists—who are always labelled ‘Team [insert villain group name here]”—will commit criminal acts for their own ends until the player stops them. Once the evil team and eight Gym Leaders are defeated, the player will earn the right to challenge the Pokemon League, comprised of the Elite Four and the region’s Champion, the strongest trainer in the game. Defeating the Champion rolls the credit’s on the game’s main story.
This formula has proved remarkably durable. Nevertheless, Game Freak, the company responsible for creating the games, has a mixed record of implementing the formula down the years.
Usually, when fans create lists ranking the games, they often aim for the extremes of ‘best’ and ‘worst’. But in tribute to the formula’s consistency, for this post, I’m going to do something different: rank the three best ‘middle of the road’ games. Games that provide a solid playing experience, but might not take it to the next level. For sake of ease, spin-off games are excluded.
3) Pokémon Sun and Moon
What The Games Are About: Pokémon Sun and Moon were the first 7th Generation games, released in 2016 on the 3DS console. They were the second generation of games to be released for the 3DS, following Pokémon X and Y in 2013. Set in the Alola region—a chain of islands clearly based on Hawaii—players will go island-hopping to complete their Island Trials, defeating the island chiefs, called Kahunas, along the way. During their journey, they will encounter the outcast gang Team Skull, the far more mysterious Aether Foundation, and strange alien Pokémon known as Ultra Beasts. Friends, Pokémon, and adventures await in the best saga holiday of all time.
Why The Games Are Middle Of The Road: Ironically, though I spent the preamble of this article praising the consistency of the formula, Pokémon Sun and Moon made a major break from said formula by replacing Gym Leaders with a different main story challenge. Instead of Gym Leaders, players must defeat ‘Totem Pokémon’—Pokémon of abnormal size with powerful stats—and Island Kahunas. This change is flashy but somewhat tedious to play, which might be why Totem Pokémon have not been reintroduced in later games. Furthermore, the greater emphasis on characters and story, usually the most neglected part of any Pokémon game, comes with the price of extensive cut-scenes interrupting the gameplay. And the ‘generational gimmick’—the flashy battle feature exclusive to that generation of games—less intriguing in these games compared to other entries. In the 7th generation, the battle gimmick is ‘Z-Moves’, a once-per-battle chance to power up a Pokémon’s move well-beyond the normal base power of a normal move. This gimmick is unspectacular because it only lasts one turn in a battle and can only be used by one Pokémon in the player’s party during said battle.
But when it comes to more enduring upgrades to the Pokémon formula, Sun and Moon turn in a much better performance. Chief among them is the introduction of ‘regional variants’. When these games were released, there were well over 750 unique Pokémon already in existence, and introducing anywhere between 70—150 new ones would cause problems. Sun and Moon solved this issue by introducing ‘regional variants’, derivations of Pokémon that already exist but that have altered designs, typing, and stats. It is a brilliant way to freshen up old Pokémon, fill-out the roster of new Pokémon for the new games, and also decrease the pressure to create entirely new designs that would be expected to be added into future entries. Regional variants have unsurprisingly continued in Generations 8 and 9.
Final Result: Pokémon Sun and Moon are mixed bags because their gameplay can be a bit awkward at times. Cut scenes, Totem Pokémon and a bizarre emphasis on NPCs rather than you the player are balanced out by the exciting regional variants, harder-than-average gameplay, and unique spins on the Pokémon formula that make these games solid entries.
2) Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire
What The Games Are About: The closest thing to a reboot in the history of Pokémon, Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire launched the 3rd generation of games on the Game Boy Advance in 2002. These games were released in what would ultimately be a dark few years for the franchise. Hobbled by hardware incompatibility, these games could not connect with the previous two generations of games, locking the 251 Pokémon fans spent six years collecting on their old cartridges. Worse still, the initial burst of Pokémania was dying out, which meant the first generation of fans were outgrowing the franchise. Ruby and Sapphire, with their more clearly defined story, colourful graphics and huge bevy of new features, laid the foundation for future.
Why They Are Middle Of The Road: Ruby and Sapphire made huge steps forward in terms of gameplay but also made a number of baffling changes that later games, including the enhanced version, Emerald, would fix. That’s not to say that these games are lacking innovation to improve the formula. Among Ruby and Sapphire’s biggest improvements were the introduction of Abilities. From these games forward, every Pokémon would come equipped with a special ‘ability’ that could do a wide range of things in battles, including boosting a Pokémon’s stats under certain conditions and changing the battlefield weather.. Abilities have been expanded upon and improved in every subsequent generation for the last twenty years. Ruby and Sapphire also laid the groundwork for proper competitive Pokémon battles by introducing double battles, where two Pokémon are controlled by the player at once whilst facing two opposing Pokémon. This is the official format of competitive battling to this day and often makes for more interesting battles than the usual rock-paper-scissors affair of a single battle.
Story-wise, Ruby and Sapphire added further relating elements. Unlike the previous games, there are two villainous groups, Team Aqua—who want to flood the world—and Team Magma—who want to increase landmasses. These motives, while basic, provide a more complete character arc than Team Rocket in the first few games. Subsequent villain teams would also include more complex motives to varying degrees of success.
Though these changes were welcome, Ruby and Sapphire have been pushed to the middle of the road less because of what they did and more because of what subsequent games did. The enhanced version, Emerald, packed far more features in the game than these two base versions. Chief among these improvements are a better Pokémon roster, a true final boss in the form of Steven Stone, and a far superior list of post-game activities. Once the main story ends for Ruby and Sapphire, there is surprisingly little to do. The aforementioned incompatibility with older games meant that a sizeable chunk of Pokémon were simply not catchable in either Ruby or Sapphire, thus rendering the ‘gotta catch ‘em all’ slogan obsolete. None of these issues ruin the games by any means, but they certainly wind up holding the games back a bit.
Final Result: Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire made the best of a bad lot. Waning interest and hardware incompatibility hobbled the games from the get-go. The improvements they brought were badly needed; it is hard to imagine Pokémon today without abilities, double-battles, and select mini-games. As a result, these games, many people’s first, make a perfect entry into the series and provide a solid game experience that proves the durability of the formula.
1) Pokémon Black and White
What The Games Are About: The 5th Generation games of Pokémon, first released in 2009, are a transition between the 2D-based games of the first four generations and the 3D-based modern games. The game’s region, Unova, is based on New York City rather the Japanese regions of earlier entries. 156 new Pokémon are introduced for the player to catch and the story was the most ambitious to date (and arguably ever).
Why It’s Middle Of The Road: Black and White, on the surface, seemed to be a radical departure from the Pokémon formula. For one thing, all previous generation Pokémon are locked to the postgame, forcing players to complete the main story entirely with the new roster. This caused some grumbling when first revealed. For another thing, the New York City-based region lacked a lot of the traditional Japanese elements fans had come to expect. However, these issues are surface-level because the formula itself is still intact and being put to full use in these games.
Among the greatest improvements to the formula come from the characters and story within that formula. The eight Gym Leaders have more personality in these games than usual and come to help the player in the climax against the villainous Team Plasma. Speaking of Team Plasma, they are by far the most compelling group of villains ever released. Full stop, no exceptions. Team Plasma’s mission is to ‘liberate’ Pokémon by forcing them away from the commands of humans. It’s surprisingly sympathetic, considering the surface-level similarities Pokémon battles have to animal fighting. Fortunately for those fretting about the ethics of Pokémon battles, Team Plasma’s leader doesn’t believe a word of what he’s selling and is out for the usual helpings of world domination. Another staple of the formula, capturing the powerful legendary Pokémon on the game box cover, is vastly improved upon. Not only do you catch the Pokémon on your cover of the game, but in the climax, Team Plasma’s king uses the counterpart legendary in the final story battle. This also means you do not beat the main story by defeating the Champion, but rather by beating the bad guys…like you do in every other video game.
Other improvements come in the form of new battle styles, including the ludicrous Triple Battles with six Pokémon on the field at once and the more experimental Rotation Battles. These would ultimately not stick around, nor would ‘seasons’, whereby certain parts of the gameplay map were only accessible depending on what time of year the game was being played in.
This all sounds amazing, but what keeps these games in the middle of the road? Answer: the trade-offs to the story-emphasis of the games. The gameplay is more linear than usual, giving players less options for exploring the new region. Furthermore, certain developments creeping into the games from the past two generations reached the point where the subsequent sixth generation had to fix them. Most significantly was the overpowering dominance of Dragon-type Pokémon who had few weaknesses and many strengths. The next generation of games took the radical step of introducing a new type to balance things out. Also making these games frustrating were the introduction of Hidden Abilities. Prior to these games, most Pokémon had one or two abilities that they could draw on. But starting with this generation, some Pokémon had a third ‘hidden’ ability, which was often so powerful that competitive matches were dominated by these special Pokémon. Obtaining hidden ability Pokémon was excruciatingly difficult as it involved a completely different game and extra software and god knows what else. Subsequent improvements would be made in later generations, but playing with the mechanics of 2009 could hobble players.
Final Result: Black and White are the ultimate middle of the road games because they use the formula to the maximum. Ultimately, the story is the same and most of the familiar elements—professor, evil team, eight Gym Leaders, and Elite Four—are all present and accounted for. Yet the way they were implemented makes the first Black and White games a bit more memorable.
Conclusion
In my opinion, the baseline of standard for any Pokémon game is its proximity to the formula. The formula is ultimately what makes the games so successful. The three pairs of games listed here are close enough to the formula that they provide an enjoyable enough playing experience while not being so extreme in their experimentation as to either turn fans off or else take the gam play to the next level.
The very best Pokémon games, which by popular opinion include Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver from Generation 4 and Pokemon Black 2 and White 2 from Generation 5, take the formula to that next level by using it as a base and building upon so memorably as to leave an incredible lasting impression.
The weakest Pokémon games, which include Pokemon Diamond and Pearl from Generation 4 and Pokemon X and Y from Generation 6, implement the formula poorly. The former games have a bizarre and uneven roster of Pokémon for the player to use which dramatically affects difficulty while the latter implemented so many quality of life improvements that the games wound up being far too easy even for novice players.
These middle of the road games, by contrast, I wind up revisiting most often because their experience is by-and-large consistent and a key reason why I believe Pokémon’s success is so enduring.